What Are You Reading?
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Summer House With Swimming Pool by Herman Koch. Great so far!
I read this post about an hour ago and the book title is still making me laugh! Could be the title of my life story!!
I started The Exorcist two nights ago (couldn't read any of it last night as I had no time). Haven't read this book in years, since I was about 14 or 15, but it sure must've made an impression in my mind because it's like every single word in it hasn't been forgotten, they're still fresh in my mind. It's like I just read it a month or so ago. The book is still way creepy......
I started The Exorcist two nights ago (couldn't read any of it last night as I had no time). Haven't read this book in years, since I was about 14 or 15, but it sure must've made an impression in my mind because it's like every single word in it hasn't been forgotten, they're still fresh in my mind. It's like I just read it a month or so ago. The book is still way creepy......
I thought you were getting rid of that book!
I was going to but then I remembered that a friend of mine who had hit a deer a few months ago didn't have a copy of this book or movie in her house and a bad thing happened to her (the accident with the deer) and then I had some good news come in the mail a couple of days ago, so I figured I must just be plain ol' silly for thinking that the book is bad mojo. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. If something else bad happens then it's gone, baby, gone....
Love that book!!!! Movie also.. the movie is my favorite!
Read Clan of the Cave Bear, The Mammoth Hunters and Ninth Cave by Jean Auel. I skipped the other in the series as they are really nothing much to write home about. I wanted to reread to analyxze them and make a quick comparison to Gabaldon, the other Long Series in another time. (there are others of course). Well The Clan is good. It is very well researched and thats something thats go through all the books. The story is moving and, mostly reasonably well told. Auel will never be the worlds greatest stylist but her prose gets the job done. Here Ayla is alone and she works as a person. The problem starts in book two , Valley of the Horses, and goes on in the other books. Aylas man is introduced, Jondalar, and he is, sadly, very boring and just a quick sketch really. Imagine a person that is good at three things, Hunting, making tools and good at using his cock and you have nailed him. Auel never, through the 5 books where he plays a major part, develop him into a person. One of the most boring main characters i knew of.
Ayla though, which is obviously Auels main interest (I always got the feeling that Jondalar was there just so that Ayla in the future could have kids), develops when she is allowed. The books suffer, after the first book, from repititive soft porn scenes that appear to be copied from a dirty harlequin novel (and i cant bring myself to use the word love in context with those scenes). Very boring. Skip them. Where the series pick up speed and gets interesting is when she uses her big knowledge of the time 35000 years ago. Her depiction of a neanderthal society is good in the Clan, so is her picture of two different Cromagnon societys in the other two beforementioned books. But then her skill as a srtylist fails her. She cant find a good way to retell all thats happening in the earlier books in a really good way. That means that long chunks of text is old news and for the ones that are interested in the story it is an invitation to jump. That could have been handled much smoother. Sometimes her sence of relevance fails her too. She knew a lot of this period and want to show it even when she cant fit in the story in a good way. Then she just starts telling about what they did and why and how which is all very well but it isn't good for the story. A real good storyteller would either have found a way to fit it in the story or skip it. Knowledge is all very well but you should use it to tell a story, not use the story to flaunt your knowledge.
Comparing her with Gabaldons Outlander series I find Gabaldon suberior. She writes much better and knows to use her knowledge in the story without having to insert big factblocks here and there. Her hero, Jamie is very much a person which Jondalar never is. Gabaldons love scenes are much but they are lovescenes, not porn, and they are not boring. Gabaldon also has a sense of humor which Auel either lacks or does not show much of. (i dont mean cracking jokes everywhere but when it comes to writing and describing things Gabaldon give many glimpses of it but Auel is more serious in tone. As an endnote i think Auel still reads well if you jump the sexscenes and the retelling parts in The Mammoth Hunters and Ninth Cace because her writing style works better when describing a society with many persons. In the other books which are mostly spent travelling it is just Ayla and Jondalar and they, or should i say Ayla, cant carry a whole book by herself. The Clan of the Cave Bear is her Masterpiece. Because it is the first when Ayla was young before jondalar and before all the retelling everytime again and again. Therefore the story runs well without interuptions. It is also a describtion of a society. (even if I, as an archaeologist, find some of her interpretations of that society highly unlikely. But thatsa another matter. Every writer has the right to use his or her imagination to fill in the blank spots).
Ayla though, which is obviously Auels main interest (I always got the feeling that Jondalar was there just so that Ayla in the future could have kids), develops when she is allowed. The books suffer, after the first book, from repititive soft porn scenes that appear to be copied from a dirty harlequin novel (and i cant bring myself to use the word love in context with those scenes). Very boring. Skip them. Where the series pick up speed and gets interesting is when she uses her big knowledge of the time 35000 years ago. Her depiction of a neanderthal society is good in the Clan, so is her picture of two different Cromagnon societys in the other two beforementioned books. But then her skill as a srtylist fails her. She cant find a good way to retell all thats happening in the earlier books in a really good way. That means that long chunks of text is old news and for the ones that are interested in the story it is an invitation to jump. That could have been handled much smoother. Sometimes her sence of relevance fails her too. She knew a lot of this period and want to show it even when she cant fit in the story in a good way. Then she just starts telling about what they did and why and how which is all very well but it isn't good for the story. A real good storyteller would either have found a way to fit it in the story or skip it. Knowledge is all very well but you should use it to tell a story, not use the story to flaunt your knowledge.
Comparing her with Gabaldons Outlander series I find Gabaldon suberior. She writes much better and knows to use her knowledge in the story without having to insert big factblocks here and there. Her hero, Jamie is very much a person which Jondalar never is. Gabaldons love scenes are much but they are lovescenes, not porn, and they are not boring. Gabaldon also has a sense of humor which Auel either lacks or does not show much of. (i dont mean cracking jokes everywhere but when it comes to writing and describing things Gabaldon give many glimpses of it but Auel is more serious in tone. As an endnote i think Auel still reads well if you jump the sexscenes and the retelling parts in The Mammoth Hunters and Ninth Cace because her writing style works better when describing a society with many persons. In the other books which are mostly spent travelling it is just Ayla and Jondalar and they, or should i say Ayla, cant carry a whole book by herself. The Clan of the Cave Bear is her Masterpiece. Because it is the first when Ayla was young before jondalar and before all the retelling everytime again and again. Therefore the story runs well without interuptions. It is also a describtion of a society. (even if I, as an archaeologist, find some of her interpretations of that society highly unlikely. But thatsa another matter. Every writer has the right to use his or her imagination to fill in the blank spots).
Just finished Summer House with Swimming Pool-- highly recommend it to any and everyone. Some of the best character work I've ever seen in a novel.
I'm finally starting Tabby's Survivor. It's been on my TBR for months.
I'm finally starting Tabby's Survivor. It's been on my TBR for months.
Been reading all the old Fawcett 'Marvel' universe. Like, The Marvel Family. Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. (There's even an Uncle Marvel and a Marvel Bunny, ugh). I dig how, as the years progressed, Mary's costume got smaller and smaller--higher skirt, plunging neckline. If DC hadn't sued them (and had the wretched Comics Code not existed), I predict, by the sixties, Mary would have been fighting crime dressed only in a strategically placed lightning bolt. SHAZAM!
Three quarters of the way through Perdido Street Station and it's still surprising me. There are at least a dozen different "beings" present in the story, not to mention the Remades, which are astonishingly gruesome. And yet the characterizations all ring true, not like those cardboard aliens we see so often.
And I'm nicely into I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes. I was a thriller junkie a long time ago but they became too predictable and hokey. Every once in a while something fresh and exciting comes along and I think this is one of them.
And I'm nicely into I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes. I was a thriller junkie a long time ago but they became too predictable and hokey. Every once in a while something fresh and exciting comes along and I think this is one of them.
About 120 pages into The Exorcist and the you-know-what has hit the fan and has been flung across the room........
I'm scared just knowing you're reading this book, krf. That's how much that damned book scares me!About 120 pages into The Exorcist and the you-know-what has hit the fan and has been flung across the room........
I know! It's freaky! BTW- I have two more volumes in the Blackwater series coming in the mail, vol. 5 and 6, I think. I already have vol. 3, so now there's just three more to find......
I know what you mean! Every time she'd have another slip, I wanted to shake her and tell her to get her act together!
I guessed who done it soon after it was revealed
that Megan was pregnant. I was expecting Anna to finally help although it looked like it could go either way there for a while.
Double thank you!!I know what you mean! Every time she'd have another slip, I wanted to shake her and tell her to get her act together!Spideyman, I'll put this one in the package with The Poison Artist.that Megan was pregnant. I was expecting Anna to finally help although it looked like it could go either way there for a while.
Guess we'll have to wait till January
Hello:
It appears that Michael McDowell's books are being reprinted and the book stores are asking hefty prices, is there one or two particular stories of his that you would recommend to someone who is running out of gift cards?
It appears that Michael McDowell's books are being reprinted and the book stores are asking hefty prices, is there one or two particular stories of his that you would recommend to someone who is running out of gift cards?
I am reading Kitchens from the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal, great characters.
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