Recent Books Read

[Lin Sunderland]

I re-read Moonfleet yesterday and this morning.


 This was the very first book I read as a child aged 7 and I have never forgotten it.  It started me reading.   The story is of smugglers and fishermen on the Dorset coast in the UK. There is such a place as Moonfleet only the name has been changed a little.  You can stay in Moonfleet Manor Hotel in Fleet near Weymouth Dorset.  The hero is 15 year old John Trenchard.  J. Meade Falkner takes you right into Trenchard's world and you can 'feel' his fear and excitement.  I owe the author a lot for setting me on the road to writing.   Yes it is a kids book but there is plenty in to for adults too.

[Americanbeauty]

You read the whole thing in a day? How long are the books?

This one is 221 pages long

I started War of The Worlds today.

[Lilly]

This was the very first book I read as a child aged 7 and I have never forgotten it.  It started me reading.   The story is of smugglers and fishermen on the Dorset coast in the UK. There is such a place as Moonfleet only the name has been changed a little.  You can stay in Moonfleet Manor Hotel in Fleet near Weymouth Dorset.  The hero is 15 year old John Trenchard.  J. Meade Falkner takes you right into Trenchard's world and you can 'feel' his fear and excitement.  I owe the author a lot for setting me on the road to writing.   Yes it is a kids book but there is plenty in to for adults too.

Cool Lin.   I don't know that one but will look out for it now.  I love those special books that came alive for you as a kid, and made a real impact.  I liked stories about boats, the seaside and smuggling too (and was lucky to spend many hours roaming freely on the Norfolk coast).  I've found a lot of good books as an adult, but it seems that none of them enchant me in the way that some special ones did when I was young.  Your description of what this book did for you reminds me of a book called Kine by A.R. Lloyd.  It blew me away when I was 10.  It's still a good book for adults, but I don't know if reading it for the first time now would be the same.  There's an indefinable point, somewhere between childhood and full adulthood, when you stop getting that special sparkle...there'll always be wonderful things to read - more than we can ever manage - but being transported to another world as a kid is unique to that age, I think.

Makes you want to share those special books with today's kids.

[Lin Sunderland]

Makes you want to share those special books with today's kids.

I suppose todays kids will want to share Harry Potter with the next generation!    I have to admit I like Harry Potter. SSSHH don't tell anyone!    Moonfleet is on the lines of Kidnapped and even as an adult I still loved it.    I remember we read it as a class and I was the only girl who read it the others had somebody in a boarding school with horses but I opted for Moonfleet because I thought it would be more exciting.  I'm glad I chose it as it changed my life.

[Gant]

I remember reading Moonfleet at school.. Great book.
Can't get on with the Harry Potter books.. I just find them boring tho' I still enjoy reading Roald Dahl on occasion... At the moment I'm also re-reading Treasure Island which is still a great read.

[little_bill]

Reading tv guide
wRiting to tv guide and
Renewing  tv guide

[Americanbeauty]

 

[Phantomstranger]

Comanche Moon
Voyage Th The Bottom Of The Sea
Tex: The Lonesome Stranger

[Lin Sunderland]

I have nearly finished reading The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst.   I have read it before but I am writing a talk and article on lighthouses so felt I needed a reminder.   The Stevensons are the major lighthouse designers and builders in the UK and Robert Louis Stevenson is a grandchild of that family.

[Americanbeauty]

I finished reading War Of The Worlds last week.


I also started and finished reading (today) The Last Juror by John Grisham.

This one is not his usual stuff about lawyers and lawyers and lawyers ... of course it's John Grisham so there has to be lawyers somewhere 

It takes place in Clanton, Mississippi.
It's about 23-year-old "journalist" Willie Traynor (he's a college drop-out) who in the early 70's decides to buy The Ford County Times, which went bankrupt.
Apart from obituaries, nothing very interesting to write about ... until the rape and murder of a young mother by the son of the notorious, corrupted, and feared Padgitt family.
The life of the small and peaceful community of Clanton will be forever changed by this terrible event ...

[Conan]

  I'm averaging about one book a month. 

  Finally finished one called "Evil Men", its about the worst dictators of all time.  It was decent, though not exactly a "feel good" read.

  I recently gave up on a book, for the first time in my life.  Its called "Ticking Along With the Swiss" and is drop dead boring and poorly written.  I'm going to vacation in Switzerland for a week in early June - paid for air with miles and staying with the friend, so its on the cheap.  Anyway, I was told to read the book to get an idea of the place.  The book is a series of mostly pointless stories that I hope are not indicative of Switzerland.

  Pretty soon I'll be starting a book called "Vernon God Little".  It was on GQ's 100 best things in the world list a few years ago - whatever that means.

[Brendan]

I picked up the BFI Modern Classcis book on Unforgiven today. I just started the BFI one on i[]Heat[/i] and I'm really enjoying it, so I hope the Unforgiven one is just as informative and good. 

[dane with no name]

Just finished reading The Da Vinci code by Dan Brown.

This book has been hailed as one of the best books written in a long time. Hollywood is already on  its case with Tom Hanks and Jean Reno already signed in and the vatican is close to condemning the book...
 
Honestly i cant see what all the fuss about this book is about.
Sure, it´s a good book, but it dont really knock my socks off. 

[little_bill]

got that right, i quit the book halfway through, it was a little boring for me.
i started rereading the exorcist last night, scary book. i went to sleep with the lights on.

[Lilly]

I don't read as much fiction as I'd like, but I really enjoyed this one.  It's very quirky.  Tom Robbins has an incredible imagination, but despite parts of the story being "far out", it's all somehow believable, and he ties the fantastical parts in with modern reality very cleverly.  A fun read, and interesting style.

I sailed to Robbins' home town of La Conner in Washington State, and somehow his writing reminds me of there - he's clearly absorbed his Pacific Northwest surroundings.

[gimpy]

i started rereading the exorcist last night, scary book. i went to sleep with the lights on.

Didn't even go to sleep after I read it 

[Jaffe]

Right now I´m reading Stalker by Faye Kellerman... I have wondered for a while now why they haven´t made any films based on her books, they´re absolutely brilliant crime stories. Maybe she won´t sell the rights. 

[Gant]

On a great book at the moment...

Death and the Sun..a matador's season in the heart of Spain

by Edward Lewine.

Although I've been to Spain many times I've never managed to get to see a bullfight and have wanted to since reading Hemingways Death In The Afternoon at college.

Death in the Sun is a great book detailing the public and private life of Francisco Rivera Ordonez... Spains most infamous matador. Detailing the rituals, the risks and the stage fright that all come as part and parcel of his career... A great read and very unusual travel memoir.

Do we have any Spanish members here who've been to the fights or heard of Ordonez ?

[vik]

bill bryson - a short history of nearly everything

and i'm a stranger here myself

good beach reading

[Lilly]

Cool Gant, sounds interesting.

Funny you should mention Spain, because last night I finished reading The Assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca by Ian Gibson.  It's a fantastic piece of detailed research, and a great insight into a too often overlooked time in Europe's history.

The book is out of print now, but I think parts have been incorporated into Gibson's biography Federico Garcia Lorca.

I knew little about the Spanish Civil War, but the book gives plenty of background, so you get an understanding of what it was like in Spain in the 30s.  I was much more affected by it than I expected to be.  Reading the details of how so much potential was stifled was quite sickening.  Enlightening for anyone who wonders how totalitarianism can take hold of a state.

This book is extra special for me because it's one of the few reminders I have of my dad, who was missing in Spain before he died (of natural causes - in case that sounds mysterious!).  This was his copy and it was fun to decipher his annotations in the margins and try to understand what he was thinking.

I'm now reading a translation of three of Lorca's most well-known plays.

bill bryson - a short history of nearly everything

and i'm a stranger here myself

good beach reading

Cool vik.  I like Bill Bryson, haven't read that one, but enjoyed his U.S. travel books.