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The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant - Ulysses S. Grant

Exceptional - quite possibly the definitive piece of writing by a participant in the American Civil War. Grant's memoirs don't discuss his presidency in much detail, probably due to his great dislike as a president, but his generalship is excellently reviewed. He writes in an easy fashion - it comes to mind as I read that I am sitting in the room with Grant, and he is telling me his old war stories in a croaked voice addled by throat cancer (which, of course, he died of). The editing and arrangement, handled by Mark Twain, is also very well done. I can't say I've enjoyed a memoir more in some time.
 
James N. Cook - No Easy Hope (Surviving The Dead, Volume 1)

Another zombie apocalypse book. I think I'm addicted.
 
Anonymous said:
Hello everybody,
Need some ideas about new books to read, so what are you reading ?
I am catching up with the Trilogy of the Nomes : Truckers, Diggers and Wings; and then will go on with Arto Paasilinna: The Year of the Hare.
The trilogy is fun, even if I am reading it a little bit to late I think. But the idea of an entire world humans are not aware of is nice.
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Check out my latest novel which features the music of Iron Maiden and includes all the excitement of the Charge of the Light Brigade. I fantastic read and its available on Kindle.
Music and Books who could ask for more?
http://writercrjames.wordpress.com/noveltease/
 
I think there should be a "Now Listening" thread...
...just so I can say I'm currently listening to a BBC Audiobook called America: Empire Of Liberty (2009); written & read by David Reynolds. I've listened to it all before, but thought I'd put it on my MP3 player to listen to in the car. It's in 90 parts, each about 13-14 minutes long. Very good it is. I have to say, I quite like non-fiction audiobooks.
 
I read Hunt For Red October and SSN. The former is pretty fucking good, but partway through Clear and Present Danger I realized he just writes the same books over and over again. SSN was a tie-in for a game. Not so great.
 
I was a fan back in the day, like real back in the day (7/8th grade). Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games were alright, Rainbow Six was amazing. A sad day.
 
After not reading anything at all since June, I dove right into reading again.

Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) by John Ajvide Lindqvist - What started off as a quite slow book that I did not really get had turned into something else by the time I had reached the end. The setting and build-up are everything I expect in a contemporary Swedish crime/thriller/horror novel, and I suspect that is why I felt it was so underwhelming and familiar. In a way, it is. But it is so much more than that. It is one of the most brilliant books I have read, and certainly my favourite penned by a Swedish author.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami - Maybe not the book I will remember Murakami for, but still worth reading and not disappointing in the slightest.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - As always, I think Murakami is brilliant. I like Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84 the most, due to their more fantastical and dreamlike storytelling, but this is also a great book worth reading.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - Seems promising. (Currently reading. )
 
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - This is the first novel I have read by Neil Gaiman, and I had high expectations on it. I did not particularly like it, to say the least - even though this is my genre, my own back yard. There are some part which are great, mainly the realistical ones, but the fantastical parts of it are some of the most silly nonsense I have read. It makes no sense. It is a book which has no rules, and thus no tension, and just throws weird stuff at you. I am not even sure why the evil turned up in the first place. I do not feel like picking up another work by Gaiman.

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton - This is the book that the film The 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas was based on. The film was a flop at the time, but it is slowly gaining something of a cult following. I personally saw it when I was in my early teens, and loved it. I only recently discovered that it was based on a book, maybe due to the fact that it did not have the same title. The novel is very interesting due to it presenting a fictional story, based in parts on an account of a real Arab traveler, like a scholarly work with footnotes riddled all over. It was an attempt a bringing the story of Beowulf down to a fictionalized historic account of an eye-witness, and I guess it was a little too successful at it because Crichton himself mentions in the added afterword that he years later had lost track of which of the footnotes that were real and which he had made up. The story itself is about an Arab traveler who travels with a group of Vikings to fight an evil enemy called Wendol in their homeland in the far North. A great novel.
 
Maturin said:
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton - This is the book that the film The 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas was based on. The film was a flop at the time, but it is slowly gaining something of a cult following. I personally saw it when I was in my early teens, and loved it. I only recently discovered that it was based on a book, maybe due to the fact that it did not have the same title. The novel is very interesting due to it presenting a fictional story, based in parts on an account of a real Arab traveler, like a scholarly work with footnotes riddled all over. It was an attempt a bringing the story of Beowulf down to a fictionalized historic account of an eye-witness, and I guess it was a little too successful at it because Crichton himself mentions in the added afterword that he years later had lost track of which of the footnotes that were real and which he had made up. The story itself is about an Arab traveler who travels with a group of Vikings to fight an evil enemy called Wendol in their homeland in the far North. A great novel.
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I'm surprised you didn't know it was based on Crichton's novel as it says in the credits "based on the novel by..." and the reprints since the movie are published as "The 13th Warrior, previously published as Eaters of the Dead."
Anyway... This is the one Crichton novel I started reading and just gave up on. What a drab. There's a reason it doesn't say "#1 Bestseller" on the cover like most of his works. I was able to read The Terminal Man, but this... what a bore. I agree the movie was great and IMO of the few times the movie surpassed the book if only because it was actually entertaining. I MAY actually power through it one of these days as my one and only attempt was about 15 years ago and now-a-days Pop lit, even Crichton, bores me for the most part.
 
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