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Post by Jonesy1 on Jan 3, 2021 12:30:45 GMT
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Post by CrepedCrusader on Jan 6, 2021 4:30:06 GMT
Taking a break from Mussolini's War to read Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule. I've been waiting for it to come out, but I'm terrible at keeping track of release dates, and just realized it's already out.
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Post by Archelaus on Jan 6, 2021 7:14:09 GMT
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Post by Ass_E9 on Jan 6, 2021 16:58:08 GMT
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Post by mikef6 on Jan 6, 2021 17:16:02 GMT
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (2005).
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 10, 2021 16:17:44 GMT
Just finished rereading The Reader is Warned (1939), by a longtime favorite writer, John Dickson Carr (writing under that most thinly-veiled of all pseudonyms, “Carter Dickson”). For the most part I still think it’s one of the best Carrs he wrote under the “Dickson” name, and possibly one of his best in general. What I love most about Carr is how different he is from almost every other detective-story writer: Basically, he’s an adventure-story writer who just so happens to fill his books with clues and red herrings. We get precious little detective-work in Carr’s books, one reason that Barzun & Taylor disliked his books so much, but we usually get a lot of story (which I prefer)—a fast pace, incidents happening on every page. Take Reader’s plot, for instance: Protagonist John Sanders is invited to a country-house party where a murder takes place. Standard mystery setup, right? Except that one of the guests is a psychic who claims to be able to kill people using thought-waves, a method he calls “Teleforce.” And then he apparently kills one of the guests, while having a cast-iron alibi, using “Teleforce”—and the whole country is thrown into a panic, with everyone terrified of death-by-Teleforce lurking around every corner. Meanwhile, series sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale, a friend of Sanders, is doing some “sittin’ and thinkin’” about the case on his own… Great stuff, in other words—but, at first glance, more the stuff of Sax Rohmer or Dennis Wheatley than of Agatha Christie. What distinguishes Carr is that he finds logical explanations for his seemingly impossible situations and that he jam-packs his books with clues to the truth. He, along with only Christianna Brand, had the greatest knack ever for telling the reader the truth on almost every page, yet misdirecting the reader’s attention to something else. Just brilliant. And he could write; he wasn’t the best writer ever, certainly, but he writes well nonetheless, and he was a master of ghost-story-level atmospherics. That said, Carr could have played up the Teleforce panic even more strongly; we get faux-newspaper clippings and breathless radio reports about the Terror of Teleforce, but for the most part we focus on Sanders, Merrivale, the psychic, and a few other people. While the solution to the mystery is one of Carr’s best—I remembered several details and was blown away by his amount of foreshadowing and shuffling character relationships—the murderer’s lengthy monologue at the end comes off as far too James-Bond-villain-y. Carr should have had most of that explanation come from Merrivale’s mouth instead. Still, great fun. Why the movies haven’t discovered the extremely cinematic Carr is beyond me.
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Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Jan 12, 2021 0:38:26 GMT
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mmexis
Sophomore
@mmexis
Posts: 861
Likes: 732
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Post by mmexis on Jan 13, 2021 5:09:10 GMT
The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. Something light and frippy.
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Post by Zos on Jan 13, 2021 12:22:25 GMT
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Post by ghostintheshell on Jan 14, 2021 5:54:19 GMT
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Post by hi224 on Jan 14, 2021 7:47:51 GMT
Pasolini.
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Post by hi224 on Jan 14, 2021 7:48:31 GMT
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Jan 15, 2021 7:47:53 GMT
The novelization of Mars Attacks!.
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Post by vegalyra on Jan 16, 2021 1:17:36 GMT
Decided to attempt this monster again, it's probably my third try. Seems like a good book to read during a pandemic.
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Post by darknessfish on Jan 16, 2021 20:12:43 GMT
A Christmas present from the wife, which I suspect was a lockdown supermarket desperation purchase. Set in Manchester, though it feels far too seedy and crime-ridden to be recognisable as such to me, even if the author clearly does know the locations well. It's a bit silly, and more grimy than hard-bitten, I'd say, but entertaining enough, if not a touch too unpleasant.
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Post by dirtypillows on Jan 19, 2021 14:34:48 GMT
"Portnoy's Complaint"
Which I am unfathomably loving.
Phillip Roth, why has it taken me this long to find you?
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 19, 2021 18:45:13 GMT
A Stranger in My Grave (1960), by Margaret Millar. Millar (who was married to private-eye writer Ross Macdonald) was a superb writer, perhaps the best suspense novelist ever. This book has a hook befitting of her talents: Housewife Daisy Harker has a recurring nightmare that she is walking with her dog along a cliffside and comes upon a tombstone with her name on it. She grows obsessed with the dream, to the extent of hiring a private detective to investigate the death date on the seemingly imaginary tombstone. The investigation starts to tear her apparently placid life apart… So, yeah, really a great hook, and Millar writes so well. Unfortunately, though, I kinda think the hook's the best part. Once the P.I. starts his investigation, we get much less focus on the dream or even on Daisy, with much of the book feeling like a realistic-fiction look into certain characters' lives. Again, Millar is such a good writer that those parts are also interesting, but the tonal whiplash is a bit much. I'm not that far from the end, we've had a big twist and I'm expecting some more, but either way I wish the book had lived up to its premise.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 20, 2021 3:27:48 GMT
A Stranger in My Grave (1960), by Margaret Millar. Well, I’ve finished it, and I don’t know what to say. The ending is brilliant. It… Well, it reminded me not to be so cocky about predicting twists: I feel that my track record on seeing where a story is going is pretty good, yet Millar led me way up the garden path on this one. I never even came within a country mile of guessing this ending, and yet—and yet—when I read it I realized that, dramatically and emotionally, it’s the only possible ending. That is the sign of good plotting. Millar’s handling of the ending, too, is masterly: she reveals the key secret on which her story turns in the book’s last five words. And she does it all with haunting writing, poignant characterizations, and thoughtful musings on such complex issues as race relations and illegitimacy. That said, I still agree with what I wrote before: the middle of the book is taken up with too much emphasis on side-characters’ stories. To be sure, a lot of that comes back in the ending, as we realize how all these people fit in with the main plot, but still we get a little too in-depth. The ending, though, heals all wounds, or at least most of them. One of the best, most surprising, most emotionally full twists I’ve ever read.
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Post by dirtypillows on Jan 20, 2021 6:23:49 GMT
A Stranger in My Grave (1960), by Margaret Millar. Millar (who was married to private-eye writer Ross Macdonald) was a superb writer, perhaps the best suspense novelist ever. This book has a hook befitting of her talents: Housewife Daisy Harker has a recurring nightmare that she is walking with her dog along a cliffside and comes upon a tombstone with her name on it. She grows obsessed with the dream, to the extent of hiring a private detective to investigate the death date on the seemingly imaginary tombstone. The investigation starts to tear her apparently placid life apart… So, yeah, really a great hook, and Millar writes so well. Unfortunately, though, I kinda think the hook's the best part. Once the P.I. starts his investigation, we get much less focus on the dream or even on Daisy, with much of the book feeling like a realistic-fiction look into certain characters' lives. Again, Millar is such a good writer that those parts are also interesting, but the tonal whiplash is a bit much. I'm not that far from the end, we've had a big twist and I'm expecting some more, but either way I wish the book had lived up to its premise. I like the cover art. Is there anything pulpy about this mystery novel? Anything subversive? I like pulp.
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Post by dirtypillows on Jan 20, 2021 6:29:24 GMT
Wow. I just started it last week! I'm really enjoying it. I find the protagonist, Alex Portnoy, relatable, funny and mostly sympathetic. Roth's observations about other people, especially his parents, are astute and funny. I am a little over half way through it. So, did you like it?
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