This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

So far in 2021 I have finished Crime & Punishment, Pedro Páramo and I have about 100 pages left in Henry Kamen's "Empire".

Crime & Punishment is a simple story but it's told in such a tense and disconcerting way that it has definitely whet my appetite for more Russian classics, although I know Anna Karenina and War & Peace will be different prospects entirely.

I find it hard to judge Pedro Páramo. I read it in my second language which normally isn't a problem but magic realism presents second language issues that other genres don't. Then again I may have been equally as confused reading it in English.

Empire is a book that I came across while reading up on the Age of Exploration. The sections about the "discovery" of America are fascinating because I feel everything else I've read on this topic has either glossed over the brutal facts or incorporated a lot of disputed information. However, Kamen's overly detailed accounts of European power dynamics get boring quickly.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

I love Russian epics but Anna Karenina was just too much. It was one of those books I just couldn't wait for it to end. It wasn't bad but I was left frustrated at the end. Granted, I read it about ten years ago so a re-read might not be a bad idea.

I think I'll leave Anna Karenina and War & Peace until I've read a bit more of Dostoevsky, Turgenev and such. I know a lockdown might be a good time to tackle huge reads but I feel like they would swamp the various genres I'm trying at the moment.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

1491 was a fascinating insight into pre-Colonial America if you want to read more about it.

In hindsight, I should probably have gone for this book rather than "Empire". I like that Kamen tried to incorporate both European and Indigenous perspectives but, unlike Kamen, I will always be more fascinated by Taki Unquy than what King Ferdinand had for breakfast.

Finished Malcom Gladwell's David and Goliath. Interesting but not really on a level with his previous books at all.

Dark Towers : Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, And An Epic Trail Of Destruction by David Enrich. Really good read for any one into business/finance/markets and the whole implosion of the banking sector in Europe and the States

Started Recursion by Blake Crouch.

Just started God's bits of wood by Sembene Ousmane. Its about a strike by railway workers in colonial Senegal. It has a lot in common with Strumpet City, though it focuses more on the people directly affected as opposed to the more general reach of Strumpet City.

Finished Kafka on the Shore by Murakami a few days ago. It nearly killed me. I enjoyed it and it was a nice story but he fits a lot of stuff into it and some of it was hard to get my rlhead around.

Finished John Perkins The Secret history of the American Empire. A follow up to his earlier Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Nothing short of stunning as the author exposes and lays bare the utterly evil foreign policy that the US has largely followed since after World War 2 with the integration of the powerful US multinational corporations alongside the military industrial complex and US Government combining and interfering in so many countries around the globe with the goal of US domination.

Really really enjoyed Recursion.

I flew through Blue Salt Road which was a fun little novella.

Onto The Quickening now. Haven't read a good gothic horror in a while.

Finished Helen Cullen's The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually. I enjoyed the first half very much, the descriptive writing is beautiful and it's easy to get engaged with the characters as they develop. However, I felt the second half of the book lost its way, .

Finished Kelley Armstrong's Living With The Dead book 9 in her Otherworld Supernatural series and another fun read.

Agent Running in the Field by John LeCarre.

Amazing to find out that LeCarre, that quintessential English author, died an Irish Citizen.

Although Nat, the main character in the book also detests Brexit and the way Britain has become.
The novel is typical of his later work. I'm really enjoying it.

I just bought To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini on kindle for 91p. Figured I would give it a chance.

Finished Anne Cadwallader's really important book Lethal Allies which details the collusion between loyalist terrorists and the British security forces in the murders of 120 Irish people during the 1970's in mid Ulster mostly Armagh and Tyrone but also includes the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Names are named and much of the more recent Historical Enquiries Teams work is brought out. Very disturbing but also very important.

Hi all, new to this forum... I’m currently on book 23 for the year.

Echo In Time by Michael Thomas

Here’s the blurb;

The future of humanity is ours to decide. The past is set in stone. What if neither of these statements were true?

When Detective Matt Keegan investigates a string of bizarre murders in New York city, he struggles to comprehend the startling truth behind them and is drawn ever deeper into a dangerous fight for the survival of mankind.
The visions of a young man, Zach Leandros, drag him from reality and immerse him in a world very different from his own. What does it all mean and who is Atos? When Zach meets Patas Danumata everything begins to make sense and then no sense at all as his perception of reality is turned on its head.

As opposing forces collide, humanity faces it greatest threat that stretches back through time to the realms of legends and myths.