What are you reading ... NOW!

[Windthrop]

The NOW is 'A Murder Is Announced'
I was once an avid reader right from haunting the nearby local library as a boy until chasing a career and juggling that with a family put a stop to it and I lost the habit. I recently found my passion again via a TV ad you know the type 'build the Victory' by buying a magazine with bits in instalments. Well this ad was the complete Agatha Christie collection. Please do not sneer as now, for me, Agatha Christie's light touch is all I need and it is quite fun to marry my film hobby to my rediscovered reading. Also I listen to the story if I can, via radio or CD, and watch the many films made from her stories I have in my collection plus, follow the small amount of background given in the magazine that accompanies each book. Having a collector and a 'lists' personality the series feeds my obsession. 'And Then There Were None' has just arrived along with 'The Mysterious Affair At Styles' which will be stored along with it's DVD on my new Agatha Christie Collection Shelves after reading, viewing and of course..... entering on the spreadsheet. Reading and viewing heaven!

She was certainly a great plotter. ATTWN is superb on first reading.

Me ? I'm reading the new Michael Frayn novel Skios. A farce in novel form - a difficult enough genre to pull off on stage let alone the printed page but so far, so good. I can see it being filmed or even making the stage from what I have read so far.

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[torinfan]

"Venus" by Patrick Moore. I very much like his style of writing. Venus will be in transit across the sun next month which is pretty exciting - a once in a lifetime event.

[woody123]

A collection of M.R.James classic ghost stories.Lost Hearts is one of the shortest but most effective. I can't read it without remembering the 2 classic tv adaptations so they probably colour my reaction to it.

[Tigon Man]

Don't let The Bastards grind You Down.jpg

The rise of the working class actor between 1956-1964. Some of the stories I've heard in one form or another over the years, such as the Shaw/Caine fight during Hill in Korea, but this remains a fascinating read.

[rskershaw]

Managed to get hold of a very battered copy of the "The Making of Exorcist II: The Heretic" by Barbara Pallenberg. Her account of the making doesn't have the notoriety you'd expect considering the films reputation, just a series of bad luck and a director who became ill during shooting.

[orpheum2]

Just finished quite a good biog of jant Gaynor and Charles farrell "Lucky Stars".

[Mr Sloane]

Just finished -Flashback by David Barry which covers a tour he was on with Larry Olivier and Vivien Leigh as a teenager counterpointed with a 1998 tour in a Ray Cooney farce with some bits and pieces from his time in the limelight as Frankie Abbott. A quick easy going read with fun anecdotes(showing most of his co-workers had trouble with Rodney Bewes).

[Timmy_Lea]

[Merton Park]

Infamous Players by Peter Bart.

The Author was a New York Times writer who moved to LA then worked with Robert Evans at Paramount Pictures for a number of years in the 1960's and 70's. It is a fascinating read about how a major studio functioned under the weight of the egos and the madness of the times.

Strongly recommended.

[faginsgirl]

I`m reading `Becoming Enlightened` by the Dalai Lama. So hopefully I will become enlightened soon

[Merton Park]

"Shut It" by Pat Gilbert

An in depth look at The Sweeney with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. Some of it is a bit of a cuttings job, but I enjoyed it. Interesting all the background to the best Cop show on TV . Never been anything to touch it, before or since.

Worth reading if you are a fan.

[Elaine]

The High Bright Sun. Written by Ian Stuart Black. A rare book, published in 1962 which the Film The High Bright Sun was taken from. Dirk Bogarde stuck to the character of Mcguire as described by the author, although he could hardly be said to be a a large man. Dirk was never that, but the film mirrors the book so far. I am finding it hard to put down

[moonfleet]

The book was in the box this morning, for once it's a very good quality one for an "english" book (I got others, great books but very poor paper quality for most of them)
If it's easely understandabale, I'd try a direct lecture ...otherwise, I'd look for some translation
I have no scan machine, but I'm almost sure that now, one can have a book translation on screen, page by page, when scanning a book...

[Gerald Lovell]

Studies in Terror Landmarks of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby. The landmarks are his idiosyncratic pick of effective moments in (even pretty crummy) horror films. Rigby is an informative and witty author and the book has encouraged me to hunt down a few films that I haven't seen before.

[GRAEME]

J G Ballard's rather forgotten The Wind From Nowhere, his first novel. He wrote it in ten days!!! He himself disowned it as "hack work" but I'm finding it rather enjoyable - chilling, superior, apocalyptic SF in the Wyndham tradition but with plenty of Ballardian touches and glimmers of the hallucinatory glories to come in his later work.

[dremble wedge]

Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube by Andrew Martin. A fascinating account of why the London Underground (and London itself) developed in the haphazard way it did.

[wadsy]

I just finished "The Hurricane" a biography of snooker star Alex Higgins by Bill Borrows. He was quite a handful was Alex!

Now I just started Antonia Fraser's biography of King Charles 2nd & it's riveting stuff so far.

[moonfleet]

This June edition is dedicated to one of my favourite author, Jose Luis Borges

[dpgmel]

Genius or madman ? ( I know where I stamd ! )

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIARY-OF-GEN...0357709&sr=8-7

[moonfleet]

Genius or madman ? ( I know where I stamd ! )

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIARY-OF-GEN...0357709&sr=8-7

Hi Dpg

Should I deduce that you like Salvador Dali's style ?? I don't, not because it's "hype" to say that you dislike him, I don't have any feeling when watching his paints, and I do prefer other surrealistic painters as Yves Tanguy, André Masson, Miro, Leonora Carrington...