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Thread: What are we reading?

  1. #101
    Senior Member Leon's Avatar
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    Quin isn't making many North Island friends at the moment, as the price to hire Hampton Downs, and restrictions on who can use what have apparently changed markedly.

    I guess that's the difference between a car club / enthusiast group owning a race track, compared to a maximise profit businessman.

  2. #102
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    My first Elmore Leonard audio book. It is riveting, so far. A real "page turner", as they say.


  3. #103
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    "Pagan Babies", from my previous post, was very good. It had a few plot twists that I didn't see coming, which is always fun.

    Then I tried "Djibouti", from the same author, but just couldn't get into it. The first two CDs were all talk and no action. Maybe I'll try again in the future.

    I go through a lot of audio books that aren't worth mentioning, but I just picked up one at the library yesterday, heard the first half of the first CD in the car on the way home, and I can already tell I've found a good one: "The Man From The Train", non-fiction by Bill James.

    The book is about a bunch of murders all around the country in small towns near train stations that were never solved, and apparently also not connected as being related, by law enforcement of 100+ years ago. Apparently the author has figured it all out. It's an interesting topic to me, and a reminder of how life used to be before there were digital video cameras recording everything everyone does.

    I also picked up an actual hardback book (*gasp!*) instead of an audio book, just because I'm tired of looking for the audio book in several libraries over the last few months and not finding it yet: "The Midnight Line" by Lee Child - the 22nd Jack Reacher novel. It's such a treat to get a new Reacher novel and read the first chapter which invariably describes how Reacher finds himself in his next adventure, including the author's strange sentence construction that would drive an English teacher nuts but works in a hard-boiled crime story.

    I've learned from previous experience that once I finish the printed book, the audio version will finally come off all the holds and I'll find it sitting on the shelf pretty soon. I'll check it out and burn the CDs for later listening on my mp3 player in a few months, after the details of the story have faded and I'm ready to hear someone else read it during my commute time on the train.
    Last edited by George; April 10th, 2018 at 04:55 PM.

  4. #104
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    George, ever heard/read Replay by Ken Grimwood?

  5. #105
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Yes! One of my all-time favorites. Certainly on my top ten list, if I had such a thing, and near the top.

    Why do you ask?

    P.S. Check out post #56 of this very thread.

    http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?...ll=1#post25827
    Last edited by George; April 10th, 2018 at 12:25 PM.

  6. #106
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    It's one of my favourites, and thought you would enjoy it. Very nice.

  7. #107
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Thanks for thinking of me.

    I must tell this story: I first found "Replay" on a bookshelf in the apartment of a girl I knew around 1990 or '91. I guess we must have dated just long enough for me to finish that book and I loved it. I think it messed my young mind up for a while by letting me think that... (a plot spoiler, sort of, follows)

    Spoiler:
    ...nothing really mattered, because there was all the time in the world to live one's life, and because the wrong decisions could be made right again. I had just finished college and didn't really have a plan for my life after my first choice of career fell through. That book did not fill me with a sense of urgency to get things done and get on the fast track in life.


    I never owned the book; I just read her copy but the memory of the story stayed with me a long time.

    Fast forward to 2006 or so. I was working at a company near three used book stores (only one is still in business now in 2018) and I sometimes shopped for books during my lunch breaks. I wasn't looking for that book, as I was into Westerns at the time. I had probably forgotten the name of the book, but I saw a copy sticking out from a shelf as if it was trying to get my attention. I immediately recognized it, bought it, and probably read it twice in a row out of happiness in having found it again, and maybe a time or two after that in the following years.

    A couple/few years ago, I most enthusiastically loaned the book to someone who I thought would enjoy it and I never got it back. Or I haven't yet.

    Maybe one day, I'll find another copy sticking out from another book store shelf. Those who know the story would agree that would be most appropriate, I think.

  8. #108
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    I have one last (or one more) "Replay" story, if you can stand it, but I have to go find it. A few years ago I was heavily into Old Time Radio, the same way I'm into audio books now, and I found a radio show from the 1950s that was eerily similar to "Replay". I'm not suggesting plagiarism, nor would I care if it was, but it is possible the author heard the story I need to go find (I can't remember it right now) and it became the basis for that novel many years later. I posted the details on a OTR forum years ago and I no longer have a link to that site, but I will find it and re-post it here if you're interested, dodint. Or even if you're not.

  9. #109
    Administrator dodint's Avatar
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    Amusingly I'm almost 100% certain we've had this conversation before, and you recommended the radio show to me, but I've since lost it.

  10. #110
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dodint View Post
    Amusingly I'm almost 100% certain we've had this conversation before...
    How appropriate. It was probably lost in some previous version of this forum.

    I found my post from 2008 - over 8,000 views and no replies.

    This is from a forum that didn't have spoiler tags, so there are spoilers about "Replay" in plain sight on that page.

    http://forums.oldradio.net/ftopic2303.html

    A link to the radio version from the early 1950s at archive.org for streaming or right-clicking to Save Link As: https://archive.org/details/Dimensio...dTimeAgain.mp3

    A link to the text of the original story from Astounding Science Fiction magazine in April 1947: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1883...-h/18831-h.htm

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