Game of Thrones

In order to keep my reading bonanza going I’ve just finished “Game of Thrones”  which according to the TV channels in a language I cant understand has just been made into TV show, and by the looks of things stars Sean Bean. (I’ve never really thought about it before now but when breaking into the US film industry he must have got frustrated with any confusion arising between him and Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean character.

“yeah we need that British guy, whatsisname Bean, he’ll be great as Boromir” 

Bit of a tangent.

Any way its an alright book, not really my thing but thats one of the reasons I took the plunge and read it. For those of you that haven’t a clue what I am on about, think Lord of the Rings, just not as good. Well thats my opinion (and it is my blog). I now now thats its part of a series of 5 books, something I didn’t know when I starting reading the first, I thought it was a trilogy, and although I was half expecting it to be a bit of a cliffhanger I don’t really think that the book had an ending, which after reading as much as I did I kind of think I deserve.

I’m sure there are some hard core fans out there, it has the feel of something that would encourage middle aged men and women to dress up as Knights, Barbarians and Princesses.

I dont think I’ll read the other books, I’m pretty sure I wont.  Not because this one was bad, but I think it will make a better TV show than a book.  The only real difference is that they’ll have to cut out some of the blood guts and porn and replace it with a more family friendly feel.  The blood guts and porn makes it sound more interesting than I found it, perhaps more of that and less of the page after page description of walking up a mountain path and I’d read the second one in the series.

Kindle problem

No sooner than I blogged about how much I loved mine Kindle than I run into problems.

I was going to read the 2nd of Stieg Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy, “The Girl Who Played With Fire“, after reading the first “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” back in February. Originally I wasn’t sure if I would, but now I have decided to take the plunge, the thing is I cant get it on my Kindle.

For reasons that are best known to the publishers they haven’t released the Trilogy to Canada, and yet I managed to get the first one on my Kindle?  I didn’t do anything fancy, just went online and bought it the same way as the others and as it turns out I wasn’t supposed to be able to.

Hmmm.

Whats really annoying is I’m away from home and in the middle of nowhere, with no access to any shops, however  I’m with lots of random people and there are a fair few books on the go, there is even a mini library for people to help themselves and borrow books. I’m not too kindleized (hows that for a new word!) to return to the old ink and paper, and I have found 2 copies “The Girl Who Played With Fire”, one in Norwegian and one in Swedish.  I have both the 1st and the 3rd in the series in English.

Hows that for a kick in the balls.

Russell Brand’s autobiography – My Booky Wooky

Moving away from fiction I decided to read Russell Brand’s autobiography “My Booky Wooky“.  It’s slightly outdated now and I know that he has since wrote and published a follow-up, although I’m not sure of the title.

The book itself is a pretty straightforward, yet entertaining read.  I read the whole thing in two days but I think that’s mainly a mark of how bored I am rather than a reflection on the book.  Every time I went to  do something else I realised I am stuck away from home with work and there is NOTHING to do. So the book it was.

Quite a lot of the book is taken up by Brands youth, and the tales of him getting kicked out of various schools, being that he is still only in his 30’s that’s not too surprising especially when you bear in mind that this book was published back in 2007, there aren’t that many years to write about, especially when by his own confession so many of his were lost in a smacked up haze.

One of the reasons I generally don’t bother with autobiographies is that they tend to be nothing more than an advertisement to love the author more, I’m happy to say that I didn’t really feel that with My Booky Wooky and for that Brand deserves credit, rather than just telling people why they should like him he just lays out some stories from his past, and tells them with a bit of humour.

I have to confess that I dont really know why I chose his book over other possible choices, I have no particular interest in Russel Brand and I left the UK back early on in his his climb to fame, or perhaps it would be more apt to say that when I was there I never watched any of the shows he was making.  I do think that being from the UK gives the reader a  certain appreciation for some of the text in the book, understanding (and agreeing) with Brand on the important and correct order to eat Penguin biscuits for a start.  In the USA verison that I got on my kindle he even gives a glossary of UK terms to help the no Brits follow along with what he’s on about.

As an autobigroaphy I think its great, as I mentioned before I dont nromally read then and I dont think this will sway me too much to read more.  A good one to kill the hours of a plane trip, or to pick up and put down by the pool.

Kindle: Brilliance in the form of an Ebook

I love my Kindle.

I know there are a few different E-readers out there, I opted for the kindle and think its awesome. It does what I need, most importantly allow me to travel globally and take a library with me, add to it easily whilst on the road and most importantly for me it’s not like reading from a laptop which I hate. Ok I don’t hate reading from laptops but the idea of trying to read a novel on a laptop is just not for me.