Donovan79

I'm curious what you'll think about the ending . . . I finished that series a few years ago.

 

I would totally sport a Dark Tower t-shirt!!

Gah. Was so let down by the last three books. Different strokes, I guess.

Haven't read that one yet!

Christ, just finished it early this morning, couldn't put it down after page 20 or so. Short but absolutely one of the best books I've read in a very, very long time.

Oh, cool! Gaiman is one of my top four all-time favorite authors, and Anansi Boys is one of my fave books of his.

 

I'm finishing up the final book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. As a huge King fan, I'm not sure why it took me until now to read this - but I love it! Actually, I'm sitting here at work wearing a Dark Tower t-shirt that my boyfriend got me.

Reading The Ocean At The End of the Lane now, so damn good from the first page onward.

Almost finished reading "Zealot" by Reza Aslan. For the life of me I cannot figure out what the controversy is about. Its a decent read, has some interesting information, and is clearly not about religion. Over all I would give it a 3.5/5.

 

Is anyone else here reading it?

Was thinking about it. I assume you saw his interview on Fox News? Holy crap, what an embarassment to our country.

I've heard a lot about it but I haven't read it.

 

If you love Gaiman, you should check out "Good Omens". He co-authored it with Terry Pratchett and I think it's his best work (I haven't read Sandman, to be fair). "Good Omens" is laugh out loud funny. I've only ever actually belly laughed because of four authors and those books were "When you are Engulfed in Flames" by Sedaris, The Hitchhikers Guide series, Catch-22, and Good Omens.

 

"Neverwhere" and "American Gods" are also good. I gave up on American Gods about 3/4ths the way through because I got bored but a lot of people love it and it's going to be an HBO series. I give up on books more easily than most people as I have a massive reading list and get easily distracted if I feel a book isn't getting somewhere or at least being entertaining.

Jesus, man. Read Sandman. I don't want to sound like a douche but I really believe that Gaiman came as close to Shakespeare as any human has in the past 300 years. Prove me wrong -- so goddamn good. Read just the first book with Morphius invading Hell and tell me I'm wrong. And then it gets better from there.

Guys, these sounds like interesting books. Say what you thought of them.

Inferno - Dan Brown

 

Almost done.

And? Worth the time?

The Passage. So far it's terrific in an epic way I haven't read since The Stand.

The Passage by Justin Cronin. Really damn good so far and only just started.

The Count of Monte Cristo. Only 25 pages in and already addicted, surprised at how readable it is...

Hell no, no professional sense at all, just having fun. Thanks for any advice you can give, tho. I have no idea what makes a good photo other than "I like it", so would always welcome the advice of the more experienced among us.

image removed

image removed

image removed

image removed

A few more:

image removed

Props if you know who this is

image removed

image removed

Sitges Zombie Festival

image removed

So a few years ago I picked up a pocket camera I really liked, the Olympus XZ-1, a nice little rig that took great shots and had some very cool effects on it. More to kill time than anything, I started taking photos from random angles of things that looked interesting, some didn't turn out too bad. This week upgraded to the Olympus PEN E-PL5, really digging it so far though it has a relatively huge lens.

A few of mine from London and travels around below. If anyone here has background in photography and tips in how to compose or adjust for better photos would love to hear it. Also please do share anything you've taken that you like.

image removed

image removed

Saddest penguin

image removed

image removed

Cool. Are you excited to see the movie? The movie trailer threw me for a loop...It didn't seem to be based on the book at first. Then when I saw the extended trailer on youtube, it resembled the book. I'm excited to see the movie but I'll hold off till I finish the book... Check out the extended trailer if you haven't seen it yet...it's awesome!

Yeah, the extended trailer is unbelievable. Cannot wait for the movie... except that I just found out that while the US release date is this week, they moved the UK release date back to February. What the hell?

Just got Cloud Atlas too. So far so good.

Yeah, you kinda do. I always had read them in the order they were written in, which was fine, as it's fun to see how they tie together, but they sell them now in chronological order, which I think is less interesting:

As Published

Wardrobe

Caspian

Treader

Chair

Horse

Nephew

Battle

Chrono

Nephew

Wardrobe

Horse

Caspian

Treader

Chair

Battle

I've recommended The Magicians and its sequel The Magician King earlier in this thread, both of which are crazy good yet way more adult, and it's amazing how much they were influenced by / act as a love story to the seven books above. You really can't read them without know all seven of these books well.

I personally think the other stories are far better. Prince Caspian and Horse and His Boy are meh, The Silver Chair pretty good, but The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle are simply incredible. I've never found something closer to what I hope death to be like than the end of TVotDT, but maybe that's just me. Fortunately they're pretty light reads and blow by pretty quick. Best of luck.

Narnia, but its really hard to read.

Ahm... you mean the kids' books? I read them maybe 40+ times between the ages of 6 and 10. What's hard to read about them?

Haha, hey Grace. Funny, I've tried Quicksilver half a dozen times but never get more than 20% through it -- just too dense. I keep hearing that it gets better and volume 2 is terrific, more of a pirate/action novel, but need to push myself to get there. Crypto is just so damn good, tho. I rarely read books a second time but finding now that the second time through might be even better.

A friend is supposed to loan me hers (digital edition... I think I'd be afraid to touch someone else's paperback or hard-copy)... but this is what I'm wondering. I have a feeling I'll read the book and roll my eyes almost the entire time. Guess we'll see!

Oh God. The "eye-rolling" was another thing she repeated over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. I looked it up on Wikipedia after I read it and turns out it was originally written as Twilight fan fiction that she put online for free, but then the makers of Twilight told her to take it down so she just changed the main character from a vampire to a billionaire and the names and left the rest pretty much the same. Which is exactly how it reads.

A friend at work gave me Fifty Shades of Grey two months ago or so. I read it. It was awful. Gave up after the first book. And yet every day I see girls on the train platform clutching onto one of the later sequels. "Oh my." "Geez." "Holy crap." "Oh my." "Holy crap." "Geez." "My inner goddess did a backflip." "Holy crap." "Geez."

Shudder.

If anyone's looking for a good horror read I can't recommend this more -- I've never read anything that is so addictively terrifying.

image removed

PS: Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the thumbnail after I edit a post where I accidentally post one? There doesn't seem to be a way to make them go away and I hate 'em.

Just started re-reading after 10 years. Still one of the funniest / mind-breaking books I've ever read.

image removed

Man, I remember spending the summer that The Green Mile came out on an island that didn't get the last three monthly installments of the story. I'd take the ferry one hour to the mainland and bike another hour to the locate bookstore to get them. The last page of the last one was powerful.