I’m re-reading By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie.
It’s cool; Tommy and Tuppence remind me totally of Jean and Lionel on the British sitcom “As Time Goes By”. It makes me wonder if the writer of that show was a Tommy and Tuppence fan!
The John Malkovich version, right? As much as I like Colin Firth, I thought Malkovich made a better Valmont.
I love “As Time Goes By”. I’ve never read Agatha Christie, but I’ll have to check that one out.
Yeah, it’s just so like Jean and Lionel. Read it if you get a chance. I swear, you can just hear those two speaking the lines! 
Oh god yes, Malkovich was so perfect as Valmont. My heart broke a little during the “It’s beyond my control” scene.
I loved Perfume. Sometimes I have the opportunity to read the opening aloud to students and their grimaces entertain me.
I dumped Immortal by Traci Slatton, a debut novel. I shouldn’t have had my hopes up too high – Amazon isn’t showing any critical reviews, the four other reviews are plot summaries and one of them is from her husband. The premise was intriguing – a long-lived, extraordinarily beautiful man in Renaissance Italy, hobnobbing with DaVinci and Michaelangelo and the Medicis.
Riddle me this: If you run a high class Venetian brothel, are you going to kidnap a gorgeous young urchin off the street, clean him up, put him in nice clothes, feed him, and then beat him until he pukes (while screaming “I’m going to kill you!”) and present him to one of your best customers? I wouldn’t. That’s just not how it’s done.
So I’m reading Wish You Were Here by Stewart O’Nan – three generations of a barely functional family spending one last week at a summer cabin. It’s very good.
Player of Games was great but it bothered me that Banks fell into a common trap for SF and Fantasy writers who drop games into their books (I’ve never encountered authors using games like this in other fiction but there may be exceptions) of complexity is directly related to the quality of a game while anyone who has really delved into game design knows that the opposite is true. I’m willing to cut him some slack since in Player of Games the game at the center of the book is an intentional cultural metaphor but the games mentioned in other parts of the book have this flaw.
I know I’m probably the only person on earth who gets bothered by this and Banks is far from the worst offender. I recall one fantasy novelist who had his RPG playing protagonists raving enthusiastically about a game that would require Microsoft Excel to handle character sheets.
*Perfume * is a fantastic movie. I urge you to watch it after you read the book. Ebert said he loved the book so much that he would read excerpts to guests at his dinner parties and never thought the book filmable. But he loved the movie, too.
Myself, I generally don’t like reading a book once I’ve seen the film (although I have no problem seeing the film version of a book I’ve read). The movie really made me wish I’d read the book and not because I did not understand what was going on; it was because it was so great.
Care to name some other books in which this happens as I can’t think of any other than possibly Ender’s Game. I would argue that it’s not a common trap, as you put it.
I can’t think of any more titles off the top of my head since there are so few books where this is a focus but it occurs just about every single time that gaming is featured in a novel (the ones that do feature gaming are usually pretty dire in other respects as well which helps me block them out). I can’t think of an instance where an author creates or describes a game for their book where they don’t think that piling on complexity (and randomness if its a board game or RPG) is what makes it “cool”.
Finished reading Royal Flash and I thoroughly enjoyed every page. It’s been a long time since I devoured a read like that.
Next up: More of Flashman.
Must respect the streak.
I have the third one (Flash For Freedom!) lined up to read, too. They’re really fun.
“I wonder sometimes if any man on earth has come to in a cell more often than I have.”
I am working through my holiday shopping at Amazon
The Box, a history of the shipping container
The World Without Us
and
Watchmen, my first-ever "graphic novel. A darn odd read.
I’ve resisted ever getting into graphic novels as I can’t get past my prejudice that they’re effectively comics. I’m sure I’m missing out on some good stuff as a result.
Not gaming, but Quidditch would seem to fit the bill.
I finished:
Was Heathcliff a Murderer? by John Sutherland, essays about unanswered questions, apparent contradictions, and possible mistakes in 19th century fiction.
The Diary of an American Au Pair, by Majorie Leet Ford. I agreed with Surok on this – it’s fairly light reading, but nicely crafted and overall enjoyable.
Look to the Lady, by Marjorie Allingham. This is the next book in the Albert Campion mystery series, which I only recently discovered (although it’s been known for a long time to fans of the golden age British mysteries). I’m liking these books a lot – a little formulaic, but witty and fun.
Longer reviews in my LiveJournal.
In progress …
Dinosaurs in the Attic: an Excursion Into the American Museum of Natural History, by Douglas Preston, a history of the museum type book.
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… this was also “in progress” the last time I posted to this thread. I am enjoying it a lot, I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to finish.
The Moon in the Mango Tree, by Pamela Ewen. I’m about 1/2 though this novel, set in the 1920s about a missionary couple in Thailand (Siam at the time). According the back of the book, this is “Christian fiction” and while I’m not exactly sure what that means, it seems like something I would avoid. It does have an “old fashioned” feel, which I like, and so far there isn’t any crazy proselytizing. We’ll see how this goes.
Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading by Maureen Corrigan. Essays about reading and how it shapes one’s life, by the book critic on NPR’s Fresh Air program. Reading this is like chatting about books with a good friend.
So … was he?
I agree.
I’m on Flashman in Charge. I am at the mercy of the library interloan system and what comes in, but so far ( first chapter) I can see Flashy is up to his usual tricks and possibly 8 years have elapsed since book 2.
I really hate reading out of order, but I hate paying for a book too.
That’s part of the beauty of the Flashman books. They can be read in any order – they weren’t even written in order. You know how it ultimately ends, that he makes it as an old man to the Edwardian era, so there’s no loss of suspense. There are still two or three I’ve not read yet, but I’m taking my time getting around to them, because then it will all be over. I’ve read all of the earlier ones, though.
I finished Elmore Leonard’s *Bandits * the other day and am now reading his Cuba Libre.
And for all of you fans of Tom Robbins’ Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climes, I thought I’d mention that I spent a good portion of last Friday night firmly ensconced in Safari Bar, prominently mentioned in the book. And a great bar it is, too.