*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[ringo]

the one about the family with an adoptive monkey

I found that one to be a bit shit. Not nearly as clever as it thought it was.

 

[sojourner]

oh, you'll be fine. There are a few things that you will pick up on rather sooner than you would otherwise have done, but it wont make a massive difference. Plus, the joy of Mitchell is his skill with finally crafted sentences and endearing characters, rather than his stories, which are merely conduits for him to show off his cleverness.

Which isn't a bad thing, I hasten to add.


Did the end work for you, by the way? Or did it seem just a bit barking?

Oh good!! Well I wouldn't bank on that. My chronically shit memory means that I generally don't remember most of the content of a book (even ones I have LOVED) as little as 2 weeks after reading it. I hate that about my memory but there's not much I can do about it. I just have to enjoy the book whilst reading it.

Anyhoo, yes, he is an outrageously fine writer!

Nope, it worked fine actually, the end. I thought it was really interesting

 

[izz]

rereading Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. His imagination is straight from hell but his prose from heaven.
'Going up a track of a road through the quarry woods where all about lay enormous blocks and tablets of stone weathered grey and grown with deep green moss, toppled monoliths among the trees and vines like traces of an older race of man. This rainy summer day. He passed a dark lake of silent jade where the moss walls rose sheer and plumb and a small blue bird sat slant upon a guywire in the void.'

 

[ViolentPanda]

Currently enjoying "The Great Cat Massacre and other episodes in French cultural history" by Robert Darnton.

 

[mentalchik]

Just finished The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

 

[Almost There]

The Twits - Roald Dahl

 

[Cheesypoof]

I've had Panter's book for years but never got round to it. Their first LP is still my favourite album; can't bring myself to read a history of them that isn't like a speed fuelled riot.
Read Neville Staples' autobiography this year though and it's packed full of great stories which really live up to expectations.

Just ordered Neville's book 'Original Rude Boy: From Borstal to The Specials, A life of crime and music.' Thanks for the recommendation

 

[nogojones]

A Sky Blue Life and other tales by Gorky

 

[CharlyCoin]

At the moment I don’t read any books… not because I don’t want to, but I often simply don’t have the time for reading, especially when I have to study for my exams. This year, I started three different books and they where extremely boring, so I finished reading after chapter 3 every time. Fifty Shades of Grey were the last book(s) I have read but only because I wanted to understand the hype they have caused… I still don’t but I have to confirm: they weren’t as boring as I expected

 

[Orang Utan]

At the moment I don’t read any books… not because I don’t want to, but I often simply don’t have the time for reading, especially when I have to study for my exams. This year, I started three different books and they where extremely boring, so I finished reading after chapter 3 every time. Fifty Shades of Grey were the last book(s) I have read but only because I wanted to understand the hype they have caused… I still don’t but I have to confirm: they weren’t as boring as I expected

What books were they?

 

[izz]

Just finished Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. Well worth a read, her Life After Life was very good as well and I think I may have found another favourite author to keep me amused in the wait for the final part of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy by Mantel.

 

[ringo]

Just finished Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. Well worth a read, her Life After Life was very good as well and I think I may have found another favourite author to keep me amused in the wait for the final part of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy by Mantel.

I started Behind the Scenes at the Museum last night, enjoying it so far. Only read one of the Brodie books before but reckon on getting everything she's done after that.

 

[mentalchik]

Railsea - China Mieville

 

[izz]

Started By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. About half way through and am nearly weeping too

It's probably a work of sheer genius and maybe when I've reread it a time or two I'll appreciate it properly.

 

[Diamond]

A selection of short stories from Richard Yates (my new favourite writer), called "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness", which is fantastic.
Also Karl Ove Knausgaard's "A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven", which is very weird but also extremely interesting - spending the best part of 130 pages expanding on the story of Cain and Able is an example.

 

[DotCommunist]

Railsea - China Mieville

one of my faves from him, outside of the bas-lag books. Quite gory for a YA novel, suprised me that.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

Everyday Life in Medieval London, dipping & out of t the Old Dog and Duck & London's Strangest Tales

 

[flypanam]

Easter 1916: The Dublin Rebellion - Charles Townshend

Enjoyable read, only picked it up because I've just about recovered my interest in Irish history. Taken this long to get over lectures from Mary Daly and The Ferret. I have forgotten quite a lot of what happened, much to my shame.

 

[sojourner]

Almost finished 'The Book of Memory' by Petina Gapah. It's quite good, not brilliant, and some interesting switcheroo stuff going on re unreliable narration.

 

[dilberto]

Just finished Margaret Atwood's Stone Mattress a book of 9 short stories, some good some not quite so good. The themes of the stories I think may be a little overly concerned with ageing and aged characters but they are certainly still worth reading.

Have now begun reading Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Finished "Foxglove Summer" by Ben Aaronovitch, just starting "The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell, and "Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening" by David Hendy.

 

[belboid]

Halfway through 'That Fat of Fed Beasts' by Guy Ware.

It's an absurdist drama concerning bureaucracy and a bank robbery. It starts off running the risk of being too clever for its own good, but then takes a marvelous twist and everything, well, it doesn't fall into place, but a certain clarity is produced. And from then it just rolls on in highly am using fashion. Whether it can maintain this until the end, we'll see

 

[sojourner]

Read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins last couple of days. My daughter loved it and it was in the charity shop so gave it a go. I really enjoyed it, wasn't expecting to. So went and got the next two out of the library today

 

[belboid]

Having completed my target for the year, I can now finally start on Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries without fear that it will ruin my chances of reaching my quota.

 

[campanula]

Luna - new moon, Ian Macdonald. gloomy, very gloomy and (so far, 60 pages in), disliking most of the central characters. I always struggle with sf which follows the hackneyed fantasy trope of 'royal' families or general upper echelons of society as the major movers and shakers. Could be distracted by Neil Asher's 'Dark Intelligence' which arrived in the post (Dotty, I finally got to the local PO for you).
Also, just finished Bangkok Eight - John Burdett - a buddhist detective novel - amusing read.
What did you think of 'Foxglove Summer', VP? Aaronovitch has just recently appeared on my radar (Rivers of London) - would definitely read more (would certainly have been drawn towards 'Foxglove Summer' for title alone).

 

[sojourner]

Racing through the Hunger Games trilogy. Am halfway through Mockingjay now. Fucking loving them - great storytelling!

 

[ringo]

Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
Magic realism seems to be growing on me, might even manage to finish a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel one day. A book about love, food and sex, that's most of the good stuff in one helping

 

[flypanam]

How the soldier repairs the gramophone - Sasa Stanisic.

Only read the first couple of pages so far but I'm enjoying it a lot. It's about the break up of Yugoslavia and the complex identities that were part of the Yugoslav experience, though I case Bosnian. One passage stands out so far is that the protagonist's grandfather dies of a heart attack just as Carl Lewis was setting the WR for 100 meter sprint.

 

[little_legs]

I recently finished Elenanor Catton's Luminaries. I can't believe they gave her a Booker for this 832-page derivative of the Jungian archetypes. She basically wasted my time. The only valuable sentences in this book are about death: We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored. We would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. Time would have no consequence.

And yesterday I finished A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. He deserves every accolade he got this year. This book has been both educational and entertaining. Superb.

 

[sojourner]

Just finished 'Grief is the thing with feathers' by Max Porter. I think you definitely need to have read Ted Hughes's The Crow to appreciate it, which is a shame, cos I haven't.