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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2009 22:02:21 GMT
I am yet again reading Memoirs of a Geisha. One of my favourite books. Film is shite but book is very good! Not long finished A Million Little Pieces which is also awesome. Haven't read the book but I really liked the film. Could be because I'm in love with Zhang Ziyi but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. ;D
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Post by Bill Edwards on Oct 2, 2009 22:03:51 GMT
A Million Little Pieces is fabrication passed off as fact. Bought that and was about to tuck in when the story broke. Gave it to a charity shop. Lovely cover though.
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Post by GR on Oct 27, 2009 23:14:51 GMT
I'm almost finished with Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. Her heavily researched re-creation of King Henry VIII's court is vivid, and I was also fairly impressed by how she was able to flesh out Anne Boleyn's younger sister Mary (who narrates the tale) into a complex and compelling character despite having only the barest of facts about her to work from.
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Post by Companero on Oct 28, 2009 8:27:20 GMT
I've got two books on the go at the moment - one's "bedtime reading" the other I read on the journeys to and from work.
'Bedtime' book is Oliver Reed's autobiography, 'Reed All About Me' - it's a cracking read, brilliantly written and often very funny. It's out of print but you can pick it up if you look around (got mine from eBay fairly cheap). Definitely worth a look.
My 'daytime' book is 'Shooting The Shit With Kevin Smith' which really isn't very good. His first book, 'Silent Bob Speaks' was pretty good, his second, 'My Boring Ass Life', which was cribbed from his blog entries was sporadically entertaining if a little too self-indulgent. This new book, which I've literally been skipping through, is the "best" of his Smodcasts with Scott Mosier and others. There are some interesting and funny stories if you dig deep, but there's so much filler I reckon I'll have probably read only a quarter of it by the time I'm done. Very lazy and smells of a blatant cash-in.
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Post by GR on Nov 5, 2009 23:35:06 GMT
I'm nearly finished with Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. As beautifully written, acted and filmed as I thought the movie version was, in retrospect I don't think it ever could've measured up to the power of the book's narration -- the main character's thought-provoking meditations on memory, shame, and guilt.
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Post by jill on Nov 6, 2009 0:29:52 GMT
Completely agree GR. I liked the film a lot and think they did a great job, but as you say they couldn't have hoped to capture the feelig and depth of that book. I was completely knocked out when I read it-really moved me and found it very troubling too; a real moral maze.
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Post by baz1701 on Nov 8, 2009 21:12:07 GMT
I just finished reading My S**t Life so Far by Frankie Boyle. If you can take constant fruity language and a pretty all out assault on just about everything and everyone who offends him, then I do recommend it.
I laughed my head off throughout it!
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Post by GR on Nov 13, 2009 23:13:12 GMT
I just finished When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Set mostly in the 1930s, it's about a celebrated London detective who's haunted by the disappearances of his parents. Elegantly written, suspenseful and poignant.
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Post by amy on Nov 20, 2009 21:34:05 GMT
Finished 'Scoop' by Evelyn Waugh the other day, I'm kind of in two minds about it. I quite like Waugh's writing style, but something about the book just didn't grab me, it took me weeks to get through. Might just be my own mindset right now though! I definitely want to read more of Waugh's work, but it's on to a book of Charlie Brooker's columns next!!
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Post by GR on Nov 20, 2009 23:13:23 GMT
If you're interested in reading more of Waugh, I would recommend Vile Bodies if you haven't read it already.
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Post by amy on Feb 17, 2010 22:07:07 GMT
Just finished Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' the other day, and I loved it. It's a tough read, what people had to go through in prison camps, but it is so well written that I could hardly put it down!
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Post by GR on Feb 17, 2010 22:34:52 GMT
I got to read that in high school -- it was a very tough read, but well done. At the moment I'm reading Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which is pretty excellent.
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Post by GR on Mar 19, 2010 22:35:27 GMT
I just finished Henry James' The Golden Bowl. Brilliant premise -- an Italian aristocrat without money marries a American heiress, and his poor, orphaned lover marries the girl's wealthy father -- but the thick tangles of prose (even more complex than that of Wings of the Dove, if that's possible) were a tough slog!
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Post by Bill Edwards on Mar 19, 2010 23:52:34 GMT
Just started reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Although I know what's going to happen as I've seen the film there are already a few major differences that have got me hooked.
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Post by GR on Apr 3, 2010 22:51:42 GMT
Just finished Maeve Binchy's The Return Journey, a collection of 14 travel- and vacation-themed short stories. Sweet, touching and sometimes ironic slices of life with deftly drawn characters.
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