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An interesting find as I'm exploring the Shannara books at the age of 48, having read the original trilogy and the Heritage for the first time between the ages of 17 and 20-ish. I've just completed the original trilogy again and am now about to go to the beginning of the chronology, rather than continue with the Heritage.
The idea of magic in the real world appeals to me in rather a big way; it's something I've thought about all my life. It seems like the Word and the Void are books that I'm really going to enjoy, as I did with this little teaser.
This was lent to me by a friend. I had just finished watching a Channel 4 drama called The Promise. I was getting confused with the drama due to my black of knowledge about the middle east. So it was serendipitous that my friend decided to lend me this book at the right time.
Mike explains the history of Palestine right up to 2007. It's not dry and turgid, it's very accessible and easy to follow and is written in bite-sized chunks that make it easy to read a bit before hitting the pillow. It has whetted my appetite to learn more about the region and read differing points of view.
Mike himself is a Christian and he quotes the bible throughout this book by way of giving evidence of his opinions. While his religious views run through the book as a constant thread, they don't in any way detract from the educational value of this book. So if you're not that way inclined yourself, don't let that put you off.
I'm very glad to have read this. Oh, and that Channel 4 drama is superb.
This was an incredible audiobook. It took me a few goes to get past the first hour because the Spanish names were all so unfamiliar, but once I got going it drew me right in. The editing was tight, the translation superb, the pacing just right and a superb plot. Highly recommended.
It's not really my cup of tea at all. I bought it because an ad came up on my Kindle and I liked the cover. That said, the last 20% or so was just beautiful and had my eyes moistening a little I'm not afraid to admit.
A friend of mine gave me some of his old photography books. They were all from around 2000 and all but this one was completely out of date. Panaromic photography is something I've dabbled with by stitching in Photoshop, but the techniques described in this book are miles away from anything like that. This book features the pioneers of the format and talks about their techniques and equipment. The format of the book is itself panoramic and the prints are well laid out, in some cases two-page full-bleed spreads, and they are stunning.
I loved this book!
This is the second time I've been through this book. It contains a wealth of information and it's delivered in an over-the-top friendly American style, which I find rather grating I have to say. The content's good though. The only thing is that, for this Bear of Little Brain, I have terrible trouble getting it to stick. I don't know why that is. I don't think it's a reflection on the book, rather the reader.
It has some good examples of songs and tunes, using Christmas carols to demonstrate some of the theory because, well, they're pretty well known. I'm looking forward to volume 2, which I believe will coincide quite nicely with the Kirk Lorange's PlaneTalk book, which I also have and intend to go through.
The book itself has a spiral binding, which is incredibly helpful. I wish my Noad Solo Guitar book had that!
I'm giving it four stars because the content is king and it's easy to follow and understand, which goes some way to mitigating the so-called humour.
Read this after a recommendation from Kevin Rose on episode 21 of the Kevin Rose Show podcast. I found it rather dull to be quite honest, although it has made me consider my own honesty policy in a new way, so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Later...
I've found myself thinking of this book I don't know how many times since I read it. The message has stayed with me and I have to revise my rating to 3 and possibly even 4 stars.
I found this to be a bit triggering to be honest. Maybe it's just how I'm feeling in my sobriety right now, but glamorous descriptions of glasses of things outside of a meeting? I can do without that. This was my first and probably my last dip into ‘quit lit'.
I bought this for my daughter and returned it after having read it because of the corporal punishment in it. I understand that it is historically correct, but I took the decision not to hold onto it as the choices for a replacement were wide and varied. I personally enjoyed the story and thought it a lovely book, but I chose Stig of the Dump in its stead.
Not bad as a fantasy trilogy for walking the dogs. It reads very much like a Stephen King novel, although he'd have made the trilogy into one big ass book. The character of Pick really annoyed me, but the concept of the gypsy morph was pretty cool and I'm looking forward to seeing what becomes of it, knowing as I do that that's the title of a later-written book.
I used to enjoy whisky. I also enjoy Iain Banks's novels. So it made sense to read a book about whisky by Iain Banks. Ironically, I picked this book up from the boxes of books stored in the church hall where we have our Wednesday AA meetings. I put 50p in the honesty box.
The book is very readable. Iain travels around Scotland visiting distilleries and buying up hunners of bottles. One might say that it's a self-indulgent book by a writer with too much money and who likes nothing more than to talk about his cars and motorcycles and throws money away on expensive wine and restaurants. And that isn't entirely wrong either, but for all that it is still strangely compelling and enjoyable. He shares a lot of anecdotes about his life, many of which are rather amusing, such as his enjoyment of urban climbing. And although he talks a lot about his expensive cars, it's clearly more than just self-indulgent prattle; this is a man who knows and loves the automobile and his enthusiasm is infectious. He also knows Scotland very well and it's fun to read his descriptions of the various roads across the country.
Overall this is a great book. I enjoyed it a lot more than i thought I would. I'd give it a four.
This was a really good hiking audiobook, a dystopian fantasy and leading on nicely from the Word and the Void. I won't say it had me gripped - not until about the last third of the book, but then I really got into it. I feel like there were too many characters to get to grips with in the first two thirds, but I didn't feel the need to take notes as I did with Game of Thrones lol.
I'm looking forward to continuing as Terry Brooks has gone all cliff hanger on us with this trilogy.
My first Bukowski. I enjoyed the style but it gets kinda repetitive, at least in short story form. Drink, gambling, women. Not that those are necessarily bad things of course, but the repetition in each story gets rather dull. It's whetted my appetite to try something longer though.
A good friend bought me a signed copy of this as a birthday present a few years ago. I do enjoy a good crime novel now and again, and this was one of those times. I enjoyed that I got most of the pop culture references too. The use of Scots is very well done indeed, though I wonder how it would read for someone south of the border. I should ask my wife to read it!
I do like a book with short chapters too.
I have the next in the series and will definitely be reading that. I may even seek out the first.
I really enjoyed this. I'm not so worldly wise as I once was. In fact I'm rather out of touch these days, as I don't watch news or read papers or anything like that any more. I haven't done for years. So when I find an author whose content skirts over so much in short bite-sized chunks, I'm all over it. The Iron Men:- Viktor Orbán (Hungary)- Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines)- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey)- Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil)- Narendra Modi (India)- Boris Johnson (UK)I added that list because I would have liked to have seen a list to refer back to and get the name spellings, but there wasn't a list in the synopsis or in any of the reviews. Misha Glenny's style, and the production style of this podcast, really works well for me and it has whetted my appetite to listen to more. To that end, I've added a couple of the books mentioned in these episodes and am about to listen to one now on my weekly shop – Peter Pomerantzev's [b:Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia 21413849 Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible The Surreal Heart of the New Russia Peter Pomerantsev https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407196452l/21413849.SY75.jpg 40714614] - okay, so it's not the same Pomerantzev book that was mentioned (that was [b:This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality 41717504 This Is Not Propaganda Adventures in the War Against Reality Peter Pomerantsev https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545380013l/41717504.SY75.jpg 65073585]), but I learned of that author through these podcasts. I'll come and clean and say that the only one of the six iron men I had heard of was BoJo. Well, I did say I wasn't worldly wise!
The information contained in this book is potentially life-changing. I know I will be buying it or recommending it for friends and family. But see if he calls me ‘Buttercup' or refers to my ‘fanny' one moe time? I'll unread the book and give it one star. Honest to God. Does Robb Wolf he think that this kind of ‘friendly' chat will balance the science? Well, for this particular reader, it doesn't. It just annoyed me. Surely an editor would pick up on the fact that this book would be read outside the USA, where fannies are the exclusive domain of the fairer sex.
But I cared enough about the content to try and ignore the annoying sugar coating, and it was worth persevering. I'll probably have to read it again, armed with the general layout of the eating requirements, the science might make more sense second time around.
I loved this so much. I studied Russian literature at university, including a module on Akhmatova, so I have a lot of context from which to draw. It was fascinating to see these characters' coming to life.
Amazing choice of narrator in Yelena Shmulenson.
A pretty decent primer on blockchain technology but I have to say that after having read it I still don't think I could explain it. I found my way to this on Audible after spending a month on Steemit.com, a social media platform that pays crypto in Steem to its users as rewards for content curated by the platform's users. I'm keen to invite others to the paradigm, but without being able to explain it, it's a real problem. I thought this book would give me the info I needed, but it fell short.
Don't get me wrong - I did learn a lot from reading this, but it skirted over the surface of the technology by giving repeated examples of how useful the technology could be without really going into how it works. Of course explaining how it works could actually have made it rather turgid and dense as I'm not sure whether that can be explained to the layman very comprehensibly.
Of the three books in the series so far, I feel this is the weakest. I'm trying not to judge too harshly, having looked at it only a couple of times, but I just don't find the shots to be all that interesting. For example, the most likely stand-out shot of the book is the one with the couple kissing in the boat on the algae-covered canal gas a big shadow across the bottom which sops the image for me.
The first book in the series moved me, and the second one tickled me. The third one I'm struggling to come up with anything.
I'm just getting into cryptocurrency on Steemit.com and wanted to understand it. This went a long way to helping me do that.