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  1. #301
    Quote Originally Posted by MartyClark View Post
    I love reading history, I love reading about the Renaissance and also the Protestant reformation and the Catholic counter reformation. Interesting, world shattering events that have shaped our current world.

    I love crime and spy novels. John LeCarre, Michael O'Connell, Daniel Silva, and many others.
    .
    Amen bros, preach it. Silva has the best plots of anyone in the spy/crime genre in my opinion. And Nelson DeMille has the best dialogue, by far, and he writes in first person, which is interesting.

  2. #302
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    And Nelson DeMille has the best dialogue, by far, and he writes in first person, which is interesting.
    An interesting fact on DeMille:

    http://nelsondemille.net/about/

    Did you know...

    I write all my manuscripts in longhand, using #1 pencils and legal pads.
    That's amazing to me.
    Bob Green

  3. #303
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post

    That's amazing to me.
    That is amazing. I guess when he wrote his first novel, released in 78, so I guess written in 76 and 77, that was not so odd. But wow, to write 20 novels long hand? Good Lord.

    George Will still writes his columns that way - but a thousand word column and a hundred and fifty thousand word novel are two different things!

    DeMille's main character John Corey is very much a smart aleck like myself...I am very pleased, so far, with the dialogue in my novel. Now, whether I can actually construct an entire novel remains to be seen...

  4. #304
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greensboro, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    Reading the brilliant Gabriel Allon series written by Daniel Silva. Third time through the series, which is now 17 or 18 books. Also just finished a couple by Nelson DeMille.

    Oh, and writing a novel now, set in Nicaragua, which suddenly is providing me some great material ripped from the headlines.
    I just started the 13th book in the Allon series, The English Girl. It was free in Kindle. Very good so far. Haven't read the others.

  5. #305
    Quote Originally Posted by killerleft View Post
    I just started the 13th book in the Allon series, The English Girl. It was free in Kindle. Very good so far. Haven't read the others.
    If you like it, I highly recommend the entire series. That book is not at all one of my favorites of the series, but it is great as a series.

  6. #306
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    ...I am very pleased, so far, with the dialogue in my novel. Now, whether I can actually construct an entire novel remains to be seen...
    Good luck! I'm sure you will succeed. Perseverance is the key to success in any endeavor.
    Bob Green

  7. #307
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greensboro, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    If you like it, I highly recommend the entire series. That book is not at all one of my favorites of the series, but it is great as a series.
    I will read more of them, I'm sure. Many of my 'go to' authors have passed away or aged out through the years. One of my guilty pleasures was the Amelia Peabody series about a family of Egyptologists during the exciting late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Elizabeth Peters was the pen name of Barbara Mertz, a real-life Egyptologist. She died in 2013. RIP.

  8. #308
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Just finished Jennifer Foehner Wells fourth book in her Fluency series.
    Not hard science fiction by any stretch. Good, fun reads.

  9. #309
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Finished Letting Go by David Hawkins.

    A lot to ponder, potentially life changing.

  10. #310
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California

    The President Is Missing

    This is the Bill Clinton-James Patterson collaboration.

    I found it fast paced and entertaining. It has a lot of action and a large helping of first-person introspection. The latter seemed a bit preachy at some stages, but overall contributed to the story. Patterson seems to have kept Clinton away from too much wonkism. The story itself, of course, is close enough to plausibility to fend off any claims of fantasy. Certainly worth reading.

    The question now is who plays the president in the movie.

  11. #311
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    I finished The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. I enjoyed it. A lot of dark humor. Now its on to Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. I loved Lost City of Z so I have high expectations for this one.

  12. #312
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia
    I finally finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
    SPOILER ALERT (from a book released over a decade ago) I liked the reading about the dysfunctional family and everyone’s struggles.

    Now that Sports Illustrated is publishing a little less frequently,my Canadian Macleans has gone from weekly to monthly, as long as I don’t get too bogged down with my Saturday Globe and Mail and can pull myself away from DBR, I will hopefully get more books read.
    I just started two smaller books, David Sedaris’ Naked (I always find him entertaining in interviews) and Ishmael Beah’s ‘A Long Way Gone - Memories of a child soldier ‘. Hopefully, I will finish one or both this summer or fall.

  13. #313
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    This is the Bill Clinton-James Patterson collaboration.

    I found it fast paced and entertaining. It has a lot of action and a large helping of first-person introspection. The latter seemed a bit preachy at some stages, but overall contributed to the story. Patterson seems to have kept Clinton away from too much wonkism. The story itself, of course, is close enough to plausibility to fend off any claims of fantasy. Certainly worth reading.

    The question now is who plays the president in the movie.
    The question is also who wrote it? It wasn't Clinton and likely not Patterson, who's done a masterful job of having understudies crank out "James Patterson" novels by the dozen. This is not a criticism BTW...Clinton and Patterson are there to sell copies, and that will work. And the book is probably good. I'm a published author, and a ghost writer for others....this is how this biz rolls.

  14. #314
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    The question is also who wrote it? It wasn't Clinton and likely not Patterson, who's done a masterful job of having understudies crank out "James Patterson" novels by the dozen. This is not a criticism BTW...Clinton and Patterson are there to sell copies, and that will work. And the book is probably good. I'm a published author, and a ghost writer for others...this is how this biz rolls.
    Why do you think Clinton didn't write any of this novel? He's written at least four other books. I never heard that he had a ghost writer for any of them beyond what he credits in the acknowledgments.

    You are quite right that Patterson is an industry now, not an author. His name certainly sells and I would think learning how he operates with his many collaborators would be fascinating. One of his team members is/was Mark Sullivan. I posted a comment about Sullivan's excellent Patterson-free work, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, earlier in this thread.

    Maybe, as a published ghost writer HBCK, you could provide some insight here about how this works.

  15. #315
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Albemarle, North Carolina
    Many years late but I just got COSMOS by Carl Sagan. Also got Handmaids Tale
    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking

  16. #316
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    Just finished The Bedford Boys, immediately preceded by A Gentleman in Moscow, both of which were birthday gifts from Mrs. dd (neither of which were about beer).
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  17. #317
    Quote Originally Posted by devildeac View Post
    (neither of which were about beer).
    I hope that the admonitions were not too serious. 😎

  18. #318
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    On the Road to Nowhere
    Judging from numerous comments from many posters across multiple threads, I thought this might be interesting to the board. I recently finished 'Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story' by Chris Nashawaty. Not great, but if you love the movie you'll probably find it worth the time. An easy read. I'd estimate half the book doesn't have anything to do with the movie, it's about the creators and their previous efforts (mostly dealing with Lampoon).

  19. #319
    Just read The Captain Class by Sam Walker and found it to be quite interesting. The book seeks to identify the greatest sports teams in history and identify what made those teams exceptional.

    Just started William Manchester's biography of Douglas MacArthur. I am thoroughly enjoying that one so far as well.
    Last edited by mpj96; 08-11-2018 at 12:27 PM. Reason: Typo

  20. #320
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim3k View Post
    Why do you think Clinton didn't write any of this novel? He's written at least four other books. I never heard that he had a ghost writer for any of them beyond what he credits in the acknowledgments. Maybe, as a published ghost writer HBCK, you could provide some insight here about how this works.
    Couple things:
    First, 99% of all books that utilize ghost writers never fess up. Thus the name "ghost." All the work I did is considered highly secretive. I officially don't exist for these projects. This includes talk radio, books, speeches, and those "ad lib" live advertisements.

    As for Clinton, I highly doubt he actually wrote any of those books. I do think he probably consulted and beta read the material on the way to publication. Could well have even come up with the general plot. I'm not a Clinton fan, but he is intelligent and enough of a bullshooter to add something to the material. But author? Highly doubtful.

    Now why do I say this? Because the vast majority of big names (as non writers) who "write" books are merely pimpled for their name's ability to sell books. That's how it works. That's what publishing has become. Remember, 50 Shades was originally self published.

    Many think Harry Potter would have been self published - but self publishing didn't really exist at the time (Amazon pretty much invented this). It took forever to get an agent and then to get published. Same is true of the late novelist Vince Flynn.

    The James Patterson model is probably unique to him, but he is an industry, no longer an author. Nice work if you can find it!

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