What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

Jack Daw

Just finished reading Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead.

Epic novel about the life of an aviatrix and set against the backdrop of the first half of the 20th century.It's almost 700 pages long and simply brilliant incredibly entertaining and moving novel.They say you should never judge a book by its cover but the reason I got it was I saw the cover picture on amazon and thought that look interesting like something I might enjoy , glad I did judge this book by the cover.

It's highly recommended by me , I think it's the sort of book anyone can enjoy.

PS: I would also imagine it could be turned into a really good TV series if the rights were ever sold for it (i'd say its too big to turn into a movie) although it may even be too big for a TV series.

Tauriel

Ireland's Special Branch: The Inside Story of their battle with the IRA, 1922-1947 by Gerard Lovett

I've read so many books from the IRA perspective so it was refreshing to read it from the stand point of the Gardaí. One thing that pops out is how frustratingly lenient the judicial system was with de Valera easily able to override sentences.

bullpost

White Riot - Joe Thomas

Novel set in Thatcher's England.

bonzodog2

The Year of the Locust - Terry Hayes

Wow. He's kept us waiting a while, but its damn good. I must read I am Pilgrim again

Did you smash it

Life after life, the biography of one of the members of the guildford four: Paddy Armstrong. Well written; one story of him attacking a fellow inmate particularly but Armstrong comes across as a workshy unreliable waster. In fairness he doesn’t deny himself. He’s had a few guardian angels since his release who’s kept him on the straight and narrow and he gives them loads of credit.

BraveDonut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121680774#Comment_121680774

Looking forward to reading that - Loved I am Pilgrim

Tippman24

Recently decided to read the Michael Connelly books again. They are like fine wines, getting better with age. Currently about to begin "Nine Dragons".

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121690023#Comment_121690023

Do you not find they all got terribly formulaic?

Tauriel

The Nine Years War 1593-1603 by James O'Neill

Detailed look at the Nine Years War which ultimately led to the defeat of the Irish and the colonisation by England. It's actually frustrating how close Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, came so close to defeating the English and chasing them out of Ireland.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703530#Comment_121703530

I read hell or some worse place by Des Ekin a few years ago, it look at Kinsale. My take away was that the Irish couldn't get their sh!t together and had too much infighting.

Tauriel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703546#Comment_121703546

Yeah, I've read that too and this book briefly touches on the Battle of Kinsale. To be honest, Irish rebellions remind me a lot of the Crusades, they had the skill to win but too much self-interest and as you said, infighting to put it to any use.

bullpost

The Furies - John Connolly.

Tauriel

The Wager: A tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Took me a while to get into this, just didn't grab my attention like other such books would normally do.

appledrop

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

Very good so far, actually freaking me out a bit reading it, reminds me of some of mad restrictions we had during Covid.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121690045#Comment_121690045

Well any series would after a while, what I like about the Bosch series is that it doesn't go for the constant cliffhanger trope and that they seem realisitc and flow like you'd expect a police investigation would.

mariaalice

Prophet song by Paul Lynch, I know I sound like a Philistine, the plot is an excellent story but the literary bits using 3 sentences when 1 would do isn't doing anything for me, flying through it all the same.

bullpost

Paris Requiem Chris Lloyd

Second book in a crime series about a Parisian detective set during the Nazi occupation.

appledrop

Finished Prophet song last night and couldn't sleep for about an hour after it.

Thought it was outstanding but upsetting.

Can't stop thinking about what's going on in Gaza and Ukraine.

Say Your Number

Just finished Doppelganger by Naomi Klein.

For the last few years Klein has been confused with feminist writer Naomi Wolf and got abuse meant for her on Twitter because Wolf has started coming out with crackpot conspiracies over the last few years.

The book centres on her relationship with Wolf and delves into conspiracies in general, instead of being sneery and mocking of Wolf it's quite compassionate and nuanced and she tries to see how someone could end up going down that road.

Very interesting read.

pavb2

I was at a Waterboys concert before Christmas and Mike Scott the lead singer read a passage The Piper at the Gates of Dawn a chapter from Kenneth Grahame’s book The Wind in the Willows, the piper being Pan a benign God.It did have quite an effect on the audience creating a kind of mystical atmosphere.

Anyway The Wind in the Willows is a book I’d never read and it is quite a whimsical story but unlike other stories of animals with human traits such as Watership Down, Fluke and the Plague Dogs the animals drive cars, have weapons and go for picnics. It was a good read taken at face value but I had to laugh on googling it further one example is the suggestion that Toad may be bi-polar or a manic depressive with alcoholic tendencies.

Im not sure if Grahame was implying this but suppose with all literature that you can put many different interpretations on characters and events

ngunners

Just finished Universal Harvester by John Darnielle, the man behind the band The Mountain Goats. He really has a way with words - really enjoyed it overall, even if the plot is a bit bare.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121763731#Comment_121763731

I think I was more annoyed by the blurb when I read that one. Seemed to paint it as an unsettling horror, as opposed to an unsettling story.

ngunners

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121764188#Comment_121764188

I went in relatively blind fortunately. I’m a fan of the band and have read Darnielle’s other novels but I didn’t know anything about this one bar the title.

I can see being frustrated if you went in expecting a horror. It’s more an exploration of loneliness, grief and trauma than anything else.

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121764428#Comment_121764428

That’s it. There’s still an eeriness in there but, ultimately, it’s all very sad. It definitely stayed with me.

I’m sure I put something up here about it when I finished it but not sure how long it would take to find it. Was probably just giving out about the blurb.

mehico

1983 The World at the Brink. About tensions and paranoia in the 1980's cold war era and how things could have gone badly wrong during 1983.

bonzodog2

Where The Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens 

I'm very impressed by this book

Arghus

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - A pretty good read, but not without its faults. I didn't find it to be quite as good a read as some of the blurbs on the jacket and reviews elsewhere had suggested. It takes a while to get going and even though the world and characters depicted is quite vivid and well drawn, the novel itself felt a bit fundamentally 2D, and lacking in actual emotional depth - and it does veer periously close to poverty porn at times I thought - it felt quite schematic, an excercise in pastiche, if you were being uncharitable - but still it is a good page turner overall and does get more involving as it goes on and, taken as a piece of literary ventriloquism, it is pretty impressive in those terms.

Stella Marris by Cormac McCarthy - This was sitting on the shelf for a while, but I finished it off in more or less one sitting earlier. Tbh I didn't get much out of it. Feels like McCarthy wasn't that bothered with coherence and just wanted to put a lot of high-falutin' refererences to physicists and theory and so on down on the page and hope that the reader went with it - or was suitably impressed. I suppose he had earned the right by that point, but a real dissapointment of a final published work by one of the greats IMO.

bonzodog2

Its not exactly reading, but I am enjoying a radio adaptation of Dombey and son by Charles Dickens

bullpost

Riding with the Lion

In Search of Mystical Christianity

By Kyriacos C. Markides

Re-reading this. Author is an academic who has written extensively on the mystical side of Greek Orthodox Christianity.

A lot more interesting and revealing than it sounds.

nachouser

Night time re-reading.