• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

A Good Read: Book Suggestions & Recommendations

Juvenile books, in general, are better than adult books, in general, because juvenile books have to be interesting on every single page or the kid goes and does something else.

Besides, most SF is in fact YA. CF the dictum "The golden age of science fiction is 12."

This is of course my unbiased opinion as a writer of juveniles. :) Seriously, I can't be bothered to read an adult book that hasn't been vetted by someone I trust to know my taste; damn things are all over the place and deal with such trivial themes compared to the focused density of books written for growing minds to unpack at several different stages of development.

Comparing one specific juvenile to one specific book marketed to adults is cherry-picking, whichever book comes out ahead. And all generalizations are false.
 
PeniG said:
Juvenile books, in general, are better than adult books, in general, because juvenile books have to be interesting on every single page or the kid goes and does something else.

Besides, most SF is in fact YA. CF the dictum "The golden age of science fiction is 12."

This is of course my unbiased opinion as a writer of juveniles. :) Seriously, I can't be bothered to read an adult book that hasn't been vetted by someone I trust to know my taste; damn things are all over the place and deal with such trivial themes compared to the focused density of books written for growing minds to unpack at several different stages of development.

Comparing one specific juvenile to one specific book marketed to adults is cherry-picking, whichever book comes out ahead. And all generalizations are false.
Click to expand...

Again I beg to differ. All this is just my humble opinion. I picked 2 books to compare because thats generally known as an example.

Juvie books quite often are restricted in the tropes they deal with especially when it comes to sexuality. Otherwise they wouldn't be bought by libraries and parents groups would run campaigns against them.

And all generalizations are false
Click to expand...

Including that one. :)
 
PeniG said:
Juvenile books, in general, are better than adult books, in general, because juvenile books have to be interesting on every single page or the kid goes and does something else.

Besides, most SF is in fact YA. CF the dictum "The golden age of science fiction is 12."

This is of course my unbiased opinion as a writer of juveniles. :) Seriously, I can't be bothered to read an adult book that hasn't been vetted by someone I trust to know my taste; damn things are all over the place and deal with such trivial themes compared to the focused density of books written for growing minds to unpack at several different stages of development.

Comparing one specific juvenile to one specific book marketed to adults is cherry-picking, whichever book comes out ahead. And all generalizations are false.
Click to expand...

I agree. With a few exceptions, I find "adult" books boring because many seem to be written at the same depth as scripts for popular television fiction.

However, I can recommend "The Dirty Parts of the Bible" which is an adult book but highly readable. (Probably novella length, but I read it on our newly acquired Kindle, and the book had no page numbers.)

In YA and younger books, I can recommend Mahy. I've pretty well read my way through Margaret Mahy's works including "The Great Piratical Rumbustification" and my fav collection of short stories "Door in the Air."

I wonder if I've read your books, PeniG. (I assume that "PeniG" is only a screen name.)
 
Peni R. Griffin. No UK editions, though. You can check if anything's familiar, or you want to go out of your way to read something, by going through my profile to my website.

And oh, honey:

Juvie books quite often are restricted in the tropes they deal with especially when it comes to sexuality. Otherwise they wouldn't be bought by libraries and parents groups would run campaigns against them.
Click to expand...

There's somebody who hasn't read a juvenile or YA in decades. Hunger Games is YA. The funniest virginity-losing scene you'll ever read is in Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas. (YA) I could take your hand and lead you through the juvenile section of your library and find you titles that 10-year-olds read which would keep you awake at night wrestling with the themes in them. When Diana Wynne Jones wrote *A Sudden Wild Magic* as an adult book after a long successful run of juvenile/YA, she found herself with a lot less freedom than she'd had writing for young people.

In taste and scent, no argument. We like what we like 'cause we like it. But I've never heard anybody justify his dismissal of any entire class of books who knew what he was talking about.

Good stuff is everywhere. 90% of everything is crud. We all have a different 10% non-crud. And nobody can like even everything that they can recognize as good of its kind. That's really all it comes down to.
 
There's somebody who hasn't read a juvenile or YA in decades.
Click to expand...

Not true. The bestselling ones get away with but many YA authors tend to be timid so that they don't get the fundies on their neck. I'd say 90% of YA authors. :D
 
PeniG said:
Peni R. Griffin. No UK editions, though. You can check if anything's familiar, or you want to go out of your way to read something, by going through my profile to my website.
Click to expand...

I did go to your web site, and, I have read and truly enjoyed several of your books (not having read all of them, yet).

I'm in California, so I don't have to worry about UK editions, myself.
 
I just read an interview PeniG did online, and it was a really lovely interview. Talked a lot of sense, gave a lot of good advice.

I just wanted to say - publicly - thank you, Peni.
 
Just finished "winged victory" by V.M Yeates , and it was superb,best book i have read for a very long time.Its the kind of book that makes you tell everybody how amazing it is, but you cant explain it, and you only see your friends eyes glaze over in polite boredom.
 
And now i am reading "atonement" by Ian mc ewan , so far some brats have rehearsed a play, a vase has been broken , and a brat has wet the bed.Its as dull as ditch water and i don't know if i can be arsed to continue.
 
The only McEwan I've read was Enduring Love which was quite good, more of a thriller. The first chapter is especially gripping.

As for me, I've finally completed Kim Newman's updated Nightmare Movies. It's a huge tome, but if you have any interest in horror movies and what they mean, along with jokes and songs (OK, no songs), then it's essential. Be prepared to spend a bit too much collecting some of the more interesting-sounding titles, though.
 
gncxx said:
The only McEwan I've read was Enduring Love which was quite good, more of a thriller. The first chapter is especially gripping.

As for me, I've finally completed Kim Newman's updated Nightmare Movies. It's a huge tome, but if you have any interest in horror movies and what they mean, along with jokes and songs (OK, no songs), then it's essential. Be prepared to spend a bit too much collecting some of the more interesting-sounding titles, though.
Click to expand...

Have you read the new expanded edition of Anno Dracula? The additional essays nearly double the length of the book!

Somehow I got a signed first edition (of the new version) for about six quid off eBay.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Have you read the new expanded edition of Anno Dracula? The additional essays nearly double the length of the book!

Somehow I got a signed first edition (of the new version) for about six quid off eBay.
Click to expand...

Cool! No, I've only read the first version and The Bloody Red Baron. I should really read the third one someday.
 
gncxx said:
CarlosTheDJ said:
Have you read the new expanded edition of Anno Dracula? The additional essays nearly double the length of the book!

Somehow I got a signed first edition (of the new version) for about six quid off eBay.
Click to expand...

Cool! No, I've only read the first version and The Bloody Red Baron. I should really read the third one someday.
Click to expand...

Yeah you should....cos the fourth one is out soon!
 
Gave up on atonement , it was a silly load of piffle imo , watching ditch water dry would be more better. I am reading winged victory again , now THAT was a superb book and an amazing writer.Shame he didnt get a tiny amount of the praise mc ewan got. :(
 
My main read is Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan by D. R. Thorpe. It's an absolute breeze block of a book, but so far - a few hundred pages in - it's intensely interesting, especially the stuff about his upbringing during La Belle Époque at Eton and Balliol and in the trenches reading Greek and performing heroics during the Great War. The writing is also of the highest standard, clear and elegant.

This afternoon, however, I've read David Almond's Skellig cover to cover in preparation for a series of lessons I'm giving. I haven't read a new(ish) children's book in years, but I must say I was very impressed by the narrative curve, the memorable images and the mythical bent of the whole thing. It's, loosely-speaking, magical realism with lots to think on and argue over, and it's also rather dense with Homer-esque motifs and tropes without straying too far outside a the standard displacement+trauma+burgeoning world-consciousness themes beloved of youth fiction. Anyway, recommended if you've got any little to medium-sized people around the place or an idle-afternoon yourself.

Edit: I see it got a brief mention by PeniG here:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... lig#703350

"27 and 53: food of the gods!"
Click to expand...
 
Cannot find a better place to ask this ... can you identify this short story?

Winter on an American (?) campus ... freezing ... student ... feeling ill ...strange professor ... Mayan snake rituals ... alone in room ... nightmare ... dreams of big snake suffocating him ... finds knife ... hacks snake to death ... discovers he has cut off his own hand.

I would like to identify the writer and the book. Gaiman? Fowler? Barker?
 
Michel Faber's "The Crimson Petal and the White". Despite running to over 800 pages, I couldn't put it down. Admittedly it leaves loads of frustrating, unanswered questions (and Faber says there will be no sequel) but I was entranced.
 
Ghost Caught on Film 3

by our very own Gordon Rutter.


This is the fifth in the "Caught on Film" series of books by David and Charles and as with the others, this is a quality book, well printed, sturdy hard backed and brilliantly priced for what you get.

In all of the previous volumes I could quite easily have got on the net, searched and found maybe 80% of the photos with out buying the book, not so with this volume. With the exception of one photo (also a favourite of mine theTANTALLON GHOST) every single photo was new to me. Not all of the photographs are "real" in the sense that they haven't been tampered with in some way but Gordon is not shy from pointing this out. There's a great "Beer Cellar" ghost picture (p.111) and following that is the very un-nerving "Water Spirit" washing her feet (p.113)and resembling something from "The Grudge". The "Egyptian felucca" ghost is quite bizarre as well.

If I had any complaints it would be only the one: in some of the pictures it is hard to see exactly what I am meant to be looking at and a close up would have helped, but there's only a few like that.

That aside this is the best IMO addition to these five books due to wealth of pictures I've never seen, well done Gordon. They do look great on my bookshelf and they are there whenever I want to grab it and flick through visuals of the unknown.

Support "our" troop! Buy the book !
 
Moooksta said:
Ghost Caught on Film 3

by our very own Gordon Rutter.

snip

Support "our" troop! Buy the book !
Click to expand...

Why thank you kind sir!

It's available here Ghosts Caught on Film 3 or from my own website www.gordonrutter.com but to be honest at the moment if you buy it from Amazon (the first link) it's cheaper, more than happy to bring copies to UnCon if anyone wants.

Cheers
Gordon
 
Gordon, I just tried your website and it just shows me a directory listing of a gif file and an ico file.
What's up with it?

Edit: There's no index.html file.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Gordon, I just tried your website and it just shows me a directory listing of a gif file and an ico file.
What's up with it?

Edit: There's no index.html file.
Click to expand...

AARGH _ Just when I need it it has been overtaken by some nasty software - web god is currently rebuilding it and it will hopefully be back soon. Sorry

Gordon
 
I always knew my grandad was a hero, but after reading Nicholas Monsarrat's the cruel sea, i can get a better idea of how much a hero he (and thousands of other sailors) actually where.


The treatment of the burns victim was the most horrific thing i have ever read, and the sinking of the compass rose one of the saddest, i doubt the black and white movie even trys to show a lot of the most horrific descriptions in the book.


I would recommended it to any body who has an interest in war, the sea or how far humans can push them selves in adversity.
 
Never read it but got seduced by the blurb into buying the roleplaying game based on the novels: The Laundry. I've yet to try it out but it looks damned entertaining.
 
David Farrant: Out of the Shadows - This is Vol 2 of his autobiography, which begins at the Old Baily in '74, with our Dave on trumped-up charges of Black Magic, nude orgies, and desecrated graves at Highgate.

By day two David decides to defend himsef against corrupt coppers and stuffy old-school judges, but he still goes down for nearly five years for "crimes I didn't commit..."

If you want the earlier v*mpire stuff, that's in Vol 1 ;)
 
This summer I read the 5 books of the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by G R R Martin. I was inspired on seeing the first episode of the HBO series even though I'd seen the books around for some time. Really glad I did: great stuff and the TV version is a very anaemic take on the books. Very easy reading and they're genuine page turners but with some fantastic plots and twists. Surprisingly immersive and Martin's not a writer afraid to kill off some of his characters either. It's not wise to get too attached to anyone in these books.

Last week, I also finished Alan Moore's 'Voice of the Fire' and I'm desperate to 'sell' the book to other people. Unfortunately, everyone I've described it to has pulled a face, including some who are, otherwise, fans of Moore's work. If you like the narrative device of something like Peter Ackroyd's 'House of John Dee' or 'Hawksmoor' then it's a fantastic read.
 
Fans of P.G.Wodehouse will probably like this:

Terry Wogan salutes the genius of PG Wodehouse, interview
Ahead of a BBC Two documentary, Terry Wogan tells Michael Deacon about his lifelong love affair with the words and wit of PG Wodehouse.

....

Wogan on Wodehouse is on Friday 2 September on BBC Two at 9.00pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... rview.html
 
Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay. Fifth novel in the series, one you can really get your teeth into. Features "Vampires" and cannibalism.
 
Not a recommendation - except for avoidance.

The Book of Human Skin - Michelle Lovric. Apparently got rave reviews on various book shows; I bought it out of curiosity. It sounded interesting. Half way through I was ready to throw it out of the window. I'd passed the boredom stage. The ending is so predictable. The writing is okay, but quite why the Amazon reviewers found it so disturbing I really don't know. Yes, there's physical and mental torture in it, but no worse than you'd find in an average newspaper. And what is there isn't really original.

What really annoyed me about this book was the list of thanks at the back. Including thanks for a grant from the Arts Council, thanks for various guided tours around various places, and thanks for access given by various libraries and whatnot. Seems like an awful lot of work went into this book, and really it doesn't show at all. You could find out everything you need to know to write it with about a fifteen minute Google search. Frankly, it annoyed me that Arts Council money should be given to an author. I mean - is she going to give it back out of her royalties???? That money should go to Youth Theatres and Amateur Dramatics groups - or to support the renovation of theatres and suchlike. Not so some already published author can go gadding about finding some inspirational for a novel.

She does the irritating thing of including an actually real person in the fictional story. Always bloody annoys me, that does. It's only acceptable to put real people in stories if they're going to do what they really did - not if you're going to have them interacting over a period of years and getting intimately involved with fictional characters. That's just so cheapening to anyone's memory, I find it incredibly distasteful. Write a fictional character; don't abuse someone who actually lived, breathed and died.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top