What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

AMTE_21

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. A story about a young girl growing up in the Caribbean who along with her best friend discovers sea swimming long distances, but their plans are upended when she is coerced into marrying an older man, but on her wedding day tragedy strikes and she has to flee her home staging her death. It was told in flashback with a recording to her children she makes when she knows she’s dying. There is a whole different life their mother and father lived they never knew about. A nice read. Black Cake refers to, I think, a cake similar to a fruit cake or wedding cake that is threaded through the story.

littlefeet

Re reading Captain Corelli's mandolin book is way better then the film.

Sgt Hartman

Juliette by The Marquis de Sade on Kindle. It’s mainly a mixture of hardcore sex orgies involving lots of anal, and rambling philosophical arguments for the promotion of atheism, selfishness and sociopathic behaviour. The man was pretty much the P Diddy of his day.

AMTE_21

A season in Exile by Oliver Harris. The second book in the Nick Belsey series. It’s a fast moving thriller involving police corruption and Mexican drug lords. Nick is on the run trying to get away from his past, but it catches up with him and he must return to London. A good read, really enjoying it, good old fashioned thriller.

bullpost

The Unwanted dead by Chris Lloyd. Crime novel set in Nazi-occupied Paris.

This is first book in a series and I've already ready the follow up.

Loafing Oaf

The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple 

Gave me the rare experience at this stage in my life of reading about historical material I knew next to nothing about beforehand. Offers highly lucid explication of convoluted and often poorly attested subject matter As the title suggests very partisan but has the historian chops to back it up; notes & bibliography nearly as long as the main text. Highly recommended.

Tauriel

Arctic Convoys 1941-1945 by Richard Woodman

A bit too factual for my liking. I prefer the style of Max Hastings and James Holland, where you become invested in the units/men been written about. I didn't get that sense of danger or urgency in this book.

Nemanrio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123467704#Comment_123467704

This is on amazon kindle for 99p.

Doctors room ghost

I’m currently reading The Connemara Bus by Ann Milholland Webb. Enjoying it so far.

Tauriel

Nemesis by Brendan Reichs

I had read his Viral series cowritten with his mother, Kathy Reichs, and thoroughly enjoyed that so I decided to give the first book in hos solo series and go.

I'm fairly disappointed in this to be honest. It's not as fast paced as I would of liked it to be and was tough to stay engaged for the first half of the book.

pavb2

Finished The Plantagenets by Dan Jones which provides a detailed account and ends at Richard 2nd. It was a very interesting read and if they made a tv series the intrigue and power play would equal the likes of The Tudors.

bullpost

Rat Girl - Kristin Hersh.

Memoir from the Throwing Muses musician. Adapted from her early diaries.

Mehaffey1

I'm about 45 pages into The Shadow Of The Gods by John Gwynne. Hasn't gripped me just yet, maybe because I'm not used to the fantasy genre with the rapid introduction of many characters. Very well written and looking forward to getting into the meat of it.

Loafing Oaf

Russia's Empires: Their Rise and Fall – From Prehistory to Putin by Philip Longworth

Traces Russian history as the rise and fall of four successive empires, from Kievan Rus’ — the first Russian state — to ruthless Muscovy, the Russian Empire of the eighteenth century and finally the Soviet period. Was published 20 years ago so he only covers the first stirrings of the Putin project, although he does ominously note that the prospect of a fifth Russian empire cannot be entirely written of…

pavb2

Rattled through ‘The Wager’ by David Grann he certainly did his research. There are a lot of similarities between this story and other seafaring accounts such as ‘The Bounty Trilogy’ and particularly ’Batavia’s Graveyard’. It was an interesting read about a historical incident I hadn’t heard of.

AMTE_21

Just back from holidays, brief synopsis of holiday reading:

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Itarbe. Was recommended it and thought it wouldn’t be for me and it wasn’t, it was just too sad. Man’s inhumanity to man.

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. A strange tale set in Sicily, the Athenians have been captured and two men fond of Greek theatre get them to put on a Greek tragedy, with tragic results. Different.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingslover. Been meaning to read this for a while, I really picked them on this holiday, another quite depressing read about the opioid crisis in Virginia.

The Kellerby Code by Jonny Sweet. Didn’t really like this. About a group of nasty rich people and a working class, though he says Lower middle class student in Cambridge and after they graduate. Couldn’t relate or empathise with the characters.

The Reckoning by John Grisham. A war veteran kills the local preacher, why? This uncovers a tale of loss and love. Interesting insights into Pearl Harbour and the war in the Philippines against the Japanese you don’t hear much about.

The Crossing by Michael Connolly. Harry Bosch newly retired helps his half brother prove a man’s innocence. Good detective story as usual from Michael Connelly.

Tauriel

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen, Conqueror of the South Pole by Stephen R. Brown

This book is a biography of the infamous Norwegian polar explorer. The author gives a more balanced view of Amundsens life and achievements, as he has historically been seen as the villian when he bested Scott to the South Pole.

kerplun k

I just seen this thread. Hopefully I’ll pick up a few recommendations.

I’m currently reading The Bobiverse, I’m on book 4 ATM, Heavens River. Enjoying it so far, HR is probably my least favourite of the series, but overall, very enjoyable.

pavb2

Just completed Brothers in Arms - James Holland the story of the Sherwood Rangers tank regiment D day landings and push through Normandy.

This was a real eye opener for me as the narrative is usually of the D day landings and end of the war. This account follows individual soldiers and their push through Normandy an operation which was equally as violent as the Western front in WW1.

Soldiers who escaped from burning tanks only to be machine gunned down, a 19 year killed in his first action, rich German families who committed suicide rather than be captured by the Allies. The fanaticism and resistance of the German army lead to far more casualties than it should have.

The shocking thing is the age of the men, you think in reading they are in their thirties or forties but most were early twenties.

An interesting and educational read for me well written and researched but overall quite sad.

mark_jmc

The Einstein Vendetta- Thomas Harding. Interesting read, a story I had never heard about before.

phelixoflaherty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123522870#Comment_123522870

Any good?

Looking at getting Neko Case book too.

Tauriel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123545861#Comment_123545861

I actually read this book as I was doing a battlefield tour of the D-Day Landing Beaches about a year and a half ago. Really helped me appreciate the enormous obstacles that these men had to overcome. I thought it was a brilliant read.

Thargor

Billy Summers by Stephen King, absolute pointless drivel, zero tension, zero point, zero anything. One of the most bland books Ive ever read and Ill probably never read another King novel after this (said the same about the equally awful Duma Key but at least that had a bit of horror in it).

When you think back to the classics he put out when he was off his head on drugs its kind of amazing to see the drop in quality, stuff like The Shining etc will always be my favs but Im not going to bother reading anything else by him now unless Im completely desperate in an airport or something.

Loafing Oaf

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough

Tells the story of the Viking age by analysing the surviving ephemera of everyday domestic life. She's brilliant at spinning a detailed and absorbing yarn out of fragmentary and enigmatic evidence. Also genuinely witty in a way you don't often get in 'serious history'…

AMTE_21

Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom. I’ve been reading his Shardlake series and thought I’d give this a go. I enjoyed it but thought it was a bit repetitive and could have been shorter,it was a big book. It was about a man who had survived Dunkirk but been emotionally badly damaged . When the Second World War started he was recruited as a spy. He had studied Spanish and visited Spain before the Civil War so was sent to the embassy in Madrid as an interpreter, officially. It dealt with the aftermath of the civil war and it’s effects on the population but in flashback dealt with the war itself. An interesting read and I learned a lot I hadn’t known about the Civil War which I always found interesting.

jacool

Got to page 77 of A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara) and stopped, for now, anyway. Didn't warm to any of the characters, or their lives.

Now a quarter way into All the Colours Of The Dark (Chris Whitaker). Way more committed to this and wondering if it will be turned into a movie or not.

bullpost

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123546047#Comment_123546047

Yep - Its a bit unstructured as its lifted from her diaries of the time (up to recording of first album) but once you get into it shes a fascinating personality.

bullpost

Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944: Collaboration, Resistance, and Daily Life in Occupied Paris

Jean Guéhenno

Diary of the Nazi occupation of Paris, written by a French academic who opposed the regime. Just started this but good so far.

Tauriel

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen

This is the first book in The Martini Club series. It's a quick, easy, and interesting read. Although it did take me a while to get used to the notion that neither Rizzoli or Isles will be popping up in this book.

The story revolves around a group of aging, retired CIA operatives living in a small, remote haven. That is, until the past of one of them comes back to haunt them, and drags the gang back into the world of espionage.

Tauriel

H.M.S. Bounty: A True Account of the Notorious Mutiny by Alexander McKee

This book details the conditions on the Bounty which lead to some of the crew leading a mutiny against the infamous Bligh. You can't help but feel for the suffering of the crew under the unstable Bligh and can see how a mutiny can come to the fore.