*What book are you reading ?

[Pie 1]

I'm currently finishing Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy

A wonderful trilogy but I'm a less than blown away with the last part.

McCarthy's a truly great American writer. All The Pretty Horses is my favourite - it has the most beautiful prose.
His latest book, No Country For Old Men is also very good.

I've just finished Marina Lewycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which was very enjoyable. And re read Jonathan Raban's Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meaning.

I'm currently re reading Bill Drumond's excellent '45'

 

[colbhoy]

I have just started The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Picked up the Wordswoth Classic edition for £1.50. I have seen the leather bound 2 volume set at my dad's over the years and have always intendd reading it so picked it up when I saw it for such a good price.

I am about 4 chapters in and enjoying it.

 

[snouty warthog]

"whole in one"- an exploration of near death experiences

 

[JoeCowenlives]

"Religion and the Rise of Capitalism"

by R.H. Tawney.

It's a laff-a-minute romp through the gradual evolution from medieval scholastic proscriptions against usury to the Puritan work and business ethos via the compromises of the Calvinistic city theocracy.

Sad bugger, aren't I? And I don't even have the excuse that it's a course book ..

Joe

 

[JoeCowenlives]

Reading 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke, a 1000 page romp through nineteenth century magicians circles

How are you getting on with it, Cyberfairy? I found it hard going, and the style started to get on my nerves after a while.

'Er indoors loved it, though.

Joe

 

[mrkikiet]

watching the english - kate fox. interesting in parts, very repetitive and seemed determined to prove half the points through her own writing style.

dead babies - amis. a delightful romp through a country weekend.

 

[MysteryGuest]

The Colour of a Dog Running Away - Richard Gwyn


Just finished it, and got that sad pang I only get when I've finished something really magical that really drew me in. It's all very neat, very lucid, nice touch of self-referential/unreliable narrator ambiguity near the end but all lightly worn. And I found it really atmospheric, which you'd jolly well expect from something set in Barcelona's gothic quarter tbh. Just listing the components wouldn't really put across anything of the flavour of the book, though - look it up on amazon or whatever for a synopsis if you're interested.

 

[Orang Utan]

Hey Moisty - where you been? I was wondering where you'd got to

 

[MysteryGuest]

I have ascended on to a higher plane.


I just pop in to "slum it" now and again, lest I forget my earthly origins.

 

[girasol]

The Rape of The Fair Country

I don't have a lot of space in my flat so I just go around borrowing books from family, friends and library.

A couple of days ago I went to see my mum and asked to borrow a good book and she lent me 'The rape of the fair country' by Alexander Cordell. I wasn't raised in England but I understand this is a classic and a must read (at least in Wales!).

I've read the first 2 chapters and I'm already totally imersed in it, it's very funny and well written.

 

[jbob]

Austerlitz by W.G Sebald. The story focuses on the search for identity by an architectural archaeologist, whose childhood origins had been erased from the time of his evacuation on the Kindertransport. A gracefully written book, with economic prose that has a buoyant poetic lyricism, that is moving in the strangest of ways. The descriptions of bulidings, their interiors, transposed into memories, and how environment can awake repressed emotions, is quite startling.

Now re-reading Heart of Darkness.

 

[Orang Utan]

Sebald bores me silly

 

[jbob]

Funny, I thought he would too, and it did for a while, but then I really got into it. Like reading a slow film, if you know what I mean.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Nah, Sebald's great. I like them all but 'Rings of Saturn' is a masterpiece.

 

[May Kasahara]

I've started "Black Swan Green" and so far it's pretty unconvincing.

 

[Orang Utan]

Is that the new Mitchell?

 

[chooch]

Finished the maltese falcon and started Derek Raymond, the crust on its uppers.
Also dipping into a bloomsbury dictionary of euphemisms. Must remember to refer to an afternoon booze as a bracer or a quick snort...

 

[May Kasahara]

Is that the new Mitchell?

Yeah it is. Two points to consider though: I haven't read any of his other books and am still interested in doing so, as I understand they are quite different to this; also, I read on Amazon that this was the first novel he drafted but the fourth to actually be published, which may explain why it's a retrograde step going by the little I know of his other work.

 

[Orang Utan]

Isn't it about a stammerer? Mitchell himself is one

 

[May Kasahara]

Yeah, and it's set in Worcs which is where he grew up, I think.

Oh well, I won't be at book club next week anyway now, so at least my fellow book clubbers will be spared the hairdryer treatment from me

Edit: in fairness, the stuff about stammering is pretty interesting - I kind of guessed he might have had personal experience as it's so vividly drawn. But the early 80s setting just seems like lazy pastiche and none of the characters have escaped their cardboardyness as yet.

 

[Iam]

have you read his sci-fi trilogy? weird and a bit off-putting. the main female character in it gets abused pretty horrifically. she also keeps being unable to scream due to sounds not being able to express her anguish and so on. I liked the original Covenant stuff but that made me wonder about donaldson's mental wellbeing (and his views on women.)

I read the Gap series years ago, long before these, and yeah, some of what happens to the female lead - especially in the first book - is not very nice. I read an interview a while back where he explained why he'd written these characters like this (I won't try to repeat it, but it was to do with overcoming incredible damage to become stronger than one could have been without - shocker).

Oddly, in the one I've been reading, Linden is the lead character... and I still find myself thinking that the attitude in the narrative voice to her being female is a little... well, victorian, perhaps. Some of the psychology of the Covenant books is pretty odd in general, but beyond that, I've enjoyed them on the whole.

 

[tommers]

Oddly, in the one I've been reading, Linden is the lead character... and I still find myself thinking that the attitude in the narrative voice to her being female is a little... well, victorian, perhaps. Some of the psychology of the Covenant books is pretty odd in general, but beyond that, I've enjoyed them on the whole.

is linden the female lead in the second trilogy? name rings a bell but it's been a while since I read em. (you know the one with the exaggerated seasons etc.)

 

[Iam]

is linden the female lead in the second trilogy? name rings a bell but it's been a while since I read em. (you know the one with the exaggerated seasons etc.)

Yeah, so far anyway. And yeah, the 3 day suns.

I struggled a great deal - more so than with any other fantasy I've read in years - with these up until the 3rd part of the 1st trilogy, then it seemed to click. I thought the second was excellent and this one is good so far, too.

He likes words, though. Lots and lots and lots of 'em.

 

[tommers]

Yeah, so far anyway. And yeah, the 3 day suns.

I struggled a great deal - more so than with any other fantasy I've read in years - with these up until the 3rd part of the 1st trilogy, then it seemed to click. I thought the second was excellent and this one is good so far, too.

He likes words, though. Lots and lots and lots of 'em.

yeah he certainly does. I liked the first trilogy and was less keen on the second one. I thought the bloodguard were . Vain was quite a nice idea though. The bit in the sand city was good, was that in the first or the second one?

 

[Iam]

The second, when they're off around the sea with the giants.

I like the fact that because it's all so epic in its scope, there's a lot of room and time for him to give depth to his characters. Even some of the bit parts are very carefully drawn and it lends a certain draw for me. The Bloodguard are still about, in a somewhat different form, still odd and inscrutable.

As I say, I found the first one very difficult indeed (my housemate, also an avid reader, put it down after a few chapters and has never picked it back up). I'm going to try the Gap series again... hopefully... if Amazon ever manage to come up with books 1 & 4.

I bought a couple of new ones in a series today (as recommended by the cute lass in Waterstones ) but I can't remember what they are right now off the top of my head. Something about magic or the other. I also resisted buying either of the new Robin Hobb or Terry Goodkind, even though I'm keen to read both - £19 a go for the hardbacks. Sod that.

 

[tommers]

The second, when they're off around the sea with the giants.

I like the fact that because it's all so epic in its scope, there's a lot of room and time for him to give depth to his characters. Even some of the bit parts are very carefully drawn and it lends a certain draw for me. The Bloodguard are still about, in a somewhat different form, still odd and inscrutable.

ah. maybe I liked the second one more than I remember then.

you've actually tempted me to dig my copies out and give them another go. I think it's been long enough to forget most of the plot!

I actually found the sci fi stuff to be a real struggle. I finished it really just as a point of pride, and because I liked the covenant stuff so much that I thought it just has to get better.

but it didn't.

 

[Iam]

I read it a long time ago. While I was at school. I only very vaguely remember the plot, beyond the synopsis I read when I ordered them. But I'm sure I enjoyed them at least, and I've being wanting to read sci-fi again since I read Richard Morgan's books and I've been disappointed by most of what I've picked up so far.

 

[Philbc03]

I've finished Thatcher's Downing Street memoir. Very interesting as a psychological self-portrait and particularly so her discussion of the events around the poll tax. Of course she was right and everyone else was wrong.

This morning I started and finished Roald Dahl's The Magic Finger and now I've gone all chick-lit with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

 

[tastebud]

Very much enjoing A Mind to Murder by PD James at the moment. Also three quarters way through No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully which has impressed and interested me a lot. I agree with a lot of what he says about India and the roles of the Westernised elite. He seems to totally adore the country without getting too big for his boots like a lot of much less frequent (and therefore pretty annoying to all) travellers seem to.
It's also highly readable and written in an interesting way.

 

[Julie]

The Death of Amy Parris. Not bad so far.