Isn't the DaVinci Code the one Simon Le Bon ripped into on Simon's Book Club? His complaints were like reading someone complaining about Mary Sues when they first hit them.
Yep. That's it.
Mal: Hell, this job I would pull for free. Zoe: Can I have your share? Mal: No. Zoe: If you die, can I have your share? Mal: Yes.
'The Train Job'
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Kat - Dec 29, 2003 4:23:34 pm PST #356 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
§ ita § - Dec 29, 2003 4:27:12 pm PST #357 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Everyone is a bit marvellous, yes.
And I agree with you, Hil. You wouldn't need to be half as marvellous as them to work out the clues. Some were glaringly obvious enough that I got impatient waiting for the plot to hand the clue to the character who was a specialist, so he could work out what my non-specialist self had.
Plus, I got the impression he was just plain lying about stuff.
Vortex - Dec 29, 2003 4:51:42 pm PST #358 of 10002
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
I also borrowed my parent's Satanic Verses
I tried to read it. I figured any book that would piss off an entire religion to want to kill someone would be pretty juicy. I couldn't get past the first chapter. Then I thought how sad it was that the man would be in hiding for the rest of his life for a piece of crap. YSVMV
§ ita § - Dec 29, 2003 4:53:12 pm PST #359 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I love Salman Rushdie.
Somehow I forgot to finish The Satanic Verses. Got distracted.
Vortex - Dec 29, 2003 4:55:54 pm PST #360 of 10002
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman
I love Salman Rushdie.
I've never read anything else, what would you recommend?
DavidS - Dec 29, 2003 5:24:15 pm PST #361 of 10002
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I've never read anything else, what would you recommend?
Midnight's Children
Kat - Dec 29, 2003 5:33:58 pm PST #362 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
I've never read anything else, what would you recommend?
if not Midnight's Children then Moor's Last Sigh.
Kate P. - Dec 29, 2003 5:40:58 pm PST #363 of 10002
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love
Kat, Lyra's Oxford is just a short story, featuring Lyra and Pan, set in Oxford, after the events of the HDM books. It's fine for what it is, but it's really quite short, and I guess I'd been led to believe (by the fact that it's being marketed as a new book) that there would be more to it. Probably the best reason to buy it is the map of Oxford (helpful to me, since I seem to be reading a lot of books set in Oxford lately--just finished Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, which I loved) which includes a few excerpts from a catalog that outfits adventurers: naphtha lamps and so on. Nice touch.
My holiday gifts to myself included the Firefly DVDs and a copy of The D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths (yay!). I also intend to steal some of my dad's books at some point; my mom gave him Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, about growing up white and wild in southern Africa, and The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri's new novel. I gave him Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang, which I read in Australia and loved, and I gave my mom The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, continuing the theme of places-I-have-been.
Rushdie--I'd definitely go with Midnight's Children first, though I also really enjoyed The Satanic Verses.
Atropa - Dec 29, 2003 5:47:39 pm PST #364 of 10002
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
Butbutbutbutbut - the footprints of an enormous hound! Cocaine and violins! Short monographs! Irene Adler!
I know, I know. I just never have gotten around to them.
Oh! I completely forgot one of the books I got as a prezzie: The Water Flowers by Edward Gorey. A first edition of it, because Pete knows how to pick presents for me.
amyparker - Dec 29, 2003 5:50:47 pm PST #365 of 10002
You've got friends to have good times with. When you need to share the trauma of a badly-written book with someone, that's when you go to family.
Okay, nobody asked, but I'm gonna share anyway. I got The Virago Book of Gardeners (collected excerpts from writings by female gardeners up to the 1930's); The Path of the Human Being, teisho (dharma talks) from Genpo Roshi; a book on restoring period gardens; Ursula K. LeGuin's translation of the Tao Te Ching; and a reprint of a furniture catalogue from 1912. There.