What are you reading?

[bob lt]

On 9/24/2021 at 11:29 AM, bob lt said:

Available soon at a bookstore nearby  @Derek Dangleberries

[Lemondropkid]

6 hours ago, AussieBob said:

Cheers @Lemondropkid and @Mr. Smooth I have just downloaded it - sounds great.  I am currently ploughing through all of Jeffrey Archer's books - will read this when finished the current one. 

Hopefully you will enjoy it more than this Goodreads reviewer 😄

"I can describe this book in one word: Disgusting!

Am i supposed to feel sorry or sympathize with the good for nothing a**hole of a character who drinks and smokes all the time, shirks from responsibilities, doesn't respect authority, spends his money on gambling, degrades women in every way possible and complains about his misfortunes all the time. And please don't tell me this has been the author's intention, to stir up strong emotions in the reader. This book didn't have any redeeming qualities to warrant the reader's compassion"

[lazarus]

Divisadero is a novel by Michael Ondaatje

[Mr. Smooth]

44 minutes ago, Lemondropkid said:

Hopefully you will enjoy it more than this Goodreads reviewer 😄

"I can describe this book in one word: Disgusting!

Am i supposed to feel sorry or sympathize with the good for nothing a**hole of a character who drinks and smokes all the time, shirks from responsibilities, doesn't respect authority, spends his money on gambling, degrades women in every way possible and complains about his misfortunes all the time. And please don't tell me this has been the author's intention, to stir up strong emotions in the reader. This book didn't have any redeeming qualities to warrant the reader's compassion"

This review sums up why I loved that book so much! As an aside, Bukowski wrote the screenplay for the movie, "Barfly", from 1987, with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, who played a couple of boozers living life in the various dive bars that came out of Bukowski's very active imagination.

[Mr. Smooth]

On 5/6/2022 at 9:21 AM, Lemondropkid said:

Picked up a cheap copy of this second hand, as am slowly working my way through the Easy Rawlin series. This is book 14 of 15.

Realised in the first few pages, that I've read this one before! Years backs, afternoon holiday reading would be my guess, probably over a couple of beers😳

Denzel Washington played Easy Rawlins in the movie, "Devil in a Blue Dress", I think from about 1990 or 91. Great flick, and I believe this was the movie debut of another solid actor, Don Cheadle, who played "Mouse". I just may have to give Mosley a try. I like crime dramas and detective thrillers. Have read several of the "Jack Reacher" series from Lee Child. I actually thought Tom Cruise did a good job as the title character even though he wasn't 6'5" and 250lbs, like Reacher was in the book.

 

[Lemondropkid]

46 minutes ago, Mr. Smooth said:

Denzel Washington played Easy Rawlins in the movie, "Devil in a Blue Dress", I think from about 1990 or 91. Great flick, and I believe this was the movie debut of another solid actor, Don Cheadle, who played "Mouse". I just may have to give Mosley a try. I like crime dramas and detective thrillers. Have read several of the "Jack Reacher" series from Lee Child. I actually thought Tom Cruise did a good job as the title character even though he wasn't 6'5" and 250lbs, like Reacher was in the book.

 

I'm a huge Denzel fan, almost everything he's been in has been worth watching. Don't think I read my first Moseley book till 20 years after that movie. Picked up one of the Easy Rawlins stories by pot luck in a charity shop and was hooked from there on in.

Unbelieveably I've never read a Jack Reacher novel😳 I can be terrible if I get into an author I want to read his entire output- obvious problem with the Reacher novels. Will put it right next time I do an Asian trip and take a couple with me- sure they would be terrific holiday evening. Love getting out of the afternoon sun, kicking back with a smoothie or a coffee, and a long lazy read, nothing too involved.

Would love to see Barfly again. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Lemondropkid

[AussieBob]

2 hours ago, Mr. Smooth said:

Denzel Washington played Easy Rawlins in the movie, "Devil in a Blue Dress", I think from about 1990 or 91. Great flick, and I believe this was the movie debut of another solid actor, Don Cheadle, who played "Mouse". I just may have to give Mosley a try. I like crime dramas and detective thrillers. Have read several of the "Jack Reacher" series from Lee Child. I actually thought Tom Cruise did a good job as the title character even though he wasn't 6'5" and 250lbs, like Reacher was in the book.

I have read all of the Reacher novels - some are OK and the rest are great.  Have you seen the new Reacher Amazon series? Excellent and got a lot of positive reviews - 8.1 on IMDB. The actor is Alan Ritchson and he is big - it makes a huge difference to the look of things and how people react to him because of his size - just like in the books. Well worth watching. They started the series with the first book 'Killing Floor' and it was extremely close to the novel and how it read - a commitment they have made and they kept it.  There is scope to keep going in the order of each book and with 26 books that could make many years to go (I hope).  Staring with a movie about book 9 (One Shot) was a bad mobe, as was using someone who just does not have the size and feel of a big man that immediately intimidates people just by his sheer size. Ritchson aint the actor Cruise is for sure, but he does the role very well. 

@Lemondropkid I recommend reading Reacher from Killing Fields if you do go that way - Child draws out his character through each book - he clearly had a plan on how to do that from the beginning.  I read One Shot first and then decided to get them all and started reading them all from book 1 - it made One Shot even better the 2nd time around as I knew and understood Reacher a bit by then - but there is even more to the guy as further books showed - best series of books I have ever read.   

[Zeb]

 

Mick Herron's latest -

Bad Actors by Mick Herron (Slough House #8)

In London’s MI5 headquarters, a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster - a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate - has disappeared without a trace.

Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last?

Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence’s First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? Over at Slough House, where Jackson Lamb presides over some of MI5’s most embittered demoted agents, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation….

 

[galenkia]

[Zeb]

For Jack Reacher book fans -

Amazon Prime earlier this year released the first season of their video series of the Lee Child books and are doing a book per season over 8 episodes - so they are able to do justice to the books.

The first season is based on Book 1 "The Killing Floor" and from the two episodes I've watched, rate them as doing a pretty good job.

Reacher in played by Alan Ritchson (6' 3") but looks a lot bigger on screen and portrays Reacher as the books did. Plenty of action so far in what I've watched.

[andycoll]

23 hours ago, Zeb said:

 

Mick Herron's latest -

Bad Actors by Mick Herron (Slough House #8)

In London’s MI5 headquarters, a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster - a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate - has disappeared without a trace.

Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last?

Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence’s First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? Over at Slough House, where Jackson Lamb presides over some of MI5’s most embittered demoted agents, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation….

 

Thanks for the heads up. I've put it on hold at my local library but it will take awhile to get. A great series.

[andycoll]

18 hours ago, galenkia said:

Looks interesting so I have put a hold on it. Should have it next week.

[andycoll]

[galenkia]

2 hours ago, andycoll said:

I read the DI Barton series of books by him,book 5 in the series is out end of the month. Very good crime series and worth a read.

[Zeb]

The Silver Serpent by Scott Mariani (Ben Hope #25)

Overview: Some legends lie buried for a reason....
To fight extraordinary odds, you need an extraordinary man.

Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise—and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it.

Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.

This savagely beautiful land holds a secret it won’t give up easily—and for Ben, discovering the truth will mean not only going up against a small army of hired guns and their twisted paymaster but also surviving a place where the wilderness is as powerful as the weapons his enemies have trained on him.

[galenkia]

4 hours ago, Zeb said:

The Silver Serpent by Scott Mariani (Ben Hope #25)

Overview: Some legends lie buried for a reason....
To fight extraordinary odds, you need an extraordinary man.

Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise—and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it.

Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.

This savagely beautiful land holds a secret it won’t give up easily—and for Ben, discovering the truth will mean not only going up against a small army of hired guns and their twisted paymaster but also surviving a place where the wilderness is as powerful as the weapons his enemies have trained on him.

Next read for me. Read all the previous books in the series.

[Lemondropkid]

New author for me- historical ripping yarn🙂

[galenkia]

This book written by a father and son about his son's descent into schizophrenia aged 20 year's old.

[forcebwithu]

[lazarus]

The Shadow of the Wind (Spanish: La sombra del viento) is a 2001 novel by the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón and a worldwide bestseller. The book was translated into English in 2004 by Lucia Graves and sold over a million copies in the UK after already achieving success on mainland Europe, topping the Spanish bestseller lists for weeks.It is believed to have sold 15 million copies worldwide,^[1] making it one of the best-selling books of all time.

[andycoll]

[Lemondropkid]

Ordered this in advance of it's Paperback release, the final book in the Age of Madness trilogy- hot off the press🙂

[AussieBob]

 

[galenkia]

Latest Simon McCleave.

First in a new series.

[Lemondropkid]

Finished off Wisdom of Crowds, Joe Abercrombie. The final leg (allegedley) of trilogy, didn't think I was a fantasy fan, but a brilliant read- highly recommended.

Moving onto the secound book in the Conqueror series. Got all 5 books online , brand new for a bargain £10/ 430 baht.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Lemondropkid