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Holy sh** @redthunder. I got as far as ‘markers must be interpretable for 10,000 years’…!!!!
Very quick read, I mean over a long coffee. But still very moving.
https://www.sidingstudios.com/2022/02/16/the-world-of-anne-frank/
Also, I was watching a PBS war special the other day and the final moments of Berlin.
Had an old russian soldier telling a story (he was jewish) . Came across a woman who asked if her husband could come out of the basement, also jewish. Been in hiding for 5 years, in Berlin. Another story about to be forgotten :(.
Remarkable.
@timbog360
Worth reading, almost impossible subject/problem to solve by us humans at the moment.
Finished Normal People by Sally Rooney. Very good, a proper page turner, dare I say it felt a little bit lightweight after some of the things that I've read recently. Her prose is brilliant though.
I'm trying to motivate myself to read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie next.....I've been meaning to read it for around 13 years! It seems very hefty.
The Late Richard Dadd: 1817-1886 by P. Alleridge.
Just read ‘Dead Men Don’t Tell tales’ by our favourite truck mechanic.
Just started ‘And Away’ by our favourite falley down rubbish angler.
H.P.Lovecraft ‘The complete fiction’.
Stephen King ‘The wind through the keyhole’.
Well I bottled Midnights Children again! Just finished Life of Pi by Yan Martel (picked up a copy in a charity shop in Fort William last week) Very good and thought provoking piece of writing. Can't say that I overly enjoyed it though. I certainly didn't find it much of a page turner.
Next up is The Song of Achilles, which is the book for book club this month. Not my usual type of book.
Excession by Iain M Banks, The Culture always gives me hope
Next up is The Song of Achilles, which is the book for book club this month. Not my usual type of book.
I hope you like it, I thought it was excellent. Her next book, "Circe" is even better.
Currently working my way through this, it's pretty much one gob-smackingly stupid mistake after another from Slotkin onwards.
Also re-reading Banks's "Surface Detail" for light relief!
Well, The Song of Achilles was very enjoyable, as I said before, something very different to what I'd usually read.
I made a start on Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie..... blimey it is hard! So much so that after a little bit of research I've decided that I need to read it in conjunction with a reading guide. I've still to source one, so that's parked for the short term.
I started on The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen instead. Only a short way in, but it's fantastic so far.
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn. Read her other books ages ago and loved em, but only just got around to Gone Girl after stealing it from my niece 🙂 It's pretty good considering "best sellers" aren't usually my type of thing. Not as good as Sharp Objects though.
Currently reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood. Very enjoyable.
Also re-reading Banks’s “Surface Detail” for light relief!
Old man's war lined up next before back to the Culture for Surface Detail. Trying not to rip through Banks too quickly so I've been spacing them out.
Ooh Oryx and Crake is on my to read list. Only read Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments by her, but loved them both.
I finished The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobsen.....awful. 10% really funny and thought provoking 90% drivel/the use of the word 'Jew'. I really didn't like the last book of his that I read either.
I've just started Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a proper page turner so far (60 pages in). I've been wanting to read some of his stuff for ages. His latest book Klara and The Sun, is my next pick for book club in a few months time.
Re-reading my way through Naomi Novik's Temeraire series- basically Sharpe crossed with Aubrey-Maturin plus dragons. Quite daft, and definitely bends its own logic constantly in order to make the story work but a lovely read anyway. I realised I've only got one to go so decided to redo from start.
Just finished the Watchmaker of Filigree Street, again a re-read, one of my favourite books of all time. Not entirely sure that it's good, certainly not consistent, but I don't care, I love it. And I want a clockwork octopus
The War of the Worlds. HG Wells.
Seems apt the moment 🙁
"The Book of Trespass. Crossing the lines that divide us"
Incredibly well researched. As outdoor types it will depress us how the great outdoors and our birthright has been stolen.
“The Book of Trespass. Crossing the lines that divide us”
Gave up half way through. It's important without a doubt, but after a while I felt I was reading the same passage over and over again.
Rememberings by Sinéad O'Connor. Was a 99p Kindle job, is very good.
Next.... picked up at Lidl's NSPCC book bin yesterday.
Ulysses
This also caught my eye 😉
Dont know why ..!?
and
Its got zombies, so its got to be good 😉
Re reading Arthur & George by Julian Barnes. It's hard going at times, not because it's not well written, not because it's not a fascinating story but because what happened was ever allowed to happen. It falls into if it wasn't based on facts you'd never accept it as fiction.
Just finished The Horsemen by Joseph Kessel, extraordinary story set in Afghanistan in the inter-war years and trying to decide between Normandy 44 by James Holland and Iberia written by Julian Sayarer
Next…. picked up at Lidl’s NSPCC book bin yesterday.
Ulysses
Good luck with that....
@surfer
Very good book, quite depressing as well.
Have you gone on to Who Owns England?
Essential reading for us lot, especially for trying to get access back.
If you dont own land, you are nothing.
🙁
Next…. picked up at Lidl’s NSPCC book bin yesterday.
Resident Evil: Zero Hour
Good luck with that...! 😀
Just finished John Gywnne's the Faithful and the Fallen books. Twas a lot of reading and it was fantastic, recommend for David Gemmell and George RR Martin fans and sure enough it delivered, borrows heavily from other books but none the worse for it. I've a pile of books to look at next but I'm tempted to pick up his next series.
First time I've looked in on this thread and there's some good ones I'll put in a list for the future. Just finished Battle Ground which was the last one released in the Dresden Files and I love the series and now its onto book 4 of the dune series God Emperor of Dune. After that I don't know if ill finish the Dune series or hop over to the next two books in the Stormlight archive which are due to get delivered at the end of April.
Started on GoT.... looking good 🙂
PS The drawing in my copy, before the scribbling in books lecture comes 😉
Just finished 'Everything That Rises Must Converge' - Flannery O'Connor. The woman was a genius.
Picked up Patrick McCabe's Mondo Deperado off the shelf next, which annoyingly is also short, humorous stories (I prefer to switch genres in subsequent books.) The contrast in quality is quite noticeable. I've liked McCabe's novels in the past, but he ain't no Flannery 🙂
I’m reading How to Survive the Modern World by the School of Life (Alain De Botton).
It’s pretty good, if a bit White Middle Class in outlook.
Normandy 44 by James Holland
I enjoyed that and Big Week. Currently reading Sicily '43 and it's just as well research and written. Not sure I fully agree with his view of Alexander tho based on other stuff I've read.
Re-reading the harrowing 'The Somme' by Peter Hart.
I re-read Dune a while back as I'd read in back in high school, when the first movie came out, and remember being in awe of it. This time around my overriding thoughts were "Do less drugs while writing Frank".
I've got Dominic Sandbrook's "Who Dares Wins" on the go about Britain from 1979 - 1983. It's fascinating in so much as i was just going to high school at the time, and being only really slightly aware of politics, The echos from then to now are remarkable. It is voluminous though. So I'm cutting it with the Expanse (and on Book 4 now) as they're fun and lightweight
I re-read Dune a while back as I’d read in back in high school, when the first movie came out, and remember being in awe of it. This time around my overriding thoughts were “Do less drugs while writing Frank”
Same here, it's still good but a much thinner story than i remember it being. I suppose I was in my late teens when I read it and at the time thought it was so densely plotted. Only my overriding thought this time around was "yes, ok, it's the mind-killer, stop drivelling on about it every time Paul's in the slightest peril".
On loan from a friend > One Man and his Bike..Mike Carter
An amusing and easy read.
It's making me look forward (even more)to some big days later in the Summer.
it’s still good but a much thinner story than i remember it being
Yeah, strip away all the superfluous stuff and the plot line is pretty basic really.
I re-read Dune a while back as I’d read in back in high school, when the first movie came out, and remember being in awe of it.
Thanks for that. Was just about to do the same but won't bother. To many other good suggestions here
On loan from a friend > One Man and his Bike..Mike Carter
Ooo, loved that! 🙂
Read Anthony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall whilst in Berlin. Gripping read - the grimness was tangible.
Just finished the Warlord trilogy by Bernard Cornwell, now onto the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris.
nr: Davids Graeber & Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything. It's quite orange.
Just started the Agatha Raisin series, it's light hearted after finishing Ben Macintyre's - 'The spy and traitor'. It was well written but hard to read with this dreadful war going on.
I've got two on the go at the minute both loosely fall into the 20th century military history category. A period of history I find interesting and one that seems relevant to much of the current global instability.
Rhapsody In Blue, an autobiography of an RAF pilot who flew through the cold war years, was involved in the Harrier test programme etc.
I've also just started a book called "The Vietnam War" by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns. It's a conflict and region I know little about and picked it up on a whim at Duxford a couple of weeks back. It's well reviewed and, so far, well written. I'm still working through the political and ideological history at the beginning of the book.
Lee Child, Better off dead. The latest Jack Reacher novel. Sorry 😁
"Riding Out: A Life-Affirming Journey Around the Coast of Britain"
really enjoyed reading this.
Robert Jordan - The Great Hunt
Book two of The Wheel of Time series
Musical Truth Jeffrey Boakye
Pre Raphaelites T Hilton
and the Oliver Eagleton book has just arrived
If anyone's interested in dipping into a bit of Joyce, this recording is unbelievalbly good and much easier on the brain than battling with the book. Ch 14 is my favourite, like a book in itself. Read the notes, they're good. Going deeper, R Ellman's biography of Joyce is excellent and Italo Svevo's 'Confessions of Zeno' gives an insight into the bloke on whom Leopold Bloom was based. Ch 1 on giving up smoking is hilarious.
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-james-joyce-podcast/
Oh and it's 100 yrs since it was published and banned. It is indeed full of filth.
I'm probably about 10% into the Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein, and absolutely in love. Partly because of the sci-fi-wrapped-in-fantasy thing, I always like that, partly because it's just well written, but I think mostly because so far it's so bloody friendly. Nobody seems to have a dark past, or to have had their parents murdered, the world seems not driven by evil or misery, people work together to get shit done... It's almost the perfect antidote to the modern day "Fantasy in which everyone is a dick" thing. I mean, I love that too, but it's nice to have happy positive people facing adversity in a rational way.
I'm sure it'll change as it goes on but so far I love it just about as much as I've loved any book in the last decade.
Night boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry. Readable, hilarious and unfolding as a tragedy...
Just started Ben MacIntyre, Agent Sonya. Great read as are all his books I've read. Would like to go see the film based upon one of his books.
On with 100 Years of Solitude at the moment. Finding it a little hard going - the fact that a number of the characters have the same or similar names isn't helping!
Rereading Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, makes you think about the language we otherwise use every day without any thought at all. 🙂
On with 100 Years of Solitude at the moment. Finding it a little hard going – the fact that a number of the characters have the same or similar names isn’t helping!
😆😆😆 You stop worrying about that after a while and just enjoy the story
@Northwind
What did you think of the Steerswoman?
I was given a copy ages ago that I had forgotten all about,so thanks for the reminder.
Really enjoyed it and The Outskirter's Secret just arrived this morning 😀
Just finished Dave Grohls biography, certainly perpetuates the 'nicest guy on rock and roll' strapline. I'd received this and the Bob Mortimer ones for Xmas, both were rather enjoyable even though I'm not particularly a bio reader.
Up next will either be Ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman(reread) or a Rory Clements book (traditional ww2 spy caper).
100 Years of Solitude
So many Ursulas! I remember enjoying it, but had to let go a bit and just enjoy its oneiric* style
*sorry, a word I discovered meaning 'dreamlike' that, now that I know it, I must use whenever appropriate, which is not often.
Currently reading The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem - delightfully funny and imaginative Sci fi short stories. I've been reading some bits out to the kids who are loving it too.
The Invisible Cross by Andrew Davison - a collection of letters home and War Diary entries from an officer in WW1 (with author text to flesh them out with broader information about the ongoing war). Very interesting to read an account that isn't just detailing the frontline horror, it is more of a personal experience of solitude, loneliness, frustrations, and the repetition war brings.
Mike Heron 'You know what you could be' (for any youngsters, folkies around Edinburgh in the 60s who formed the Incredible String Band). Entertaining read. Have also got Barry Miles 'biography of William Burroughs lined up.
Robert Jordan – The Great Hunt
Book two of The Wheel of Time series
Wow that takes me back! My English teacher and tutor in the sixth form read these and used to pass them on to me afterwards. I remember I used the flame visualisation technique that the hero uses to help with kicking conversions in rugby.
Currently I’m reading Breath by James Nestor and Deadly Beautiful by Liana Joy Christiansen - all about getting a realistic perspective on dangerous animals.
Currently reading Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce. It's interesting and quite unexpected.
Next up is Walking in Circles by Todd Wassel – recommended on here some time ago by @pondo. (How's the Japanese coming along?) 🙂
Just finished The mote in God's eye by Niven and Pournelle. I rather enjoyed it. Great concept, ridiculous and funny.
Just started the Hobbit, took a couple of chapters to get into it but quite enjoying it now.
Next up is Walking in Circles by Todd Wassel – recommended on here some time ago by @pondo. (How’s the Japanese coming along?) 🙂
Ah ha, I hope you enjoy it! I thought it was great, but then I do rather have a fetish for Japan... 🙂
That said, the language learning has gone on hold - off to France this summer, so switched to French. I shall go back to Japanese at some point! 🙂
Just picked up The Boy, Richard Williams' biography of Stirling Moss - early days but top notch so far. 🙂
Ah ha, I hope you enjoy it! I thought it was great, but then I do rather have a fetish for Japan… 🙂
That said, the language learning has gone on hold – off to France this summer, so switched to French. I shall go back to Japanese at some point! 🙂
👍 Much to interest me too in Japanese culture ... so I suspect I will enjoy this book. Would like to visit some day. Hope you have a great holiday in France. 🙂
Like all Peter's works it's very comprehensively researched, is detailed and no doubt hyper accurate, which also like Peter's works can sometimes get in the way of the humans that are in it. It's dense and fascinating, and has some genuinely new things to say about a part of the war that's too often just a paragraph or two tacked onto the end of studies about the breakout from Normandy or the aftermath of the Ardennes campaign, or a side story to the Russian coming from the East.
The Ratline by Phillipe Sands, author of East West Street, another very well recommended read.
Just finished The Spy & the Traitor by Oleg Gordievsky. 100% recommend, nail biting page turner, truth being far more shocking than fiction.
Bob Mortimer and Paul white houses book on fishing based on the TV show, it’s brilliant
Just finished The mote in God’s eye by Niven and Pournelle. I rather enjoyed it. Great concept, ridiculous and funny.
I've read this a couple of times now, great fun. Wonder what happened to my copy.
Currently working my way through the Montalbano detective novels when I have nothing else to hand, and on non fiction I was in a holiday cottage last week and there was a copy of Captain 'Winkle' Brown's main book. I thought of nicking it, but restrained myself and ordered myself a secondhand copy on return. Turned out to be a signed first edition too, bonus!
I've also been planning rides round prehistory sites lately and google alerted me to Julian Cope's big orange book from a few years back, so I put that on my birthday list and it's very very good.
And my mate's new Roman army adventure book has just landed on my doorstep but I haven't even read the first chapter, so I won't recommend it, yet. It'll be bang on for historical accuracy and terminology though.
Just finished Lemmy's 'White Line Fever'. Oddly enough bought it in the very sedate second hand shop in Wightwick Manor and it was so jaunty I finished it in two days.
Recently switching between Tim Parks (Italian Ways and Italian Education) and Simon Winder (Lotharingia and Danubia) both excellent travel writers/historians who can put across their love of a subject whilst also poking gentle fun at it in a humorous way. Both have had me laughing out loud and desperately looking for someone else who has read them so we can enthuse together 🙄
Currently I’m reading Breath by James Nestor
@reeksy is this the one my physio was telling me about, literally about improving how you breathe and the benefits of doing so? Need to give it a read
Afropean by Jonny Pitts, an absolute must read. Changed my whole perception of Africaness and what it means.
Just finished Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch. The latest in the Rivers Of London series.
Now reading Dune after a 99p Kindle PSA on here.
@reeksy is this the one my physio was telling me about, literally about improving how you breathe and the benefits of doing so? Need to give it a read
Breath through your nose - I just saved you some cash. 😉 I found that book uninspiring
Breath through your nose – I just saved you some cash. 😉 I found that book uninspiring
😆
Might still give it a try, have been mucking about with chest/diaphragm breathing in part to help relax tight low back (seems to help) but also had some decent results on the bike, apart from flecking my top tube with snotters whilst chasing segments 😂
@nickc - might have a go at that. Finished Sicily '43 by James Hollands and he's another whose research is top notch. Good storyteller as well. Read 'Big Week' before that. Off on hols next week, so have a load of Kindle/real books to choose from including:
Mythos: Steven Fry, Fake Law: Secret Barrister, Olive, Mable and Me: Andrew Cotter (bought after watching his YT vids), Tornado, John Nichol, Both James O'Brian books (how to be right/wrong) and Beyond by Stephen Walker (Recommended in another thread).
That'll only leave me about another 30 unread books I've bought/received as presents. I need to retire to get on top of the unread collection 🙂
Oh and my guilty Space Opera pleasure has been Backyard Starship series by JN Chaney. Man that bloke writes fast. This one is a collaboration and you can kind of tell. So much stuff going on in each book, hard to keep track but a great humorous easy read when you're not in the mood to concentrate.
Fake Law: Secret Barrister
Like a lot of these sorts of polemic books I've read recently; Sad little Men by Richard Beard, and The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes, come to mind. While they're all reasonably well written, they all sort of fall into the same trap of repeating the same point over and over and each chapter varies in only slight detail. Here's why family courts don't work, in a largely similar way to why criminal law doesn't really work that you read about previously. Here's another large family owned estate that's got a broadly similar history to the previous chapter and I'm again feeling slightly excited and anxious as I walk across their land...
My guilty space opera pleasure continues to be The Expanse series. God they're shite...but in a compelling and fun way. They really are the book equivalent to eating a family sized Cadbury's bar all by yourself in one sitting.