User Profile

ajft

ajft@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 3 months ago

he/him scruffy monkeyhanger sysadmin cyclist Melbourne, Boonwurrung land, Aus

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ajft's books

Stopped reading

The Shadow of the Wind (2012, Phoenix) 4 stars

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'Cemetery of Forgotten …

A few years ago a work colleague was reading this and I skimmed the back cover, thought I'd enjoy it if I could fit it in

Loved it, although a few times I lost track of the large list of characters and places in time. It made me want to dig out a big map of Barcelona and pore over the streets and parks

Ring of Bright Water Trilogy (2001, Puffin Books) No rating

Its been decades since I read Ring of Bright Water, sometime in my early teens I think I went through many of these, Elsa, Tarka, etc. Interesting to revisit it, and to read the full set of three, even if they are slightly abridged. Really felt for Maxwell and the tension between telling the story, and suffering the publicity and invasion of his privacy as a result

finished reading Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Casino Royale (1955, Pan Books) 3 stars

Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome, chillingly ruthless and licensed to kill. This, the first …

Found a $1 copy lying in a discard pile at an op-shop and couldn't resist, was curious how the original story would hold up after so many years of Bond being so much a part of modern culture. I was surprised at how many French terms and words were thrown around, not just casino-related but all part of setting the scene. Misogynistic, racist, cardboard, I doubt it'd get glanced at as a first novel 70 years on!

A morbid taste for bones (1994, Mysterious Press) 4 stars

In the 12th-century Benedictine monastery of Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has settled down to a quiet …

I feel its not as good as later books in the series

3 stars

Must have read this decades ago, then stumbled across a very cheaply made copy in a street library a few months ago and picked it up. Rubbish paper, binding is falling apart, on re-reading it I'm wondering if I ever did read this, the first of the series? Enjoyable enough, I think too much of my memories of the series and characters are from later books that I've read more than once over the years

A morbid taste for bones (1994, Mysterious Press) 4 stars

In the 12th-century Benedictine monastery of Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has settled down to a quiet …

Must have read this decades ago, then stumbled across a very cheaply made copy in a street library a few months ago and picked it up. Rubbish paper, binding is falling apart, on re-reading it I'm wondering if I ever did read this, the first of the series? Enjoyable enough, I think too much of my memories of the series and characters are from later books that I've read more than once over the years

Equal Rites (EBook, 2009, HarperCollins) No rating

In Equal Rites, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth …

Re-reading an old paperback copy for some quick enjoyment. Still laugh-out-loud material and any number of bits of innuendo and humour, I wonder if I noticed them all the first time through, years ago? I wonder if I noticed them all this time?

(from inside dust jacket) COLLISION COURSE The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of …

Thank god that's over. Not quite, but i came fairly close to giving up a few times and ditching it, seemed to me that the author was just padding it out to give a thin story a thick word count. Not helped by me taking almost three months to read through it a little a night every few days

The Eagle of the Ninth (2000, Oxford University Press) 4 stars

A young centurion ventures among the hostile tribes beyond the Roman Wall to recover the …

Memories of reading and enjoying this sometime in school, high school English I think. I've been meaning to hunt up a copy and re-read it for years to see if its still as enjoyable. Yes it is, yes it was. I do wonder how the view presented of Roman Britain holds up to a further fifty years of archaeology

No Country For Old Men (Paperback, 2005, KNOPF.) 4 stars

Review of 'No Country for Old Men' on 'Goodreads' 4 stars

4 stars

Seeing that the author died recently I thought maybe its time to read some of his work, this and The Road are the only ones I've heard of. Picked up for $3 in an op-shop, quickly readable, if gruesome and graphic as was the movie. He does capture the place and the people so well