I’ve been tagged about my ten fave books. Well I haven’t, the dog has. But he doesn’t read. So I’m posting.
In no particular order….
Land Rover Series III Parts Catalogue and Repair Operation Manual. Two separate books but they both save me a sh!tload of money. And it means I can sit outside, head in book, issuing instructions.
Mostly these days when I pick up something it’s probably a superb second-hand three-volume set of Somerset Maugham short stories that I bought a few years ago in Malaga.
Anything (apart from Brighton Rock) by Graham Greene, especially Our Man In Havana
The Idiot – Dostoevsky
The Scarlet and the Black – Stendahl
Midnight’s Children – Rushdie
Love in the time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez – and his other books
Most stuff by Conrad, especially Nostromo
And that leaves me two more to think about as I go off to bed.
If anyone wants to play tag – you can do your ten favourite books – or a quickie – what are you reading now?
Tomorrow is the Story of the Bedford.
roughseasinthemed 
The only one of those I’ve read is one of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez books, and to be honest I did not really get on with it.But I love that photograph of a well read book – fabulous.
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Cheers for the photo comment. The books are lovely. To read and to look at.So come on where are your top books? I’ve still got two to add anyway.Thinks. Hard.Kate
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I loved reading Midnights children
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Interesting . . . you say you don’t pay to remove ads, but so far I’ve not seen any posts with ads . . . perhaps you’re not hitting the right keywords.
As for books . . . not read any of those. They sound all serious-like, with nary an adventure between them.
Currently reading . . . mostly science fiction, although I do read Jim Butcher, and that’s probably more urban fantasy. I write some too, but probably nothing like these books.
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This post is seven years old! and was imported from my blog when it was hosted on blogger, so I don’t think I tagged back then. I thought I’d seen some ads when I looked at roughseas from an Internet cafe without being logged in.
There are some adventures, certainly in Conrad, Greene, and some of García’s work. And to some extent in Maugham and Rushdie. Depends what you mean by adventure… Clive Cussler? I think he gets a bit fanciful at times. My favourites are spy, mystery, and some crime. I do enjoy good fantasy novels, and that does NOT include Rowling, it does include Tolkien, Pullman, and one I’m editing now which is a great story, it’s slightly sci-fi and adventure as well as fantasy.
I read a lot, my least favourites being soppy teenage romance, although I understand romance books are among the most widely read and best sellers. Most of them seem like drivel to me.
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Missed a comment . . . let me make this quick. Adventure to me means action. Romance is OK, but not on its own. More as a tapestry for the story.
Not much interest for any of those other than Pullman, and even then I stopped on the first book of his Dark trilogy. I didn’t like the way it was going.
Have not read spy/mystery/crime since 1983, when I discovered SF. But back then I read Mickey Spillane and similar.
Current authors are Scalzi, Butcher, and a few others I can’t recall right now. I do like to read me, which is a lot cheaper than reading others.
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I like action. I’m not even interested in romance in a story particularly, but a little sex of some type or other can add to the tale. I’ve only read the first Pullman, so I am interested to read the rest. It was well written.
Don’t tell me you like Star Trek?! I would never choose sci-fi but, I read dystopia and fantasy and the edges blur. Still like hard real life novels at heart though.
There are libraries and free books if you get bored with you. Or maybe there aren’t libraries where you are? Mine is across the road. I have people dropping free books on my doorstep. Reading is not expensive :D
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Not a die-hard fan of anything but Firefly. I’m in no danger of running out of stuff to read. I’ll die before I read everything I have, let alone what’s not even out yet.
Yah, there are no libraries where I am. Kind of a backward place, the US. We get together occasionally to burn a few books, but these days that’s getting expensive since they are all on Kindles.
The reason I mention my writing is because it is exactly targeted at me. I write what I would like to read. However, I have a large pile of unread books.
Interesting comment about SF precisely because the lines blur. The ‘never choose’ comment seems unusually strong, pointing to perhaps a bias, and I would be curious about the basis for it.
Stories are just that, regardless of the setting. Characters, situations, the exploration of human emotions and reactions, all are common components of storytelling regardless of the genre.
I parsed the following “Still like hard real like novels at heart though” and I still don’t get what it means. Perhaps it’s one of them English versus Brit English thing.
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You aren’t alone in writing the books you want to read, it’s often dished out as good advice. Trouble is you know the ending.
It doesn’t interest me, no idea why, so I wouldn’t go looking for it. But if I read a good one by chance that’s a bonus.
It meant, I’ve just gone back to edit it to read ‘real life’ :D
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Great; now I’ll look like an idiot to people who had not read the original. Thanks.
(insert appropriate smiley to indicate this a humor construction zone)
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Laugh… the only idiot here is me, although I could have made vague sense out of it, but real life sounds a little more sensible. Anyway, it’s an old post. Who reads ’em? ;D
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uh . . . I did!
When I get onto a new blog I use the drop-down ‘random’ option to get a taste of what’s in the blog (easy way to decide if I want to subscribe). The again, I don’t know if most people even know of the ‘random’ option for reading a blog.
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I know about it, so there, but I hate reading at random. I’ve started a number of blogs and read from scratch. Although not seven years worth like mine :D
When it was itchyfeetatforty on blogger, I had some highlighted posts that I thought was interesting. You read villa from hell yet?
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Just read it . . . filed for future ‘don’t rent villas’ reference.
As for random, I only read about twenty or so posts to decide if I am going to subscribe. I read the random as opposed to read sequentially because most people don’t settle into a blog until some time has passed.
If you started reading mine at the beginning (and I’m not asking you do), yes, you would find brilliance, but also posts that are much different than what I write these days.
So, I usually read a few of the most recent, then a random sampling (although probably not truly random as I don’t know the algorithm).
If the person doesn’t seem nuts, doesn’t mention god, spirits, magic crystals, can write with some clarity and about interesting stuff, and is not a fan of broccoli, why then, I’ll give it a shot even if they don’t like guns.
There is then a probation period . . . if I find myself ignoring the post notices, eventually I unsubscribe (I don’t keep subscriptions I don’t read).
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I like broccoli. I have crystals cos someone told me they were a good idea and they do no harm. Put them above the electricity box apparently. I only mention god to say I see no reason to mention god. Other blogging friends spend a lot of time saying there isn’t one. Well, we know that, don’t we. But apparently one needs to convince others. I haven the skills or patience to do so. I get called out for this.
What’s interesting? My blog’s changed hugely over the years.
My harder hitting posts are on Clouds, except I’ve been feeling wimpy of late and anything and everything about Gib and Spain is on here. And what I think about it, whether it’s the black economy, smuggling, royals on their big game shoots or border queues. Just a snatch of life in another part of the world.
Visit or not, your choice, as is mine, I’m never offended :) well unless you criticise broccoli.
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I’ve read The Idiot, but I have to be careful with Dostoevsky. I identify too strongly with his protagonists, which can really skew my understanding of reality. I’ve read some Marquez, but not that one, and some Conrad, but not that one. I’ve been interested in Nostromo because of the movie Alien – I’m wondering if there are any parallels. Looks like a good list; I’ll have to investigate. :)
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I was really pointing out the Maugham 3 volume set of short stories :D the others were irrelevant, but if you found them interesting, well and good.
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