Books - What are you reading?
Discussion
I've just finished "Guilty not guilty" by Felix Francis, a pretty good story and very much in the style of his father's books. I couldn't get away from the thought that the story is very, very similar to one of them, though. It's ages since I've read a Dick Francis, so I can't remember which one it was.
lowdrag said:
Harry is undercover, and I think this is the last time I'll follow Mr. Bosch. It is frankly quite boring and I am skipping paragraphs. More anon.
And there's already two more books featuring him.You can relax a bit though, Connelly has brought in a new character, and the action is shared between them. It's an improvement, frankly. I suspect the rationale is the Harry is pretty old now, so needs a more believable character for the action. He also needs PD access.
I sort of liked two kinds of truth; the courtroom plot was interesting - but it played second fiddle to the significantly less interesting drugs plot, and the book lost out as a result.
jimmyjimjim said:
lowdrag said:
Harry is undercover, and I think this is the last time I'll follow Mr. Bosch. It is frankly quite boring and I am skipping paragraphs. More anon.
And there's already two more books featuring him.You can relax a bit though, Connelly has brought in a new character, and the action is shared between them. It's an improvement, frankly. I suspect the rationale is the Harry is pretty old now, so needs a more believable character for the action. He also needs PD access.
I sort of liked two kinds of truth; the courtroom plot was interesting - but it played second fiddle to the significantly less interesting drugs plot, and the book lost out as a result.
The night fire
Very good so far
Prolex-UK said:
Stan the Bat said:
Prolex-UK said:
Stan the Bat said:
A third of the way through the new Jack Reacher( Blue Moon).
Up to the usual standard.
Next on my listUp to the usual standard.
lowdrag said:
Stan the Bat said:
Much better than the films anyway
There does seem to be a slight credibility gap in the physical stature of Reacher in the books and the films I believe.I took both on the film and books on their own merit and enjoyed both immensely.
I read Orphan X recently which I really enjoyed and found similar to Jack Reacher in mood and story type.
I mentioned this on the Reacher thread.
Lee Child claims that the two most frequent complaints he gets are...
1) Tom Cruise, WTF were you thinking of?
And
2) I'm up to page 10 and there's not been a fight yet!
One thing that surprised me from reading Reacher said Nothing by Andy Martin is how Child constructs his plots. I'd wrongly assumed it was all carefully crafted out with a general story arc tieing most if it together which was then filled out. Nope, writes the first sentence without a clue where it goes from there. Introduces characters without knowing who, how and where they're going to fit, even if they're going to survive. At times following the writing of the book it felt like a one man version of that game the script writers on 24 were reputedly playing, writing alternate episodes with a "Get him out of that then" challenge for the other crew.
One other thing, I'd always assumed that the work of an author involved 8 minimum daily hours of sweat and tears over a keyboard. Nope, Child goofs off, a lot. One day he wrote 700+ words in an hour long burst, that was it for the day, feet up, drinking coffee, naturally has to be coffee, smoking Camels, eating Snickers and watching Villa versus Spurs or whoever is on satellite.
Whether folks like his work or not he's one of a kind writer, but looked down upon by superior types. Particularly liked the story by Andy Martin who spotted a guy on the tube reading some heavyweight intellectual book. Next day he happens to sit beside him, intellectual cover, yet contents actually 61hours by Lee Child.
Lee Child claims that the two most frequent complaints he gets are...
1) Tom Cruise, WTF were you thinking of?
And
2) I'm up to page 10 and there's not been a fight yet!
One thing that surprised me from reading Reacher said Nothing by Andy Martin is how Child constructs his plots. I'd wrongly assumed it was all carefully crafted out with a general story arc tieing most if it together which was then filled out. Nope, writes the first sentence without a clue where it goes from there. Introduces characters without knowing who, how and where they're going to fit, even if they're going to survive. At times following the writing of the book it felt like a one man version of that game the script writers on 24 were reputedly playing, writing alternate episodes with a "Get him out of that then" challenge for the other crew.
One other thing, I'd always assumed that the work of an author involved 8 minimum daily hours of sweat and tears over a keyboard. Nope, Child goofs off, a lot. One day he wrote 700+ words in an hour long burst, that was it for the day, feet up, drinking coffee, naturally has to be coffee, smoking Camels, eating Snickers and watching Villa versus Spurs or whoever is on satellite.
Whether folks like his work or not he's one of a kind writer, but looked down upon by superior types. Particularly liked the story by Andy Martin who spotted a guy on the tube reading some heavyweight intellectual book. Next day he happens to sit beside him, intellectual cover, yet contents actually 61hours by Lee Child.
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