This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

marienbad · 14-12-2017 04:53PM

The Rub Of Time - Martin Amis

How Beautiful it is and How Easily It Can Be Broken - Daniel Mendelsohn

For Years Now - W.G.Sebald/Tess Jaray

Arghus · 15-12-2017 04:54PM

Snark by David Denby - A collection of essays about how a great deal of public discourse is built around a strain of knowing nastiness masquerading as cleverness.

It's a short read and hit and miss. Denby is a funny and fluent writer, but I don't think he really manages to nail down what exactly is "snark". A lot of snark that he writes about seems interchangable from other types of satire and biting wit which he holds in regard - a problem that he himself acknowledges. You can't escape the sense, by the end of it, that Denby doesn't really care all that much about the subject which he's chosen to write about. It's important to him, but not important enough for him to have put his finger on what it was exactly that was vexing him at the time.

The collection was published in 2010, as a response to the perceived increasingly hostile tone of public dialouge of that time. Such an idea seems quaint now and it's hard not to read it now, just a few years later, as a missive from a simpler, gentler and more naive time compared to today - turns out Obama, sadly, couldn't save the day.

eire4 · 15-12-2017 08:31PM

Finished The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov which is the third book in his robot series. Really enjoyed it. A fun detective novel in of course a sci-fi setting.

Fathom · 17-12-2017 04:26PM

The Orphan's Tale
by Pam Jenoff

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 17-12-2017 04:37PM

Picked up a book from the American History section of the library last week. The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer - My Life at Red Rose. It's the diary of a young woman who married a rich oil tycoon in Washington State around the early 1900s. They build a huge mansion that's the talk of the town but then people keep dying in and around the house.
Anyway.... turns out it's a complete work of fiction released as promo material for a Stephen King mini series around 2000. I kind of suspected from the start something wasn't right about it but when someone's head started spinning around I got very suspicious.

I'm wondering now if the library people put it in the history section thinking it was real or are in on the whole thing?

Callan57 · 19-12-2017 12:03AM

Finished Alias Grace ... fascinating read

Next is Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel by Mark Sullivan

marienbad · 19-12-2017 01:52PM

Lovers and Strangers , An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain - Clair Wills

neris · 19-12-2017 10:34PM

The Quants by Scott Patterson. Half way through it and good read if hedge funds, finance and economics is your thing. Got through 2 books last week which is the first time ive got through more then 1 book in a week.

19-12-2017 11:24PM

The library at mount char by Scott Hawkins..
Quality..

eire4 · 20-12-2017 04:30PM

Finished Michael Connelly's The Reversal a good court room/crime drama read.

Fathom · 20-12-2017 06:38PM

YEAR ONE
by Nora Roberts

marienbad · 21-12-2017 09:30PM

Ireland in World War Two : Neutrality & Survival- Eds. Dermot Keogh & Mervyn O'Driscoll

Callan57 · 22-12-2017 06:19PM

The Incendium Plot by A D Swanston

Fathom · 25-12-2017 11:54PM

All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

25-12-2017 11:57PM

The watchmaker of filigree street by Natasha Pulley

I'm enjoying it..

marienbad · 26-12-2017 01:05PM

Now that we have come to the end of 2017 anyone care to nominate their best reads of 2017 ?

DickSwiveller · 26-12-2017 01:10PM

marienbad wrote: »

Now that we have come to the end of 2017 anyone care to nominate their best reads of 2017 ?

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 26-12-2017 02:10PM

marienbad wrote: »

Now that we have come to the end of 2017 anyone care to nominate their best reads of 2017 ?

If we're talking books we read in 2017 then mine is "The View on the Way Down" by Rebecca Wait followed by "Mudbound" by Hillary Jordan and Past the Shallows by Favel Parvett.

I must say I've read some pretty awful books this year. Not a great year for me choice wise.

IvyTheTerrible · 26-12-2017 02:11PM

Coraline by Neil Gaiman, The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, The Girl with all the Gifts by MR Carey, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, A Bell for Adano by John Hersey, and A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman.

Joe_ Public · 26-12-2017 03:03PM

Not been a vintage year for me exactly, whether down to an average crop or poor selection on my part. Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break was, by some distance, my favorite. Not very new themes, but masterfully written as always.

Just reread God of Small Things as a prelude to reading Roy’s latest overdue offering. Even better than I’d recalled. Magical novel, if the new one is even half as good, it will be a treat.

Wyldwood · 26-12-2017 03:32PM

Have had a mixed bag this year but I made my Goodreads challenge

Best were Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, Lincoln in the Bardo/George Saunders & Pompeii/Robert Harris

Callan57 · 26-12-2017 04:27PM

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine would top of my list followed by The Essex Serpent, Idaho & for short stories If I Loved You, I Would Tell You

quickbeam · 26-12-2017 04:49PM

Poor enough year for me too. Didn't read any released in 2017, in fact the newest I read was 2011's Before I Go To Sleep.

Best that I read: Flowers in the Attic and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Worst: Doctor Zhivago.

marienbad · 26-12-2017 08:24PM

For me it has been a great year - best fiction - A country Road,A Tree -Jo Baker or Reservoir 13 -Jon McGregor.

Best non fiction Savage Continent -Leith Lowe and the Victor Klemperer Diaries .

Biggest disappointment - Lincoln In the Bardo , I just didn't get it but I will give a go again in the new year , so many people liked it it just has to be me .

Fann Linn · 26-12-2017 08:39PM

Only two stood out for me this year: 'Above the Waterfall' by Ron Rash and 'The Rape of Nanking' by Iris Chang.

I'm really going to have to start and finish a book in one go rather than starting many and moving onto others before completion.

Stuck with bookmarks are: Stalingrad by Anthony Beaver, The Book Thief by Zusak and A Day in the life of Ivan Danisovich by Solsohnytzen.

Callan57 · 27-12-2017 01:21AM

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

Joe_ Public · 27-12-2017 01:01PM

marienbad wrote: »

Biggest disappointment - Lincoln In the Bardo , I just didn't get it but I will give a go again in the new year , so many people liked it it just has to be me .

It wasnt just you. I thought it was ok, but never at any point was it screaming major international book prize winner at me.

eire4 · 27-12-2017 07:12PM

Finished Harlan Coban's One False Move a quick passed crime thriller.

Irish_rat · 29-12-2017 10:32AM

Just finished The grapes of wrath. Very good insight into the dust bowl during 30's America.

A few chapters into catcher in the rye now. I know many don't like but enjoying it so far.

Asked for fiction book for Christmas and recieved Gooch autobiography wtf.

marienbad · 29-12-2017 06:00PM

Sive - John B.Keane.

A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen

The Plough and the Stars - Sean O'Casey

This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

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