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Actually I didn't like that book at all.  While I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code,  I wanted to read something of a little higher quality (I'm not in any way saying that the Da Vinci Code isn't a nice read).  I found this one extremely boring and too much philosophy for me.  The ending,  well,  I found it was the worst part of the whole book.  Not because it wasn't a happy end,  but because it just seemed stupid to me.  It's one of those endings that make me go :"I spent so much time reading this,  just to come to this end?".
 
SneakySneaky said:
Actually I didn't like that book at all.  While I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code,  I wanted to read something of a little higher quality (I'm not in any way saying that the Da Vinci Code isn't a nice read).  I found this one extremely boring and too much philosophy for me.  The ending,  well,  I found it was the worst part of the whole book.  Not because it wasn't a happy end,  but because it just seemed stupid to me.  It's one of those endings that make me go :"I spent so much time reading this,  just to come to this end?".
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Welcome to reality.  Don't forget to leave your sanity on your way in. :(
 
SneakySneaky said:
Actually I didn't like that book at all.  While I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code,  I wanted to read something of a little higher quality (I'm not in any way saying that the Da Vinci Code isn't a nice read).  I found this one extremely boring and too much philosophy for me.  The ending,  well,  I found it was the worst part of the whole book.  Not because it wasn't a happy end,  but because it just seemed stupid to me.  It's one of those endings that make me go :"I spent so much time reading this,  just to come to this end?".
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Try The Name of the Rose, at least it has a straightforward ending, and I agree with SMX, Eco's writing is really good. I read the English version of TNOTR and I was pleased by the level of vocabulary. I have vowed to read the rest of his stuff in Spanish though considering it's closeness to Italian.
 
Shadow said:
I recently read Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966), which widely considered one of his best novels and rightly so too. The book is set in 2075 in the Lunar Colonies, which consists of a number of settlements primarily inhabited by descendants of people transported there from Earth, for criminal or political reasons. The novel deals with a (to begin with) libertarian Lunar rebellion seeking to free the moon from the Lunar Authority and the Earth, and is, like many of Heinlein's works, as much a political essay as a story of fiction, dealing with matters like "rational anarchism", individualism versus government, taxation, polygamy and many others in an intriguing way. Stylistically, it's notable for being written entirely in an invented Russian-English dialect. All in all, it's a powerful story and one I would definitely recommend.
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Something about this novel made be curious, so I started digging up on the internet.  Just as I suspected, Wikipedia stated that it is similar to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  Have you read the latter and do you know if Wiki's statement is true in your opinion?
 
whoops! Just noticed your Rainmaker adaption......I dare to say that I like it more that the original !!!

Genghis Khan said:
When I was wandering in the Arizona desert
And I was searching for some thrills
I heard a choir of coyotes calling out my name
I had the feeling that my life would never be the same again
I turned my ass and ran towards the city limits
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Shadow said:
Not familiar with that one, sorry.
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You didn't miss much.  I like the concept of that book, but the actual writing is dry and the characters are too robotic and perfect to be believable.  The premises of the two books are similar.  Apparently, Heinlein even honours Rand's work by mentioning their chief protagonist "John Galt" by name.  I'll have to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966).  Thanks for the review.

____no5 said:
whoops! Just noticed your Rainmaker adaption......I dare to say that I like it more that the original !!!
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Thanks, but it isn't.  It was kind of an ode to the song -- as my brain kept singing the song during my November stay in Arizona. 
 
I need a second opinion(and third, fourth, fifth...) about the book called The invisible hand- introduction to the history of conspiracy by Ralf Epperson.
 
Just finished the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. An excellent play that draws on Hamlet for the plot and on Waiting for Godot for the lines. The film's not bad either, the only aggravating thing about it is the music. I highly recommend this play for anyone who appreciates dark humor in the lines of Beckett.
 
Sherlock Holmes. I intend to read all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work about him, in chronological order.

I really like this stuff. I have already read A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four[/i], The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and right now I am at the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles

more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle

and all Sherlock Holmes stories on internet -->
http://camdenhouse.ignisart.com/canon/index.html
 
I love Sir Doyles' works. If you are interested in other works by him that do not concern Sherlock Holmes, I recommend The White Company. It's a tale a little in the style of Tolkien (but not really) about knights and damsels in distress, classic stuff.  :)
 
Natalie said:
I love Sir Doyles' works. If you are interested in other works by him that do not concern Sherlock Holmes, I recommend The White Company. It's a tale a little in the style of Tolkien (but not really) about knights and damsels in distress, classic stuff.  :)
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Thanks for the tip !

I found this about it:

The White Company


As a child Arthur Conan Doyle's mother  told him stories of chivalrous knights and glorious deeds.  These tales helped the Doyle family to survive hard times, fueled young Conan Doyle's imagination and helped him to become a writer.  They may have also been part of the inspiration for The White Company.

Today Conan Doyle is known for his Sherlock Holmes stories and to a lesser degree The Lost World.  However during his lifetime he was also known as an author of historical fiction.  In 1889 his novel Micah Clark was published.  The book, set in the late seventeenth century, focused on  political and religious turmoil.  It was very popular, requiring three reprintings in ten months to keep up with the public's demand.       

In 1889 Conan Doyle attended a lecture on medieval times.  He soon found his thoughts turning to the fourteenth century.  It wasn't long before another historical novel was in the works.  After extensive research, The White Company was written.  Its initial publication was in serialized form throughout 1891 in Cornhill Magazine.

While the work is virtually unknown by the public today, it was very popular in its time.  Its popularity continued throughout the Second World War.  The British government made sure that despite paper shortages The White Company  was kept in print.  The book was considered a national morale booster. 

The novel is about the adventures of a group of "manly and true" bowmen called the White Company.  Sir Nigel Loring is their leader and Alleyne Edricson is his squire.  The novel is filled with battles, knights, and chivalry.

"Now order the ranks, and fling wide the banners, for our souls are God's and our bodies the king's, and our swords for Saint George and for England!" - The White Company

Years later Conan Doyle wrote a prequel to The White Company.  That book, titled Sir Nigel, was printed in 1905.  Conan Doyle said that the two books, "made an accurate picture of that great age, and that as a single piece of work they form the most complete, satisfying and ambitious thing I have ever done."

In 1921 Conan Doyle was asked which novel had been the most fun to write.  The answer was The White Company.  Conan Doyle said, "I was young and full of the first joy of life and action and I think I got some of it into my pages."

"So they lived, these men, in their own lusty, cheery fashion--rude and rough, but honest, kindly and true. Let us thank God if we have outgrown their vices. Let us pray to God that we may ever hold their virtues." - The White Company

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Sounds interesting but I am afraid it will take a while before I am able to read it. I am quite a slow reader (doing many other things in between). But I'll remember the title and it's cool to know that Conan Doyle said that it had been the most fun to him to write it.
 
Recently, I read The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. It's based around Francis Brady, only son of his remote, alcoholic father and neurotically unhinged mother, dealing with the trials he faced while growing up in a rural town in Ireland around the time of the Cuban missile crisis, as narrated by himself much later in the future. It centers around perception, specifically how a young boy with no father figure to learn from copes with the pretense of his peers, the dynamics of friendship, and growing up in a social world, a world Brady largely ignores as unnecessary. Executed in a flowing prose and detached manner, the novel presents graphic scenes in an often shocking manner. Oh, and over the holidays I read some Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Huxley, but I'm not writing an essay here, so stop reading this post already, stalker.
 
Last book i read...yeah, Demian, by H. Hesse. Aww, I like it very much. Hesse is a great witer, interesting story and plenty of interesting ideas
 
Doyle fans might also enjoy Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes.  It was a bestseller in the UK and the US, and a nominee for the Booker Prize.  It is a novelization of what apparently is a true story, in which Doyle came to the aid of an Indian solicitor (that would be "George" from the title) who was persecuted for his race and, more specifically, unjustly imprisoned for supposedly mutilating farm animals.  A very well written, intelligent and entertaining book. 
 
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