2226 replies to this topic

[DaveBond21]

Stephen King - Shawshank Redemption

[Captain Tightpants]

The Sleeping Doll by Jeffrey Deaver

After the disaster that was LEVEL 26, I doubled back to a writer I know - having read CARTE BLANCHE, I settled on Jeffrey Deaver and THE SLEEPING DOLL. It introduces a new character (for him), California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance as she hunts down an escaped felon who is essentailly Charles Manson. However, I am struggling with it a bit. Deaver introduces a lot of characters very quickly, and with Dance being a CBI agent (THE MENTALIST) specıalısing in reading body language (LIE TO ME) on a manhunt for an escaped killer (THE FUGIIVE), my mind's eye is filled with the image of Tommy Lee Jones, Tim Roth and Simon Baker going after Charles Manson. Now that I've managed to clear the exposition about who is who, it's an easier book to read.

Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille

I'd never heard of DeMille before, but I'm always on the look-out for new authors and the cover-art leapt out at me, so I picked this one up. I breezed through 500+ pages inside twenty-four hours, but I have to admit to disappointment. The setup is pretty simple: a group of rich white right-wing men decide to stage a terrorist attack on an American city to provoke the President into launching 'Wild Fire', the total nuclear bombardment of the Islamic world. But I was disappointed because a story llike this needs to be on the appropriate scale. The heroes should be running through major cities, trying to locate the device before it goes off. Kind of like in THE PEACEMAKER or THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. But here, the action takes place in upstate New York, in an isolated hunting lodge that is about as far removed from everything as possible. And while the villain has an interesting angle - he's tried forcing the launch of nuclear missiles before, despite claiming that this is a new trick - it doesn't get much coverage. Instead, the author spends most of his time making jokes about the main character's irrational fear of bears. Likewise, it is implied that the villain was just the point man for a wider government conspiracy, but the story never focuses on it.

[Dustin]

New on my coffee table: Joan Miro The Ladder of Escape, Tate Publishing 2011



If possible you should see the exhibition at Tate Modern, currently until 11th September.

[Santa]

I've just finished Treasure Island for the first time, LOVED it. I may have to re-read some le Carre next, in anticipation of the new film.

[Kilroy6644]

Currently I'm reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, am about a hundred pages into it but I can't say a lot as yet.

It's hard to say a lot about that book anyway. People ask me what it's about, and I just tell them, "Uh, I don't know. There's a lot going on." But I loved it, and now I'm in the middle of reading his Baroque Cycle, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

I've just finished Treasure Island for the first time, LOVED it.

I'd also recommend Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini, if you haven't read it already.

[Conlazmoodalbrocra]

A History of Modern Britain, by Andrew Marr

[Matt_13]

THE LONGEST WAR by Peter Bergen, and TREASURE ISLAND is a book I actually have to read for one of my classes come September, so that's next on the list once I complete this beast.

[Captain Tightpants]

Roadside Crosses by Jeffrey Deaver

After enjoying The Sleeping Doll, I've latched onto Deaver's works. Roadside Crosses is the second Kathryn Dance novel, and I have to say, I expected more. It's an interesting concept: a killer is stalking Southern California, leaving crosses by the roadside to announce his intentions to kill. All of the deaths are connected to a politically-charged online blog. But I think Deaver mishandled it. I skipped a lot of early Exposition Dumps about what internet forums and blogs are and how they work, and at the end of the story, I found the underlying plot driver was exactly the same as the one in The Sleeping Doll.

[Nicolas Suszczyk]

Thunderball, just after Bond and Felix find the Vindicator

[Santa]

Wolf Hall
It's big.
BIG.

[Harmsway]

DANIEL MARTIN by John Fowles.

[Loomis]

DANIEL MARTIN by John Fowles.

What do you think of it?

[DaveBond21]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

[Harmsway]

DANIEL MARTIN by John Fowles.

What do you think of it?

Not sure. I think I may be attempting it at the wrong time of year. It strikes me as a better book for autumn than summer.

[Brian Flagg]

I've just begun reading this:

Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France
by Laurent Dubois

From the blurb:

"When France both hosted and won the World Cup in 1998, the face of its star player, Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. During the 2006 World Cup finals, Zidane stunned the country by ending his spectacular career with an assault on an Italian player. In Soccer Empire, Laurent Dubois illuminates the connections between empire and sport by tracing the story of World Cup soccer, from the Cup's French origins in the 1930s to Africa and the Caribbean and back again. As he vividly recounts the lives of two of soccer's most electrifying players, Zidane and his outspoken teammate, Lilian Thuram, Dubois deepens our understanding of the legacies of empire that persist in Europe and brilliantly captures the power of soccer to change the nation and the world."
-------

As a "Yank" who was captivated by football via France '98, this book makes for a fascinating look into French history and sport.

[dodge]

The 50th Law by...are you ready...50 Cent and Robert Greene. All in all, astonishing. For anyone's read, and liked, Greene's 48 Laws of Power or The Art of Seduction: he's tightly focused here, with a single major theme. And he's finding an exciting new groove to work here: Fearlessness in both life and the arts.

[domnule alb]

Bond, non-Bond, fiction, non-fiction - what are you currently reading, or (assuming you haven't got a book on the go) what was your last really good read?

Daniel Silva's The Defector...

[Chief of SIS]

Thunderball, just after Bond and Felix find the Vindicator

Just an inch ahead of me.

[Tanger]

THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman

[Kilroy6644]

Thunderball, just after Bond and Felix find the Vindicator

Just an inch ahead of me.

I apparently haven't read Thunderball in a long time, because I completely forgot that the bomber was a Vindicator. Between Britain's Vindicators being hijacked, and America's Vindicators accidentally being sent to nuke Moscow (Fail-Safe (and both novels within a year of each other)), I'm forced to conclude that Vindicator is a horrible name for a bomber.

[DaveBond21]

THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman

Wonderful story. Stephen King is a genius.

[dodge]

THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman

Wonderful story. Stephen King is a genius.

Agreed. And I, for one, can hardly wait to see what he does, in his new book, with the JFK assassination. If anyone can avoid the cliche of traveling back in time to prevent a crime, it's Stephen King. Master!

[Tanger]

THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman

Wonderful story. Stephen King is a genius.

Absolutely. Such a simple concept but ultimately a great character piece.

I had heard that Frank Darabont wants to make this as his next King adaptation. He's had a 100% hit rate so far in my opinion, so I think it could be something really special if he does finally do it.

[Aris007]

Just ran through the last pages of "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold". A highly enjoyable book, with suspense, a great plot and a least excpected ending. If you haven't read it yet, please bother doing so. You won't regrett it.

[Kilroy6644]

Just ran through the last pages of "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold". A highly enjoyable book, with suspense, a great plot and a least excpected ending. If you haven't read it yet, please bother doing so. You won't regrett it.

+1 One of my favorite books. Easily my favorite spy novel. If you get the chance, check out the film adaptation starring Richard Burton, with a small appearance by Bernard Lee. Other than inexplicably changing Liz Gold's name to Nan Perry, it's very close to the book.

[Kilroy6644]

I finally finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and now I'm reading Three Men on the Bummel, by Jerome K. Jerome. It's a sequel to Three Men In a Boat, which I really enjoyed, and so far, I'm enjoying this just as much.

[Captain Tightpants]

Play Dead by Richard Montanari

Pretty standard stuff. A serial killer wants to prove he's smarter than the police by performing seven deadly magic tricks that will kill his "assistants". It then becomes a race against time to try and stop him, but he's got everything planned out. The book has been praised for having a "rare psychological depth" to it, but the author has a tendency to set up a "sub-plot", only to completely ignore it until the finale when everyone suddenly remembers it and its importance. The most interested person in the book is an Amish detective, but he's not a major character and the author doesn't go into much depth about him. To be perfectly honest, the book was so cookie-cutter that I skimmed the last thirty pages. It's nothing you haven't seen before.

[SecretAgentFan]

Reading the final "DARK TOWER"-book. Like it so far, although I still think the first book is the best. King has a tendency to overexplain and go too epic for my taste (mainly in the "Wolves of the Calla"-installment) but this one is pretty fast-paced.

Will be interesting to finish the whole cycle which I have read over the last decade, pausing again and again when I just stopped being in the mood for it.

[DaveBond21]

Just finished THE BOURNE IDENTITY by Robert Ludlum.

Excellent thriller. I do not visualise Matt Damon when Ludlum describes his main character. Also, I'd love a James Bond film to have a proper espionage plot like this, but of course 007 seems to require over-the-top action, explosions, exotic ladies and locations.

But I wouldn't mind a toned-down political thriller set in cold European countries.

[Captain Tightpants]

The Burning Wire by Jeffrey Deaver

I'd have to say this is one of the stronger books I've read by Deaver, simply because he was able to seed the story with clues that the reader could pick up. When I read THE EMPTY CHAIR, I was put off by the way Deaver introduced a character who was an expert in a certain field dismissing a certain theory. That theory then happened to be true, but because the character who dismissed it was an expert and they had no reason to lie (and nor was there any reason to believe they were lying), the reader accepted the explanation at face value. However, THE BURNING WIRE seems to address this - the reader can use the information presented in the story to solve the mystery without having to compare long lists of evidence. It makes for a much stronger story, up there with CARTE BLANCHE (which, in retrospect, contained a lot of these clues seeded through the story; you just had to really watch for them) and THE SLEEPING DOLL.