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Ryan Maxwell
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12934
Posted: 21 May 2022 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

THE LAST KINGDOM, the first book in the Uhtred (son of Uhtred!) of Bebbanburg series that inspired the BBC/Netflix show of the same name. I very much enjoyed the show, and the book is really good so far.   

Edited by Ryan Maxwell on 21 May 2022 at 5:56pm
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Peter Hicks
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1879
Posted: 21 May 2022 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

To Everything That Might Have Been, about the envisioning and production of the TV series Space:1999.
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James Best
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Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 875
Posted: 22 May 2022 at 12:00am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Now reading THE GOD DELUSION (2006) by Richard Dawkins.

This is my first sampling of Dawkins' work. I'm only about sixty pages in and I am enjoying it a lot so far. 

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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15729
Posted: 22 May 2022 at 12:31am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Long time since I read that -- I remember enjoying particularly the bit about various morality problems (I recall one where you have the option of sacrificing a lone fat man to save the lives of a bunch of people on a train; maybe I don't recall it fully!) and also about questions posed to children about certain actions when it is worded neutrally or when it is worded along the lines of their religion and how the answers came back differently (e.g. Joshua committing genocide in the Old Testament).
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4410
Posted: 22 May 2022 at 1:37am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

A bit trivial but I just finished The Beatles Tune In Vol. 1 by Mark Lewisohn. Over 800 pages of the best rock and roll story there has been (in my opinion, 4x Elvis' rags to riches story). That other John Byrne figures fairly often (Johnny 'Guitar' of Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, there are some photos of him with Ringo naturally too).
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15729
Posted: 20 July 2022 at 12:03am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I'm about 400 pages into The Greek Myths by Robert Graves (he of I, Claudius fame). I bought this book maybe 20 years ago and got a couple of hundred pages in. I gave up originally because it wasn't really what I was looking for back then, which was more of a Nathaniel Hawthorne style telling (not sure why I didn't just buy Hawthorne, der).

Graves takes an usual tack. He first tells each myth in a pretty bare bones manner. He then attempts to explain how the myth came about -- a sort of truth behind the myth. This is in itself quite confusing (he often bangs on about the various goddesses just being different aspects of the one Goddess and various characters representing sacrificial kings of different cults), but the disparate elements start to make some kind of sense after a while. How he is all quite so sure about it, I don't know, but it's interesting (he often declares the mythographer as having mistakenly misinterpreted an icon in a temple), especially how the many myths seem to revolve around only a few themes (often a king being torn apart after a reign of twelve months).

Some of it is almost cartoonishly grisly as well. Atreus serves up his nephews to their father and his brother (and rival) Thyestes in a stew. Then has him banished for eating kids (a very common theme is two competing rulers of the same kingdom). 

Another tale from the same family has Tantalus (Atreus' grandad) serves up Pelops (Atreus' dad) in a stew to the Olympian gods. The gods see it coming and are disgusted, apart from Demeter, who is distracted because of worry over her daughter Persephone down in Tartarus, and absently consumes Pelops' shoulder. The gods decide to put Pelops back together again, but Hephaestus has to make him a new shoulder. Pelops went on to found a chariot race in honour of the gods and from this we get the Olympian Games. It's fun for all the family.


Edited by Peter Martin on 20 July 2022 at 12:06am
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James Best
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Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 875
Posted: 20 July 2022 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Just finished this one... Winner of the 2014 British Gold Dagger Award as the Best Crime Thriller Novel of the Year. It looks like Roman Polanski adapted it into a French feature film back in 2019.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15729
Posted: 20 July 2022 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Despite his great success as a novelist, this remains my abiding memory of Robert Harris: LINK

 
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Brian Floyd
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8322
Posted: 21 July 2022 at 12:55am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

GHOST HUNTER, by Hans Holzer.


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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15729
Posted: 11 August 2022 at 2:24am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I visited my local second-hand bookstore last week and I picked up a Penguin edition of Shakespeare's Richard II (wonderfully slim; I dislike it when an editor doubles the length of the book with a bloated discussion) and a book of writings by Dylan Thomas, which is the reason I went in the first place. Now, they didn't have the actual collection I was looking for, but I'm reasonably happy with the one I got -- which is called Miscellany One (not the most inventive title).

It includes 16 poems, four stories and three texts of broadcasts. Thomas had a brilliant knack for creating evocative imagery with terms that seem brand new each time you read them.
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James Best
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 875
Posted: 11 August 2022 at 3:25am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Just finished this one last night. Winner of the 2022 Edgar Award as the Best Mystery Novel of the Year.
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James Best
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 875
Posted: 11 August 2022 at 3:27am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Just starting this one today. Winner of the 1991 Hammett Prize as the Best Crime Novel of the Year... I think it was even a TV series, very briefly, when the author was at his peak of popularity in the 90s after the success of GET SHORTY, etc., etc.
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