Great Great Books

[dungrollin]

Julie:
I'd particularly recommend The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood. One
very scary book because it could really happen. Just a few steps
down a slippery slope...

Dung:
I only got into Atwood relatively recently, but have to say that my 
favourite (so far – I'm trying not to rush through them all at once) 
is The Edible Woman. Closely followed by Cat's Eye. Oryx and Crake,  
Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin were great, too.

Dung earlier:
Just to give you an idea, I hated The Lovely Bones, and I  *detested*
The Da Vinci Code, so you might not want to listen to anything  I
have to say at all.

Julie:
Interesting. I was very deeply moved by The Lovely Bones, though
I admit I kept waiting for the villian to get his just desserts. 
But  I ended up appreciating the reality of it, that no matter how 
much you wish it, quite often everything does not get tied up into a 
neat  bow, and justice isn't always served.

Dung:
Hmmm. I thought it had *great* potential, and then went nowhere near 
any of the interesting avenues I thought were crying out to be 
explored. Hey ho. 

Julie:
I do agree with you about the DaVinci Code. Brown built an 
implausible plot on the leanest of "evidence" (though he implied a 
great deal more exists than is actually the case), and his 
characters were overwrought, lacking in depth or believability. Also 
they were very stupid, considering their supposed pedigrees. I admit 
in a bit of intellectual snobbery I was actually offended that this 
very badly written book garnered Brown so much fame and fortune. 
(Yes, the story moved very quickly, but rather like a runaway train 
that jumped the tracks and obliterated every  structure in its 
erratic path). But that is just my opinion!

Dung:
I don't quite remember why I bothered finishing it – probably 
because I wanted to be able to thoroughly abuse it to everyone I 
know. It was in quite an early chapter that I saw "millenniums", 
threw some stuff at the wall, and vowed to denounce it to all and 
sundry as a cheap rip-off of The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail.

Badly-written books don't normally make me *cross*, I just don't 
bother finishing them and move on, but this one was particularly 
irritating because Dan Brown can clearly plot like a fox. Another 
couple of months of rewrites and editing and it could have turned 
into a really not too bad thriller. What was his editor thinking? 
(Quite possibly: "This is re-write 18, it's not going to get any 
better, let's just publish it as it is and rake in the cash.")

Re: Gerald Durrell
I agree with Alla about something - crack open the Champagne! 
Actually, I realised recently that when I'm reading HP, the face and 
voice that I imagine for Lupin is identical (minus the beard and 
hat) to the face and voice I imagine for Theodore (who I grew up 
wanting to marry nearly as much as David Attenborough).

A few more good'uns to add:
The Life of Pi – Yann Martel.
The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith
Sophie's World – Jostein Gaarder
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind

That last one should be read by absolutely everybody in the whole 
world. No excuses. 

God I love reading. My absolute ideal evening involves an enormous 
mug of tea, a large packet of chocolate biscuits, an exceptionally 
comfortable chair, and a *really* good book. And no visitors or 
phonecalls.

Dungrollin
Thinking it's been a while since she read Perfume... now where did 
she put it/who did she lend it to?