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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver. Am only a few chapters in but its warming up nicely, each of the characters has their own voice and the opening images were pretty good.
 
Iain M Banks' The Player of Games. Had it years ago but never got round to reading it before it got leant out.
 
I'm stuck half way through the first Game of Thrones book, and about 30 pages into the Morrissey biog, halfway through a biography of Lyndon B Johnson.

I'm not really a completer finisher!
 
About 100 pages from finishing Luther Blissett 'Q', it's a proper ripsnorter. Quite confusing at first trying to get a handle on who all the characters and various religious factions are, and jumps about chronologically, but the payoff for sticking with it is an epic tale spread across Europe, with battles and struggle galore, and some absolutely hilarious characters and dialogue. Also genuinely illuminating with regards to The Reformation, and given that the characters are all based on real people, has had me constantly digging into Wikipedia to find out more about the likes of Martin Luther.

My first taste of Wu Ming, but won't be my last.
 
Greebo said:
I caught the entire radio series of that - rivetting stuff, although grim at times.
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You know, her writing in this almost puts me in mind of Ray Bradbury, it's that poetic and exciting, and her insight into behaviours is extraordinary.

But yes, grim. I keep welling up - given recent events with my friend, like, no wonder.
 
Just finished "AC/DC - Maximum Rock 'N' Roll" by Murray Engleheart and Arnaud Durieux. Interesting bio of the band's origins and gradual ascent to superstar status.
Just finishing "Between Mind and Nature: A History of Psychology" by Roger Smith. Rather good. :)
 
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie is to be started net. Sequel to Ancillary Justice. It follows the story of a human woman (sort of) who used to be the AI for a warship. Vengeance is a big theme.
 
Guerilla Days In Ireland by Tom Barry. I'm finding it fascinating. It's an account of how the IRA waged guerilla warfare against the British in 1920/21 against almost overwhelming odds and won. It's written by the commander of the West Cork Flying Column. I happened on the book by accident in the library the other day. Highly recommended.
 
Currently reading - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
just found it on the attic last week now i'm hook on it :)
 
Shakespeare Identified in Edward De Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford
by John Thomas Looney

I'm open minded about the authorship question, so it won't hurt to read this. I'm still on the first few pages where the publisher apologises for the typos from the OCR scanning of the text, and complains about the astronomical cost of proof reading... And the author explains how the evidence has been collected and examined. Oh, and how William would have to be already literate in order to get a place at Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School, which was unlikely due to his entire family being illiterate... as proven by surviving documents signed with an "X" by John Shakespeare. Plus the whole Warwickshire lad's knowledge of Italy issue.

Not a popular choice of reading... and some argue against it... but I just love that time period and I might discover a few nuggets of interesting info.
 
Obnoxiousness said:
I'm still on the first few pages where the publisher apologises for the typos from the OCR scanning of the text, and complains about the astronomical cost of proof reading.
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That's a really good way to start a book based on a highly dubious premise - complain that it's far too expensive to do things properly. It does make one rather suspect that the rest of the book is similarly prone to equally shoddy 'research'
 
belboid said:
That's a really good way to start a book based on a highly dubious premise - complain that it's far too expensive to do things properly. It does make one rather suspect that the rest of the book is similarly prone to equally shoddy 'research'
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Well, it's a 1920s book and it didn't sell very many copies, so the modern publishers added the OCR excuse because they had to scan a very old copy of the book. As for the subject matter, I would certainly say that there are two people who I think probably wrote the Shakespeare plays and I cannot make my mind up between them. 1) William Shakespeare (1564). 2) Edward de Vere (1550).
 
Obnoxiousness said:
Well, it's a 1920s book and it didn't sell very many copies, so the modern publishers added the OCR excuse because they had to scan a very old copy of the book. As for the subject matter, I would certainly say that there are two people who I think probably wrote the Shakespeare plays and I cannot make my mind up between them. 1) William Shakespeare (1564). 2) Edward de Vere (1550).
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Aye, and the author is just 70 years dead - so its nicely out of copyright!
 
Mendel's Dwarf, Simon Mawer

Learnt a bit about genetics chromosomes genes and the like, nice book, well paced, never boring - the second Mawer book I have read - will try to get The Glass Room next assuming the library has it.
 
Just finished Michel Faber's "The Book of Strange New Things" and the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment. Lacked all of the drive of "The Crimson Petal and the White". I would never have guessed that they were by the same author. The plot might have made a half decent SF short story, but spread out over 500 pages? The whole thing had the slightly embarrassing whiff of "literary fiction writer does SF"...
 
rhod said:
Just finished Michel Faber's "The Book of Strange New Things" and the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment. Lacked all of the drive of "The Crimson Petal and the White". I would never have guessed that they were by the same author. The plot might have made a half decent SF short story, but spread out over 500 pages? The whole thing had the slightly embarrassing whiff of "literary fiction writer does SF"...
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But he's a pretty decent scifi writer. Some of his short stories and Under The Skin are scifi.
 
Reading The Children's Act by Ian McEwan. It's ok, pretty workaday McEwan. All the casual privilege gets a bit tiring though, I know they say write about what you know but he's getting to be a bit of a parody of himself.
 
I'm plodding my way through Little Women for the children's lit module I'm studying.
Bloody awful it is, so fucking saccharine it's making my teeth ache.
I think I would have hated it even as a young girl.

But on the bright side, it's often easier to write about books that you hate - at least I have a strong position on it :thumbs:
 
BoatieBird said:
I'm plodding my way through Little Women for the children's lit module I'm studying.
Bloody awful it is, so fucking saccharine it's making my teeth ache.
I think I would have hated it even as a young girl.

But on the bright side, it's often easier to write about books that you hate - at least I have a strong position on it :thumbs:
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I remember having to force myself to read 100 pages of Villette at a time, for a uni module. Christ, I fucking loathed that book - but like you say, that can be quite inspiring!
 
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