Last Book You Read/Next Book You Want to Read?

[Streetwise]

I'll look out for that @Streetwise, thank you.
It seems especially sad that sometimes people who are murdered end up in rubbish bins. Like adding insult to injury, although realistically I know that if a person has had their life stolen from them it can't get much worse :/


I wonder what he thought of it all, too. I feel like I would do a lot better with the dead than with live people who are injured. I'm not good with that.

have you seen a dead human body up close, touched It ,the reason I’m asking is people are unique ,you just never know ,I saw the injuries caused by a shot gun ,this was of somebody dead as you can imagine ,didn’t look any better being dead , couldn’t imagine somebody being alive with that ,dead was still horrible, I never know how funeral directors do what they do ,the injuries from a crash or from an aeroplane crash are horrific ,trying to make that look normal I couldn’t even begin !I was in a train crash and I was rolled around like beans a bean can ,The driver died ,I don’t even want to imagine what he looked like, I don’t know how my mother worked at the fire station she got nauseous very easily and she would see the scene of crime photographs, she obviously wanted the job a lot .

 

[Rectify]

have you seen a dead human body up close, touched It

Yes, but not a gunshot or accident victim.

 

[Aeolienne]

A Bristolian's Guide to Solid-Wall Insulation, available to download here

 

[Kalinychta]

I just finished a Stephen King book called Needful Things. Is it just me, or do his novels actually kind of quite suck? I’ve read two or three of them in my life, and they’ve all been boring or, in the case of Needful Things, they start out really well but then toward the end become so bizarre and “gaudy” in a very tacky, unsophisticated way.

I think subtlety is the key to great gothic stories, including those flecked with elements of horror. King’s stories start out subtle...but then they completely fly off the handle in ways that are so inconsistent with the rest of the story up to that point.

I don’t get why so many people like him. He doesn’t hold a candle to H.P. Lovecraft or Robert Louis Stevenson or any of the other great writers of gothic/horror.

 

[Streetwise]

Charlie Chan carries on , I was disappointed that Charlie Chan was only really in the last chapter !but I did like the description of his family .

 

[Rectify]

I just finished a Stephen King book called Needful Things. Is it just me, or do his novels actually kind of quite suck? I’ve read two or three of them in my life, and they’ve all been boring or, in the case of Needful Things, they start out really well but then toward the end become so bizarre and “gaudy” in a very tacky, unsophisticated way.

Well, for all the people who love King there are plenty who aren't fans. I've also read many people saying some of his novels are fantastic, others not so much. I read The Dead Zone. It was okay. But I am looking forward to trying one of his more popular novels, maybe IT or another that has received better reviews.

I know of the other writers you mentioned but I haven't read anything by them...yet I do like the horror genre, though.

 

[Rectify]

I read The Hunger. It was a great yarn based on real historical events but with some horror elements added to it. It's by Alma Katsu.

 

[Streetwise]

Well, for all the people who love King there are plenty who aren't fans. I've also read many people saying some of his novels are fantastic, others not so much. I read The Dead Zone. It was okay. But I am looking forward to trying one of his more popular novels, maybe IT or another that has received better reviews.

I know of the other writers you mentioned but I haven't read anything by them...yet I do like the horror genre, though.

The only story I read the whole way through was disappointing ,if you like the culture of maine ,You would be more interested in his novels,I don’t worship American culture so it didn’t do a lot for me ,Some bits seem almost!!!!! xenophobic.

 

[Rectify]

The only story I read the whole way through was disappointing ,if you like the culture of maine ,You would be more interested in his novels,I don’t worship American culture so it didn’t do a lot for me ,Some bits seem almost!!!!! xenophobic.

Actually you make some good points re setting and...well, no doubt his novels are a product of the time they were written and the person they were written by. Some older novels can be like that. William Faulkner for example - some parts were very hard to read re slaves :/ At any rate I read with awareness of those those things. Well, hopefully.

 

[Streetwise]

Actually you make some good points re setting and...well, no doubt his novels are a product of the time they were written and the person they were written by. Some older novels can be like that. William Faulkner for example - some parts were very hard to read re slaves :/ At any rate I read with awareness of those those things. Well, hopefully.

it was published in 2005 it’s the attitudes of the characters that are not endearing , it’s reminiscent of the bitterness of Agatha Christie‘s novels, People from small towns feeling superior to people who live in cities, I have no idea who he was trying to cater to .

 

[Kalinychta]

it was published in 2005 it’s the attitudes of the characters that are not endearing , it’s reminiscent of the bitterness of Agatha Christie‘s novels, People from small towns feeling superior to people who live in cities, I have no idea who he was trying to cater to .

Also so many of his characters are crass and foul-mouthed.

 

[Rectify]

it was published in 2005 it’s the attitudes of the characters that are not endearing , it’s reminiscent of the bitterness of Agatha Christie‘s novels, People from small towns feeling superior to people who live in cities, I have no idea who he was trying to cater to .

He was trying to cater for "People from small towns feeling superior to people who live in cities".

All this discussion is really making me want to read another of his, a later, more popular, story perhaps just to get a bit more to analyse.

 

[Rectify]

Also so many of his characters are crass and foul-mouthed.

Yeah, that's not as much of a problem for me. But I understand that people are different and some people don't like that.

 

[Kalinychta]

He was trying to cater for "People from small towns feeling superior to people who live in cities".

All this discussion is really making me want to read another of his, a later, more popular, story perhaps just to get a bit more to analyse.

The opposite is true, though, too...people from big cities think they’re superior to small town folk.

 

[Kalinychta]

Yeah, that's not as much of a problem for me. But I understand that people are different and some people don't like that.

I don’t mind it either usually, but King goes way overboard with it.

 

[Rectify]

The opposite is true, though, too...people from big cities think they’re superior to small town folk.

Do you mean that was reflected in the novels, though? I was just talking about something Streetwise saw reflected in the novels they read.

Though on a broader discussion I absolutely agree with you - big city folk do, also, look down on small towners.

 

[Rectify]

I don’t mind it either usually, but King goes way overboard with it.

Yeah, again I'm wanting to read more so I have more to go on. I've only read one of his :/
I've a got a long list of 'to reads' though...could be a while

 

[Kalinychta]

Do you mean that was reflected in the novels, though? I was just talking about something Streetwise saw reflected in the novels they read.

Though on a broader discussion I absolutely agree with you - big city folk do, also, look down on small towners.

Oh I see. I was just making a general comment. The small town superiority thing is true of his novels.

 

[tree]

I enjoyed his early short stories that he wrote under the pseudonym
Richard Bachman. The plots were tighter, not sprawling like his later novels
where it seemed like he was getting paid by word.

One thing I saw people enjoying about the later novels was the size.
They felt they were getting a lot for their money. Many pages. Super sized.

"Chattery Teeth" is one of my favorite Richard Bachman stories.

 

[Streetwise]

Yeah, again I'm wanting to read more so I have more to go on. I've only read one of his :/
I've a got a long list of 'to reads' though...could be a while

This is a short story called the Colorado kid ,a TV series (how they manage to make the whole seven or eight season TV series out of a very short story I will never know) called haven .