What Are You Currently Reading?

[Sam Flynn]

I'm halfway through Dick's Exegesis now.

Seeing Hampton Sides and Dick's Exegesis on the same page has made me come over all funny!

... and now that I've said "come over all funny" I feel even worse

[Mayerling]

Christopher Lee's (slightly) abridged version of Churchill's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples".

I read the complete four volume book years ago, published in the US by Bantam Books. Liked it a great deal. Churchill was not ashamed to voice all kinds of opinions in it, like how he felt the story of King Arthur was true, and if not it should be.

I read two books recently about baseball. One was "Uncle Robbie" about one of the managers of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, and the other "Damned Senators", regarding the only time the Washington Senators won the World Series (in 1922, when their leading player was the aging but great pitcher Walter Johnson.

Recently I joined the site, "Goodreads" and have started writing book reviews. My last one was about the 1712 Mohun-Hamilton duel, "Duke Hamilton is Dead".

Jeff

[MrBarnett]

Well, as it's the 22nd of September, the birthday of a certain pair of hobbits, I will dip into the first chapter or two of The Fellowship of the Ring. It's a bit of ritual that I've been observing for 40-odd years. I can't remember when I last read the whole trilogy.

[Robert]

I don't know what Christopher Lee's like as a historian, but if it's anything like his work for Hammer, should be a cracking read.

[Sam Flynn]

I don't know what Christopher Lee's like as a historian, but if it's anything like his work for Hammer, should be a cracking read.

Our actors were so much more versatile back in the day. Take, for instance, the definitive translations of the Arabian Nights and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam by Richard Burton.

[Robert]

Yes I heard he sat up translating those on his wedding night to Liz Taylor, which didn't go down to well.

But even today, you find that Mark E Smith could run a music band AND write "A Brief History Of Time."

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/15894943.video-post-punk-legend-mark-e-smith-is-dead/#gallery0

[Pcdunn]

Yes I heard he sat up translating those on his wedding night to Liz Taylor, which didn't go down to well.

But even today, you find that Mark E Smith could run a music band AND write "A Brief History Of Time."

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...dead/#gallery0

Surely Stephen Hawking wrote the book "A Brief History of Time"! Another book by the same title?

[Robert]

Hi Pat

It was a joke on how similar they could look in their later years, as you'll see if you do an image search.

[Karl]

I don't know what Christopher Lee's like as a historian, but if it's anything like his work for Hammer, should be a cracking read.

In what sense? That it only has, like, five lines?

[Robert]

You're thinking of that Dracula film where all he says is 'the first' 'the second' etc. After that he quit Dracula, I think.

[Karl]

You're thinking of that Dracula film where all he says is 'the first' 'the second' etc. After that he quit Dracula, I think.

I only ever saw the very first one, Horror of Dracula, and was disappointed with how few lines he actually had. He has so few lines I was able to easily do a word count, and Christopher Lee speaks exactly 238 words. When I learned that he had even fewer lines than that in his subsequent Dracula films, I wasn't even interested in watching them at all. He did three Dracula movies in all, I think.

[Robert]

Well, I don't think Dracula would have been a chatty man. But of course Lee appeared in a number of different films - he wasn't just a Dracula specialist.

[Karl]

Well, I don't think Dracula would have been a chatty man. But of course Lee appeared in a number of different films - he wasn't just a Dracula specialist.

Indeed not! I can't seem to remember how I viewed him before the Lord of the Rings trilogy, though. I think he was known pretty much as a B-movie actor, and maybe many would have known him first and foremost as Dracula from the Hammer movies. I think I knew him mainly as Scaramanga from Man With the Golden Gun. But things changed dramatically after his splendid portrayal of Saruman, for which he was justly acclaimed - then suddenly he became famous for just about everything he had done. Including this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9se8i4ujs

[Robert]

Ha! Well, going back a bit, there was this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-MeG0SXFw

[albie]

This week I have been mostly reading Satan Burger by Carlton Mellick III and THE ONE SAFE PLACE by Ramsey Campbell.