*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[shifting gears]

I’m 3/4 of the way through David Keenan’s For the Good Times. It’s set in 70s Belfast with the main protagonist being a member of the Provos. It’s brutal, hilarious and tragic by turn and a proper pageturner - for my money Keenan writes some of the best modern fiction around. See also the amazing This is Memorial Device.

 

[rubbershoes]

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam.

It's a reflective look at liberation and loss, set in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war. I quite enjoyed it

 

[stockwelljonny]

The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger. Just finished this, really enjoyed it, set in 1950s postwar London, a Nazi doctor trying to hide from his crimes. Good thriller with nice descriptions of London back in the day, grumpy landladies and piano factories overlooking the Regents Canal.

 

[savoloysam]

I'm struggling to get through Lonely Boy by Steve Jones. Not because of the book but my blurry eyes and head space.

 

[danny la rouge]

The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel. The third book in the Earth’s Children series. I’m totally caught up in the story of Ayla, the Cro-Magnon girl raised by Neanderthals. I could do with fewer descriptions of flint knapping, but I’m utterly immersed in this world.

 

[Nikkormat]

The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger. Just finished this, really enjoyed it, set in 1950s postwar London, a Nazi doctor trying to hide from his crimes. Good thriller with nice descriptions of London back in the day, grumpy landladies and piano factories overlooking the Regents Canal.

This is on my "waiting to be read" shelf. Very keen to get round to it.

Just finished a short book of Norse sagas, and now starting All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg.

 

[stockwelljonny]

Just picked up Espedair Street, Iain Banks to reread as couldn’t settle on a new book and wanted an easy reading good story page turner. Will be interested to see how it holds up as remember loving it years ago but was amazed to see it came out in 1987

 

[Pickman's model]

George younghusband and Frank younghusband, the relief of chitral

 

[pbsmooth]

Just finished Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which I largely very much enjoyed. Great if you're fed up with your job.

 

[imposs1904]

Just finished Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which I largely very much enjoyed. Great if you're fed up with your job.

They did a film adaptation of the book a few years ago with Richard E. Grant and Helena Bonham-Carter.

 

[pbsmooth]

interesting! never knew. thanks for the heads-up.

 

[krtek a houby]

Lots of light stuff at the moment because can't concentrate properly for various reasons. Enjoying reading Slaine all over again and looking forward to later stories that hadn't read. Also enjoying a thoroughly ridiculous page turner from Clive Cussler. One of the Dirk Pitt books and it's bonkers cold war fun. Are they all this good?

 

[Nikkormat]

... now starting All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg.

This was hard to get into - I didn't ike the style of writing for the first 100 pages, but I ended up really enjoying it.

This morning I started Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark.

 

[RedRedRose]

This morning I started Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark.

You're shitting me. Started reading this last week! About halfway through; just got up to the Wartburg festival.

 

[sparkling]

The Escape Artist...as recommended by The Rest is History

 

[Nikkormat]

You're shitting me. Started reading this last week! About halfway through; just got up to the Wartburg festival.

I've had it in mind for years, only just got round to it now. Need to find something on the Austro-Hungarian empire next.

 

[RedRedRose]

I've had it in mind for years, only just got round to it now. Need to find something on the Austro-Hungarian empire next.

I had just finished AJP Taylors book on Bismarck. Good, but a little bit light on the details.

Seems to be a few good histories on the Habsburg's: AJP Taylor, Bruce Pauley, C Macartney, M. Rady.

When I get round to doing more WW1 reading, I wouldn't mind reading Alexander Watson's 'Ring of Steel', on Germany/Austro-Hungary.

 

[stockwelljonny]

Just starting Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer, as had it lying around and only ever read the Executioners Song by him, which I remember being impressive but VERY long

 

[furluxor]

The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International by McKenzie Wark.

My library, which I dissed so much (for replacing its beautiful old shelving with modern tat, and for turning itself into a creche/cafe) ordered this especially for me, which I appreciate.

 

[rubbershoes]

I had just finished AJP Taylors book on Bismarck. Good, but a little bit light on the details.

I met him at a dinner in the 80s. He fell asleep in an armchair afterwards, woke up, sang a dirty song from the WW1 trenches , then nodded off again.

Legend

 

[rubbershoes]

The Barren Zone by Toyoko Yamasaki. This was terrible. Three quarters of the book is about a Japanese officer imprisoned by the Soviets in terrible conditions for 11 years after WW2. After release he's offered a job by a commodity trading firm in Japan even though he knows nothing about business, is worn out and traumatised by his captivity and feels he is too old to learn anything new. And basically that's it.

If it had just stuck to the prison camp ordeals, it would have been moderately interesting captivity porn. But all the business side just seems incongruous. Which is the point, of course . But it seems an odd mix and it just doesn't work.

Much better was Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut, a fictionalised account of the adult life of novelist EM Forster. He's tormented by the love that dare not speak its name and also constricted by the rigid unwritten rules about race and class around at the time (about 1910-1925). He also sees the end of the British empire steaming over the hill.

I haven't read A Passage to India, Maurice or any of his novels but enjoyed this book nonetheless.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

A book about plutonium. Before anyone asks, I don't have any nefarious plans.

 

[rubbershoes]

Talk to me by John Kenney

Satire about news , what counts for it and social media pile ons*

It was OK but a bit heavy handed

*(not pylons)

 

[CNT36]

I had just finished AJP Taylors book on Bismarck. Good, but a little bit light on the details.

Seems to be a few good histories on the Habsburg's: AJP Taylor, Bruce Pauley, C Macartney, M. Rady.

When I get round to doing more WW1 reading, I wouldn't mind reading Alexander Watson's 'Ring of Steel', on Germany/Austro-Hungary.

I keep seeing Ring of Steel at the library but not attempted it yet.

Last year I read a book about a Hapsburg. Red Prince by Timothy Snyder. Takes in Wilhelm von Habsburg's experiences of the fall of the Ottomans, the rise and fall of new states Ukraine in particular, beung subject of scandal in France, being a Nazi sympathiser and being tortured then killed by the Soviets among other things.

 

[sojourner]

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane. Loving it so far - am very much in tune with his way of thinking about walking anyway.

 

[Orang Utan]

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane. Loving it so far - am very much in tune with his way of thinking about walking anyway.

Have you read Tristan Gooley’s books on weather? I think you’d dig em - both The Walker’s Guide To Outdoor Clues & Signs and The Secret World Of Weather.

 

[sojourner]

Have you read Tristan Gooley’s books on weather? I think you’d dig em - both The Walker’s Guide To Outdoor Clues & Signs and The Secret World Of Weather.

I haven't but I'll check them out, cheers.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Edgelands by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley. Has started very well indeed.

 

[Pickman's model]

brendan dooley, morandi's last prophecy and the end of renaissance politics (princeton: princeton university press, 2002)

 

[farmerbarleymow]

This article is about a book that looks interesting - the influence of microorganisms on history. Will order a copy.

‘We’re in a golden age for microbes’: the man rewriting history from the perspective of germs

Forget ‘great men’ – infection and disease are the really important forces in the development of humankind, believes public health specialist Jonathan Kennedy

www.theguardian.com