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Marc Cheek
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 June 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 1785
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| Posted: 09 November 2014 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | 1
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Dinosaurs The Grand Tour by Keiron Pim I loved dinosaurs when I
was a little kid, and I still find them fascinating. This book covers
many recent finds and paints a picture quite different than what
anyone ever thought as I was growing up.
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7985
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| Posted: 09 November 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | 2
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 09 November 2014 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | 3
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Over the past month finished a couple of sci/fi books by Nancy Kress: "Yesterday's Kin" and "After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall"
She's won many of the top sci/fi awards (amongst them, for that last one) and she teaches writing, but both of these books, tho they have interesting science concepts, read like notes or sketches for longer books: the characters aren't fully developed, the concepts aren't well stated, and it feels like scenes have been left out that might have better developed the characters/ideas/etc.
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Robert Cosgrove
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1710
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| Posted: 09 November 2014 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | 4
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Just finished After Carl Barks: Painting Fine-Art Cartoons in Oils, by John Garvin. At $45, this 270 pp. paperback is not inexpensive, but I thought it worth the price. It's packed with photos (many in color), drawings, and diagrams. The title is apt; it's the chronicle of the attempts of one artist, Garvin himself, to learn to paint like Barks. In this, he was immeasurably assisted by Barks himself, who welcomed him into his studio, critiqued his efforts, and gave him painting tips. Garvin proved a dedicated pupil, and an assiduous researcher: along the way, we learn how Barks organized his studio, what books he relied on to teach himself to paint, what colors he used, how his studio and self-designed and built easel were arranged, the "Barks" formula for an oil painting medium--virtually every aspect of his painting procedure from preparing masonite to creating the composition and finishing the details. It's not a book for reproductions of Barks's paintings, but it's hard to imagine a book that would do a better job in teaching a willing student the Barks method.
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Robert Cosgrove
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1710
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| Posted: 09 November 2014 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | 5
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Currently reading The Lost Art of Ray Willner: The Adventures of Robin Hood. During the early 50s, when America was Robin Hood crazy, Willner created 7 Robin Hood comic books as promotional give-aways for the Buster Brown Shoe Company, which apparently had a pre-existing line of Robin Hood shoes for children. I'd describe Willner's style as something of a cross between that of Lou Fine and Reed Crandall, the latter of whom collaborated with Willner on this project. This work is just beautiful, and my only regret is that it had to be reproduced, and cleaned up from, the comics, rather than the original art.
On the conventional prose side, I'm reading The Undocumented Mark Steyn, and continuing my chronological march through the Gabriel Allon spy books; I'm now up to about the 5th in the series, Prince of Fire. I see by today's newspaper's books reviews that Michael Connelly has a new Harry Bosch novel out, so I'll snag that from my local library at the first opportunity.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133442
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| Posted: 10 November 2014 at 6:14am | IP Logged | 6
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M*A*S*HThe original novel by Richard Hooker. Third or fourth time, I think.
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Brad Brickley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8289
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| Posted: 10 November 2014 at 8:04am | IP Logged | 7
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M*A*S*HThe original novel by Richard Hooker. Third or fourth time, I think. **** Great book, but it's a bit different if your only exposure was the t.v. series like it was for me when I first read it. ++++++
I'm going through the George R.R. Martin series A Song of Fire and Ice on audio book. I actually haven't seen the HBO series, though I have seen a few spoilers from the media over the years, but it hasn't taken away from my enjoyment of the books. It's a fun, detailed and far reaching epic that is inspired by the English War of the Roses. I'm thoroughly entrenched in and can't wait to get back to to find out what happens next. I recommend these to anyone who enjoys a good tale.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17700
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| Posted: 10 November 2014 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 8
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NAKED by David Sedaris
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Robert Lloyd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 238
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| Posted: 13 November 2014 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | 9
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I am finishing Volume One of Marvel Essentials : The Spectacular Spider-Man and like the short, done in one Spidey tales. The soap opera quality of the stories added much to the Spider-Man mythology. I liked the Essentials format because it was so inexpensive to read thirty or so issues of a title without breaking your bank account.
It's too bad Marvel stopped this line of reprints. The format wasn't so bad. I didn't mind the lack of color because I they had so many issues in each volume. I intend to look on Amazon.com to see if I can purchase the rest of the series at bargain prices.
For me the the Marvel of the 70's and 80's was best time to read comics. The 70's with the Treasury Editions and Kirby's last run on Captain America and the Eternals, 2001: A Space Odyssey evolving into Machine Man. _________________________________________________________
More on the Marvel Essentials Spectacular Spider Man Volume One: It was like taking a trip in a time machine reading these classics again. We get to see some disco era super villains, faces old and new and a bit of groovy fashions from the year 1977. The year of Star Wars and SaturdayNight Fever. At the time there was a thirteen episode Spider-Man TV show starring Nicholas Hammond on CBS. Some of the comics mentioned that Spidey was the star of his own TV show on the cover. I did like the show because it was so corny and it had cheesiness that only 70’s TV shows can duplicate. According to Stan Lee, the show got decent ratings but he didn’t like Nick Hammond in the lead role and CBS didn’t want to be known as the “Super-Hero Network”. During this time, there was a Wonder Woman TV show with Linda Carter and The Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. Marvel went out of the way to promote Spidey and Hulk. Wonder Woman wasn’t as well written and was more of a comedy than an action show. But I digress, the collection had some decent writing and added more character to Spidey. We got to see more of Peter’s interactions with his friends and co-workers. More so than the original Spider-Man title. The “Marvel Team-Up” books of this era our didn’t focus so much on his relationships like Spectacular had.
Edited by Robert Lloyd on 14 November 2014 at 10:22pm
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James Best
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 890
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| Posted: 14 November 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged | 10
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Finished off THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST earlier this week. Over eight hundred pages in paperback. I think I have met my David Halberstam quota for the year :-)
After that it was FAT TUESDAY by Earl Emerson, the fifth book in his Thomas Black mystery series. It was okay, but I don't foresee myself reading book #6 any time soon.
Currently working my way through THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD, by Robert Wilson, the final book in his Javier Falcon mystery quartet.
After that I will probably dive back into reading some more stuff by George Pelecanos.
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Mark Tillson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 February 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 333
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| Posted: 14 November 2014 at 7:42am | IP Logged | 11
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Reading: Necroscope by Brian Lumley - I read this when it came out in the late 80's and found the book in a box, in storage. A great story of vampires, psychics, and the Cold War.
Listening to: It by Stephen King, read by Steven Weber. I read this when it first came out and thought it was an excellent story, and Steven Weber does an excellent job added more depth to the story by giving each character their own "voice", and increasing the tension level.
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John Leach
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1860
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| Posted: 14 November 2014 at 7:57am | IP Logged | 12
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Just finished LOCK IN by John Scalzi. Like the other Scalzi books I've read, this one is very engaging, with nicely developed characters and a quick moving plot. Next up is Amy Poehler's YES PLEASE.
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