So, What Are You Reading These Days? (besides comics)

[Alan M.]

Just bringing this discussion over to ning...

What books are you reading right now that don't have a narrative driven by images as well as words?

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I am not sure where best to place my comments on the latest Bond book. I have added it here as well as under the Bond DVD thread. Sorry for the confusion...

With A Mind To Kill.

Good timing Jeff. I started reading Horowitz' latest Bond entry a couple days ago and it is a good one. It pulled me in right from the start with M's funeral. Love all the references to the early Fleming novels. Bond's mission seems like the most hopeless one he has ever been given. At this point in his career 007 seems to be near the end of the line mentally and physically. Unlike the movies where Bond is portrayed as nearly super human, the novels show us a Bond who has his limitations and Horowitz is highlighting those limitations, making the mission seem all the more challenging.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I saw your comments in the other thread but held off replying because I thought you might have more to say.

"Bond's mission seems like the most hopeless one he has ever been given."

Yes! That is exactly what I thought!

There is a point in each of the three parts at which I didn't know how he was going to get out of a given predicament. All of these tense cliffhangers involved some kind of choice on Bond's part, such as the choice whether or not to take an innocent life. The first of these came when he had to escape custody... no quotes around the word "escape" because his guards thought he was guilty of treason. 

"At this point in his career 007 seems to be near the end of the line mentally and physically."

I didn't want to discuss the end because I wasn't sure whether or not you had finished reading. 

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"At this point in his career 007 seems to be near the end of the line mentally and physically."

I didn't want to discuss the end because I wasn't sure whether or not you had finished reading. 

Say no more - I just finished part 2. The predicaments you mention had me on the edge of my seat wondering how in the world Bond was going to extricate himself. Credit to Horowitz for creating these scenarios.

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With A Mind To Kill. Wow! What an ending. Bond's "assignment" from the covert Russian group seemed to place him in a no win situation. How he makes it out and his subsequent attempt to return to the West had me on the edge of my seat. Ian Fleming had open ending finales in a couple of his novels and Horowitz matches his efforts here with the reader left wondering as to the final fate of 007.

James Bond will return... or will he? Another outstanding addition to the Bond canon from Anthony Horowitz.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"Edge of my seat" is exactly the phrase I had in mind while I was reading (not literally, though, because I sit in a recliner). I was going to ask what you made of the ending, but apparently you found it as ambiguous as I do (which, as you point out, is certainly intentional). Even Horowitz's acknowledgements: I read them before reading the book and interpreted them one way, but now I interpret them another. What does he mean by "final days"? Final days as a spy (007)? Or something else. I think the ending is crafted in such a way that the reader can make up his own mind. 

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Agreed. Naturally I'd like to think Bond made it out but who knows. Reading the acknowledgements I was a little disappointed to read that this is most likely Horowitz' final Bond novel as I really enjoyed both With A Mind To Kill and Forever and a Day. In fact I am thinking I may need to re-read Trigger Mortis, Horowitz' first entry, that I didn't care for when I originally read it a few years ago.

Jeff of Earth-J said:

What does he mean by "final days"? Final days as a spy (007)? Or something else. I think the ending is crafted in such a way that the reader can make up his own mind. 

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Currently reading Jack of Spies by David Downing. This takes place before WWI, and Jack McColl is a British business man who travels the world trying to sell these new fangled automobiles to people across the globe. He is enlisted by his government to do some spying for them. He has almost no budget, and uses his wits and knack for languages to accomplish his mission.

So far so good. I've really enjoyed this. You get to meet a lot of characters like his brother and co-worker. The woman he falls in love with. As well as go across the globe from China to San Francisco to New York. I also love using pre-WWI as the setting of the story.

[anthony wareing]

Loving the slow horses books at the moment by Mick Herron, only 1 novel and a novella left though, loved the tv series too which led me to look for the novels

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I'd picked up Koko on Kindle soon after Peter Straub died. It's quite a book -- not horror, as I expected, but suspense with some horrific elements -- not least of which is an incident from the main character's experiences during the Vietnam war, an atrocity they participated in (to various degrees) that recalls the Mai Lai massacre. It's not an easy read. 

It's also the first part of a loose trilogy, the other two being Mystery and The Throat. I read those two before -- The Throat first, only discovering it was part of a series when I picked up Mystery -- and finally I'll be reading them in the intended order. 

But first, I think I'm going to pick up a book on Polynesian history and/or folklore, as Kathy and I are traveling to the region in about a month, and I'd like to have some grounding before that, so that when I learn things, they have a place in my brain to stick to. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

The Polynesian history book I settled on was Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, by Christina Thompson, and it's great so far.

[Richard Willis]

Years ago, when we visited Oahu's Polynesian Cultural Center, I became aware that the first humans on the islands of Polynesia were colonists from Asia, New Zealand and South America.

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

The Polynesian history book I settled on was Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, by Christina Thompson, and it's great so far.

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For Christmas I received a brand new boxed set of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is my third time reading LOTR, currently half way through The Two Towers.