What book(s) are you reading currently?

[Sir Honkers]

The Rivers Of London graphic novels. Good, but what really surprised me was how much Peter, Guleed and Nightingale were drawn just as I pictured them. Not Beverley Brook though.

[slimOl55]

This trilogy contains three books: All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. They follow in the theme of growing up in a world that is changing, and ends in No Country for Old Men - where the new world of drug cartels and murder for hire are the norm.

All the Pretty Horses tells of growing up in deep Hidalgo country, rounding up wild horses and living the cowboy life along the border of Mexico while cruel realities of love and loss are experienced through the eyes of one youn man.

The Crossing is literally the crossing from boy, young man to man in a beautiful yet cruel changing world, again through the eyes of one youn man tracking wolves. This is pre world war one and a time when the free range was being closed with barbed wire fences.

Cities of the Plain is next up - I will add a short review when completed.

All in all, a great writer who's films translate very well.

[longjon73]

You know this one of course... Watching the US series made me realise how brilliant the original UK series was. Don't get me wrong, the American version is lots of fun, but the old BBC version is on another level.

So that got me going back to the original books, and what a great read they are. If you get it now, of course, you'll get a version that's significantly rewritten from the first edition - the BBC producers realised, and Dobbs came to agree, that Francis Urquhart was just such a great character that he needed to come back in a sequel.

[rlg118]

Power and Empire

[maildude]

[Decadence]

You Can't Always Get What You Want - My Life on the Road With the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and Other Wonderful Reprobates

Sam Cutler

Even if you're not a fan of either band, this book is a snapshot of times past that we'll never be so fortunate to live again. Sam Cutler was tour manager for the Rolling Stones in the late 60s and for the Grateful Dead in the 70s.

Cambridge educated, Sam is quite the story teller-- street smart, very hip, and can reminisce about getting high with the likes of Jimi and Janis as well as providing rare insights into the Stones and the Dead at the time.

The biggest revelation for me was his account of what took place before, during, and after the disaster that was Altamont.. and how the Stones basically left him here to clean up the mess. Not just with the law, but other pissed off parties like the Hell's Angels.

One of those I couldn't put down until it was done.. I only wish it had gone on longer.

[ultimatewarlord]

Originally Posted by maildude

Or the next volume. Elton John's buying a baby.

Having finished all of Stephen White's Alan Gregory series I'm back reading J.A Kerley.

[Brecht]

James Ellroy - White Jazz (1992)



Ellroy's L.A. Quartet comes to its conclusion and sees a stylistical shift from his previous books. The staccato style he developed in L.A. Confidential becomes Ellroy's definite choice of expression which may not be everyone's cup of tea. Ellroy was forced by his publisher to cut down his original script for L.A. Confidential to 400+ pages. As he wanted to keep the complete story intact, Ellroy found a solution in eliminating all unnecessary words from pretty much every sentence. White Jazz goes a few steps further by "perfecting" this style, thus will require the reader to pay good attention to every detail because entire events can be described in just a couple of words.

After finishing L.A. Confidential, I realized how much the screen adaptation from 1997 pales to the book. It's a good film on its own but a very mediocre adaptation. While I understand that a full depiction of the book is not possible in some two hours screen time, too much was left out nevertheless. We learn nothing about the characters in the film version, characters who have a deep and complex history in the novel. What bothers me as well is how most of the parts of the book they took to screen were totally changed.

But back to White Jazz. Dave "the Enforcer" Klein, a lieutenant in the LAPD with a law degree, is one of the corruptest cops in Los Angeles. He moonlights as a hitman, fixer and enforcer for the mob. During a robbery investigation, the victim being a police sanctioned heroin dealer, Klein is caught in the middle of an upcoming clash between Los Angeles' local authorities, its crime syndicates and the Feds who have launched a grand investigation into the city's corruption.

[scoundrel]

This novel began a series of 20 really well written stories of both character and action. I have read Master and Commander many times but not for a while and it really doesn't matter that I already know what happens and when because the characters and their interaction are so intriguing and the authorial voice is so engaging and darkly hilarious.

The events begin with a quarrel between Lieutenant Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin over Jack's inconsiderate beating time to a classical chamber orchestra which spoils Stephen's enjoyment of the music. Jack is shocked and deeply affronted when Stephen unceremoniously elbows him in the ribs to make him cease and desist; Stephen for his part is resentful of his evening's enjoyment marred and completely unmoved when Jack names himself and his address, a well recognised preliminary so that seconds can visit and exchange details for a meeting with swords or pistols. Jack is instigating this step, but it is easy to see that Stephen is totally up for it.

However, Jack's nasty mood is transformed when he goes back to his room at the Crown (in Port Mahon, Minorca) and finds that he has been summarily promoted to Master and Commander by Admiral Lord Keith and ordered to take command of HMS Sophie, a very small brig which never takes prizes; but still a command is a command and Jack, now "Captain" Jack, is intensely overjoyed by his sudden change of luck. So much so that one of his first tasks on the morning is to seek out Doctor Maturin and handsomely apologise for his boorishness the evening before; in the light of morning and with his ill humour gone, Jack realises he should not have been beating time and even if Stephen was naughty to dig him in the ribs, it was provoked and probably deserved.

Stephen receives the apology with equal grace, only a strange change of colour in his face indicating conflicted emotions. Jack treats Stephen to breakfast, already suspecting that Stephen's financial circumstances are even tougher than his own were prior to the promotion. The two are mutually surprised to find that they thoroughly enjoy the meal and the conversation; and even at this first stage, Jack is already thinking that a penniless and indigent trained physician might be tempted to look after his new crew.

It is after having read all the other books that I appreciate the subtlety and cleverness of the character drawing as Jack and Stephen take breakfast together for the very first time. It is later that we find out that Stephen is extremely dangerous and Jack has just narrowly escaped probable death. This is a bit like Wyatt Earp making friends with Doc Holliday. Stephen is in many ways a really likeable and engaging character. But he is far more familiar with duels than is Jack and is pretty merciless. His mitigating traits are:

• He never, ever challenges or starts the duel. His own sense of fair play tells him this would be murder.
• He always accepts an apology, even from someone he hates and would love to kill, because he doesn't use duelling as an excuse to kill enemies.

That change of colour is the only external sign of Stephen calling off the dogs. He was already prepared to fight Jack Aubrey, and later we learn just how lethal Stephen is with both pistols and small sword. Though extremely formidable in a conventional battles, Jack would have stood little chance in a duel with Stephen, and as Master and Commander continues, we will see Stephen feeling more and more relieved and pleased that it didn't happen, though even in the moment before Jack's apology, when he thought the challenge was coming, he wasn't so eager as he had been the night before, and even in the moment of the apology, he is glad enough to be able to let Jack Aubrey live without loss of face for either of them.

This is a book full of interesting characters and human insight, as well as being a gripping story of action in wartime. I would recommend it to anyone.

[ultimatewarlord]

Then Scoundrel, put down that book and try this. A 1995 radio four six part dramatisation. It's one of my favourite series ever. It took several years before more dramatisations were made and sadly no Michael Troughton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J048lwQi78