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Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?

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Comments

  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    Annoying 9 year olds should be muuuurdered. 
    GNTLGNTKurbenFlakeNoir
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ...."Hello?....Is this Child Protective Services???"....
    KurbenHedda GablerFlakeNoir
  • KurbenKurben
    While at the hospital i reread Christies Lord Edgware dies which is good if not great christie and a swedish crime novel called Biggest of All. A courtroom drama. Priced i saw as best crimebook of the year in sweden for about 8 years ago. Awful tripe. The only survivor of a schoolshooting (she thinks) and as she is the shooters girlfriend she is accused as accessory to murder (is that correct?). She shot the shooter before he shot her. This is written before the very real schoolshooting that occurred recently. And it takes place among rich kids. Not very well told and several of the characters were little more than names. WHY has it won so much praise?? Because it lets a schoolshooting be committed by the most popular kid in the class and son of swedens richest man? If so it is just stupid. Sure rich kids can commit crimes, of course they can but to praise a book because of it is stupid. The best thing about is the girls weak attempts to understand the legal finesses and her condescending but often a little funny nicknames for her attorneys. But otherwise? Boring. The description of the crime is in bits and pieces which might be accurate but drags the pace down to walking with a limp. Give the reader something to read which is fitting for a novel, not for a court protocol. But that idea has the author totally dismissed which result in my falling asleep several times. She obviously wants her readers to fall asleep. (with all the backstories provided it could probably be a better tv-series, decent at least, but its a bad book.
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    Bev, I read your Onyx review on Amanda Knox book. 

    Does she get into her odd behavior at the crime scene? I think her inappropriate actions there are what sealed her fate with the Italian people and the court. 
    GNTLGNT
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    I’ve got Frankie on hold. I’ve read a couple Graham norton’s and enjoyed them. 

    Bev, I see you are reading it, is it good?
    GNTLGNTFlakeNoir
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    edited March 30
    I am reading Cher’s memoir.  I found this little paragraph she writes charming. I loved being a kid. 

    “My parents gave me a tricycle as a gift and THAT was truly my first set of wheels. I got on the seat, looked around, looked up at my parents, and thought, Okay, I think I've learned all I can from these people. It was like, time to go. And then I pedaled around the apartment complex and didn't actually go anywhere, but I had my wheels and I felt free.”

    GNTLGNTFlakeNoirKurben
  • KurbenKurben
    Barrier Island by John D. Macdonald. Not one of his Travis McGee books but a tale of shady real estate deals in southern Florida. I like his writing even if i prefer his McGee stuff. To Turn The Tide by S.M. Stirling. An alternate history about a world going up in smoke (literally) and of a professor in roman history and four of his students that go back in time to Marcus Aurelius day (165 AD). Its fun, well told but sometimes you just thinks that he is a bit too good to be really believable. But a fun read. Also A Man Lay Dead that is Ngaio Marshs first mystery novel. Roderick Alleyn is there but not at his best yet. It is ok and interesting knowing to what heights she would climb when she was at her peak. Written in 1936. Also 4 christie novels a real good historical fiction by Conn Iggulden named Nero that tells the history of the emperors tiberius, caligula and claudios from the viewpoint of Agrippina, the mother of Nero and the third wife of Claudius. 
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNT
  • KurbenKurben
    Also read Outbreak. I thought it was the book that the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo in the leads was based on. Liked the movie. But this book was written after the movie based on the script and it was not really a success. Prefer the movie vastly. Finished the book but it was close
    GNTLGNT
  • KurbenKurben
    Finished The Moving Finger. One of my fave Jane Marple books by Christie. Also started The Fireman by Joe Hill. TThat has for some reason stood unread in my bookshelf for awhile. Feel that now is a good time. On the recommendation of my brother i have also gotten hold of The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. According to him one of, perhaps the best SF/Fantasy writer around at the moment in competition with Adrian Tschaikovsky. Havent read either of them but borrowed Alien Clay by Tschaikovsky of my brother and now has the broken earth by Jemisin so i can form my own opinion. We'll see. In the vast field that is SF/Fantasy we are not landing on the same spot at all times. Sometimes we do as with Leguin and Octavia Butler and sometimes we differ as with Terry Pratchett. (Maybe i just read the wrong books by him, hes written so much).
    not_nadineGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ....you'll enjoy "Dad Easter-Eggs" in Hill's composition.....
    KurbenHedda Gabler
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    edited April 26


    Kurben said:
    Finished The Moving Finger. One of my fave Jane Marple books by Christie. Also started The Fireman by Joe Hill. TThat has for some reason stood unread in my bookshelf for awhile. Feel that now is a good time. On the recommendation of my brother i have also gotten hold of The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. According to him one of, perhaps the best SF/Fantasy writer around at the moment in competition with Adrian Tschaikovsky. Havent read either of them but borrowed Alien Clay by Tschaikovsky of my brother and now has the broken earth by Jemisin so i can form my own opinion. We'll see. In the vast field that is SF/Fantasy we are not landing on the same spot at all times. Sometimes we do as with Leguin and Octavia Butler and sometimes we differ as with Terry Pratchett. (Maybe i just read the wrong books by him, hes written so much).
    Years ago, I did Nk’s Masterclass. I hate the term world builder because everyone is building a world when they are creating fiction (and why it should be allowed to be anything the author wants — defying all senses, physics, actualities)
     NK totally gobbed my smack when it came to world building and how focused she was to the way you do that by her criteria. The attention she gave that before writing a word was impressive. — and insane.


    I haven’t read the firemen either. And I have 3 copies of that damn thing. 
    GNTLGNTKurben
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    edited April 26
    I got Joyce Carol Oates first book for 25 cents at library sale. It’s a collection of shorts. By the North Gate.

    Talk about prolific. I would have been so honored to be one of her students. Having written so much, some things I find meh, but others are unbelievably perfect. 

    She uses language with such craftsmanship. The feelings and visuals she creates are art. 
    GNTLGNTKurben
  • KurbenKurben
    Hedda Gabler said:
    I got Joyce Carol Oates first book for 25 cents at library sale. It’s a collection of shorts. By the North Gate.

    Talk about prolific. I would have been so honored to be one of her students. Having written so much, some things I find meh, but others are unbelievably perfect. 

    She uses language with such craftsmanship. The feelings and visuals she creates are art. 
    Agree on Oates. Her best things are little (or big) masterpieces while others never quite get the hooks in you. Read a lot of her but still very far from all. So much written in so many different genres too. I think it has to do with her liking to explore what fiction can do and where it can go and sometimes she goes to places i find less interesting and so find the book meh.
    Hedda GablerGNTLGNT
  • KurbenKurben
    Finished Picnic At Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey. Good little book about the disappearance of three students and a teacher and effects the disappearance it has on the school, the teachers, the villagers close to the school and the remaining students. One of the students is found after a week of searching, Unconscious but alive. When she wake up she cant remember anything. This is not a crime novel, more a novel about the mystery and it does not offer a solution like crime novel would. What happened the characters in the novel asks many times but neither they nor we get an answer. It is written in 1967 and set in 1900. Considered to be one of the best novels to emerge from Australia. Since i dont know enough of australian literature i cant really say if that estimation is correct. But it is a good novel.
    Hedda GablerGNTLGNT
  • KurbenKurben
    Kurben said:
    Finished Picnic At Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey. Good little book about the disappearance of three students and a teacher and effects the disappearance it has on the school, the teachers, the villagers close to the school and the remaining students. One of the students is found after a week of searching, Unconscious but alive. When she wake up she cant remember anything. This is not a crime novel, more a novel about the mystery and it does not offer a solution like crime novel would. What happened the characters in the novel asks many times but neither they nor we get an answer. It is written in 1967 and set in 1900. Considered to be one of the best novels to emerge from Australia. Since i dont know enough of australian literature i cant really say if that estimation is correct. But it is a good novel.
    Now when i think about it. Markus Zusak is an Australian author and his The Book Thief is really good. So is The Thornbirds by Colleen McCollough. Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence is also a good book. By Doris Pilkington.
    GNTLGNT
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