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*What book are you reading ?

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I've just finished Sweet Thames by Matthew Kneale, which is about a fictitious engineer working on plans for the reconstruction of the sewers in Victorian London, in the midst of (a) a cholera epidemic and (b) his wife's disappearance. It sounded like a great leftfield idea for a book from the back cover. Sadly the ending was bollocks and I didn't think the research was good enough, it was a slightly unfortunate mishmash of fact and fiction. It was a reasonable page turner though.

It was one of the books my mum gave me for Christmas - she also gave me Baudolino by Umberto Eco, which I abandoned about a third of the way through because I wasn't really interested and I didn't like any of the characters. No women in it either.
 
I'm reading "the Poisonwood Bible" at the mo. It's by Barbara Kingsolver. It's brilliant.

It's about an evangelical Baptist preacher who takes his family to the Congo in 1959 to save the Heathens. Naturally all does not go quite to plan. Fantastically written with beautiful imagery and a gripping plot. Highly recommend.
 
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - knew i'd get round to this eventually, and im fucking glad i have. funny as all hell, and damned depressing to boot. my kind of book.

i know very little about Parkinson's Disease, but Franzen's descriptions - based, i believe, on his father - are heartbreaking..
 
Bugger! I wish I'd read up on that a bit more. I bought The Corrections for Christmas for a friend whose dad is in the later stages of MS. :(


I'm reading a book I was given as a Christmas present. Enigma, the battle for the code by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. It's a fascinating tale of the wider struggle to crack the German wartime cypher that includes Bletchley Park but also explains how the efforts of the codebreakers depended heavily on the efforts of so many more who are largely overlooked. And especially the fuck-ups by both sides that could have nearly caused a very different outcome.

I have to say though, that H S-M is a dreadful writer. The text is so turgid, you can spot one of his stock descriptive devices coming a mile off. The cliches are like cold puddles you have to trudge through to follow the tale which is gripping despite its telling. He has the air of someone who has long forgotten how to tell a story in an interesting way. The book is peppered with short anecdotal hooks that he was no doubt very excited by coming across in his research. But on the page they fall flat, delivered in his fusty, donnish style.

I get the feeling that he didn't really have the strength to bring the book to life which is a shame as the story calls for much more zest.
 
Perdido street station by china mieville, gormenghast on bad acid.
stupid white men-micheal moore, all true.
necronomicon-'simon'-utter mad bollocks, but still interesting.
 
Bollocks indeed.

Necronomicon by 'Simon' exposed as hoax - its official. The publisher employed a graphic designer to illustrate this book and wrote the text himself. Earlier versions all hoaxes too.

Originator, HP Lovecraft, expressed amusement in his correspondence that his invention "The Necronomicon" or Book of Dead Names, by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazared, a work of fiction and no more, had been supposed to be a real grimoire by many people. The more he insisted that the book was not real, the less people believed him. Quite funny really.

People seem to enjoy reading them so perhaps it doesnt matter.
 
political murder in northern ireland by martin dillon and dennis lehane (1973) - just brushing up on a little light reading
 
Originally posted by RubyToogood
I've just finished Sweet Thames by Matthew Kneale...
Click to expand...

Kind of surprised to hear that it's not very good, rubes.

I've just started re-reading English Passengers, also by Matthew Kneale, and I still think it's one of the best novels I've ever read. It's about an expedition to Tasmania in 1857, led by a Vicar and amateur geologist, who is convinced that the true site of the Garden of Eden lies there, and that finding it will prove the truth of his theory of "divine refrigeration" and disprove the "slanders" of geologists asserting that the earth is older than the Bible says. Needless to say, it doesn't all go according to plan, not least because one of the expedition is a highly nasty racial theorist, and the ship they have chartered is fleeing customs and has a large amount of contraband stashed under the cabin floor, which the skipper needs to sell quickly.

I don't know how accurate Kneale's research into Aboriginal language and culture is (one of the main characters is Aboriginal), but the rest of it seems very good, and the story is really well told - it's caustically funny, has some very interesting moral undertones, and the ending is hugely satisfying.
 
Originally posted by Louloubelle
Bollocks indeed.

Necronomicon by 'Simon' exposed as hoax - its official. The publisher employed a graphic designer to illustrate this book and wrote the text himself. Earlier versions all hoaxes too.

Originator, HP Lovecraft, expressed amusement in his correspondence that his invention "The Necronomicon" or Book of Dead Names, by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazared, a work of fiction and no more, had been supposed to be a real grimoire by many people. The more he insisted that the book was not real, the less people believed him. Quite funny really.

People seem to enjoy reading them so perhaps it doesnt matter.
Click to expand...


Maleus Malefercarum(?) is a good read,about witch- hunters etc.It was supposively their handbook during the 15th century I think it was.
 
Maleus Malleficarum or the hammer of the witches.

http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/

The insrpiration for so many women to be thrown into rivers, pricked with pointy sticks, and burnt at the stake. :(

Still goes on in South Africa today, only they dont need a big book in Latin; they just put burning tyres round peoples heads. :(
 
currently reading Ressurection Men by Ian Rankin one of the John Rebus detective novels - reall y good, anyone else read any of these ?
 
Oooh yes, I love the rebus novels. Bleedin read em all now so I need him to get a bit more prolicfic.

Nearly finished The Poisonwood Bible. Holding on to last chapter as I don't want it to end!
 
Down and out in Paris and London - again.....

though trying to read books for pleasure around doing a part - time degree is quite hard..............
 
Well it might just be me, Roadkill. If you want it you can have it! (PM me, I might not look at this thread again - if you're not coming down to London soon I can stick it in the post to you.)
 
A book called Deviant by Harold Schechter.

Its the horrifying true story of Ed Gein. The guy who Hitchcock based his psycho character on, and parts of the film, "The texas chainsaw masacre" were also based on him.
Its an interesting if not disturbing read, and in contrast the characters you see in the films are by far much tamer than the real life lunatic.
 
Ooooh thanks very much Rubes. :)

I'll be at the demo and unsound on 15th, or failing that I'll chuck you a PM with my address when I get back to Hull (about 19th).

I'd certainly like to read it - I'm so impressed by English Passengers (for the second time!) that I'd be keen to see if his other books are anything like as good.

:)
 
253

by Geoff Ryman

(which consdiering i travel on the bakerloo line everyday, and the state of the underground at the mo, may not be the best book to read....:D )
 
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