purplethunder3121 said:

I'm looking forward to reading the latest novel from my favorite mystery writer Elizabeth George.

So. Are you in for the challenge?

morningsong said:

214 said:

Pedro Páramo anyone? such a haunting and sad story, full of desolation and desperation, it leaves you a lonely feeling.

Interesting. This go round, you pick a book you haven't read, make time for a week or 2, read it, post a review. You've been challenged.

I will try sadly i do not have the habit.

morningsong said:

purplethunder3121 said:

I'm looking forward to reading the latest novel from my favorite mystery writer Elizabeth George.

So. Are you in for the challenge?

No guarantee of when I'll finish, but sure, why not?

morningsong said:

XxAxX said:

here's one i want to read next

Then I challenge you. Even though you have like a ton of books everywhere demanding your attention.

well, i'm all wrapped up in king. and not ready for david wong's brain spiders at this point. he's mad creative but i'm not in the mood for cracked right now. tell you what, i'll find another and take the challenge.

morningsong said:

RodeoSchro said:

I just finished this:




It was OK. Moved too slow, too bogged down in details. And Reacher didn't beat up nearly enough people. Funny, because this one was set when he was younger (35) and still in the Army. In fact, the Army had just given him a medal for killing a couple dudes.

I am now off to Half-Price Books's website to order as many Parker novels as I can find. Can't wait, Christmas reading at its finest

UPDATE: Just ordered 10 Parker novels and 2 Grofield novels. Twelve books by Richard Stark - the Twelve Books of Christmas! Let the carnage begin!

.

[Edited 12/1/16 16:03pm]

Pick one or 2 or 5 and post a review in the next week or so. You've been challenged.

Alright! This is going to be as much fun as my movie reviews! Heck, I might even review each of the 12 books!

However, I'm saving those books for my Christmas ski trip, which doesn't start for another sixteen days. Is it OK if i review the Reacher book now, and then the others over the Christmas holidays?

The one I just finished.

The one I'm reading now.

Re: Lisey's Story- I think you meant Gerald's Game as it's the one where the woman is handcuffed to the bed. It's a creepy tale and is soon going to be a movie. Lisey's Story is the tale of a wife of a famous author who dies and how she deals with her grief and the crazy fans that come out of the woodwork later.....

XxAxX said:

kingricefan said:

Stephen King is my favorite author (hence my user name! ). I have read every one of his books. There are a couple that aren't my favorites, but overall I think he is our generation's Dickens. If you want to know what life for the average person was like in the 70's just pick up a King book from that era and he'll tell you. To me, all of King's novels are based on love- I know it sounds funny, but if you look close enough you will find that to be the truth. I read many other authors (Anne Rice, Patricia Cornwell, John Dunning, David Morrell, Fannie Flagg, John Grisham, Steig Larrson, Don Robertson, Dean Koontz, Joe Lansdale, etc.). Right now I'm reading David Sedaris' Let's Talk Diabetes With Owls- a collection of Eassays. He's pretty funny.

mine too!! i haven't read all his books yet but i'm working on it. Lisey's Story turned me off for a while, touched too many nerves (couldn't read past the first few bits, where she is tied to the bed and hears someone coming...). but overall i think his books are really deep, without being preachy.

[Edited 12/1/16 9:50am]

[Edited 12/2/16 16:48pm]

I hope that you will continue reading the Dark Tower books. They are truly life-changing! Read them before the movie comes out in 2017!!!

EmmaMcG said:

I've been meaning to read Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in the Dark Tower series. I read the previous three about 6 years ago but I got side tracked and went on to other things. Then recently I read a book called The Last Wish which I really enjoyed and I really want to read the next one, which is called Sword of Destiny. So I'm caught between two at the moment and I'm not sure which to read. The worst part is that in the time I've been debating which one to read, I'd have read both of them.

I think it would be great to be able to sit down with him and have lunch! He's a very down-to-earth and grounded man- the fame hasn't gone to his head at all. Just a regular dude (who's worth millions!).

XxAxX said:

morningsong said:

Haven't read all of Stephen King's books but I've read many. I wonder what goes on in that head of his? I loved Anne Rice vampires and I love Lasher. I've a read some of her Rampling books too.

i would love love love the chance to buy him lunch one day. ask him wtf? The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is really interesting, because he prefaces each story with a detailed description of how and why he came to write the story

you're right! gerald's game it was. i remember now. apologies. did you read gerald's game? i couldn't continue reading it after the handcuffed to the bed someone coming....

kingricefan said:

Re: Lisey's Story- I think you meant Gerald's Game as it's the one where the woman is handcuffed to the bed. It's a creepy tale and is soon going to be a movie. Lisey's Story is the tale of a wife of a famous author who dies and how she deals with her grief and the crazy fans that come out of the woodwork later.....

XxAxX said:

mine too!! i haven't read all his books yet but i'm working on it. Lisey's Story turned me off for a while, touched too many nerves (couldn't read past the first few bits, where she is tied to the bed and hears someone coming...). but overall i think his books are really deep, without being preachy.

[Edited 12/1/16 9:50am]

[Edited 12/2/16 16:48pm]

i'm not really interested in his money, more intrigued by his mind. like you say he seems very grounded and likeable, yet he puts on the shivers for his readers like others put on the kettle for visitors


come on in, i've cooked up a little something for you.........BOO!!!!!!!!

kingricefan said:

I think it would be great to be able to sit down with him and have lunch! He's a very down-to-earth and grounded man- the fame hasn't gone to his head at all. Just a regular dude (who's worth millions!).

XxAxX said:

i would love love love the chance to buy him lunch one day. ask him wtf? The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is really interesting, because he prefaces each story with a detailed description of how and why he came to write the story

kingricefan said:

Stephen King is my favorite author (hence my user name! ). I have read every one of his books. There are a couple that aren't my favorites, but overall I think he is our generation's Dickens. If you want to know what life for the average person was like in the 70's just pick up a King book from that era and he'll tell you. To me, all of King's novels are based on love- I know it sounds funny, but if you look close enough you will find that to be the truth.

I grew up reading so much King. I actually loved his non-horror stories a lot, too. Different Seasons housed for great novellas, three of which were made into movies; one of them being one of my all-time favorite movies (the first listed here). Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption, The Body (aka Stand By Me), and Apt Pupil.

A funny note about Shawshank: The lead narrator was a big white dude named Red. Morgan Freeman ended up being cast in that role. There's a line in the book that became a line of humor in the movie. Andy asks him "Why do they call you Red?" Red pauses and says, "I guess it's because I'm Irish".

If you love King, you'd probably enjoy Richard Mathison. He wrote story stories, and they became movies like What Dreams May Come, Trilogy of Terror (a Karen Black favorite of mine), and I Am Legend (which has never been done justice -at all), The Shrinking Man, Stir Of Echoes, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere In Time with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour), Button Button (become The Box on film).

Even Family Guy lifted a story from him, "The Splendid Source", which journeyed the guys to find the source of a joke. They take a road trip to Maine (King's home state) to find out. Critics loved this episode, and I did too. King has cited Mathison as his greatest inspiration for being a writer. There are books with Mathison's short stories that are well worth the read. They're fun!

Some other King works I love: Hearts In Atlantis, Bag of Bones, Gerald's Game, Misery, Cujo, Firestarter, Carrie, Night Shift (a book of short stories that most would know the movies for). Too many to list!

I did read Anne Rice's Christ The Lord: Out of Egypt. Her writing style is rather ...sedated, but tells a good story.

My favourite author currently is called Kevin Brooks. His books are amazing, very easy to read (they are aimed at the teenage market) but dark and chill you to the core. I'd recommend 'The Bunker Diary' for anyone who wants to see what his writing is like.

I'm tempted to set myself a reading challenge but logistically I'm going to have to think about what is manageable. Maybe 50 books during 2017?

XxAxX said:

you're right! gerald's game it was. i remember now. apologies. did you read gerald's game? i couldn't continue reading it after the handcuffed to the bed someone coming....

kingricefan said:

Re: Lisey's Story- I think you meant Gerald's Game as it's the one where the woman is handcuffed to the bed. It's a creepy tale and is soon going to be a movie. Lisey's Story is the tale of a wife of a famous author who dies and how she deals with her grief and the crazy fans that come out of the woodwork later.....

[Edited 12/2/16 16:48pm]

I used to read EVERYTHING King did - up to "Gerald's Game". That one was too kinky for me. Then King went into the Towers stuff, which also didn't interest me. I haven't read a King novel since.

HOWEVER, he had a short story that changed my life. I do not remember the name, and I don't have the book is in any longer (it was a collection of short stories). But the gist of it was how to look at time so that time didn't seem to past so fast. It had to do with a horse. I don't remember all the details but I do know that I've never looked at the times of my life the same since.

There are so many people who say, "That was ten years ago? It seems like just yesterday! Where did the time go?" I'm not one of them, and I credit it all to that story by Stephen King.

RodeoSchro said:

XxAxX said:

you're right! gerald's game it was. i remember now. apologies. did you read gerald's game? i couldn't continue reading it after the handcuffed to the bed someone coming....

I used to read EVERYTHING King did - up to "Gerald's Game". That one was too kinky for me. Then King went into the Towers stuff, which also didn't interest me. I haven't read a King novel since.

HOWEVER, he had a short story that changed my life. I do not remember the name, and I don't have the book is in any longer (it was a collection of short stories). But the gist of it was how to look at time so that time didn't seem to past so fast. It had to do with a horse. I don't remember all the details but I do know that I've never looked at the times of my life the same since.

There are so many people who say, "That was ten years ago? It seems like just yesterday! Where did the time go?" I'm not one of them, and I credit it all to that story by Stephen King.

gerald's game turned me off King's work for a little while because books which are centered around psychological/physical abuse of women/stalking of women in the guise of love just nauseate me in general.

i couldn't deal with that poor gal cuffed to the bed after her hubby fails to stop when she asks him to. if i remember, she kills him in self defense? then hears someone coming.... think i hurled the book across the room at that point

but Mr. King's work is so all encompassing i came back. chalked it all up to a big old misunderstanding. out of pure curiosity i still wonder how that book ends though.

because king generally covers all the genres there's something for everyone in his work. the green mile is a masterpiece, hearts in atlantis likewise... too many cool themes to mention but right now he's my uber fav author

morningsong said:

Well nobody has taken the challenge. But if you do, you must post your review of the book.

allrighty. i finished Stephen King's Bazaar of Bad Dreams, also finished Jeffrey Deaver's XO, (still working on Laurie King's The Language of Bees).

accepting the challenge, i'll begin reading Douglas Preston/Lincold Child's Crimson Shore today.

Crimson Shore features the dapper, all round renaissance man Agent Aloysius Pendergast, who solves supernatural mysteries. you might remember him from Preston/Child's book/movie Relic which is the first book in the series about Pendergast.

here goes.....

[Edited 12/3/16 10:15am]

Read a book every two weeks.

The story is called My Pretty Pony. It definately makes you look at time in a different way. It's like King says (paraphrasing here) - 'when you're a kid at the start of summer time just literally drags by but when it come up to the last week of summer vacation it just whips past you in a blink of the eye.' Time is really strange, isn't it? Think of how time seems to slow down when you're about to crash into a car or something like that. Strange.

RodeoSchro said:

XxAxX said:

you're right! gerald's game it was. i remember now. apologies. did you read gerald's game? i couldn't continue reading it after the handcuffed to the bed someone coming....

I used to read EVERYTHING King did - up to "Gerald's Game". That one was too kinky for me. Then King went into the Towers stuff, which also didn't interest me. I haven't read a King novel since.

HOWEVER, he had a short story that changed my life. I do not remember the name, and I don't have the book is in any longer (it was a collection of short stories). But the gist of it was how to look at time so that time didn't seem to past so fast. It had to do with a horse. I don't remember all the details but I do know that I've never looked at the times of my life the same since.

There are so many people who say, "That was ten years ago? It seems like just yesterday! Where did the time go?" I'm not one of them, and I credit it all to that story by Stephen King.

I highly recommend that you do not attempt to read all of GG. It only gets worse after the point where you stopped reading. Trust me.

XxAxX said:

you're right! gerald's game it was. i remember now. apologies. did you read gerald's game? i couldn't continue reading it after the handcuffed to the bed someone coming....

kingricefan said:

Re: Lisey's Story- I think you meant Gerald's Game as it's the one where the woman is handcuffed to the bed. It's a creepy tale and is soon going to be a movie. Lisey's Story is the tale of a wife of a famous author who dies and how she deals with her grief and the crazy fans that come out of the woodwork later.....

[Edited 12/2/16 16:48pm]

Most people are shocked to find out that King wrote Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. Different Seasons is the King book where I said 'Man, this dude can write!'

TrivialPursuit said:

kingricefan said:

Stephen King is my favorite author (hence my user name! ). I have read every one of his books. There are a couple that aren't my favorites, but overall I think he is our generation's Dickens. If you want to know what life for the average person was like in the 70's just pick up a King book from that era and he'll tell you. To me, all of King's novels are based on love- I know it sounds funny, but if you look close enough you will find that to be the truth.

I grew up reading so much King. I actually loved his non-horror stories a lot, too. Different Seasons housed for great novellas, three of which were made into movies; one of them being one of my all-time favorite movies (the first listed here). Rita Hayworth & The Shawshank Redemption, The Body (aka Stand By Me), and Apt Pupil.

A funny note about Shawshank: The lead narrator was a big white dude named Red. Morgan Freeman ended up being cast in that role. There's a line in the book that became a line of humor in the movie. Andy asks him "Why do they call you Red?" Red pauses and says, "I guess it's because I'm Irish".

If you love King, you'd probably enjoy Richard Mathison. He wrote story stories, and they became movies like What Dreams May Come, Trilogy of Terror (a Karen Black favorite of mine), and I Am Legend (which has never been done justice -at all), The Shrinking Man, Stir Of Echoes, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere In Time with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour), Button Button (become The Box on film).

Even Family Guy lifted a story from him, "The Splendid Source", which journeyed the guys to find the source of a joke. They take a road trip to Maine (King's home state) to find out. Critics loved this episode, and I did too. King has cited Mathison as his greatest inspiration for being a writer. There are books with Mathison's short stories that are well worth the read. They're fun!

Some other King works I love: Hearts In Atlantis, Bag of Bones, Gerald's Game, Misery, Cujo, Firestarter, Carrie, Night Shift (a book of short stories that most would know the movies for). Too many to list!

I did read Anne Rice's Christ The Lord: Out of Egypt. Her writing style is rather ...sedated, but tells a good story.

2freaky4church1 said:

XxAxX said:

RodeoSchro said:

kingricefan said:

Most people are shocked to find out that King wrote Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. Different Seasons is the King book where I said 'Man, this dude can write!

I've gotten that reaction, too. Of course he's known as the King of Horror, but he's really just a great storyteller overall. Horror is his main ingredient. But then again, he's also written stuff like Under The Dome, 11.22.63 (a great mini-series on Hulu), and other cool stories.

kingricefan said:

The story is called My Pretty Pony. It definately makes you look at time in a different way. It's like King says (paraphrasing here) - 'when you're a kid at the start of summer time just literally drags by but when it come up to the last week of summer vacation it just whips past you in a blink of the eye.' Time is really strange, isn't it? Think of how time seems to slow down when you're about to crash into a car or something like that. Strange.

RodeoSchro said:

I used to read EVERYTHING King did - up to "Gerald's Game". That one was too kinky for me. Then King went into the Towers stuff, which also didn't interest me. I haven't read a King novel since.

HOWEVER, he had a short story that changed my life. I do not remember the name, and I don't have the book is in any longer (it was a collection of short stories). But the gist of it was how to look at time so that time didn't seem to past so fast. It had to do with a horse. I don't remember all the details but I do know that I've never looked at the times of my life the same since.

There are so many people who say, "That was ten years ago? It seems like just yesterday! Where did the time go?" I'm not one of them, and I credit it all to that story by Stephen King.

That's it! Thank you! I knew there was a horse involved somehow.

I'm going to find the book it was in and buy it next week. Thank you very much!

RodeoSchro said:

I just finished this:




It was OK. Moved too slow, too bogged down in details. And Reacher didn't beat up nearly enough people. Funny, because this one was set when he was younger (35) and still in the Army. In fact, the Army had just given him a medal for killing a couple dudes.

I am now off to Half-Price Books's website to order as many Parker novels as I can find. Can't wait, Christmas reading at its finest

UPDATE: Just ordered 10 Parker novels and 2 Grofield novels. Twelve books by Richard Stark - the Twelve Books of Christmas! Let the carnage begin!

.

[Edited 12/1/16 16:03pm]

The "Night School" review. WARNING WARNING WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

But let's be honest - there really are no such things as "spoilers" in a Jack Reacher novel. You know he's going to kill a bunch of bad guys; you know they aren't going to ever get the best of him; and you know the good guys will win in the end.

That's EVERY Jack Reacher novel. So all this review can be is basically a kill count.

And it's not very high. It might even be only one confirmed kill. Although, the novel starts off with Reacher getting a medal for killing some bad guys in a country with way more consonants than vowels. But we don't get to witness those, so they don't count.

Reacher is then immediately sent to a hotel, where he meets a CIA guy and an FBI guy. It seems both these dudes had also won commendations for similar events, although neither one of them ever actually says what it was they did. Bummer! And to be honest, these dudes are completely superfluous to the plot. They do nothing, they don't accompany Reacher to Germany - they just basically sit in their hotel room while Reacher does all the heavy lifting.

The plot revloves around some kind of fuzzy transaction that's going to take place between some Middle Easterners and some rogue American. No one knows what the American is selling, except that the price is $100,000,000. And, that all the information gets exchanged in Hamburg, Germany.

So that's where Reacher goes, and he takes along one of his favorite officers, Francis Neagley. She's a badass in her own right. But I know what you're thinking and no - Reacher never boinks her. Neagley has an incredible fear of being touched, so no one ever touches her (except bad guys who get touched whilst being killed or beaten. For some reason, this kind of touching never bothers Neagley).

Reacher DOES do some boinking though. The head of the NSC joins them in Germany. She's a mid-40's hottie who hooks up with Reacher three times. Sadly, author Lee Child feels it necessary to describe the exact sexual positions they use. Really? C'mon, this ain't Fifty Shades of Grey. Cowgirl or reverse cowgirl, I really don't need to know that information.

Child also gets hung up on certain phrases. In this novel, it's "Reacher killed the call". Child uses "killed the call" four or five times. He does this every novel - picking out a phrase that sounds good once, and using four or five times too many. That's a small quibble and I mention it mainly to let you know that I am a careful reader. Yay public schooling! Yay me!"

Reacher navigates the fringes of the skinhead element in Hamburg. He beats up four of them for really no good reason. It's as if Child wrote the book and then thought, "Hey! I've spent so much time describing Reacher's sex positions, as well as the astonishing fetish goings-on at a German sex club that I forgot to have Reacher beat up some dudes!" So Reacher beats up some dudes. But nothing happens that contributes to the plot.

As the story unfolds, it's like the Keystone Cops. Reacher is always - and unknowingly - one stsep behind the bad guy. They even almost cross paths a couple times but neither guy knows who the other is, so nothing happens.

Reacher finally figures it out. Want to know what it is? SPOILER: Read below!

There are 10 man-portable nukes that got lost in Germany, and the bad guy found them and made a deal to sell them to some bad Middle Eastern people for $100,000,000.

Reacher tracks down the bad guy but guess what? The skinheads found him first! They mortally wounded him, and took off with the nukes. Reacher tells the dying bad guy, "I won't help you. you're going to die. Tell me what happened". Reacher then goes in search of the leader of the skinheads, who is actually a respected German businessman.

Reacher storms their warehouse, confronts a few bad guys and kills them, leaving him alone in a room with the skinhead leader, and a nuke. Reacher then goes into a monlogue about, "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" Since there's no such thing as a time machine, Reacher feels that is a ridiculous thing to think about.

But, he says to the skinhead leader, what if in the present you met a guy that you were pretty certain was going to turn out to be the next Hitler? Would you kill him? Guess what, says Reacher - I have just met the next Hitler and it's you. And yep - I can kill him! Which he does.

Reacher goes back to Washington, D.C., gets another medal, and then boinks the head of the NSC one last time. The end.

This is not really a great Jack Reacher novel. Way too little action. It IS a very good novel if you want to see how investigators work. There's a whole bunch of detail on how every little thing is investigated. A couple things are real stretches, but if you're into investigative minutae, you'll probably like this book.

I give "Night School" (a title which really makes no sense in relation to the actual book) Five and One-Half Broken Fingers out of a possible Ten Broken Finges (yes, I count thumbs as fingers!).

Awesome!



I'm only halfway thru mine. Eh, but I'm getting there.

morningsong said:

Awesome!



I'm only halfway thru mine. Eh, but I'm getting there.

i'm about 60% through 'i contain multitudes,' but the rest of the week is going to be pretty busy for me and i may not make much progress on it. i'll definitely finish it on the weekend, though. it's actually completely approachable and easily digestible. i'll save my thoughts for later, of course, but it's not a dense read at all.

morningsong said:

XxAxX said:

allrighty. i finished Stephen King's Bazaar of Bad Dreams, also finished Jeffrey Deaver's XO, (still working on Laurie King's The Language of Bees).

accepting the challenge, i'll begin reading Douglas Preston/Lincold Child's Crimson Shore today.

Crimson Shore features the dapper, all round renaissance man Agent Aloysius Pendergast, who solves supernatural mysteries. you might remember him from Preston/Child's book/movie Relic which is the first book in the series about Pendergast.

here goes.....

[Edited 12/3/16 10:15am]

Looking forward to your review.

haven't started it yet. been watching Bad Behavior online. will get to it soon though!