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Yea, I know we had one, but the guy who made it was a right git and I'd prefer he was left forgotten.

Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers

8/10 easily as good as the film and for a fast reader about the same length. More about the society and no infernal love story in the way. Entertaining and detailed if a little short.

Jean-Christophe Grangé - Le serment des limbes ( Hell's Oath )

10/10 Still reading it and I must say its spectacular.

Dan Brown - Angels and Demons

10/10 Another perfect book to read, thrilling, better than watching same class movie

1. The Gulag Archipelago (Alexandr Solzhenitsyn)
2. The State of Fear (Michael Crichton

I'd give 'em all a 9/10.

P.S. It seems that few of us here is an avid reader. :wahhhhhaa:

Hadn't seen this topic - ah well -

Fatherland by Robert Harris - 9.5/10 - a 'What if?' storyline that explores the aspects of a post-war Germany that won the war, and with Adolf Hitler still at the helm. Seen through the eyes of one man, a police officer who is slowly becoming dissillusioned by the current state of affairs, he uncovers a massive plot to cover up a previously hidden war secret, a war secret that nobody knows about except a few, who are slowly being killed off. As he investigates further, more details become apparent, and the entirety of the German country is in danger of imploding on the eve of Hitler's 65th birthday, the same day on which President Kennedy is to attend the German state to broker a peace between two nations who have been feuding, but not openly, for over 30 years.

A vivid picture, and a great book - recommended to anyone at all.

PS like the new topic Dauth!

Clarkson - Don't stop me now

A compendium of his recent car articles in the Sunday Times (Murdoch's press), had me giggling in a few places, better read slowly tho.

8/10

Glad people like the topic.

Imperial Life in The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - a great read and quite a facinating insight into the way that Iraq used to work. Most certainly worth reading. 10/10

Atlas Shrugged
1/10
I hated this book. It was extremely long, and long books are boring. Especially if they're 1000 pages (or 600,000 words), like Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand should be proud of herself! She actually had the nerve to write a thousand pages while not thinking that she would have the worst case of Carplal Tunnel of all time!
If you hate long books, but love good books, I reccomend that you read Pat the Bunny.

That's an awful book - I hate those ones that go on and on - War and Peace anyone - i read about 2/3 of it and thought of killing myself. Seriously. Anyways - War and Peace - 7/10 - good book but just gets really turgid after a while.

AjPOD, on 7 May 2008, 23:11, said:

I have to disagree, it was a 9/10 book, the only problem is Tolstoy went a little nuts in the final part and wrote opinions as opposed to the storyline.

I agree to disagree - I just got a little tired of it all after a while - and I have the patience of a saint...(or so I'm told) Could maybe make it to 8/10 on a push, but it's more renowned for it's epic length than it's epic storyline, which I feel is sad.
Edited by AjPOD, 07 May 2008 - 23:22.

Snow Blind - PJ Tracy.

Not that bad, but lacking a satisfying end. Touches a few moral issues, and its sometimes hard to tell who is actually talking.

7/10

AjPOD, on 7 May 2008, 6:02, said:

-I presume this was made into a film by casted by a quite popular American actor (which I hardly remember his name, just his face!)

It was done as a TV moive about 12 years ago - starred Rutger Hauer. Dunno if he's well-known or not. Never made into a major film adaptation.

AjPOD, on 8 May 2008, 20:53, said:

Too bad it was not adapted.

I'll look it up on our bookstore here (the Fatherland).

Oh, I forgot. It was not available on the shelves of any bookstore I know.

Oh, well. Back to the "legal" bookstore where "banned" books can be obtained (Mein Kampf is considered banned by the majority of the Filipino community and society, most especially the Church and the ill-informed.) And I'm not going to tell anyone! =p

By the way...

What if The Nazis won the war? Would USSR exist? (due to the Nazi's policy of Lebensraum, or "Living Space") Should we pay reparations to the victors for a bazillion years? Should we say, "Stig heil! Stig heil" at the sight of either the Nazi flag or Hitler's visage? Or perhaps I may not be present here at this very moment? (due to "questionable" eugenics as flaunted by them)

P.S. I am not saying that Adolf Hitler is the worst bad-*ss guy of written history. Hitler was not born evil. It was his environment that made him evil. The environment was there before Hitler's birth, it was there during his reign, it was there during the Soviet occupation of Berlin, and it was there after his suicide, and, unfortunately, the environment haven't changed at all. So how could we get a better one?

P.P.S. I have meant NAZIs, and not GERMANS for the former is very very different to the latter.

P.P.P.S. And I am not a Jew. :stickattack2:

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) 10/10

One word: fantastic

This novel truly deserves all the critical acclaim it received.

Terrible Science- Some British wrote it (You maybe know them Dauth: Nick Arnold, Tony De Saulles, Anita Ganeri, Mike Philips, Kjartan Poskitt, Philip Reeve and Daniel Postgate) - Funny. Lots of comics and jokes while learning something good.

10/10. Good job British!

Terrible Science - brought to you by the team behind, Horrible Histories, Murderous Maths, Horrible Science, Horrible Geography, Horrible this, that and the other. Good books though- my favourites always used to the Maths ones 9/10

As for my personal reading skills - A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Simply hilarious, fantastic and brilliant. 9.5/10

Death at intervals by Jose Saramago (English translation)

The odd writing style of conversations threw me at first, but once that was under control it read quite well. It could probably do with bits of detail throughout, maybe and extra 10 pages overall.

8/10 Good book

In Our Image (Stanley Karnow) 10/10

A fascinating look into the American influence on Filipino culture. I'm half Filipino so its really interesting to look into the past and see how our homeland was shaped and influenced by many other imperialist nations.

The Open Circle - deals in the theory of theatre and the history behind Peter Brook - one of theatre's leading role models. While not for everyone, a great read in it's own right for anyone slightly interested in broadening their horizons. 8/10

Beta9, on 15 May 2008, 7:11, said:

Ahh, a half-Filipino?

Full-blooded Filipino here!

"Galing ako sa 'Pinas. Bakit ko ikahihiya? Maaring itinakwil ko ang aking pagka-Pilipino, subali't kakain pa rin ako ng balut! (I came from the Philippines. I do not feel ashamed about it. I may have given up my Filipino citizenship, but I'm still going to eat balut!)" -a Filipino-turned-German engineer describing his ancestry

I'd like to add the "influence", although not so-imperialist in nature:
1. Chinese
2. Japanese
3. Indian
4. Malaysian
5. Indonesian
6. recently, Korean

P.S. If you are curious about balut, kindly click here.


Back at Topic:

Eventhough it's quite old, but FINALLY, I have finished reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville! (just yesterday...tied me own boots meself!)

The Wandering Jew, on 20 May 2008, 4:17, said:

Yup I'm half. Mother's side.

And yea, ive heard about balut x_x i will never eat it :nurse:

Back to topic:

PS I Love You (Cecelia Ahern) 7/10
It's a quick read but honestly, I liked the film adaptation better. <_<

Dark Rivers of the Heart - Dean Koontz

8/10, nice interesting book but ending wasn't done nearly as well as what I hoped.

Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead - 9/10. It's a sequel to his earlier book Ender's Game, which I enjoyed very greatly. It's a good science fiction read I must say. There's more books beyond Speaker for the Dead but I never got the time to read the next one which I believe was Xenocide. Card is a great scifi writer and won many awards for his series.

Issac Asimov's - Foundation

Well I'm reading the trilogy and have just finished the first book. He does an exception job of writing intelligent people and making characters in a short space of time.

9/10 It could do with being a little longer tbh.