What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

Mars Bar

Kamu wrote: »

I read that too as an Amazon free read thing.
Was grand, if a little formulaic.

Ah, how did I miss that?
I enjoyed the Evermen Saga so I hope this won't be disappointing.

Kamu

Mars Bar wrote: »

Ah, how did I miss that?
I enjoyed the Evermen Saga so I hope this won't be disappointing.

Going by my Goodreads,.I read it in April, so it was an Amazon free read them.

I gave it 3 stars, perhaps 3.5 would be fairer. Some of the reviews on Goodreads were ridiculous though. Taking the lead character way out of context, for example.

mariaalice

Mother of All the Behans by Brian Behan and a chick-lit book where one of the characters is a nun.

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/565319.Fire_in_the_Lake


Just exceptional. A masterpiece.

JasonStatham

Star Wars: Lords of the Sith by Paul Kemp.

It's about Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. Gangster, they are.

An Ri rua

-Principles & Practice of Radiesthesia - Abbé Mermet
Dowsing. Wholeheartedly, if you've an enquiring mind.

Cat Sense -John Bradshaw. A very serious study of cats from a cat lover & scientist. 100% recommended.

The Landscape of Slieve Bloom - John Feehan. As the title says. John, a native of Birr, is a scholar and has produced s stellar tome ón his native mountain. From many angles.

Ón leave and have an absolute library of books to get through.

BraveDonut

Just finished "Natchez Burning" By Gregg Iles.

Came highly recommended. At 1000 pages I was looking forward to settling in to an epic tale of deep-south race/human rights related murder, past and present.

I can honestly say that this this one of the worst books I have ever read

Hugely overly long
The author constantly recounts/repeats/retraces the facts
Whimpers out with a 'suspenseful' finish and does not resolve even half of the plot lines

stay away:mad::mad:

on the plus side though - it did help a bad sleeper fall asleep more often

Arghus

Been neglecting this thread for a while but I have been reading. The last ones I finished:

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig: Zweig's memoirs of growing up in the Europe of the late 19th century and up until his contemporary account of the rise of Nazism in Europe. Powerful stuff, the man had a hell of a life and lived through some crazy, crazy times. World War One, the craziness of the interwar years, the hope in internationalism and the darkening of unimaginable evil across the continent. Zweig is a seriously under appreciated writer these days. Feels completely fresh for a novel from eighty years ago.

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard: The black sheep of an aristocratic family returns home after a family tragedy. The book is basically a 400 page rant, one giant paragraph, no separate chapters. Just a relentless, unceasing diatribe against just about everything: religion, history, family, patriotism, photography, modern society. But it's funny in a really bleak way.

Home and Away: Writing about The Beautiful Game by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund: A collection of emails sent between the two authors during the 2014 World Cup. Reflections on football and all kinds of shyte. Sometimes great, mostly just okay. I love Knausgaard's novels and I love football, so I was left kinda dissapointed, sadly.

Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel: Took me a while to get into the style and it's occasionally a bit confusing, but when the intrigue and backstabbing starts kicking off it becomes a lot more gripping than I had anticipated. Quite good.

Transit by Rachel Cusk: Absolutely amazing semi-autographical novel about the daily life of a middle aged female writer. Not much really happens in the way of plot: she moves into an apartment, she gets her hair done, she gives a talk at a book festival etc, etc. But it's the style. Every little vignette becomes an examination on some deep concern in life - what is freedom, what is change, what is authenticity... It sounds heavy but it's not. Her style felt completely unique, the prose is icy and precise in a way I'd never read before. One of those that is extremely easy to read, effortless, but you can tell every sentence was agonised over. She takes you by the hand and without you even knowing how or when it just happened you're grappling with deep existential questions. How this woman is not absolutely huge is baffling.

Bring Up The Bodies by Hillary Mantel: The sequel to Wolf Hall and it's the superior novel IMO. Everything is a bit better. The plot is more focused, the narrative voice is more defined, the intrigues are even more diabolical and the history is absolute dynamite. Pretty, pretty good.

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wesson: Perfunctory enough account of the making of Chinatown. Starts off really well with an account of what Roman Polanski's crazy life was life in and around the murder of his wife. But then it just becomes a fairly by the numbers account of how a famous movie was made. Not bad, but could have been much better.

TenLeftFingers

1/ Alien: The Official Movie Novelisation
2/ Alan Dean Foster
3/ A spaceship crew returning from a work contract are woken from hypersleep to respond to an unidentified transmission from the depths of space
4/ If you liked the movie Alien, this book is a must read. It is not a direct translation of the movie. The writer has a sublime style of writing that gives the characters and environment a depth that you won't have seen. There is a vivid atmosphere, something I thought would be lost in translation.

It's not exactly the same as the movie because it was apparently created before the movie was completed, based on an source material.

Errashareesh

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Excellent - love him. American Pastoral is amazing too.

Will then watch the TV series of The Plot Against America.

Arghus

Errashareesh wrote: »

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Excellent - love him. American Pastoral is amazing too.

Will then watch the TV series of The Plot Against America.

Great author. The Human Stain is another fantastic book that springs to mind.

ILoveYourVibes

Danny the Champion of the world.

megaten

Arghus wrote: »

Been neglecting this thread for a while but I have been reading. The last ones I finished:

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig: Zweig's memoirs of growing up in the Europe of the late 19th century and up until his contemporary account of the rise of Nazism in Europe. Powerful stuff, the man had a hell of a life and lived through some crazy, crazy times. World War One, the craziness of the interwar years, the hope in internationalism and the darkening of unimaginable evil across the continent. Zweig is a seriously under appreciated writer these days. Feels completely fresh for a novel from eighty years ago.

Read this a good while back and really liked it. Can't remember where I read it but apparently a lot of his peers didn't actually like his work at the time and thought it was usually superficial? It amused me since his book inspired the grand budepest hotel and I'd definitely consider Wes Anderson a director concerned with aesthetics above all else. (Still like both though).

Foweva Awone

Foweva Awone wrote: »

I'm reading "American Dirt", Jeanine Cummins. Frickin hell, it's a book that just grips you from the very first page. It feels like the best book I've read in a long time, and I'm only a few chapters in. Cannot put it down!

Well, I really enjoyed that! Thanks for the recommendation.

Currently reading Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow. It's the story of how he came to uncover Weinstein, and boy was he persistent and tenacious in the face of serious threats and intimidation.

Also reading Divine Fury - A History Of Genius, by Darren McMahon. I have an issue with his narrow definition of what constitutes genius. It's an okay read, I'm only halfway through though so it might get better - or not.

Little Miss Fairy

Just finished The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. A beautiful book.

Arghus

megaten wrote: »

Read this a good while back and really liked it. Can't remember where I read it but apparently a lot of his peers didn't actually like his work at the time and thought it was usually superficial? It amused me since his book inspired the grand budepest hotel and I'd definitely consider Wes Anderson a director concerned with aesthetics above all else. (Still like both though).

I think he was a very, very successful writer in his time, which will always lead to people hating you. And he was a contemporary of many novellists who experimented with the form of the novel, so his old fashioned style might have seemed a bit pedestrian in comparison.

But, from what I've read of him, I wouldn't call him superficial myself. His style is very gentle and very polished, but to me that's just the sign of how good he is. It takes a lot of hard work to make it look so easy.

I found his memoirs to be emotionally raw, wise, with so much to say about human nature.

megaten

Arghus wrote: »

I think he was a very, very successful writer in his time, which will always lead to people hating you. And he was a contemporary of many novellists who experimented with the form of the novel, so his old fashioned style might have seemed a bit pedestrian in comparison.

But, from what I've read of him, I wouldn't call him superficial myself. His style is very gentle and very polished, but to me that's just the sign of how good he is. It takes a lot of hard work to make it look so easy.

I found his memoirs to be emotionally raw, wise, with so much to say about human nature.

For what its worth I think I've found the article I was thinking of, or at least one that makes similar points.


https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n02/michael-hofmann/vermicular-dither

_Godot_

I'm rereading Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett.

razorblunt

Little Miss Fairy wrote: »

Just finished The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. A beautiful book.

I bought that for my nephew as I heard great things about it, read a few pages and instantly bought another for my son, to read to him when he's older.


I've just started into Star of the Sea, the famine stories are heartbreaking, twice I had to put it down and take a break and I'm not 100 pages in.

IamMetaldave

Cult of the Dead Cow - Joesph Menn

Really interesting read about probably the most famous hacking group out of America.

bladespin

A tale of two cities, going through the classics.

Barna77

bladespin wrote: »

A tale of two cities, going through the classics.

It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

bladespin

Barna77 wrote: »

It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

I'll persevere, going through a list of 'must reads'.

quickbeam

Barna77 wrote: »

It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

No problem with classics, but I gotta lot of problems with Dickens.

Gillouise

I started 'Gone with the wind' over the weekend. One of those books that you always hear people talking about but I never had any interest until it was on special offer at the weekend on Kindle.

quickbeam

Ah, if we're talking classics, that's more like it!

breezy1985

razorblunt wrote: »

I bought that for my nephew as I heard great things about it, read a few pages and instantly bought another for my son, to read to him when he's older.


I've just started into Star of the Sea, the famine stories are heartbreaking, twice I had to put it down and take a break and I'm not 100 pages in.

Star of the Sea sounds interesting I'll have to add it to the list

Arghus

bladespin wrote: »

I'll persevere, going through a list of 'must reads'.

The only Dickens I ever read was Bleak House and I found it an absolute chore.

breezy1985

Arghus wrote: »

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard: The black sheep of an aristocratic family returns home after a family tragedy. The book is basically a 400 page rant, one giant paragraph, no separate chapters. Just a relentless, unceasing diatribe against just about everything: religion, history, family, patriotism, photography, modern society. But it's funny in a really bleak kind of way.

Sounds like I wrote a book on a bender and was too drunk to remember.

As the bowl of petunias said "oh no not again"

bladespin

Arghus wrote: »

The only Dickens I ever read was Bleak House and I found it an absolute chore.

Read Nicholas Nickleby a while back too, it was ok, enjoyed it in way.