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This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

Sammy Jennings

...continued from this thread

A Good School by Richard Yates

Slight, but some great moments

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otnomart

otnomart wrote: »

Just started "Cairo in the War: 1939-45" by Artemis Cooper.

I thouroughly enjoyed it. Lawrence Durrell is also included in the many characters covered.

Yesterday was browsing the Biographies section at a bookshop and spotted "The Durrells of Corfu" by Michael Haag, am now half way through it (don't have ITV, so can not compare it to the series), loving it so far.

Just before that, finished "The Riviera Set" by Mary Lowell, gives great insights on the off-duty life of Churchill.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

otnomart wrote: »

Yesterday was browsing the Biographies section at a bookshop and spotted "The Durrells of Corfu" by Michael Haag, am now half way through it (don't have ITV, so can not compare it to the series), loving it so far.

The first series in on Netflix, if you've got that and actually want to compare.

Xofpod

Quarantine, Jim Crace,
The Association of Small Bombs, Karan Mahajan

Deja Boo

Two by Two --- by Nicholas Sparks

Never been a fan of Sparks work, but it's on the Book Club list so there ya go... At some point I must crack open the (sigh) 482 page :eek: novel.

otnomart

The Group by Mary McCarty.
(Set in 1933, published in 1963, now sometimes hailed as the original Sex and The City)

branie2

To the Devil - A Daughter, an occult thriller by Dennis Wheatley

Ipso

Almost finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty, are the follow ups worth rwading?

LionelNashe

Read Slade House by David Mitchell in about a day. Now reading his 'The Bone Clocks'. I like his writing style. Interesting structure to both books, also. I don't think he's following a 3-act structure. Each book is made up of several sections, with a different first-person narrator in each, set years apart, which go on for quite a while before the links to the previous sections are revealed.

Arghus

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard.

It's a bit of a mad experience. It's basically one giant 300 page rant, with every page filled with text without paragraph breaks or individual chapters. Quite mesmerising at times thiugh.

PMBC

Oops69 wrote: »

Finally read 'At swim two birds ' , I might actually get it on the 3rd read , what a mind that man had !

I read it in my LC year long time ago. Keep your copy as you will probably read it again ...and again. It became our cult book when we were young that many years ago. After I read The Third Policeman and The Dalkey Archive. Both of those are almost as good .... and as mad.
I can still recall Sweeney and Fionn and playing handball etc

Daisies

I'm reading Diversify by June Sarpong and really enjoying it. A lot of the points are things that are common knowledge but still an interesting read.

Callan57

Esther Waters by George Moore

antietam1

Just finished re-reading Raymond Chandler, started on Pyrates by GM Fraser the Flashman series author.

otnomart

Finished "The Idle Traveller: The Art of Slow Travel" by Dan Kieran.
Very interesting concepts, but did not find it life-changing, maybe because am already into slow travel myself.

Started "Take Six Girls" by Laura Thompson, about the Mitford sisters

the purple tin

The Magus by John Fowles. Excellent writer, you really get drawn into it.

Callan57

The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe ... picked it up on holiday in Capri

Irish_rat

Xofpod wrote: »

It was my recent first experience of the Culture books. I felt it was a bit over-long and over-written. I've heard that's it's one of the weaker of the series though so I'll take another dip.

It took me a while to finish this. I would agree the detail is a bit over the top, the events at the end are quite shocking though. Overall was okay but I'll give other culture books a go some of which are meant to be an easier read.

Currently going through "The City and the Stars" now by Arthur C. Clarke, it's fantastic.

irishman86

Reading His Dark Materials, really enjoyed the first one hope the second continues at the same level. After reading it, the movie adaption really didnt do it justice

Teyla Emmagan

Reading the Booker long list. I am 8 in. Everything I have read so far has made the short list except for 'The Long Take' which I haven't got to yet. And it's a long poem of some description so I will either love it or not get past five pages. I really liked 'Everything Under', 'The Overstory' and 'Washington Black'.

Xofpod

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

Reading the Booker long list. I am 8 in. Everything I have read so far has made the short list except for 'The Long Take' which I haven't got to yet. And it's a long poem of some description so I will either love it or not get past five pages. I really liked 'Everything Under', 'The Overstory' and 'Washington Black'.

The only one that's grabbed my attention is Washington Black - really loved Half Blood Blues.

Daisy78

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

Reading the Booker long list. I am 8 in. Everything I have read so far has made the short list except for 'The Long Take' which I haven't got to yet. And it's a long poem of some description so I will either love it or not get past five pages. I really liked 'Everything Under', 'The Overstory' and 'Washington Black'.

Currently reading Normal People, not sure if it will live up to the hype. After that it's From a Low and Quite Sea.

Joe_ Public

Did not like Normal People. Reading it I felt like I was watching an extended episode of Friends, but without the comedy. And I really really dislike Friends!

Thought Milkman was pretty decent though. Didn’t particularly scream Booker winner at me, but was quite clever and amusing in parts all the same.

Teyla Emmagan

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Did not like Normal People. Reading it I felt like I was watching an extended episode of Friends, but without the comedy. And I really really dislike Friends!

Thought Milkman was pretty decent though. Didn’t particularly scream Booker winner at me, but was quite clever and amusing in parts all the same.

I thought Milkman was very good, but hard going. So much of it was internal reflection, or just lacking dialogue/action. But very clever. Bits of it were brilliant.

I haven't got to Normal People yet because I didn't love Conversations With Friends. It was all a bit too millennial for me.

Disappointed for Donal Ryan though.

Joe_ Public

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

I thought Milkman was very good, but hard going. So much of it was internal reflection, or just lacking dialogue/action. But very clever. Bits of it were brilliant.

I haven't got to Normal People yet because I didn't love Conversations With Friends. It was all a bit too millennial for me.

Disappointed for Donal Ryan though.

Would agree with those observations. Milkman was lacking something and seemed to peter out a bit too tamely in the end but I did like the authors sense of enterprise. It is a clever and fun read in parts.

And that’s a fair description of Normal People. Could be an age thing for sure. I just never developed any sense of empathy towards the characters and found no compelling reasons why they behaved the way they did. The same reaction I had to A Little Life a couple of years back.

Callan57

The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honoré de Balzac

Xofpod

Codex 1962, Sjon

Dibble

The Stand by Stephen King

Callan57

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Oops69

Goodbye to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood, published 1939, descriptive prose of Germany on the threshold of doom and the holocaust, the stories are engrossing in themselves but the insidious nature of naziism/ antisemitism creeping into normal German life runs as a strong incidental /non- intentional thread through the stories and feels like a historical record within a novel .Will be reading more of him.

Paddy Samurai

Dibble wrote: »

The Stand by Stephen King

If you end up liking The Stand ,give Swan Song by Robert McCammon a read.