La sombra del viento? Yah that’s one I’ll include in my foreign language reading. My wife raves about that novel.
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Risky above is correct. The “Asian Saga” was contrived for marketing purposes long after Clavell had already written most of his novels, which are only loosely related. My recommended order of reading for his novels would be as follows:
- Shogun
- Tai-Pan
- Noble House
- King Rat
- Gaijin
- Whirlwind/Escape
Shogun is probably his Magnum Opus, though Noble House is also colossal in scope, while Tai-Pan is the easiest and most rousing read. King Rat is his first novel, highly autobiographical, and while enjoyable, isn’t on the same level as the ones above. Whirlwind/Escape takes place in the Middle East and doesn’t have the same feel as the others IMO, while Gaijin was written toward the end of his life and also doesn’t quite stack up to the others.
In terms of reading order, the only absolute IMO is to read Tai-Pan prior to Noble House, as these two, which both take place in Hong Kong, are the most closely related with many recurring themes and characters.
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Reading about the Nazi’s friends in America and this has to be the most mealy mouthed excuse I’ve read in a while
Coughlin himself quickly disavowed the plotters, unconvincingly claiming that he had advocated “a Christian front” rather than “the ‘specific’ Christian Front involved in the conspiracy charges.”
Next sentence
Embarrassingly, it only took reporters a few days to find articles in past issues of Social Justice praising the plot leader by name.
lol yikes
For Ellroy, the old saying of “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” does not apply. Ellroy talked at great length about his love for all things Los Angeles, especially the LAPD, and his hate for the late Raymond Chandler, James Dean, cancel culture, the film adaption of “L.A. Confidential” and his complete disinterest in literature that isn’t about crime or that’s written outside of America.
“Raymond Chandler is full of [crap],” he said. “He wrote the man he wanted to be. I hate Chandler.”
“People love the movie ‘L.A. Confidential,’” Ellroy said. “I think it’s turkey of the highest form. I think Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger are impotent. The director [Curtis Hanson] died, so now I can disparage the movie.”
Ellroy on his own reading habits: “I’ve read almost no work by non-American writers,” he said. “What can I say, I’m the American Dostoevsky and I’ve never read the guy.”
Ellroy continued that he didn’t care about St. Petersburg, Russia, in the 1860s (“Crime and Punishment”) and that, for him, “it’s gotta be Los Angeles, it’s gotta be about my love for the Los Angeles Police Department.”
In more expletive-laden language, Ellroy said he loves a tough police department. “I love the LAPD, and they kicked my tall skinny [butt] on three notable occasions,” he said. “I have not stolen so much as a paper clip in 53 years. My relationship with the Los Angeles Police Department is in no way P.C., it’s in no way current, it’s in no way topical. It’s loving, It’s paternal.”
When an audience member asked Ellroy what he thought of cancel culture, the “Black Dahlia” author quipped, “I think it’s a bunch of [crap]. I think you can’t let fear run your life. I think censorship is permeating, soul destroying and polluting our country.”
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LOL **** that dude
I loved LA Confidential but every interview he’s given afterward has made me say the above lol
I read Matthew Desmond’s “Poverty, by America”
In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.
I don’t think there’s any particular eye opening shocks here, a lot of it will have been things we’ve discussed here, and I think we’re all aware of them on some level. Desmond’s a good writer, and laying it all out end-to-end is where the impact comes from. I definitely felt personally attacked - which is both justified and the purpose of the book. It’s made me think a lot over the last few days.
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Thanks for review, I added this to list recently and need to read it soon, evicted was quite good
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Been too hung up lately to read but finally getting through the shining. Reading the book of a movie that you enjoyed has always been super enjoyable. Sure the shining is a lengthy book but having a movie portray the book through all of its stories would put it at like 50 hrs, imo.
I can see why SK hated the movie. The movie puts emphases on Jack being a evil man - prolly due to time restraint, while the book puts the blame more on the hotel and the triggers of addiction.
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I read The Shining as a young teen in a very old house on Cape Cod. The bathrooms had these huge claw-foot bathtubs and I was scared shitless to even look at them anytime I had to pee at night.
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I dunno. I haven’t read that book in 20 years, but what I took away from it was that Jack really was evil, and that the possession, while obviously not metaphorical, was a way to explore what it’s like to be abused by a loved one. To the victim, it feels like the abuser is a normal person who’s been taken over by some alien malevolent force, but as an outsider, it’s obvious that the abuser and the malevolent force are one and the same.
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I feel like I often get through the first 100 pages of a book very quickly before my rate of progress rapidly falls and eventually approaches 0. Is this common?
Comic books getting delightful 
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Any thoughts on 1Q84 here?
Just finished it last month. My first HM novel ever.
As someone that loves David Mitchell I can see the parallels between the authors.
I really enjoyed the book and the story and the characters and the worlds
It wasn’t a flawless novel but I enjoyed reading it
Felt like number9dream to me
Finally done with the witcher books. Listened to the last 3 on audible which probably got them done a lot quicker than if I would have read them.
Can say I am glad that its over. I found at least the last two books were all over the place and overall the author seemed pretty lazy to create a coherant world since he mixed in a lot from our world.
I was surprised that that was your take on the book. The hotel was clearly haunted and possessing Jack. Mr Hallorann even had thoughts about murdering Danny and Wendy after re entering the hotel for a brief moment. Danny was also able to talk sense into “the creature” that was just about to kill Danny which ended up being enough for Jack to recover control of his body and to tell his son that he must run away from him
I understand that he was being possessed during the main part of the plot, but he wasn’t possessed when he broke Danny’s arm in a fit of rage. He wasn’t possessed when he beat up his student. He’s exactly the kind of guy who would murder his family out of rage at his own failures without being possessed. Or, if you like, he’s the kind of guy who regularly gets “possessed” by rage and alcohol and his own troubled history and they make him do terrible things.
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Yeah, that’s certainly a reasonable take on the book. It seemed like SK purposefully depicted Jack as a raging alcoholic with a rap sheet to get the reader to wrestle between placing the blame on Jack being possessed by the hotel and Jack just snapping again as he’d done before. To me, for the reasons stated above + the Overlook’s history it felt that the hotel may have been a stronger force in Jack’s fate. But Jake was still a shitty dude, though.
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I am with you on this one, tho really King is the man because the novel can be ready fully through your POV or Formula’s.
King at the time was a raging alcoholic. He wrote one book (Cujo, I think?) so high on coke that he stuffed tissues up his nose and just kept going without a single memory of writing the book.
So the text on one level is told from the POV of the author who does not yet have awareness and grace for his own disease of addiction.
On another level, that stuff is there regardless of whether he meant to put it on the page, and we can read it with a layer of meaning and even literal supernatural manifestations in the plot that connect with the heart of what Stephen King was expressing by writing a story with these elements.
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