Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

11-12-552
Vydáno: 1991
Obsah:
When the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal penetrates his civilian identity, Webb must again assume the Bourne persona to protect his wife and small children. In their renewed struggle, the two master assassins uncover the revived existence of Medusa, the sinister alliance that originally led to the establishment of the Bourne identity. In action that moves from the U.S. to Montserrat to Paris before concluding in Moscow, Bourne and his allies prove incredibly inept, barely escaping the Jackal's traps and failing in their repeated attempts to ambush him. The Ludlum trademarks are present: improbable bloodbaths, repetitive action, stilted and off-the-point conversations and--most annoying--the use of italicized words or entire paragraphs to simulate passion. This is formula writing that delivers even less than its meager promise.

Skóre: 5/10

Jerome Klapka Jerome - Three Men In a Boat

11-11-551

Vydáno: 1889

Obsah:

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.

The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers — the jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who went on to become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog." The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880s craze for boating as a leisure activity.

Because of the overwhelming success of Three Men in a Boat, Jerome later published a sequel, about a cycling tour in Germany, entitled Three Men on the Bummel.

Skóre: 9/10

Robert Ludlum - Bourneův mýtus

11-10-550

Originál: The Bourne Supremacy

Vydáno: 2001 (1986)

Obsah:

Známý americký autor v této knize pokračuje v příběhu o legedárním zabijákovi Jasonu Bourneovi. Je zavražděn vysoký čínský politik a vražda je připsána Bourneovi. Jen několik vysoce postavených politiků v USA však ví, že Bourne je krycí jméno pro amerického agenta použitého při pátrání po nebezpečném teroristovi. Nyní se agent zotavuje ze zranění a ztráty paměti a i když je jasné, že se někdo za něj vydává, a že jde o nebezpečného muže, odmítá se pustit do riskantní akce. Přesvědčí ho až útoky proti jeho ženě a hrdina se opět ponoří do kalných vod světové špionáže.

Skóre: 6/10