What are you reading?

[pap]

After much prodding from all human members of my family, I started reading The Hunger Games books. I've seen the first movie a couple of times, and quite liked it. Probably the right order to do it; they made something of a hash of that film in getting a couple of key plot points across. I've apparently done what most people do; dawdle their way through the first book and then zoomed through the others following its conclusion.

 

I'm beyond the Battle Royale comparisons really. If you want to get picky, you might argue that Battle Royale ripped off every movie with a gladiatorial bent. The depiction of the country of Panem is pretty interesting, and although they do revisit Games territory in the second book, it's a real change up. Have to say, it is a bit girly. There's a lot of stuff about outfits and boys and suchlike. However, it all moves at a fair old whack and the series is not afraid to put its major pieces in play.

 

One aspect of the books I really enjoy is the horrifically frivolous way that science is used by the Capitol.

[pap]

And we're done on The Hunger Games trilogy.

 

Overall, I'd rate it well worth the time, but I do wonder how relevant these books will be in 20 years time. The power of celebrity is a huge theme, so it's the sort of thing that'll look eerily prescient if we continue on our current trajectory of having surgically-altered celebs plastered all over the news, or dated if we ever have a punk-esque rejection of celebrity culture values.

 

Katniss is a superb protagonist. The tough-but-vulnerable trope is done masterfully here, largely because she's pretty human too. She's not an emotionless robot and is deeply affected by events around her. She makes some very interesting decisions - none of them feel forced or cheated.

 

Haven't seen the second movie yet; the fam tell me it's very good. The movie series has every chance of carving its own place, though - if I had a criticism of the books overall, it's that the action is a bit of a muddle, particularly in the third book. I didn't really get a sense of what places looked like or even how some character deaths played out at the time. The medium of film will do that last part of the story a lot of justice.

 

Never boring though, and a proper earner of reputation points with the Teenage Units.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

'Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-45' by Max Hastings.

 

While he is best know perhaps as a newspaper editor and political commentator Max Hastings is also a military historian of some note - a reputation this fine book will surely only enhance. 'Nemesis' deals with the final stages of Japan's agonising defeat during WWII, from MacArthur's bloody Battle of the Philippines, to the jungles of Burma, and all points in between. So a vast subject then that deserves (and gets) a big book to do it justice.

 

What makes this history so fascinating is the level of research Hastings's has gone into in order to explore the lesser know (to me anyway) aspects of the pacific war. Mainstream accounts of the action from a British or US perspective are comparatively commonplace, as in the story behind the nuclear destruction Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example. But the Japanese viewpoint is often less fully explored and as for the (terrible) experiences of some poor Korean 'comfort woman', or the awful suffering of the people of Manila during their 'liberation'... well to be frank about it these aspects of the conflict are seldom treated here in the west with the level of respect they deserve.

 

Beautifully written and cogently argued, the conclusions Hastings draws here about the 'endgame' of the pacific war and Imperial Japan's appalling culpability in regard to the level of suffering they inflicted on so many seem almost incontrovertible. Nemesis is a fine example of just how well executed modern military history writing has become. Highly recommended.

 

[View From The Top]

Just finished Pirlo's autobiography and very good it was too. Not something I'd normally read either.

[View From The Top]

'Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-45' by Max Hastings.

 

While he is best know perhaps as a newspaper editor and political commentator Max Hastings is also a military historian of some note - a reputation this fine book will surely only enhance. 'Nemesis' deals with the final stages of Japan's agonising defeat during WWII, from MacArthur's bloody Battle of the Philippines, to the jungles of Burma, and all points in between. So a vast subject then that deserves (and gets) a big book to do it justice.

 

What makes this history so fascinating is the level of research Hastings's has gone into in order to explore the lesser know (to me anyway) aspects of the pacific war. Mainstream accounts of the action from a British or US perspective are comparatively commonplace, as in the story behind the nuclear destruction Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example. But the Japanese viewpoint is often less fully explored and as for the (terrible) experiences of some poor Korean 'comfort woman', or the awful suffering of the people of Manila during their 'liberation'... well to be frank about it these aspects of the conflict are seldom treated here in the west with the level of respect they deserve.

 

Beautifully written and cogently argued, the conclusions Hastings draws here about the 'endgame' of the pacific war and Imperial Japan's appalling culpability in regard to the level of suffering they inflicted on so many seem almost incontrovertible. Nemesis is a fine example of just how well executed modern military history writing has become. Highly recommended.

 

 

He's an excellent historian. Right up there with Beevor.

[pap]

I've just finished The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss.

 

Excellent fantasy book which is apparently part of a series called the Kingkiller Chronicles, already optioned for a TV series at some point. Without going into too many spoilers, the book centres around Kvothe, a man of huge repute currently laying low in a bar, posing as innkeeper. A scribe is despatched to the bar to collect the truth behind the legend. In the Name of the Wind, Kvothe focuses on telling the story of his earlier life, ranging from around the age of 8 or 9 to around fifteen.

 

Kvothe is supremely talented at most things he ever tries his hand at, but is extremely poor with women and patience. A proper risk-taker, it's very interesting to see how his accounts of stories differ with those told by the patrons of his bar (all of whom are completely in the dark about the innkeep's true identity). As the title might imply, a lot of the book's magic is predicated on knowing the true name of things - but that's not why you should read this book. The characters and locations are top-notch, and often very funny.

 

Already bought the next book in the series, but if you're looking for a fantasy series before the Winds of Winter lands, this one comes highly recommended.

Edited 8 May, 2014 by pap

[Monk]

Just finished Pirlo's autobiography and very good it was too. Not something I'd normally read either.

 

Just finished too.

 

One of my favourites.

 

I am now moving on to Spain:The Inside story of La Rojas treble.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

A little while ago the BBC showed a programe that covered the (extraordinary) life of William the Marshal - perhaps the most remarkable knight medieval England ever produced. With my interest thus sparked I hurriedly ordered a book off the internet in a effort to further my knowledge of The Marshal and his many deeds. Unfortunately (due to my carelessness) this book - 'The Greatest Knight' by Elizabeth Chadwick - turned out to be one of those 'historical-fiction' category novels rather than the non-fiction historical biography I had been seeking.

 

So a accident then, but a happy one as it turned out because reading this book I soon came to the conclusion that Chadwick has a real feel for her subject and a prose style that seems to capture the spirit of that long gone Anglo-Norman world of the 12/13th Century with some aplomb. Now this book is more novel than pure history because at this distance in time there is just so much we don't know about William Marshall the man, for instance, how happy his marriage to Isabel de Clare really was is a matter of conjecture. However, based on what we do know from contemporary accounts Chadwick's interpretation of his long life seems to me a scholarly and reasonable one.

 

The Marshal has become such a hero of mine now that I've promised myself that one fine day I will make the pilgrimage to London and visit his tomb in the Templar Church off Fleet Street. As I'm starting to suspect that William was quite possibly the greatest Englishman to ever live this seems the least I could do ...

 

[Suhari]

Nod by Adrian Barnes

 

Humans are suddenly unable to sleep, well, all but about 1 in 10,000. Those affected go mental pretty quickly, society breaks down. Well written and quite thought provoking. Nominated for the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award.

 

Excellent, excellent read, which ironically I polished off in 2 sittings, reading well into the early morning.

[Monk]

I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic:

 

10/10

[KelvinsRightGlove]

I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic:

 

10/10

 

Do you read anything non football related Monk lad?

[Monk]

Do you read anything non football related Monk lad?

 

Not quite yet, not cultured enough. Closest to non football related reading is early years related and sports psychology.

[revolution saint]

OK, read a few fairly recently so here's my thoughts

 

An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris. Really enjoyed this one. I'd tried his book on Cicero but gave up - I'll give it another go now though. This book really interested me and I've always found French history exciting. I knew a bit about the Dreyfuss affair as I'm a fan of Zola but Harris does a terrific job of turning a story of great injustice into a modern parable. It stands up in its own right as well. My only slight criticism is that after a great build up the ending seemed a little protracted and lacked a bit of momentum but that's a minor point and thoroughly recommended.

 

Live by Night - Dennis Lehane. I've enjoyed lots of lehane books like Mystic River and when he's at the top of his game then the books are unputdownable. This one tells the tale of a small time crook who makes it as a gangster during the prohibition era in America. Apparently it's to be made into a film and it'll probably be a good one along the goodfellas line. As a novel I thought it fairly good but suffered because it centered too much around the life of one character and the events around him became the other characters. Good read about an exciting era but not his best by a long way.

 

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion. Don't normally read these types of books but it had good reviews and fancied something lighter. This is a tale of an obviously (obviously except to him) autistic lecturer in Australia who embarks on finding a wife because it is proven to increase longevity. Of course the girl of his dreams doesn't fit any of his carefully prepared criteria and that's a struggle for him. It's a good, fun little book and funny. Maybe overdoes the autistic angle - surely not all autistic people can be like rainman but if you ignore that then it's pretty entertaining.

 

The Thicket - Joe R Lansdale. Think True Grit meets the Coen brothers. I don't like westerns much but this was brilliant, funny and gripping. Early 20th Century and a 17 year old boy searches out the kidnappers of his sister in East Texas. He ends up accompanied by a midget, a hog and it's grave digging negro "owner", and a prostitute with a heart of gold. There's tension, violence and humour along the way as the unlikely band track down the sister in a hornets nest of outlaws. Really recommend this one. Lansdale does many different styles and all well, after this I read a short story of his called The Drive In which is a terrific homage to classic B movie horror films.

 

I am Pilgrim - This had had some terrific reviews and was bought on the back of these. Apparently it's Bond meets Bourne in a modern spy setting. It's not though. It's total rubbish and awful. The writing was so bad it made me feel dirty. Avoid.

 

Mr Mercedes - Stephen King. Retired cop tracks down homicidal lunatic in a race against time. King goes for standard thriller here - no ghosts or supernatural stuff but doesn't suffer for it. It's not his best but perfectly readable and enjoyable. Forget any of the comments about hard boiled crime because it's not that but if you want an exciting standard detective story told with a bit of style then you won't go far wrong.

[RedAndWhite91]

I recently read "Parachute Infantry" which was written by a fella named David K Webster. He was portrayed in Band of Brothers and one of the episodes was based on him. The book details his time during the second world war with the 101st airborne from D-Day to Germany. He was a writer before the war so it is very well written, found it to be one of those books that you can't put down. Bloody good read if you're into that sort of thing.

 

I'm now reading the account of a British soldier in WW1. It's called "A Long Way To Tipperary?". Whilst Maurice Graffet Neal doesn't have the same writing skills as David K Webster, his account of WW1 is incredibly 'real'. Enjoying it greatly. He wrote it after the war and his granddaughter (?) decided to publish it. He had to go to Netley military hospital and then after the war lived in Netley and then Hamble until he died, so there's some local relevance too.

 

Both very good and I 100% recommend them both to anyone with an interest in WW1/WW2 history.

[Horley CTFC Saint]

Les Miserables and the Crawley Town v Ipswich programme!

[Whitey Grandad]

Les Miserables and the Crawley Town v Ipswich programme!

 

Oh. Which is playing the part of Les?

[Polaroid Saint]

The Grand Contraption: The World as Myth, Number and Chance by David Park

 

Ooh. This looks good. Added to me wish list.

 

(Just finished The Serpents Promise by the excellent Steve Jones, so this looks like a decent follow up).

[Horley CTFC Saint]

Oh. Which is playing the part of Les?

 

Some bald bloke with a fear of chives

[saintmatt]

And we're done on The Hunger Games trilogy.

 

Overall, I'd rate it well worth the time, but I do wonder how relevant these books will be in 20 years time. The power of celebrity is a huge theme, so it's the sort of thing that'll look eerily prescient if we continue on our current trajectory of having surgically-altered celebs plastered all over the news, or dated if we ever have a punk-esque rejection of celebrity culture values.

 

Katniss is a superb protagonist. The tough-but-vulnerable trope is done masterfully here, largely because she's pretty human too. She's not an emotionless robot and is deeply affected by events around her. She makes some very interesting decisions - none of them feel forced or cheated.

 

Haven't seen the second movie yet; the fam tell me it's very good. The movie series has every chance of carving its own place, though - if I had a criticism of the books overall, it's that the action is a bit of a muddle, particularly in the third book. I didn't really get a sense of what places looked like or even how some character deaths played out at the time. The medium of film will do that last part of the story a lot of justice.

 

Never boring though, and a proper earner of reputation points with the Teenage Units.

 

I enjoyed hunger games but nothing more than 6/10 for me.

 

***spoilers***

 

I thought them going back into hunger games in second book was a poor decision. Wouldve been much better if katniss et al had made their way to district 13 themselves, imo. That way reader would get to explore what world was like outside the districts. I thought this was how it was going to go when katniss went outside district early in book 2 and met those two other characters in the house by the lake!

[KelvinsRightGlove]

Reading Creativity Inc. at the minute.

 

It's by the President of Pixar & Disney Animation. It's really interesting listening how he overcomes certain issues. A lot of the things he talks about I see in the company I work at.

 

It's also fascinating reading about the evolution of the Pixar films (sure I'm not the only one that loves nearly all of these) and how the stories end up almost unrecognisable from how they started.

[Suhari]

Shantaram.

 

God it's ****.

[Polaroid Saint]

Shantaram.

 

God it's ****.

 

I really liked it. You have to give in to the guys ego and then just roll with the story.

[Suhari]

I really liked it. You have to give in to the guys ego and then just roll with the story.

 

To be fair my rather succinct review was fuelled by a few Kronenbergs!

 

I read Shantaram over the last week. The first half was great: really engaging, well written, created a lovely picture of the sights, sounds and feel of Bombay: terrific. And then....it got bogged down with overly long, pseudo philosophical dialogue, and the author/characters ego and sense of self worth almost drained my will to live. Which did spoil it more than a bit.

 

A book of two halves.

 

So perhaps '****' is overly critical, so 5/10. With the first 48% (according to my Kindle) scoring 9/10.

 

Enjoyed myself over the last day or so reading around the 'what's true, what's not' stuff though.

Edited 24 August, 2014 by Suhari

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Flagship to Murmansk by Robert Hughes.

 

Extraordinary things can happen to what otherwise may be quite ordinary people during wartime, and the war Robert Hughes was to experience was to prove no exception. This young teacher was plucked from the safety of a Welsh schoolroom and found himself crammed into the gunnery director of the newly commissioned Anti Aircraft cruiser - HMS Scylla - escorting the famous Arctic convoy PQ18. These convoys supplied vital military aid to Russia during WWII which naturally resulted in the enemy throwing everything they had at them in a effort to stop the flow of supplies. So HMS Scylla, and her inexperienced crew, were soon to find themselves in the thick of the action.

 

Unlike the unfortunate PQ17 this convoy stuck together and thus most of PQ18 managed to get through ultimately, but casualties were still heavy as wave after wave of German bombers and U-Boats attacked the convoy - and if your ship was sunk your survival prospects in the bitterly cold Arctic water could be measured in a matter of minutes only.

 

Hughes recounts the tale of Scylla picking up one incredibly fortunate survivor from the US freighter 'Mary Luckenbach' - a ship that disintegrated in a cataclysmic explosion when a torpedo set off her cargo of 1000 tons of TNT. One moment this man (a black steward) had been waking along the upper deck taking the captain his lunch, the next he found himself a mile away floating in the water - his ship, and all his shipmates, nothing but a nuclear-like mushroom cloud rising in the far distance. C'est la guerre I suppose.

 

The author and HMS Scylla (known as the 'toothless terror' because she was fitted with smaller guns than intended) would survive this convoy and go on to fight in the Mediterranean and on another Arctic convoy before hitting a German mine off the Normandy beaches in June 1944, a mine that would damage her so badly that she was never repaired. A sad end then to a fine ship that served this nation well during her short, but action packed, life. Just one ship and crew among thousands of course, but a microcosm of a nation at war I think.

 

This book is long out of print but there are literary hundreds of remarkable personal accounts of the Royal Navy during WWII still available out there if you look hard enough. So if you find one on the internet, or in a second hand bookshop perhaps, then buy it because in my experience precious few (if any) of them are not worth reading.

 

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/convoy-to-russia

[Foxy]

 

The Thicket - Joe R Lansdale. Think True Grit meets the Coen brothers. I don't like westerns much but this was brilliant, funny and gripping. Early 20th Century and a 17 year old boy searches out the kidnappers of his sister in East Texas. He ends up accompanied by a midget, a hog and it's grave digging negro "owner", and a prostitute with a heart of gold. There's tension, violence and humour along the way as the unlikely band track down the sister in a hornets nest of outlaws. Really recommend this one.

 

Gave this a go on the back of your review. Excellent, thanks mate.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

'No Comebacks' by Frederick Forsyth. A collection of ten short stories by a author who - if you have ever read 'The Day of the Jackal' or 'The Dogs of War' - you might well consider to be perhaps the master story teller of his generation. All the various tales included in this book are well worth reading, but for me the highlights are:

The Emperor. A henpecked little man on holiday in Mauritius finally learns what it means to be truly alive, but only courtesy of a epic ten hour battle to land the 'Emperor' - a huge Marlin of formidable repute.

 

Money with Menaces. A city banker finds himself caught up in a blackmail plot after he changes the habits of a lifetime and visits a prostitute. But this man didn't always work in banking and the blackmailer may be about to receive something more than he had bargained for.

 

Used in Evidence. Chief Superintendent Hanley of the Dublin Police must help evict a reclusive old man who refuses to leave his (scheduled for demolition) home. But as the building is demolished it soon becomes horribly clear that it was not just stubbornness that was making the old man so reluctant to move out.

 

No Comebacks. A rich playboy businessman falls in love with a married women, but she steadfastly refuses to leave her husband despite his pleading. So he covertly hires a assassin to murder her husband so that the two of them can be together at last. But instructing this killer to make damn sure that there are 'no comebacks' afterwards results in a consequence he could never possibly have envisioned.

[ecuk268]

Thomas Cromwell : The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant

by Tracy Borman

 

If you're interested in Tudor history and especially if you've read Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" which were fictionalized accounts of Cromwell, this is a true portrait of the man taken from documents written at the time.

 

He's quite a complex character rising from very humble beginnings to being one of Henry VIII's closest advisers. He was a devoted family man but could be extremely ruthless in carrying out his master's wishes, sending many people to execution. Instrumental in the break with Rome and the subsequent persecution of the Catholics, his great achievement was securing Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn.

[manji]

I know there are few WWII buffs on here. I have just finished reading Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII. A jaw dropping book that will mess with your perceptions of the conflict as a just war. It can even be read as the war in Europe continued

until at least 1949. Thousands of German prisoners killed by GI's , raping and pillaging by Allied soldiers (albeit not on the scale of the Soviets), Nazis being put back in charge to subdue Communists. Churchill using Allied troops to massacre Greek freedom

fighters that had fought along British soldiers against the Germans etc. etc. Best book I have read for a very long time.

[Whitey Grandad]

I know there are few WWII buffs on here. I have just finished reading Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII. A jaw dropping book that will mess with your perceptions of the conflict as a just war. It can even be read as the war in Europe continued

until at least 1949. Thousands of German prisoners killed by GI's , raping and pillaging by Allied soldiers (albeit not on the scale of the Soviets), Nazis being put back in charge to subdue Communists. Churchill using Allied troops to massacre Greek freedom

fighters that had fought along British soldiers against the Germans etc. etc. Best book I have read for a very long time.

 

Interesting, thanks.

 

Let's not also forget the Cossacks.

[manji]

Interesting, thanks.

 

Let's not also forget the Cossacks.

It also covers The Balkans, Ukraine etc.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

While war crimes committed by Allied forces in the west seem to have been real, but relatively small scale affairs, large numbers of German soldiers who had surrendered in the Balkans were certainly executed by Tito's forces after the end of the war - warfare in the Balkans for one reason or another always tends to foster especially bitter feelings of hatred among those caught up in it.

 

German prisoners unfortunate to find themselves in Stalin's hands were still dying (in quite large numbers) long after the war was officially over - via a mixture of abuse, overwork, and criminal neglect mostly. The record shows that of over 150,000 German POW's taken at Stalingrad only some 5000 or so would ever live to see their homeland again. Indeed, it would be the mid 1950's before the Soviet Union finally released its last German POW's. None of which even begins to excuse Nazi war crimes of course, but this awful truth too deserves to be remembered.

 

For further reading I recommend that anyone interested in this aspect of the war should also seek out James Lucas's 'The Last Days Of The Reich: The Collapse of Nazi Germany May 1945'.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Murder at Deviation Junction - by Andrew Martin.

 

Although this is the first book by this author that I have myself read, I understand that this novel is just one in a series of detective fiction tales involving the intrepid railway police detective 'Jim Stringer'. Set in the early 1900's, when both our railway system and our industrial heritage were at their formidable heights, this story involves our hero investigating the mysterious murder of a young railway photographer, and the case will lead Detective Constable Stringer onto some extremely dangerous tracks indeed ... oh and trust nobody!

 

If you like the old '39 Steps' story by John Buchan then you'll probably like this undemanding but enjoyable steam powered yarn too, and if the test of a good author is that you'd happily read more of their work then I'd say Andrew Martin has passed with flying colours.

 

[View From The Top]

I know there are few WWII buffs on here. I have just finished reading Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of WWII. A jaw dropping book that will mess with your perceptions of the conflict as a just war. It can even be read as the war in Europe continued

until at least 1949. Thousands of German prisoners killed by GI's , raping and pillaging by Allied soldiers (albeit not on the scale of the Soviets), Nazis being put back in charge to subdue Communists. Churchill using Allied troops to massacre Greek freedom

fighters that had fought along British soldiers against the Germans etc. etc. Best book I have read for a very long time.

 

Just ordered it.

[manji]

Just ordered it.

Look forward to hearing your views.

[pap]

I've been reading Germany: Memories of a Nation.

 

It doesn't claim to be a history of Germany. Rather, it observes the country through its historical artefacts, be that architecture, literature or lost parts of the country. Fascinating book about a fascinating country. It's currently got me a little obsessed with Konigsgrad, the one-time seat of German royalty, now completely Russian, renamed Kalinigrad and part of an exclave.

 

Definitely worth a look if you're interested in our Germanic cousins.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Not a book this week but one of those specialist history magazines that are becoming so popular now - 'Trains at War' edited by Andrew Fowler.

 

Able to move vast amounts of people, equipment and munitions around both at home and at the front the railways were to play a crucial role in both World Wars. So it came as something of a surprise to learn that those responsible for directing our war effort during the Great War committed a grave error of judgement when they planned to supply our forces in France not by rail but via the primitive lorry's that were available in 1914 - lorry's that naturally either broke down or soon became hopelessly mired in the all prevailing mud! The answer to this logistical problem (as the German and French Armies had already foreseen) was to build a network of lightweight narrow gauge tracks to link the standard gauge main lines of the French Railways with the front - a vital lesson this famously railway obsessed nation only learned in the nick of time surprisingly.

 

The pressures of war also played a crucial role in forming the railway system we know today. The many independent railway companies that existed before World War I were placed under state control when the conflict started and after 1918 reorganised into the 'big four' of our railway's so called 'golden age' - the famous LNER LMS GWR & SR groupings. It turns out that the peacetime nationisation of the railway system that occurred after World War II was driven more by the necessity to address the run-down state of the system at that time rather than for reasons of mere political dogma - our railways were virtually worked into the ground during the war. The magazine also contains interesting sections dealing with the crucial role Hospital Trains played in WWI and graphic illustrations of the bomb damage the system suffered from during WWII - a devastated GWR loco laying blitzed at Weymouth Station in January 1941 being particularly interesting to me.

 

Finally in 'Horror and Heroism' the stories of our worse ever rail disaster at Quintinshill in 1915, and the near calamity the little Cambridgeshire town of Soham so narrowly avoided in 1944 are told - the latter tale proving that acts of selfless heroism were not just confined to members of the armed forces because our railwaymen did more than their 'bit' too - even at the cost of their own lives in this instance.

 

Edited 10 January, 2015 by CHAPEL END CHARLIE

[View From The Top]

Look forward to hearing your views.

 

It's a very powerful book. I was reasonably clued up about events in the West & Italy and obviously some of the stuff in the East from other books I've read but I knew nothing really about the ethnic cleansing post war or the fate of the ethnic Germans in places like Czechoslovakia or how the children of Norwegian mothers & German fathers were treated.

 

I'd recommend it to anyone.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

This week I am mostly reading 'German Battlecruisers of World War One' by Gary Staff - which is a superb reference book that deals with the design and operation history some superb warships. But something tells me that few of you will be as interested in the armoured ships of the Kaisers navy as I am. So instead I will tell you about the other book I have on the go at the moment - 'Enigma' by Robert Harris.

 

A story of love, betrayal and cryptography set in the (now) famous Betchley Park during the war, this is one of those novels any reviewer would struggle to avoid using the horrible old cliche of 'I can't put it down' when writing of it - but what can I do, that is the literal truth of the matter.

 

Harris is such a skilled novelist that whichever book of his I pick up I immediately fall into whatever world he has created for me - be it the life of Cicero, a post WWII where the Nazi's had won, or here a mystery set amid the cheap wooden huts and brilliant academic minds of wartime Buckinghamshire.

 

Highly recommended ... and much better than the film version by the way.

[Winnersaint]

Wolf Hall. Had it downloaded to the Kindle before I knew of the TV series.

[pap]

I'm reading Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples.

 

Ok, ok. We all know Churchill's views are somewhat biased, and there's a lot of evidence in this work already that speaks to that, but it's a good read and Winston is one funny f**ker when the fancy takes him. I've let rip with a few unexpected chuckles in the man cave.

 

What you get is a very well written and engaging account of this nation's history. What you have to put up with is the primacy of Churchill's Christian faith throughout. It informs a lot of his work when describing the struggles between the converted Saxons and the heathen Danes, and at times, you get the sense that Winston feels history is divinely ordained, but I can't help enjoying myself regardless. We've had some excellent characters wander up and down these lands over the millennia.

 

Can't help feeling that the entire series would make an excellent framework for a long-running anthology TV series. We've delved bits into our past before, but there's nowt that covers us from start to finish in the way that Churchill's work attempted. I'd definitely recommend the incorporation of more sources into such a work, tho

[whelk]

I keep starting books and don't finish. Not sure why I have such lack of perseverance of late and not is if not enjoying when reading. Latest ones have been Stoner by John Williams, Freedom by Jonathan Frantzen,I am Pilgrim (forget author) and Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. Plan to finish them all. Problem with bloody ebooks I suppose

[Saint Luke]

Not because he passed away but I am reading Rasing Steam by Terry Pratchett.

Another tale in the life of Moist Von Lipwig.

One of Pratchett's best ever characters and one he created a long time into his telling of the tales of the Discworld.

Not as good as the other MvL tales but still very readable.

 

Pratchett will be a big loss to those of us who read his book - which is many - so RIP Sir Terry.

[Suhari]

Not because he passed away but I am reading Rasing Steam by Terry Pratchett.

Another tale in the life of Moist Von Lipwig.

One of Pratchett's best ever characters and one he created a long time into his telling of the tales of the Discworld.

Not as good as the other MvL tales but still very readable.

 

Pratchett will be a big loss to those of us who read his book - which is many - so RIP Sir Terry.

 

I've read all of them, except this one. Thought Snuff was poor - have heard Raising Steam is worse.......'conspiracy theorists' reckon it is more his daughter's work. Not sure if I will read it......

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

Catastrophe: Europe Goes To War 1914 - by Max Hastings

 

I don't suppose there are many more complex historical story's to tell than the saga of why and how the Great War started. So a substantial book will inevitably result then and if you prefer your history to come in 'bite sized' chinks then this is probably not a book for you. If however you want to read a (single volume) history that explains what happened in a lucid and easily comprehensible manner then this effort will serve admirably I think.

 

Hastings is not a academic historian writing dense history only for his peer group to read. He writes for a general readership - IE people that are interested in the subject while not necessarily being experts. So while you will not find much original archival research here, or important new discovery's, the number of accounts (often rather obscure ones) the author has read in order to assemble this work of his is formidable. So a book about other books then, but a labour of love nevertheless.

 

What makes this history such a stimulating read is that the author is not at all afraid to criticise those whom he thinks were especially culpable for this calamity that overtook Europe. He places most of the blame for the war on Germany's fateful decision to grant the Austro-Hungarian empire a 'blank cheque' of unlimited support over their plan to invade Serbia. The warmongering leader of the Austro-Hungarian army (Conrad von Hotzendorf) comes across here as perhaps one of the biggest fools of history, the German Chief of the General Staff (von Moltke) equally incompetent.

 

Allied leaders do not escape either. In the months leading up to the outbreak of war Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith seems to have been much more interested in Ireland's perennial 'troubles' rather than the unfolding disaster in the Balkans. The general chosen to command the 'British Expeditionary Force' (Sir John French) was it seems utterly unsuited to the burdens of high command. Even France's legendary 'Hero of the Marne' (Marshal 'papa' Joffre) was responsible for awful French casualties in the opening encounters.

 

However, for all the terrible bloodshed and incompetence that ensued, Hastings central theme is that Britain, France, and Russia had no real choice but to resist German aggression in 1914. The poets are wrong perhaps - the Great War had to be fought and won regardless of the immense Human cost.

 

Edited 22 April, 2015 by CHAPEL END CHARLIE

[View From The Top]

Beevor has a new book out for those inclined.

 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/ardennes-1944/antony-beevor/9780670918645

[bridge too far]

Just finished Dennis Skinner's autobiography - Sailing Close to the Wind.

 

It was a compelling read, although a bit self-congratulatory in parts. But an interesting insight in to an MP's life, especially one who turned down patronage and a privileged life style to serve the people he represents. Not many MPs like that these days.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel

 

I expect most of you will already know that this massively successful (Booker Prize winning) novel is a fictionalised biography of the Tudor courtier Sir Thomas Cromwell, charting his remarkable career from his service to Cardinal Wolsey to his subsequent rise to great power and influence under Henry VIII. I may also have mentioned once or twice on here before how very much I admired the recent BBC TV adaptation of this book.

 

So I was predisposed to like this book long before I picked it up and sure enough 'Wolf Hall' is undoutably a outstanding work of historical fiction by any standard - perhaps among the foremost novels of its type ever published I think. However, while no reader could possibly fail to admire this book, I must admit that for some reason I didn't really emotionally engage with it quite much as I was expecting to.

 

Normally when you see a film or TV version of a great novel then the book will often prove to be the more satisfying of the two versions because so much has to be inevitably omitted when any serious work of literature is committed to a screen. But in this instance I felt that - atypically - the television drama was somehow rather more than the book is. I suspect that this reaction may well be as much a tribute to Peter Kosminsky's utterly superb series rather than a substantial criticism of Mantel's writing however.

 

For me part of the problem may be that Mantel tells Cromwell's story from a unusual '3rd person' perspective - IE Cromwell is generally referred to as 'he' most of the time. This matter has become the subject of some controversy on the web I see, but even after you have gotten used to it I am one of those who find this approach needlessly awkward. Having said all that, I will certainly soon be seeking out Mantel's sequel 'Bring Up the Bodies' safe in the knowledge that another great novel will doubtless await me - but even greatness is not always perfect it seems.

 

Edited 20 June, 2015 by CHAPEL END CHARLIE

[View From The Top]

Just finished Beevor's Ardennes 1944. As expected, wonderfully written and has me planning a trip out to that part of the world as a part cycling mecca/part history buff trip.

[miserableoldgit]

[Pugwash]

'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel

 

I expect most of you will already know that this massively successful (Booker Prize winning) novel is a fictionalised biography of the Tudor courtier Sir Thomas Cromwell, charting his remarkable career from his service to Cardinal Wolsey to his subsequent rise to great power and influence under Henry VIII. I may also have mentioned once or twice on here before how very much I admired the recent BBC TV adaptation of this book.

 

So I was predisposed to like this book long before I picked it up and sure enough 'Wolf Hall' is undoutably a outstanding work of historical fiction by any standard - perhaps among the foremost novels of its type ever published I think. However, while no reader could possibly fail to admire this book, I must admit that for some reason I didn't really emotionally engage with it quite much as I was expecting to.

 

Normally when you see a film or TV version of a great novel then the book will often prove to be the more satisfying of the two versions because so much has to be inevitably omitted when any serious work of literature is committed to a screen. But in this instance I felt that - atypically - the television drama was somehow rather more than the book is. I suspect that this reaction may well be as much a tribute to Peter Kosminsky's utterly superb series rather than a substantial criticism of Mantel's writing however.

 

For me part of the problem may be that Mantel tells Cromwell's story from a unusual '3rd person' perspective - IE Cromwell is generally referred to as 'he' most of the time. This matter has become the subject of some controversy on the web I see, but even after you have gotten used to it I am one of those who find this approach needlessly awkward. Having said all that, I will certainly soon be seeking out Mantel's sequel 'Bring Up the Bodies' safe in the knowledge that another great novel will doubtless await me - but even greatness is not always perfect it seems.

 

 

Agree Charlie, your comments sum up perfectly my own feelings about the book. Found the style a bit frustrating. Enjoyed it, but not champing at the bit to read the next one.

 

Having had a Kindle for a while, I've found myself going a bit retro. I read Frank Herbert's 'Dune' series way back in the 70's, so recently bought and read the first book on the Kindle. It's always stuck in my mind, but I'd forgotten what a colossal book it really was - in every sense of the word. At least the Kindle version is a lot lighter! Just starting Dune Messiah now.