Books - What are you reading?

Books - What are you reading?

Author
Discussion

coppice

8,562 posts

143 months

Tuesday 19th June 2018
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The Only Story - Julian Barnes; exquisitely written , as you'd expect , and deeply moving story of love and (you guessed ) loss , ageing and betrayal

The Train in the Night ; and Voices -How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life - proof that it is possible to write intelligently and stylishly about rock music . See also 1971 - David Hepworth and just about anything written by Nick Hornby - especially 31 Songs

The Good the Mad and the Ugly - Peter Dron- memoirs of long standing motoring journalist. Disappointingly glib and subtext of payback time for the colleagues he disliked.

Figures in a Landscape - Paul Theroux - anthology of articles on travel , African politics , Liz Taylor and much else besides by veteran novelist and travel writer. A man who is everything Trump is not ...

AA Gill is Away - anthology of pieces by the late AAG who I think is one of the true greats of post WW2 journalism . His reviews were as good as Clive James (there is no greater praise) but his travel and opinion pieces are masterpieces

Levin

2,019 posts

123 months

Tuesday 19th June 2018
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I finished ‘Fahrenheit 451’. I was going to write about Bradbury’s remarkable prescience, but that is a common trait of dystopian fiction. I suppose credit must be given not for the fact its technological predictions were far-sighted, but because of their quantity. Bradbury crafted a world with massive, wall-dominating flatscreen televisions, earphones, and manhunts broadcasted live.

Hunting for symbolism, literary devices and other techniques of the writer’s craft would not have been difficult; the book is fertile ground for numerous interpretations, providing an explanation as to why it appears in the American education system so frequently.

It had been far too long since I last delved into fictional dystopia, but I have since returned to Germany, with Julia Boyd’s ‘Travellers in the Third Reich’.

Ruskie

3,982 posts

199 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Finished this recently. Very intresting read about bomb disposal in Afghanistan. The author won a George Cross for his actions.

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Levin said:
andy_s said:
Cheers - I'll have to have another read at some stage.
No problem! I’m in Belfast at the moment and might take a look for the sequel, ‘Lila’, as well. It has piqued my curiosity.
Its a much more complex book (from memory; it's been a decade or more), both in terms of tone and narrative. In some ways probably superior to ZAMM in terms of the quality of the philosophical debate, but it's nowhere near as approachable as trying to look at it through the lens of swearing at a bolt.

droopsnoot

11,810 posts

241 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Just finished "Private Investigations" by Quintin Jardine, a decent read but it finished a bit too quickly for my liking, all wrapped up quite neatly, didn't seem quite as involved as previous ones.

lowdrag

12,869 posts

212 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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I've just finished a novel called "Ragdoll" by Daniel Cole. it starts with this police officer, aptly named Wolf, not accepting the verdict of not guilty, jumping the barriers and just about killing the now cleared defendant. Of course, after a spell in a psychiatric hospital he is naturally reinstated in the CID with a reduced rank of sargeant. Totally conceivable this, of course. On the story creaks, finishing (I'm giving you the end to save your souls) in the Old Bailey where he has a final fight with the real offender, kills him, and his darling CID GF who he saves at the same time tells him to escape while he can. Apparently the next volume if shortly out and I will gladly give it a miss.

joshcowin

6,775 posts

175 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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epom said:
Prolex-UK said:
joshcowin said:
Anyone read Child 44 picked it up for holiday in June?
Cracking book. Worth picking out the others as well
Arriving to me tomorrow.
Read 44 and the secret speech, half way through agent 6, decent books entertaining, thanks for the heads up!!

jimmyjimjim

7,329 posts

237 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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lowdrag said:
I've just finished a novel called "Ragdoll" by Daniel Cole. it starts with this police officer, aptly named Wolf, not accepting the verdict of not guilty, jumping the barriers and just about killing the now cleared defendant. Of course, after a spell in a psychiatric hospital he is naturally reinstated in the CID with a reduced rank of sargeant. Totally conceivable this, of course. On the story creaks, finishing (I'm giving you the end to save your souls) in the Old Bailey where he has a final fight with the real offender, kills him, and his darling CID GF who he saves at the same time tells him to escape while he can. Apparently the next volume if shortly out and I will gladly give it a miss.
I've read some crap in my time, but that does sound bad.

ribiero

539 posts

165 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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smashed out a couple of footy books - Pocchetino's spurs one and Journeyman by Ben Smith last week which were as expected.

I also read Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which was probably one of the best post apocolyptic books i've read. It's catagorised as sci-fi, but didnt feel like a sci-fi book, the timelines jump around but it comes together quite nicely! Probably going to be a film too, so like Ready Player One, read it before they ruin it :P

Goaty Bill 2

3,393 posts

118 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Levin said:
I finished ‘Fahrenheit 451’. I was going to write about Bradbury’s remarkable prescience, but that is a common trait of dystopian fiction. I suppose credit must be given not for the fact its technological predictions were far-sighted, but because of their quantity. Bradbury crafted a world with massive, wall-dominating flatscreen televisions, earphones, and manhunts broadcasted live.

Hunting for symbolism, literary devices and other techniques of the writer’s craft would not have been difficult; the book is fertile ground for numerous interpretations, providing an explanation as to why it appears in the American education system so frequently.

It had been far too long since I last delved into fictional dystopia, but I have since returned to Germany, with Julia Boyd’s ‘Travellers in the Third Reich’.
Ditto!




Someone posted about it some time back, and I realised that I had never actually read it, though I had been shown a film version in school. Ordered it immediately and it finally made its way to the top of my 'to read' list.

50th Anniversary edition with both the 'Forward' and an 'Afterword' written by Bradbury for that edition.
A far better insight into the motivation and history behind (and after) the book than anyone else could possibly have given.

He is no Steinbeck, but it's an excellent and worthy read nonetheless.


Prolex-UK

3,010 posts

207 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Ruskie said:


Finished this recently. Very intresting read about bomb disposal in Afghanistan. The author won a George Cross for his actions.
just bought it

TheJimi

24,862 posts

242 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
quotequote all
joshcowin said:
epom said:
Prolex-UK said:
joshcowin said:
Anyone read Child 44 picked it up for holiday in June?
Cracking book. Worth picking out the others as well
Arriving to me tomorrow.
Read 44 and the secret speech, half way through agent 6, decent books entertaining, thanks for the heads up!!
Glad you liked 'em Josh! 44 is dark in parts, isn't it?

andy_s

19,397 posts

258 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Just finished Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It's difficult to know what to say about it as it's still percolating but a few technical points - first I probably read as much biography and explanation/interpretation as of the book itself; I was vaguely familiar with general ideas but a more scholarly approach via previous work would help a lot, but you can dive into it straight away, just be prepared to back-fill to flesh things out to make some sort of sense of it as you go. Secondly I would recommend the Kaufmann translation as the Cambridge/Conti one is not so precise. Finally be prepared for a brutal journey, this isn't beach reading...but it's worth the challenge.

I can't say how this figures amongst other great literature/philosophy, for great it surely is, as I haven't enough depth of background to say with any authority and I'm not an academic, so this is a layman's point of view.

It is surely the most profound book I have read, so clever and multi-layered, mixing wit and brutal thought, thought provoking and bizarre, poetic and obtuse, dense and wide reaching - it's like philosophical poetry and has a unique style. Unbelievable - if you want to see the line between genius and madness, this is surely it; the ramblings of a madman or sublime deep thought couched in unreal parable. Everything has meaning, everything.

I'm a mountain runner and using that as my sort of 'Levin's Bolt'; sometimes you're in the clag plodding across marsh and tussocks with no idea where you are or where you're going, then occasionally the clouds part and the joy of the sun and far reaching views makes you laugh out loud and here too I laughed on finding and 'getting' a morsel, POW! a phrase or sentence that everything hangs on and encapsulates exactly what he's saying - and you get it and the plodding seems nothing. Brilliant.

I'll not go into the philosophy itself, there're better interpretations and explanations out there and I'm exhausted of it.

Would I recommend it? That's up to you... For now I'm swapping Nietzsche for Reacher, with some relief, but I'll be back again, no doubt.

Edited by andy_s on Wednesday 20th June 22:08

Levin

2,019 posts

123 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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I finished 'Travellers in the Third Reich' this morning before going to work. Since then I've been thinking a lot about wanting to revisit Germany soon, but I suspect the book as a whole may not be particularly memorable. This is not meant as a slight against Julia Boyd, since the book would make a great reference text for civilian impressions of the Third Reich, but simply that the range of people whose diaries are recorded are not nearly as notorious as Hitler, Himmler and the other big names of the regime.

Next is 'Americana' by Don DeLillo. I've heard his name before but couldn't tell you a thing he had written.

lowdrag said:
I've just finished a novel called "Ragdoll" by Daniel Cole. it starts with this police officer, aptly named Wolf, not accepting the verdict of not guilty, jumping the barriers and just about killing the now cleared defendant. Of course, after a spell in a psychiatric hospital he is naturally reinstated in the CID with a reduced rank of sargeant. Totally conceivable this, of course. On the story creaks, finishing (I'm giving you the end to save your souls) in the Old Bailey where he has a final fight with the real offender, kills him, and his darling CID GF who he saves at the same time tells him to escape while he can. Apparently the next volume if shortly out and I will gladly give it a miss.
Oi! Spoiler alert! I might have read that.

On second thoughts, probably not. It sounds like pulp entertainment of the kind you buy cheaply and donate when finished but taken to its extreme. Even calling the character 'Wolf' comes as no surprise. Based on Goodreads' synopsis the first body found is a composite of six different bodies stitched together? Dark, almost absurd humour like that would have me hoping the story remains as jocular throughout. If I'm ever stuck for reading materials and see a copy sitting cheaply, I may actually read this for the laughs.

davepoth said:
Its a much more complex book (from memory; it's been a decade or more), both in terms of tone and narrative. In some ways probably superior to ZAMM in terms of the quality of the philosophical debate, but it's nowhere near as approachable as trying to look at it through the lens of swearing at a bolt.
Knowing this, it will be some time before I consider reading 'Lila'. Philosophy is a subject I have very little background on, so I strongly suspect 'Lila' would be wasted on me at this present moment. Even ZAMM may in future benefit from a re-read; I've no doubt my understanding is imperfect as it is. I appreciated ZAMM's lens precisely because swearing at a bolt is far more in my wheelhouse than contemplating the Buddha's teachings, or assessing Quality as Pirsig did.

Goaty Bill 2 said:
Ditto!




Someone posted about it some time back, and I realised that I had never actually read it, though I had been shown a film version in school. Ordered it immediately and it finally made its way to the top of my 'to read' list.

50th Anniversary edition with both the 'Forward' and an 'Afterword' written by Bradbury for that edition.
A far better insight into the motivation and history behind (and after) the book than anyone else could possibly have given.

He is no Steinbeck, but it's an excellent and worthy read nonetheless.
I didn't know of an older film, only of the 2018 remake with Michael B. Jordan playing Guy Montag. Reviews aren't great; Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 37% from a range of reviews. Based solely on reviews lamenting the 2018 film's violence and significant deviation from the original plot, I'd much rather see the older film.

I find it tremendously disappointing that the modern version isn't meant to be good. Given the enormous budgets for blockbuster films Fahrenheit 451 could translate so very well to the screen; ironic given the novel's plot, yet true. Throughout my read I was struck by how well it could work as a short series.

andy_s

19,397 posts

258 months

Wednesday 20th June 2018
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Levin said:
I didn't know of an older film
Truffaut would you believe, probably incredibly hammy now but it made an impression as a kid.

Prolex-UK

3,010 posts

207 months

Thursday 21st June 2018
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Nearing the end of Frank Gardeners Ultimatum. Been great so far. Very topical.

Worth a read

Halmyre

11,148 posts

138 months

Thursday 21st June 2018
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andy_s said:
Levin said:
I didn't know of an older film
Truffaut would you believe, probably incredibly hammy now but it made an impression as a kid.
I didn't know about the newer film. After looking it up, I think I'd rather continue not knowing it.

Vanordinaire

3,701 posts

161 months

Thursday 21st June 2018
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coppice said:
Figures in a Landscape - Paul Theroux - anthology of articles on travel , African politics , Liz Taylor and much else besides by veteran novelist and travel writer. A man who is everything Trump is not ...
Currently got this one as my "car book" , for reading in short bursts while I'm waiting for stuff/people/appointments. Think I'll have to bring it into the house though, it's too hard to put down when the time comes to move.


Edited by Vanordinaire on Thursday 21st June 13:29

droopsnoot

11,810 posts

241 months

Sunday 24th June 2018
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I've just finished "True Colours", another one by Stephen Leather featuring Spider Shepherd. A good book, though I'm not usually a fan of flashbacks, and I did think it all finished a bit quickly. Good though.

Prolex-UK

3,010 posts

207 months

Monday 25th June 2018
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Prolex-UK said:
Ruskie said:


Finished this recently. Very intresting read about bomb disposal in Afghanistan. The author won a George Cross for his actions.
just bought it
great book. Well worth reading.