[Closed] Recent Reading - Part I

Since the stroke and the extra time I've become a reader again.
Thomas

The History of Norwegian Music by Nils Grinde. I'm trying to learn more about Johan Svendsen.
Thomas

It seems to be well written. ISBN 0-8032-2135-5
Thomas

W-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l...I'd say recommended for those with a powerful affinity towards physics.
There is very little debate (if any) about the concept of "truth" in any of these books.

Don't get me wrong! These are all very worthwhile reads (well, the few of these I know are), but I wouldn't pick them up to glean any insight or new ideas in a philosophical (or spiritual) sense. Most are proper scientific works with an eye towards explaining the nature of the Universe.

Not being a physics nut I found them moderately interesting myself, but not something I would be likely to pick up again.

I didn't describe it as such: I said I personally found it moderately interesting.
It was no reflection on the quality of the writing, or the book's intentions, which I find both daring and excellent, but on my own personal interests.

I'm simply not part of his intended audience.

Not per se.
Purely as an interest I'm more of a history/politics kinda guy (with some ventures out into psychology and philosophy), though I'm certainly not beyond bringing proper physics to bear when people insist the Universe was created by a number of Santa Clauses as a hollow shell with the earth being its shining center...

...but to get back to my original point for the third time, which ones have you read?

The master of medical thriller. How is it?

I've never read a medical thriller to be honest.

Steven we're in different states now for the time being. We'll see each other every couple of months and when her daughter who is living at home goes off to college we'll move in together. I'm very happy with her.

Pawel I'd start with Coma and then watch the movie.

Thomas

Pawel another author I can recommend is Anne Perry from Scotland. She writes about a character named William Monk in England in the mid 19th century. Quite good.
Thomas

I'm reading Roger Moore's autobiography called "My Word Is My Bond" at the moment .
An excellent and fun read - highly recommended !

I'm currently reading the novel Azingcourt by Bernard Cornwall, a rivetting read and Cornwall really knows his stuff when it comes to history.

Recent reading (god, it's been ages since I had time to sit down for a proper spell and just read a book through in one go! This holiday was a godsend!):

The Devil's Gentleman - Harold Schechter
Schechter, being America's most prolific non-fiction writer on turn of the century American serial killers takes a slightly different turn here by exploring an 1890s poisoning case that was far more interesting for its media coverage than for the shock or heinousness of the actual crime.

In fact the real story here is the maniacal feud between Pullitzer's New York Journal and Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner in depicting the crime in as lurid and public a fashion as possible, actually going so far as to influence news facts (and public opinion) rather than reporting it. Schechter makes the case that really this was the start of crime as a public media spectacle rather than the foray of criminologists and the law, but it's a point I find hard to credit. Even in the Middle Ages crime -or at least punishment- was a public spectacle and entertainment.

Schechter's research is thorough, and his style as engaging as ever, but this is one of the weaker entries in his oeuvre.


Black House - Stephen King & Peter Straub
On the advice of Timmer. This sequel to the horror couple's acclaimed (and excellent) The Talisman is far, far darker and grislier than its predecessor. It's main environment is the real world rather than the extra-dimensional The Territories, which is a good thing: it makes the book more than a carbon copy with a now grown-up protagonist.

The story is OK, but -to my mind- FAR to selfreferential to King's The Dark Tower series, which it plays off like some sort of minor spin-off.

Still, it's an entertaining, and at times hair-raising yarn, IF you are able to get by the FAR too long introduction in which there's actually a narrator of sorts (at least the Fourth Wall is breached far too regularly by some unseen and unidentified "director/cameraman" directly addressing the reader in a rather condescending manner), which seriously hampers getting in to the story proper. King's arsenal of horror and terror tricks is starting to get a little stale, but overall it's a worthwhile read, though not an essential one.

Personally I thought the real-life parts of King's Rose Madder and Gerald's Game books were a lot more engrossing.

Well, for all my criticism I liked the book well enough. It was a better supernatural thriller than I have read in many a moon, and I liked the no-holds-barred attitude towards its antagonist. This is easily one of the vilest, most despicable villains to pop up in any of King's or Straub's books.