I think Larsson figured people would question this, so at the start of the third book he has a brain surgeon explaining one case he’d seen where a crossbow was fired at someone, it went stright through the brain, and the patient lived. I believe that was based on an actual incident.
I am about halfway through Moscow Rules, by Daniel Silva. Yes, professional art restorer and Mossad agent extraordinaire Gabriel Allon is back in action against a Russian millionaire arms dealer who is flogging anti-aircraft missiles to Al Qaeda.
You don’t have to agree with the author’s position on a Palestinian state, terrorism, anti-Zionism and other liberal bugaboos (for the most part, I do) but Silva’s stories are extremely well-crafted, and I highly recommend them.
Yeah, I couldn’t care less about that, too–just as I did not have much of an emotional investment in the previous Tankersley/Honor involvement. And I was pretty annoyed by the way Weber blithely introduced so much from the Saganami-series into At All Costs as well…but frankly, if you’ve made it through At All Costs already, you definitely should read Mission of Honor. You’ll know the basics of the secondary plot line in the other series, and it actually does all come together now…
Oh thank god someone’s agreeing with me on this. Most people around me think its utterly great, and I’m still struggling to get through it. There’s no plot, there’s no hint that there’ll ever be a plot, the people are stereotypes, the violence is largely gratuitous, and the language is weird. Okay, so sometimes there is this Hemingway-esque small-noun main clause construction…you end up thinking that’s the Kid’s point of view. But then it shifts to get you those pseudo-poetic landscape descriptions, and it’s still just the Kid sitting there–what happened? There’s no rhyme nor reason to McCarthy’s use of language at all.
Anyway…I’d say buy the Border trilogy instead, and hit yourself with that–it’s a heavier book and will knock you out this much faster…
I just finished Think of A Number (what I have erroneously named Pick A Number in an earlier post). It was very engaging and started out to be one of the best thrillers that I have read. In the end I had figured out quite a bit, but it was still a clever premise.
Mark Mallery, an old college acquaintance of Dave Gurney has received an odd mailing. He is told to pick a number and it is then revealed that the mailer has predicted which number he had picked. “See how well I know you?” He is also receiving threats.
Mark calls on Dave, a retired NY detective, to help him figure out what is going on.
While some of the plot was cliched, the idea was interesting and in the end I very much enjoyed the book.
Just finished Cloud Atlas last night and I’m still not sure what my opinion of it is. I enjoyed it - the structure, the transitions among different genres, and the different stories themselves (especially the ones about Frobisher, Cavendish, and Sonmi) - but I don’t think I have yet fully understood what Mitchell was trying to accomplish by linking the stories and the characters in the manner he did.
For example,
[spoiler] I take it that the various characters with the recurring birthmark are supposed to be reincarnations - is that right? So Mitchell is tracing the rise and fall of civilization from the 1850s to the End through the same soul (or spirit, or whatever it is)?
But it’s unclear to me whether the subsequent stories (in time) are meant to discredit the earlier ones. Frobisher, for example, discredits the Ewing journal, but Luisa Rey actually finds a recording of Frobisher’s sextet, suggesting his story was real. Then the Cavendish story suggests that the Luisa Rey story is a fiction. Very confusing, and will take some time for me to consider.[/spoiler]
As it stands, I consider it a very good book and would certainly recommend it. After some reflection, I might bump it up to “great book”.
Next up is either going to be Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box or Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
I’m about 200 pages into Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
Like it so far, (though Sanderson is probably my favorite author) it is the first book in a planned 10 book series.
Just finished Bob Marley: The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz. Bob smoked a lot of weed. And he loved the ladies. And children.
Good book though.
I’m now reading Last Words by George Carlin, which is pretty entertaining and sheds some light into his childhood.
I’ve got When Giants Walked The Earth: A Biography Of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall next in the queue. Anyone read that one?
I don’t think that the subsequent stories are intended to discredit the previous ones.
[spoiler]Although the reincarnation suggestion is certainly made, it isn’t I think important to the book.
What is significant I think is the continual recurrence of themes - particularly, the interplay between barbarism and civilization, slavery and freedom.
For example, the slavery imposed by the Maori in the first story replicates the slavery imposed by the baddies in the last/middle story - Sloosha’s Crossing; history as cyclical … [/spoiler]
Love the Gabriel Allon books! I thought the last two or so were getting a little tired, but his new one, The Rembrandt Affair, is really fun. Maybe the best of the series. My only little nitpicky distraction is that one character seems to have luminous skin and a riot of auburn hair. A lot.
Throughout the entire book I kept saying to myself, ‘I liked this better when it was called Heart of Darkness’ and despite Conrad’s first language being Polish the man schools McCarthy in literature. Don’t worry about me ruining the ending, what kept me reading is the belief that this book simply must get better, it does not. Start something else.
I put book titles in italics because unless its a MLA citation thats what I was taught as a kid. It’s probably for the reasons stated above.
I have no idea how this book series came to my attention, I don’t think it was a doper , but Here, there be dragons by James Owen is a fantastic read.
It is meant for 12 and up crowd, but frankly, it is very much worth it for adults. Nonstop adventure. Literary references. Well written. (upon first read) the plot is tight. The characters, save one ( Aven) are fleshed out for the most part.
It is the story of three young (20ish) writers who are brought together by one man they (kinda-sorta) know who has been murdered. They are now the keeper’s of the Imaginarium Geographica. The book that contains all the details of places that have taken place in fiction ( mythology too) and how they must protect the book from the Winter King. For what happens in the Archipelago, eventually happens in the human world in the human world it is at war ( WW1).
I went out the next day to buy the second book.
BUT, I am reading, because of some doper The Lies of Locke Lamora and while I normally don’t get into fantasy stuff, the dialoge (so far, i’m in as far as chapter 3) is great.
Well, I gave up on John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany after 142 pages. After awhile it just seemed self-indulgently packed with oddball characters, and the friendship between the narrator and the title character didn’t ring true, especially given the tragedy which comes between them.
I stopped reading Irving for this reason. Oddball can work for me, in small doses, but Irving seems to try too hard to be quirky. In the end rather than enhance the book, it makes it dull for me.
I rather liked Owen Meany, but stopped reading Irving after I read Until I Find You and The Cider-House Rules, because I got to that lingering feeling that Irving really, really doesn’t like women very much. It’s hard to describe, but there seemed to be this lingering misogyny that I couldn’t get around. So no more Irving for me.
I also have the feeling that T.C. Boyle really doesn’t like Blacks and Hispanics very much, but that’s for another thread…
I’m still on Adventures of Augie March, but I’ve also started reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom after rave reviews in The Guardian and some German magazines. He better live up to it…
I’ve started Mary Roach’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. So far it’s about the history of sex research, and how difficult it is to get people to take it seriously. It can be hard to tell if the researcher is a dedicated scientist or a bit of a pervert. Obviously there’s discussion of Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson.
I’m also reading my third Christopher Brookmyre book, Boiling a Frog. (“The title of this novel is a metaphor, not a recipe.”) These are crime/comedy novels set in Scotland (“tartan noir”). Crime fiction isn’t my favorite genre, but these are pretty funny, even though I have to keep googling Scottish slang.
This weekend, I got through Dystopia, a collection of Richard Christian Matheson’s (very) short stories. None I’d call great, but it’s interesting to see how he can get a lot of impact into a two page story.
I’m now on to a non-fiction book, Last Words of the Executed, by Robert K. Elder.
A friend of mine just started reading Freedom and, 200 pages in, is enjoying it. I put down The Corrections without regret after 50 pages - a downer with hateful and self-absorbed characters, IMHO - so I doubt I’ll ever get around to Freedom.
So chuffed you took the rec. I am quietly confident you won’t be disappointed.
Started it last night, so I’m maybe 50 pages in – I’m up to the (first?) chapter about Mary, the maid. Definitely digging it so far.
I wouldn’t pick up The World According to Garp then, if I were you.