Inspired by the discussion on crime fiction, I pulled out The Friends of Eddie Coyle and read it. Good one. Realistic, hard hitting fiction. Reminded me of Norman Mailer.
The weekend was spent on the computer - installing the CD writer, burning a couple of medical CDs for Sindha, hooking it up with the music system, listening to a bunch of mp3s and of course playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 till my eyes watered.
Bought a couple of books today - Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje and a John Updike collection of short stories - the new one which has 'Rabbit Remembered' in it. This is the novella written after Rabbit at Rest, the last novel in the Rabbit series. I read the second one (Rabbit Redux) first and had almost given up halfway as I found it too American for my tastes. Couldn't relate to it much. Thankfully I hung in there and read the whole book. He writes very well, does Mr John Updike. The style, the characterization and the way he builds up the plot had me hooked. I had read The Witches of Eastwick earlier, but hadn't liked it much. Rabbit Redux though got me fired into reading all the other books in the series - Rabbit, Run (the first), Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. I still don't own Rabbit, Run. I have the others, and now I have the novella too. Woo-hoo !
The untimely demise of Mr Showbiz still rankles. I need to find an alternate site pretty soon. I should check out the reviews on cnn.com, as recommended by Nachiket.
Am reading Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic now. Its the first book in his Discworld series. Got it from Rohith, who was bang on when he described it as Douglas Adams meets Tolkien. Its got some good characters, action, funny moments and a few inside jokes as well. I've read around eighty pages so far and am looking forward to completing the book in a couple of days. However I suspect that Mr Pratchett may not be able to sustain the momentum. I understand there are over 6 or 7 books in this series.
I had bought Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World to get a flavor of his fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. While I liked the book, I didn't feel the need to go out and buy the rest. Tolkien still rules. I firmly believe Tolkien's books will be read a couple of hundred years later too, while most of the other fantasy series will die out. Of course, this is assuming the world will exist a couple of hundred years later.
Good. After Eddie Coyle, you should read "The Friends of Saul E. Noyd" by whatsisname. Anyway, reading Lord of the Rings has inspired me to take up Ulysses one of these days. Praise the Lord!
ReplyDeleteHar de har. Saul E Noyd was good. Pity you didnt enjoy Lord of the Rings. What has Ulysses got to with it though ?
ReplyDeleteSomebody told me that the Mr. Noyd series are thrillers to the core with twisting and coiling plots.
ReplyDeleteSomething about attractive female characters come to mind, but I let that pass.
Never gotten around to reading a title, though. I am filing this for future reference.
Maybe Jay found Ulysses unputdownable -- like, from the shelf, perhaps?
Or maybe it's all the hoopla surrounding it that bothers him.
But anyways, we learnt all of Ulysses' heroics from 'Stories and Myths from East and West', right? Do we need more?
Thankappan Pillai rules, yeah!