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The Count of Merkur Cristo

B&B's Emperor of Emojis
Now, I'm reading a three (3), novel set "The Day of the Jackal", "The Odessa File" and "The Dogs of war" by Frederick Forsyth to include viewing the later films! :thumbsup:

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[FONT=&amp]In "The Day of the Jackal", the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS...a well known violent anti-Gaullist group), hires an assassin (a GQ Englishmen), to kill then-French President General Charles de Gaulle (who had survived six [6] prior attempts...and to later pass away content and at peace with his destiny in tact at his home with family[/FONT]).
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[FONT=&amp]In "The Odessa File", a reporter attempts to track down an ex-Nazi SS officer in modern Germany. The reporter discovers him via the diary of a Jewish Holocaust survivor who committed suicide earlier, but he is being shielded by an organization that protects ex-Nazis, called [/FONT][FONT=&amp]ODESSA[/FONT][FONT=&amp].
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[FONT=&amp]In "The Dogs of War", a British mining executive hires a group of mercenaries to overthrow the government of an African country so that he can install a puppet regime that will allow him cheap access to a colossal platinum-ore reserve.[/FONT]

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Forsyth

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[FONT=&amp]“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Dr. Seuss[/FONT]
 
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The Count of Merkur Cristo

B&B's Emperor of Emojis
The movie to "The Day of the Jackal" is superb, one of the best interpretations of book to movie I have seen.
Mon ami Novice:
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...I couldn't agree with you more! :thumbsup:

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[FONT=&amp]"I think movies and magic have always been closely associated. The earliest people who made film(s), were magicians". Francis Ford Coppola[/FONT]
 
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The Odessa File is one of my favorite thriller novels of all time.

I just finished all of the Shadow Campaigns series that are currently published, by Django Wexler. Excellent flintlock fantasy series that is inspired by the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.
 
Just finished "Pasha" by Julian Stockwin. 15th volume of his Thomas Kydd series of historical fiction. They're still good, and in a recent interview he reckons there are at least 5 more volumes in the series.
 
Now, I'm reading a three (3), novel set "The Day of the Jackal", "The Odessa File" and "The Dogs of war" by Frederick Forsyth to include viewing the later films! :thumbsup:

proxy.php


[FONT=&amp]In "The Day of the Jackal", the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS...a well known violent anti-Gaullist group), hires an assassin (a GQ Englishmen), to kill then-French President General Charles de Gaulle (who had survived six [6] prior attempts...and to later pass away content and at peace with his destiny in tact at his home with family[/FONT]).
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[FONT=&amp]In "The Odessa File", a reporter attempts to track down an ex-Nazi SS officer in modern Germany. The reporter discovers him via the diary of a Jewish Holocaust survivor who committed suicide earlier, but he is being shielded by an organization that protects ex-Nazis, called [/FONT][FONT=&amp]ODESSA[/FONT][FONT=&amp].
[/FONT]

proxy.php


[FONT=&amp]In "The Dogs of War", a British mining executive hires a group of mercenaries to overthrow the government of an African country so that he can install a puppet regime that will allow him cheap access to a colossal platinum-ore reserve.[/FONT]

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Forsyth

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[FONT=&amp]“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Dr. Seuss[/FONT]
I fell in love with Forsyth after reading The Day of the Jackal and quickly devoured every book of his I could find. Unfortunately, most didn't live up to DOTJ, but I enjoyed them all nonetheless. Have fun!
 
I'm back in the classics. I don't know how I never read the Count of Monte Cristo; I'm about 5.5 chapters in and loving it.

My wife and I just started reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy together. It is well written.
 
Fitzgerald really did write like an angel, didn't he? it has been a while since I have even flipped through Gatsby, but I am guessing that it is a book that holds up. One of those books I first read in high school, which is a much richer read after being alive for a somewhat longer period of time.

Im realy a great fan like you Fitzgerald is one of the best novalist im for sure a prepp collage reader and those who study on high school understand that Fitzgerald is one of the greatest novelist of the 20s century.
In The great Gatsby Sir Fitzgerald write About the lifestyle Every college preppy student is dreaming About.

Ernest Hemingway is also one of my favorites.
 
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There are books whose story lines focus on revenge, and then there is The Count of Monte Cristo, exceptionally well realized by Dumas.
 
I put down The Strangled Princess for some reason and picked up The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. It is a pretty hefty book and I am only about a third of the way through it. It is very a very interesting read. This is only the first of three volumes. All I can say is his life is really fascinating.
 
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the greatest books I ever read. Currently reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea on my kindle.

What do you think of 20,000 Leagues? I remember a friend of mine read it and said he liked the story itself, but the book was bogged down and turned almost boring with endless descriptions of sea life and such. Didn't sound appealing after that, so I'm curious :)
 
I just finished Awake in the Night, John C. Wright's venture into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land. It is a dreamlike tale, set 25,000,000 years in the future, of the Last Redoubt of Man, where what little remains of mankind are holding out against the dark forces of a world which no longer even remembers the sun. The novella was one of the best written, most interesting books I've read in quite a while. I received it as a gift, but I would recommend picking up Awake in the Night Land, a compilation that includes awake in the night, along with three other novellas set in the same universe.

Next up is Andy Weir's The Martian. I'd love to hear from anyone who has already finished it.
 
Fitzgerald really did write like an angel, didn't he? it has been a while since I have even flipped through Gatsby, but I am guessing that it is a book that holds up. One of those books I first read in high school, which is a much richer read after being alive for a somewhat longer period of time.

I re-read Gatsby this summer, 25 years (!) after reading it in high school. I also went back and re-read Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, which was one of my favorite books back then. I am pleased to say that I still love them both.

The classics are the classics for a reason.
 
What do you think of 20,000 Leagues? I remember a friend of mine read it and said he liked the story itself, but the book was bogged down and turned almost boring with endless descriptions of sea life and such. Didn't sound appealing after that, so I'm curious :)

I'm enjoying it. It's an easy read (unlike 3 Musketeers which I can't seem to finish) but, yes, there are some endless descriptions of sea life that I just glaze over. Most classics I read are free downloads from gutenberg.org so I can't complain.
 

oc_in_fw

Fridays are Fishtastic!
What do you think of 20,000 Leagues? I remember a friend of mine read it and said he liked the story itself, but the book was bogged down and turned almost boring with endless descriptions of sea life and such. Didn't sound appealing after that, so I'm curious :)

Moby Dick had a lot of that, but I enjoyed it because it painted a picture of what kinds of conditions these people had to live through.
 

Kilroy6644

Smoking a corn dog in aviators and a top hat
What do you think of 20,000 Leagues? I remember a friend of mine read it and said he liked the story itself, but the book was bogged down and turned almost boring with endless descriptions of sea life and such. Didn't sound appealing after that, so I'm curious :)

Moby Dick had a lot of that, but I enjoyed it because it painted a picture of what kinds of conditions these people had to live through.
I enjoy that kind of stuff too. It can get kind of boring at times, but it really helps paint a picture for you. In the case of Moby Dick, a lot of the boring stuff was procedural, i.e. "This is how whaling works." You learn stuff. Maybe not anything relevant to your life, but one of my favorite authors said it best: "All knowledge is worth having." Until I read Moby Dick I never knew that harpoons weren't actually used to kill whales.

In the case of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you have two types of "boring" stuff: the descriptions of sea life (which wouldn't have been boring in 1870; this was long before Jacques Cousteau, National Geographic, etc. could actually show us what was down there), and technical descriptions of the Nautilus. A lot of this stuff is very dated now, but it shows you the state of scientific thinking in the mid-19th century, and I personally find that interesting. Anyway, even if you do find that stuff boring, it really doesn't take up that much of the book. I think it's well worth reading, and lately I've been thinking about revisiting it. It's a really good story.

Here's a cool site that goes into more detail about the Nautilus, as well as other historical items that may have influenced Verne. There's a lot of good stuff in there. It also includes a page about what translations to look for (the original English translation was heavily abridged, and had numerous errors, and it turns out that most publishers print that one, because it's in the public domain, unlike more recent, more correct translations). http://www.vernianera.com/
 
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