Books - What are you reading?

[egor110]

Mezzanine said:

egor110 said:

Mezzanine said:

Just finished ‘Slow Horses’ by Mick Herron.

Old news on this thread I know, but what a great book.

What do you think about who they've cast for the tv series?

I am not overly keen on the guy who plays River Cartwright - he looks like a young Simon Pegg and sounds a bit like Ben Whishaw which puts me off him. He also looks too ‘clean’.

I didn’t like the actor who plays Roddy Ho either - he seemed a bit too on the nose.

Gary Oldman is obviously superb, as is Saskia Reeves and K Scott-Thomas.

Bearded chubby garry oldman is exactly how i pictured him when i read the books , will they include his holey socks on tv though ?

[Mezzanine]

egor110 said:

Bearded chubby garry oldman is exactly how i pictured him when i read the books , will they include his holey socks on tv though ?

They did, several times

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished "Charlatans" by Robin Cook. A decent enough book, but suffers from the sort of over-intricate explanation of things that annoys me a bit, almost as if the author isn't that experienced. It is an early book of his, maybe that's it. A surgical resident at a busy teaching hospital discovers something strange about a colleague.

[slopes]

Just finished The Silver Serpent by Scott Mariani and it's entirely predictable but yet he still sucks me in to read each new book

[lowdrag]

I've just finished "The Far Side of the World" PArT of the Jack Aubrey series, and his favourite old tub, the Surprise, is chasing an American frigate around the Horn and on. He has been involved in a lot of politicking but no action, and frankly I am fed up with needing a Glossary to understand all the technical marine words. A bit like reading Chaucer really. Not usre if I want to carry on or not.

However, some time back I wrote about Chris Lloyd and his new crime series about Eddie Giral, a Paris detective and the time frame is set as the Nazis march into Paris.

I liked it so much that I then bought the previous series about a Spanish police officer called Elisenda Domemèch, set in Girona. I liked the first one a lot, "City of Good Death", and am now on the second called "City of Buried Ghosts". A completely different kettle of fish to the first, but very enjoyable. There are three in the series and I am awaiting the second in the Eddie Giral series. Recommended all.

[Derek Smith]

I've just finished Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman after repeated pressure from a couple of my kids. "You'll enjoy it," surely the one statement that ensures a reader won't.

Overall, I did enjoy it. It's a bit of a page-turner with fairly interesting people, a series of murders, and some lovely turns of phrase. It would seem as if he's met a few old biddies in his time (Pointless audience?) and the actions and comments of the aged participants are well observed. The denouement was a little force, and was a bit mild, but otherwise, a pleasant way of whiling away a few hours.

[biggbn]

Mark Benson said:

towser said:

Shuggie Bain, Stuart's previous book, was the best book I read last year

That book has been sitting on the shelf since my wife read it and insisted I do too, I'll line it up for my next read.

Just finished "Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me" by Kate Clanchy. It's a warts and all account of teaching in inner city comprehensives, she speaks with a compassionate but realistic voice about teaching poetry to kids who come from chaotic and difficult backgrounds.
It's a sad book in many ways, the stories are told with warmth but it exposes the lack of ambition many of the white kids and their families have, and more importantly the lack of ambition the system has for them. At the same time it documents the desire to succeed and surpass their parents that the migrant children often have but which is supressed by the same lack of ambition in the system.

Edited by Mark Benson on Wednesday 11th May 11:16

Thanks for that recommendation, will look that out.

[C7Ld]

The Art of Happines - Epicurus

[lornemalvo]

towser said:

A few recent reads.

Three books - "Bitter Wash Road", "Peace" and "Consolation" by Gary Disher all featuring a wrongly disgraced detective sent to an Australian outback town to rot. For some reason I enjoy a good outback based murder mystery ("bush noire" apparently) so these were right up my street. Enjoyed them all 4/5 across the board.

"Terms of Restitution" by Denzil Meyrick - a gangland family story set in Glasgow and Paisley. Pretty enjoyable until the last 10 pages then utterly ridiculous, the signs of the terrible ending were starting to build from about halfway through and I thought surely not - but yes..... 2/5

"Two Storm Wood" by Philip Gray - WW1 based crime novel with an initial Birdsong feel to it but then moves on to a widow who visits France to discover the fate of her missing husband some supernatural aspects to the story. 3/5

"A Killing in November" by Simon Mason - odd couple detective story one a cultured, private school educated black man and the other a shell suited white chav with a dodgy history. Reasonably interesting plot - laughably ridiculous and improbable story though, definite need to suspend disbelief. 3/5

"Young Mungo" by Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain, Stuart's previous book, was the best book I read last year and this is the best of this year so far. Very much in the same vein as Shuggie Bain, which in some ways is my only criticism as I'd like to see him try something different. Story of a young lad with a troubled family background in a rough part of Glasgow who is completely at odds with his environment. Brilliant character building, scene setting and use of language - one of those books you don't want to end. 5/5

Thanks for the Gary Disher recommendation, I'm just enjoying the second one, having read the first

[smithyithy]

I read American psycho last year and overall really liked it, so I've been reading the other books by Brett Easton Ellis..

I bought Less Than Zero from Amazon and finished it in one day, very easy / quick read. Then picked up Rule of Attraction, read that while I was on holiday for a few days, so I popped into Waterstones and got Glamorama which I'm reading now.

I also picked up A Scanner Darkly as I want to get back into some sci-fi, and there's quite a few of Dick's books I've yet to read.

[Derek Smith]

I've just read This Book Could Fix Your Life, by Helen Thomson.

I avoid self-help books, nearly as much as I avoid non-geographical books with Journey in the title, but I was on the way to pay for another book in Waterstones, saw the New Scientist logo on the cover and picked it up without looking too closely, other than appreciating the adjustable spanner on the cover.

Imagine my horror when I realised what it was all about. I should have returned it, but you know how judgemental the staff at the counter can get in Waterstones. So I paid.

The irony is that the book is not bad but, if I've taken it all on-board, I would in future be able to return the book to the pile without embarrassment. Possibly even with eye contact with the staff.

Not really recommended, at least to purchase. It's the sort of thing libraries will buy for you. But not bad.

[coppice]

Two gems - The Car by Bryan Appleyard - a decent ( Sunday Times , award winning ) journalist takes a stroll through the history of our favourite machine and its transformation from liberator to oppressor (in many eyes ). Fascinating and thought provoking read.

And David Twohig's wonderful Inside the Machine , the design /engineering story of the Qashqai, ZOE and A 110 . Absolutely wonderful insight into the creation of a new car, from internal politics, profit margins and design minutiae . And dealing with big beasts like Ghosn and Tavares

My reviews in full are on www.speedreaders.info . The first review is live now, Twohig book is later this week

[Mezzanine]

I second the David Twohig book recommendation - fascinating read even if you were not particularly into cars.

He is a really good, engaging writer.

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished "Pandemic" by Robin Cook. Similar to the other book I read by him, it suffers a bit from adding in explanations that aren't necessary, or repeating stuff, in a way that almost looks as if he's been contracted to write a certain number of words. A young woman dies of an unknown virus, and then another one, and things start to look troublesome when medical examiner Jack Stapleton starts to look into their background.

[paulguitar]

droopsnoot said:

A young woman dies of an unknown virus, and then another one

So she dies twice?

[LordGrover]

Blimey, Robin Cook... I remember reading Coma back in the seventies. He must be getting on a bit now.

[droopsnoot]

paulguitar said:

droopsnoot said:

A young woman dies of an unknown virus, and then another one

So she dies twice?

See, that's why I'm not a writer. Another young woman, obvs.

He's 82, apparently. I won't be specifically avoiding his others, but I doubt I'll be trying to complete the set.

[AstonZagato]

I had a few days in Crete, opposite Spinalonga Island so read a few books.

The Island
Victoria Hislop
Not my normal fare - no spies, murders, scantily-clad ladies or helicopter gunships. However, it's about the leper colony at Spinalogna so very topical.
Nicely written, though rather consciously (every noun being given some epithet - e.g tomatoes would be "blood-red").

Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman
Mildly diverting. Not as amusing or interesting as I thought it would be from the plaudits. However, a reasonable holiday read

Doctor for Friend and Foe
Dr Rick Jolly
Account of the medical teams for the Falklands campaign. Likeable and moving. Quite heavily populated by TLAs. Perhaps a little self-promotional, if one were to nit-pick.

And on That Bombshell
Richard Porter
An insider's view of Top Gear. Written in Richard's amusing style. I enjoyed it.

The Mistress
James Patterson
Beach holiday pulp fiction. Unlikeable main character. Some obvious plot twists, two-dimensional characters.

Mythos
Stephen Fry
Nice anthology of the better known Greek myths. He has a decent attempt at drawing a consistent timeline (which isn't really a thing). Seemed appropriate to read in Greece.

[Got4wheels]

I finished reading Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger earlier this afternoon.

Absolutely wonderful book talking about tribal pre oil Arabia just as it was beginning to move into the petrodollar dynasty we see today. The further you read the more the book felt like a love letter to an era that Thesiger knew was ending as oil companies were sniffing around. It brought a rye smile to my face as he described Abu Dhabi as a small town with a population of 2000.

I'd recommend the book to anyone who's a history buff and wants to know more about an era thats beginning to slip out of living memory.

Next up for me is Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason.

Michael

[Siko]

Just finished Bill Browder's "Freezing Order" which I was sent for free by accident from Amazon, after I had ordered it originally for the FiL Absolutely brilliant rollercoaster read of Browder's efforts to hinder Putin's money laundering apparatus and the Russian states constant chilling attempts to get him, legally or otherwise. 10/10 from me, I couldn't put it down and really not my sort of thing normally.

Also recently read "Putin's People" by Catherine Belton, which was a fascinating and important read but a slog to get through too. This covers how Putin came to power and how he finances/runs his kleptocracy, it's every bit as dysfunctional and chilling as you can imagine it to be. I found the massive list of characters to be difficult to follow and must admit I skim read a lot of it as it is fairly hefty aswell (500 pages). However, it is worth it to understand how we are where we are with Russia today and what motivates them.