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Karl Hyde recommended Low by David Bowie in Music (curated)

 
Low by David Bowie
Low by David Bowie
1977 | Rock
9.3 (4 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Me and Rick were living in a terraced house in Splott in Cardiff, near Tiger Bay. That’s where we formed our first band, Freur. We were making dub electronics and listening to dub reggae and Kraftwerk’s Computer World and Bowie’s Low. What blew us away was Brian’s (Eno) analogue electronic sound – that kind of degraded sound that he was making – and the fact that this great icon, a hugely famous singer and frontman, had chosen not to sing for half an album. What guts and courage that seemed to take. Years later you read that it ended up like that because he wasn’t around and that Brian experimented in his absence. But it takes great foresight and courage for David to come back and hear that and say, "yep, that’s the album." And not to think that because he’s a singer he has to blast away over the top of it. So that became a part of the blueprint for Underworld – that the singer doesn’t have to be the dominant force. He can play a supporting role. That Berlin period – the three Bowie albums and the Iggy Pop record – deepened the mythology of what I love about Berlin. The idea of going to a place and locking yourself away and making quite an extreme record in a different environment"

Source
  
Deceived
Deceived
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
They say a soul is the immaterial essence, the animating principal, the actuating cause of an individual life.

But what if you had to share yours with the one person you hated the most?

The soul mate principal states that for every one soul there is another that will recognize its match, hence creating the perfect union.

But what if you had two soul mates, which would you choose?

What if your choices had eternal ramification?

Deceived, the debut novel in the Soul Keeper Series, is a modern day love story about the implications of having more than one soul mate, and having to choose between the two of them. The decisions of the gods has left the next generation, their heirs, torn between fate and reality, and the balance of the future hangs in anticipation of what's to come.


<strong>Brilliant</strong>

Absolutely loved this book. I love anything with stories based around Greek mythology the stories are just always so interesting. This may be a little teeny for some at first but I highly recommend sticking with it. Following Dan and Julie so closely I actually found myself crying at Julia's death, not something I do very often must have caught me at a weak point haha. Definitely recommend it you liked Fallen by Lauren Kate.



⭐⭐⭐⭐

  
Troy
Troy
Stephen Fry | 2020 | Education
9
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
39 of 230
Book
Troy (Mythos book 3)
By Stephen Fry
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 
AN EPIC BATTLE THAT LASTED TEN YEARS. A LEGENDARY STORY THAT HAS SURVIVED THOUSANDS.

'An inimitable retelling of the siege of Troy . . . Fry's narrative, artfully humorous and rich in detail, breathes life and contemporary relevance into these ancient tales'OBSERVER

'Stephen Fry has done it again. Well written and super storytelling' 5***** READER REVIEW
________

'Troy. The most marvellous kingdom in all the world. The Jewel of the Aegean. Glittering Ilion, the city that rose and fell not once but twice . . .'

When Helen, the beautiful Greek queen, is kidnapped by the Trojan prince Paris, the most legendary war of all time begins.

Watch in awe as a thousand ships are launched against the great city of Troy.

Feel the fury of the battleground as the Trojans stand resolutely against Greek might for an entire decade.

And witness the epic climax - the wooden horse, delivered to the city of Troy in a masterclass of deception by the Greeks . . .

In Stephen Fry's exceptional retelling of our greatest story, TROY will transport you to the depths of ancient Greece and beyond.
________


I love Greek Mythology and Stephen Fry is one of my favourite people. All through this book his voice was in my head. Brilliant retellings and underlying humour. Brilliant!
  
The Wicked (Mythology #2)
The Wicked (Mythology #2)
Helen Boswell | 2013 | Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The second book in the Mythology series continues pretty much where book one finished. Micah and Hope are together, but Micah is having to fight his instincts every step of the way, which has an impact on how he and Hope are. She is supportive in every sense, but she can't fight every battle for him. Things are not easy for them both though, either at school or in their personal lives. They both have choices to make and things to do, which will lead them in differing ways. Will they be able to work this through?

This is a full-on and action-packed book. Although I enjoyed it, it didn't have as much impact on me as the first one, I think because it is quite fragmented into which story is currently being told. Don't get me wrong, I understand that this is the way it needs to be to cover everything and to get the story told, I'm just not a big fan of separate storylines within one.

This is well written, with no editing or grammatical errors that I found. The storyline was smooth (within each particular story) and culminated together nicely at the end. A good addition to the series, and I'm still looking forward to continuing Micah and Hope's story.

* Verified Purchase on Amazon *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Mar 31, 2016
  
The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)
The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5)
Rick Riordan | 2014 | Young Adult (YA)
7
8.9 (10 Ratings)
Book Rating
Alert! Before I begin this review, I need to let it be known that in the case of this particular book I may be a little biased, well maybe really biased! This is the tenth book I have read by this author and the last in the second series I have read. It is safe to say I love these books or else I would not have read this many.

Alright, now that that is out of the way, let me begin. This book is called Blood of Olympus, it is the fifth and final book in the Heroes of Olympus series (if you should ever desire to read these book, I would recommend starting with the Percy Jackson, and the Olympians series as this series is a sequel series. The author of this book is a writer by the name of Rick Riordan. This book is a young adult fantasy novel. It is the final chapter of the adventure of a group of seven young adults who happen to be demigods, modern day children of the ancient gods of Greece and Rome. This adventure, like many great adventures, is a race to save the world.

For me, the initial draw of the book was that it is a fantasy novel, which is one of my favorite genres, and its focus is on Greek Mythology, something of an obsession of mine. The mythology in these books may not always satisfy all mythology nerds because they do take liberties in how the myths are presented in order to showcase how they might have changed to fit in the modern day world. The way Riordan chooses to represent mythology is often fairly close to original stories, showing that he spends the time researching the myths, and they are clever, funny, and entertaining.

As I read the books, I found myself drawn to the relationships between the characters, not surprising as characters are a key draw for me in literature. By this point in the series, the relationships became especially interesting because you have known some of the characters for ten books now while others are just in their second or third book appearances. The central characters have grown into a substantial group that each have their own unique backgrounds, personalities, and even mythologies that create intriguing tension and bonds. Their bonds grow stronger as they work through new struggles and adventures with the added drama of them being a group of teenagers, which obviously means that there is a fair bit of romance involved as well.

For me personally to get into a story the most important aspect is to be very invested in61w3pqVMCZL._US230_ the characters. This does not mean I have to like them, but I do need to be completely invested in what happens to them. If the storyteller can do this, then I will most likely binge the entire thing whether book, movie, tv show, comic…. regardless whether or not the story is good or my normal cup of tea. This was definitely an initial draw in me reading this second series because I was already very invested in both Percy and Annabeth’s characters, who are among the main characters in this series and the main characters in the previous series. The majority of the characters in this book did capture my emotional investment, which kept me reading all five books, but there were a few I found lacking. Maybe I am the only one who felt this, but I thought that Riordan didn’t spend enough time on some of the new characters to pull me into their plots. Unfortunately, this is common in stories that feature such a large cast of main characters, had the time on each character been even plot points might not have been as successful and honestly, I might have been annoyed to not spend as much time on my favorites.

I would be lying if I were to say this was my favorite book in this series but I still greatly enjoyed it. Besides my problem with not feeling emotionally invested enough in some of the characters, I really do not have any other complaints about the book. It was successful in finishing this series story arc while having plenty of plot of its own. And it ended wrapping just about everything up so that I was satisfied, but open enough to still want more. If this were a regular series, the leftover cliffhangers would be dreadful! But Riordan writes series that capture over-arching plots but that connect to his other book series in this same world, so an ending like this simply promising more books about these characters in another series.

Overall I liked this book, if young adult fantasy is your genre, then I would definitely suggest looking at these books. They do what I require of my urban fantasy stories, mix magic into our real world enough that a part of me can almost believe it could be possible. Characters, world, and plot flowing together into an engaging story that obviously captured my interest enough to read ten and counting of these novels.

*This was a review I found while cleaning that I write a few years ago. I have since read two more Riordan novels and counting! I love the way Riordan writes and appreciate how he seems to continually grow as a writer, always tackling new issues and allowing his characters to have growth. Annabeth and Percy especially, they are two of my all-time favorite characters. I highly recommend reading his books!