This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

MagicMarker

Currently reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, really enjoying it!

I feel compelled to read Burial Rites next!

Swiper the fox

MagicMarker wrote: »

Currently reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, really enjoying it!

I feel compelled to read Burial Rites next!

No matter how good Burial rites is (and as I said I suspect it could be brilliant), it's unlikely to reach the heights of Middlesex, that's one of the best books of recent years in my opinion. it's one of those books i'd love to be able to read again for the first time.

eire4

Finished a re read of Peter De Rosa moving and brilliant book Rebels about the 1916 rising.

SarahBM

I plan to get really stuck into Burial Rites tonight. bout 60 pages in, but haven't been able to give it a good run yet.

Going to add Middlesex to the list :-)

Slattsy

Picked up The Kills - serious reviews out there for this book.

Cant wait to get stuck in!

Callan57

Starting a reread of Anthony & Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough

Paddy Samurai

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jacktakes inspiration from one of the most enduring mysteries of the Victorian age, then weaves it into a tale of time travel and history unmade. Author Mark Hodder's cast list includes appearances by many celebrities of the day; the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, a very young Oscar Wilde, naturalist Charles Darwin, and the poet Algernon Swinburne. Taking the lead role is the explorer and writer Sir Richard Francis Burton. Part steampunk, part alternate history, with a liberal dollop of detective thriller, it is a melting pot that has the potential to produce something tasty, or a nauseating mess.

About 70 pages in ,but not sure which one it will be.Hope its the former.

MagicMarker

Finished Burial Rites, it was quite good, not Earth shattering or anything, but good.

The fact that the author is only around 28 years old depresses me though!

SarahBM

MagicMarker wrote: »

Finished Burial Rites, it was quite good, not Earth shattering or anything, but good.

The fact that the author is only around 28 years old depresses me though!

I'm so jealous at how fast everyone reads. I'm only half way through! It's good. But finding hard to get stuck in.

Travel is good

I might look out for Burial Rites now.

I'm reading "Regeneration" by Pat Barker" and am really enjoying the Chaos trilogy, onto the 2nd book now, "The Ask and the Answer" by Patrick Ness.

IvaBigWun

I cant find a stand alone thread for the book, but if it exists could a mod please merge. Thanks.

Question: I downloaded a sample of The Wolf Of WAll Street last night to see if Id like to buy the full thing and so far Im on the fence.

Its well written and Im liking Jordan's style but it seems to more or less jump straight to him almost crashing his helicopter and then the fights with his second wife Nadine.

Does the narrative then work its way backwards to him building his own brokerage and even as far back to his meat packing business?

Ive read all there is from the free sample and this would be the deciding factor if Im going to buy it in full. The point of reading a book after seeing the film its based on is to gleam more details from the story and so far Im not seeing that

littlema

A book club was started at work....I don't have the time to go to the meetings, but I thought I should support them and read the first recommendation. It was for The cuckoos calling,by Robert Galbraith and I was seriously iffy about reading her other stuff!! But....it wasn't too bad a read and rattled along through the 550 pages, with the possibility of another book to come on the back of this one..
The moral of the few lines here?......that other peoples choices can be satisfying sometimes.

Meathlass

IvaBigWun wrote: »

I cant find a stand alone thread for the book, but if it exists could a mod please merge. Thanks.

Question: I downloaded a sample of The Wolf Of WAll Street last night to see if Id like to buy the full thing and so far Im on the fence.

Its well written and Im liking Jordan's style but it seems to more or less jump straight to him almost crashing his helicopter and then the fights with his second wife Nadine.

Does the narrative then work its way backwards to him building his own brokerage and even as far back to his meat packing business?

Ive read all there is from the free sample and this would be the deciding factor if Im going to buy it in full. The point of reading a book after seeing the film its based on is to gleam more details from the story and so far Im not seeing that

I was very disappointed by the book. It doesn't really go into the back story at all. Instead it spends a lot of time on his months in rehab and it stops before he goes to prison so we don't get any of that story either about how he fared after that and became a motivational speaker. I'd pick it up in the library or buy it in a charity shop but I wouldn't pay €10 for it.

Aenaes

I'm reading the Dupin series by Edgar Allan Poe, three murder mysteries beginning with "The Murders In Rue Morgue". First published in 1841, it has been recognised as the first detective story.

cookiecakes

IvaBigWun wrote: »

I cant find a stand alone thread for the book, but if it exists could a mod please merge. Thanks.

Question: I downloaded a sample of The Wolf Of WAll Street last night to see if Id like to buy the full thing and so far Im on the fence.

Its well written and Im liking Jordan's style but it seems to more or less jump straight to him almost crashing his helicopter and then the fights with his second wife Nadine.

Does the narrative then work its way backwards to him building his own brokerage and even as far back to his meat packing business?

Ive read all there is from the free sample and this would be the deciding factor if Im going to buy it in full. The point of reading a book after seeing the film its based on is to gleam more details from the story and so far Im not seeing that

I found it a terrible slog. Didn't enjoy it at all and I was dying to read it. That was pre-film so maybe having seen it, I might enjoy it a bit more.

SarahBM

Finished Burial Rites. It was good, but not amazing. I loved the descriptions of the Icelandic landscape and the scenery. I would love to go there, but even more so now.

Im starting the Lincoln Lawyer now. I am not sure, but I dont think I have read any Michael Connolly books before. My friend said it was good.

Swiper the fox

SarahBM wrote: »

Finished Burial Rites. It was good, but not amazing. I loved the descriptions of the Icelandic landscape and the scenery. I would love to go there, but even more so now.

Im starting the Lincoln Lawyer now. I am not sure, but I dont think I have read any Michael Connolly books before. My friend said it was good.

I also finished Burial Rites a few days ago, I thought it was excellent but once again the hype has left me ever so slightly disappointed. Strangely enough considering what you've said I didn't notice the landscape and scenery descriptions too much, strange what people can take from a book sometimes.

I've moved onto the new Joseph O'Connor book, he is probably my favourite living writer so I'm coming at it with great expectations but also very forgiving eyes. Needless to say it is brilliant so far.

Oh and finally, I've read the Lincoln Lawyer, it's the only Michael Connolly book I've read and while it's absolutely fine I won't be reading any more of his books, I thought that the two Denis Lehane books I read were much better but still not really my thing.

Meathlass

Halfway through Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann not as good as Transatlantic so far.

Next up is The thing about December by Donal Ryan which I'm really looking forward - loved The spinning heart

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Meathlass wrote: »

Halfway through Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCarthy not as good as Transatlantic so far.

I thought Let The Great World Spin was rubbish, to be honest. It felt like a bunch of short stories all tacked together without any real reason.

Meathlass

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I thought Let The Great World Spin was rubbish, to be honest. It felt like a bunch of short stories all tacked together without any real reason.

Yeah, that's the vibe I'm getting so far. Transatlantic was beautiful, the language was so poetic, that I had high hopes for this one.

SarahBM

Tell me this, is there a lack of punctuation in all mc carthy's books? I read no country for old men and it was so annoying, the lack of quotation marks and stuff. Wrecked my head.

Meathlass

SarahBM wrote: »

Tell me this, is there a lack of punctuation in all mc carthy's books? I read no country for old men and it was so annoying, the lack of quotation marks and stuff. Wrecked my head.

Yes, it's a trait of his. Supposed to stem from his time in college and modeled on Joyce and Faulkner. He believes good writing doesn't need a lot of punctuation and in his post-apocalyptical novel The Road it's echoes the sense of nothingness; that the world has been stripped bare.

It can be very confusing when you first start reading it but I have to say, I really love it as a style of writing.

Aenaes

Oh, that lack of punctuation annoyed me too. I found it difficult at times to distinguish which character was speaking. I've only read Blood Meridian so I thought it was unique to that book due to the lack of proper grammar in the Wild West. It's going to put me off starting another book of his, to be honest.

Anyway, currently reading A Storm Of Swords: Blood And Gold by George R.R. Martin.

Swiper the fox

SarahBM wrote: »

Tell me this, is there a lack of punctuation in all mc carthy's books? I read no country for old men and it was so annoying, the lack of quotation marks and stuff. Wrecked my head.

I would say that if you didn't enjoy No country for old men you should probably give Cormac McCarthy a wide berth, it's probably his most accessible book, certainly thematically. I liked most but not all of the McCarthy books I've read, loved NCFOM and the Road.

By the way have we kind of mixed up McCarthy and Colum McCann over the last few posts, otherwise the McCarthy reference seems quite random.

SarahBM

Swiper the fox wrote: »

By the way have we kind of mixed up McCarthy and Colum McCann over the last few posts, otherwise the McCarthy reference seems quite random.

Whoops,:( sorry about that. I was reading the thread on my phone, itty bitty writing. I still think my point about Cormac McCarthy is valid though :D

Has anyone read that Girl who Saved the King of Sweden yet? Im dying to start it but I must finish the Lincoln Lawyer first.

Meathlass

Swiper the fox wrote: »

By the way have we kind of mixed up McCarthy and Colum McCann over the last few posts, otherwise the McCarthy reference seems quite random.

Sorry that was my fault. In my original post I called McCann, Colum McCarthy for some reason.

Callan57

Finished my re-read of Antony & Cleopatra ... superb

Now it's on to Arena by Simon Scarrow

Wyldwood

Half way through Middlesex and it's not grabbing me. It's ok but I'm not rushing to pick it up every spare minute.

I see the summer Richard and Judy read list is out, a few interesting books on there.

cookiecakes

Just finished The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud. Thought I'd love it but was quite disappointed. I liked it but felt like it dragged on for ages and then tried to cram stuff in at the last minute. Started Sense & Sensibility as I wanted to re-read the original before starting Joanna Trollope's Austen Project version.

minnow

Flying through "Glow" by Ned Beauman, after really enjoying "The Teleportation Accident" a few months ago. Very Martin Amis-like in terms of witty style and language.