Gentleman's Club book thread

Slattsy

Who reads?

Could be interesting to have a thread on what we're reading.

Currently reading Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy.
Almost finished. Very funny and witty and would recommended it.

Picked up Finnegans Wake recently. Meant to be a hard book to get through but I like a challenge. I've read Dickens ha ha

MrStuffins

I've gotten into a run of reading football books. Read the following over the last couple of months.


Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics - A good read for any fan of the soccerball.

Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino - This one was recommended by a friend as I would've ever thought a book about Cascarino would interest me. How wrong I was. An amazing read! Short & sweet.


At the moment i'm reading:

Soccernomics - A book about the economics behind football. Again, great read for footkicking fans.

D'Agger

Good idea for a thread Slattsy

I'm terrible at reading as I need to commit time to it, need to set 15mins every day to it perhaps. I must go back and finish 1984, have the first two parts read.

Currently reading The Chimp Paradox - book by Dr.Steve Peters who worked with Team GB for the Olympics, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Liverpool F.C. so it's interesting but again, hoping to finish it on hols in two weeks

Liam McPoyle

I tend to either great for reading or terrible, at the moment I'm in the terrible bracket.

Currently on the go is Dr Sleep by Stephen King. It's a follow up to The Shining.

Completly different in tone and pace to its predecessor and dare I say more enjoyable.

skallywag

Slattsy wrote: »

Currently reading Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy.
Almost finished. Very funny and witty and would recommended it.

Picked up Finnegans Wake recently. Meant to be a hard book to get through but I like a challenge

I've read Borstal Boy, it's a good read.

Have you read any Flann O'Brien? The Third Policeman is a cracker, I think you would enjoy it. It's easier reading than Joyce, but very smart stuff.

Jack Skellington

Picked up a Game of Thrones awhile ago to to see what it was all about and got hooked, milled through the next 2 books and will be starting a Feast for Crows as soon as possible. Haven't really been into a book series this much since Harry Potter

Timberrrrrrrr

2/3 rds of the way through John Sandford's field of prey, First book of his i have read and enjoying it so will probably try some more from his prey series

http://www.johnsandford.org/prey24.html

My next read will be the Nazi officers wife, Heard god things about this

http://www.amazon.com/The-Nazi-Officers-Wife-Holocaust/dp/068817776X

And then have Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption in reserve

http://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World-Survival-Resilience-Redemption/dp/1400064163

syklops

Just finished the Girl with the Dragon tattoo(again - love that book).

Just started Dune after it was highly recommended to me.

Wise Old Elf

Business Cat wrote: »

I tend to either great for reading or terrible, at the moment I'm in the terrible bracket.

Currently on the go is Dr Sleep by Stephen King. It's a follow up to The Shining.

Completly different in tone and pace to its predecessor and dare I say more enjoyable.

I'm the same Business Cat, but I'm in a slightly better phase at the moment. I quite enjoyed Dr. Sleep, very different to the Shining as you say.

I'm currently reading "Silkworm" by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling). it's the second in a series about a private detective. Took me a while to get in to the first one, and was a bit meh on it, but enjoyed it enough to buy the follow up.

Slattsy

skallywag wrote: »

I've read Borstal Boy, it's a good read.

Have you read any Flann O'Brien? The Third Policeman is a cracker, I think you would enjoy it. It's easier reading than Joyce, but very smart stuff.

Yup read the Third Policeman. Very weird!! Not what i expected but I did like it.

boobar

Reading Personal, the latest Lee Child book in the Jack Reacher series.

Great way to switch off.

Jimmy Iovine

I've started Neil Armstrong's biography. It's incredibly tough going in places. It goes into every single detail about every single part of his life.

I haven't had a chance to read due to work for the past weeks. I'm going to try and start back up soon again.

DazMarz

Currently reading a book co-written by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick; The Untold History Of The United States (it's a book tie-in with the documentary series of the same name).

While obviously it only shows the side of history that Stone and Kuznick want to show you, it is hard not to get righteously angry so often. The damage inflicted upon certain countries by the USA (and its agencies/military) in the name of capitalism, anti-communism and anti-terrorism is staggering.

I would generally side with Uncle Sam on most things (necessary evil/bad for the greater good/doing the unthinkable so the rest of us don't have to; this is how I would generally think of the USA), but it is hard not to feel the bile rising up as you read through some of the awful things that the USA has done over the years to the peoples of so many nations. And the fact that a lot of the problems that be-plague our world right now, have their origins in actions that the USA short-sightedly took decades ago in their fight against the Soviets or against tin-pot dictators whom they hoped to depose.

The book and the documentary series makes for sobering and angering reading/viewing. But highly recommended.

lazybones32

Just finished B Bryson's book about the USA (not too impressed with it) and read "World War Z" before that (enjoyed).

Being the year it is, my next book will be a WW1 book.

Liam McPoyle

Didnt read the book but it was a fantastic series.

Timberrrrrrrr

DazMarz wrote: »

Currently reading a book co-written by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick; The Untold History Of The United States (it's a book tie-in with the documentary series of the same name).

While obviously it only shows the side of history that Stone and Kuznick want to show you, it is hard not to get righteously angry so often. The damage inflicted upon certain countries by the USA (and its agencies/military) in the name of capitalism, anti-communism and anti-terrorism is staggering.

I would generally side with Uncle Sam on most things (necessary evil/bad for the greater good/doing the unthinkable so the rest of us don't have to; this is how I would generally think of the USA), but it is hard not to feel the bile rising up as you read through some of the awful things that the USA has done over the years to the peoples of so many nations. And the fact that a lot of the problems that be-plague our world right now, have their origins in actions that the USA short-sightedly took decades ago in their fight against the Soviets or against tin-pot dictators whom they hoped to depose.

The book and the documentary series makes for sobering and angering reading/viewing. But highly recommended.

Just downloaded this for future reading, looks good thanks.

Daveysil15

Paying for pleasure: The men who buy sex. Before that it was the secret diary of a call girl.

Frankie5Angels

Jack Skellington wrote: »

Picked up a Game of Thrones awhile ago to to see what it was all about and got hooked, milled through the next 2 books and will be starting a Feast for Crows as soon as possible. Haven't really been into a book series this much since Harry Potter

Just about to finish Feast for Crows, hopefully this evening. Found it a tough read, not nearly as gripping as the previous books. That said, the last few chapters have been pretty good. I believe the next books are worth trawling through FFC though, so looking forward to them!

Barna77

Reading The Shining. I'm flying through it.

Boom_Bap

Read though all the GOT books and plan to do so again as soon as my nephew finds the first book that I gave him a loaner of.

At the moment, I'm re-reading Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness. Cant get enough of his writing.

Have recently read David Foster Wallace's The Pale King and it's unreal. It's like everything just clicked for him on this one, shame it wasn't finished properly. I'm also building back up to reading Infinite Jest again.

Brussels Sprout

Currently reading Nate Silver's "the Signal and the Noise":



He's famous for correctly forecasting 49/50 states in the 2008 US presidential elections and going one better and getting them all right 4 years later. He talks about the science and art of forecasting and uses examples such as baseball, economics, earthquakes, weather and politics to illustrate why some areas are more difficult to predict than others.

Antibac

Ive just started reading Why are we the good guys?Reclaiming your mind from the delusions of propaganda by David Cromwell.So far so good.Below is the quick copy and paste description from Amazon on it.

One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that we are great defenders of human rights,
a free press and the benefits of market economics. Mistakes might be made along the way, perhaps even
tragic errors of judgement such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the prevailing view is that the West is
essentially a force for good in the wider world. Why Are We The Good Guys? is a provocative challenge
of this false ideology. David Cromwell digs beneath standard accounts of crucial issues such as foreign
policy, climate change and the constant struggle between state-corporate power and genuine democracy.
The powerful evidence-based analysis of current affairs is leavened by some of the formative experiences
that led the author to question the basic myth of Western benevolence: from schoolroom
experiments in democracy, exposure to radical ideas at home, and a mercy mission while at sea;
to an unexpected encounter with former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, the struggles to publish
hard-hitting journalism, and the founding of Media Lens in 2001.

Anyone with a Kindle can get it cheap aswell its only 1.85 at present

MrStuffins

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Currently reading Nate Silver's "the Signal and the Noise":



He's famous for correctly forecasting 49/50 states in the 2008 US presidential elections and going one better and getting them all right 4 years later. He talks about the science and art of forecasting and uses examples such as baseball, economics, earthquakes, weather and politics to illustrate why some areas are more difficult to predict than others.

Sounds interesting. Would you recommend? I might stick an order in if so!

TheJackAttack

I'm reading Shantaram at the moment. Heavy enough book but a really good read.

Lovely Bloke

I like Dystopian fiction.

Nineteen Eighty Four
Brave New World
The Stand
The Road
etc

I recently read the Wool series, which is a pretty good self-published series of stories about humans who live in a Silo after something happened, if they break the rules of their home they have to go outside and clean the windows, which accumulate layers of dust.



I'm nearly finished The Game series. I think the first one is free for Kindle.

Going to read Roy Keane's book next I think, then I'll pick up Stephen King's latest Mr Mercedes - which is a detective novel, and the first of a projected trilogy. Interested to read that genre from King.

I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of King's latter works.

Antibac

Has anyone read DR Sleep by Stephen King? Would you need to re read The Shining beforehand? Is it worth a punt?

Wise Old Elf

Antibac wrote: »

Has anyone read DR Sleep by Stephen King? Would you need to re read The Shining beforehand? Is it worth a punt?

Read it recently and don't think you need to reread the shining (I didn't).
I quite enjoyed it, it's very different to the shining, a bit less horror like his more recent books, but an enjoyable read.

Frankie5Angels

Just happen to be looking over the book collection here (and those I've still to read...1984, Shogun, Crime and Punishment, Satanic Verses and Fear and Loathing....), you'll not do much better than 'Of Mice and Men'. Granted many have probably read it, but it's a great one if you haven't.

Boom_Bap

I read Of Mice and Men and least twice a year. Such a brilliant novel.
East of Eden is also a favourite of mine.

I've tried Crime & Punishment, but found myself forcing it, so I gave up on it. It's the only book I've not completed.

Frankie5Angels

I've heard that about Crime and Punishment, I just picked it up after reading the '10 books to read before the apocalypse' on the lit forum. Sure if nothing else, it'll look good on the shelf :pac:

Liam McPoyle

Antibac wrote: »

Has anyone read DR Sleep by Stephen King? Would you need to re read The Shining beforehand? Is it worth a punt?

Different beast altogether to The Shining but I have to admit, I enjoyed it, Dr S, more than The Shining.

Very easy to read, no need to re-read TS before hand as anything that mattered from TS is told in mini flashbacks.

IMO the best of Kings recent works.

Speaking of which, The Dark Tower Cycle are my favourite books of all time and a couple of months ago I got stuck into them again. Read The Gunslinger through to Wizard & Glass in less than 3 months which during the book neglecting funk that Im currently in was good going.

Picked up Wolves of the Calla Wednesday night so thats on the plate for the immediate future.

If you havnt read em Id highly recommend them, to anyone.

Brussels Sprout

MrStuffins wrote: »

Sounds interesting. Would you recommend? I might stick an order in if so!

I would but only if you're not afraid of a bit of statistics (nothing too heavy). I'm only halfway through it but I've learned a fair bit from it.

For example: Earthquakes are impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy. Many have tried, all have failed. The underlying reason for this is that to predict an earthquake scientists would need to measure the pressure in the earth's plates which are 15km down.

Another interesting point was that the margin of error for economic forecasts are never declared along with the figures but even if they were they'd likely be wrong. So using a meta-analysis the author showed that economists believed their figures had a 90% chance of being accurate plus or minus 2.5%. However looking back at historical forecasts he learned that this should have been plus or minus 4.5%. So to put that in context, when you hear the ERSI predict economic growth of 4% next year that means it could most likely really be anything between -0.5% and +8.5%.

Basically the economy is so difficult to predict due to the fact that there literally thousands of mearable parameters and nobody knows which are the key ones.

Oh and one more. Commercial TV weather forecasters will err on the side of forecasting rain rather than saying it'll be dry as the fear of being blamed for incorrectly forecasting rain is greater than the fear of incorrectly forecasting dry weather.

Aidric

Yes, big reader, will devour anything by Murakami. Also a big fan of Bukowski.

Picked up 'The Impossible State North Korea Past and Future' by Victor Cha today, will hopefully get stuck in to it tomorrow.

ec18

I'm reading fear and loathing at rolling stone - it's a collection of Hunter S Thompsons articles from when he wrote for rolling stone.

nc6000

Currently reading Joyland by Stephen King, it's OK so far. This reminds me that I must get back to it.

I'm not that much of a reader really but over the last 6 months or so I've read the four Space Odyssey books (2001, 2010, 2061 & 3001), Dr Sleep, Four Past Midnight, Under The Dome & Full Dark, No Stars.

ciaran76

Just finished I am Pilgrim.
If you like Bourne type books then this is perfect. I really enjoyed it.

Pawwed Rig

Reading some retro Sci Fi at the moment from the 1950s. It is strange how outdated sci fi can become.

Frankie5Angels

Aidric wrote: »

Yes, big reader, will devour anything by Murakami.

Saw loads of his stuff in H&F yesterday, what kind of stuff does he do? Anything in particular you'd recommend?

Frankie5Angels

Frankie5Angels wrote: »

Just about to finish Feast for Crows, hopefully this evening. Found it a tough read, not nearly as gripping as the previous books. That said, the last few chapters have been pretty good. I believe the next books are worth trawling through FFC though, so looking forward to them!

Ha, took me months to read FFC, finished the other two books since this post :pac:

Boom_Bap

Frankie5Angels wrote: »

Saw loads of his stuff in H&F yesterday, what kind of stuff does he do? Anything in particular you'd recommend?

My missus swears by Norwegian Wood. I've always meant to pick it up for a read.

Tokyo

Re-reading 'Into The Wild' by Jon Krakauer. Interesting to see how my opinion of Christopher McCandless has changed since the first time I read the book about ten years ago...

Slattsy

^^^^ Brilliant book, brilliant movie.

Boom_Bap

I've bit the bullet and started reading Infinite Jest again. It gets better with each read, I'm finding so much more that I missed the other times I've read it. No cases of the Howling Fantods reported as yet.

bismuth

The last book I've picked up is Harlan Ellison's Shatterday. Once I've read an interview with Neil Gaiman in which he mentioned it and had it on my hard drive ever since, opened it few days ago while looking for something to read.

I find it somewhat twilightzoneish. (Now I've googled it and apparently first episode of The Twilight Zone is based on the Shatterday short story.) Also, I find Mr Ellison a bit cocky, but in a way I like. Usually I'm not much of a short story person, I don't have the time to bond with characters, but this book (for now, at least) I really like.


Also, I'm almost at the end with Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. It's well written and very beautifully narrated.

On my currently reading shelf I also have Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe (since February). From the first half of so I've probably learned more than in secondary school, it's brilliant. But then I reached the point where it demanded a bit more concentration than I had at the moment, and later I've picked some other book, and... I'll come back to it. Soon. Promise.

Also Pinker's The Language Instinct. Since March. Similar story.

And Campbell's Biology. I've read a first chapter. At some ambitious moment I've decided to read a chapter a day. Erm...

Few days ago I read The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (hence the username), and after that Mr Neil's Odd and the Frost Giant which I quite liked.

Boom_Bap

Boom_Bap wrote: »

My missus swears by Norwegian Wood.

Ooh matron! Etc. I'm sorry.

Would there be any support for say a fortnightly bookclub on here?

The Wild Bunch

Reading 'Clint Eastwood - The Life and Legend' by Patrick McGilligan

trashcan

D'Agger wrote: »

Currently reading The Chimp Paradox - book by Dr.Steve Peters who worked with Team GB for the Olympics, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Liverpool F.C. so it's interesting but again, hoping to finish it on hols in two weeks

I'm reading the new Roy Keane bio - here's a quote in it relating to that book -

"The lad who went to the world cup with the England team, Dr Steve Peters, has written a book called the Chimp Paradox, about the chimp in your head. The chimp is running the show. I tried to read it - I'm open minded - but my chimp wouldn't let me"

Good man Roy, made me chuckle anyway

Stheno

I read about six books a week.

Finished escape from camp fourteen recently, along with a few murder mysteries.

Current book is Faceless by Martina Cole, will change by Weds :0

Keano

Six a week? Wow.

Escape from camp fourteen is about North Korea?

Stheno

Keano A Legend wrote: »

Six a week? Wow.

Escape from camp fourteen is about North Korea?

Yeah, reading is my downtime, and I've a wicked ability to get through books, on an average weekend, I'll read three.

camp fourteen is about North Korea, I found it disappointing to be honest, it was very cookie cutter if you've followed news about North Korea

The likes of the young lady at the youth summit was far more insightful

bismuth

Stheno wrote: »

I read about six books a week.

I used to be like that, and then someone mean invented internet.