I guess I’m the only white male born between 1940 and 1990 who thinks the novels of Tom Clancy are just uninteresting fluff.
I liked the first five or so a ton when I was between 13 and 16 years-old. I haven’t returned to them, and I was utterly turned off by his post-Executive Orders turn.
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I read a bunch of spy novels in the 80s and early 90s, my preferences were, Follet, Ludlum, and le Carre, but I wouldn’t say Clancy was uninteresting.
I found them enthralling as a teen and have zero need to revisit them.
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Ditto.
His novels went from being about global intrigue and techno-babble (in a good, grounded way) to conservative political screeds.
I’m pretty sure The Bear and the Dragon was the last one I read, because it was almost 1000 pages and laughably bad.
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This exactly.
I stopped at Executive Orders. The writing - so to speak - was on the wall at that point.
I think the cover blurb for the next one was “old man yells at clouds”.
Same here, but I think I was like 19. And largely because my friend and I were addicted to the Hunt for Red October game on the Commodore 64.
When we were watching British movies, we watched David Lean’s Great Expectations from the 40s. It’s a beautiful movie, and a great book. Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Passage to India are also Lean book adaptations, but I don’t think I’ve read the books.
There are a lot of fine Jane Austen adaptations. And I’ll second Master and Commander.
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I appreciate novels about Cold War tension, but I just never go into Clancy. I’m more of a fan of Alistair Maclean in that regard. Everybody gotta be somewhere, I guess.
General Movie Thread becomes General Book Thread
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Yeah, that’s on me. I take full responsibility for my actions.
Well, it was General Music Thread for a while too.
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We’re halfway through February on Rom-Coms, and for Valentines this is the list so far:
Sherlock Jr.
It Happened One Night
The Englishman who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain
Groundhog Day
4 Weddings and a Funeral
(500) Days of Autumn
Much Ado About Nothing
The Lady Eve
Romancing the Stone
His Girl Friday
Moonstruck
There were three failures, movies that we started but couldn’t watch: Baby Boom (Diane Keaton), Long Shot (Charise Theron), and 10 Things I Hate About You (who knows).
My own personal preference for Valentine’s is always Casablanca, but almost anything on that list is pretty good.
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Given that books and movies are blending together in this thread, how about “You’ve Got Mail”? Tom Hanks being peak Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan being peak Meg Ryan.
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We actually watched that for some reason a couple of months ago, and watched some stuff like Once, Yesterday, and Notting Hill during British movie month. I think we may watch Sleepless In Seattle tonight, not because I like the movie–I can’t remember–but because it shows up first on every best Rom-Com list.
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Oh yeah. I forgot to put the Super Bowl on the list.
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My daughter and her husband watch a horror movie every Valentine’s Day. When she was pregnant with her daughter the watched Rosemary’s Baby. Oops.
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You’ve Got Mail is an update and remake of The Shop Around the Corner, which is better.
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