Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

*What book are you reading? (part 2)

sojourner said:
:cool::cool::cool:

I've just started No Place To Call Home, by Katharine Quarmby. Shaping up nicely. Ooo AND I found out there was an 'Egypcians Act', and consequently in 1624, eight men were put to death in Scotland for being Egypcians - six of them from one family, the Faas.

Any Phillip Pullman fans of His Dark Materials will instantly recognise one of his sources! Me eyes nearly fell out me face when I read that!
Click to expand...

Read that a few weeks back - Not a bad read I thought. And very not-one-sided IYSWIM, very fair to everyone interviewed/written about IMO.
 
I've just started, but probably won't finish, Life Unfolding - how the human body creates itself by Jamie A Davies. A biology book basically, but I love biology as it fascinates me. :)
 
Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth.
Just an extended hangwringing broadsheet article really. Far too many graphs for my liking.
Still, as you may infer from the title, it's depressing and enraging.
 
Frances Lengel said:
Read that a few weeks back - Not a bad read I thought. And very not-one-sided IYSWIM, very fair to everyone interviewed/written about IMO.
Click to expand...
It's absolutely fascinating. The fucking Tent Act in Scotland! :eek::mad::mad::mad: All those kids still being fucking removed from their families into the 1960's! Fuck me :mad::mad::mad:

And - I never knew that Nick Davies was on the Peace Convoy at the Beanfield! Albeit in his capacity as a journalist for the Observer, but still...coming after reading Flat Earth News I was struck by that.
 
farmerbarleymow said:
I've just started, but probably won't finish, Life Unfolding - how the human body creates itself by Jamie A Davies. A biology book basically, but I love biology as it fascinates me. :)
Click to expand...
Ooo that sounds interesting. I love all that kind of stuff too. I constantly amaze the fella with my knowledge of the body on biology questions on Uni Challenge :D
 
here are some that I have read recently:

Orpheus: The Song of Life by Ann Wroe
Danube by Claudio Magris
Blake by Peter Ackroyd
The Poetry of Thought by George Steiner
Between Parenthesis by Roberto Bolano
Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable by Brian Clegg
Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest

I got Brand New Ancients this morning. It is a poem in 40 pages. I have just finished it. Kate Tempest really is properly fucking talented. You should read it.
 
Robert W Chambers - The King in Yellow

I was worried that the stories would give away the ending to the show, but it doesn't really seem to have borrowed that directly, just some of the themes and imagery. A very good read so far.
 
Terminal World. Alisdair Reynolds does steam punk and manages to not-fuck-it-up.

return to competency after the lacklustre 'Blue Remembered Earth'
 
Outsiders: Class, Gender and Nation by Dorothy Thompson.
Almost finished this - a short collection of interesting essays mainly about Chartism but also Irish Jacobinism and the last one which I've yet to read is to do with Queen Victoria.
 
Dexter Deadwood said:
I've just finished it, The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. Some small part of me has been changed forever, i will never forget this book. It's probably the best book i have ever read.
Click to expand...

It's a good one. You should try Mice and Men.

I'm still reading that history of Scotland, because I'm reading other things, too.

St. Someone or Other just came over from Ireland. Ruari? I don't think so. He had to go inland till he couldn't see the sea.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
It's a good one. You should try Mice and Men.

I'm still reading that history of Scotland, because I'm reading other things, too.

St. Someone or Other just came over from Ireland. Ruari? I don't think so. He had to go inland till he couldn't see the sea.
Click to expand...

Of Mice and Men , read that last year, loved it also.
 
Dexter Deadwood said:
I've just finished it, The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. Some small part of me has been changed forever, i will never forget this book. It's probably the best book i have ever read.
Click to expand...
Same here. It's fucking incredible. You read 'East Of Eden' Dex? That's brilliant, too.

I'm reading 'Joseph Anton' by Salman Rushdie, his autobiography, atm which is very good. I thought it was just going to be about the fatwa/his time in hiding but as is the way with his stuff it manages to encompass growing up in Bombay, his love/hate relationship with India, some marvelous bitching about his critics and much more besides. Really enjoying it. I've also got 'Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division' by Deborah Curtis on the go but it's so profoundly sad that I keep going back to a man fearing for his life just for writing a book as a bit of light relief.
 
Voley said:
Same here. It's fucking incredible. You read 'East Of Eden' Dex? That's brilliant, too.

I'm reading 'Joseph Anton' by Salman Rushdie, his autobiography, atm which is very good. I thought it was just going to be about the fatwa/his time in hiding but as is the way with his stuff it manages to encompass growing up in Bombay, his love/hate relationship with India, some marvelous bitching about his critics and much more besides. Really enjoying it. I've also got 'Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division' by Deborah Curtis on the go but it's so profoundly sad that I keep going back to a man fearing for his life just for writing a book as a bit of light relief.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have a little break from Steinbeck but East of Eden is on my list, not read it but looking forward to.
 
Red Love: The story of an East German Family by Maxim Leo.

Biographical, the author describing his childhood in the DDR. Only a quarter in so far, but fascinating - father was a rebel who dicked around during his national service and retouched newspaper photos of Walter Ulbricht in an unflattering way, mother was an up-and-coming member of the SED but became rapidly disillusioned with the dishonesty of Communism. Be interesting to see how they met.
 
A Field Full of Butterflies by Rosemary Penfold - an English Gypsy's retelling of her childhood days spent on a piece of land owned by her grandparents. Very definitely romanticised, but lots of interesting details in there.
 
Last edited:
I've been reading Cyberbad Days by Ian Mcdonald which is a set of 'malacia tapestry' style stories set within India come 2047

He has a deft touch, but there is something hollow to it. He knows his indian fiction clearly and the modern politics of india. But there is none of the sheer texture and chaos you get from the likes of Rushdie or Ahrundati Roy. I don't mean that you have to have lived and loved there to get India, christ knows it seems a very strange place to me. But his knowledge seems somehow...not the same. He doesn't paint india so well.

on the sexual trip he does portray how outward chastity and behind-doors licentiousness combine into a glorious dust-choked delhi sunset of sweat and heat and need etc.


but is that so different from here, really? Not when you look at how we are and what we do. It's good sci fi and the setting is uniquely refreshing but I don't feel I'm being told anything new about india or even being shown facets of indian society I haven't already read about. All the knowingly dropped references to hindu gods, the rituals, the irasible ayahs etc

dunno. I like it as sci fi but it doesn't tell me anything about the place, not really.
 
I am enjoying Neil Gaiman's American Gods, but I've been led to believe he is an amazing writer and he really isn't. Great imagination though.
I am also enjoying Chris Beckett's The Turing Test. I loved Dark Eden so much that I immediately bought all of his work , which is just another novel, The Holy Machine, and two short story collections, The Peacock Cloak and this one.
It's his earliest collection, so some are a bit shoddy, but they are loads of fun and he does have some original ideas. My new favourite scifi writer.
Also reading a kids' book, Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell, about a girl being brought up by a kind man who is not her father. It's very sweet so far.
 
Sprocket. said:
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck.
Click to expand...

Great book. I loved the description of the 2 sailors and their girls coming out of the club at dawn and walking down to the beach.
Must read some more Steinbeck soon.

I'm reading The Quarry - Iain Banks. The usual dark humour and wit so far
 
Last edited:
ringo said:
Dracula - Bram Stoker.....loving this.
Click to expand...

A masterpiece, if I read a better book this year I'll be very surprised. I'd never have picked it up if I wasn't trying to read the classics, it's proving a very rewarding project :)

On a completely different tip, now on to Families And How To Survive Them by Robin Skynner And John Cleese. Very readable and interesting so far, with a hefty dose of humour and pathos.
 
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - read it for O'Level about 33 years ago...Pip is such a twat early doors - didn't think that when I read it at 15 :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

tommers
What (comics) are you reading right now?
2 3
Replies
62
Views
1K
tommers
tommers
Pickman's model
  • Poll
Dedication's what you need: the 2025 reading challenge thread
2 3 4 5
Replies
127
Views
3K
rubbershoes
rubbershoes
ska invita
Comfortable chairs you can read books in
2
Replies
35
Views
808
Hollis
Hollis
danny la rouge
Wolf Hall 1&2
2
Replies
49
Views
968
redsquirrel
R
Eivets Rednow
What gives you writing inspiration/energy?
Replies
4
Views
147
Eivets Rednow
Eivets Rednow
Back
Top Bottom