WHAT ARE YOU READING
Quote: Ace2For the same reason First Blood is so great and “rewatchable”. There’s not a dull moment in the entire film.
I dunno. It was on last week
and I saw parts of it. I thought
it was really dated and silly.
Stallone was a melodramatic
cartoon buffoon with his big
knife and his Vietnam war
vet Halloween costume.
Quote: DRichQuote: terapinedQuote: KeeneoneI have a hardcover of Catton's The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War in a box somewhere. I fondly remember looking over the pictures and maps.
I'm visiting Vicksburg next week
Site of US Grants greatest victory
Really looking forward to this.
I liked the Vicksburg area. Most of my time there was opening casinos but that part of the country suits me.
The battlefield was interesting. The Confederate and Union positions were well marked. Never seen so many monuments in my life.
Overall, the battlefield is underwhelming. Very few points can you get a sense of what happened. Back in the day, all trees were downed. An entire forest has developed on most of the battlefield obscuring what happened.
it wasn't at my library and I didn't want to buy it - I have limited space
I was surprised to find the book available free digitally, along with several other books by Gardner on the Internet Archive
they have a crawler - I guess if a book was ever uploaded they capture it and format it into their format
they say they have millions of books available, and they did have a couple of pretty obscure out of print books that I checked out
the books are easy to read, I mean easy on the eyes, the way the have them formatted
they also have movies and tv shows - not as much as books
what a great resource
https://archive.org/
Quote: lilredroosterEB mentioned a book in the Perry Mason series which I wanted to read
it wasn't at my library and I didn't want to buy it - I have limited space
I was surprised to find the book available free digitally, along with several other books by Gardner on the Internet Archive
they have a crawler - I guess if a book was ever uploaded they capture it and format it into their format
they say they have millions of books available, and they did have a couple of pretty obscure out of print books that I checked out
the books are easy to read, I mean easy on the eyes, the way the have them formatted
they also have movies and tv shows - not as much as books
what a great resource
https://archive.org/
OMG, it's unreal how much is on
this site. I'm speechless.
Quote: EvenBobI really like the Jack Reacher movies and I'm finally getting around reading some of the books. I ordered the first book in the series from eBay, it came today. I sat down and thought, well, let's see how badly this sucks.
140 Pages later I said, holy crap, this guy can write. I immediately whet on eBay and bought 10 more books. His writing style reminds me a lot of Stephen King. Lee Child's writing is descriptive, yet right to the point. He knows how to advance the story, he doesn't get lost in Flowery rhetoric. This book is literally a page Turner, you want to know what's going to happen next.
I love discovering something like this years after it's been on the market because it's like discovering buried treasure. I have 25 books to read. If I had discovered this in 1997, I would have had to wait every year for another book.
Quote: beachbumbabsI found him in 1997. Waited impatiently for (and bought) every book since. Only a couple are meh. The rest are stunningly good. Can't put them down. You'll be up all night several times.
Quote: gordonm888Strongly agree about Lee Child and his Jack Reacher books. I have read every one -like BBB, most I have waited for year by year (and I'm cheap -I wait until they are in paperback.) They are compulsively readable.
Although at some point I felt like tallying up how many people Reacher has killed (maybe another tally for people hospitalized) over the entire series of books. He has hurt more people than DarkOz.
Okay, based upon the above three recommendations, I recently purchased 24 of the Jack Reacher novels. This will certainly give me something to do this fall, if the NFL season gets cancelled.
I absolutely love them. At one point I owned nearly all of them, although over the years I've given many of them away. (About six or seven years ago I gave a bunch of them to a girl I knew, who was a big Mason fan.)
I was reading them back when I was 11 or 12 years old, believe it or not. I preferred them over The Hardy Boys. I love that courtroom drama.
All of them are easy reads... with every book it's almost all dialogue. And yes, they all have the same "theme." A client of Mason's gets into trouble, is accused of murder and it's up to Mason to figure out who really did it and prove it in court. I love how he does everything he can to protect his client, often times breaking the law himself. I can understand how they aren't for everyone but I love them.
Whenever I'm up for jury duty that seems to put me in the mood to re-read one of them. And then I find myself reading several of them over the next few weeks.
Reading them now really helps to show much life was different back then. (The first one, The Case of the Velvet Claws was written back in 1934... 86 years ago!)
Note that I'm not a big fan of the television series. Oh, the TV series was okay and I can't picture anyone but Burr portraying Mason, but the books are far, far better.
My favorites probably are:
Firestarter (way, WAY better than the movie. Arrgh! I hated the movie yet try to re-read the novel every few years.)
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Also better than the movie and the movie was GREAT!)
The Long Walk (LOVE this short story)
The Eyes of the Dragon
"A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
it is a truly great book IMHO
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