War and Peace

Thanks for your comments Slatta, good of you to respond.

I have been researching Lobsang Ramba and it appears he was not all he made out to be. I fact it seems he was debunked as a fruadster.

Quote from http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_third_eye_of_t._lobsang_rampa/
(Despite having been proven to be a phonyâ??a plumber's son posing as a Tibetan monkâ?? a market still existed for Rampa's writings. So he continued on with his career as Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, authoring numerous books before his death in 1981. However, none of them sold as well as The Third Eye. )

I think I shall not read any more of the third eye and move on to something else.
robert

 

The books are flying off the shelves....
Now completed The bridge over the river Kwai by Pierrle Boulle.
If you dont know that story then where have you been all my life?

I am now into another book by Gavin Lyall called Midnight plus one
I like his style of writing and being easy reading with not to many big words that I have to check the meaning of !:gnthb:

 

Thats Midnight plus one back on the shelf and a very adventurous read it was. Two post war pilots getting into a spot of bother in the middle east.
Now started on another by Gavin Lyall called The most dangerous game.
This one also has an aviation cast but this time looking for tresure in Finland....

 

Caps, I had to look Lyall up as the name rang a bell, I now remember reading Wrong Side of the Sky twenty years ago (or more), forgotten what it was about now.

Reading Wilbur Smith's Rage, full of politics and very heavy going . I'm not sure I have the stamina for all 900 pages.:ywn:

 

Morning Stongylodon
Wrong side of the sky

Jack Clay, an ex-Royal Air Force military transport makes a threadbare living flying charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy around the Mediterranean and other parts of Europe in an old Douglas DC-3. His dreams of having his own aeroplane and own charter company are rapidly fading due to age and lack of money, but at least he is flying. While in Athens, Greece he has a chance encounter with an old wartime friend and rival pilot, Ken Kitson, when the latter lands in a luxurious private Piaggio P.166.
Kitson is personal pilot to the immensely wealthy former-Nawab of Tungabhadra in Pakistan, who is searching the world for his family's heirloom jewels, been stolen by a British charter pilot during the Partition of India. However, the Nawab is not the only one looking for the missing jewels, and is not the only one who would cheat, steal or murder to find them first

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above

 

It has come back to me now.
Ex RAF, flying, your sort of book?

 

Correct...I have flown in a DC3 out in the Far East from Changi to Butterworth in Malaysia. It was the worst landing I have ever had the pleasure...
Also flown Twin engined Valetta transport from/to Butterworth, Changi, Kuching, laburn, Jessleton, Clark field, and few more I forget the names of. Over the jungle in a Mk10 Whirlwind chopper and supply dropped over the Indo/Borneo border.
and I loved every second of it

 

Just had a flashback... do you recall what type of aircraft you first flew in?
Mine was a RAF Shackelton flying a low level mission over the
Irish sea, it was mostly only on three engines out of four at a level above the sea you would not believe! We dropped practise bombs onto bouys in the sea....It was amazing

 

Thats another Gavin Lyall book finished.
The most dangerous game.
Another cracking good yarn that I understand the rights were obtained by Steve Mcqueen with every intention of making into a movie. Unfortunately Steve died before it could be done.
Steve was perfect to play the main charactor with this all action story taking place on the Finnish / Russian border.
I recommend this if you are into spy action / treure hunting, boys own hero style of writing

 

I saw the film years ago I think it was made in Russia,It was wonderful,so realistic.

 

I think I read it a looong time ago, I didn't know it had been made into a film.

First plane I went on (going through the Cranial Vaults here) was a BAC 111 from Luton to Ibiza in '73.

No Military planes for me!!

 

Hi Robert
I've read right through your reading exploits and I've been making notes along the way! I see you've foraged in all sorts of genres and I'm sure you've enriched your soul (and Trivial Pursuit prospects). I have read many of the books you've mentioned, e.g. On The Beach, Dracula, The Crysalids etc. along with many, many others as I have been a bookworm all my life.

Now that you have moved on from the classics (temporarily?) and are more into thrillers, I think you should give Stephen King a go. Some of his books are fantastic and others terrible (like lots of authors, including Robert Goddard who I'm reading at the mo). Go for SK's "The Green Mile" or "Misery" first off - you won't be disappointed. Oh, and Robert Goddard's "Never Go Back".
T.

 

Morning Tiarrella
Many thanks for post and informed suggestions.
Plan at the moment is to complete the reading of all Gavin Lyall books and then,,who knows.
I have ventured into Stephen King and have to say I did not get very far with the chosen book. Maybe it was one off those bad ones.
I have only really become a bookworm since retirement. I now find I complete a read in a matter of days, except for War and Peace which was a few weeks!
I have taken your recommendations on board regarding future reads and have stacked them at the end of the book shelve. So to speak.

 

I think there are quite a lot of Gavin Lyall books. They seem to be manly tales of pilots and tatty aircraft which doesn't appeal too much to me. I did read Wilbur Smith's Egyptian series but I wish I had stopped after "River God" and "The Seventh Scroll". After that, I kind of lost the plot. I also enjoyed "The Burning Shore" but should have treated it as a one-off as I didn't like the subsequent books at all. Perhaps you could recommend one of his "stand alone" novels?

Another author who I think tells a wonderful story is C.J. Sansom - check out Dissolution, it gives a different take on the dissolution of the abbeys during the reign of Henry VIII and is a cracking mystery too.

 

Wilbur Smith has written several novels in his Ballantyne and Courtney Family Sagas plus four novels in his Egyptian series.

Amonst the standalone novels I would recommend : `Eagle in the sky` and maybe `The Sunbird`

Other standalone are :
The Dark of the sun
Shout at the devil
Goldmine
The diamand hunters
The Sunbird
Eagle in the sky
Cry wolf
The eye of the tiger
Hungry as the sea
Wild justice
Elephant song

If you decide to make a start on the Family sagas then I would suggest you start at the beginning for the full impact covering several generations.
A full list of all Wilburs novels can be found on his web site.