The B&B Book Review - The Bear and Badger

Dark Soldier

God dammit, I don't have that in my copy. I can live without as the story itself is mega, and is clearly packed full of references with the blog sections.

hylian_elf

hylian_elf wrote:

... A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Will start it today on commute home...

Jeez, almost 3 months for me to finish the book. I don't do this reading-on-commute malarkey very well. Or the gaming-on-commute malarkey (still playing Persona 4 here and there for God knows how long).

Overall... thumbs up. Won't threaten my favourites list; some parts felt random, some parts dull, some parts amazing, and a great final quarter or so. But man, some of it is disgusting and off-putting and almost made me stop reading.

Anyway, next up, Blood Meridian by McCarthy. But not before I do more gaming for a change on my train journeys. I really should finish P4G before 5 hits PS4!!!

acemuzzy

100Y is like the best book ever. I dread to think what's in your favourites list.

Blood Meridian didn't click for me. Felt decent though, just too damn flat. Maybe I'll give it another whirl I'm done with Deathless now (no update since my stance on the previous page really), and onto I Am Pilgrim I think...

hylian_elf

I don't read much, most of what I have read is classics. Dickens, Hardy, Brontes, Austen. That kind of shit.

1984, Wuthering Heights and lately The Road stand out as my faves but that's about it. I'm sure I can think of more, like To Kill A Mockingbird that Bollo mentioned earlier, but like I say, I haven't read too many books. 100Y was good, not knocking it. I would still recommend to anyone who doesn't mind some incest in their books.

dynamiteReady

100 Years Of Solitude is a good book... Can't remember any names, but the general, his gold fish, and 7 sons stick in the mind... As does the disease of amnesia that settles over the town...

And then the hooker who basically breaks in the boys of the family... The son who ran off to join the circus... The girl who ascended to heaven...

The imagery is beautiful, and the twist is good.

hylian_elf

dynamiteReady wrote:

.. Can't remember any names...

I found this hilarious.

Also, a lot of the book is hilarious. Weird fantastical nonsense.

dynamiteReady

Cmon'... I read it about ten years ago...

They had silly names, now that I remember it... Bueonos Diaz, I think I remember... And an Aurelio too, possibly. They all had funky ass names.

The events though, stick out markedly. Few books do that. Even the best of classics rarely achieve that...

hylian_elf

I just found it funny cos there were only a handful of names for thr main family characters, hehe

Just thinking of other books I liked: The Trial by Kafka (need to read his other books, I have them all!) and Lord of the Flies.

Edit: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Stopharage

acemuzzy wrote:

100Y is like the best book ever. I dread to think what's in your favourites list. Blood Meridian didn't click for me. Felt decent though, just too damn flat. Maybe I'll give it another whirl I'm done with Deathless now (no update since my stance on the previous page really), and onto I Am Pilgrim I think...

I suffered that I am Pilgrim nonsense. I'd avoid like the plague if I had my time again. A 150 page book overloaded with another 800 of guff and casual racism.

acemuzzy

Oh

. Hmm. Quote enjoyed the first five pages but that's hardly the review I was helping for! Will have to see then...

acemuzzy

hylian_elf wrote:

dynamiteReady wrote:

.. Can't remember any names...

I found this hilarious.

I remember having to repeatedly turn back to the family tree to work out if Aurelia was Aurelia's sister or sister in law or was that Aurelio and who was Aureliano again (not to be confused with Juan Aurelio) or some bollocks. Part of its charm :-)

.

Bollockoff

Book club Christmas meal tomorrow evening. We're doing a secret Santa where we all put one wrapped book we've obtained into a sack for distribution.

I could be nice and donate In Cold Blood or Gentlemen of the Road.

Or be a nob with The Crying of Lot 49 or Flashman.

acemuzzy

Rather than wrapping it, apply a small post-it with Spoiler tag written in black biro

Dinostar77

Sekret Machines Book1: Chasing Shadows. Author Tom Delonge and AJ Hartley

Honestly this is a really good scifi adventure with multiple protagonists taking place over to separate periods in time. Riveting read throughout and a page turner.

The book apparently has some facts* buried with the fiction but you can ignore that aspect and just enjoy it. Yep the co-author is blink 182's Tom delonge.

*there is alot of controversy which the main stream press have ignored in regards to wiki leaks of John podesta's emails. In a nutshell Tom delonge through a chance meeting ended up talking to a very well connected person in the military industrial complex. He explained his idea for the sekret machines project and eventually got assigned three advisors who would act as sounding boards for his ideas for the books. Their identities were suppose to be secret and only known to Tom and a few others.

The leaked emails between podesta and his communication with Tom and his advisors revealed their names. Basically a 5 star general from U.S. Space Command, a very senior person from Skunk Works and a very senior person who ran research and development at Wright Patterson airforce base.

The question is why are such senior people involved with Tom Delonge and his book(s)? Regardless of the sideshow the book itself is a fun read.

Lord_Griff

Anyone read 1000 and 1 nights, also which translation?

tigersgogrrr

Alyssa Wong continues to be fucking awesome and the hottest thang in short sff.

http://www.tor.com/2016/03/02/a-fist-of-permutations-in-lightning-and-wildflowers-alyssa-wong/

tigersgogrrr

That story will win awards.

Bollockoff

Still plodding with Great Expectations. Mr Jaggers is a fun creation. As was Wemmick's "castle". Almost felt genre hopping with Dicken's description of that.

acemuzzy

Stopharage wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

100Y is like the best book ever. I dread to think what's in your favourites list. Blood Meridian didn't click for me. Felt decent though, just too damn flat. Maybe I'll give it another whirl I'm done with Deathless now (no update since my stance on the previous page really), and onto I Am Pilgrim I think...

I suffered that I am Pilgrim nonsense. I'd avoid like the plague if I had my time again. A 150 page book overloaded with another 800 of guff and casual racism.

I've now read it too. Yeah it wasn't too special, and I kinda guessed at a lot of the stuff - basically the level you expect from that kind of book.

The racism thing was pretty grim at times - I couldn't quite work out if it was meant to be when things were through the eyes of the very American protag/narrator, but I'm not convinced that defends it. At least he was rude about Italians and Turks too, eh?

Ho hum. On to my first Abercrombie now - Half a King. Good enough so far I spose!

tigersgogrrr

It's good. Half the World is fucking superb though.

regmcfly

Reading the girl with all the gifts. So far so typical zombie book. The movie is supposed to be something special tho

Gremill

tigerswiftly wrote:

It's good. Half the World is fucking superb though.

I read that again a few weeks ago - it's incredible, one of his best.

Stopharage

I enjoyed the film a great deal more than the book. Had the same gritty realism of 28 days later with the desolate tone of the familiar.

tigersgogrrr

Gremill wrote:

tigerswiftly wrote:

It's good. Half the World is fucking superb though.

I read that again a few weeks ago - it's incredible, one of his best.

I think it's my favourite Abercrombie.

TheDJR

I haven't read his none-First Law stuff.

tigersgogrrr

Shattered Sea books are faster paced (because YA) which works well with his prose. He's also better at writing nowadays.

Gremill

tigerswiftly wrote:

Shattered Sea books are faster paced (because YA) which works well with his prose. He's also better at writing nowadays.

But don't let the YA tag fool you, they're as good as his best. Half the World is just a superb but simple story told really fucking well and with some of the greatest characterisation he's ever done.

acemuzzy

YA?

Paul the sparky

Young Adult.

Jimmy The Lips

May have missed it if anyone has mentioned it previously but recently picked up 3 books from readonlymemory.vg

Grabbed the bitmap brothers book, sensible software one and britsoft one. Awesome production and have completely taken me back to the 80's/90's. Properly good and well worth a look if you have any fond memories.

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