*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[hash tag]

Gassed by Rob Evans Gassed: Behind the Scenes at Porton Down - Lume Books
I have tried for a along time to get this out of print book and prices quoted for it are around £70.
Was recently sent a free copy by someone in the post; what an interesting book, what a shit nation Britain is.

 

[DotCommunist]

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Memory. I hope its as good as the space octopus one, that was mint.

 

[nottsgirl]

Any standouts ?

About a third of them were really good. I’d recommend it. I’ve given it away now so I can’t name names.

 

[izz]

About a third of them were really good. I’d recommend it. I’ve given it away now so I can’t name names.

I'll look out for it

 

[stockwelljonny]

Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood By Justin Marozzi. Getting to the end of this and have enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting, fascinating 2000 year history, all the ups and downs of the city and its people and various rulers. Well told, very readable and informative. Love the orange Penguin non fictions.

 

[nottsgirl]

Any standouts ?

There’s a really good one about a conservatory salesman and one science fiction type story about bitey sex games but there are other good ones too.

 

[nottsgirl]

izz one of them is available here which is where I first read it.

SSP 2021 HOGAN (Single Sit) — Galley Beggar Press

www.galleybeggar.co.uk

 

[Nikkormat]

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.

I did not expect to enjoy it, but found it strangely gripping. Very good.

 

[Fallon]

Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson.

Don't read fiction too often but enjoying this. Very well written.

 

[sojourner]

Food for Life by Tim Spector. A (requested) xmas gift. Really interesting, and I'm trying to now eat with this in mind.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Just finished Dostoevsky’s The Idiot starting one about the Knights Templar

 

[Nikkormat]

Still on The Decameron, but started Tony Judt's Post War. 50 pages or so in and it's brilliant.

Finally finished Postwar this morning. Excellent from start to finish.

Now on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

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[T & P]

Peril at End House. I love Golden Era crime novels, but I guess due to having watched TV adaptations of so many of Agatha Christie’s works, I have actually read only a handful of them. But as I’ve never seen any adaptation of the aforementioned novel, I gave it a go this week, and it’s bloody brilliant. One of the most engaging stories and in particular mind blowing endings of any Christie tales I can think of

 

[rubbershoes]

The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock. It's a debut novel that shows some promise but ultimately doesn't deliver . It covers some of the same ground as Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, seeing the early American manned space programme through the eyes of the test pilots that were selected for Mercury and Gemini . Although the real astronauts are in it, the main protagonist is fictional.

I've got two main problems with the book. It seems too derivative of Tom Wolfe and if you've read The Right Stuff, you're not going to get much more from this.

And also the ending. Pancho getting Jim out of a military hospital?. I don't think so. And if all that is just his imagination, it goes on too long

 

[rubbershoes]

Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote Let the Right One In . Some could see it as a horror book about a community on a small island in the Stockholm archipelago, where their seemingly bucolic life, masks the malign supernatural forces that oppress them causing disappearances, possession, murder and an obsession with The Smiths.

Others may see the book as a perfectly normal tale of life in the country.

I couldn't possibly comment.

 

[izz]

Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote Let the Right One In . Some could see it as a horror book about a community on a small island in the Stockholm archipelago, where their seemingly bucolic life, masks the malign supernatural forces that oppress them causing disappearances, possession, murder and an obsession with The Smiths.

Others may see the book as a perfectly normal tale of life in the country.

I couldn't possibly comment.

Ah. You've been to Priddy.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

The Catcher in the Rye. There's an Adam Buxton podcast episode devoted to it, so thought I should read before listening.. Really easy book to get through.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

The Catcher in the Rye. There's an Adam Buxton podcast episode devoted to it, so thought I should read before listening.. Really easy book to get through.

I recently got a copy of that. It was recommended to me by a friend. I've not started it yet though.

 

[Nikkormat]

Now on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Well, I understood maybe 5% of that.

Next up is The Inhabited Island by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

 

[campanula]

Fabric, a history of the material world. Victoria Finlay. I generally enjoy a history of things (salt, cod) but am less chuffed at the narrators continual insertion of themselves.

Also reading Mother's Boy - by the lovely Patrick Gale. The reading equivalent of a warm bath with narcotics - required reading for dismal January.

 

[izz]

Despite having a copy of The Outsider for a number of years I only got around to reading it today. Quite interesting and I think I'll have to ponder it for a bit.

Read One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson yesterday which was harmless fun but the fact I can read a book in a day again fills me with joy, my reading mojo hath returned

 

[jeff_leigh]

I’m reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, I’ve read other biographies by this same guy, Steve Jobs, Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci really does his research

 

[rubbershoes]

The Plotters by Kim Un-su.

I quite liked this. It's a Korean book about an assassin in a structured alternative Seoul. That makes it sound like trash but it isn't


The English Civil Wars 1640-1660 by Blair Worden.

This was shit. I was hoping for a comprehensive and digestible account of an important period of English history that i don't know enough about. The author spends so long telling us what everyone's hopes and motivations were, he doesn't sufficiently say what actually happened.

 

[kalidarkone]

Reading "Kindred" by the awesome Octavia E Butler- Black American sci-fi writer. Its about time travel. There is also a film.

 

[sojourner]

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. The writing isn't quite as tight or dense as Shuggie Bain, and he's mining his own past again, but I'm reservng judgement for now. I think he might find the next book more of a challenge.

 

[Nikkormat]

Next up is The Inhabited Island by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Dull. Maybe a sci-fi fan would get more out of it, but at no point did I care what was going to happen on the next page. Maybe it was a bad translation. Still, glad I read it.

 

[Nikkormat]

The English Civil Wars 1640-1660 by Blair Worden.

This was shit. I was hoping for a comprehensive and digestible account of an important period of English history that i don't know enough about. The author spends so long telling us what everyone's hopes and motivations were, he doesn't sufficiently say what actually happened.

I read Civil War: The War of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1660 by Trevor Royle and liked it. Easy reading, comprehensive and engaging.

 

[rubbershoes]

I read Civil War: The War of the Three Kingdoms, 1638-1660 by Trevor Royle and liked it. Easy reading, comprehensive and engaging.

Thanks. I might give that a go

 

[Nikkormat]

Just started A Line In The Sand by James Barr, about Anglo-French rivalry in the Middle East. Only 20 pages in, but excellent so far. I thought I was fairly well versed in this area, but I've already learnt new stuff from reading this.