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Thom Price
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L’Homme Diabolique

Joined: 29 April 2004
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Posted: 19 September 2012 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

"Forever Amber: From Novel to Film" by Gary A. Smith.  This showed up in my Amazon suggestions for some reason, and I found it curious -- even odd -- that someone wrote a book about a novel and its film adaptation that is neither critically well regarded nor particularly remembered.

The book is interesting, perhaps better than the source material warrants; it's like a scholarly tome on a Harrold Robbins novel.
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 19 September 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

41) "Call for the Dead" by John le Carre, read by Frank Muller

The very first of the George Smiley stories (and le Carre's first novel), it's a great introduction to the character, who becomes so disgusted with the secret service that he retires in the midst of the case, a small affair that keeps getting bigger as Smiley digs deeper. 

Having been familiar with the character due to the TV production of "Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy" with Alec Guiness (tho I never saw it), I was surprised that Smiley is described as being short, fat, slow, and "dressed like a bookie." Definitely not Gary Oldman, either.
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Ed Aycock
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Posted: 20 September 2012 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Just finished "Chilly Scenes of Winter" by Ann Beattie.  (Also made into a film with an unusual history - released in 1979 as "Head Over Heels" and flopped.  Re-released in 1982 with the original title and different ending and it broke even.)

Now I am reading "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" by Jeannette Winterson. 

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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 23 September 2012 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

42) "1984" by George Orwell

A thoroughly depressing novel, but one that I think expresses the despair felt by Orwell at least and perhaps the world as a whole following WWII: the world has been taken over by continent-spanning governments, intent on keeping people under their boots so as to hold on to power.

I read most of this in high school, but gave up when Orwell got to the part where Winston Smith reads a book for 30 pages to give us the opposition's point of view and to fill us readers in on what the politics of this world is all about. This time I plunged on ahead, even tho this is (IMO) a very clumsy narrative device. Also disappointed to find that Newspeak (ie Doubleplusgood!) isn't used throughout, but rather is just referred to as the up and coming language.
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 23 September 2012 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I read a few days ago that it's been 75 years since THE HOBBIT was released, so I'll be digging out my copy to re-read it. I love it, it's a book that is so easy to lose yourself in, a fantastic fantasy world and an escape from real life.
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Matthew Chartrand
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Posted: 23 September 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

 

  City At Worlds End. First time reading this one. I enjoyed very much. Definitely a book of the 50's, I could almost see actors of that time in my head as I read it.

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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 24 September 2012 at 8:08am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

43) "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, read by Gary Sinise

This brilliant tragic novel of two men trying to get by during the Depression and fulfill their dream of getting a quiet farm all their own reads like a play: the scenes are set up with stage directions and refer to action/sound happening "off set". Steinbeck's set up of the entire story is masterful, hints of later action given throughout.

Sinise's narration is a treat as well: he plays the characters so distinctively that I forgot several times that he was the only one reading.
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Derek Cavin
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Joined: 03 June 2005
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Posted: 25 September 2012 at 3:57am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I'm dumbing down this week: Mack Bolan War Drums
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Randy Lahey
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Joined: 24 January 2006
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Posted: 26 September 2012 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I'm just finishing The Killing Floor, the first Jack Reacher book.  Do the Jack Reacher books need to be read in order? 

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Valmor J. Pedretti
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Joined: 14 October 2011
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Posted: 26 September 2012 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Derek Cavin: Bill Bruford The Autobiography

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Reading this one right now and loving every page!
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 27 September 2012 at 4:55am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

"Slide Rule", the autobiography of Neville Shute.
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Armindo Macieira
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Joined: 15 October 2006
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Posted: 27 September 2012 at 5:44am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Confessions of an Economic Hitman -  John Perkins
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