Search results

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez Sometime in a timeless South America, a rabid dog bites four people. Three die, but Sierva María, a 12-year-old girl, seems untouched by the virus. However, as time passes, a mild fever leaves her neglectful and unloving parents, the...

My pleasure, Silverseason. And thank you for your comments.

Having just read it, from a personal point of view, while it's an interesting read (for some of the reasons that Stewart has outlined), it doesn't scare, has little real tension and left me completely unmoved. Seeing what happened to Nevillle was like watching what happens to a rat in a maze –...

The House of the Spirits by Isabele Allende Like the spirits the haunt Allende's debut novel, ideas float through this epic, difficult to catch at, half out of sight, until, in the final quarter, they coalesce with all the power of the real and metaphorical earthquakes that dominate the...

I tend to look in a couple of times a day – more if there's a discussion that I'm particularly interested in.

Okay. I'll start with the first section of that quote. Sport is not natural. It is not what human beings have evolved for. Whether it's running the 100m or working on the rings in gymnastics, this is going beyond what the human body has evolved to do. To do such things, one has to reach what is...

Well, at least you recognised that my post was serious, eh? How did you do that, given that I no more used little smiley give-aways than you did? Politics and sport have always mixed, as I explained at some length earlier. If some people want to maintain a fantasy where they think that only...

What about the US weightlifters who stuffed themselves with steroids because the Bulgarians did the same? Did they upset you or didn't you worry about your own athletes taking drugs?

Hi Thomas – glad that you enjoyed it. I haven't read any other Wyndham yet, but have ordered The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos, while The Kraken Wakes is on the shelf.

Roadside Picnic by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks The Player of Games by Iain M Banks Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson The War of the World by HG Wells Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne...

I've only ever seen snippets of the TV adaptation and the film – just the hospital bit right at the beginning – so the book was very much a clean slate for me. I've just ordered a couple more Wyndhams on the basis of enjoying it so much.

There are many films that I've seen a number of times over the years, but in terms of films that I deliberately sit down to rewatch on a regular basis, then: Shirley Valentine Victor/Victoria The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 8 femmes Jean de Florette and Manon des sources...

I hope you enjoy it, Thomas. :)

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham When Bill Masen wakes one morning in hospital, ready to have the bandages over his eyes removed, it's to find that the world has changed overnight and, where it was once he who was 'blind', now it is the majority of the population that has lost its...

HG Wells's War of the Worlds. My review of Day of the Triffids is here and my review of Earth Abides is here.

Estadio Chile, anyone?

And thank goodness for that. Amateurism was an excuse to keep working-class people out of organised and top-class sport. If you didn't have a private income and could, therefore, afford to dedicate yourself to sport in your copious free time, but had to actually go and earn a living, your...

Ah, but I frequently see it written as 'of'. ;)

Cyclists who use the pavement. Motorists who think that indicators are an optional extra. Motorists who think that they're allowed to stop on a crossing. Motorists who use the horn to let you know not to start crossing the road because they have no intention of stopping, even if you...

The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke Considered by some to be Arthur C Clarke's finest achievement. The City and the Stars is an intriguing read. Set primarily on the Earth of a billion years in the future, it finds humanity apparently confined to the domed city of Diaspor, where...