*What book are you reading ?

[Charlie Drake]

I'm loving 'Lark Rise to Candleford' by Flora Thompson - It's sort of 'Cider with Rosie', but 40 years before. I'm crying with every page. It's sentimental old claptrap, but then I'm a sentimental old fool.

If you hate the modern world (except your keyboards ) try it.

 

[citydreams]

"The Master of Ballantrae" - Robert Louis Stevenson

The writing is stiff and as terse as the plot and the Scottish vernacular often difficult to follow. But this tale of brotherly love is enjoyably ghoulish. The characters are wonderfully depicted through the memoirs of the house-keeper, a rather puritanical chap, whose professional detatchment is entertainingly the linchpin for this journey through reputation and repudiation.

Or it might just be about two brothers that don't get on very well. Still got 100 pages to go.

 

[jodal]

"We Need To Talk About Kevin" - so far so good

 

[May Kasahara]

I'm reading 'Small Island' for my book club, and so far it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. I'm only about 70 pages in though, so maybe it heats up later on. Not that it's bad or anything, just seems rather unremarkable. I put it down and instantly forget all about it.

 

[k_s]

I'm reading dostoevsky's 'demons', as well as terry pratchett's masterpiece 'small gods' for when i'm too stoned to read dostoevsky.

 

[spartacus mills]

About to start Alexander Trocchi's 'Helen and Desire'.

 

[krtek a houby]

Chukwuemaka Ike's "Toads for Supper".

Funny, sad, rites-of-passage campus comedy Nigerian-style.

There's something about Nigerian writers that reminds me of my own country, Ireland.

Can't quite put my finger on it but I can relate to the novels that come out of that country.

Ben Okri, Chinua Achebe, Gabriel Okaro...

Maybe my reading of Nigerian authors is slight but there's a voice, a distinctive style that draws you in.

A sense of humour and a knowingness about the state of affairs.

Admittedly, a lot of these are set pre-independence but I look fwd to reading the definitive "modern" Nigerian novel soon.

Any recommendations?

 

[foamy]

just started 'Stuart, A Life Backwards' by alex masters

havent read much though cos firky wont stop talking!!!

 

[tastebud]

I'm reading more Murakami - Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

 

[Jenerys]

Dry by Augusten Burroughs

 

[trashpony]

I'm reading 'Small Island' for my book club, and so far it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. I'm only about 70 pages in though, so maybe it heats up later on. Not that it's bad or anything, just seems rather unremarkable. I put it down and instantly forget all about it.

Me too. I've read another of her novels which I was very underwhelmed by but thought that may have been an anomaly. Now I'm beginning to wonder if it's been so lauded for its subject matter, rather than the actual writing.

 

[chooch]

Czeslaw Milosz the captive mind.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finished 'The Emigrants' by WG Sebald and 'The Big Sleep'.

Starting 'How German Is It' by Walter Abish, and maybe 'Farewell, My Lovely'.

 

[anfield]

From Russia With Love - Ian Fleming

 

[chooch]

Umberto Eco- Serendipities. Very entertaining. It's from the same weaving of cleverness and folly as the search for a perfect language.

 

[Philbc03]

Just finished Peter Taaffe's '1926 General Strike - Workers Taste Power' and now embarked on Richard Brautigan's 'Revenge of the Lawn'.

 

[chooch]

Richard Fletcher- Moorish Spain. A tad worthy but harmless.
James Robert Brown -Who Rules in Science?. Good so far. It's a knockabout philosophy of science thing.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

just started Cell by Stephen King

 

[muser]

I heard a review of Douglas Coupland's Jpod on radio 4 and it has me wanting to buy it. Can anyone from here recommend it. I'm open to reading all books, Alice Munro to George Orwell, but tend to prefer well written books.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I heard a review of Douglas Coupland's Jpod on radio 4 and it has me wanting to buy it. Can anyone from here recommend it. I'm open to reading all books, Alice Munro to George Orwell, but tend to prefer well written books.

I've got the special edition on order (you get a little lego figure *geek*) - Have you read Microserfs, apparently it's that for a new generation. It has the same crazy random pages of words and symbols inside.

I'm still reading Grapes of Wrath - it is bloody wonderful.

 

[CharlieAddict]

I'm still reading Grapes of Wrath - it is bloody wonderful.

one of my favourites that!!!!!
just finished sweet tuesday last week - good follow up to cannery row.

now reading colin wilson's the outsider - quite disgusted that i not discovered him sooner.

 

[SubZeroCat]

I've read several great books in the last 2 months:

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - bloody amazing, read it twice, first time it made me burst into tears. Incredible and original love story sans cheese, incredibly moving, I fell in love with the characters.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - really good, explores relationships between parents and their children. Kevin is a psycho.

Boiling A Frog by Christopher Brookmyre - I love his stuff, political satire, fantastic prose, dangerously acerbic etc...

Stuart, A Life Backwards - a biography about Stuart, a homeless alcoholic drug abuser who struggles with addiction, a childhood of sexual abuse and uncontrollable rages. His life is written backwards, which is interesting.

I've almost finished that one......need.more.books.

 

[Orang Utan]

I read Slaughterhouse 5 the other week - liked it but think it must be overrated cos I can't remember a thing about it.

 

[SubZeroCat]

I bought two Christopher Brookmyre books yesterday.

I've started on "One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night". The other one is "A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away".

 

[Rollem]

i have started readng "the virgin suicides"

its getting on my nerves a bit, but i will stick with it....

 

[Belushi]

'Rubicon' by Tom Holland. Cracking narrative history of the last decades of the Roman Republic.

 

[Sid's Snake]

Im re-reading Uylsses -coz I always do in June.

Joyce is a June writer. Ulysees is 24 hours on the 15th June and, I the book just is so adpt to the month of June,

la joie de vive


"Weak joy opened his lips"

Seminal.

<swoons>

 

[citydreams]

I bought two Christopher Brookmyre books yesterday.

I've started on "One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night". The other one is "A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away".

Before you read them you should give a previous bookgroup book a try: "Motherless Brooklyn"
I think it fits nicely alongside Brookmyre without being too samey. It still has just as many laughs though.

 

[foamy]

I've read several great books in the last 2 months:

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - bloody amazing, read it twice, first time it made me burst into tears. Incredible and original love story sans cheese, incredibly moving, I fell in love with the characters.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - really good, explores relationships between parents and their children. Kevin is a psycho.


Stuart, A Life Backwards - a biography about Stuart, a homeless alcoholic drug abuser who struggles with addiction, a childhood of sexual abuse and uncontrollable rages. His life is written backwards, which is interesting.

I've just finished 'Stuart - A life backwards' and was wondering whether to read 'Time travellers wife next' or 'We need to talk about kevin'
*hatches plan to form splinter book group*

 

[Orang Utan]

I'd be up for that - I'd like to read books that I actually want to read.