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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

I've recently finished the Bartimaeus triology by Jonathan Stroud which is in the YA genre but is equally readable for old farts like myself. About a young magician/politician who calls up a daemon and gets into all sorts of amusing scrapes. Good fun
 
Ooh, ooh- just saw that this biography on [the Moomins creator/artist/author] Tove Jansson is now available in english! :cool:

I've already read the book, and can vouch for its excellence- it's an extremely interesting in-depth portrayal (576 pages!:eek:) of a very unusual woman and artist, very readable also for people who aren't that interested in her work, as it's both a cultural history and interesting as a well-written and intriguing biography...

I'd recommend this as the authoritative work on her life, other biographies have been written but none as nuanced and interesting as this. Check it out, or ask your local library to order it if you can't afford to buy it... This woman was one of a kind- and the books are timeless...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tove-Jansson-Life-Art-Words/dp/1908745452/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389555803&sr=1-1&keywords=boel westin
 
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Am reading Ian Banks' "Whit" - about a girl from a fringe Scottish religious community who goes in search of one of her female fellow believers, who has gone AWOL in London. So far she's discovered that her female companion is a porn actress, and has just had an encounter with some fascists. It's been pretty good going so far.
 
Well, the Pullman finally turned up - Grimm Tales.

It's not what I was expecting tbh. I did imagine that he would put a spin on them, a la Angela Carter, but he doesn't quite do that. He IS however 'filling in', for want of a better phrase, all the bits that were either clumsy (in his opinion) or not fleshed out, or simply 'missing' from the Grimm tales. He slags off the Grimms actually :D

It's...okay. Amusing in parts. Easy to read when you're mad stoned. Might be nice if you pretended to be a kid and had someone read them to you after being tucked in or sommat.

What did you think of it in the end, Orang Utan ?
 
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"The Influencing Machine" (formerly published as The Air Loom Gang) by Mike Jay. A very interesting read- I've always been interested in the weirder corners of history, esp. history of ideas. And this strange case of the first psychiatric patient to incorporate the concept of technology into his paranoid delusions (this man thought a giant, intricate 'Air Loom' was controlling people wirelessly) is fascinating stuff.
Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews’ case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and war.

But Matthews’ case was even stranger than his doctors realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real. Caught up in high-level diplomatic intrigues in the chaos of the French revolution, he found himself betrayed by both sides, and in possession of a secret that no-one would believe…
Click to expand...

Coming up: The new KLF book by John Higgs ("KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds") just arrived in the post today, have been added to the top of my reading pile... Looking forward to it.
 
sojourner said:
Well, the Pullman finally turned up - Grimm Tales.

It's not what I was expecting tbh. I did imagine that he would put a spin on them, a la Angela Carter, but he doesn't quite do that. He IS however 'filling in', for want of a better phrase, all the bits that were either clumsy (in his opinion) or not fleshed out, or simply 'missing' from the Grimm tales. He slags off the Grimms actually :D

It's...okay. Amusing in parts. Easy to read when you're mad stoned. Might be nice if you pretended to be a kid and had someone read them to you after being tucked in or sommat.

What did you think of it in the end, Orang Utan ?
Click to expand...
I keep reading other things! Haven't got beyond the first story. :oops:
I am reading these instead:
Anne Cassidy - Looking For JJ
Meg Rosoff - How I Live Now
Hugh Howey - Wool
Charlie Higson - The Enemy
The Scientist - you should read that Higson book if you haven't already
 
Orang Utan said:
I keep reading other things! Haven't got beyond the first story. :oops:
I am reading these instead:
Anne Cassidy - Looking For JJ
Meg Rosoff - How I Live Now
Hugh Howey - Wool
Charlie Higson - The Enemy
Click to expand...
That Howey one was a nice surprise. The second one is good too, have the third at home waiting for me to finish The Master and Margarita.
 
maya said:
Ooh, ooh- just saw that this biography on [the Moomins creator/artist/author] Tove Jansson is now available in english! :cool:

I've already read the book, and can vouch for its excellence- it's an extremely interesting in-depth portrayal (576 pages!:eek:) of a very unusual woman and artist, very readable also for people who aren't that interested in her work, as it's both a cultural history and interesting as a well-written and intriguing biography...

I'd recommend this as the authoritative work on her life, other biographies have been written but none as nuanced and interesting as this. Check it out, or ask your local library to order it if you can't afford to buy it... This woman was one of a kind- and the books are timeless...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tove-Jansson-Life-Art-Words/dp/1908745452/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389555803&sr=1-1&keywords=boel westin
Click to expand...

Thanks will be on the look out for that. "The Influencing Machine" sounds interesting too. ta
 
Oh I love this thread, you lot are reading some reet sounding interesting ones.

I'm reading '' The universe vs Alex woods by Gavin Extence' to start off my ''read more fiction'' for this year.

Half way through it and it's a complete joy so far. :cool:
 
I'm reading Sid Lowe's "Fear and Loathing in La Liga - Real Madrid vs. Barcelona". Sid is such a great journalist and he's the perfect fella to write this. The book gives a nuanced political background to the rivalry and breaks a few clichés and myths, although I think it actually reinforces some of the points it's trying to contest.

I'm two-thirds of the way through and can definitely recommend it to those who love a good football book, or anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of Spanish society in the past 100 years too. Both clubs are important enough to be key to understanding the country in broader terms.
 
Picked up Tarzan last night, just to flick through and see what the writing is like, and now i'm hooked!

Tarzan parents go to Africa because another unnamed european country are hiring the locals to work from a British colony and treating them really badly, and conning them to work double the time for the same pay. Lord Greystoke and his good lady pregnant wife go to sort it out for the "poor blacks". Unusual for locals in colonial times to be treated as human beings in these 19th century books
 
The Blade Itself - Joe Abercorombie

Good suggestion (from Dottie I think) as a Game Of Thrones alternative. Very enjoyable and not nearly as self important as Martin can be. Great page turner and quite funny too, like it.
 
No Place To Call Home by Katherine Quarmby.

About gypsies and travellers and such.

In the bit about the Dale Farm eviction the anarchist/activists who went along to "help" don't exactly come out of it covered in glory. Quelle surprise.
 
ringo said:
The Blade Itself - Joe Abercorombie

Good suggestion (from Dottie I think) as a Game Of Thrones alternative. Very enjoyable and not nearly as self important as Martin can be. Great page turner and quite funny too, like it.
Click to expand...

good trilogy that, but somehow I don't see myself reading it a second time. Certainly has a humour that RR Martins work does not.



I'm on 'Forge of Darkness' the start of a Steven Erickson trilogy set thousands of tears before the Malazan empire, before the emergence of humans

It's good but Ericksons non human creation the Tiste are a long lived creature. Most of them are some centuries old if not millenia. This makes them prone to lengthly introspection. This was fine in the Malazan books because it was leavened by humour and humanity with the human characters. Can wear a bit when every single charcter is given to lengthly philosophical musing over a bread roll or some shit

TruXta did this not strike you also?
 
DotCommunist said:
I'm on 'Forge of Darkness' the start of a Steven Erickson trilogy set thousands of tears before the Malazan empire, before the emergence of humans

It's good but Ericksons non human creation the Tiste are a long lived creature. Most of them are some centuries old if not millenia. This makes them prone to lengthly introspection. This was fine in the Malazan books because it was leavened by humour and humanity with the human characters.

TruXta did this not strike you also?
Click to expand...
Yeah, it is decidedly less humorous. I also found his plotting even less penetrable than in the Malazan Books.
 
My little Armalite by James Hawes.
A very easy but enjoyable read.
A bit of a 21st Century Tom Sharpe. Has male twins (not female quadruplets) & is a university lecturer rather than a college of HE
Readable in a day or two.
 
killer b said:
in line with new years resolutions, i've got a couple of books on the go:

Guy Debord - Society of the Spectacle
Skidelskys - How Much is Enough

I need a novel I reckon.
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I don't know what sort of stuff you're into but I reckon it's impossible not to like either of these books by Catherine O'Flynn - What Was Lost and The News Where You Are

http://www.catherineoflynn.com/books/what-was-lost/
http://www.catherineoflynn.com/books/the-news-where-you-are/

Mick Jackson's The Underground Man is quite delightful as well

http://www.mickjackson.com/books/the-underground-man/
 
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