The GF book thread

[Paul]

On 03/12/2022 at 06:26, Paul said:

Finished the Cole and Pike book last night (Racing The Light). Obviously, it was great. Then discovered this series of short books called A Mysterious Profile where a famous crime writer explains something about how his famous character came into being. Got ones on Cole & Pike, Bosch, Mickey Haller, Parker, Spenser and Bob Lee Swagger. There’s allegedly one on Rambo but I can’t find it in the kindle store. 

Read all these, then read Tom Allen’s new book. Now on Josh Widdecombe’s one. 

[NoelM]

Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby (audiobook) halfway through and it's superb, can't stop listening.

[Kepler-186]

On audiobook. 

 

RAAF Black Cats. 

 

All about Royal Australian Air Force’s PBY Catalina squadrons and their key role cooperating with the US Navy dropping mines to hinder the Japanese Navy. 
 

It was all top secret and most of their records were taken to D.C and never properly archived. 
 

 

 

[NoelM]

On 10/12/2022 at 18:39, NoelM said:

Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby (audiobook) halfway through and it's superb, can't stop listening.

Finished this, it's great. City on Fire and this one were my two favourite books this year.

[SasaS]

Went through a short masochistic phase of reading English "celebrity" fiction, after Richard Coles and his morose murder mystery, I endured all three of the Richard Osman Thursday Murder Club or something like that novels, which served to further confirm to myself people rating books on Goodreads are idiots, and as I suspected, read this tedious rubbish just because Osman is a TV personality.

I really, really hate that sub-genre of crime fiction typical of British literary tradition with whimsical characters (often from leisure classes) solving crimes for frivolous reasons in implausible plots and with forced attempts of humour. And apart from failed attempts of humour, Osman does not know how to write characters or craft an engaging detection story. He just made me hate his "adorable septuagenarians" with a passion.

What I didn't dislike was a short novel by MIles Jupp, History, probably because it is not a contrived crime story, but an attempt at a (yet another) novel set in the teaching world. I mean it's no Lucky Jim or Changing Places or anything of that stature, but it's eminently readable, once it gets going. Ironically, it's the lowest rated of the five on Goodreads, for reasons already mentioned.

All  as audio books. Jupp reads ("narrates" as they say now) pretty well, unlike Speedy Gonzales Coles.

[Guest]

I just saw the SPECTRE trilogy on sale for 99p kindle edition. It looks confusing as hell. It's the Blofeld trilogy, made up of OHMSS, You Only Live Twice and Thunderball. And yet there was SPECTRE movie.

 

Any ideas on this revelation?

[Redder Lurtz]

Just listened to Stephen King's Fairytale and The Stand on Audible. Audio books are a whole new world for me. Loved them both. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Idea for a mash-up - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep-Pigs? by Philip K Dick King-Smith.

 

I'd read it.

[Mudface]

On 13/12/2022 at 18:11, Shooter in the Motor said:

I just saw the SPECTRE trilogy on sale for 99p kindle edition. It looks confusing as hell. It's the Blofeld trilogy, made up of OHMSS, You Only Live Twice and Thunderball. And yet there was SPECTRE movie.

 

Any ideas on this revelation?

 

The books are the original Ian Fleming novels. There was some copyright controversy over the characters/ SPECTRE dating back to the Thunderball novel, this was apparently resolved by the time the SPECTRE film was done- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderball_(novel)#Writing_and_copyright

[Rico1304]

The new Cole & Pike book is good. 

[Red74]

Reading George Layton’s The Fib and it’s still as great as it was when reading it in 1st year juniors 40 years ago. 
 

Timeless classic 10/10 4eva

[AngryOfTuebrook]

 

[TheBitch]

I’ve had 3 very successful days in work where I’ve got through the new Elvis Cole book, Racing the Light, and the new Bosch/Ballard book, Desert star. 
 

Loved them both. 
 

*POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*
 

 

Will that be the last we see of Bosch heavily involved? I hope not, but what a series of books they’ve been. Thanks to the GF for putting me onto these absolute gems. 
 

Will his daughter get her own series of books do we think?

[Elite]

I got a free months trial of Audible and I'm hooked now, listening the latest Charlie Parker. I've struggled lately reading as my attention span is non-existent at times but this is a game changer. Any recommendations for good Audiobooks? As in, ones that aren't read by irritating voices.

 

The guy who does the Charlie Parker one is top notch. Jeff Harding.

[corro]

Just finished Pillars of the earth. Epic. Great read.  Years old but had never heard of it. On with the follow up now. World without end. So far so good

[Numero Veinticinco]

44 minutes ago, Elite said:

I got a free months trial of Audible and I'm hooked now, listening the latest Charlie Parker. I've struggled lately reading as my attention span is non-existent at times but this is a game changer. Any recommendations for good Audiobooks? As in, ones that aren't read by irritating voices.

 

The guy who does the Charlie Parker one is top notch. Jeff Harding.

 

Yeah, I'm an avid enjoyer of audiobooks. If you need any, give me a shout via PM. Taps nose. 

[Paul]

3 hours ago, TheBitch said:

I’ve had 3 very successful days in work where I’ve got through the new Elvis Cole book, Racing the Light, and the new Bosch/Ballard book, Desert star. 
 

Loved them both. 
 

*POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*
 

 

Will that be the last we see of Bosch heavily involved? I hope not, but what a series of books they’ve been. Thanks to the GF for putting me onto these absolute gems. 
 

Will his daughter get her own series of books do we think?

I reckon Bosch will have one last hurrah probably involving Micky Haller too. And as far as his daughter goes, I think she’ll be eased in via the Ballard novels before breaking out on her own. 

[Kepler-186]

1 hour ago, Elite said:

I got a free months trial of Audible and I'm hooked now, listening the latest Charlie Parker. I've struggled lately reading as my attention span is non-existent at times but this is a game changer. Any recommendations for good Audiobooks? As in, ones that aren't read by irritating voices.

 

The guy who does the Charlie Parker one is top notch. Jeff Harding.

Not sure where you’re based mate but local library service should have audiobook service. Had some brilliant stuff from mine. 
 

@NoelM had a good shout up the page for Blacktop Wasteland by S.A Cosby. I’ve had that one on the go now,  gritty crime drama. 
 

Check out the Audible Plus catalogue as well. Listened to Jaws recently and there’s some other good ones, too. 

[Paul]

On 10/12/2022 at 12:35, Paul said:

Read all these, then read Tom Allen’s new book. Now on Josh Widdecombe’s one. 

Finished the JW one. It was ok. Then read Theroux The Keyhole by Louis Theroux which is basically a diary of his household during lockdown as he struggles with work, parenting, his marriage and alcohol. It’s written in his usual sardonic style but is actually pretty hard-hitting at times and totally unflinching when it comes to self-criticism. 
 

I finished it on Friday so just made my Goodreads challenge for 2022 of reading 45 books with a day to spare. Now on the Gone Fishing book by Mortimer and Whitehouse. 

[skend04]

3 hours ago, Paul said:

Finished the JW one. It was ok. Then read Theroux The Keyhole by Louis Theroux which is basically a diary of his household during lockdown as he struggles with work, parenting, his marriage and alcohol. It’s written in his usual sardonic style but is actually pretty hard-hitting at times and totally unflinching when it comes to self-criticism. 
 

I finished it on Friday so just made my Goodreads challenge for 2022 of reading 45 books with a day to spare. Now on the Gone Fishing book by Mortimer and Whitehouse. 

The audiobook of this is great. It's like a 6 hour episode of the show. Not sure if it's word for word from the book or if being audio gave them a bit more licence to expand on it.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

5 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Yeah, I'm an avid enjoyer of audiobooks. If you need any, give me a shout via PM. Taps nose. 

 

On 10/12/2022 at 12:35, Paul said:

Read all these, then read Tom Allen’s new book. Now on Josh Widdecombe’s one. 

Not sure I'd fancy Tom Allen or Josh Widdecombe on audiobook. Imagine listening to either of those voices uninterrupted for however many hours.

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 hours ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

 

Not sure I'd fancy Tom Allen or Josh Widdecombe on audiobook. Imagine listening to either of those voices uninterrupted for however many hours.

Yeah, I can imagine some self-recorded autobiographies might be a bit of a chore. Alan Carr’s might well put you into some sort of rage. 

[SasaS]

"Read by the author" is usually bad news. As was the trend to ask celebrities to read instead of experienced readers, which seems to have stopped. More than one narrator is also often unnecessary (although sometimes it makes sense), last Bosch - Ballard books were read by Titus Whatshisname and the lady which narrates Ballard books, the slight problem is that you can hear they read their lines separately and it was then edited as a dialogue.

 

I recently started Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series but I had to bin it, because it was completely ruined by the narrator, somebody named Dick Hill or something (dick by name...) who apparently also reads Reacher books. 

[Elite]

The Dispatcher.

 

Listened this on Audible, it's included in the premium section. It's a sci-fi novella with the premise being out of every 1000 people murdered 999 come back to life. It's only about 150 minutes but it's brilliant. Looking forward to starting the sequel later.

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 hours ago, Elite said:

The Dispatcher.

 

Listened this on Audible, it's included in the premium section. It's a sci-fi novella with the premise being out of every 1000 people murdered 999 come back to life. It's only about 150 minutes but it's brilliant. Looking forward to starting the sequel later.

Found a player, mate?