The GOT Book Club

[gonetomorrow]

Craig Brown's book about Princess Margaret.
It's not my normal sort of thing but it's an era I'm familiar with. Sad story really. She was snippy to everyone except her sister. When she left a room the company of toadies would mimic her squeaky voice.

 

[verreauxi]

With Dune II in the theaters right now, I appreciated this graphic about how to read the actual books:

 

[Old Blue 2]

Got my comp copy of this a couple of days ago. Excellent, as usual.

 

[donny]

The novel Shogun by James Clavell is currently being shown on tv.Read it about 40 years ago in my top five of all time reads.Such depth about the Japanese character and mindset.Its about 1100 pages long but once u start it you can't stop..Watched the Richard Chamberlin tv series in the 80's was ok for the time obviously without the depth.Its a must read but could spoil your enjoyment of the latest tv adaptation.

 

[SerenityNigh]

Have just finished “The 100 year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson and it was entirely pleasant

 

[DualityNSNO]

Finished the Eisenhorn Omnibus the other day, Warhammer 40k so naturally only like 3 people care @Prevenger17 , but a great book, paints the universe and how grim everything is very, very well at times, with a few misses along the way but you can't win em all in 3 books and a few mini stories lol If you like the Dune books - this is them, but less worms and more grimdark-ness. The main character is called Gregor Eisenhorn, which is relevant because of the next book lol

Then finished Kafka's Metamorphosis and Gregor Samsa's transformation into a bug. I'm conflicted - it's a mostly well structured book and story, disgusting at times for the obvious reasons. My take is

Spoiler: Plot spoiler

that this shows the metamorphosis of the people around Gregor more than himself - his family grew from trying to like him, to then vehemently dislike him, to not even caring after he passed; his dad - described as 'retired', but honestly sounded more lazy than anything else - picked himself up and got a job when he had nothing to mooch off from and became a bit more independent but more tired; his mum started actually doing her job; they had to fire their maid(s) to "save money" but it feels like it wasn't like that as the last one was just as brash as they'd become to Gregor. To go with the fact that they tried to please their bosses/people that gave them money much like Gregor himself. Most surprising was his sister's 'metamorphosis' from the caring young girl into a more self-centered and goal oriented - getting a job, learning a language, being more independent - and is now a beautiful young woman in the end in a quite short time. What annoys me is that sometimes time went by too fast in the book as it felt like there were a few timeskips that weren't really warranted and, for such a well described environment, felt a bit off, but maybe that's just me.

Felt like this 'review' was as long as the book itself to be honest. lol A lot of undertones about isolation and dependencies etc. are pretty obvious and the book obviously has a lot of points of view.

 

[LostLegend]

Just about to jump into this, heard some great things about it.
It’s about the 1893 World Fair in Chicago and all the crazy events surrounding it. It also covers one of Americas most prolific serial killers H.H. Holmes who was active at that time.

Apparently Martin Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio were involved at one point in making a TV adaptation but I think it got shelved.

You know it’s going to be a good one when this disclaimer is on the first page:

Just finished this, it was OK, not quite as good as I expected.
It feels like the author wanted to write 2 books, one about the world fair and one about H.H. Holmes and then just smashed them together. The 2 stories feel very much at odds with each other and the book ends up a bit all over the place.

 

[LostLegend]

Remember, before opening any trans-dimension puzzle boxes, be sure to read the small-print!

 

[COYBL25]

Mindhunter - The book, that the outstanding tv series came from.

The real life story of the start of conception of the FBI’s serial crime unit and its subsequent development and role it’s played in the apprehension of serial killers ever since.

Fascinating and really well writte. Couldn’t put it down and one thing that really jumps out, is that America seems to have one hell of a lot of serial killers !!!

* Also beloved of all the amateur experts on human behaviour and psychology on here.

 

[Nobby Nobbs]

Just finished this, it was OK, not quite as good as I expected.
It feels like the author wanted to write 2 books, one about the world fair and one about H.H. Holmes and then just smashed them together. The 2 stories feel very much at odds with each other and the book ends up a bit all over the place.

About 100 pages into this and you are right all over the place not sure why he’s joined the two story’s together, probably stick with it mainly for the Holmes story.

 

[LostLegend]

About 100 pages into this and you are right all over the place not sure why he’s joined the two story’s together, probably stick with it mainly for the Holmes story.

The H.H.Holmes story is definitely the more interesting of the two, but sadly the one he spends the least amount of time on.

 

[Arteta2391]

 

[LostLegend]

Picked this up just before Christmas and just got around to reading it.
I've seen the film, which is extremely bleak, but the book takes the sheer desolation to the next level doesn't it?
Despite knowing what happens at the end it still finished me off

I know his writing style can be off putting for some, but I've really grown to enjoy it between this and Blood Meridian, so will definitely be going through more of his back catalogue in the future.

John Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air' next. The guy who wrote 'Into The Wild' (I have a copy on order) which the movie of the same name was based on.

This is about the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster in which three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.
I believe the writer, Krakauer, was a member of one of these expeditions himself. Heard it's an intense read, so looking forward to this one.

 

[davep]

Saw this article on Dune the other day, some good reading recommendations in it I reckon:

5 other great "unfilmable" sci-fi novels someone should probably film

With Dune and Foundation now big pop culture hits, we had to ask ourselves: What other "unfilmable" sci-fi novels deserve their shot at the big or small screen?

www.avclub.com

 

[Efcjake]

I've got Shogun and Three Body Problem on my list now.