Rate the last book you've read!

I just finished Stephanie Meyer's Host.... 6/10

Starts at a very fast, exciting pace but then grinds to a halt two thirds of the way through and doesn't pick up again. Until that point, you would'nt guess she's she'd written Twilight. Afterwards, well, she might as well've written a 5th book [&:]

I used to be legit. I was too legit. I was too legit to quit.
But now I'm not legit. I'm unlegit. And for that reason, I must quit.

Dune - Frank Herbert - 8/10 - Once you fall into it it was anamazing book, but it doesn't lead you in at all, it just belts you round the face making it difficult to get through the start.

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss - 8.5/10 - Loved it, nice piece of fantasy work can't wait for Days 2 and 3.

Wheel of Time - Book 7 - The Crown of Swords - 6/10 - starting to slip with these but hell i'm 7 books into this saga i'm not going to stop now.

ORIGINAL: Largi

Dune - Frank Herbert - 8/10 - Once you fall into it it was anamazing book, but it doesn't lead you in at all, it just belts you round the face making it difficult to get through the start.

 
If you can find a copy, try National Lampoon's Doon. It's a very enjoyable parody.
 

**

Miles to go, yes the Miley cirus Biogrophy. T'was alright, for kids though.... 6/10

Also just finished Seamus Heaney's collection The Spirit Level. Brilliant, 9/10.

Dan Brown The lost symbol... meh... the last 60 odd pages were very good... the reat was just Langdon running...

Just finished Dark places by Gillian Flynn, not an author I'd heard of before but it was ok, probably about 7/10 as I'd worked it out far too early in the book for me, I like a twist in the tale

just started 206 bones by Kathy Reichs

and glad there is finally a book area on it's own, could never find any before, although I may not have looked properly[&o]

 
  
WHAT GOES ON TOUR, STAYS ON TOUR  

I`ve just started My **** life so far by Frankie Boyle, If you like him you`ll love it but I wouldn't bother with it if you don't like him. I f**king love him!!

 

Cody McFadyen - Abandoned.
4th in the Smokey Barrett series from him and I must admit I enjoyed it just as much as the first.
Problem is he writes too slowly and I find it hard to get his books on the high street but I guess till he is better
known I will just have to buy online.
9/10 (no such thing as the perfect book)

Currently reading The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell and can't wait to finish it if I am honest.
I get her book every year for Christmas and they have become steadily worse over the years but this one has hit a new low.
I have heard though that screenwriter Kerry Williamson is currently working with the Kay Scarpetta character and we might get a movie soon - not sure if this is a good thing or not..........

 

ORIGINAL: Web Witch

Cody McFadyen - Abandoned.
4th in the Smokey Barrett series from him and I must admit I enjoyed it just as much as the first.
Problem is he writes too slowly and I find it hard to get his books on the high street but I guess till he is better
known I will just have to buy online.
9/10 (no such thing as the perfect book)

Currently reading The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell and can't wait to finish it if I am honest.
I get her book every year for Christmas and they have become steadily worse over the years but this one has hit a new low.
I have heard though that screenwriter Kerry Williamson is currently working with the Kay Scarpetta character and we might get a movie soon - not sure if this is a good thing or not..........

I got the Kay Scarpetta book for xmas as well and will be reading it after my current book. Not looking too good from your current review.
Ah well at least it'll make the bus journey home from work a bit more bearable

 
  
WHAT GOES ON TOUR, STAYS ON TOUR  

The Boys by Ethan Coen.
Christ I love this man's output. The story only ran 7 or 9 pages, but I felt do depressed while reading it. I developed this king-sized anger induced headache. The attention to tiny details and silly little character traits is astounding.
A Morty Story was also rather amusing. Reminded me of A Serious Man.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gates-Eden-Ethan-Coen/dp/0552999792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263776716&sr=8-1

Ignore the utterly retarded reviewers. Anyone who complains about the stories not going anywhere has clearly never seen a Coen Brothers film.[8D]

Just finished House Of Leaves and I get the feeling I've just read something amazing, but I'll be damned if I understand it.

CHANGE PLACES!

 
GENERATION 10: The first time you see this, add this text to your sig on any forum and add 1 to the Generation. It's an experiment.

Justin Lee Collins - Good Times (biography)

Decent but then again i love biographies, he comes across as a nice, friendly, down to earth guy as he does on TV.

6/10

ORIGINAL: ***kay***

I just finished Stephanie Meyer's Host.... 6/10

Starts at a very fast, exciting pace but then grinds to a halt two thirds of the way through and doesn't pick up again. Until that point, you would'nt guess she's she'd written Twilight. Afterwards, well, she might as well've written a 5th book [&:]

I've got agree with this i thought it was a bit slow and quite hard to get into in my opinion, but after a while it came together and all in all wasn't a bad read.

Aristotle's Poetics for screenwriters, an old uni book I decided to re-read. 7/10 - pretty good stuff, stimulates as it informs and isn't too "boggy"
 
on to The Perfect Fool by Stewart Lee.

RIP Joe                                    "You say the hill's too steep to climb.

Thought I'd catch up on the classics.

Catcher In The Rye (J.D Salinger) - 10/10
Perfectly written.

Moving on to On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I've heard good things.

Patricia Cornwell - agree with everyone else. I've given up, you lot have more staying power than me.
Murakami - will pick that up, sounds good.

Currently on Vicious Circle by Mike Carey cos I loved The Devil You Know but I'm not quite feeling it at the moment. Which is odd cos his first book is just genius - about an exorcist detective type.

Serial (thread) killer.

10.

I am about to start Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, and if it is as good as this one was, I will be very happy indeed

ORIGINAL: dwbls

Moving on to On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I've heard good things.

 
I read this a long time ago. I think I was maybe expecting too much of it, or expecting it to be something other than what it was, but I found it incredibly boring and pointless. Maybe that is the point of it. If so, I missed it completely. I should go back and try it again in the light of an extra 20 years' experience.
 

**

ORIGINAL: Jez

ORIGINAL: dwbls

Moving on to On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I've heard good things.

I read this a long time ago. I think I was maybe expecting too much of it, or expecting it to be something other than what it was, but I found it incredibly boring and pointless. Maybe that is the point of it. If so, I missed it completely. I should go back and try it again in the light of an extra 20 years' experience.

I read that a while ago, really enjoyed it. It is what it is, a beat-poet's novel. Eliptical and adventurous, free and aimless, irreverent and sentimental at the same time, all while trying to maintain a sense of cool which it sometimes struggles to convince (and which feels anachronistic anyway) but by failing at points it only adds to its charm. The Cassidy character didn't live up to what I'd heard but as I was reading mainly during my lunch breaks at work I think I failed to really get into the guy, although he reminded me of enough friends to enjoy it. There was one moment towards the end though that really got me, a throwaway passage which just reverberated through lost memories of childhood. 9/10

I'd recommend reading "and the hippos were boiled in their tanks" as well, it's a joint-effort between Kerouac and Burroughs which is based on real events. The prose is a little shaky and Burrough's is much more focussed than Kerouac (as you'd expect). But it's a good light read. 8/10

RIP Joe                                    "You say the hill's too steep to climb.

ORIGINAL: Pidge

ORIGINAL: Jez

ORIGINAL: dwbls

Moving on to On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I've heard good things.

I read this a long time ago. I think I was maybe expecting too much of it, or expecting it to be something other than what it was, but I found it incredibly boring and pointless. Maybe that is the point of it. If so, I missed it completely. I should go back and try it again in the light of an extra 20 years' experience.

I read that a while ago, really enjoyed it. It is what it is, a beat-poet's novel. Eliptical and adventurous, free and aimless, irreverent and sentimental at the same time, all while trying to maintain a sense of cool which it sometimes struggles to convince (and which feels anachronistic anyway) but by failing at points it only adds to its charm. The Cassidy character didn't live up to what I'd heard but as I was reading mainly during my lunch breaks at work I think I failed to really get into the guy, although he reminded me of enough friends to enjoy it. There was one moment towards the end though that really got me, a throwaway passage which just reverberated through lost memories of childhood. 9/10

I'd recommend reading "and the hippos were boiled in their tanks" as well, it's a joint-effort between Kerouac and Burroughs which is based on real events. The prose is a little shaky and Burrough's is much more focussed than Kerouac (as you'd expect). But it's a good light read. 8/10

I read On The Road last year and absolutely loved it, it's in my top 5 favourite books of all time. Then after I'd read it I started reading The Dharma Bums which was shit.

the history boys, frantically this morning in preperation for me to write an 1500 word essay on it which is due today

(which i have done in style ;)

Download 2005 - SOAD day

Download 2011 - Blue Camp
Download 2012 - White Camp

Underworld - Don DeLillo.
8/10.. I liked it a lot better than I thought I would. I only got it because I needed something to read and it was the only title in the HMV sale that I recognised [8D]. When it eventually gets deeper into the story it is amazing. Really enjoyed his writing style, which is why I was surprised, as I've noticed a few people moan about it.

Ian McEwan - Atonement.

8/10

First time round I couldn't get past the first few chapters in which nothing at all seems to happen. This time, I managed it and was suitably rewarded although I felt the whole thing was bogged down by drama and sadness - some light relief occasionally would have made everything else that happened so much more shocking.
Recommended, but stick with it through those boring first chapters.

 

Sequoia Throne 

It's all fun and games, until someone posts a picture of Nash. 

 

The Wire: Truth be told - 8/10
 
very interesting, although quite often it just tows the party line about the show.

RIP Joe                                    "You say the hill's too steep to climb.

harry potter and the half blood prince- 9/10

 
my faverate of the potter book rereading through the series

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Dark Winter by Andy McNab. A good read, fast paced and packed with detail.

Last book I finished was Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.

Was so good to finally read it, having first read Titus Groan years back and a few times since. Need to get the third book out of the library sometime, when it's next in.

ORIGINAL: ChesterChestertonPhD

ORIGINAL: Pidge

The Wire: Truth be told - 8/10

very interesting, although quite often it just tows the party line about the show.

Seems a bit over the top to write a book about the first 2 series of the show...all this ****ing hype about The Wire...The Shield ****s all over it.

Anyway you might want to check out Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon. 

Truth be Told covers all 5 seasons...

I got Homicide, The Corner and Truth Be Told all for xmas and they are sitting in my book queue at the moment, can't wait to read them!

Recent reads of mine have mainly been climbing stuff:

The Next Horizon by Chris Bonnington
Philosophy of Risk (about Dougal Haston)
Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage by Herman Buhl (must read for anyone interested in this kind of thing)

Just about to finish Freakonomics and start Superfreakonomics, very interesting if a little targeted towards the more casual market...

 

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

6/10

Not really sure what the problem I had with it was. Maybe I expected a little too much after all the accolades it's had, the blurbs on the inside covers calling it a classic and saying it'd go down as one of the greats in twenty/thirty years time... but I didn't like it.
I don't know if my copy had some kind of printing error, but having the entire book say "dont" "cant" "didnt" etc. instead of the correct spellings infuriated me. As did the total lack of speech marks which meant sometimes I couldn't tell who was talking, or when they started and stopped talking.
The plot was paper thin - man and boy walk along a road, find some food, eat it, find some more, eat it, run into people and be in danger, find some food, eat it, find some more... you get the idea. There's only so many monotonous days you can read about, which made me glad the book was fairly thin.
The ending was ambiguous and quite obvious too, so I didn't even find any purpose in reading it. It was impossible to get attached to any character as none had names. There wasn't a proper explanation of what had actually happened.
I expected more encounters, some character development - there didn't seem to be any. I was really disappointed by the whole thing, but there was potential for something a lot better, and the writing was, on the whole, pretty excellent hence not a total dismal score.

 

Sequoia Throne 

It's all fun and games, until someone posts a picture of Nash. 

 

ORIGINAL: Roo.

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

6/10

Not really sure what the problem I had with it was. Maybe I expected a little too much after all the accolades it's had, the blurbs on the inside covers calling it a classic and saying it'd go down as one of the greats in twenty/thirty years time... but I didn't like it.
I don't know if my copy had some kind of printing error, but having the entire book say "dont" "cant" "didnt" etc. instead of the correct spellings infuriated me. As did the total lack of speech marks which meant sometimes I couldn't tell who was talking, or when they started and stopped talking.
The plot was paper thin - man and boy walk along a road, find some food, eat it, find some more, eat it, run into people and be in danger, find some food, eat it, find some more... you get the idea. There's only so many monotonous days you can read about, which made me glad the book was fairly thin.
The ending was ambiguous and quite obvious too, so I didn't even find any purpose in reading it. It was impossible to get attached to any character as none had names. There wasn't a proper explanation of what had actually happened.
I expected more encounters, some character development - there didn't seem to be any. I was really disappointed by the whole thing, but there was potential for something a lot better, and the writing was, on the whole, pretty excellent hence not a total dismal score.

McCarthy has a strange way of writing, so I can see where your dissapointment came from. I've not read The Road yet, but I read No Country For Old Men and I loved it. If you're not too put off by his writing style, give it a read.

ORIGINAL: ChesterChestertonPhD

ORIGINAL: Pidge

The Wire: Truth be told - 8/10

very interesting, although quite often it just tows the party line about the show.

Seems a bit over the top to write a book about the first 2 series of the show...all this ****ing hype about The Wire...The Shield ****s all over it.

Anyway you might want to check out Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon. 

Never watched The Shield not too keen on cop shows in general.
 
Really want to read Homocide at some point.

RIP Joe                                    "You say the hill's too steep to climb.

The Shining- Steven King (obv) 10/10
 
Even with someone ruining the different ending compared to the film (jack nicholson) it scared the poo outta me...i was never bored like the harry potter books you have to keep reading cos you just neeeed to know what else is gonna happen!
(but no doubt all of ya have read it!)
gotta make my way through all the King books....may take me a littleeee while!
x

IMMODIUM INSTANTS..HA..they're full of ****!

10/10

best book EVER!

Frankie Boyle - My **** Life So Far

Ok seemed like just one long build up for him to use his joke...most of which ive already heard too. :/

I was a little dissapointed, you do find out some bits about his life but not as much as i would have hopes and for that i only give the book a 7/10.

Perfect Fool - Stewart Lee 8/10

Intricate, witty and cleverly structured. Although it feels like it reaches a sense of thematic closure about 30-40 pages before the narrative itself ties up all of its loose ends.

RIP Joe                                    "You say the hill's too steep to climb.

Finished 206 Bones by Kathy Reichs - 5/10, typical Kathy Reichs book, nothing special

Have now moved on to The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell

 
  
WHAT GOES ON TOUR, STAYS ON TOUR  

Battle Royale- What a brutally entertaining book. Definitley worth a read but you'll be finished with it very quickly, as it is a page turner!

9/10

Want To Play - PJ Tracy. 10/10

I haven't read a book this good in such a long time. I read it in just over 2 days, I couldn't put it down.

Ozzys bio.. really good book has some really funny bits and some sad

10/10