The Literature Thread

[Dowbocop]

I finished Dracula I actually really dislike the book. I ended up hating most of the characters and the whole book being found documents kind of killed the any sense of jeopardy.

I enjoyed the first part in the castle. After things move back to England it's boring as hell apart from a few parts. It's not surprising that none of the movies have ever really accurately followed the novel without heavy adaption.

Late to the party on this, should check this thread more often!

I don't know if you guys read the same book as me because I thought Dracula was an incredible read. Full of tension and I realised about a third of the way though that I'd never actually watched an adaptation of it so I had no idea what was going to happen. I would recommend a version with a glossary of some of the now archaic language and terms because that can be a barrier to enjoyment. I agree the bit where Mina Harker mingles with all the northern common folk on her holidays is a bit boring, but after that it really gets going, and there was real jeopardy throughout in my opinion.

I can see why it doesn't work too well on screen. I actually think it would be perfectly suited to a radio serial/podcast.

[Memento Mori]

Just finished The Killings at Kingfisher Hill the new Poirot book by Sophie Hannah. Agatha Christie sometimes repeated plot points but she wrote over 80 books. Sophie Hannah has only written four Poirot books in total so how does an editor not notice she's repeated the same murder twice? It's so similar I guessed the murderer correctly because I'd read it before.

Major spoilers for both The Killings at Kingfisher Hill and Closed Casket

In both of these books the murderer's girlfriend disfigures the victim post-mortem by beating their face in so it can't be identified.

[Lex-Man]

Just finished book four of the Horus Heresy, the flight of the Einstein. Really enjoyed the book but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't seem clear. There are currently 56 books in the series and I think I'm going to push through at least until book 7 as that's meant to be a really good one.

[Zilnad]

Just finished reading The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro and would wholeheartedly recommend it.

I bought it for 99p in a Kindle daily deal without knowing much about it but it's a fantasy tale of an elderly, married couple, travelling across King Arthur's England to reunite with their son in another village.

It was really quite sweet and very life affirming. It perfectly captured the comforting feeling of growing old together through both the good and the bad. Exactly the kind of story I needed right now.

[poshrule_uk]

Just read Coffin Road by Peter May

Really enjoyed the book and really could imagine the setting (Outer Hebridies)

Good story as well on top and I liked how it switched between different characters as the story progressed

[Alx]

I was given the Five Nights at Freddy's books as a 'joke' christmas gift last year, so I read the first one and honest to god, I thought it was pretty enjoyable. If you go in expecting, like, Homer's Odyssey or a really breathtaking, thought provoking yarn, you're obviously gonna be disappointed, but I always quite liked the story of the games anyway, and I love how it fleshed out the story and the way the story progressed. If you're looking for an easy read, I think I'd recommend it.

[Ironhide]

Just started listening to Pandoras Star (Peter F Hamilton) and the last bit of the prologue made me laugh out loud.

Manned mission to Mars lands safely only for the astronauts to witness a physics student in a homemade spacesuit step through a portal from a lab on Earth

[jiggles]

Potentially weird request, but can anyone recommend some basic-ass crime/thriller page-turners?

I’ve been reading a lot of hard SF and fantasy lately and I need something to flush my brain out a bit. I’m a bit overloaded with fantastical settings so I just need something exciting that’s more grounded and that I can read at a good brisk pace. Like some Dan Brown-esque airport lit but but, like, good.

With all these mega-successful authors pumping out detective series with 20+ entries with movie/TV deals I figure some of them must actually be worthwhile, but no idea what to commit to.

[Tomous]

Potentially weird request, but can anyone recommend some basic-ass crime/thriller page-turners?

I’ve been reading a lot of hard SF and fantasy lately and I need something to flush my brain out a bit. I’m a bit overloaded with fantastical settings so I just need something exciting that’s more grounded and that I can read at a good brisk pace. Like some Dan Brown-esque airport lit but but, like, good.

With all these mega-successful authors pumping out detective series with 20+ entries with movie/TV deals I figure some of them must actually be worthwhile, but no idea what to commit to.

Linwood Barclay may fit the bill. He predominantly writes crime thrillers set in small town America. No Time For Goodbye was the first of his I read and I think I finished it in a day or two on holiday-definitely a page-turner with nothing too complicated going on.

[Rex Kramer]

Potentially weird request, but can anyone recommend some basic-ass crime/thriller page-turners?

I’ve been reading a lot of hard SF and fantasy lately and I need something to flush my brain out a bit. I’m a bit overloaded with fantastical settings so I just need something exciting that’s more grounded and that I can read at a good brisk pace. Like some Dan Brown-esque airport lit but but, like, good.

With all these mega-successful authors pumping out detective series with 20+ entries with movie/TV deals I figure some of them must actually be worthwhile, but no idea what to commit to.

My wife has been reading a metric fuckton of Agatha Christie books recently. Not really my bag but there must be some of them that are decent (I hear good things about And then there were none).

[Memento Mori]

Potentially weird request, but can anyone recommend some basic-ass crime/thriller page-turners?

I’ve been reading a lot of hard SF and fantasy lately and I need something to flush my brain out a bit. I’m a bit overloaded with fantastical settings so I just need something exciting that’s more grounded and that I can read at a good brisk pace. Like some Dan Brown-esque airport lit but but, like, good.

With all these mega-successful authors pumping out detective series with 20+ entries with movie/TV deals I figure some of them must actually be worthwhile, but no idea what to commit to.

My wife has been reading a metric fuckton of Agatha Christie books recently. Not really my bag but there must be some of them that are decent (I hear good things about And then there were none).

My favourite Agatha Christie:

And Then There Were None
The Murder of Roger Aykroyd
Death on the Nile
The ABC Murders

For a completely different tone, James Ellroy's LA Quartet and then Underworld USA series are fantastic crime books but incredibly dark.

[Xeno]

Get some le Carre down you. Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy. The Honourable Schoolboy and Smilies people, along with The spy that came in from the cold.

Just started listening to Pandoras Star (Peter F Hamilton) and the last bit of the prologue made me laugh out loud.

Manned mission to Mars lands safely only for the astronauts to witness a physics student in a homemade spacesuit step through a portal from a lab on Earth

Such a good series of books. Hamilton is a bit wordy by the audio book is well read.

[JCDenton]

I'm not much into books.

[Zilnad]

Started reading Neuromancer tonight, as the Cyberpunk 2077 release had me in the mood, and so far it's great.

[Zilnad]

Would this thread be more popular if we changed the title to "Last Book You Read and Your Rating"?

Anyway, I just finished reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and I really enjoyed it. Only the second of his books that I've read but I love his style. Very reflective and honest. He really captures those personal moments that we all experience and his writing gets deep into your head.

It wasn't a particularly exciting book and not really an awful lot happened. It was just a woman reflecting on her time at school and meeting old friends but it's going to stick with me.

[Zilnad]

Just finished The Girl With All The Gifts and it was... okay?

Just unoriginal zombie fluff that thought it was more clever than it actually was. The Last of Us is a far superior telling of pretty much the same story and TLOU also came first which makes this book feel even more unoriginal.

I had been enjoying it in a "popcorn" sort of way but the ending felt like the author themselves had had enough and were rushing the last few chapters just to get it done. It was an awful ending as well. Such a poor anti-climax.

Might have to re-read The Road and forget about this book entirely.

[OrangeRKN]

Just finished The Girl With All The Gifts and it was... okay?

Just unoriginal zombie fluff that thought it was more clever than it actually was. The Last of Us is a far superior telling of pretty much the same story and TLOU also came first which makes this book feel even more unoriginal.

It's very different to TLOU and much more like I Am Legend - the (second generation) infected are the successors to humankind, so it is a story of replacement, not survival.

The film is pretty good, it channels a lot of that 28 Days Later style.

[Zilnad]

I'll probably give the film a go at some point as I imagine it'll make a for decent viewing. I've never seen or read I Am Legend so didn't have that to compare to but the ending feels slightly more satisfying with that in mind.

[Tafdolphin]

As I'm currently writing a noir game, I've been reading a whole boatload of detective novels.

The Long Goodbye: Not Chandler's best, and the twist sort of comes from nowhere, but there's some cracking imagery here. Who knew Ray had a great turn of phrase?!

The entirety of the Kenzie/Gennaro series from Dennis Lehane:

A drink before the war: 8/10
Darkness take my hand: 9/10
Sacred: 4/10
Gone Baby Gone: 10/10
Prayers for rain: 7/10
Moonlight Mile: 7/10

Gone Baby Gone is probably the best noir novel I've ever read, classic or neo. I'd never seen the film so didn't know the plot and man, it goes to some twisty, turny incredibly dark places. Darkness take my hand is almost on the same level, and it has more sexual tension to boot.

The others are all very readable, Lehane has a great, casual style that just entices you to one more page, but with the exception of Drink before the war, they all felt a little superfluous. Sacred is just bizarre: a side-story almost with a really contrived plot and terrible ending that Lehane ditches immediate after (it's the only book never referenced again in later entries) and the final two novels feel like an author running out of steam. Moonlight Mile for example is a direct sequel to Gone Baby Gone with none of that book's style.

Still, definitely recommended. Kenzie and Gennaro themselves are strawberry floating amazing characters, and saying goodbye to them really did tug at the old heartstrings.

Now reading The Epic of Gilgamesh (also for the game, weirdly enough) then I'm back to revisiting Chandler.

[OrangeRKN]

The Long Goodbye: Not Chandler's best

Before you edited in the bold text I definitely read this as a subtitle