Ollie > Recent Status Updates

Hannibal Lecter meets the Great British Bake Off.

Ocean's 11 meets Game of Thrones.

Someone give this man the Nobel already.

I thought I was getting an 80s style bonkbuster but this has suddenly turned into "Silence of the Lambs".

I've decided to re-read them, having only recently finished this collection. Woolf's stories require more than one read.

One of Brazil's most successful soap opera writers said this was one of 5 books essential for any soap opera writers to read, if they want to improve their writing... so here I am! Thank you to whoever made its audio version available on YouTube.

Estou achando fraquinho, infelizmente.

This is how you write a page turner.

Eu soube desde a primeira página que lhe daria 5 estrelas. Eu não estava errado.

This novel is serving Anne Rice meets Ancient Greece realness tonight.

I'm finding it hard to care. Story seems pointless, witticisms are witless, some purple passages are very purply and, ultimately, I just don't care for these characters. And yet I persist, for the sake of one of my bookclubs.

They were sure different times in the Victorian era. Sherlock Holmes just gave his landlady's old and poorly dog some poisoned pills (and killed it!) to prove his theory.

De cada 10 palavras estou entendendo somente uma… 😬

Simplesmente perfeito.

I didn’t think anyone could narrate Christie as good as or better than David Suchet but apparently Kenneth Branagh can.

Pure 80s horror trash.

Este livro merecia ganhar todos os grandes prêmios, inclusive o Nobel de Literatura! Simplesmente uma obra prima.

This would make a really great movie or TV series.

I didn’t know I needed, and wanted, to read a really good fantasy novel until I started to read one.

I’ve read many, many books on creative writing. This is one of the most useful - if not the most useful - I’ve ever read.

“Forgiveness scares me. It seems like an antidote to regret, and there are things I haven’t regretted sufficiently. And never will. I know that for a fact.”

If Netflix is struggling to find a bleak crime story to produce that, like “Squid Game”, is also a critique of capitalism, they need look no further.

How do you say “hot mess” in Japanese?

A neighbour had a really loud party last night until 4am. I had a look around YouTube for an audiobook to try to drown it out and came across this one. Now, I’ve read/watched/listened to this story so many times now it’s almost like a dark fairy tale for me. The actor doing the reading is excellent and it’s just so easy to slip inside one of the creepiest and best written crime stories of the late 20th century.

As I was reading this book for the first time, I kept thinking to myself: “I must read this again as soon as I finish, and do all the exercises.” Well, the last sentence of the book is: “now that you have finished reading this for the first time, you know what to do.” 😮

Robinson Crusoe meets the Minotaur’s labyrinth, with dashes of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Buried Giant”. So far, a great read.

There are two kinds of writers according to Truby: Planners, who prep before they write, know where they are going, and develop into professional writers; and Pantsers, who write off the top of their head (Me!), create piles and piles of unfinished material (Me!) and usually write themselves into corners (also Me.)

I’m a sucker for books on creative writing. They are a bit like Agatha Christie novels: each one with their own unique angle but all still leading to the same type of denouement and realisation.