What are you reading?
- Thread starter Tonyblack
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Medieaval Mysteries. Dean Koontz. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Thank you, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse. Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens. And I am about to start Theif of Time again. See if I can get it this time, it's just numbers I don't get on with them.
Edit: Well, I read the first seventy pages and so far so good! Maybe I'll be able to understand it this time.
Edit: Well, I read the first seventy pages and so far so good! Maybe I'll be able to understand it this time.
Tiffany said:
I have bought Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell, hardback. I found it at a car boot sale for £1. I haven't read any of his books before. So far, it seems good. 
You might find that you get a bit lost with all the names Tiffany - the book covers a long period and there are a lot of characters. You might find this list of Characters and Deities that I composed useful.
Kava1985 said:
I'm going through my discworld books again.. and im currently reading Jingo
I also have Dawn French's autobiography to read.. though im not a fan of them, my friend lent it to me... she has an obsession with them
I also have Dawn French's autobiography to read.. though im not a fan of them, my friend lent it to me... she has an obsession with them
I'm currently reading book number 5 in the Patrick O'Brien 'Aubrey/Maturin' series. These books are great fun once you get into them.
There are autobiographies and autobiographies - if it's by somebody under 30 or even 50 (and depending on who they are and what they've done as well) then I always ask myself why I'd want to read about what they've done so far. For example in that situation, had they written one, Mozart or Beethoven's lives would have been compulsive reading to see how it was for them at the time it happened.
People like, and I'm going to be very careful here in case I upset somebody, airhead clothes horses (or not wearing clothes at all...) who are famous for not being very good at what they're famous for, are obviously making some more money on the back of nothing very much so good luck to them, but I won't even bother to borrow their book from the Library, let alone waste money on the paperback version. Come back when you've done something worth writing about and in fact - get someone who can write to do it for you... officially!
People like Dawn French who I do admire and have had a career worth looking back on, then sure if you like them. Ulrika Johnson or Russell Brand? Hmm - if you like them and 'that sort' of clever clogs lad/ladette type thing then at least they can string a sentence together and are vaguely amusing occasionally. But really I think autobiogs are mostly, these days anyway, for show-offs who want to make money to tide them over after they've lost popularity.
If you've led a fascinating life then biographies are more the way to go as an outside viewpoint and fairly delving interviews probably get the subject looking at whatever it is they've done more intensely and objectively than if they're writing it simply as a memory - after all you're more likely to go easy with yourself on the rougher sections, gloss over the hard truths - or perhaps go too deep and too blinkered - with another person writing about you possibly get more 'texture' I think. Or a more rounded presentation anyway
Personally I don't read biogs (or autobiog) unless
a) the person is interesting to me and
b) dead, so you do get the whole life or most of it
is this being too picky?
People like, and I'm going to be very careful here in case I upset somebody, airhead clothes horses (or not wearing clothes at all...) who are famous for not being very good at what they're famous for, are obviously making some more money on the back of nothing very much so good luck to them, but I won't even bother to borrow their book from the Library, let alone waste money on the paperback version. Come back when you've done something worth writing about and in fact - get someone who can write to do it for you... officially!
People like Dawn French who I do admire and have had a career worth looking back on, then sure if you like them. Ulrika Johnson or Russell Brand? Hmm - if you like them and 'that sort' of clever clogs lad/ladette type thing then at least they can string a sentence together and are vaguely amusing occasionally. But really I think autobiogs are mostly, these days anyway, for show-offs who want to make money to tide them over after they've lost popularity.
If you've led a fascinating life then biographies are more the way to go as an outside viewpoint and fairly delving interviews probably get the subject looking at whatever it is they've done more intensely and objectively than if they're writing it simply as a memory - after all you're more likely to go easy with yourself on the rougher sections, gloss over the hard truths - or perhaps go too deep and too blinkered - with another person writing about you possibly get more 'texture' I think. Or a more rounded presentation anyway
Personally I don't read biogs (or autobiog) unless
a) the person is interesting to me and
b) dead, so you do get the whole life or most of it
is this being too picky?
Barak Obama - Audacity of Hope
Alexander MacCall-Smith - Miracle at Speedy Motors
out of print compilation "Erotica" (1980s?)
"I shudder at your touch" - erotic horror omnibus
John Harvey Jones - Managing to Survive
Anne Rice - Pandora
diverse enough?
I like biographies and historical novels too - read a fair bit of non-fiction
Alexander MacCall-Smith - Miracle at Speedy Motors
out of print compilation "Erotica" (1980s?)
"I shudder at your touch" - erotic horror omnibus
John Harvey Jones - Managing to Survive
Anne Rice - Pandora
diverse enough?
I like biographies and historical novels too - read a fair bit of non-fiction
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