Books - What are you reading?
Discussion
unrepentant said:
SilverSixer said:
I read Shute's 'On the Beach' over the weekend. I are depress.
Brilliant book, very moving but bleak. All the more so for Shute's plain matter of fact language. 
Very good book though.Chris Type R said:
Chris Type R said:
I read this over the weekend (The '86 Fix) - enjoyable escapism. Quite a bit in the story which I can recognise / identify with. I'm a few pages into the sequel.
Ok, I enjoyed "Beyond Broadhall: The '86 Fix Conclusion" less than "The '86 Fix" - but if you've got to the end of the latter you'll want to know how the story ends, so it's a worthwhile read.Both enjoyable light reading though, recommended.
Also read Notwithstanding after a recommendation on here - what a lovely book, I like the short story format (read on holiday with my 6 year old so a book I could dip in and out of was appreciated) and the way the characters intertwined in one anothers stories. Also, his writing is very descriptive - I grew up in a village in the 1970s and 80s and a lot of the descriptions rang true.
Finally, 'The Fort' by Bernard Cornwell - a dramatization of an American War of Independence battle involving naval and land forces, very nicely written from the views of several (real life) characters on both sides, examining the reasons behind one of the United States' worst defeats of that war.
Chris Type R said:
garyhun said:
After a few months of Lee Child and Peter May fiction I decided I need something more taxing on the brain. Just purchased these today ....
I enjoyed Sapiens.havoc said:
I'm tempted by it but I've heard that he really does push the 'vegan agenda' thing a little too hard in it...
I can't say I remember that, but I read this a couple of years ago. I also read https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Wonderful-World-Univ... virtually back-to-back so these have fused together in memory.Goaty Bill 2 said:
g3org3y said:
I'll think I'll have to choose something a little more lighthearted to follow this!
I finished 'The Heart of a Dog' by Bulgakov last night.I'm not really sure how to describe this one at all frankly.
Certainly some subtle criticism of early Soviet Russia, but avoiding making this the apparent or obvious focus.
It is one of those books you really don't want to put it down once you've started, and you certainly can't find it depressing.
Oddly entertaining.
Somewhat like one of those Ian Banks novels where you have absolutely no idea what is going on or why, but simply have to keep reading because you need to find out.
Really not sure what to read next.
I have such a stack of books next to me, and more on the bedside table...
Master and Margarita is fabulous. Enjoy.
XM5ER said:
Goaty Bill 2 said:
g3org3y said:
I'll think I'll have to choose something a little more lighthearted to follow this!
I finished 'The Heart of a Dog' by Bulgakov last night.I'm not really sure how to describe this one at all frankly.
Certainly some subtle criticism of early Soviet Russia, but avoiding making this the apparent or obvious focus.
It is one of those books you really don't want to put it down once you've started, and you certainly can't find it depressing.
Oddly entertaining.
Somewhat like one of those Ian Banks novels where you have absolutely no idea what is going on or why, but simply have to keep reading because you need to find out.
Really not sure what to read next.
I have such a stack of books next to me, and more on the bedside table...
Master and Margarita is fabulous. Enjoy.
Being the mid 20's, when Heart of a Dog was written, the Bolshevik's were not doing so well, and Bulgakov thought he would get away with it [the book]. He didn't, it was immediately banned by the censors, and according to the flyleaf of my copy, still had not been published in the Soviet Union as of 1968.
He, fortunately, managed to avoid the pleasures of the Lubyanka and Solivetsky, apparently enjoying some personal protection from Stalin.
Speaking to friends, I understand Heart of a Dog is widely known and well liked in modern Russia.
I currently find myself waylaid by Ivan Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons' or 'Fathers and Children' as the result of successful visits to local charity shops (I made quite a haul actually over three shops and a couple of visits to each).
Just read this book, Spindown, recommended by a friend. Midlife crisis of an off-road biker. Funny mixture of adventure and family saga but works better than it sounds.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spindown-Struggle-Come-Do...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spindown-Struggle-Come-Do...
I've just finished "The Dead Lands" by Benjamin Percy, a post-apocalyptic thing with a load of people locked in a walled city "for their own protection" convinced that everyone else in the world is dead. Not bad for a change from my usual stuff, but I won't be searching out a load more of his novels.
E24man said:
K50 DEL said:
Fantastic real life story isn't it.Incredible that her Dad settled Las Vegas and yet the first few times I was in Manhattan she was still living in her apartment (a building that I took a photo of!) brings it home how recent that golden era of the US actually was.
I'm reading a book by Jeffree Magee about the American big band leader Fletcher Henderson, who was influential in New York during the twenties and thirties in the development of the swing era. He fronted his own band for a long time before selling his arrangements to Benny Goodman.
From it I have learned that he (like Duke Ellington) was a well educated middle class black musician, who was trying to emulate white dance orchestras and eschew the more 'primitive' Dixieland style, but was playing songs written by Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley, who were writing stuff that they thought was what like black guys were doing. An amazing cultural mash that eventually saw him become the musical guru of Jewish band leader Goodman's white swing band.
There are loads of musical case studies, and I am listening to them as I go along as they are all available on Spotify.
From it I have learned that he (like Duke Ellington) was a well educated middle class black musician, who was trying to emulate white dance orchestras and eschew the more 'primitive' Dixieland style, but was playing songs written by Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley, who were writing stuff that they thought was what like black guys were doing. An amazing cultural mash that eventually saw him become the musical guru of Jewish band leader Goodman's white swing band.
There are loads of musical case studies, and I am listening to them as I go along as they are all available on Spotify.
Completed 'Fathers and Sons' or 'Fathers and Children' by Ivan Turgenev (title dependent on translator)..
My edition was an Oxford University Press publication, translation by Professor Richard Freeborn.
It was a chance purchase in a charity shop, rather than something I had hunted down.
I would have no dispute with the translator's knowledge of his subject, (clearly extensive), but his choice to use American idioms mixed with British vernacular, most frequently by the principal character Bazarov, was at times uncomfortable and disconcerting. Other conversation, especially between the elder Petrovich brothers flows well and occasionally quite humorously.
I confess to being more inclined towards Pavel Petrovich than Bazarov.
An alternative translation, the first to English, was executed by Constance Garnet in 1895, but seems more difficult to locate.
Turgenev seems much less well known than his contemporaries Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, though well known to both, and clearly not inferior to either. In fact a few scenes from this book reminded me of similar scenes in 'The Possessed' and 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Turgenev's work precedes both of these. If only one could question Foydor
I have begun reading 'Foma Gordyeeff' by Maxim Gorky.
I have previously avoided Gorky, principally because of his Bolshevik sympathies and willingness to act as both Lenin and Stalin's mouthpiece at times. It is fair to add, that he did argue with Lenin in correspondence, but one can not help but recall his glowing review of conditions for prisoners in Solovetsky in 1926/7.
The publishing of 'Foma Gordyeeff' pre-dates the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and, as far as I can see, Gorky's involvement with the Bolsheviks.
My edition was an Oxford University Press publication, translation by Professor Richard Freeborn.
It was a chance purchase in a charity shop, rather than something I had hunted down.
I would have no dispute with the translator's knowledge of his subject, (clearly extensive), but his choice to use American idioms mixed with British vernacular, most frequently by the principal character Bazarov, was at times uncomfortable and disconcerting. Other conversation, especially between the elder Petrovich brothers flows well and occasionally quite humorously.
I confess to being more inclined towards Pavel Petrovich than Bazarov.
An alternative translation, the first to English, was executed by Constance Garnet in 1895, but seems more difficult to locate.
Turgenev seems much less well known than his contemporaries Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, though well known to both, and clearly not inferior to either. In fact a few scenes from this book reminded me of similar scenes in 'The Possessed' and 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Turgenev's work precedes both of these. If only one could question Foydor
I have begun reading 'Foma Gordyeeff' by Maxim Gorky.
I have previously avoided Gorky, principally because of his Bolshevik sympathies and willingness to act as both Lenin and Stalin's mouthpiece at times. It is fair to add, that he did argue with Lenin in correspondence, but one can not help but recall his glowing review of conditions for prisoners in Solovetsky in 1926/7.
The publishing of 'Foma Gordyeeff' pre-dates the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and, as far as I can see, Gorky's involvement with the Bolsheviks.
Goaty Bill 2 said:
According to Solzhenitsyn, Stalin even allowed one of Bulgakov's plays 'The Days of the Turbins' "in one Moscow theatre". The Wiki confirms this was the MAT.
Being the mid 20's, when Heart of a Dog was written, the Bolshevik's were not doing so well, and Bulgakov thought he would get away with it [the book]. He didn't, it was immediately banned by the censors, and according to the flyleaf of my copy, still had not been published in the Soviet Union as of 1968.
He, fortunately, managed to avoid the pleasures of the Lubyanka and Solivetsky, apparently enjoying some personal protection from Stalin.
Speaking to friends, I understand Heart of a Dog is widely known and well liked in modern Russia.
I currently find myself waylaid by Ivan Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons' or 'Fathers and Children' as the result of successful visits to local charity shops (I made quite a haul actually over three shops and a couple of visits to each).
master and margarita was very good so will try heart of a dogBeing the mid 20's, when Heart of a Dog was written, the Bolshevik's were not doing so well, and Bulgakov thought he would get away with it [the book]. He didn't, it was immediately banned by the censors, and according to the flyleaf of my copy, still had not been published in the Soviet Union as of 1968.
He, fortunately, managed to avoid the pleasures of the Lubyanka and Solivetsky, apparently enjoying some personal protection from Stalin.
Speaking to friends, I understand Heart of a Dog is widely known and well liked in modern Russia.
I currently find myself waylaid by Ivan Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons' or 'Fathers and Children' as the result of successful visits to local charity shops (I made quite a haul actually over three shops and a couple of visits to each).
recently read hitler's monsters about his links to magic etc very poor, now back to dennis wheatley's black magic series though on hols popped into barter books and got game of consequences by shelley smith-very good but like wheatley bit dated
p1doc said:
recently read hitler's monsters about his links to magic etc very poor, now back to dennis wheatley's black magic series though on hols popped into barter books and got game of consequences by shelley smith-very good but like wheatley bit dated
I'm quite surprised Yale published a book on the subject, but I know it's destined to end up on my to-read list. The occult side of the Nazis is likely overstated nonsense but the 2009 "Wolfenstein" game piqued my interest in it, and I've had that interest in it since. I would never allow it into critical analysis of... well, anything, but it makes superb fodder for historical fiction.Levin said:
I'm quite surprised Yale published a book on the subject, but I know it's destined to end up on my to-read list. The occult side of the Nazis is likely overstated nonsense but the 2009 "Wolfenstein" game piqued my interest in it, and I've had that interest in it since. I would never allow it into critical analysis of... well, anything, but it makes superb fodder for historical fiction.
it just meanders around subject with no real interesting information-lots of background very disappointingGassing Station | Books and Literature | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff