Books - Comments by Magic Marmalade

Books - Comments by Magic Marmalade

« Member Page

Page 1 of 3 : Previous : Next :

Member	Item		Review/Comment
Magic Marmalade 1st Jul 2023		Book Douglas Adams - Life, The Universe And Everything (1982)	Just reading this... (I knew Cricket was evil! :) ...And have stumbled across, perhaps the greatest line of modern times, which has more accurately predicted the times in which we live (and increasingly, those to come), more than any other: *"Let us bow our heads in payment"* (I laughed for five straight minutes at that!)
Magic Marmalade 25th Feb 2023		Book John Wyndham - The Day Of The Triffids (1954)	Is it fair to call this the prototype zombie story? The central plot revolves around the humans more, with the Triffids a background presence ambling around menacingly. Great book though!
Magic Marmalade 15th Jan 2023		Book Jerome Klapka Jerome - Tre Uomini In Barca (1974)	Totally agree Frank... this is like Withnail & I and Mr. Bean (or Norman Wisdom) in a boat.
Magic Marmalade 8th Mar 2022		Book Martin Luther King Jr - The Autobiography Of Martin Luther King, Jr. (2000)	Thanks Oldmod. I shall be sending this back to the charity shop, so someone else can read it :) Also just found Nelson Mandela: Long walk to Freedom... but it's HUGE! (getting on for 800 pages) so that'll take a while, right after I've finished Oliver Sacks: The man who mistook his wife for a hat :)
Magic Marmalade 23rd Jul 2021		Book Ian Shirley - Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide 2016 (2014)	Have been thinking about this guide for a while now, and wonder if they are better splitting it into two volumes (maybe more?): One for 45s (and maybe 78s included), and one for albums. They'd be able to keep the size / volume, but get more in each of use, rather than ever thinner info on too broad a range of items. Perhaps, in the fullness of time, they could do one for CDs and / or cassettes? ...Or, another idea, may be the ring binder idea, where they could update individual discographies on a more frequent and necessary basis, and include "packets of pages" in the magazine (help justify the ever escalating cost of the magazine!), with the option to buy more discography page packs by mail / online order? (A more fluid, and evolving price guide). After all, this is all there really is offline in physical world, and whole businesses are based around record values... probably deserve a better, and more comprehensive valuation guide system in hand.
Magic Marmalade 11th May 2021		Book Sandra Bond - The Psychopath Club (2021)	Saw the review on Amazon... Catcher In The Rye AND Donnie Darko referenced! ...That's a sale! :) (It does say there's more pages in it on Amazon though (?) - still a nice weighty tome -well done! :) ...And this is where I. like everyone else, tell you that I too, have a book in me... unfortunately, mine is stuck inside an idiot :(
Magic Marmalade 4th May 2021		Book Franz Kafka - The Castle (1969)	I always felt this was purposefully left unfinished... as a kind of punch-line to the book as a joke. Makes the point well though. And you always get the feeling with Kafka he's pulling your leg, and testing how gullible you are as a reader.
Magic Marmalade 2nd Jun 2020		Book Isaac Asimov - The Complete Robot (2018)	If only people operated by those same three laws! :)
Magic Marmalade 7th Apr 2020		Book James Joyce - Ulysses (2010)	I've been reading this for about 6 months now, and about half way through... ... and I still don't quite get what it is that I'm reading about! (During which time I have also read 1984, Brave new World, Robinson Crusoe, an Iris Murdoch novel, one book on Geology, Wuthering Heights, and The Call Of The Wild) Tedious, hard going, and like wading through treacle to read. Don't bother with this, read something else instead :)
Magic Marmalade 15th Jan 2018		Book Frank Herbert - Dune (2007)	Holy spice-mining worm-do Batman! ...my SF Masterworks "worm cover" hardback that I've uploaded image of here is listed on ebay and Amazon at £250!!! ...Am I missing a decimal dot somewhere? .....surely it hasn't acquired that kind of value in just a matter of months? No other SF Masterworks series books seem to go for anything like that. Is this accurate... and if so, what possible explanation is there?
Magic Marmalade 30th Nov 2017		Book John Brunner - The Squares Of The City (1969)	Well, subliminal advertisements will soon be joined in the pantheon of pseudo-scientific tea-leaf reader theories by the recently enobled: "Behavioural Economics", and it's attendant nonsense: *"Nudge* theory**" (Count me as evidence of Counter-behavioural economics, and anti-nudger! - whatever you advertise, I will make a point of not buying it!) Economics is basically astrology anyway... and look where it's gotten us. (My apologies to anyone who has a degree in economics, or calls themselves an economist... you have my sympathies :)
Magic Marmalade 4th Oct 2017		Book J. R. R. Tolkien - The Hobbit (1996)	Incidentally, the original first edition hardback, with this cover art on the dust jacket is worth serious cash... a Tolkien signed copy recently sold for £130,000 or so, and even an unsigned one went for £66,000. Keep yer peepers open :)
Magic Marmalade 15th Sep 2017		Book Mary Shelley - Frankenstein (1999)	Ashamed to say that all this record collecting business has meant that I haven't read a book in almost two years! ...so I got a little carried away once I picked one up again at last, and had to tell you all about it. (To my surprise, I'm a considerably quicker reader than I used to be).
Magic Marmalade 13th Sep 2017		Book Mary Shelley - Frankenstein (1999)	What... the book, or my review? :)
Magic Marmalade 16th Mar 2017		Book Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (1999)	This is the book that became: Blade Runner
Magic Marmalade 14th Mar 2017		Book Don Shaw - Conundrum (1984)	I don't remember this one. ...I assume it was to follow on from the success of Kit Williams': Masquerade. (The latter ought to be brought to the attention of Disney / Pixar in my opinion... There's a great animated film of the kind they used to make in there somewhere..... back when they were bolder, and made more than just sequels)
Magic Marmalade 28th Oct 2016		Book Michael Moynihan - Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise Of The Satanic Metal Underground (1998)	"Murder, racism, homophobia, paganism, church-burning..." That's politics! :)
Magic Marmalade 24th Oct 2016		Book Various Contributors - Record Collector Rare Record Price Guide 2018 (2016)	So what's the opinion on this new edition? Do the valuations hold water? ... What's issue, pressing and other info quality like? .... Is it worth buying at the new and revised price of 29 whole pounds for a paperback? (it'll have to be brilliant at that price!)
Magic Marmalade 13th Aug 2016		Book Various Authors - Dagsommerfugle I Farver	Not seen one of those yet... but a fair few varieties where I am. On a slightly different note, Lots of Dragonflies out today (seems late in the year to me)
Magic Marmalade 13th Aug 2016		Book Paul Whalley - The Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide To Butterflies (1981)	Maybe it's something they're eating here Terence... Very territorial, and like to buzz bomb the unsuspecting yomper, such as myself... and they don't quit until you're well away! (Or then again... maybe it's just me they don't like)
Magic Marmalade 26th Jul 2016		Book Carl Gustav Jung - The Undiscovered Self (2006)	How do you spell it? (My spelling would be a good name for a punk female vocal groop like the Soupreems :)
Magic Marmalade 25th Jul 2016		Book Carl Gustav Jung - The Undiscovered Self (2006)	You mean the Fraudian shit... I mean: slip :) (lord knows what he made of a patient with what was then an unrecognised condition of Tourettes!!!)
Magic Marmalade 19th Mar 2016		Book Russell Ash - Bizarre Books (2000)	I look forward to the list: "ppint's guide to gentleman's toilet literature", "The advanced bathroom library" or maybe: "100 greatest bum busters".
Magic Marmalade 23rd Feb 2016		Book Isaac Asimov - I, Robot (1950)	I've always intended to read Asimov... Along with Arthur C. Clarke, and Philip K. Dick, he has the the most claim to the title "Mr Science Fiction". Between the three of them they essentially have considered and mapped the future long before any of us have gotten there. They always bring the big ideas to their works.
Magic Marmalade 9th Feb 2016		Book Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (1999)	Sounds like an endorsement nevertheless.
Magic Marmalade 3rd Feb 2016		Book Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (1992)	Actually, the cover may be one of those cheesy pieces to camera catching subject "unawares": "Oh, hello.... I didn't see you there!" ..."I was just going through some old silverpoint drawings of my water-skiing holiday in the Bahamas... come in, and I'll tell you all about the time we covered Ian Fleming's swimming trunks with crab paste while he was in the shower.... he'll never go shark baiting again I can tell you!"
Magic Marmalade 1st Feb 2016		Book Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (1992)	....I mean, you just have to look at the cover of this book to see what kind of dude he was, it's like he's saying: *"WHAT?!!"* Just before he lectures you at length about soup and English Women's feet, and the virtues of an enormous moustache that hangs from yer head like a bat in a belfry. (I think this cover engraving is of him writing a list of things of which he doesn't approve... "Volume 3...")
Magic Marmalade 1st Feb 2016		Book Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (1992)	:) I don't know what the German would be for: "Quick!... Hide!.... Here Comes Nietszche!" ... but I bet it was heard quite frequently in the streets back in his day.
Magic Marmalade 1st Feb 2016		Book Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (1992)	Neither am I carey.... neither am I. :)
Magic Marmalade 31st Jan 2016		Book Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo (1992)	I'll be honest carey... it's been a very long time since I read this one, and don't remember any of it, except that these kind of obsessions were a feature of his writing.

Page 1 of 3 : Previous : Next :