feeding my amazon habit

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there's a stack of unread books beside the bed and a large amazon shopping basket ready for action so I'm telling myself that I'm going to get through the unread pile before buying any more.

bit of background first:

top 14 authors in no particular order:
Douglas Coupland
Iain Banks
Ian Rankin
Will Self
Haruki Murakami
Brendan Behan
T.C. Boyle
Christopher Brookmyre
Flann O'Brien
Banana Yoshimoto
Irvine Welsh
Nick Hornby
Jasper Fforde
Martin Scott/Millar

top 6 sports books:
The rider - Tim Krabbe
A season with Verona - Tim Parks
Only a game - Eamon Dunphy
The fight - Norman Mailer
The escape artist - Matt Seaton
Friday night lights - H.G. Bissinger

Currently reading:
I play the drums in a band called okay - Toby Litt
What I talk about when I talk about running - Haruki Murakami

Just finished:
Strangers - Taichi Yamada
A good japanese ghost story. I can't get enough of japanese fiction at the moment and this was up there. I like the way that japanese authors stress the detail of ordinary japanese life. Even amongst extraordinary happenings we need to know the contents of the boxed lunch or what piece of music was playing. I love Haruki Murakami's mix of the surreal and banal.

Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks - Christopher Brookmyre
I like Brookmyre's style and I like his Jack Parlabane character. This was a pop at the world of psychics and creationists (or woo as he calls it). A good story, funny, a few twists with a few well reasoned arguments for rational thinking.

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Finished:
What I talk about when I talk about running - Haruki Murakami

good, quite technical though - not sure how it would read to non-runners. It was nice to know that Murakami goes through the same challenges and experiences the same joys in running as us mere mortals.

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Started:
Best American sports writing 2008,
it's going to be more of an occasional pick up rather than a read it in one sitting job so it might be there for quite a while,
I'm a big fan of the Best American.... series, I pick up the short stories, sports writing and Dave Eggers' non-required reading every year.

Last book abandoned:
Then we came to the end - Joshua Ferris. Dull dull dull.

Last book reread:
Love and peace with Melody Paradise - Martin Millar.
A great book about a new age traveller and her efforts to reunite her family by holding a festival.

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Finished:
I play the drums in a band called okay - Toby Litt

I enjoyed this a lot. Not so much a novel as a series of first person accounts of life as a drummer in a candian indie band. It's quite random and disjointed but it works well. It's very Couplandy in both style and content.

I loved Beatniks and Adventures in Capitalism but I thought Toby Litt was very hit and miss after those (more miss than hit) but this is as good as those two. Was sorry when it ended.

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Finished:
A big boy did it and ran away - Christopher Brookmyre,

really enjoyed this, international terrorism with a scottish flavour, filled with gaming and music references,
sometimes he overcooks the satire which can be a tad annoying even if you agree with him,

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wow, it's over a month since I finished a book,
that's the curse of Football Manager,
anyway

Finished:
Grotesque - Natsuo Kirino,

took a while to get through this, was totally different to the same author's "Out" and tougher reading. It's more of a character study than a crime novel.
The main character's younger sister and an old classmate are prostitutes that have been murdered. The book explores their back stories through letters and journals and the back story of the murder suspect through his confessions.

Despite struggling through it I was sorry when it was over, it leaves an imprint. I'll be thinking about it for a while.

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Finished:
The Sweat of the Gods - Benjo Maso,

I expected a bit more from this, I thought it was going to detail cycling's legendary characters and races but it's more of a potted history of pro cycling and the Tour de France in particular. It's quite a short book so nothing gets too much detail.
It works as a brief history of cycling but I was hoping for something a bit meatier, like Calcio, John Foot's history of Italian Football, which I have on the go as well at the moment.

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Finished:
There are Little Kingdoms - Kevin Barry,

I loved this, a wonderful collection of short stories, mostly set in small town Ireland.
He has a great turn of phrase and describes the settings and landscapes brilliantly - afternoons are feeble, people have furious eyebrows, you could be on the expressway bus trundling through the damp Tipp countryside.

I used to love his Examiner column and hoped that this book wouldn't disappoint and happily it didn't.

One to go back to.

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Finished:
Drivetime - James Meek,

strange one this, started off loving it but found it a chore to finish it.
It starts off conventially enough, a student wants to move from the town of Edinburgh to the town of Glasgow (where the people are hard and cool and warm) and offers to collect an antique egg for a guy he meets at a party.
This turns into a wild goose (egg) chase and it diverts from the standard road trip and hurtles at breakneck speed through England and across Europe. It gets quite surreal and hard to follow, things change substantially from one sentence to the next.
I was glad I stuck with it though as the ending was quite good.

Sputnik Caledonia - Andrew Crumey,

loved this, couldn't put it down.
The first part of the book is set in the 70s, about a 12 year old scottish boy who wants to be a cosmonaut. It sets out his life and his influences (his family, 1970s Britain, Marxism).
The second part of the book takes place in an alternative communist Britain (BDR) and is set in a secret military town where the boy is taking part in a secret space programme. It's all very 1984 and keeps you turning the pages.
The final part is set in the 21st century - can't say much more without giving away too much. Great book.

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Finished:
The death of Marco Pantani - Matt Rendell,

A book of two halves. The first half concentrates on Marco's bike racing career prior to his positive test at the Giro. The accounts of the races and Marco's attacks are brilliantly descriptive and evoke great images of him soaring up the climbs.
The second half is much more forensic and is more about Marco's blood than Marco. He makes cameo appearances which highlight the downward spiral his cocaine abuse was taking him on. There's a lot of medical terminology and comparisons of various blood measurements as well as times/durations of phone calls, who called who etc.

There was nothing too surprising in it although I was shocked as to how his mental health apparently deteriorated so quickly.
You probably don't need to be too hung up on drug use in sport to follow pro-cycling. You'd rather it wasn't there but it is and has been for a long, long time and you're deluding yourself if you think your heroes are clean.

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Forgot to log this last week:

Finished:
The sacred art of stealing - Christopher Brookmyre,

More of the same and I mean that in a good way (unless you don't like Christopher Brookmyre in which case it's probably a very bad thing).
The second book featuring DS Angelique de Xavia and it's got bizarre robbers, plenty of misdirection, humour and the usual goading of old firm fans. What's not to like.

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Finished:
Last chance to see - Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine,

A really good read. It was in the pile next to the bed for a while but I decided to get to it before the upcoming Stephen Fry TV follow up.

Adams and zoologist Mark Carwardine travelled around the world looking for endangered species for a series of radio documentaries at the end of the eighties.
Adams' humour and style shines through in his observations and set pieces but it's also a poignant read and illustrates the fragility and complexities of ecosystems. Man and rats don't come out of it too well though.

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Finished:

The best American non-required reading - edited by Dave Eggers,

This is an annual series compiling fiction, non-fiction, magazine articles, comics etc. edited by Dave Eggers and compiled by a batch of high school students.
This year's selection was pretty poor, there was nothing really stand-out in it apart from a couple of good articles about Argentina's white train and Ethiopian jews in Israel. Some of the fiction was very poor. This hasn't been great for the last few years and this might be the last one I get.

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Finished:
Shadow Family - Miyuke Miyabi
Real World - Natsuo Kirino

2 fairly similar Japanese thrillers.
In Shadow Family the focus is on the investigation of 2 initially unrelated murders. Most of the action centres on the police investigation linking the murders, an internet chatroom and an elaborate interview to snare the killer.
Good, but not as good as Crossfire from the same author, probably more like a clever episode of The Bill, but Japanese and cool.

In Real World the killer is pretty obvious from the start and the book follows the main suspect on the run and his interaction, firstly with his next door neighbour, and over the course of the book her 3 friends.
A good, well paced read. It's the 3rd of her books I've read and they've all been pretty different from each other so far.

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Finished:
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night - Christopher Brookmyre,

Another page turner, witty with a bit of a daft plot - set on a school reunion on a converted oil rig.
I've been working my way through all of his novels in the last year or so and haven't found a bad one yet.

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Finished:
The Book of Other People - Edited by Zadie Smith,

a so-so collection of short stories, the hook being that each story is about a particular character.

The list of contributors promised more but only David Mitchell, Daniel Clowes, Dave Eggers and Colm Toibin stood out.

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Finished:
The Best American Sports Writing 2007,

I love American sports and I love American sports writing. Some very good pieces in this ranging from an analysis of Bugs Bunny's baseball performance to the way the trainer industry exploits high school kids.
Stand out articles were on a long-standing saturday basketball game, surfboard technology and a retired football player shunning the limelight in Hawaii.

Great reading.

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Finished:
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell,

I enjoyed this a lot. It's 6 nested stories, the main character in the next story is reading or viewing the previous story. The stories are split into 2 parts and range from a 19th century pacific voyage to a post-apocalyptic future.
It took a bit to get into but once it gets going it's very enjoyable, although the middle section that divides all the stories was slow going but worth sticking with.

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Finished:
In Search of Robert Millar - Richard Moore,

a great account of the career and subsequent disappearance of the British cyclist.
Millar was part of the wave of english speaking riders that made cycling so popular here in the 80s. This book is a fascinating account of his career. It's not just a list of races and positions. Richard Moore is a former bike racer and he describes the tactics, the significant events and the politics of the peloton brilliantly.
Millar was unconventional and complex and aside from an email exchange in the epilogue didn't contribute to the book but the author does a good job of piecing together interviews and reports from the era as well as input from the likes of Stephen Roche and Allan Peiper.

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Finished:
Clear Water - Will Ashon,

Based around a shopping centre I was expecting a kind of character study of contemporary Britain but it's a somewhat surreal novel around a diverse set of characters loosely connected to each other and the shopping centre. It's a bit David Mitchell but doesn't quite come off in the end, although it kept me reading long enough for it to be gone too far to abandon it.

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Finished:
A Snowball in Hell - Christopher Brookmyre,

This time Brookmyre sets his sights on celeb culture with the return of Simon Darcourt on a celeb killing spree and DI Angelique de Xavia on his tail with the help of magician Zal Innez. There's some very elaborate set ups and plot twists, a bit of sleight of hand and misdirection; it should be ridiculous but it's a great read. There's the usual lack of subtlety when Brookmyre's trying to hammer home but it's a funny and engrossing book.

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Finished:
Hello Sailor - Michael Hutchinson

Michael Hutchinson is a pro cyclist who wrote a very funny book - The Hour - about his attempt on the world hour record. Before becoming a cyclist he was into sailing. When considering retirement from cycling he revisits the world of competitive sailing for a year to see if he can give it a go. It probably started off as a good idea and it's a pretty decent effort but there just doesn't seem to be enough material to fill it. He's got a lot of memories and stories from his teenage sailing days but is disappointed when he revisits old haunts with new crews. He blags his way on board a number of boats but pretty much all the characters he meets seem to be rather joyless and boring and the funniest parts are from the old stories.


Finished:
What's Going On - Mark Steel

As Mark Steel turns 40 he tries to make sense of why both the british Left and his marriage are falling apart. Some well observed social commentary is interspersed with details of his marriage break up. Sometimes it feels like he's stating the bleeding obvious but that could be just that he's preaching to the converted. That said, I would imagine most readers would be fans of his to begin with and share his political views.

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Finished:
A Dog in a Hat - Joe Parkin,

Joe Parkin was an american who went to Belgium to become a pro cyclist in the 80s. This is a good account of the less glamorous side of cycling (although let's face it, there isn't really a glamorous side to cycling). It's all here, the drugs, the team orders, the travelling from town to town for crit races and very little prize money.
There's nothing either earth shattering or hilarious in it.
He seems to bump into most of the big stars of the time at some stage but doesn't really have any great stories to tell. But maybe that sums up the life of the journeyman cyclist.

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Finished:
We All Live in a Perry Groves World - Perry Groves.

I got this from one of the lads at work a while back and it was sitting in the pile beside the bad. But Perry Groves has been on Radio 5's Fighting Talk a couple of times recently and he's been quite funny so I bumped it up the list.

Perry Groves was an average footballer who was a bit part player in the successful Arsenal side of the late 80s/early 90s. It's a good read from a time when footballers were a bit more like normal folk than they are now. That said, there are a few "Do you know who I am" type incidents in there and Perry bears more than a few grudges against those who may have upset him on the way up and down. There's a lot of stories from the Arsenal drinking days, he's happy to name names more often than not. He was also prolifically unfaithful and doesn't cover it up even though it doesn't show him in a particularly good light (I'm not sure Perry sees it this way though).

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Finished:
The Commitments
The Snapper
The Van - all Roddy Doyle,

I don't think I'd read these since they came out so after watching The Snapper a few weeks back I got them out again. Very enjoyable and fresh after the films being the main reference for so long.

Finished:
Mobius Dick - Andrew Crumey,

almost abandoned it but stuck with it, mainly because of the quality of the references on the cover, and enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I understood it though. There's a lot of Quantum Physics and philosophy going on, overlapping threads through time and parallel universes.

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Finished:
The Godfather - Mario Puzo,
This had been sitting beside the bed for over a year before I took it on holidays. A fantastic read, the films were magnificent but this is even better.

Reheated Cabbage - Irvine Welsh,
A collection of previously published short stories and a new novella. Some of the old characters are revisited such as Begbie and Juice Terry. The quality varies a bit, there's nothing outstanding and the new one is probably the weakest.

Skinheads - John King,
I hadn't read John King since The Football Factory years ago and didn't think much of that. Being a bit of an ageing rudie I said I'd give it a go and I really enjoyed it. The skinheads are proper skinheads, not the stereotype racist meatheads that are usually portrayed. It's loaded with reggae/ska references and the characters are very believable.

The Rider - Tim Krabbe,
A reread of one of my favourite books of all time. An account of a one day cycle race in the 70s from one rider's perspective might not sound very good but it's riveting stuff. You get totally inside the rider's head, his conversations with himself, the struggle to keep going. You get familiar with the other racers even though you know little more than their names. It's engrossing, you really do feel like you're in the race. It's a remarkable book.

At War - Flann O'Brien,
A collection of Cruiskeen Lawn articles from the war years, some brilliant, some surreal and some from off days. They're grouped into themes but these seem fairly loose. There are some gems in there.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow - Jerome K Jerome,
A collection of comic observations from the author of Three Men in a Boat, most of them still quite funny given that they were written over 100 years ago. Topics range from idleness to love to pets and babies. It's not as laugh out loud as Three Men.. but would give most current columnists a run for their money.

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Finished:
One Day - David Nicholls,

A pair of students sleep together on 15th July 1988, at the end of university, and vow to keep in touch. The book then stops on their lives on the same day every year. It works really well. You're compelled to keep reading to find out what's happened during the year. The characters are well formed and believable and the ebb and flow of life over 20 years is captured brilliantly.
A very enjoyable read.

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Finished:
The Butt - Will Self,

Will Self's been pretty disappointing over the last few years. The Book of Dave was something of a return. This isn't quite as good but still an improvement on some of what's gone before.
It's typical Will Self absurdity, a tourist in a fictional Australia-like country throws a cigarette from a balcony that lands on the old man staying below. As part of the local legal system he has to embark on a road trip to make reparations to the old man's native bride's people.
The road trip and its cast of characters are entertaining but it runs out of steam near the end and the ending is a bit too half-baked.

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Finished:
The Fallen - Dave Simpson,

The Fall have had well over 40 band members over the last 30 years with singer/dictator Mark E Smith the only constant.
This book is an attempt to contact all of the ex members to get a flavour of life inside and out of the band as well as a sort of biography of Smith by proxy.
It's a decent enough read, some good anecdotes and you do get a flavour of the intensity of being in The Fall. Band members are punched mid-gig or abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Simpson tends to big up the importance of both his "quest" and The Fall's influence in his life a bit too much though.

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Finished:
Englischer Fussball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game - Raphael Honigstein,

Raphael Honigstein is a German journalist who's been living in the UK since the early 90s and is a frequent guest on the Guardian's Football Weekly podcast.
I was expecting this to be a German's eye view of English football but it's more of a series of essays on various aspects of it - its history, the English taste for suffering, football and fashion, hooliganism etc. Nothing new really, but given that the book was originally written in German for a German audience this might be an unfair criticism.
The last chapter explores the English attitudes to Germany and vice versa and is probably the most insightful chapter in the book, especially regarding both nations' attitude to the war. Honigstein reflects that the Germans are more embarrassed about starting the war than losing it. Because of this there is no real nostalgia or retro culture in Germany as there is in the UK, Germans tend to look forwards.

A decent enough read, a nice potted history of football with a slightly German slant.

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Finished:
Pandaemonium - Christopher Brookmyre,

Probably the least enjoyable Brookmyre book I've read. You expect an outlandish setup in the middle of Scotland but this was far fetched even by his standards, verging towards fantasy. It lacked the normal helpings of satire, although he had an easy target in the catholic church.
A group of kids from a catholic school go on a retreat after a stabbing in the school. Meanwhile, underneath the ground, a top secret military experiment opens a porthole to another world.

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Finished:
Life at the Tip - Merv Grist,

a re-read from about 15 years ago. A season following fictional non-league team Athletico Whaddon and their manager Les Bence. Quite funny, but not as funny as I remembered it at the time. It's mainly made up of Les' programme notes and personal diary entries. There are some laugh out loud bits but it hasn't aged too well. The Tip refers to the ground, the club get nicknamed The Stiffs after being sponsored by the local undertaker and get a purple satin kit. Their nearest rivals are so successful that they buy the neighbouring supermarket to expand their ground.

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Finished:
Only a Game? - Eamon Dunphy,

another reread (these are straitened times), the classic footballer's autobiography. The Dunph's honest and engaging account of half a season in the second division a Millwall in 1973 is still head and shoulders above most football books.
It's hard to read without hearing him in your head though - lots of talk about moral courage and honesty and good pro's.

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Finished:
The Peacock Manifesto - Stuart David,

a quick reread in the middle of a few other books on the go. I loved this first time round, and it still reads well. My only complaint is it's too short. The characters are engaging but I'd like to have spent more time with them. Peacock, a deluded scottish would be psycho, his wife and Evil Bob, his american sidekick, embark on a road trip around the USA in a bid to realise Peacock's dream. It rolls along as the characters encounter one farcical situation after another. Tremendously enjoyable.

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Finished:
Bad to the Bone - James Waddington,

a crime thriller set in the world of pro cycling promised much (well, to me anyway) but didn't really deliver. It starts off well enough. There's been a couple of bizarre deaths among the peleton, a young female spanish cop starts investigating. But about half way through it literally loses the plot and we're not any wiser as to the hows and whys by the end of it. The bike racing bits are well written but the characters are very sketchy and it just becomes a mess.

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Finished:
Where Did it All Go Right? Growing Up Normal in the 70s - Andrew Collins

Andrew Collins is a broadcaster and journalist. I remember him from the NME in the 80s and his contributions to the TV Cream website. He's currently half of a very funny podcast with Richard Herring.
This is a great book, an account of a perfectly normal and happy childhood in the 70s. It's more than a listing of nostalgic references, his relationship with his family, his school experiences and his out of school experiences are all very familiar. I found myself smiling and remembering parallels all the way through the book. Highly recommended.

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Finished:
Lux the Poet - Martin Millar,

Martin Millar's one of my favourite authors and, to my mind, criminally underrated. This was recently reprinted. It takes place in the middle of a Brixton riot with a large variety of characters trying to either avoid or find each other. There's Lux, a bad and vain poet, the woman he loves, her lesbian lover, a banished heavenly body and a bad death metal band amongst others. It rattles along and is a very funny read.

Finished:
Archimedes' Revenge: Joys and Perils of Mathematics - Paul Hoffman,

A reread of a book I last read about 15 years ago and I loved it. There are 4 sections dealing with number theory, shapes, computers and game theory. It's very accessible although the computers section is obviously dated. The game theory is fascinating though, some well illustrated examples of voting patterns and anomalies in Proportional Representation. Not as boring as I've just made it sound.


----

There's always a couple of books lying half read but there's 2 that I think I'll have to mark as abandoned.

Abandoned:
Journey into Space - Toby Litt,

Toby Litt's written some of my favourite books, Beatniks and Adventures in Capitalism particularly. However sometimes he doesn't work for me and I thought this was awful. A colony of humans is adrift in space for generations on their way to a better life. And that's pretty much it. I found it tedious and dull.

Abandoned:
God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland,

I got about two thirds of the way through this before finally giving up on it. I was hoping it would bring the period to life but it's a relentless trotting out of names, dates and "He said...They said" and it's very hard to get a picture of what exactly was going on in Ireland.

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Finished:
Training Techniques for Cyclists - Ben Hewitt,

I needed to get a bit more scientific about my training so went for this one, mainly because it was short and not too intimidating. I didn't want set schedules, just the concepts and ideas behind the different routines and this fits the bill perfectly. Well, we'll see if the results back it up.

Finished:
Three Men on the Bummel - Jerome K Jerome,

another reread, the follow up to Three Men in a Boat and just as funny. The three men head on a cycling holiday to the Black Forest for a break from their wives. The usual slapstick and well crafted mayhem ensues. There is a lot of observation on German and English traits which don't seem to be too different in 1900 to the cliches we have today.

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It's been a while,

Finished:
The Best of McSweeney's v2,

I find American short stories a bit hit or miss but McSweeney's quarterlies tend to be pretty decent. This is a best of and is definitely more hit than miss, particularly Notes From a Bunker Along Highway 8 & The Tears of Squonk

We Need to Talk About Kevin Keegan - Giles Smith,
A collection of Giles Smith's football columns from The Times. Very funny, reminds me of the heyday of When Saturday Comes before it took itself too seriously.

The Escape Artist - Matt Seaton,
a reread of a bike racing memoir by Grauniad journo Matt Seaton. It mixes his bike racing tales with a poignant autobiography. I'd imagine it's a good read even if you have no interest in cycling.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - Andrew Collins,
The second volume of memoirs from former NMEer and half of my current favourite podcast (with Richard Herring) follows Andrew Collins through his college years in London in the 80s. It's very easy to relate to but that may only apply to those of us of a certain vintage.

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Finished:
Love is a Mixtape - Rob Sheffield,

a rock journalist's memoir based around old mixtape playlists should have worked but didn't really. The story itself is pretty compelling and quite emotional, however the links to music can be quite tenuous a bit too cliched American Indie for me. Also, I hate when Americans refer to The Beat as The English Beat.

That's me in the Corner - Andrew Collins,
Another rock journo's memoir. The third Andrew Collins book recounts his time at the NME, editing Q and Word and his radio career. It's a good read but not as good as the other two, there is less personal stuff and a lot of is "then I did this...then I did this".

Currently reading Paul Murray's Skippy Dies and loving it so far.

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Finished:
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray,

I loved this, it's set in a Dublin boarding school, has lots of brilliantly detailed characters with their own story arcs but still revolving around Skippy, who dies on the first page. I don't want to give away too much but I'd very much recommend it. It's quite long, almost 700 pages, but a page turner.