*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[belboid]

you're missing one very very important detail - who wrote it?

methinks there is enough there to be able to find the book pretty easily.

 

[Orang Utan]

methinks there is enough there to be able to find the book pretty easily.

i'm sure there is, but one shouldn't have to play detective!

 

[ericjarvis]

Just finished. Ian Fleming - Dr No.

Now started Patrick O'Brian - HMS Surprise.

 

[Boppity]

Richard III - Charles Ross.

Not for pleasure, let me assure you. Luckily I do not need to read all of it.

When that's out of the way I'll probably get started on The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I read The Historian by her and really enjoyed it.

 

[marty21]

Eastern Approaches - Fitzroy Maclean. Reading it for the 2nd time, hopefully I'll enjoy it as much as the 1st time. Excellent book, he was a Tory soldier /politician / diplomat /explorer /adventurer. The book details his adventures in the 30s and 40s. He travelled around Russia,fought behind the lines in Africa,and worked with Tito in Yugoslavia.

 

[stethoscope]

Derek Wall - Babylon and Beyond

 

[DotCommunist]

I've rediscoverd lambs soryville book version of Shakespeare. The book that let me bullshit through many a shakespear discussion at GCSE.

Might re read it.

 

[sojourner]

Willa Cather - O Pioneers!

 

[May Kasahara]

Nightwatch, by Sergei Russianname. Had it on my shelf for ages but not got around to it, turns out it is the perfect wind-down read - lots of thrilling adventure and interesting ideas without being particularly deep.

 

[100% masahiko]

Verbal Judo again.

 

[Dillinger4]

Nightwatch, by Sergei Russianname. Had it on my shelf for ages but not got around to it, turns out it is the perfect wind-down read - lots of thrilling adventure and interesting ideas without being particularly deep.

I have heard lots of good things about Sergei Russianname.

 

[vauxhallmum]

I have heard lots of good things about Sergei Russianname.

And there was me thinking Night Watch was written by Sarah Englishname

 

[Fictionist]

Still 'Q'. Engaging but deeply flawed.

 

[Gingerman]

When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies by Andy Becket

 

[Stanley Edwards]

I'm on a William Faulkner loop ATM. Sort of like a lot, sort of find it very frustrating also. Very interesting guy.

 

[llion]

Daphne Du Maurier - Jamaica Inn - Rip-roaring, swashbuckling, windswept, smuggling and wrecking Cornish classic!

 

[May Kasahara]

And there was me thinking Night Watch was written by Sarah Englishname

I am a lazy bones. It's Lukyanenko, in case anyone wishes to read it. Decent book. Certainly a welcome antidote to the collection of feminist essays on the body and literary theory that I am trying to reach the end of This is a particularly wank-sodden corner of Eng lit studies that I had long forgotten.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Nightwatch, by Sergei Russianname. Had it on my shelf for ages but not got around to it, turns out it is the perfect wind-down read - lots of thrilling adventure and interesting ideas without being particularly deep.

I rather enjoyed that too, in fact I have got Day Watch to read on a shelf somewhere at home.

However Let The Right One In is satisfying my vampire needs at the moment. And very good it is too

 

[ringo]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson. Best page turner I've read since the Pullman trilogy.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson. Best page turner I've read since the Pullman trilogy.

I am hoping to go on to that one next

 

[Structaural]

I've just started the 3rd instalment, Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest.
The Swedes have made a film of the first book, we watched it last month, very well made, cast and acted. If you like the book, check it out. I think they got Salander spot on, though Blomkvist looks like a young Jim Canning from Eastenders

 

[Orang Utan]

i've just finished the girl with the dragon tattoo and don't see what all the fuss is about. i don't read many crime thrillers but i thought the writing was appalling.

 

[ringo]

i've just finished the girl with the dragon tattoo and don't see what all the fuss is about. i don't read many crime thrillers but i thought the writing was appalling.

Agreed the writing style is nothing special, in fact after reading Updike the week before it was almost childlike in simplicity. I wondered if that was part of the Swedish literature style coming through though.

The power of this book is it's story, characterisation and the skill which went into making it a page turner. I genuinely wanted to find out what was going on and had some degree of empathy for a number of the characters. Pretty unusual.

Finished it this morning and moving on to A Man Of The People - Chenua Achebe.

 

[Dillinger4]

Agreed the writing style is nothing special, in fact after reading Updike the week before it was almost childlike in simplicity. I wondered if that was part of the Swedish literature style coming through though.

The power of this book is it's story, characterisation and the skill which went into making it a page turner. I genuinely wanted to find out what was going on and had some degree of empathy for a number of the characters. Pretty unusual.

Finished it this morning and moving on to A Man Of The People - Chenua Achebe.

Been meaning to read that for ages, let me know what you think!

 

[Orang Utan]

Agreed the writing style is nothing special, in fact after reading Updike the week before it was almost childlike in simplicity. I wondered if that was part of the Swedish literature style coming through though.

The power of this book is it's story, characterisation and the skill which went into making it a page turner. I genuinely wanted to find out what was going on and had some degree of empathy for a number of the characters. Pretty unusual.

Finished it this morning and moving on to A Man Of The People - Chenua Achebe.

i wasn't impressed by the structure of it either. the climax of the main plot happened too early and the rest of the story wasn't very engaging.
i didn't find the characters intriguing either. it was just a standard pot-boiler whose only difference was its setting and it's vaguely left wing/right on bent.

 

[ringo]

Been meaning to read that for ages, let me know what you think!

His African Trilogy is one of the finest pieces of writing I've ever read, and the only other thing I have, Anthills of the Savannah, was also excellent, so I have high hopes for this one.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finished We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between The Wars by Martin Pugh.

I've read quite a bit in this area and I didn't find anything new in it, despite the fact that he says he's following the recent trend of emphasising the rise of the leisure society at the expense of the common view of the period as one mired in depression and unemployment. What he seems to have done, rather, is cherrypick from a handful of books on each of the themed chapters (work, sport. aviation, etc.). There's very little original research on primary sources, and a lousy index. And, oh, a serious historian should never use exclamation marks, which Pugh does every other fecking page. Not recommended, except for some interesting facts you can conjure with down the pub.

Now it's Julian Maclaren-Ross's Selected Stories

 

[ericjarvis]

Len Deighton - Spy Hook.

Going to have to lay off the spy stories, they are feeding my paranoia.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Just finished some great trashy sci-fi, Mass Effect: Ascension and started slightly more literary sci-fi The Player of Games.

I'm very much in the grips of a sci-fi addiction. Any trashy recommendations welcome. I haven't read much at all.

 

[Flavour]

I'm reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - very good sci-fi