OSA readers corner

[Harri74]

Thought it might be an idea to create a kind of book club on OSA. An opportunity to give a brief synopsis of what youve just read and your opinion on whether its recommended, or not! Ill start..

Just read - The Marian Conspiracy: The Hidden Truth About the Holy Grail, the Real Father of Christ and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary: Amazon.co.uk: Graham Phillips: Books

Its basically a non-fiction account of a professor developing the theory that the Virgin Mary came to the UK shortly after the crucifixtion and established a church here. Id call it a cross between the Da Vinci code and Indiana Jones although it is non-fiction. It gives a lot of background history to each argument and is well researched. The only criticism i have is that sometimes the links are tenuous and some of the prose is a bit lumpy, especially for a professor. All in all though a good romp with some history thrown in.

6/10.

 

[Northern Star]

One of the best books ive ever read!

Quite a beefy book as its in two parts. Book 1 is the story of how it all began and how he met his met wife, basically the journey down through the yrs doing and experimenting with his first love (mind alteration )

The second part, book 2 is basically his notes and findings and recipies Very interesting if u like knowing shit like that! i found it facsinating stuff

Thouroughly recommend it to anyone 9/10

 

[woody]

The Jigsaw Man: Amazon.co.uk: Paul Britton: Books

The first book ive read at home for aaaaages.. only usually get time to read on holiday. Highly recommended from the Woodster

Follows the career of a forensic psychologist and some very high profile cases from the past few decades.. Fred West, Colin Stagg etc

 

[Northern Star]

Thats a wikked book woddy! another fave of mine! Excellent read

 

[Shooms]

Synopsis:

Classic 80's hedgerow grumble, featuring council slappers from provincial towns often wearing mis-matched underwear & roots

The holy grail of discarded urban playground porn was always to find a copy with no pages stuck together...

 

[Harri74]

The holy grail of discarded urban playground porn was always to find a copy with no pages stuck together...

..or buried under the bushes over the park.. :S Nice one Shooms, gonna get myself a copy..

 

[nics]

Synopsis:

Classic 80's hedgerow grumble, featuring council slappers from provincial towns often wearing mis-matched underwear & roots

The holy grail of discarded urban playground porn was always to find a copy with no pages stuck together...

im sur lottie was centre fold of that issue.......ten again it may of been readers wives im not quite sure??


anyways i dont get a chance to read that much but i got the hooky book for crimbo "how not to run a club" basicaly bowt the ins n outs of the hacienda. so gonna give it a whirl, from what ive read so far its a good read!

 

[coggledots]

Got all ten 'True Blood' books for chrimbo, loved the first series on tv.

Was suprised the first book was the entire series, so suppose theres gonna be more to come lol.

Already got through the first two, was up til 1.30am last night even though i had work this morning. Proper page turners.

THE Complete List of Charlaine Harris True Blood Books | Best Fantasy Stories

 

[Buzz]

Just finished this book

Mutiny on the Bounty by John Boyne

Mutiny on the "Bounty" John Boyne | WHSmith.co.uk

The story is told in the eyes of Captain Blighs servant boy who was sent to serve on the ship after being caught pick pocketing, really good read and loads of twists and turns in the story.

I started reading books again as the train journeys each weak up north were doing my head in with nowt to read or shit, pissed right off when i finished the book though, however I now have an iPhone so i'm ripping movies to that little baby

 

[Jiglo]

Great idea Harri and very funny Shooms :lol:

TBH I miss the daily train journeys to Manc as it was the only time in recent years that i've read so many pages in one day

The Pink Floyd book 'Pigs Might Fly' that i've read since took me a long time to read - partly because it had so many characters to keep track of and partly because i'd read maybe 40-50 pages in a sitting, then nothing for maybe a couple of weeks.


I'd give the book a 10 out of 10 for any Floyd fan, as it's so in depth and informative to levels I couldn't have imagined possible

 

[Buzz]

Thx Jiglo, I will deffo get that book nice one

 

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

One of the best books I've ever read. Proper insightful, enlightening, life-changing type shizzle:
Herzog (Penguin Modern Classics): Amazon.co.uk: Saul Bellow, Malcolm Bradbury: Books

Also this... Fascinating study of patients with Parkinsons brought about through sleeping sickness, and how they were affected by a new wonder-drug. People who were brought back to life after being completely paralysed & catatonic for decades. Quite heavy going at times & there's a bit of chaos theory discussion in it, but I couldn't put it down.
Awakenings: Amazon.co.uk: Oliver Sacks: Books

Just finished this as well... A good laugh if you like his standup routines (half of each chapter is just a load of his jokes) but the biographical part was pretty thin to be honest. Easy read tho and some bits are laugh out loud funny.
My Shit Life So Far: Amazon.co.uk: Frankie Boyle: Books

 

[Sam]

One of the best books ive ever read!

I'm gonna give this a go, thanks

 

[T.C]

i got the hooky book for crimbo "how not to run a club" basicaly bowt the ins n outs of the hacienda. so gonna give it a whirl, from what ive read so far its a good read!

I got that and read it in a couple of day, enjoyed it

Just finished this as well... A good laugh if you like his standup routines (half of each chapter is just a load of his jokes) but the biographical part was pretty thin to be honest. Easy read tho and some bits are laugh out loud funny.
My Shit Life So Far: Amazon.co.uk: Frankie Boyle: Books

reading that at the min, funny

 

[simzzzz]

bit of shamless self promotion but...:$
Exactitude: Hyper realist art today

featuring none other than your very own simzzzz lol

Exactitude: Hyperrealist Art Today: Amazon.co.uk: John Russell Taylor, Maggie Bollaert: Books

A large-format survey of ‘hyperrealist’ art, one of the most intriguing and fast-moving genres in art today The work is all very contemporary, with a diverse variety of subject matter, ranging from still life paintings to landscapes to commercial packaging, books and typography Includes work by such artists as Pedro Campos, Cynthia Poole, Tom Martin, Ben Schonzeit, Paul Beliveau, Christian Marsh, Francisco Rangel, Robert Neffson and James van Patten, among others Hyperrealism is one of the most discussed genres in art today: it is heavily influenced by photography and imagery, but has moved on one step from photorealism since the artist attempts to reinterpret or modify the photograph to create a false reality, an enhanced illusion

10 /10

 

[lottie]

The Jigsaw Man: Amazon.co.uk: Paul Britton: Books

The first book ive read at home for aaaaages.. only usually get time to read on holiday. Highly recommended from the Woodster

Follows the career of a forensic psychologist and some very high profile cases from the past few decades.. Fred West, Colin Stagg etc

your good lady put me onto that , best book ive read in a long time , couldn't put it down , got picking up the pieces by paul britton here if you want it

 

[li'l Sonz]

Just finished a book I got for last Christmas and never got round to reading. It's a memoir I think, although I think some of it is beefed up a little but still a good read. Nice, fast pace and good story....

My Friend Leonard Amazon.com: My Friend Leonard: James Frey: Books

which is a follow on book to

A Million Little Pieces. Amazon.com: A Million Little Pieces (9780307276902): James Frey: Books

Both were ace books, I thoroughly enjoyed and would defo recommend both.

In short, the first book (a million little pieces) is about a drug addict who is in rehab after being dead fooked up etc and his recovery. Really good story, and the second is after he's got out and about a guy he met in there and their friendship. Won't go into loads of detail but defo worth a look.

I'm going to finish off another book I'm reading called 'The Definitive Book of Body Language'

Amazon.com: The Definitive Book of Body Language (9780752858784): Barbara Pease: Books

I'm totally getting into reading again and going on planes defo helps me get through books...

x

 

[U31]

I'm on this;
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The title The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (or the curious incident of the dog in the night-time as it appears within the book) is an appropriate one for Mark Haddon's ingenious novel both because of its reference to that most obsessive and fact-obsessed of detectives, Sherlock Holmes, and because its lower-case letters indicate something important about its narrator.

Christopher is an intelligent youth who lives in the functional hinterland of autism--every day is an investigation for him because of all the aspects of human life that he does not quite get. When the dog next door is killed with a garden fork, Christopher becomes quietly persistent in his desire to find out what has happened and tugs away at the world around him until a lot of secrets unravel messily.

Haddon makes an intelligent stab at how it feels to, for example, not know how to read the faces of the people around you, to be perpetually spooked by certain colours and certain levels of noise, to hate being touched to the point of violent reaction. Life is difficult for the difficult and prickly Christopher in ways that he only partly understands; this avoids most of the obvious pitfalls of novels about disability because it demands that we respect--perhaps admire--him rather than pity him. --Roz Kaveney

 

[T.C]

I'm on this;
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

yep, i've got that

 

[blue jammer]

I'm reading this at the moment:

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Meet Dexter Morgan, the chief protagonist of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. He's a highly respected lab technician specialising in blood spatter for the Miami Dade Police Department. He's a handsome, though reluctant, ladies' man. He's polite, says all the right things, and rarely draws attention to himself. He's also a sociopathic serial killer whose "Dark Passenger" drives him to commit the occasional dismemberment. Mind you, Dexter's the good guy in this story.
Adopted at the age of four after an unnamed tragedy left him orphaned, Dexter's learned, with help from his pragmatic policeman father, to channel his "gift", killing only those who deal in death themselves. But when a new serial killer starts working in Miami, staging elaborately grisly scenes that are, to Dexter, an obvious attempt at communication from one monster to another, the eponymous protagonist finds himself at a loss. Should he help his policewoman sister Deborah earn a promotion to the Homicide desk by finding the fiend? Or should he locate this new killer himself, so he can express his admiration for the other's "art"? Or is it possible that psycho Dexter himself, admittedly not the most balanced of fellows, is finally going completely insane and committing these messy crimes himself?

Despite his penchant for vivisection, it's hard not to like Dexter as his coldly logical personality struggles to emulate emotions he doesn't feel and to keep up his appearance as a caring, unremarkable human being. Debut author Jeff Lindsay's plot is tense and absorbing, but it's the voice of Dexter and his reactions to the other characters that make this one of the most original and highly recommended serial killer stories in a very long time.

There's 3 more available and the 5th currently being written (ready for next season!)