This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Now reading The Shining.

Never read any Stephen King book's before so this should be interesting.

Finished Declan Hughes All The Dead Voices. A crime thriller featuring his hard nosed PI Ed Loy. Easily the best of his Ed Loy books so far. A really good read with some twists along the way.

The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray.

Callan57 wrote: »

Is that similar to Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1?

Reading this now. About 100 pages in. It's great to find a Booker-level book that's so readable.

Murder at Shandy Hall - The Coachford Poinsoning Case by Michael Sheridan

Wyldwood wrote: »

Interested in what you think of this.

You get through a huge volume of books, where do you get the time?

Early Retirement

Wyldwood wrote: »

Interested in what you think of this.

You get through a huge volume of books, where do you get the time?

Just to let you know, I loved it. Not just the fascinating detail of the crime & the trial itself but loads (and loads) of background, some quite gruesome, giving a really superb insight into the 1880s. For example I did know a wife couldn't testify against her husband but I thought it was because of their close emotional involvement turns out it was because once a woman married she ceased to exist as an autonomous entity! Extraordinary stuff.
Highly recommend it if you like history & crime of course.

The Black Angel by John Connolly

Callan57 wrote: »

The Black Angel by John Connolly

What did you think of it? Personally I thought it was an excellent action thriller.

Hermy wrote: »

Are you forgetting Mostly Harmless?

Yes 1 was forgetting it, not intentionally, just a mental thing that it doesn’t feel like it belongs to the set for me, wish he’d left it at four. I know there was another sanctioned sequel too but have never had much interest in it. Dunno if I’m missing out.

Just finished Beatlebone by Kevin Barry and I've started his previous book City of Bohane. I don't read a huge amount of fiction, usually history and biographies, so it takes a few chapters to get into the style of writing but once I got in to Kevin Barry's style I loved it.
On the waiting list is Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby and One Day by David Nicholls.

Finished Sing, Unburied Sing ... magnificent read

Next is The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark

Wyldwood wrote: »

Read the Tattooist of Auschwitz and the writing style really annoyed me. It read like a primary school reader. It was written in a very stilted and simplistic manner.
It's essentially the true love story of two prisoners in Auschwitz. Some of the events that are described beggar belief given everything we now know about the treatment of prisoners in concentration camps.
The author's notes at the end of the book are very interesting but the book itself disappointed.

I would agree. It is clearly an amazing story but some distance between the author and the subject or a more experienced writer would have produced a better book.
The admission that it was originally written as a screenplay makes sense and as a film based on a true story you could give a little license and overlook some inaccuracies. On the page they do stand out.

Wyldwood wrote: »

Read the Tattooist of Auschwitz and the writing style really annoyed me. It read like a primary school reader. It was written in a very stilted and simplistic manner.
It's essentially the true love story of two prisoners in Auschwitz. Some of the events that are described beggar belief given everything we now know about the treatment of prisoners in concentration camps.
The author's notes at the end of the book are very interesting but the book itself disappointed.

Agree completly ... let down badly by the writing style.