h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started on Pigeon English… and put it down again. I couldn’t really get into it initially, I’ll try again ‘tomorrow’

What I did find enthralling though, was

The First London Olympics: 1908 : Rebecca Jenkins : Hachette Digital : £8.49

‘The definitive story of London’s most sensational Olympics to date‘
Non Fiction, of course, a great insight into the 4th Olympiad which was organised and carried out within a time period of just two years, including building a purpose made stadium, the White City at Shepherds Bush. . A tale of derring-do, politics and sporting shenanigans. It’s the sort of book that I find fascinating, all the more because it’s fact, not fiction. You couldn’t make this up. A jolly good read.

The Running Man : Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) : Hodder&Stoughton

Amazon eBooks : £4.99

I’ve enjoyed most of the Stephen King books I’ve tried. Having tried this one at B’el’s suggestion I wasn’t disappointed, although it is a bit different from the usual King scenario. Perhaps it’s just the missing supernatural element. Set in a have/have not society it brought a new perspective to ‘Reality TV‘. Bearing in mind that a ‘new’ series of ‘I’m a Celebrity’ with its same old, same old format starts on mainstream UK TV this weekend, it makes me wonder what TV in ten years time will hold. No doubt one of the games mentioned in the book, ‘Swim with Crocodiles’, will be the half-way house.

I was sort of expecting something along the lines of the film, seen long ago, but other than a nod to the plot synopsis it isn’t really anything like it. In fact, like most King film adaptations, the book was a whole lot better. Gritty and down to earth, it’s a good read.

One other SK book I’ve had in back of mind, now gone onto the long, shortlist is Dreamcatcher. Mixed reviews on that though.

I’m falling a bit behind with the eBooks wot I’ve read. Some weeks ago it was:

Dreamcatcher Stephen King Amazon £4.99

Patchy reviews indeed. This one doesn’t work for me. It tries too hard in the gore horror stakes. Some of SK’s books work much better when he doesn’t try too hard, like ‘Pet Semmatary‘ where just a little of the supernatural is enough. This one is mainly blood and gore via ET. One or two, I suppose, unintended bits of humour, as when ET finds the joy of a bacon sandwich.

A bit later came:

Desperation Stephen King Amazon £4.99

Just for a change the scene of the action is moved to Nevada instead of King’s usual Maine, which is all for the better. This isn’t one of his best, but it wasn’t bad. From the start of the book you would be justified in thinking this is going to be the tale of a rogue cop terrorizing a town off the beaten track, but you’d be wrong. Worth a read if you like SK.

Biggles and the Cruise of the Condor. Capt W E Johns
Amazon £3.99

This was the first Biggles book I ever read, in the ‘50s sometime, so I decided to give it a revisit. I must have found it pretty good then as I went on to read most of the others, plus the Gimlet and even the Worralls books by WEJ.

Yes of course it’s dated now, but nevertheless it’s still a fast paced, jolly good yarn. Biggles, Algy and Smyth team up with Biggles’ uncle, to search for Aztec treasure in Brazil’s Matto-Grosso whilst frustrating the efforts of various ‘baddies’ to get to the treasure first. The Condor being the name given to the amphibious aircraft they use. It was a surprisingly good read.

Oh dear, I've dropped the ball on this again. So, almost a year later...

11:22:63 Stephen King

I really quite enjoyed this one by Stephen King. It's one of his better stories and a really good read.

It's an unusual take on time travelling, when our traveller can only arrive at the one date, which happens to be a few years before the assassination of JFK. It also takes an interesting twist at the end.


Chickenhawk. By Robert Mason.

Just re-read this one by Robert Mason, an Air Cavalry pilot, flying 'Hughey' assault helicopters in Viet Nam between 1964-66. It's an honest and chilling account of his experiences during his part of the war and its effects on him.

I've read mainly free stuff, but I recently bought a few ebboks. The last one was A piano in the Pyrenées by Tony Hawks, to which I had come after I had heard two podcasts (Round Ireland with a fridge, and Beating the Hungarians at tennis).

The book didn't disappoint me content-wise, but nobody cared to check the OCR output, so it contains a lot of misspelled words, which annoys me.

Hi B'el

I haven't read any of Tony Hawks books, bur Mrs D was a fan of his first ones but was a bit disappointed by the last one she bought, (Ireland/fridge) and didn't get this last one.

Some of the cheaper self published stuff leaves a lot to be desired as far as proofreading is concerned. So do some of the adapted classics, especially he formatting.

I've just got into 'another' Stephen King. IT. I bought this in Paperback a couple of years ago before I got the Kindle, but didn't finish it. It was jut too long at 1300 pages and seemed like he was writing to get a book past a thousand pages. I gave up at about page 1000. I decided to give it another go as I don't really like giving up on any book, but can't now find the original. So far I'm enjoying it again.

I've only ever read one Stephen King book (It) - and that was enough to make me refuse watching the film. I really liked the book but didn't want to have it visualised.

What have you read recently? As mentioned in my journal, I'm currently reading: A Song of Ice and Fire, vol III.

Hi B'el

I'm still reading, but not as much as before. I've recently finished a couple of quite good ones.

The Lost Boy. It's about the Moors Murders by Duncan Staff who had access to murderer Myra Hindly for some years.
The Garden in the Clouds. About the tribulations of a guy who built a garden in Wales and entered it in the Yellow Book, which lists gardens open to the public. Very funny.
A Brilliant Little Operation. The story of the Cockleshell Heroes raid and its aftermath. It's by Paddy Ashdown who was a Liberal MP and Leader of the Lib-Dems.
Chickenhawk. The story of a US Air-Cav helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. That's a reread. It's very interesting.
Tau Zero. SF story. One of those stories that put me off reading SF. Rubbish

Currently I've just put to one side Fahrenheit 451. I can't seem to get into it despite it's reputation. I'll try again later.
Reading, Boy Entrant. Story of a boy recruit into the RAF in the fifties. This rings bells for me as I was as well.

Next up from the unread list is The Sky is my Kingdom. The story of Hannah Reitsch. Test pilot.

There's about another ten unread at the moment so plenty of material to work through.

Sorry, pressed the wrong button. (Had a lil moment)

Deke

Ah, yes, unread books - don't I know that.

On that list is the latest (I think) Shan Novel: Mandarin Gate (by Eliot Pattison). I've read all the previous volumes in that series.

The Poison Tree by Erin Kellis (can't remember why I bought it; probably it had good reviews).

One Hit Wonderland by Tony Hawks. I quite enjoyed his Piano in the Pyrenees.

I've read quite a lot of free ebooks of late, from Project Gutenberg.

And I'm listening my way through the Charles Dickens novels, courtesy of librivox.

I'm currently listening to Mark Twain's 'A tramp abroad', which is wonderfully funny. If you don't know it, it's available as ebbok on Project Gutenberg - or you can get the audio book from librivox.

Once more I'd forgotten about this thread and haven't kept it up to date. Nothing new there but probably because I'm gradually losing touch with h2.

But anyway, it kicked me into just checking the Kindle and I was sort of pleased to find that I've now got over a hundred books of one sort or another stached there, plus another 28 on the 'unread bookshelf'. That's not many by some peoples count but it's still about a hundred books I wouldn't have read/re-read if I didn't have the Kindle.

Although I choose which books I get on a whim, most of them haven't disappointed, but some, mainly those penned by self publishing authors have ranged from pedestrian to rank awful.