What are you reading?

[St Landrew]

It's a book about a whale, for penis's sake!

 

Not really though is it. It's actually a book about whaling, and the story of Captain Ahab and his obsession with the white whale is just part of it. I realised that when I waded through the book. It's actually an essay, with a novel thrown in.

 

That sounds like it possibly isn't any good, which isn't true. It's actually brilliant. Just don't expect a fast piece of action writing.

[Sheaf Saint]

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin

 

True account of American climber/philanthropist Greg Mortenson. Having failed to summit K2 in 1993, he lost his guide and wandered way off the trail and into a Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains. The villagers looked after him and in return for their kindness he promised to return and build a school for the village, and then went on to build 55 new schools in many of the deprived, remote villages in mountains of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border regions.

 

Not got very far into it yet, but it's a very engaging read.

[the stain]

Not really though is it. It's actually a book about whaling, and the story of Captain Ahab and his obsession with the white whale is just part of it. I realised that when I waded through the book. It's actually an essay, with a novel thrown in.

 

That sounds like it possibly isn't any good, which isn't true. It's actually brilliant. Just don't expect a fast piece of action writing.

 

:confused:

 

I meant as opposed to being about a willy.

 

You've made me explain my own joke.

 

It wasn't even a good joke to start with.

 

And I've read Moby D1ck.

 

Like I said.

 

 

(Just read Accordion Crimes, by Annie Proulx. Loosly linked collection of short stories about the immigrant experience of 20th century America. Strongly remeniscent of vintage Steinbeck, which is fine by me. Made me want to take up the accordion.

Now reading Possession, by A.S. Byatt, which is about as literary a novel as you could hope to find, while also being extremely gripping, like a really hearty brain-wanq)

[Barney Trubble]

Life at the bottom: The worldview that makes the underclass - Theodore Dalrymple

[St Landrew]

:confused:

 

I meant as opposed to being about a willy.

 

You've made me explain my own joke.

 

It wasn't even a good joke to start with.

 

And I've read Moby D1ck.

 

Like I said.

 

 

(Just read Accordion Crimes, by Annie Proulx. Loosly linked collection of short stories about the immigrant experience of 20th century America. Strongly remeniscent of vintage Steinbeck, which is fine by me. Made me want to take up the accordion.

Now reading Possession, by A.S. Byatt, which is about as literary a novel as you could hope to find, while also being extremely gripping, like a really hearty brain-wanq)

 

Oh sorry mate. About the Moby **** thing, I mean.

[the stain]

 

Has anyone read The Magus, by John Fowles? I'm about 100 pages in and really struggling. The protagonist appears to be a complete arse and there's a lot of bland descriptions of Greek hillsides. Can someone assure me it gets better? There's only so many books a man can read in a lifetime and this is a long one...

[Mao Cap]

"The Eagle's Shadow: Why America fascinates and infuriates the world", by Mark Hertsgaard. Pretty good.

 

Now starting "The intellectual life of the British working class" by John Robinson. Because my local library's got a very good reference section I always end up reading academic stuff - need more novels to balance things out

[ecuk268]

The latest Stephen King - Under the Dome.

 

Big book - 850 pages. I've done about 300 pages so far and it's OK.

[the stain]

 

Has anyone read The Magus, by John Fowles? I'm about 100 pages in and really struggling. The protagonist appears to be a complete arse and there's a lot of bland descriptions of Greek hillsides. Can someone assure me it gets better? There's only so many books a man can read in a lifetime and this is a long one...

 

It got much better.

[Hamilton Saint]

 

Has anyone read The Magus, by John Fowles? I'm about 100 pages in and really struggling. The protagonist appears to be a complete arse and there's a lot of bland descriptions of Greek hillsides. Can someone assure me it gets better? There's only so many books a man can read in a lifetime and this is a long one...

 

I've read it several times. Very enjoyable. I'd class it as a young man's book.

 

I read after my first visit to Greece in the early 70s. More atmospheric if you've been there, perhaps? It was first published in 1965, but a revised version came out in 1977.

 

They made an awful film of the book in 1968 - with Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine and Candice Bergen. Avoid.

 

An even better book by Fowles is The French Lieutenant's Woman.

[the stain]

I've read it several times. Very enjoyable. I'd class it as a young man's book.

 

I read after my first visit to Greece in the early 70s. More atmospheric if you've been there, perhaps? It was first published in 1965, but a revised version came out in 1977.

 

They made an awful film of the book in 1968 - with Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine and Candice Bergen. Avoid.

 

An even better book by Fowles is The French Lieutenant's Woman.

 

I think you're probably right about the young man's book thing. He seemed terribly wracked with existentialism. It was a rollicking good yarn in the end though; once Fowles had set him up it was compelling to see him torn apart.

[channonwindmill]

"The Sleeper Awakes" by H G Wells.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

I was revisiting my beloved Sherlock Holmes collection last night - specifically 'The Adventure of the Norwood Builder' - let be tell you now that Jonas Oldacre is a proper git .

[jeff leopard]

I've just finished David Niven's Bring on the Empty Horses, a collection of memoirs and anecdotes from the golden age of Hollywood (the 30s to the early 60s) which cover the biggest stars, the luckless extras, gossip colomnists and prostitutes, all of whom fell in love with the dream which inevitably shatters at some point. Camping in the wilds with Clark Gable, renting a swinging bachelor pad with Errol Flynn, all washed down with Herculean amounts of whisky and the kind of casual drug use that could make Shaun William Ryder blush. What shines through is the character of the great man himself, and what a brilliant writer he was. Thoroughly un-put-downable.

 

As its Christmas and I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy, I've just started The Road by Cormac McCarthy. So far its an utterly compulsive story, brilliantly told in a strikingly vivid palette of greys. Its a bit on the gloomy side but I'm sure they'll be a happy ending where everything is made better

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

"The audacity of hope" by Obama...once you've done a bit of research on the American legislative process it's a gripping read.

[Block 5]

I was revisiting my beloved Sherlock Holmes collection last night - specifically 'The Adventure of the Norwood Builder' - let be tell you now that Jonas Oldacre is a proper git .

 

I love this story, particularly the theatrical manner in which Holmes reveals Oldacre's hiding place!

[Redbul]

Just started reading The Beach by Alex Garland*. Saw the film when it came out (Leo De Caprio) but never bothered with the book before now. Silly mistake, it's pretty riveting especially as Richard descends inexorably into amorality....it's a bit Lord of the Flies in that regard.

 

 

*Alex Garland also wrote a novella called The Coma which is quality; bloke gets attacked on the tube and gets beaten unconscious. He then wakes up from the coma....or thinks he does. He might still be in that twilight cerebration between wakefulness and sleep....or is he? Good short read that mucks your head up.

[hamster]

Never hit a jellyfish with a shovel - Guy Browning

 

&

 

Raise The Titanic - Clive Cussler (been reading it for quite a while average about .65 pages per day).

[Redbul]

Never hit a jellyfish with a shovel - Guy Browning

 

That reminds me of a cartoon by Tim Burton; "Never shoot a constipated poodle." You can imagine the picture....!!!!

[hamster]

I used to read loads, couldn't put a Tom Sharpe book down once I'd picked it up then all of a sudden I just stopped. Last year I decided to find my niche again but am struggling to get back into reading. I am trying to though with lot's of easy-reading trivia type books.

 

mrs h reads a book every day and a half, she's keeping Amazon in business and the books she reads are mental, all witches, spells and stuff that isn't real. I don't get it, don't get it at all, they are crap.

 

She also reads loads of stuff like 'below stairs' and 'how we coped in the war', which I do 'get'.

[lettuce]

"The Damned United" - Haven't seen the film but picked the book up from a bargain bin. About half-way through, excellent reading so far!

[the stain]

Currently working through Doris Lessing's sci-fi series, Canopus in Argos. She got a critical mauling in the late 70s when she suddenly switched to sci-fi, but I can't quite see why outside of plain snobbery. The first one, Shikasta is wonderfully humane history of our planet from the point of view of the alien race who selectively bred and nourished us through our evolution from monkeys and then watched us decline. Its only fault, if it can be called that, is a pre-occupation with nuclear armageddon which dates it a little.

 

The second, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four & Five is a gentle trip through the qualities of masculinity and femininity told in the style of an ancient arabian romance. In another physical realm, obviously.

 

Three more to go, hopefully they'll be just as good.

[RonManager]

Life in a Railway Factory (Swindon), by Alfred Williams.

 

First published 1915.

 

'I had to get up at half-past ten at night, half an hour before I went to bed, work 28 hours a day at factory and pay for privelege' etc etc.

 

A book of it's time and a surprisingly engaging read as it is not retrospective.

[ecuk268]

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mandel

 

Absorbing book about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's enforcer.

 

If you think that politics these days is a dirty game, the Tudors could eat this lot for breakfast.

[RonManager]

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mandel

 

Absorbing book about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's enforcer.

 

If you think that politics these days is a dirty game, the Tudors could eat this lot for breakfast.

 

The Hall still exists, near Savernake.

[EastleighSoulBoy]

The Pythons autobiography

 

By The Pythons

[Mmm Donuts]

Before Christmas finished The complete Sherlock Holmes and Pillars of the Earth, which are both really good. Will try and find World without End for holiday in March. Got Kes for Christmas. Will be reading the very hungry caterpillar within the hour.

[Mmm Donuts]

Oh don't waste your money on Frankie Boyles autobiography, it's gash.

[Stanley Saint]

Just finished the second of the Stieg Larsson books - 'The Girl Who Played with Fire'. Got really hooked. The first one took a while to get going, but something about the characters reels you in. Anyone got a copy of the third one that they'd like to lend?

[manji]

Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War by Patrick J. Buchanan.Just started reading but basically its about how badly Britain came out of WW11 compared to the USA.

[jeff leopard]

Vernon God Little

A moody 15 yr old Texan goes on the run after being accused of a high school massacre, and hilarity duly follows. After reading The Road, this felt a bit light-weight and silly, but it succeeded in putting me in the mind of an American youngling, and it gripped me more and more as it went on. Worth a f*cken read.

[jeff leopard]

The Damned United – David Peace

 

Not an autobiography but a (bad) trip inside Clough’s head, seeing the world through his eyes, and sharing his inner-most thoughts, a feverish stream of bile and bitterness, guilt and regret. Telling the story his brief tenure at Leeds Utd as a dark and tragic fairy tale is a stroke of genius which elevates the whole thing into the realms of art.

 

Funny, sad and always fascinating, this is essential reading for everyone.

[Block 5]

Vernon God Little

A moody 15 yr old Texan goes on the run after being accused of a high school massacre, and hilarity duly follows. After reading The Road, this felt a bit light-weight and silly, but it succeeded in putting me in the mind of an American youngling, and it gripped me more and more as it went on. Worth a f*cken read.

 

A f*cken fantastic book and a worthy Booker winner.

[the stain]

More Iris Murdoch. A Word Child this time. I'm obsessed. She knows me from the beyond.

[Deppo]

Still John Peel's autobiog. One day I'll actually finish it.

[Julian H. Cope]

Still John Peel's autobiog. One day I'll actually finish it.

 

When you do, can I borrow it? I'll let you pay for the postage.

[bridge too far]

The Apothecary's House by Adrian Matthews.

 

Only a short way into it ATM but it's a thriller about the theft of an apparently insignificant painting by the Nazis and a Jewish woman's claim of ownership.

 

Set in Amsterdam. Very engrossing so far.

[the stain]

Just started Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year. An almost-contemporary account of the descent into fear, madness and death of London in 1665. Brilliant, terrifying stuff that puts me in mind of Day of the Triffids, 28 Days Later, all that unknown terror and collapse of civilisation fiction. Except real, of course.

[equalizer]

Round Ireland with a fridge. Comedian Tony Hawks is bet £100 that he can't hitchhike around Ireland(southern not northern) in a month whilst carrying a fridge. Only a few chapters in at the mo but so far an excellent read and laugh aloud funny in places.

[LVSaint]

Round Ireland with a fridge. Comedian Tony Hawks is bet £100 that he can't hitchhike around Ireland(southern not northern) in a month whilst carrying a fridge. Only a few chapters in at the mo but so far an excellent read and laugh aloud funny in places.

 

Think I'll start this later today too. It's been lying around for a while. Looks funneh.

[Sheaf Saint]

Descent Into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid.

 

An eye-opening insight into the whole political situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the run-up to and the aftermath of the US-led invasion. So much to it, but the thing that really strikes the reader most is the sheer hypocrisy of the Bush government when it came to dealing with Musharraf and their reliance on the support of the Pakistan government.

[Bath Saint]

 

Has anyone read The Magus, by John Fowles? I'm about 100 pages in and really struggling. The protagonist appears to be a complete arse and there's a lot of bland descriptions of Greek hillsides. Can someone assure me it gets better? There's only so many books a man can read in a lifetime and this is a long one...

 

It is a superb book. Stick with it. I would have it in my top-ten list of books that I have read, probably.

 

If you need an added incentive, it gets a little bit saucy later on...

[Bath Saint]

I think you're probably right about the young man's book thing. He seemed terribly wracked with existentialism. It was a rollicking good yarn in the end though; once Fowles had set him up it was compelling to see him torn apart.

 

Oh, I see you finished it. Well, I would agree that it is a young man's book. I read it first when I was about 17 and again about 10 years later, when I guess it was as much nostalgia as anything else. I recently read a French Lieutenant's Woman, which I had avoided for years, thinking it to be a descent into romance fiction by Fowles. It is actually a superb read and I would recommend it to anyone.

[the stain]

It is a superb book. Stick with it. I would have it in my top-ten list of books that I have read, probably.

 

If you need an added incentive, it gets a little bit saucy later on...

 

 

Dear oh dear oh dear...

[saintbletch]

The Catastophist - Ronan Bennett. Only just started it but I can already tell it's beautifully written. I read Zugswang by the same author a few years ago and having spent too long reading (and enjoying) police/procedural type books by Lee Child, Robert Crais, Stewart MacBride, Peter James, et al. I decided I needed to feed my brain a bit. The man really understands how to put letters and words in the correct order.

 

Just finished Child 44 and The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith. Both good reads but Child 44 is particularly enjoyable with lots of twists. Tom Rob Smith is a first time author and Child 44 was only published in 2008 and I believe that it's already being made into a film by Ridley Scott for release later this year.

 

Another notable recent read was Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer. A stunning stream of conciousness novel that follows the central character through a mid-life crisis/search for meaning in his life.

[Deppo]

When you do, can I borrow it? I'll let you pay for the postage.

 

Yeah, no problem. How remiss of me, this is the first time I've seen your post. You must think me awfully rude.

[SuperMikey]

Just finished the literary marathon that is Stephen King's 'Under The Dome'. The story centers around a small town in (you guessed it) Maine which one day is trapped inside a large forcefield which covers the entire circumference of the town. An interesting premise, and the book is filled with very well crafted scenes which engross you in the story. King is the master of creating villains as well, with the infuriatingly evil town selectman James 'Big Jim' Rennie being somebody you just want to reach into the book and give a big punch in the nose. The book is obscenely long (877 pages), but it doesn't feel like a slog because the action is so fast paced that you don't even notice turning the pages.

 

Overall a good read, although the ending left me rather disappointed considering the 870 page build up to it.

 

7.5/10

[Redbul]

Just finished The Road; brilliant read but but it's grim. All through it I was hoping to the man and the boy would find some kind of succour when they reached their southern most destination....

 

I suppose the boy does as the ending does leave you with the faint hope that mankind may survive, but it ain't gonna be easy.

 

8.5/10

 

For a bit of light relief after The Road, now reading e by Matt Beaumont. It is farken hilarious. It concerns the trials and tribulations of an ad agency in London; the infighting, back stabbing, successes, failures, plagiarisms, office 'romances'; all related to the reader in the emails they send to each other. It is comedy gold.

 

8.5/10 again....

[Saints1980]

Just finished 1984 for the first time.

 

Many books are unjustifiably lauded as essential reading, but this truly is a masterpiece and well ahead of it's time.

 

9/10

[Ludwig]

Just finished 1984 for the first time.

 

Many books are unjustifiably lauded as essential reading, but this truly is a masterpiece and well ahead of it's time.

 

9/10

 

 

Read 'Brave New World'.