What are you reading?

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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    More Rocambole and also The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose (2011)

    By the way, @Dragonpol , that character trait you asked about is just in the movie.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    More Rocambole and also The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose (2011)

    By the way, @Dragonpol , that character trait you asked about is just in the movie.

    Thanks, @Thunderfinger. That's good to know. I'll have to stick the DVD in again and watch the film in full this time then.

    I remember Jeremy Duns saying that Amis's Colonel Sun reminded him of being closer in style to a Modesty Blaise novel than a James Bond novel. Duns thought that Amis might've even conceived the Colonel Sun story as a Modesty Blaise story first before being asked to write the first official Bond continuation novel. Amis was also a big Modesty Blaise fan besides being a literary Bond fan. So I thought there might be a crossover there between the way Amis develops Colonel Sun as a villainous character with a change of heart right at the end and how Gabriel was presented in that novel. There may still be a crossover with the 1966 film version, however. Interesting to think about. 🤔
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Moving on with Rocambole 9 and 10, by Ponson du Terrail. Just found out these originally came out in the period 1857-1870.
    My editions are from the WW1 era, and they are all uncut.

    Where do you find this stuff?

    A secondhand shop with an online site.

    Nice. I frequent my local secondhand bookshops (since the lockdown has lifted again) and they are a home from home to me. Sometimes I have some great finds and I always leave with something. It's so important to support bricks and mortar shops like these lest they disappear altogether. Sadly, some already have.
    There is just one in my hometown now. Unfortunately, it s a mess, with books stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Impossible to look properly through it, so I don t frequent that place.

    That's how I think a 2nd hand bookshop should be. We used to have one here like that. Sadly it's now long gone.


    The Hostage by Duncan Falconer
    The first book in his Stratton series. A US Navy Seal, on loan to British Military Intelligence, gets involved in an illeagal operation on French soil and ends up being taken hostage by the RIRA. Enter, no nonsense SBS operative John Stratton.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    3740 ASTONISHING FACTS by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
  • MaxCasinoMaxCasino United States
    Posts: 4,617
    Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History. By Michael Klastorin and Randal Atamaniuk. With guest writers Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. Highly recommended for BTTF fans and movie fans in general!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    ALICE BAILEY-THE UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    MAN IN EVOLUTION (G. dePurucker, 1929)
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  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    The Hijack by Duncan Falconer
    Book 2 in the Stratton series. After the fairly grounded The Hostage, I had a bit of trouble buying into the psychic stuff in The Hijack.
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    edited November 2021 Posts: 3,497
    I now have a profile on LibraryThing ;)

    Because I constantly received friend requests from fake profiles on GoodReads and they couldn't be bothered to solve it.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    SHE by H. Rider Haggard (1887)
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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489

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    1965
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Reached no. 19 in the Rocambole series. Getting good at cutting those old books now.
  • Posts: 2
    Casino Royale :)

    I decided a couple weeks ago that I want to read through every single Bond novel.
  • FeyadorFeyador Montreal, Canada
    edited November 2021 Posts: 735
    Real-world spycraft by way of the academic non-fiction work,"The Intelligence War Against the IRA," by Patrick Leahy

    A challenge to the prevailing notion that the Provisional IRA was so infiltrated with informers and so susceptible to electronic surveillance that it could do little in the end but settle for a negotiated surrender through its proxy party Sinn Fein. The not entirely persuasive claim here is that British SIS did not significantly influence the outcome, which resulted instead from back-channel negotiations, internal political factors and a lack of public support for republican violence. Nevertheless, much fascinating detail on how SIS combated the IRA and how the latter responded to such setbacks, especially in restructuring itself into smaller cells in order to avoid such debilitating penetration.

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/intelligence-war-against-the-ira/A34D7CEFB3118C4C2F9553F4D30D91ED

  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    The Operative by Duncan Falconer (Stratton book #3)
    A more personal story this time around, and we also get to see Stratton's expertise with explosives.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    NORSE MYTHOLOGY (Neil Gaiman, 2017)
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    And also EXPLORING THEOSOPHY
    (2007)
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    edited December 2021 Posts: 13,978
    Undersea Prison by Duncan Falconer (Stratton book #4)

    A British military helicopter is downed and a small device containing information on over 1400 UK and US run agents and informants operating in the Middle East and Afghanistan, that it was carrying, has fallen into enemy hands. Information including telephone numbers, addresses, emails, dead letter boxes and meeting points amongst others. The device is put inside a courier, who is then picked up by US authorities following an attempt to cross borders, and is sent to the infamous Styx Penitentiary. A sort of Guantanamo Bay beneath the ocean, albeit a prison overseen by the CIA. Prisoners sent to Styx don't come out alive. If word gets out about the theft of the device, it would not only damage the reputation of British Military Intelligence, but also damage U.K-US relations (as well an endanger the lives of the agents listed, and cause all operations to be scrapped immediately. A plan is devised to get an operative inside Styx, and either destroy the device, or to retrieve it and then get out. The atmosphere within Styx is already fraught with suspicion and belligerence, but it's about to get much worse, with the arrival of an undercover agent.

    This one is my favourite in the series, and one I was hoping would be adapted to screen, until the total failure of Stratton (2017).
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Studies in Occultism
    H. P. Blavatsky
    A Collection of Articles from Lucifer, H. P. Blavatsky's magazine, between 1887-1891
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  • Posts: 15,114
    Money, Money, Money by Ed McBain. 'Tis the season to be reading.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Mercenary by Duncan Falconer (Stratton book #5)
    Stratton is parachuted into Central America to hand over weapons to a rebel group, to help them fight against the corrupt governments army. He even falls in love with the daughter of a rebel leader, along the way. The highlight of the story was the very Zulu-sequel attack on the rebel base, by the vastly overwhelming in numbers government controlled army.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Traitor by Duncan Falconer (Stratton book #6)
    Sent on a mission to Sevastopol to gather intel using some new equipment, Stratton returns home find that the intel that he gathered wasn't recorded. Not only that, but the device that he used, which was supposed to be destroyed via a self destruct mechanism, well it failed to self destruct. The equipment was found by the Russians. Shit rolls downhill, and Stratton gets the blame. Stratton is sent to the naughty corner, which in his line of work involves being sent to a secret underground facility run by MI16 (a real life Q-Branch). A facility where equipment is developed before being sent off for field testing.
    Meanwhile, out in the North Sea, the Morpheus Oil Platform has just been taken by mercenaries, demanding 2 billion pounds in 24hrs, or they start chucking hostages overboard. When word gets out, the SBS send in a forward team to do a recee on the situation, but first they need to stop by MI16 to pick up a few things. Coincidence? They end up setting off a security alarm, and locking down the lift that they are in. Stratton learns from them what has happened to Morpheus, and hatches a plan to take their place, flying out to Morpheus along with the MI16 boffins and re-take the platform. All the while, a vicious storm heads straight for Morpheus.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Pirate by Duncan Falconer (Stratton book #7)
    It only took 7 books, but Stratton finally crosses paths with Somalian pirates.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    FIRST-PERSON SINGULARITIES by Robert Silverberg.
    A collection of 18 short stories from the period 1956-1997. Have read five of them before. Great stuff.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
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    The collection of short stories that bore the film Arrival.

    And:
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  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    War Against The Mafia by Don Pendleton (The Executioner #1, 1969)
    Given the 400+ books in this series, the thought of reading them, was daunting. Nevertheless, I had wanted to try them for some time, and have been gradually buying a book here, and a book there. With my Executioner collection now at 65 books, I finally decided to jump in at the beginning.

    I would stop short of calling it shlock, but there was definitely an enjoyable pulpiness. A breeze to read as well. I am going to try and plug the gaps (and I have a ton of gaps), as I go, but this series ain't easy to come by in the UK, especially with the early books long out of print in the UK (though a US publisher has been reprinting the original 37 books, just not this side of the pond).
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    A TIME OF CHANGES (1971) by Robert Silverberg.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Reached no 34 in the Rocambole series. These later books were published in 1918. Still uncut.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, WITH MERRY MEN AND OTHER STORIES by Robert L. Stevenson. I know the title story through adaptations and popularisations, but never read anything other than TREASURE ISLAND by Stevenson before.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Reached Rocambole 39.
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