What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121363717#Comment_121363717

I had started Fahrenheit 451 but something about it didn't grab me, I felt the same way about Something Wicked This Way Comes, after a while.

JeffreyEpspeen

The Dirty War by Martin Dillon. Very interesting and easy to drop in and out of as each chapter is self-contained. He's entrenched in some views I wouldn't agree with (re: Robert Nairac) and I've noticed several inaccuracies but nothing glaring enough to put me off.

raclle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364105#Comment_121364105

I know what you mean. I found the pacing really slow for the first two thirds of the book and then it suddenly took off. I'm surprised at how well received it is.

In hindsight I prob shouldn't have read Farm, 451 and 1984 back to back. They're all pretty similar but conveyed in different ways.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364105#Comment_121364105

Same, regarding Fahrenheit. Had the same problem with ‘The Man in the High Castle’ by Philip K Dick, great idea but that’s about it. Just waiting for someone to do Fahrenheit like ‘Fatherland’ did that one.

Having said that I really like ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121364420#Comment_121364420

It was really the first few pages that just didn't grab me, but to be honest it was for other reasons I just didn't get around to continuing with it. I also felt the same about the first chapter of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

EmmetSpiceland

Currently reading ‘Cold Skin’ by Albert Sánchez Piñol. Has a real ‘House on the Borderland’ vibe to it but without the mad middle bit.

That’s not to say there’s no madness in this one, just a different kind. There was no inter-species relations in William Hope Hodgson’s work.

Decided to read this after recording a film version with Ray Stevenson, who died not too long ago, in it. Will watch it once I’ve finished it.

Arghus

Got through The Little Friend by Donna Tartt.

Thought I was going to love it, but found it to be a slog in the end.

Started reading A Girl's Story by Annie Ernaux. Pretty raw!

K-9

Just listened to a podcast about how the CIA basically made the animated film version of Animal Farm and changed it to have a more Capitalist friendly ending. Brought to you by one of the guys convicted for breaking into Watergate and involved in the Bay of Pigs disaster!

Always preferred Smiley's people to Tinker, tailor.

Bobson Dugnutt

The History and Social Influence of the Potato.

I love spuds (why are they always humble?) and picked this up in some second hand book shop years ago. Only got round to reading it now. It was written in the 1940's and is terribly structured, but the idea that the introduction of the potato to Europe was actually one of the most impactful things in modern history is compelling.

Population exploded, mortality decreased, people could store a crop for use over the winter, it was fairly nutritionally complete and calorie dense, productivity improved; countries with imperialist notions could raise an army and send them overseas without scurvy killing most of them, would grow quickly almost everywhere they arrived. As we all know it was also susceptible to disease which caused enormous famines in Ireland (and lots of other countries I wasn't as aware about).

There probably exists a more definitive account of the impact of the potato on the world, but this was grand.

_Godot_

Juat finished A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, now I've finished all the wayfarer books.

bullpost

THE GRASS ARENA by John Healy

Been meaning to read this for a long time. Saw the excellent documentary on Netflix.

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121365244#Comment_121365244

Sounds very interesting. There’s a scan of it in the Internet archive if others can’t track it down.

raclle

Thoughts on "The Mistborn trilogy" and "The Hunger Games"?

Thinking of purchasing.

janiejones

For the average reader I think hunger games is an easier book/story. They're both brilliant. Sanderson in my opinion is brilliant but his writing style isn't for everyone

raclle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121381459#Comment_121381459

Yeah I think "Hunger Games" is aimed more at teenagers. I wonder if anything ever happens to GRRM will Sanderson finish off "Game of Thrones"?

janiejones

I don't think Sanderson could go as dark as required for GRRM. I know some characters don't make it through his stories but he's never mean spirited about it the way GRRM has set the universe up. I've kind of given up hopes on game of thrones. It's sad. And the TV show is not what I want to remember of it. But I think he's written himself into a corner and he doesn't know the way out. I think he's blogged about his mereneese knot or something like that

KH25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121379334#Comment_121379334

I enjoyed the first hunger games book, but didn't enjoy number 2 and the third IMO was dreadful. Haven't read Mistborn.

raclle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121384305#Comment_121384305

I was also thinking of Patrick Rothfuss but he still hasn't finished the king killer chronicles. I've given up too even though I still check notablog from time to time but after Winds there's still ADOS so its never going to happen even though he's still supposedly working on them.

pavb2

I enjoyed ‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ by Mary Elizabeth Braddon a few years ago so just finished her other work ‘Aurora Floyd.’ I found this a bit of a slog, if you wanted a commentary on Victorian England it was fine but the plot wasn’t very well developed. The characters engaged in absurd histrionics and at times I felt like I was reading a script for Little Britain it was written in 1863 so maybe it’s because we are quite a distance from that period.

Francis McM

"Rough Beast" by Maria Cahill. Like the book I read before that "The Kidnapping" by Conlon, it gives a chilling insight in to SF/IRA. Very interesting snippets of information here and there. I knew a Guard at the time who told me a few other things about that search for the IRA kidnap victim, it brings back some memories.

Say Your Number

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, I liked Klara and the Sun, but I found this hard going, didn't really care about it.

bullpost

Re-reading Titus Groan. First book of Gormenghast trilogy. A must for fantasy fans.

pavb2

Just finished’The Black Dahlia’ by James Ellroy a fictional account of two detectives who investigate the murder of Elizabeth Shortt and how it affects them. It’s one of a quartet but I doubt I’ll get the others in the series. The language and setting of 1950’s L.A. Detectives grates after a while.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121459193#Comment_121459193

The other books in the series are better, this one doesn't really tie into the others and I did find it slow getting to the main story.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121460085#Comment_121460085

Number two is fantastic but not for the queasy. 🤣

Dial Hard

I really, really, really, really, *really* can't convey how much I urge everyone to swerve Gareth Rubin's The Turnglass. Utterly, utterly dull and pointless novel. Going in the bin.

Onwards and upwards now with John Connolly's Land of Lost Things.

hoodie6029

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (about 5 years after everyone else). Excellent, thoroughly recommend.

The Keeper by Graham Norton. Very good story, well written, didn’t enjoy the timeline switching at first but loved it later. Real page turner.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121463040#Comment_121463040

A lot more than 5 🤣

I read it about 5 years ago about 5 years after everyone else. Good book and since I have read and enjoyed a few more of his both fiction and non. He pulls no punches with the holy Joe's and curtain twitchers in Irish society which suits me fine.

duck.duck.go

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121379334#Comment_121379334

Anything Brandon Sanderson is good

Hunger games trilogy is alright tho not same league

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121463238#Comment_121463238

Hehe! I am out of touch then! 😂

I’ll check out his other stuff. It was an Ireland that my parents grew up and described so I could relate to it in a way. Sounded like hell.