O/T Fit You Reading 3

[TheDeeDon]

Mrs Mason reckons Mr Messy is deeply depressed, Mr Neat & Mr Tidy are fascists and trying to normalise inviting two strangers into your house to bathe you, is sending the wrong message to children

Simpler times Mason min.

There are a lot of folk that try to place harm on everything from the past and not the first time I have heard such (Mr) Nonsense about the Mr Men books

If your Wife thinks Mr Men books are entry level grooming pamphlets, then wait until your kid gets a phone/tablet/games console.

[57vintage]

The film of Brooklyn was disappointing..

Approached like a rom-com.

Julie Walters the star as the no-shoite lodgings matriarch.

[TheDeeDon]

The film of Brooklyn was disappointing..

Approached like a rom-com.

Julie Walters the star as the no-shoite lodgings matriarch.

I've watched it too now.

It's not a bad film if being honest, but doesn't capture the essence of the book.

Film adaptations of novels don't often come across well and this one didn't help their cause.

[57vintage]

I've watched it too now.

It's not a bad film if being honest, but doesn't capture the essence of the book.

Film adaptations of novels don't often come across well and this one didn't help their cause.

Pretty much my view of film adaptations. In mitigation, apart from a pretty poor Tess of the d?Urbervilles with Natasha Kinski in the lead r?le, Thomas Hardy has been pretty well-served in other adaptations of Tess, Far From the Madding Crowd - Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Alan Bates, Peter Finch - is beautiful, and Jude the Obscure - Chris Ecclestone, Kate Winslett. DH Lawrence too.

Sometimes the TV versions are better, probably because there?s the luxury of long-form serialisation. As my trusties and I agree, naebody does Dickens like the BBC.

[TheDeeDon]

Sometimes the TV versions are better, probably because there?s the luxury of long-form serialisation. As my trusties and I agree, naebody does Dickens like the BBC.

BBC adaptations were my entry into the world of Dickens. The 70s and 80s adaptations are my favourites, courtesy of Aberdeen Libraries Video/DVD collection. The Pickwick Papers and Hard Times being two favourites of mine.

With A Tale of Two Cities, neither the book or screen adaptations can muster up any enthusiasm for me.

The days of the BBC doing proper adaptations of classics is long over now sadly.

[57vintage]

BBC adaptations were my entry into the world of Dickens. The 70s and 80s adaptations are my favourites, courtesy of Aberdeen Libraries Video/DVD collection. The Pickwick Papers and Hard Times being two favourites of mine.

With A Tale of Two Cities, neither the book or screen adaptations can muster up any enthusiasm for me.

The days of the BBC doing proper adaptations of classics is long over now sadly.

To be fair, the most recent BBC adaptations are a victim and beneficiary of digital technology. I have the DVD box sets of the spellbinding Bleak House, and Little Dorrit, and have DVD collections of earlier adaptations, as well as what turns up on iPlayer. I think that reduces the need to commission new versions.

I still cannot get to grips with Our Mutual Friend although I?ve tried the book, the Kindle version, and the DVD. Nae even Anna Friel?s appearance seems to be able to get me to invest.

[TheDeeDon]

Postcards from Scotland. Scottish Independent Music 1983-85 by Grant McPhee.

Didn't expect to find the above gem sitting all lonely on the shelf in the music section. So glad I checked. Sometimes new stuff comes in and straight into their sections and not on the new book bit as you come in the door.
Always good to have a rummage around.

An excellent read.
Covered a lot of bands, but the best part about it was how many of them, despite not making it in the music business, managed to carry on with some sort of career in music or elsewhere in the arts.

Always a sad day when cuts are made to areas in the arts that can improve folks lives. I think back then, it was the ability to claim dole money without the interrogation they receive today.

[TheDeeDon]

One of the 'proper books' I took out was Fever Dream by Amanda Schweblin.

Wasn't my thing at all.

[57vintage]

I was at the launch of my old friend William K Malcolm’s new - and definitive - biography of James Leslie Mitchell aka Lewis Grassic Gibbon in Arbuthnott last night. It’s Bill’s fourth or fifth Mitchell tome, and it’s been 40 years in gestation, research, and typing. It looks magnificent, and this time Bill has written from the heart, rather than for fellow scholars. It’s beautifully titled History of a Revoluter, and Bill told the extraordinary story of his own research whilst linking Mitchell’s life to an incredible output for a Mearns loon who died at 34.

I’ll be straight into it as soon as I’ve read the last hunner pages of A Son Of War by Melvyn Bragg.

Are you on Goodreads? Nae a bad resource for finding new books beyond the usual comfort zone, which I use frequently.

www.goodreads.com

[TheDeeDon]

I was at the launch of my old friend William K Malcolm?’s new - and definitive - biography of James Leslie Mitchell aka Lewis Grassic Gibbon in Arbuthnott last night. It?’s Bill?’s fourth or fifth Mitchell tome, and it?’s been 40 years in gestation, research, and typing. It looks magnificent, and this time Bill has written from the heart, rather than for fellow scholars. It?’s beautifully titled History of a Revoluter, and Bill told the extraordinary story of his own research whilst linking Mitchell?’s life to an incredible output for a Mearns loon who died at 34.

I?’ll be straight into it as soon as I?’ve read the last hunner pages of A Son Of War by Melvyn Bragg.

Are you on Goodreads? Nae a bad resource for finding new books beyond the usual comfort zone, which I use frequently.

www.goodreads.com

Must be about ten years ago that I read about Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Sunset Song in particular.

Went to the Library for Sunset Song, to see what all the fuss was about. They only had it in reserved stock and the loon brought back a copy of Sunset Song and also a copy of A Scots Quair, which is the trilogy of books, of which Sunset Song is the first.

Anyways I took Sunset Song, as didn't think I would like it and wouldn't bother the the others...

How wrong could I have been. I was back the following week for the A Scots Quair book and found the other two books even better than Sunset Song. Grey Granite is my favourite of the three.

I've posted it on here before, but I used to think the Grassic Gibbon Centre was something to do with monkeys.

I'll give the Goodreads a look. It is becoming more and more difficult finding good books to read.

You have to sift through some amount of shyte to find the good fiction now.

Everything released seems to be celebrity crime novels and generic pap.


When at the Central Library last week, I was speaking to a member of staff at the counter (the self service machines weren't working) and was saying how much I missed getting books checked out, as Librarians would often tell you good books to try.