Regattah Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 I may have to PM you about the ending of Gone Girl, Fiz. I didn't find it all satisfactory! I'll have to try Far Pavillions now from what people have said. My UFR is Les Miserables. It started off brilliantly and I absolutely loved the characterisation of the Bishop, who is such a minor character in the play and film but has chapters devoted to him in the book. Then I just get bored and can't carry on. If anyone has managed to read it, can you tell me if the boring bit finishes? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 I gave up on that too, Regattah! After Hugo started going into the back story about Thenaudier stealing from corpses at Waterloo, I gave up. It seemed like the book was never going to get going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Well, this thread has had a lot of additions to it since I last read it! I'm ashamed to say I only got 33 on the BBC's list - clearly I don't read the Right Sort of Books (but then, I knew that!) - I did leave out several which I'd started but not read the whole way through for whatever reason. I got most of Taxi's list, though Books I've never finished: very rare for me, this - I mean, I took 9 weeks to get through Gone with the Wind, but I was determined to do so - but: David Copperfield - the only set book for English that I couldn't digest Oliver Twist (I gave up on Dickens at this point - if I couldn't get through the one I was amenable to, what chance did I have with all the others?!) The Bostonians - I just got so fed up with Henry James telling me all the characters' inner thoughts all the time Madame Bovary (but only because someone had reserved it at the library and I couldn't get it renewed. Must try again) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 I've just had to buy a simple guide to Windows 8 as I had to buy a new laptop unexpectedly on Sunday! I thought it was going to be a doddle as I have had a windows 8 phone for the past year and am thrilled with it - unfortunately not the case!!! Posting a bit late here, I know, but I thought it should be acknowledged publicly that Janet was on "Today's Links" duty the next day, and managed to get everything posted despite having to struggle with a completely new operating system. Such dedication! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porthesia Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Les Miserables, we have a shortened version somewhere in the house which I think non-dd acquired when she was in her schools production (one of the loose women!!) I knew nothing about the storyline and had always maintained I didn't want to see anything about "miserable" people. I sobbed and sobbed and not just because my daughter was singing in it. Since then I have always wanted to see it in London, although a review of the school production did compare it very favorably to the London production showing at that time. I have read this abridged version and thoroughly enjoyed it. If I can find it I'll let you know its details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legseleven Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 Alison, the Dickens that reached out and grabbed me by the throat, defying me to put it down, was 'Great Expectations'. I had read 'Oliver Twist', 'David Copperfield' and 'A Christmas Carol' before that and enjoyed them but wasn't thrilled. However I LOVED 'Great Expectations' if you want to try another Dickens having been underwhelmed thus far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huddsballetmum Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Anyone recommend a bit of light escapism read. Something with a reasonable storyline but more humour than horror or heartbreak? I liked the concept of 'the woman who went to bed for a year' but the ending was weak IMO. Have you tried Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. It parodies all those romantic classics like Wuthering Heights and is really humourous. Well worth a read. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 Just picked up this review while culling the links for tomorrow: Kathryn Craft - The Art of Falling Sounds like it may be interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loveclassics Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Have you tried Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. It parodies all those romantic classics like Wuthering Heights and is really humourous. Well worth a read. It's particularly good if you remember the craze for 'realistic' novels set in the unromantic countryside. Precious Bane is the leader in this field - all slashing rain and steaming manure but much of Thomas Hardy is perilously close. Cold Comfort Farm is a genuine classic though and equally funny even if you never suffered through the originals. There have been at least 2 adaptations for TV, the last including Joanna Lumley & Kate Beckinsale in the cast, and both are well worth watching if you come across them on DVD or a satellite channel. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 (edited) Just started reading That Woman, a biography of the Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba. So far I've learned that Wallis had (well, must have had, or, at least that is, possibly might have had) some version of DSD (disorder of sex development), meaning that she wasn't entirely female in one form or another, and that Edward had (or possibly had, or at least seemed to have had) Asperger's syndrome. All of which is stated fairly definitively but with a throwaway comment along the lines of "of course this is just speculation." Apparently this author is a bit of an amateur doctor. I hope she doesn't try diagnosing her own family with the same degree of confidence that she's doing to poor Wallis and Edward. Must say I liked Hugo Vickers' bio better. Edited April 1, 2014 by Melody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loveclassics Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Just started reading That Woman, a biography of the Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba. So far I've learned that Wallis had (well, must have had, or, at least that is, possibly might have had) some version of DSD (disorder of sex development), meaning that she wasn't entirely female in one form or another, and that Edward had (or possibly had, or at least seemed to have had) Asperger's syndrome. That hardly fits with her three marriages to men who loved her. But is it any better than the off-stated assertion that she had learned some bizarre oriental sex practices while living in the East and this was how she ensnared Edward? It's appalling what some biographers will write with absolute conviction and on the basis of zero evidence, simply to sell their books. What's really sad is that some people (literally) buy it. Every time I see some fresh 'expose' on a famous dead celebrity (usually on Channel 4 or one of the satellite documentary channels) I find myself chanting "and where's the evidence? What are the sources? And are there any contradictory ones?" but they only present one, highly biased, POV. Sooo depressing! Linda 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonty Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 It's particularly good if you remember the craze for 'realistic' novels set in the unromantic countryside. Precious Bane is the leader in this field - all slashing rain and steaming manure but much of Thomas Hardy is perilously close. Cold Comfort Farm is a genuine classic though and equally funny even if you never suffered through the originals. Oh, I had forgotten about the steaming middens. I remember reading it while I was studying both Hardy and D.H Lawrence at uni, and it provided a lot of welcome relief. Agree about the outrageous claims made by some "biographers". Some of the biographies of Fonteyn fall into this category. It really annoys me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 That hardly fits with her three marriages to men who loved her. But is it any better than the off-stated assertion that she had learned some bizarre oriental sex practices while living in the East and this was how she ensnared Edward? It's appalling what some biographers will write with absolute conviction and on the basis of zero evidence, simply to sell their books. What's really sad is that some people (literally) buy it. Every time I see some fresh 'expose' on a famous dead celebrity (usually on Channel 4 or one of the satellite documentary channels) I find myself chanting "and where's the evidence? What are the sources? And are there any contradictory ones?" but they only present one, highly biased, POV. Sooo depressing! Linda That's exactly why I waited till I could pick up a second-hand copy for peanuts. I'd heard enough about this book to be curious but not enough to want to pay real money for it. Glad I didn't. So far there's nothing I didn't already know and a bunch of amateur medical stuff. To do her justice, she did pour some cold water on the "Wallis learned all these sexual techniques in Chinese brothels" stuff as well as on the accusation that Wallis was two-timing (guess I should say three-timing) Ernest and Edward with a car salesman. So not a total loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porthesia Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 For those of you with a Kindle, Amazon seem to have a lot of books which are free. You can even download War and Peace for free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimi66 Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 For those of you with a Kindle, Amazon seem to have a lot of books which are free. You can even download War and Peace for free! I wonder how long it will take to download the compelete version of "War and Peace", let alone reading it afterwards! I gave up reading the complete version about one third into it, a long time ago. Mainly because I could never remember the names of the charactors... I have just started Jorge Amado's "Shepards of the Night". His plots are complete bonkers, but Amado always somehow makes it credible and very funny. The story is set in 1940's Bahia, Brazil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Well, I'm ploughing through The Winter's Tale still - I have until next Tuesday, I think, to read it - and sympathise with Ed Watson's comment that the language is pretty difficult. I've also just finished - yes, you could probably guess that this was coming - a book (can't remember its name, of course) describing the 2008 Wimbledon Men's Final between Nadal and Federer, aka The Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. The book itself is actually pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huddsballetmum Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 In order to assist dancing daughter with WW2 history we have both revisited some of the " classics" and therefore are reading Diary of Anne Frank, Schindlers List, The Boy in the Striped Pj's and The Book Thief. I can't think of any better way to show her the cruelty and discrimitation of the war and the madness that was Nazism! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 For those of you with a Kindle, Amazon seem to have a lot of books which are free. You can even download War and Peace for free! They also have (at least in the USA) a feature where 100 books are available every month for $3.99 or less. Some of these are genuine bargains because I recently saw one of my purchases from last summer listed at $11.99 for the Kindle edition. Not sure if Amazon UK does likewise - the e-book laws mean that British and American buyers can only buy from their domestic Amazon, which is a pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 Amazon UK has all sorts of daily deals and, as ever these days, a lot of offers tailored just for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 I have just finished Sandra Galland's new novel about Athenais de Montespan, The Shadow Queen. It was excellent. She also wrote the trilogy about Josephine de Beauharnais. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porthesia Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Well in amongst all the Hardy I downloaded I think I've downloaded some rather dubious books! Need to get non-dd to delete them!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Well done for ploughing through Winters Tale Alison. I should familiarise myself with the plot soon but have a bit of a mental block as this was my Shakespeare A level text in 1966!! I hated it then and used to sit in the Library reading any other Shakespeare play but! Perhaps I'd enjoy it now who knows. In fact when I did my exam it was the poor old Winters Tale which got short shrift from me as I was so pushed for time I wrote the last essay.....on this play...practically in note form!! but reams on Murder in the Cathedral and Chaucer. Consequently only just passed my English exam with a D!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munchkin16 Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 I'm half way through Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky but I keep having to stop to revise and then the Russian names are confusing me... I just finished The Greatest Traitor which is about the spy George Blake and his betrayal to work for the Soviets during the Cold War so very interesting from both a historical and philosophical sense. I bought my dad The Book Thief for his birthday but I think I might have steal it back, apparently the book is even better than the film. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 I cannot find who posted about the book "Wildflower Hill" but I am really enjoying it. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonty Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Just to say I had to read The Wasp Factory for my book club. Always wondered why I had never read it before, but I have to say it contained one of the nastiest bunch of characters I have ever read. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porthesia Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 After the botched attempt of the BBC to put on Jamaica Inn I'm going to have to re-read. I couldn't remember any of it except by the end of episode 2 did start to remember that the vicar wasn't all he should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimi66 Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 (edited) I started Nureyev's biography by Julie Kavanagh. This will take a bit of time, because I decided to search and watch on YouTube his performance (or the same work danced by other dancers) or ballet he directed as I read along the book. Sort of self-arranged interactive reading? well, it's very enjoyable! ...edited, because my keyboard seems to have its own mind... Edited May 9, 2014 by mimi66 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 I'm reading Tudor by Leanda De Lisle and it is excellent. She avoids the traps so many vox pop historians fall into of putting their own agendas in the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swanprincess Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 "The Reason I Jump" by Naoki Higashida. It's about autism and is an incredibly uplifting and inspiring read for anyone affected by Autism (or Asperger's syndrome, like myself), it really makes sense of some of the quirky behaviours that we see as normality! Also, the short story at the end is incredibly beautiful 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munchkin16 Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 I just finished reading 'I am Malala.' It's a biography of her life but it is fascinating in terms of the detail about the history of Afganistan and Pakistan. The struggle for girls to get an education is so sad and her story is truly inspiring. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huddsballetmum Posted May 12, 2014 Share Posted May 12, 2014 After the comments on War & Peace, I decided to tackle Tolstoy again and read Anna Karenina for the first time since high school. I had forgotten how wordy and descriptive Tolstoy was. I downloaded War & Peace too but I think I might need to give that a miss for a few months! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Not sure why I torture myself this way, but I'm reading "Real England: The Battle Against The Bland" by Paul Kingsnorth. He's putting some facts and history and numbers behind the depressingly familiar phenomenon of how globalisation of trade is destroying the individual character of many parts of Britain, urban and rural. Every time we visit home, there seem to be fewer independent stores and more chains - and lately more American chains - in shopping centres, and less real choice of goods. This book is explaining why it's happening. Not all that sure I really wanted to know, but it does have a certain train-wreck fascination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa O`Brien Posted May 18, 2014 Share Posted May 18, 2014 (edited) I came across the book I am reading on Amazon. Was looking for a photo album initially[although I bought a beautiful one of those too].People gave the book great reviews. As it was cheap I ordered a copy and had it sent to my sister also. It is called The Accident,and is by C.L.Taylor. I am on chapter 5 and it is terrific. Sue has a normal enough life in London with her family. Until her 15 year old daughter deliberately steps out in front of a bus and ends up in a coma. Why on earth would she do this? Retracing her daughter`s steps she finds her diary,and ends up mistrusting everyone who has ever been close to her, including her husband. It really is good stuff. It`s very realistic;mentions of her daughter`s friends on Facebook and Twitter,and the possibility of bullying,etc. I highly recommend it. Edited May 18, 2014 by thequays Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now