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    Lazy Llama

*What book are you reading ?

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A mate brought me back some of my missing Annie Proulx, so I started re-reading Bad Dirt :cool: Looks like she's got not just one, but two new books, coming out - let's hope they stay on course for publication this time around

Am also just finishing a biog of John Peel by Mick Wall
 
Finished Open Doors and Three Novellas by Leonardo Sciascia, which was ruthless and spare and utterly great.

The last things he wrote, that seem to bring most of his big themes together. The title story is particularly brilliant, but all of them are touched by greatness. It's only when you read a fair bit of him that you realise how special he was (because the author himself is always there), and how unique his crossing of investigative essay, detective story, court/police procedural and history was. There's no one who can touch him. He's close to being my favourite writer I think.

Read him!

---

Now it's I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal.
 
I'm reading Ring of Brightwater by Gavin Maxwell.

It makes me want to go and find an abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere and live there.
 
sojourner said:
A mate brought me back some of my missing Annie Proulx, so I started re-reading Bad Dirt :cool: Looks like she's got not just one, but two new books, coming out - let's hope they stay on course for publication this time around

Am also just finishing a biog of John Peel by Mick Wall
Click to expand...

It's partly thanks to Annie Proulx that I know how to make a noose. :)
 
cybertect said:
Still on my English history kick -
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Could you perhaps point me in the direction towards a decent "history of britain" type book without a tory bias?
I just read such a gigantic edition which turned out to be just endless recitations of monarchs and battles, military strategies etc., with nearly nothing on ordinary people or culture... (!), and it was a real letdown, since the subject in itself is so (potentially) interesting.
 
I'm more attuned to political and diplomatic history, but if you're after something quite general, I imagine you could do a lot worse than Asa Briggs' A Social History of England which covers the period from the Ice Age up to Thatcher in the latest edition.

e2a: If you want a good contemporary account of early 19th Century England, take a look at William Cobbett's Rural Rides from 1830. It casts a light on the poverty in rural Britian that is often forgotten today in the chocolate-box view of the pre-industrial countryside.

Actually, the Christopher Hill book I'm reading at the moment is quite a broad study of the political, economic and religious aspects of the 17th century. I'm enjoying it a lot.
 
sojourner said:
:cool:

how come only partly?
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Because The Shipping News has a variety of knots in it. I don't think a noose is one of them. If it I couldn't work it out from the diagram. I expressed my disappointment to a work colleague who so happened to know how to make nooses from his army days and he taught me. :)
 
Papingo said:
Because The Shipping News has a variety of knots in it. I don't think a noose is one of them. If it I couldn't work it out from the diagram. I expressed my disappointment to a work colleague who so happened to know how to make nooses from his army days and he taught me. :)
Click to expand...

:D excellent!

I need to learn how to make a lasso actually...


Anyway, I finally got round to finishing this
51JXG2FK13L._SS500_.jpg

Have been reading it on and off at bedtimes, and I think it's a must-read for everyone. There's so much in there that is revelatory - and the most objective book about the Holocaust I've ever come across.
 
cybertect said:
I'm more attuned to political and diplomatic history, but if you're after something quite general, I imagine you could do a lot worse than Asa Briggs' A Social History of England which covers the period from the Ice Age up to Thatcher in the latest edition.

e2a: If you want a good contemporary account of early 19th Century England, take a look at William Cobbett's Rural Rides from 1830. It casts a light on the poverty in rural Britian that is often forgotten today in the chocolate-box view of the pre-industrial countryside.

Actually, the Christopher Hill book I'm reading at the moment is quite a broad study of the political, economic and religious aspects of the 17th century. I'm enjoying it a lot.
Click to expand...
Ah, cheers- will check those out now :)
Yeah, Hill wrote the World Turned Upside Down, didn't he? I kept coming across references to that book for years, and always meant to track it down, but never got round to it...
- More fodder for the reading list! :cool:
 
i finished Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle and started Slam by Nick Hornby. I really ought to tackle something more intellectual :oops:
 
foamy said:
i finished Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle and started Slam by Nick Hornby. I really ought to tackle something more intellectual :oops:
Click to expand...
Heck, reading in itself is intellectual! :p :D
There are people who never read at all, you know... ! :eek:
 
i know, i know but i have some more challenging books on the shelf which i keep passing up for the likes of Hornby *hangs head in shame* :D
 
foamy said:
i know, i know but i have some more challenging books on the shelf which i keep passing up for the likes of Hornby *hangs head in shame* :D
Click to expand...

Never hang your head in shame at reading ANY book. Apart from The Diceman, and only then, if you liked it :D;)
 
Lost city radio - I bought it without reading about it properly and then realised that it was all about Lima and Peru from the descriptions of the coast. Well worth a read, people who just disappear.
 
cybertect said:
I'm more attuned to political and diplomatic history, but if you're after something quite general, I imagine you could do a lot worse than Asa Briggs' A Social History of England, which covers the period from the Ice Age up to Thatcher in the latest edition.
Click to expand...
Looks good. Might have some of that when I've finished the next 12 on the list. Some of the history suggestions on this and other Urban threads have been corking. :cool:
 
The History of the Qur'anic Text (from Revelation to Compliation) - M.M Al-Azami

Edited to add:

Reading this has proved to be quite disturbing, I never thought that I would find the suggestion (however opaque) that recent Western scholarly examination of the Qur'an (for which read 'hostile') is linked to the foundation of the state of Israel.
 
Just finished "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver - and throughly enjoyed it.

Found it thought-provoking and compelling, although it took 50-100 pages to get into, until Kevin is born really. Recommend it to anyone.

Just starting Friends of the Earth by TC Boyle.
 
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