This week I have been reading
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Was that the last one, where he decides to settle down and move to Miami?LawrieAbrahams said:
Marlowe is such a great character. For some reason though "Playback", the 7th novel, doesn't have the same magic as the others.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:
It was like meeting up with an old friend LA.LawrieAbrahams said:
I love Chandler - I reread the 6 Marlowe novels every ten years or so.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:Farewell my Lovely - Raymond Chandler
Couldn't get enough of Chandler in my teens - thought I'd revisit this some 40+ years on
I'm now on "The Little Sister" and have "The Lady in the Lake" standing by.
I seem to remember it not being so good.
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World War Z0
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Hammered by Mark Ward
Came across quite well to be honest, wasn't looking for sympathy, accepted his punishment and got on with it.0 -
Window on the World by Hugh Cornwell (Ex Stranglers lead singer) a good read especially as it his first novel effort.0
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Possibly my favourite book. Brilliant.Rufus is a dogs name said:World War Z
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Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Haven't seen the film but the book caught my eye in the library last week. I'm really enjoying it. It's a brilliant mix of history and scary vampires!
If anyone has seen the film, is it any good?0 -
Heard a few good things about it and it is currently going cheap in the Kindle Book Store so thought it would be rude not to! Only just started it but liking what I've read so far.North Lower Neil said:
Possibly my favourite book. Brilliant.Rufus is a dogs name said:World War Z
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By then Raymond Chandler was seriously ill and dying - mostly of alcoholism and he suffered depression as well, i think there had been one failed suicide attempt. That novel was culled from a rejected screenplay that he'd written some years ago, I got the feeling that perhaps the book was written to pay some bills rather than to add to the series in any meaningful way.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:
Was that the last one, where he decides to settle down and move to Miami?LawrieAbrahams said:
Marlowe is such a great character. For some reason though "Playback", the 7th novel, doesn't have the same magic as the others.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:
It was like meeting up with an old friend LA.LawrieAbrahams said:
I love Chandler - I reread the 6 Marlowe novels every ten years or so.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:Farewell my Lovely - Raymond Chandler
Couldn't get enough of Chandler in my teens - thought I'd revisit this some 40+ years on
I'm now on "The Little Sister" and have "The Lady in the Lake" standing by.
I seem to remember it not being so good.
I think the novel that was set in Florida was "Poodle Springs" - which was published posthumously and Chandler did not finish.0 -
Poodle Springs - that's the one I was thinking of. Finished by somebody else I believe.BlackForestReds said:
By then Raymond Chandler was seriously ill and dying - mostly of alcoholism and he suffered depression as well, i think there had been one failed suicide attempt. That novel was culled from a rejected screenplay that he'd written some years ago, I got the feeling that perhaps the book was written to pay some bills rather than to add to the series in any meaningful way.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:
Was that the last one, where he decides to settle down and move to Miami?LawrieAbrahams said:
Marlowe is such a great character. For some reason though "Playback", the 7th novel, doesn't have the same magic as the others.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:
It was like meeting up with an old friend LA.LawrieAbrahams said:
I love Chandler - I reread the 6 Marlowe novels every ten years or so.Six-a-bag-of-nuts said:Farewell my Lovely - Raymond Chandler
Couldn't get enough of Chandler in my teens - thought I'd revisit this some 40+ years on
I'm now on "The Little Sister" and have "The Lady in the Lake" standing by.
I seem to remember it not being so good.
I think the novel that was set in Florida was "Poodle Springs" - which was published posthumously and Chandler did not finish.
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Currently reading "By-line: Ernest Hemingway". a collection of journalism and magazine/newspaper articles from the mid-20s to mid 50s covering his travels in Europe, big game hunting in Africa, fishing for Marlin off the Cuban coast, despatches from the Spanish civil war and a report of being on-board a landing craft on D-Day, plus much else.0
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Yeah, saw it was only £1.50 or something on Kindle - bargain.Rufus is a dogs name said:
Heard a few good things about it and it is currently going cheap in the Kindle Book Store so thought it would be rude not to! Only just started it but liking what I've read so far.North Lower Neil said:
Possibly my favourite book. Brilliant.Rufus is a dogs name said:World War Z
It's just so brilliantl structured and written - each little story is good, and ring true, then they add up to something more than tge some of their parts to make tge whole story.0 -
The Kindly Ones.
By J Littell.
Fictional memoir of an SS officer. The book has a dark plot with a dark subplot. If you can cope with the content, I would recommend reading this book.0 -
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Debunking loads of psuedo-science and other nonsense. Homeopathy, ear candles, foot spas, and several types of nutritionalist 'thinking' are all taken apart. How the media misrepresents science and how pharma companies and the providers of alternative medicines rip people off are covered, including some truly frightening stories none more so than Dr Matthias Rath who apparently paid for full page adverts in South African newspapers denouncing aids drugs and claiming that the vitamin pills he was selling were better at combatting aids. You can read that chapter free online if you wish. http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/
There's also some good science in it though that might be relevant to Lifers. For example, that people who are incompetent find it harder to judge competence in others. I suspect that's why so many on here that find it so easy to slag-off other peoples' professions - because they don't know what's involved. Or that people do, despite what Sun readers will tell you, believe what they read in the newspapers.0 -
This book has caused quite a stir .. published first in France it has been severely criticised by many Observant Jews as being too soft on Nazism, especially as it was written by a Jew although Littell is a self proclaimed atheist. I am glad that you enjoyed it SR. It is on my 'to read' list which is getting longer and longer ...SheffieldRed said:
The Kindly Ones.
By J Littell.
Fictional memoir of an SS officer. The book has a dark plot with a dark subplot. If you can cope with the content, I would recommend reading this book.0 -
Still dipping into Cosmicomics by Calvino, compleltey brilliant but you need a weeks rest after each short story to absorb the incredible mix of science and imagination0
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Just finished HHhH, another book about Heydrich ... very interesting read.BlackForestReds said:Just finished reading "The plot to killing Reinhard Heydrich - Callum Macdonald".
This was the story of Operation Anthropoid and is told from three perspectives, first the early life of Heydrich from a conventional middle-class background and how he joined and was thrown out of the elite German navy after a minor scandal. Subsequently he joined the Nazi party and quickly rose through the ranks combining intelligence, hard work, cunning not to mention a ruthless streak. Secondly, there's a polirtical perspective - Eduard Benes, the president in exile of Czechoslovakia was keen for the Czechs to do their bit in fighting the Nazis, but as he'd been sold out in the Munich Conference in 1938 (where the Czechs lost the Sudetenland and were excluded from the negotiations) he feared that a post-war settlement might be again arranged over the heads of the Czechs. By sanctioning the operation he wanted to do his bit. Thirdly the book looks at the two assassins and the aftermath with the inhabitants of Lidice and Sarkazy being massacred. The two agents were ultimately betrayed by an Czech resistance informer and they committed suicide when the Germans closed in them.
Lastly the book discusses whether it was ultimately worthwhile - which is something I've been mulling. An estimated 5,000 people were executed in reprisals and the Czech Home Army (as the resistance was called) was effectively wiped out and ceased to exist until the latter stages of the war. Czechoslovakia was a main hub for the German war effort, prior to the assassination there had been a campaign of sabotage which all but ended. By then the Final Solution was in operation - something Heydrich oversaw at the Wannsee Conference and he was on his way to the airport to fly to Germany and meet Hitler with the expectation that he was about to be given another job in the Nazi empire.
Was the operation worthwhile? Not an easy question to answer ... and the experience of Lidice and elsewhere makes it harder to answer ... but bearing in mind how much more harm Heydrich could have caused ... in Paris or elsewhere ... the balance is possibly in favour of the operation.0 -
With the current news I thought I'd read the Alan Clark diaries again. Superb.0
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Collected Short Stories .. Rudyard Kipling .. Rather disappointing0
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However he does make Exceedingly Good Cakes.Lincsaddick said:Collected Short Stories .. Rudyard Kipling .. Rather disappointing
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lolguinnessaddick said:
However he does make Exceedingly Good Cakes.Lincsaddick said:Collected Short Stories .. Rudyard Kipling .. Rather disappointing
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The Secret Listeners - Sinclair McKay. How we eavesdropped on the Germans, Russians and U T Cobbley before and during WWII.
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Life Ascending - the ten great inventions of evolution - by Nick Lane. Easily the best written book I've read on the subject, even better than Dawkins (who is fantastic)0
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reading--Empire of the Summer Moon the story of the Rise and Fall of the Comanche Tribe.
If your have ever been interested in the story of the Native Americans , this is a truly great read---brutal to the exreme. Follows what is known of one leader---total war fare against other tribes and the Anglo expansion into the Great Plains.0 -
Am down to the last 50 or so pages of Grapes of Wrath, has been good as I thought it would be. Am particularly enjoying the abstract chapters and the biblical way it's written eg. not because they were hungry but 'for they were hungry...'0
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Reading Deceit by James Seigel. Great mystery thriller about a discredited journalist on the trail of a massive government cover up, but his previous lies make it hard for him to gain credibility. Hard to put down.0
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I have re-read Keith Peacock's - No Substitute and Gary Nelson's Left foot Forward, both excelent insights as to what the internal workings of our club were at their respective times.0
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The Long Goodbye - still reacquainting myself with Raymond Chandler after a 40 year gap.
Still as brilliant as I remembered.0 -
No country for old men - Cormac McCarthy.0
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the book is MUCH better than the rubbish movie ..& I say rubbish movie as a Cohn Bros fanWheresmeticket? said:No country for old men - Cormac McCarthy.
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