Books - What are you reading?
Discussion
PomBstard said:
About halfway through this…
If someone pitched it as a movie idea they’d get short shrift for it being just too far-fetched - but truth is often stranger, and this is worth a read
Snap! I am currently 3/4 of the way through. It is quite unbelievable really, and lifts that lid on a sinister other world that goes on out there that we have to pretend doesn't exist as we go on our normal everyday lives.If someone pitched it as a movie idea they’d get short shrift for it being just too far-fetched - but truth is often stranger, and this is worth a read
Thought I'd posted this already.
Rain Dogs: less cocaine, more varieties of Whisky/Whiskey good plot. Good read, keeps you entertained, Enjoyed the books and hopefully get a couple more from this author.
Rain Dogs: less cocaine, more varieties of Whisky/Whiskey good plot. Good read, keeps you entertained, Enjoyed the books and hopefully get a couple more from this author.
Skyedriver said:
Just finished "Gun Street Girl" by Adrian Mc Kinty.
Picked up with another book (from the Charity Shop)by the same author which I liked the title of "Rain Dogs" (A Tom Waits song).
If you can imagine Gene Hunt in the RUC in the mid 1980's.....
Easy read, quite entertaining, written in a similarish vein to Nic Pizzalatto with a bit of Andy Weir humour.
Starting Rain Dogs tonight
Picked up with another book (from the Charity Shop)by the same author which I liked the title of "Rain Dogs" (A Tom Waits song).
If you can imagine Gene Hunt in the RUC in the mid 1980's.....
Easy read, quite entertaining, written in a similarish vein to Nic Pizzalatto with a bit of Andy Weir humour.
Starting Rain Dogs tonight
Edited by Skyedriver on Monday 22 April 07:18
I am really trying hard this year to be better at finishing books - I have dozens if not hundreds of books scatted around which I've started but got some portion of the way through and then seen something shinier.
Almost everything I read is non-fiction.
2024 I'm trying to brush up my French (I'm a reasonable intermediate level) and I'm a few pages into L'Etranger (Camus) - so far so good and my charity shop edition has a lot of the vocabulary at the back. I'm also trying to learn Ancient Greek (only been going a few weeks) although this has inspired me to read - in translation obviously - Robert Fagles's translations of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and they really are superb and the translation and notes are pitched perfectly. I have Fables's translations of Aeschylus but they're set aside for the moment while I try and make headway with some other things.
Things which have recently appeared on my shelves include Byzantium - The Early Centuries (John Julius Norwich); Rosemary Sutcliff's version of the King Arthur stories (ignore the fact that her writing is supposedly for kids - it's superb - her version of the Fenian cycle stories is wonderful too); Jay Owens - Dust; John Barrow - Cosmic Imagery. Currently in front of me on the living room floor is the comprehensive Times Atlas of the World - I've been looking at Arctic Canada - I could read this for hours.
Almost everything I read is non-fiction.
2024 I'm trying to brush up my French (I'm a reasonable intermediate level) and I'm a few pages into L'Etranger (Camus) - so far so good and my charity shop edition has a lot of the vocabulary at the back. I'm also trying to learn Ancient Greek (only been going a few weeks) although this has inspired me to read - in translation obviously - Robert Fagles's translations of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and they really are superb and the translation and notes are pitched perfectly. I have Fables's translations of Aeschylus but they're set aside for the moment while I try and make headway with some other things.
Things which have recently appeared on my shelves include Byzantium - The Early Centuries (John Julius Norwich); Rosemary Sutcliff's version of the King Arthur stories (ignore the fact that her writing is supposedly for kids - it's superb - her version of the Fenian cycle stories is wonderful too); Jay Owens - Dust; John Barrow - Cosmic Imagery. Currently in front of me on the living room floor is the comprehensive Times Atlas of the World - I've been looking at Arctic Canada - I could read this for hours.
How nice (and unexpected on PH ) to see such eclecticism. My wife is a classicist and waxed lyrical on Greek Tragedies so often that I succumbed and went to see Euripides' Iphigenia with her . I was stunned - it was utterly brilliant and moved me to tears. I'm a fan - the last thing we saw was Aeschylus 's Suppliant Women . It was written 2500 years ago but its themes felt so relevant to today that it could have been written last week.
The biggest tragedy of all, as you know , is that of the 300 odd plays which were written, only 30 or so survive . What lessons could we have learned from the lost works I wonder?
The biggest tragedy of all, as you know , is that of the 300 odd plays which were written, only 30 or so survive . What lessons could we have learned from the lost works I wonder?
Legend83 said:
PomBstard said:
Snap! I am currently 3/4 of the way through. It is quite unbelievable really, and lifts that lid on a sinister other world that goes on out there that we have to pretend doesn't exist as we go on our normal everyday lives.The fact that I wasn't trying to make a fast buck from trading Russian utilities was possibly helpful too
coppice said:
How nice (and unexpected on PH ) to see such eclecticism. My wife is a classicist and waxed lyrical on Greek Tragedies so often that I succumbed and went to see Euripides' Iphigenia with her . I was stunned - it was utterly brilliant and moved me to tears. I'm a fan - the last thing we saw was Aeschylus 's Suppliant Women . It was written 2500 years ago but its themes felt so relevant to today that it could have been written last week.
The biggest tragedy of all, as you know , is that of the 300 odd plays which were written, only 30 or so survive . What lessons could we have learned from the lost works I wonder?
Make back-ups.The biggest tragedy of all, as you know , is that of the 300 odd plays which were written, only 30 or so survive . What lessons could we have learned from the lost works I wonder?
Well, I finally found this after looking for it for over 50 years.
It was a book that I remember reading in primary school which (as with so many other readers if you read the reviews) inspired a love of driving, cars, MGs, mechanical stuff and much more.The descriptions of the passion the protagonist had stuck with me for so many years that I looked for it in every old bookshop and online catalogue I came across. Hard to do when you only have an eight year old's vague memories of title, author and content, but I found it eventually on an online library. I started it an hour ago and am about half way through it now. I'm loving it, it's just as I remember.
It was a book that I remember reading in primary school which (as with so many other readers if you read the reviews) inspired a love of driving, cars, MGs, mechanical stuff and much more.The descriptions of the passion the protagonist had stuck with me for so many years that I looked for it in every old bookshop and online catalogue I came across. Hard to do when you only have an eight year old's vague memories of title, author and content, but I found it eventually on an online library. I started it an hour ago and am about half way through it now. I'm loving it, it's just as I remember.
Edited by Desiderata on Tuesday 30th April 17:36
whimsical ninja said:
I am really trying hard this year to be better at finishing books - I have dozens if not hundreds of books scatted around which I've started but got some portion of the way through and then seen something shinier.
Almost everything I read is non-fiction.
2024 I'm trying to brush up my French (I'm a reasonable intermediate level) and I'm a few pages into L'Etranger (Camus) - so far so good and my charity shop edition has a lot of the vocabulary at the back. I'm also trying to learn Ancient Greek (only been going a few weeks) although this has inspired me to read - in translation obviously - Robert Fagles's translations of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and they really are superb and the translation and notes are pitched perfectly. I have Fables's translations of Aeschylus but they're set aside for the moment while I try and make headway with some other things.
Things which have recently appeared on my shelves include Byzantium - The Early Centuries (John Julius Norwich); Rosemary Sutcliff's version of the King Arthur stories (ignore the fact that her writing is supposedly for kids - it's superb - her version of the Fenian cycle stories is wonderful too); Jay Owens - Dust; John Barrow - Cosmic Imagery. Currently in front of me on the living room floor is the comprehensive Times Atlas of the World - I've been looking at Arctic Canada - I could read this for hours.
Many years ago I started La Peste but after a few chapters realised my French wasn’t really up to it so switched to Harry Potter! Not quite as intellectual but was a much easier read. Almost everything I read is non-fiction.
2024 I'm trying to brush up my French (I'm a reasonable intermediate level) and I'm a few pages into L'Etranger (Camus) - so far so good and my charity shop edition has a lot of the vocabulary at the back. I'm also trying to learn Ancient Greek (only been going a few weeks) although this has inspired me to read - in translation obviously - Robert Fagles's translations of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and they really are superb and the translation and notes are pitched perfectly. I have Fables's translations of Aeschylus but they're set aside for the moment while I try and make headway with some other things.
Things which have recently appeared on my shelves include Byzantium - The Early Centuries (John Julius Norwich); Rosemary Sutcliff's version of the King Arthur stories (ignore the fact that her writing is supposedly for kids - it's superb - her version of the Fenian cycle stories is wonderful too); Jay Owens - Dust; John Barrow - Cosmic Imagery. Currently in front of me on the living room floor is the comprehensive Times Atlas of the World - I've been looking at Arctic Canada - I could read this for hours.
Legend83 said:
PomBstard said:
Snap! I am currently 3/4 of the way through. It is quite unbelievable really, and lifts that lid on a sinister other world that goes on out there that we have to pretend doesn't exist as we go on our normal everyday lives.
epom said:
Legend83 said:
PomBstard said:
Snap! I am currently 3/4 of the way through. It is quite unbelievable really, and lifts that lid on a sinister other world that goes on out there that we have to pretend doesn't exist as we go on our normal everyday lives.I've just finished "No 1 Lawyer" by James Patterson and Nancy Allen. A defense lawyer successfully defends the son of a local gangster, then his wife is murdered. He's accused of conspiring to murder her, and has to defend himself. A decent story, not sure whether the title suggests it's the start of a series.
A few this month, again continuing to see what people think about thinking about thinking...so not for everyone! Anyway first of all Freedom Evolves by the prodigious Daniel Dennett (who passed away last week unfortunately). This is basically Dennett concentrating on the issue of 'free will' and is there such a thing, and if there is, how does it come about if it's not by determinism? I think he does a pretty good job, my own views over the years have ranged but now settled on it being neither purely deterministic nor 'spooky', yet I still wrangle with the fact that we are all just atoms interacting with other atoms whose motion/action/interaction may be determined by a future-mega-super-duper ASI computer that can predict what is next. [No such thing as free will - check. Such a thing as free will - check; checkmate!]. This book goes some way to resolving the dichotomy and without too many philosophical/semantic tricks by exploring 'compatibilism' theory - ['compatibility' of the two states].
[It reminded me of Holland's 'Hidden Order' in this resolution towards emergent properties of complex adaptive systems.]
[Dennett actually makes a good fist at keeping things light and easy, it is a readable book, as with most of his stuff, RIP big feller]
--
I also bought a few Popper books, first his seminal 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' in two volumes and another that caught my eye as it is similar to the above was The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism - co-authored by neuroscientist John Eccles. This explores the duality problem [mind/body] and, true to its title, pits the philosopher against the scientist in an effort to clarify some of the issues. Let's see how this goes!
--
Also read Meanwhile in Dopamine City by DBC Pierre, not as good as Lights Out in Wonderland imo, it does a trick about half way through that is nicely recursive but reading half a book like that was a bit tiresome [just me probably, and that was also the point I think], nothing like House of Leaves or Gravity's Rainbow, but I like my books quite conventional goddamit!
[It reminded me of Holland's 'Hidden Order' in this resolution towards emergent properties of complex adaptive systems.]
[Dennett actually makes a good fist at keeping things light and easy, it is a readable book, as with most of his stuff, RIP big feller]
--
I also bought a few Popper books, first his seminal 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' in two volumes and another that caught my eye as it is similar to the above was The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism - co-authored by neuroscientist John Eccles. This explores the duality problem [mind/body] and, true to its title, pits the philosopher against the scientist in an effort to clarify some of the issues. Let's see how this goes!
--
Also read Meanwhile in Dopamine City by DBC Pierre, not as good as Lights Out in Wonderland imo, it does a trick about half way through that is nicely recursive but reading half a book like that was a bit tiresome [just me probably, and that was also the point I think], nothing like House of Leaves or Gravity's Rainbow, but I like my books quite conventional goddamit!
Edited by andy_s on Thursday 2nd May 09:59
whimsical ninja said:
I'm also trying to learn Ancient Greek (only been going a few weeks) although this has inspired me to read - in translation obviously - Robert Fagles's translations of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and they really are superb and the translation and notes are pitched perfectly. I have Fables's translations of Aeschylus but they're set aside for the moment while I try and make headway with some other things.
Didn't expect to stumble across someone learning Ancient Greek on PH! How are you finding it? I did Latin and Greek for A levels, despite going to a 'bog standard' secondary school in the 80s-90s. I have been trying to brush up on both of them recently, but not making much headway, mostly because I am trying to get my French to a level where I can read a few novels...And Rosemary Sutcliff is for everyone! I've got her retelling of Tristan and Iseult in my 'currently reading' pile. I always have multiple books on the go..
Other books I'm currently reading: Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout, A Tale of Two Cities (doing a two year long read along of all Dickens novels with a BookTuber), The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and (a bit embarrassingly) The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss!
Slowboathome said:
toasty said:
If I have a street, this was right up it.
I hear there’s a sequel that’s best avoided.
Fair enough. I don't play any video games, but I can imagine it's brilliant book for people who are knowledgeable about that kind of thing.I hear there’s a sequel that’s best avoided.
I read Reamde by Neil Stephenson not long after and enjoyed it a lot more.
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