But whatever I try next, it won’t be tonight. I’m more exhausted than usual after my regular 15-mile walk, a combination of not getting much sleep last night and the fact that it’s still pretty hot over here (not as hot as last week, but still more than hot enough on this walk!).
It’ll take me all my time to follow the plot of the audiobook I’m listening to, another Alistair MacLean, “Bear Island”, with which I am already very familiar, having read the book a couple of times, and then listened to the audiobook about half a dozen times in the last couple of years.
I haven’t had much chance to do as much reading as usual for a long time. I used to read a book every week but I haven’t read one now in a few months. Fiction that is, I have been reading some art books for research and to learn new techniques.
I have a ton of books I still need to read, some my Dad has recommended me from his collection and a few I have bought.
I know what you mean. I have a few books on songwriting, I remember in some cases when I was reading through them, and looking at some of the techniques and tools, I thought, “ah, so that’s the name for what I did in this song!” They might come in useful if I end up teaching the subject though!
I have a ton of books I still need to read, some my Dad has recommended me from his collection and a few I have bought.
If you want a good thriller, Alistair MacLean’s “Night Without End” is absolutely gripping. Also, in this hot summer, the arctic setting is just the thing!
I am just looking on the shelves infron and beside me and the only Alister maclean books we have are: Fear is the Key, Circus, Caravan to Vaccares, The Way to Dusty Death, The Golden Rendezvous, Partisans, The Golden Gate and Seawitch.
I usually seem to end up reading at least one Stephen King book every Autumn.
The Golden Rendezvous is the best of those by a long way. Definitely read that one! 5*
Caravan To Vaccares is good, non-stop action, although a little predictable. Maybe I was just too familiar with the way the writer’s mind worked by the time I read it (I’d read about 80% of his output by this time), but I’d sussed out exactly what was what, all the twists and turns, by the halfway point. I’d still give it 4* (maybe 3 on a bad day)
The Golden Gate is one of the better of his later ones, and the basic premise of it was recycled in the film treatment he did for “Hostage Tower”, the first of the UNACO adventures. 3* (maybe 4 on a good day)
Fear Is The Key is sort of good, but there’s a bit of a “what’s going on?” element at the start. After the prologue, the action shifts completely, and there’s no tie-in of any kind until the very end. 3*
The Way To Dusty Death is one of his more unusual settings. I read it about 4yrs ago and remember thinking, “I shouldn’t be enjoying this one, but I am”. Make of that what you will. 3*
Circus is another unusual one, and sadly all too predictable. It doesn’t even have the action of Caravan To Vaccares to keep up the excitement, and the maguffin is a little clunky. 2*
Seawitch has plenty of action, but nothing else at all. No characters that you can really root for (on either side). It didn’t help that the blurb on the back of my copy makes it sound like the villain is actually the hero (and it’s not even as if there’s any moral ambiguity about any of the characters). 2*
Partisans gets off to a promising start, but quickly goes off the boil. MacLean spends about the first 80% of the book getting to where in the good old days, he’d have got to in a couple of chapters, and then pretty much glosses over the main action at the end. 2*
Could have been worse - your shelf could have contained “Goodbye California”, “River Of Death” and “Floodgate”. Those three are dire.
But the ones of his to really look out for (aside from The Golden Rendezvous) are:
HMS Ulysses
The Guns Of Navarone
South By Java Head
Night Without End
The Dark Crusader
Ice Station Zebra
Where Eagles Dare
I usually seem to end up reading at least one Stephen King book every Autumn.
I know now why the title ‘The Guns Of Navarone’ stands out in my mind. In an episode (‘Hyper’-series 6 episode 5) of one of my favourite comedy sitcoms ‘Still Game’ one of the characters (Winston) buys it and some other books in a charity shop.
I will tell my Dad to keep a look out for those books.
I wouldn’t be very into horror either. Personally though a lot of King’s books aren’t really the type of horror most people think they are. One of my favourites of his is ‘Misery’ and it is more a claustrophobic psychological thriller than horror. He has wrote some other great books which are not horrors like ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (great book and film), ‘The Body’ (turned into the film ‘Stand By Me’) and ‘The Apt Pupil’ (the film version was also good).
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s an episode of Spiral Zone, entitled “Assault On The Rock”, which is basically a reworking of The Guns Of Navarone. I recognised it for that instantly (especially when the only way they could access the equivalent cannons here was to climb the supposedly unclimbable south cliff!).
There’s also an episode called “A Little Zone Music” which has more than a passing nod to Where Eagles Dare!
I will tell my Dad to keep a look out for those books.
You won’t be disappointed
I wouldn’t be very into horror either. Personally though a lot of King’s books aren’t really the type of horror most people think they are. One of my favourites of his is ‘Misery’ and it is more a claustrophobic psychological thriller than horror. He has wrote some other great books which are not horrors like ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (great book and film), ‘The Body’ (turned into the film ‘Stand By Me’) and ‘The Apt Pupil’ (the film version was also good).
I have seen the film of “The Shawshank Redemption” - and also “The Green Mile”. Both amazing, both films I need to have a watch of again.
On that basis, maybe I should give him a whirl. So many other books on my to-read pile! I’ve promised myself to start reading Agatha Christie when I’ve finished reading “Master And Commander” by Patrick O’Brian.
I would strongly recommend you watch Misery if you have never seen it. It is absolutely brilliant. It takes place during a heavy snow storm in New England. You should download it this weekend and give it a watch. I will send you a download link.
Another good film King wrote that not many people realise is the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ‘The Running Man’.
‘The Green Mile’ was an amazing film. I haven’t read the book of that but I really enjoyed the film.
Thanks. I’m downloading it now. As is always the case on these sites, I had to wade through a ton of adverts, and check which download button was the right one.
Well, my neighbour varnished the shelves last night, the ones he put up at the weekend for my CD collection. Should be dry now, but I’ll probably leave it a while. Probably until friday, as I’m swimming tonight, and doing my 15-mile walk again tomorrow, so won’t have the energy to start loading them up with CDs for a while!
I do quite a bit of exercise on a cross trainer, but I haven’t had much chance these last couple weeks. I usually do 10-20 Km on it every day. I would love to start swimming again.
I burned all the DOTE episodes onto a disc as my PS3’s hard drive is getting quite full. It has 500GB but it only has 8GB free.
You were able to fit them onto a single disc? Well, if they’re mp4s or something, and not translated to DVD-video, and you use a dual layer disc, I guess you could.
It looks like it’s going to rain outside. I’m trying to decide whether to make another few trips up to the flat to bring stuff down (and get it wet), or have a stroll up to Firth Park about 4 miles away (and risk getting completely soaked). Probably the latter. I’m swimming tonight anyway, so me getting wet isn’t going to be that big an issue. My stuff, what little there still is up at the flat, I’d rather wait and bring it down dry.
Just got back from my walk up to Firth Park. As it turned out, it stayed fine. Well, it was spitting for a couple of minutes on the way there, but the sun has come out now and it’s glorious.
I got a couple more lines to my song while having lunch in the park itself, and a search of the area’s charity shops yielded an audio dramatisation of Agatha Christie’s “Death On The Nile”. So I guess I made the right decision.
The odd thing though was on the way home, along the Herries Road, I noticed two trees, a lamppost, a road sign and a bus stop sign, all with yellow ribbons tied round them. Someone there is clearly very much in love and taking no chances whatsoever.
I have a three Agatha Christie books, 2x Miss Marple and 1x Poirot. Maybe it’s the two I read but I didn’t think the Marples were as good as the Poirot. A friend of mine said the Poirot books are far better as she has read all of them.
I don’t know. Agatha Christie is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to try out for a while, and a couple of years ago, I asked some friends to get me some of her mysteries for my 30th birthday. I still haven’t read them yet, but I’m going to, promise!
The one I just picked up the radio adaption of, “Death On The Nile”, is a Poirot case. I’ve heard the title a few times, but haven’t read it or seen/heard any adaptions of it as yet. Although I have heard “Death On The Line”, one of the parody stories by the I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue team on the bonus disc of their Mornington Crescent history & strategy CD. I don’t think it has much in common with the original though. At least, I can’t imagine it being that similar, it’s just meant to be something silly with a vaguely Agatha Christie feel to it.
I’ve spent the morning putting my CDs on those shelves. Got quite a lot of them up already, but there’s still a long way to go.
The TV series/movies are very good. The very last episode/movie is especially good. But you would need to watch a good few of the others before watching it. I think they are all on Youtube.
Also, in the cover of my DOE book there are pictures of all the Defenders but the picture of Flash shows him with his sword that the toy had.
I have seen some TV/film adaptions of some Agatha Christie mysteries, just none of “Death On The Nile” - I’ve seen two versions of “The 4.50 From Paddington”, and a couple of other Marples, can’t remember what. I’ve seen a couple of Poirots, including the very last one, “Curtain” was it called?
Interesting thing about Flash having that sword again in your book. I guess it’s the old tradition that dates back to at least Victorian times, the swashbuckling hero with a sword - D’Artagnan being the obvious example. Flash is certainly the most swashbuckling of the Defenders, and even though he’s a space hero, I guess some habits die hard!
That’s true. Even on the figure’ card he is described as a ‘Swashbuckling Space Hero’. One of the most iconic images from the movie has him holding a sword. Even the large figures from the 70’s carton had him with a sword.
‘Death On The Nile’ is very good. Especially the one with Peter Ustinov. Angela Lansbury is also very good in it. She also played Miss Marple in ‘The Mirror Cracked’.
The film of ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ is very good as it has a rather large all star cast. Michael York (D’Artagnan), Sean Connery (James Bond) etc.
My copy of ‘When Marnie Was There’ arrived today so I will start reading it as it will probably be a while before it gets released on DVD in Japanese or an English dub.
I wonder if that’s where Rick’s light-sabre in “Diamonds Are A Ming’s Best Friend” came from . . .
‘Death On The Nile’ is very good. Especially the one with Peter Ustinov. Angela Lansbury is also very good in it. She also played Miss Marple in ‘The Mirror Cracked’.
The version I have is a BBC radio dramatisation on 2cds. Cast including Donald Sinden, I forget who else was mentioned.
The film of ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ is very good as it has a rather large all star cast. Michael York (D’Artagnan), Sean Connery (James Bond) etc.
Yes, I have seen that one - Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset and so on. Not so much whodunnit, as everyonedunnit.
My copy of ‘When Marnie Was There’ arrived today so I will start reading it as it will probably be a while before it gets released on DVD in Japanese or an English dub.
Enjoy!
I’ve finally put up my entire CD collection. I was previously estimating it at 700 or 800 - looks like over a thousand is nearer the mark! I’ve never seen it all in one place before, it’s quite an impressive sight!
After the walk and the swim last night (coupled with a late night waiting for the washing machine to finish), I listened to some more of “Bear Island”, but nodded off about halfway through side 15, next thing I knew it was about 5min into side 16. So I listened to side 15 again this morning, and while of course I already knew the story, there was a huge section that I was able to say, “no, I didn’t hear this last night.” (And of course, after a mini-sleep, and waking up again, it took bloody ages to get to sleep again properly!)
I think I only have about near 100 CD’s. I used to have a huge DVD collection of about 400+. I sold quite a few though to downsize the collection, I think it’s less than 200 now. Mind you I have reacquired a lot of them as digital downloads which were free LOL.
Speaking of ‘When Marnie Was There’, sadly rumour has it that it might be Studio Ghibli’s last movie they make. One of the founders who wrote and directed most of their best films has retired and some of the last few films have not been overly successful financially. It’s a real shame as the stories and animation are great, but seemingly the vast majority of audiences would rather throw their money away to go see over the top big budget pieces of crap like Transformers and Maleficent etc. Forget great writing, acting, characters and animation when they can go see the latest CGI rubbish that they will only sit and complain about all over the internet later about how bad it was. That mentality really confuses me. I have a lot of friends on Facebook that are Transformers fans and they do nothing but slag Michael Bay off then they spend money to go and see his films which makes them successful financially then complain about how much they hate him and how bad it was.
If you ever want to check out any of the Studio Ghibli movies I would recommend: Princess Mononoke, My Neighbour Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Their are others which are also very good but those would be my favourites.
