| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10754 Registered: 05-2005 |
Sophie, the Final Verdict, by Senan Molony. A true crime book about an English man who murdered a French woman in Ireland. He was never convicted, but he died last year, so it’s OK to say out loud that he was a murderer. I have never doubted it. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1577 Registered: 04-2005 |
Anthony Doerr - "All the Light We Cannot See" What a crock of sh*t. OK I'm a little harsh, but considering that this book won the Pulitzer prize in 2015, I expected a lot more than this. It frankly reads like a novel aimed at teenagers. With very short chapters ! And also one written with film/tv adaptation in mind, and yes apparently Netfliw have already made a series. Incidentally I have nothing against books for teenagers. Someone once bought me "Skellig" by David Almond and apologised because they didn't know that it was "a book for children". "Skellig" is a fascinating and mysterious tale that works on several levels and is miles above Doerr's clichéd tale. It's like modern cinema. Or maybe mainstream US and UK cinema, where the studios don't make films for adults anymore. This book certainly does not merit to have won the same literary prize that Hemingway, Wharton, Steinbeck, Morrison, Faulkner etc won. Dumbing down ! | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2329 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ah, I'm so glad you agree, Andrew! Not harsh at all, you're absolutely right, a steaming concoction of the already seen. The rave reviews were mystifying. The TV version didn't get off so lightly. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 544 Registered: 02-2007 |
Agree Andrew, I barely finished it. Think I gave it 2.5 stars out of 5 maybe but I have family members who loved it. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10756 Registered: 05-2005 |
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll. Another true crime book. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2332 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ross Macdonald - The Drowning Pool Penguin edition, P.51: "What is your favourite place in the whole wide world, Mr Archer?" "Ten feet underwater... watching fish through a face-glass." I guess it's possible Robert is a Macdonald fan? | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 818 Registered: 08-2005 |
Stuart, I'm a huge fan of Ross Macdonald (with a lower-case D), who often gets overlooked in favour of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2333 Registered: 10-2006 |
I remember you are, Simon! But I think he has taken his rightful place alongside those other two greats by now. He detested Chandler, apparently because the latter wrote a very grumpy review about the first Archer novel - probably scented a rival on the way. There is a lot of florid overwriting in this early one that he would later cut back on, together with his usual deft lyrical touches, plus some interesting pre-Bond antics - overweight, waddling millionaire villain, tense encounter on a luxury yacht, sadistic torture scene in a specially-equipped water room (very Doctor No), ambiguous, dangerous femme fatale and so on. Always good, though. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 545 Registered: 02-2007 |
The March - E.L.Doctorow | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4948 Registered: 03-2005 |
Speaking of florid overwriting, I've picked up a copy of the 1961 compilation of all of Ronald Firbank's fiction. I don't propose to power my way all the way through the volume in one go but I'll be coming back to it from time to time to resume wherever I left off after taking suitable stylistic breaks elsewhere. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 820 Registered: 08-2005 |
Pastime - a Spenser novel by the late, great Robert B Parker. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2338 Registered: 10-2006 |
Chances are if someone likes Ross Mcd, they’ll also like RobertB, Simon! I think the first 14 Spensers are really worth reading, up to Taming a seahorse anyway, after which the books start to look like lyric poetry with a lot of white and delicate scatterings of print; though the April Kyle trilogy (Ceremony, Taming a sh and Hundred-Dollar Baby) is worth getting to the end of. Always a lot of wit though – Parker was funnier than Mcdonald, but the latter could craft a more substantial & deeper story. Early Autumn would probably get into my Top Ten of alltime reads. Off to dig out Pastime. |