Search results

I'd just like to add my welcome. This site is really beginning to take off, which is great. I used to run a Yahoo! group on books but got fed up since I seemed to be talking to myself most of the time.

I'm reading "The Masters" by C. P. Snow, one of the early novels in the "Sons and Brothers" series which is set in the corridors of power, academica and the law in the first half of the twentieth century. This particular novel, as its title hints, focuses on the internal politics of a fictitious...

There's also the problem that most of us need to be employed full-time, which means are job takes up most of our waking hours, which in turn means that if our job is not what we are really about then we must be spending most of our lives being someone we're not! By the way, if you are looking...

I've already stumbled across one fellow disillusioned graduate through this forum. There are probably others here too. Consequently, the following Observer article might be of interest to many members: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1115661,00.html It focuses on the...

Oops! I've only just noticed this was a sci-fi thread. Sorry for my off-topic rambling above. At least I know realise why I hadn't heard of any of the titles mentioned! Happy reading sci-fi friends and apologies for the interruption.

I'm just about to finish John Buchan's "Greenmantle". The question is which of my Christmas gift books to go for next. It could be Wilkie Collins's Moonstone or George Eliot's Felix Holt. There's also "The Masters" from C. P. Snow's Sons and Brothers series. Choices, choices.

An acquired taste that I could not acquire I'm afraid. It's often spoken of in the same breath as Catch 22, but I couldn't get to like that either. Each to their own I guess. I tend to return again and again to the nineteenth century classics by the likes of Austen and Dickens. Especially...

Haethurn, I hope you wont take this the wrong way, but this seems a very simplistic conclusion. It seems as blinkered as the sort of teacher you criticise. Just as there are more gradations of morality than just good and bad, or black and white, there are surely more than just two types of...

Happy New Year to all! My resolutions? In no particular order: * Find a more fulfilling job that doesn't involve three hours commuting by public transport every day. * Find my soul mate. * Get out more. * Try to be happy and make the most of each day. * Try not to get stressed. I've...

Amazon have a book by a Gerald Malcolm Durrell called "The Talking Parcel", which sounds as though it could be the book you are looking for. They only have two rather expensive second hand editions though. Good luck with the search.

Finished. So, what do I think? I'm not really sure what I'm meant to conclude, except perhaps that there are no easy answers to achieving our destiny in life. I've been much more disappointed by the way in which other books have turned out. Perhaps this one was just too short to start annoying...

I'm currently reading Colin Clifford's 'group biography' of the family of Asquith, Liberal PM of the UK from 1908 to 1916. Like many biographies it comes with a quote saying that it is as good as a novel. Often this claim seems exaggerated, but in this particular case there is some validity. I...

I got a copy of the The Alchemist as a Christmas present. I'm about half way through. It reads easily. There seems to be a lot of symbolism in it, but so much so I rather get the feeling its one of those books you could read more into than the author ever intended. I'll comment further when I...

Hello Mike, If you enjoy Irish writers or books about Ireland, you might enjoy a novel I have just completed called "The Deposition of Father McGreevy". It's by a chap called Brain O'Doherty who, like yourself, is an Irish emigre now living in the US. A rather grim, sad tale, but original. It...

I started with Knots and Crosses myself, two or three years ago. I wasn't bowled over, and certainly didn't rush out to get the next in the series. However, about a year ago someone lent me a copy of "Resurrection Men", one of the more recent Rebus novels and I was impressed. Sometimes it is...

Andy, Since you mention websites containing pre-1923 works, you are probably familiar with this already, but just in case you are not, the Project Gutenberg site may be of interest: http://www.gutenberg.net/ It contains free downloads of many significant works. Regards,

Jacket notes often compare RNP with Scott Turow and John Grisham, neither of whom I have read. I generally don't go in for the American blockbuster novel. However, I recently heard RNP being interviewed on the radio, and decided his books might be worth a try. So far I have read his first...

You could try a book I've just finished, "Tunnel Vision" by Keith Lowe. It's about a London Underground enthusiast who makes a bet with a fellow anorak that he can travel the full length of the tube network in just one day - the day before he is due to go to Paris to marry his girlfriend. Not...

Perhaps you should read a biography of a royal? Wasn't there a royal heir somewhere on the continent who recently renounced his right to the throne in order to be able to marry the woman he loves - you could check that via the BBC news site.

As I think I've said elsewhere in these forums, I've just never been able to get through Catch 22. I like the central premise - the catch 22 - if you think going out on further bombing missions is insane you are obviously still sane and must continue to go on bombing missions, or however it...