Now this is depressing....

[Moos]

Deepest apologies for returning to the topic of the thread. Quids you may be surprised to hear this! but I have read a Dan Brown book once, although I'm not stupid enough to pay to buy a hardcover and lug it around. The furthest I'd go would be to borrow a paperback.

I think there's room in the world for a well-plotted thriller, with mysteries that are difficult to untangle. Shame they so often seem to go with silly conspiracy theories and cardboard characters, though.

[Keef]

I don't mind admitting that I actually rather enjoyed Angels & Demons, which I acttually read before the Da Vinci Code, but after all the DC hype. What is not to enjoy, it's a fun story, and easy reading. Da Vinci Code was dull, and completely overrated.

The problem is that people then start talking like the books are literary greats, and that gets up the nose of some people.

Harry Potter books are kids books, which then got popular, so increasingly became aimed at an older audience. I personally think they are a good laugh, but again, it doesn't mean I think that annoying woman is some literary genius, more a woman who took an old idea, and expanded on it with some skill.

[Ted Max]

Wasn't there some stuff at the time of people leaving the DVC on park benches and the likes, for others to find and discover the "troot"? Or was that marketing guff.

[mockney piers]

I guess it's about how impossible it is to work out what will cPture the public imagination.

I grew up enjoying lots of boys-with-magic-powers type books, what's not to love. But there are hundreds of them, HP is no better or worse, so I'm at a total loss why it did so well.

I've read any number of hackneyed thrillers I picked up at the airport and threw into a bin at the other end (perhaps people missing the bin and hitting the bench is where the myth comes from TM). I enjoy not having to think when on a plane tired and trying to pretend I'm not in a high explosive building 40000 ft of the floor.

Many of those thrillers have dealt with Templars and Gnostics and religion (I think I mentioned before a very enjoyable one about Jesus being alive and well and drug dealing in Sydney) so nowt wrong with these books per se.

But again I've non idea why DVC did so well, it's bizarre, like HP before it it is utterly derivative and averagely written.

I guess mcdonalds proves you don't need to be good to be popular but I hate adults telling me I MUST read HP or I have no imagination, or the loons who think there is some truth in DVC.

For goodness sake I barely believe Jesus existed and certainly don't believe in his divinity, why would I care if he shagged someone?

Anyway Eco's Foucault's Pendilum should be prescribed as the perfect antidote to anyone infected by DVC syndrome. Pacy, thrilling, intellignet, amusing and brilliantly written, for once what really is not to like?

[mockney piers]

Plus I worked with an opus dei chap for five years and he never once tried to kill me despite my regular blaspheming.

Though on the other side of the coin...Ruth Kelly....

[Ted Max]

Ruth Kelly tried to kill you?

I think people like to feel part of something bigger - and there comes a point where it feels perverse not to have read something. I can't see the harm in it. I suppose you can argue that publishers cut their lists to a few banker genres and stop investing in new writing.

But there still seem to be plenty of books piled up in Chener, Review, and so on that haven't rolled out of a lorry straight onto Tesco's 20% off shelf.

(Naturally I haven't read any Rowling or Brown myself, chiefly spending my time at the moment reading 19th Century Ghazals in the original Urdu)

[capt_birdseye]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Us I worked with an opus dei chap for five years

> and he never once tried to kill ke despite my

> regular blaspheming.

> Though on the other side of the coin...Ruth

> Kelly....

They're more underhanded than that. They like to hack forum accounts in order to make it look like their opponents are unable to spell/construct a sentence. Sinister stuff.

[mockney piers]

Oi unfair. You try ranting on an iPhone. And as for editing your post using the 1mm of real estate you can move that magnifying glass around at a snails pace in!!

[mockney piers]

PhewPOnds think I've thrown them off the scent, right where are my stiletto and cilice?

[Moos]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Anyway Eco's Foucault's Pendilum should be

> prescribed as the perfect antidote to anyone

> infected by DVC syndrome. Pacy, thrilling,

> intellignet, amusing and brilliantly written, for

> once what really is not to like?

A great book, but bloody hard work, I was constantly having to look up words in the dictionary and read sentences 3 or 4 times to work out what they had said... not good for the ego.

[????]

The Lounge Rules - I love you all. Thanks x

[Moos]

Wow, Quids is pissed a bit early today.

Love you too, little fella.

[HAL9000]

The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum were masterpieces in my view. I found Eco's subsequent novels somewhat disappointing.

In real life professor Eco is a semiotician: one who studies signs and symbols and their meaning. Dan Brown describes Robert Langdon as a ?symbologist,? which is a clumsy term for semiotician.

My guess is that Brown chose symbologist to obscure the influence Eco had on his work.

[Keef]

Piers, I dare say that the best rock guitarist in the world, is someone we've never heard of, who plays in local pubs. The best song in the world, is probably something written by some guy we've never heard of, and quite likely, the best thriller ever written is sitting on a publisher's desk somewhere, and will never see the shelves of WH Smith's.

Dan Brown and J K Rowling got lucky, just like all the bands that make it, and the songwriters who happen to get heard by the right person on the right night.

They then got pushed by clever marketing people.

Look at Blair Witch, what a load of gash, but half the world thought it was a documentary!

[Brendan]

This is why I haven?t yet bothered to write the world?s best book and compose the world?s best song.

[HonaloochieB]

Moos Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

Quids you may be surprised to hear

this! but I have read a Dan Brown book once,

Although you can't see us Moos, the rest of the EDF have become a living Bateman cartoon at hearing this.

My monocle has caromed off the ceiling, my tincture has splashed all over the founder's portrait and I've bitten through the stem of my favourite Meerschaum.

I wonder how anyone else reacted?

[HonaloochieB]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> This is why I haven?t yet bothered to write the

> world?s best book and compose the world?s best

> song.

Let us know when you do, B, I'll be out there representin' innit.

[Moos]

HonaloochieB Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Although you can't see us Moos, the rest of the

> EDF have become a living Bateman cartoon at

> hearing this.

> My monocle has caromed off the ceiling, my

> tincture has splashed all over the founder's

> portrait and I've bitten through the stem of my

> favourite Meerschaum.

> I wonder how anyone else reacted?

Dear Hona, I sincerely apologise for having ruffled your equilibrium. Please imagine a cool, smooth Moosian hand on your fevered brow, stroking away your discombobulation.

I'm sure no-one else so much as swirled their G&Ts at the news. I have confessed to C2 tastes before now.

[Brendan]

Oh I trust you shall be rockn? that party 8 days a week my good man.

[capt_birdseye]

Moos Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm sure no-one else so much as swirled their G&Ts

> at the news. I have confessed to C2 tastes before

> now.

Next you'll be saying you read Edwina Curry novels!

[RosieH]

Or a nice bit of Archer...

[Tony.London Suburbs]

RosieH Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Or a nice bit of Archer...

I'm giving this thread The Spanish Archer..

[????]

Washed down with an Archers

[bigbadwolf]

Archers Peach Snapps = Tart fuel

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Some Tarts are exceedingly good..