This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

heathledgerlove · 11-09-2015 12:43AM

The Thrill of It All by Joseph O’Connor. I liked it well enough, it was no Star of the Sea though! Probably not fair to compare them because they are so vastly different, in setting and theme and style and the like. O’Connor’s range is therefore commendable; it is merely that the Thrill was okay, while Star of the Sea was outstanding – real desert island book for me. It has everything.

In saying that, The Thrill of it All did just what it set out to do, and chronicled the journey of a young early 80’s Irish-ish rock band from the mad, early, ‘hungry’ years to their wild wanton success. Bits of it were funny and there was lots to love if you are hugely into music as O’Connor clearly is, it’s just that I felt as if I had heard it all before, like this was a fictional account of stories we all know about famous pop groups and their flamboyant front-men. Maybe the fact that I read Morrissey’s Autobiography last year made O’Connor’s novel seem weaker, more fanciful for its fictionality (though for all we know Morrissey was creative with the truth in his own way.. am pretty curious about his novel coming out soon!)

So a thumbs up for a light read but for my next O’Connor I’ll most likely have a crack at Redemption Falls; his historical fiction being to my mind more his forte.

Mr.Nice Guy · 11-09-2015 02:10PM

I finished Harvest by Jim Crace. It was fine and there was some nice prose. I'm not sure why there is so much hype over it though.

eire4 · 13-09-2015 08:43PM

Finsihed a re read of G W Meyer's A World undone his epic account of the first world war.

heathledgerlove · 14-09-2015 08:01PM

Finished Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet. It read very easily and the story flowed really well; I favour the first person narrative and so found the story both humanly engaging and adventuresome. The turn-of-the-20th century London social landscape was sketched richly, with lots of slang terms and colloquial language and detailed descriptions of period clothes, food, entertainments and the like. Plus there was a lot more sex than in Fingersmith, which I read last year!
I’ll be reading more Waters, I hear good things about Night Watch, The Little Stranger.

Jijsaw · 14-09-2015 08:40PM

Just started my first Sherlock Holmes-'The Hound of the Baskervilles', it's early days but I'm sure I'll enjoy it!

SarahBM · 14-09-2015 10:27PM

I finished Wool last night! I absolutely loved it!
I cannot wait to get the next two, Shift and Dust.

But in the meantime I cannot decide what I want to read!

Wyldwood · 15-09-2015 06:51PM

With my resolution to intermingle my reading with some of the classics I have been doing very well with some Austen, Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Du Maurier. I have just finished Middlemarch by George Eliot and while I enjoyed the story and the language is extraordinary, I found it a bit of a chore at times to plough through the many diversions into politics and other non relevant subject matter. There were also a lot of very long-winded descriptive passages that didn't really add to the plot.
Took me a lot longer than I expected to read so I'm now a few books behind on my Goodreads challenge.

On to Helen Dunmore's The Lie next.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 15-09-2015 06:59PM

Wyldwood wrote: »

With my resolution to intermingle my reading with some of the classics I have been doing very well with some Austen, Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Du Maurier. I have just finished Middlemarch by George Eliot and while I enjoyed the story and the language is extraordinary, I found it a bit of a chore at times to plough through the many diversions into politics and other non relevant subject matter. There were also a lot of very long-winded descriptive passages that didn't really add to the plot.
Took me a lot longer than I expected to read so I'm now a few books behind on my Goodreads challenge.

On to Helen Dunmore's The Lie next.

I quite liked Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Not sure how it compares to Middlemarch or any of her others but in itself it's pretty good.

Callan57 · 15-09-2015 09:33PM

The Diary of Mary Travers by Eibhear Walshe

Wyldwood · 19-09-2015 01:46PM

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I quite liked Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Not sure how it compares to Middlemarch or any of her others but in itself it's pretty good.

Thank for that recommendation will give that one a go soon.

Finished Helen Dunmore's The Lie. It gets mixed reviews on Amazon but I actually enjoyed it. It's a cross between a ghost story and a description of post war trauma. The protagonist, Daniel, is trying to readjust to civilian life after the war but is traumatised by his failure to save the life of his friend, Frederick, during an attack on the Germans.

Callan57 · 19-09-2015 11:35PM

Just finished The Diary of Mary Travers by Eibhear Walshe ... immensly enjoyable historical fiction.

Next is The Night Stages by Jane Urquhart

Mr.Nice Guy · 19-09-2015 11:37PM

I read Mr Mercedes by Stephen King. I thought it was okay, although I found some of the supporting cast of characters to be weak.

eire4 · 20-09-2015 05:14AM

Finished a re read of Yeates Is Dead edited by Joseph O'Connor and written by O'Connor and 14 other Irish authors. A really funny and mad cap romp of a book.

Jimmy Iovine · 20-09-2015 07:21PM

I'm reading "I am Zlatan" at the moment. It's about the Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic and is written by David Lagercrantz (who wrote the latest Millenium series book).

It's £1.99 for the Kindle. I'd highly recommend it, even for non-football lovers. As you can see in the quotes below, it's a novel more so than a football autobiography. It's a fascinating book in comparison to other football books, most of which are complete tripe. Before you read it though, you really need to know what the ghostwriter was trying to achieve:

“I was brought up with this highbrow father so we certainly weren’t reading ghostwritten football books in my childhood. I suddenly said yes to this crazy thing and I didn’t know anything about football. Zlatan is in a way bigger than football in Sweden. I pretended when I met Zlatan that yes, of course, I know everything.

"Then I started to read ghostwritten football books and I must say I’ve never read such boring books in my whole life. I said to myself, ‘I can’t do it.’ Then – I shouldn’t really admit it – I decided to write it as a novel. I didn’t really quote him. I started to find this literary illusion of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and then I got into writing it."

“I sat with him for 100 hours and that was quite an adventure. I didn’t lie. I didn’t want to make him better or nicer than he was. I said to him from the beginning, ‘You can’t be moral. Just speak out, for God’s sake.’

“I told him I had just read David Beckham’s book and that was such a boring book, actually. And he had a good answer: ‘Who the f--- is Beckham?’”

“I think it really was his true voice. The key thing is that I was not working as a journalist. I was not quoting him. I know this – if you want to find something that sounds true and authentic, the last thing you want to do is quote. I don’t think I have any real quotes from him. I tried to get an illusion of him, to try and find the story. I tried to find the literary Ibrahimovic.”

“You can imagine the moment when I, the fake Zlatan Ibrahimovic, had to send the manuscript to the real Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He wasn’t really a book reader. He doesn’t really like journalists who take liberties and I really took liberties, so you can imagine how nervous I was. I remember he said, ‘You must come to my house and speak about the book.' I was so nervous I arrived 20 minutes early, and the police came because there were rumours there was some crazy guy walking outside Zlatan’s house.

“When my father criticised me he said things like, ‘David, I’m so proud of you, you’re such a talented guy and I like your new haircut, but…” That is not the way we do it with Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The first thing he said was: “What the f--- is this? I never said this!’ But after a while I think he understood what I was trying to do. Nowadays he thinks it’s really his story.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11630623/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic-Who-the-f-is-David-Beckham.html

Swiper the fox · 20-09-2015 08:30PM

That Zlatan book was a huge disappointment for me, I expected so much more. For all the hype and talk about it, it's just another footballers biography. I've read lots and it's nowhere near the top of the list. If Zlatan showed even a little humility at any time or taken responsibility for at least some of the reasons why he never had the career his talent deserved it would have been a bit better, the ghostwriter obviously never had the balls to challenge him and make the book a little bit less of a hagiography.

Recently finished a brilliant book on soccer managers called Living on the Volcano, highly recommend it for football fans.

Jijsaw · 20-09-2015 09:46PM

I'm halfway through 'Memoirs of a Geisha', loving it so far. Definitely one of my favourites of the year!

Fathom · 20-09-2015 09:52PM

Blood of Victory, by Alan Furst.

Busi_Girl08 · 21-09-2015 02:06PM

I finished The Seventh Ms Hatfield on holidays. It started off interesting enough (an 11 year old girl suddenly aged over 20 years by a mysterious woman and sent to complete tasks for her) but it just fizzled out into a run of the mill love story. Had a lot more potential.

On The Martian now. Loving it so far. Had my first "accidentally stayed up till 2am reading because it got really good" nights in a long time last night. The humour is amazing.

Jimmy Iovine · 22-09-2015 07:18AM

Swiper the fox wrote:

That Zlatan book was a huge disappointment for me, I expected so much more. For all the hype and talk about it, it's just another footballers biography. I've read lots and it's nowhere near the top of the list. If Zlatan showed even a little humility at any time or taken responsibility for at least some of the reasons why he never had the career his talent deserved it would have been a bit better, the ghostwriter obviously never had the balls to challenge him and make the book a little bit less of a hagiography.

Which would you put higher?

Swiper the fox · 22-09-2015 07:42AM

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

Which would you put higher?

Literally dozens if I had time to think about it.
Tony Cascarino, Roy Keane, Paul McGrath, Paul Lake, Puskas, Tony Adams, Robert Enke, Alex Ferguson,

I really could go on and on but that's just my opinion, I love Zlatan and expected a lot but was left really disappointed.

Dibble · 22-09-2015 12:50PM

The Sign of The Four by Arthur Conan Doyle.

SarahBM · 22-09-2015 02:12PM

I gave up on patriot games. 100 pages in and it just wasn't grabbing me. I found it quiet cheesey and unrealistic tbh. So I started Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith

eire4 · 22-09-2015 06:10PM

Swiper the fox wrote: »

Literally dozens if I had time to think about it.
Tony Cascarino, Roy Keane, Paul McGrath, Paul Lake, Puskas, Tony Adams, Robert Enke, Alex Ferguson,

I really could go on and on but that's just my opinion, I love Zlatan and expected a lot but was left really disappointed.

Paul McGrath's I would highly recommend. Amazingly frank and honest about how bad his alcoholism was.

biZrb · 23-09-2015 02:29PM

I'm almost finished Brideshead Revisited, really enjoying it. Can't wait to watch the series when I've finished the book.

Wyldwood · 23-09-2015 06:31PM

Finished a quick read of Kate Mosse's The Taxidermist's Daughter. It started out very promisingly but got a bit ridiculous towards the end, quite far-fetched.

heathledgerlove · 23-09-2015 09:20PM

biZrb wrote: »

I'm almost finished Brideshead Revisited, really enjoying it. Can't wait to watch the series when I've finished the book.

One of those rare occasions where the screen adaption is just as great as the book

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 24-09-2015 01:54PM

Still reading War & Peace. It's a strange book.... it's interesting enough and the chapters are all fairly short so it's easy enough to read but it still seems to be taking me forever to even make a dent in it's massive page count. I never have that "just one more chapter" feeling when I finish one...

There are so many different characters and at the start they're not even really connected to one another that much so it's a bit of an effort to remember who everyone is every time it jumps to Moscow or the war or wherever. I assume they become more interconnected as the book goes on?

Swiper the fox · 24-09-2015 02:26PM

I'm reading the newest book from Kevin Maher, author of The Fields which I enjoyed a couple of years ago. It's called last night on earth and it's shaping up nicely so far, there are some passages that will rank with the very cream of comedy writing while also dealing with quite serious issues, in that way it is similar to The Fields.

Mr.Nice Guy · 24-09-2015 06:05PM

I finished Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami and I have to say I loved it. It was one of those books I was sad to see end.

It's the first time I've read a Murakami book and I am eager to check out more of his work.

Belle E. Flops · 24-09-2015 08:14PM

I finished 'The Letter' by Kathryn Hughes. I liked it but didn't love it. The idea for the story was really good but from about halfway on it became really predictable and there were so many coincidences where characters luckily managed to bump into each other etc, and that annoyed me.

I'm just starting 'The Amber Keeper' by Freda Lightfoot

This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

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