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here we go again
Mar. 2nd, 2001 02:44 pm50. James Herbert - '48
Apparently he is very popular. Lots of his books get made into movies. Thrillers apparently. I considered this book not really the highlight of the books I have read so far, and that is understating it. It was crap!
The first ten chapters or so are straight from an action movie. The first spoken words come after that. By that time I was nearly halfway and decided to finish it anyway. The idea for the book isn't bad. Hitler, in a final attempt to win the war, sends some sort of biological weapons in V2's to the UK, where everybody soon dies. Everybody that is, except people with bloodgroup AB. And now there are some Brititsh nazi's trying to find the few survivors, with the aim to use their blood for their own survival.
The hero is an American pilot who gets shot at zillions of times within 300 pages, but never gets hit. And obviously the goodies win in the end. Boring!
51. Paulo Coelho - Der Wanderer
Brazilian author, read in German, on loan from a fellow traveller. Interesting, tiny little book. Quite a few philosophical thoughts. Some fairly straightforward, some biblical, some interesting. It makes you think at least sometimes, which is good enough for me. I should read 'the alchemist' someday.
52. Iain Banks - Complicity
Brilliant Scottish author, there are more of them in that particular part of the world. Though I found 'Crow Road' the first one of him I read hard going and big parts went beyond me, having read 'The business' I am convinced of his talent. This one is another good one. A journalist trying to fins a solution for an old conspiracy theory gets anonymous tips. After a while he thinks he is getting on to something major, instead he gets arrested, as it turns out that he hasn't got an alibi for a series of recent murders and attacks on some people who he wrote about in a column that they deserved somehing serious. Very interesting to see how everything is set up, why and how the whole story happened. Plenty of flashbacks to start to understand him better and better. Brilliant plot. Recommended.
53. Tim Cahill - Remote journeys oddly rendered
Even though I am travelling, I seem not to read many travelbooks. Reasons? I hope not to be influenced to much while writing my own stories? I get to develop my own style this way? I don't want to be too mainstream and read about the country you're in, like so many travellers think is appropriate? I don't consider many travel books worth reading? The answer is probably a combination of all of these. But I am not not reading them deliberately. So when I bumped into this one, I took it anyway. It's an American who writes in travelmagazines, this book being a collection of some of these stories. Some real hardcore travelling done by this bloke, who obviously ends up having malaria, who meets tribes in places no travellers (let alone tourists) come and is looking for traces of the murder of a son of a friend who travelled in Peru. Some very interesting reading in there, the part about Honduras was very nice, a country I enjoyed travelling in very much. In the end he is sitting in his kayak too often for my liking and some stories tend to dread on a bit. But an intersting travelbook anyway.
Apparently he is very popular. Lots of his books get made into movies. Thrillers apparently. I considered this book not really the highlight of the books I have read so far, and that is understating it. It was crap!
The first ten chapters or so are straight from an action movie. The first spoken words come after that. By that time I was nearly halfway and decided to finish it anyway. The idea for the book isn't bad. Hitler, in a final attempt to win the war, sends some sort of biological weapons in V2's to the UK, where everybody soon dies. Everybody that is, except people with bloodgroup AB. And now there are some Brititsh nazi's trying to find the few survivors, with the aim to use their blood for their own survival.
The hero is an American pilot who gets shot at zillions of times within 300 pages, but never gets hit. And obviously the goodies win in the end. Boring!
51. Paulo Coelho - Der Wanderer
Brazilian author, read in German, on loan from a fellow traveller. Interesting, tiny little book. Quite a few philosophical thoughts. Some fairly straightforward, some biblical, some interesting. It makes you think at least sometimes, which is good enough for me. I should read 'the alchemist' someday.
52. Iain Banks - Complicity
Brilliant Scottish author, there are more of them in that particular part of the world. Though I found 'Crow Road' the first one of him I read hard going and big parts went beyond me, having read 'The business' I am convinced of his talent. This one is another good one. A journalist trying to fins a solution for an old conspiracy theory gets anonymous tips. After a while he thinks he is getting on to something major, instead he gets arrested, as it turns out that he hasn't got an alibi for a series of recent murders and attacks on some people who he wrote about in a column that they deserved somehing serious. Very interesting to see how everything is set up, why and how the whole story happened. Plenty of flashbacks to start to understand him better and better. Brilliant plot. Recommended.
53. Tim Cahill - Remote journeys oddly rendered
Even though I am travelling, I seem not to read many travelbooks. Reasons? I hope not to be influenced to much while writing my own stories? I get to develop my own style this way? I don't want to be too mainstream and read about the country you're in, like so many travellers think is appropriate? I don't consider many travel books worth reading? The answer is probably a combination of all of these. But I am not not reading them deliberately. So when I bumped into this one, I took it anyway. It's an American who writes in travelmagazines, this book being a collection of some of these stories. Some real hardcore travelling done by this bloke, who obviously ends up having malaria, who meets tribes in places no travellers (let alone tourists) come and is looking for traces of the murder of a son of a friend who travelled in Peru. Some very interesting reading in there, the part about Honduras was very nice, a country I enjoyed travelling in very much. In the end he is sitting in his kayak too often for my liking and some stories tend to dread on a bit. But an intersting travelbook anyway.
