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What are you reading now?

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  • [quote=forget-me-not]thinking I may start 'Hound of the Baskervilles' as that Sherlock Holmes movie really put me in the mood for Conan Doyle.[/quote]

    I first read that in year 4 (then again in year 6), it was one of my favourite books for a while. I really must read it again. Haven't read 'The Sign of Four' in ages either. Have you read 'Speckled Band'? I'd probably enjoy that more now, had to study it in English for GCSE, put me off it. Which is a shame as I like Sherlock Holmes books.

    [quote=Stan2] Conan Doyle wrote many other books beside the SH novels.[/quote]

    He wrote 'The Lost World' didn't he, Stan? Another book I haven't read in a while.
  • Yes he did and it's good. It was made into a film.
  • Yes, I've read Speckled Band - in fact, I've read all the SH stories.
  • Last night in bed I regressed to childhood and read 'Alice in Wonderland' - still more to read yet.
  • I'm reading Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave - very clever title and a difficult to put down book.
  • I finished Alice.
  • Just finished reading my (contributor's :) ) copy of Best Gay Romance 2010. It's pretty good, and I prefer it to last year's (although my story in last year's was probably better [drat - why can't I think of a better word than that?] than the one in the latest anthology).
  • Superior? Finer? More worthy?
  • Yep, they'll do. 'Chiaroscuro' is fairly serious whereas 'The Food of Love' is fun. FoL is also one of the shorter stories in this year's anthology (that works out at more dollars per word, though :) ).
  • i've been listening to Brendan Fraser read Inkspell all day while doodling pics of scenes from my book... :D Brendan Fraser does the funniest accents!! :D
  • "Is There a Book in You?" by Alison Baverstock. Quite good; plenty for thought. Alison B (says the cover) is a former publisher, author of 13 titles, a publishing industry consultant, teacher of marketing and publishing studies at Kingston Uni and adviser to new writers. She recently appeared as an expert contributor on the Richard and judy "How to get a novel published" series of programmes, which I haven't heard of.

    The book addresses factors like making the most of your writing time, believing in yourself as a writer, responding well to rejection, etc. It doesn't tell you how to write, saying there are hundreds of books dealing with that.
  • I was given Twilight to read. I read the first chapter and it felt like being beaten over the head with a spoon. The writing was quite drab - incessant skipping of tenses, it was littered with too many adverbs and cliches. Some of the the verb tenses made my eyes water. And far too much telling and no showing. I finished the first chapter and that's as far as it needs to go.

    It's brilliant if you want a want a good night's sleep because the writing is that sloooow...
  • edited January 2010
    I read Twilight last year with my writing group. Some chapters are really fast-paced and others turgid - yes I agree too much telling not showing. I've spoken to a couple of early teens who love it ... read the book, seen the film, have posters all over their walls etc and from their point of view I can see how it's caught on.
    Am currently ploughing my way through The Shack by Wm Paul Young ....... dull beyond dullness. I've got to get it finished by next Wednesday for book club, have about 60 pages to go and can't bring myself to pick it up. Probably end up finishing it Tuesday night!
  • [quote=Red] I read the first chapter and it felt like being beaten over the head with a spoon. The writing was quite drab - incessant skipping of tenses, it was littered with too many adverbs and cliches. Some of the the verb tenses made my eyes water. And far too much telling and no showing. I finished the first chapter and that's as far as it needs to go.[/quote]

    Interesting - I went back and had a re-read as a result. I see what you mean, especially about the tenses!

    I wonder if it's worth reading any random chapter of the subsequent books to see if you feel the same? Certainly most of what you say disappears (in my humble opinion). A great deal is revealed through endless pages of dialogue, and that certainly doesn't come up in the first chapter.

    I only read them as I though I 'should'; they are too close to my own area to ignore. In the end, I respected them for what they are.

    I've given up on my local book club because the books were too dull - a waste of valuable reading time!
  • [quote=Mabh]I wonder if it's worth reading any random chapter of the subsequent books to see if you feel the same? Certainly most of what you say disappears (in my humble opinion). [/quote]

    No thanks, one chapter was enough. From a pedant's point of view, it was pretty awful, and I do tend to rip open the bare bones of any book I read. It’s easy to spot the blindingly obvious when you know what you’re looking for, and if the first chapter was this bad, then the rest of the book won’t be any better.
  • Now see, Red, when I do eventually get around to reading it, I'll be picking up on these things...if I remember that is.

    But when I get around to reading anything is another matter...
  • Let's hope so, PIx. Spotting writing errors like that makes for a better writer.

    I flicked through the book and found plenty of my pet peeve - hanging participles. Annoying!
  • Hmmm, but then it spoils the story for me then. I think that's why I've never finished my last book, it's sitting in my new bookshelf with the bookmark in it still.
  • I'm now on Joyce Carol Oates 'We were the Mulvaneys'
  • The Book of Jacks by Charles Nevin

    For a non-avid reader like me this is perfect bedtime reading. No plot to follow but a few paragraphs or pages on all things Jack - real life ones like Nicholson, Kennedy and the Ripper, to characters like Carter (Get Carter) and Regan (The Sweeney), and non-living Jacks - one-eyed Jacks, Jack-o-Lantern, Union Jack etc.

    Interesting and quite funny.
  • I'm reading short stories of H G Wells. He makes the most bizzare situation seem plausible.
  • I finished 'Hound of the Baskervilles' Stan, and I love it so much! As soon as I finished I hated that I didn't have any more Sherlock Holmes in the house to start straight away. Got to wait for Uni to end, but I'll definately read The Sign of Four next because of your recommendation!
  • [quote=Stan2]I'm reading short stories of H G Wells. He makes the most bizzare situation seem plausible.[/quote]

    Absolutely LOVE H G Wells stories.

    [quote=forget-me-not]I finished 'Hound of the Baskervilles' Stan, and I love it so much![/quote]

    It's fab isn't it? First read it when I was about 10 I think.

    ---

    I'm currently reading 'The Snowman' by Jo Nesbo http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/jo+nesbo/don+bartlett/the+snowman/6923445/
    Seems intriguing thus far.
    It's quite exciting having a review copy of a book, now I just need to finish it and write my review by the end of February. I feel oddly important lol
  • i finished reading Tuck Everlasting very quickly because i am meant to be reading Speak Memory by Vladamir Narbokov...

    Tuck is cute... i already knew the story from watching the movie but it was really cute and the writing is so poetic
  • Hehe Red I didn't manage to get further than the third page of Twilight! Currently reading Queen VIctoria Demon Hunter, it's not the best written book I've ever read, but it is a tad amusing.
  • Reading sections of the Teach Yourself book: Eastern Philosophy by Mel Thompson. Confucianism and Taoism, needed for the plot line in my second novel of the Alice Trilogy. Dry but interesting.
  • [quote=Jediya]Absolutely LOVE H G Wells stories.[/quote]

    When I was at uni we were looking at gothic fiction, art and architecture etc. And what I thought was kind of funny is that at the same time Bram Stoker was writing 'Dracula', H G Wells was writing 'War of the Worlds'.

    They were published a year after each other and how different can you get? Today we don't bat an eyelid about such different genres being published together.

    One is based on myths and legends, the other on new worlds and technologies.
  • edited January 2010
    I am still reading the HG Wells - read last night 'The Magic Shop'. I've almost finished his short stories.
  • I'm on The Watchmen - Ian Rankin in the car and We Were the Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates as a book.
  • edited January 2010
    What am I reading?

    Free information, writing tips.
  • I'm still reading the 'Brightest Star in the Sky' by Marian Keyes.

    I have just finished Book 2 of Laurell K Hamilton's 'Anita Blake Vampire Hunter The Laughing Corpse' graphic novel [didn't take me long with it being a comic book]

    And the book I am reading in my breaks at work is 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins
  • A minor classic, Chippy: The Woman in White. I enjoyed it and went on the read... was it The Moonstone? another WC novel.
  • I am reading (a re-read) one of the Jeeves and Wooster books.
  • Just read Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl, and it is brilliant. Not intense literature, but for a fast-paced plot that doesn't involve sex drugs and rock and roll, she's fantastic. She's very similar to Marian Keyes, though not Irish, and I'm about to read Brightest Star in the Sky. As well as a load of writing books.
  • Rereading Clive Barker's Books of Blood Vols 1 - 3. Bizarre and beautiful, my greatest inspiration before he wrote Weaveworld and Imajica.

    At the same time I'm reading, and have nearly finished Frankie Boyle's My Sh*t Life So Far. It will offend most people so I'm not going to recommend it but I'm loving it - it's not often I laugh so hard out loud. Brilliant delivery. And although he's a celeb, he's a 'proper writer'.
  • I have finally finished my CHERUB: The General today, after starting it aaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago.

    I don't know what I'll read now though.
  • Secret Seven or Famous Fight? ;)
  • I've read all the Secret Seven Stan, the first ever series I read. One of the only set of books I read and LIKED. Never liked Famous Five.
  • edited January 2010
    I was a not great fan but my son loved S7 and F5. Listened to them on cassette tape as well.
  • Pixie read Artemis Fowl or the Inkheart series :)

    I ignored the rest of Nabokov...so boring... (had to finish it for today... oh well) and have been reading Donita K Paul's Dragonspell...its a Christian fantasy (allegory type) book... at the moment its really good... but then again i'm not reading as a writer but as a reader...
  • I've not read Artemis Fowl - I must do so.
  • edited February 2010
    [quote= Pixie J King]I've read all the Secret Seven Stan, the first ever series I read. One of the only set of books I read and LIKED. Never liked Famous Five. [/quote]
    [quote=Stan2]I was a not great fan [/quote]

    I always found with the Famous Five and Secret Seven that I read them because I felt that I should and that I should really enjoy them because of who the author was...but they weren't my favourites.

    I actually preferred Enid Blyton's one off stories or those where there were only 2 or 3 books to the series.

    I was more of a Roald Dahl fan!
  • I've read some of Roald Dahl since becoming an adult!
  • Secret Seven got me into reading when I was in Year 6. Since then, I've never been a fan of reading and had to fake reading reports, because I had yet to find a book I liked. I've also read Naughty Amelia Jane too by Enid Blyton.

    Speaking of Artemis Fowl, and looking at my bookshelf...I might just read the new one that I got a couple of christmases ago since I've lost the writing bug.
  • We hope you re-find the writing bug.
  • I am now reading 'Flirt' by Laurell K Hamilton [and still reading 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins in my breaks at work]
  • I've just re-read 'The Pilgrim's Progress' and I am also reading poems of Walter de la Mare. Some I understand and some I don't. Recently read three of the Wooster and Jeeves books.
  • oh yes i've just finished reading Dragonspell by Donita K Paul... really good book :)
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