Books!

Here are a couple of books I want to talk about.

Derren Brown: Tricks of the mind.

My review. Great book. Not to be confused with the any of the tv shows like trick or treat or trick of the mind. What is in it? Derren shares stories from his own past and explores people's belief systems and it's funny too. He talks about the ways people react to different situations and goes on at length about how people fall for cons such as those performed by mediums, spiritualists and so on. He delves into God and discusses the way people are quite happy to fool themselves and he also sheds light on psychic healing and other crap. He also teaches memory exercises which enable you to memorise large amounts of data and so on quite easily if you give it a chance. There are several wonderful techniques. I can still remember the first list I memorised using the book (3 years later). I never though it possible.

Anyhow. Thought it would be a good read for LH and it is considerably more well written than what I have just waffled out.

I also wanted to mention...
Mr. Nice.
Anyone read it?
Looks superb. Waiting for my Dad to finish it so I can nick it off him!

Tricks of the Mind takes you on a journey into the structure and pyschology of magic. Derren teaches you how to read clues in people's behaviour and spot liars. He discusses the whys and wherefores of hypnosis and shows how to do it. And he investigates the power of suggestion and how you can massively improve your memory. He also takes a long hard look at the paranormal industry and why some of us feel the need to believe in it in the first place. Alternately hilarious, controversial and challenging, Tricks of the Mind is essential reading for Derren's legions of fans, and pretty bloody irresistible even if you don't like him that much...

(That is what I meant)

I think I've read that Derren Brown book.

Can you expand on that? Sounds like the memory thing didn't work on you!

jayjay23 wrote:I also wanted to mention...
Mr. Nice.
Anyone read it?
Looks superb. Waiting for my Dad to finish it so I can nick it off him!

I mentioned Mr Nice in Natasha's 'Unexplained' thread a couple of weeks ago and it prompted me to read it again. I think I have now read this book 6 times in the 16 years since it was published.

It's definitely my favourite autobiography, just brilliant. You won't be able to put it down, jayjay.

The bit I mentioned in the "Unexplained" thread was an incident in that book where Howard Marks is in the office of a member of MI6 he went to Oxford with. The MI6 guy knows he is doing dope deals with James McCann of the IRA and he wants to recruit Marks to get information on McCann. Marks decides he has to warn McCann because the IRA could kill him for being involved in drugs, but he needs to find some proof to show McCann, because he knows he will never believe him otherwise. The MI6 guy leaves the room for a couple of minutes, Howard Marks scans the bookshelves in the room and is inexplicably drawn to a book called 'The Unconscious Mind'. He takes it out of the book case, opens it, and a photo of McCann falls out.

He describes it as the single most inexplicable event of his life. This is a man who ends up involved with, besides MI6 and the IRA, the Mafia, Triads, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the CIA, the Mexican secret service and the Mujehadin and does dope deals involving over 20 countries.

He has a brilliant mind and wit, and tells his story with humour and vigour. He was a real international man of mystery in the 1970s and 80s, and earned the nickname "The Marco Polo of drugs".

I haven't read a book since I was about 15. I was never really into Harry Potter like most people - I always bought the books, but it usually took me the majority of the year to finish reading them.

My favourite author is Nick Hornby (About a Boy, Fever Pitch, Long Way Down, etc.)

doffcocker wrote:I haven't read a book since I was about 15.

I always feel a little sad when someone says they don't read books. I couldn't imagine a life without books. It'd be like a life without music, or films, for me. I wish I knew you better doffcocker and could put my finger on a book you would love, I'd happily send you one in the post.

largehat wrote:
I always feel a little sad when someone says they don't read books. I couldn't imagine a life without books. It'd be like a life without music, or films, for me. I wish I knew you better doffcocker and could put my finger on a book you would love, I'd happily send you one in the post.

My concentration spam is awful. I can watch the simplest of films and sometimes not know by the end what the hell it was about. I do get the time to read, but my mind wanders too much for it ever to be that enjoyable.

doffcocker wrote:
My concentration spam is awful. I can watch the simplest of films and sometimes not know by the end what the hell it was about. I do get the time to read, but my mind wanders too much for it ever to be that enjoyable.

Well, that's not terminal. You could read short stories or novels with shorter chapters, and just dip in and out. Or even poetry. Don't think of reading as a chore which requires endless hours of commitment. I do a lot of my reading on public transport or on the crapper.

jayjay23 wrote:
Derren Brown: Tricks of the mind.

My review.
Anyhow. Thought it would be a good read for LH and it is considerably more well written than what I have just waffled out.

jayjay, Derren Brown is an interesting chap, he is innovative, and he gets people talking. I prefer the social experiments he does to his stage shows. Like when he set up a statue of a dog in Todmorden and started a local rumour that if people touched the dog it would bring them luck, and how that changed their lives. And how he conducted an experiment with a live studio audience where they got to choose what happened to an innocent bloke on a night out and how in every case they chose the nastier option for the bloke, and turned it round on the audience at the end and revealed that they themselves were the subjects of the experiment and not the bloke on the night out. That kind of thing is very interesting.

I've come across the simple memory techniques before and to be honest I've never found one that works well with my memory. I think that you have to be a certain learner type to benefit. I think I am an auditory person and most of the techniques in books tend to benefit visual learners.

I will keep an eye out for a cheap copy on eBay and when I am perusing the charity book shops and give it a go though.

I love reading books when I get the time. I am reading a fascinating novel by James Long called Ferney it's about a couples love affair that stretches across hundreds of years through reincarnation .

Angry Dad, you are a man of many parts. I imagine you reading Andy McNab, Ian Fleming or Lee Child or some other stuff involving gunplay and mystery. That sounds soppy as fuck.

largehat wrote:Angry Dad, you are a man of many parts. I imagine you reading Andy McNab, Ian Fleming or Lee Child or some other stuff involving gunplay and mystery. That sounds soppy as fuck.

Got all lee child books and Simon kernick but i read other stuff like the lovely bones and a lot of Ruth Rendell and the time travellers wife and peter James,Peter Robinson, James Patterson, lynwood Barclay,Stephen king, and I have all James Hadley chase books from when I was a teenager. Check out Ferney you will be surprised. Yes I can be a soft bastard at times I'm only human.

I should not be so quick to take the mickey. I will find out more about it an see of it is something i think I might like. I am a bit of a snob when it comes to contemporary fiction. There are only a handful of novels written post-1980 that I really like.

I'm currently working through Le Carre's Smiley books, been ages since I read them and they just get better.

Iain Banks is my favourite contemporary author. For detective/lawyer novels I think Michael Connelly is good but some of his recent work is not up to his previous standard. For hard core noir novels I think James Ellroy takes some beating, particularly the LA quartet and the USA Underworld trilogy, but start with the first of the LA quartet - The Black Dahlia - as his novels get increasingly cryptic.

Under the Dome - Stephen King. That was good but the ending was a bit weak. It's going to be a tv show soon. The weak ending didn't spoil the enjoyment of the rest of the book though.

Anyone else read that?

Derren Brown from 1pence http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/1905026358/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used (LH)

Mr Nice - I noticed it in the bathroom at my mum and dad's house and read the back of it. It sounded so intriguing I just knew I needed to read it. Sounds like that guy has had some real experiences in life instead of sitting around watching Eastenders. Even his 7 years in prison is a smallish price for his interesting and varied existence.

I find stephen king has dissapeared up his own arse a bit, his stories dont have that zing any more, like DOLANS CADILLAC a great story .