Amph What book are you reading right now?

Yeah, because no other movie gets marketing campaigns like RPO does.

 

I also find all of those marketing campaigns tedious and their products about as worthy of mockery so I'm not sure I see your point.

 

I don't see what's controversial about it; so I'm not sure I see yours. Any big budget movie is going to pour money into an advertising campaign.

 

I was agreeing with you, just from the opposite perspective on the book.

 

A Murder is Announced (1977) – Leslie Darbon

This is an attempt to adapt an Agatha Christie mystery novel for the stage; I read it in prep to possibly audition for a role with a local theater. After reading it, I think I’m going to skip the audition. The novel has a great hook in which someone places an announcement in the local paper inviting everyone to a local house in the village at 6:00 at which time a murder will take place. With a hook like that, it’s easy to see why someone wanted to adapt it. But the story is too complicated to be abridged as this play tries to do and even as someone familiar with the book I was having trouble remembering who everyone was and once the secret identities start coming out, all bets are off. 2 stars.

tl;dr – stage adaptation of Agatha Christie mystery has a great hook, but the abridgement results in the plot being nigh onto incomprehensible. 2 stars.

 

The Crystilleries of Echoland
by Dew Pellucid

 

I loved Senlin Ascends so much I went out and bought the sequel, Arm Of The Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft. Still in search of his stolen wife Senlin is now an airship...pirate? Refugee?

 

The Bruce Willis chapter is gold.

 

The Earthsea book I ordered from Amazon arrived today, so I'll be reading more tonight.

 

The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov

 

Just finished; Nemesis Games (The Expanse Book 5) by James S.A. Corey (Pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). Abraham and Franck keep things fresh by splitting up the crew of the Rocinante and making them the point of view characters. Things also take a decidedly dark turn as the galaxy is thrown into chaos. As usual enough humor is sprinkled in to keep things from getting too dark, but the answers sure don't come easy in what is the best in the series so far for me. - 8/10

About to begin; Sandstorm by James Rollin. In the mood for some pulpy action adventure. We'll see if this fits the bill.

 

Chances are you've probably seen the movie but may not have read the book it was based on. The movie was among my favorite all time. I never read the novel but saw it at a local book sale and bought it. I'd imagine it gets into more detail than the movie could.

 

Finished Ken Lieu’s Wall of Storms. What an utterly amazing middle and ending. Really struggled with the 1st 375pgs. Took me 73 days to get to that point but after that it went very quick. Total read time 80 days.

 

Wow. That is too long to read a book sounds like the beginning really slogged

 

It felt like it for one character..ugh. Of course I read other books daily to so that is the main reason it was so long. Some days I would read a sentence or paragraph or maybe 20 pgs before setting it down to read some in other books.

 

At least you're done now!


I'm reading The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

just read Patsy Kensit's auto , never knew she was originally going to play the British gf in Friends , she had to turn it down 'cos her marriage was on the rocks , Helen Baxendale got it instead .

.

 

Bad Country by C.B. McKenzie

 

The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Started the "Legacy" comic series with the Broken graphic novel.

 

Restarted reading Dawn Of The Jedi: Into The Void.
Got sidetracked by other Canon books, so I decided to start over and give this book a fair shake.
25,793 years BBY!

 

Finished Ready Player One. It was ok. At times it was good but at other points I was thinking why am I reading this?

Now I'm reading His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik and I'm loving it. Looks like I've found a good series to get stuck into.

 

Ways of Seeing (1972) – John Berger

I read a bit of Berger’s fiction in college and found it to be fair to middling. I’d always intended to get into his criticism and when he died a little over a year ago now, in January of 2017, I decided to put it on the front burner. So, I’m getting to it a little over a year later, so, okay, I’ve got a lot of front burners. This thin book, clocking in at around 150 pages, is tied to a miniseries about art that Berger worked on. There are essays here on various subjects and the quality of them is mostly high. I really disliked the first essay, about viewing art in the age of wide-spread reproduction, but the rest of the textual essays were very good and written in a mostly unpretentious style. The essay comparing portrait/landscape/still life paintings with modern advertising was particularly interesting and Berger makes points and has insights that I’ve not encountered before. The biggest problem with the book was its size; it’s a small, almost pocket-sized book and that really doesn’t work when a book tries to have a lot of art reproduction in it. There are a couple of “visual essays” in the book that are chapters that consist entirely of pictures that allow the reader/viewer to kind of get to their own conclusions on the artworks and their connections; that’s a brilliant idea, but when the pictures are in black & white and about stamp sized, it just doesn’t come off. Still, this was a quick, enjoyable read and Berger has actual ideas and he isn’t afraid to communicate them in approachable terms. 3 stars.

tl;dr – slim book of art criticism has insightful, interesting ideas in approachable, compelling prose; book’s format is a negative, requiring the pictures to be very small and in black & white only. 3 stars.

 

On the Way Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Pulse (Chess Team Adventure #1) by Jeremy Robinson.