What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

bonzodog2 · 09-07-2020 11:18am

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British soldier T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), while serving as a liaison officer with rebel forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918.

Enjoying this slowly

Kamu · 09-07-2020 11:22am

Finished 'As a Man Thinketh' (absolutely applicable to women too) yesterday.

It's only 30ish pages, so more a pamphlet, though it was recommended as something every man needs to read, so I did.

To sum up, we are what we think. I think I'm great, I'll be living a great life. I think I'm awful, I'll be living an awful life.

Even if you're currently not what you want to be (e.g confident) if you start to think you are, you will start believing you are, and you will become what it is you think.

Something's I don't fully agree with (regarding health), but overall, I think it's one of the best short reads to refer back to annually to put myself back into perspective.

Foweva Awone · 09-07-2020 12:12pm

mustang shelly wrote: »

Oh no, please don't say that. I have that on my shelf still to read.

Yeah I've been looking forward to reading it for ages, it seemed like an interesting premise.

However he just seems to really stretch his artistic licence in terms of what's believable or realistic. Which I'd probably actually forgive in a well-written novel, but I just don't find the writing flows well, and it highlights the lack of believability.

gmisk · 09-07-2020 12:14pm

Sphere - Michael Crichton

I remember the dodgy film vaguely but actually enjoying the book

Danger781 · 09-07-2020 1:10pm

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

Absolutely loving it so far :-)

fr336 · 09-07-2020 1:17pm

Danger781 wrote: »

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

Absolutely loving it so far :-)

Have you seen 21 lessons for the 21st century, might be your bag too

I Am Nobody · 09-07-2020 5:07pm

Freddie Mercury by Peter Freestone.Gives a great behind the scenes of all the hard it took to perform his concerts.

Nigel Fairservice · 09-07-2020 6:47pm

Foweva Awone wrote: »

I'm just finished reading Stephen King's "The Stand" for the first time - the revised, extended version. It was great, but sooooo looooong. First of his books I've read in many years.

Now I'm reading Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh ... I'm not loving it, it's just not particularly well written and the twists are very predictable.

The Stand is a monster read but well worth it.

em_cat · 09-07-2020 8:00pm

Louis de Bernières So Much Life Leftover & Carlos Ruiz Zafón The Labyrinth of the Spirits & listening to Toni Morrison’s Paridise, I’ve read most of her work through the years, but love having the opportunity to her narrate her own work.

I Am Nobody · 10-07-2020 9:11pm

Rereading The Stand by Stephen King

EmmetSpiceland · 10-07-2020 9:35pm

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

The Butcher Boy. Pretty grim read.

Great book.

If you enjoyed it I’d recommend checking out ‘The Dead School’ and ‘Emerald Germs of Ireland’.

McCabe is a great writer.

Aglomerado · 10-07-2020 10:30pm

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Great book.

If you enjoyed it I’d recommend checking out ‘The Dead School’ and ‘Emerald Germs of Ireland’.

McCabe is a great writer.

+1 ... Black humour at its finest. Breakfast on Pluto is great too.

10-07-2020 11:24pm

A Gentleman in Moscow, about 60 pages in and finding it a bit dull. The style of writing is nice and pleasant but I just find it a bit boring tbh, I'll give it another 60 before I make a call on whether or not to abandon

arybvtcw0eolkf · 12-07-2020 11:17am

Arghus wrote: »

The last paper and Ink book I finished was The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

It is what it says on the tin - A look at the lives of five very unfortunate women. The historical research is very impressive and skillfully woven into a very readable whole. The book paints a very comprehensive picture of the misery and wretchedness of ordinary life for most people in the Victorian England of that time. Basically, you wouldn't have wanted to be working class back then. And the book manages to not be repetitive, showing how it was entirely different set of individual circumstances and history that led each of the women to their eventual end. And it is about the lives of these women, not about the manner of their deaths. It's a rare true crime book that can't be accused to being exploitative.

Recommended.

I started it right after you recommended it, then my daughter was in hospital for a couple of weeks and I couldn't get any reading done and back to it now.

I'm on his third victim (Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, Sweden), and comprehensive is right. Its like a short biography on each of the victims, with scant information on the actual murder scenes and investigations, which I'm finding quite tiring but I'll hammer away at it.

That said I'm finding the description of life as a poor person in London at the time very informative, it must have been absolutely dreadful. I love London so I keep finding myself going back to find the locations mentioned in the book.

Although not what I was looking for, and I'm finding the biographies of the victims tiring but that could be my situation at present, it is a very good book and I could see myself recommending it to people interested in Jack the Rippers victims.

Foweva Awone · 12-07-2020 11:32am

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs. I have to admit, I'm kind of loving it!

smurfjed · 12-07-2020 5:23pm

Just finished Fate is the hunter by Ernst Gann, aviation related.

bmc58 · 12-07-2020 5:42pm

RED NOTICE by Bill Browder.Read it during lockdown.Read it and get a look at how the scumbag Putin works.The author got the Magnitsky act passed in the US Senate.Corruption is rife in Russia and those in high office are untoutchable.A chilling read.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 13-07-2020 11:19pm

Currently reading The Last Jews in Berlin by Leonard Gross. It's a summary of the lives and survival tactics of a number of Jews who managed to remain alive and somewhat free in Berlin during the Second World War.

arybvtcw0eolkf · 13-07-2020 11:41pm

Buford T. Justice XIX wrote: »

Currently reading The Last Jews in Berlin by Leonard Gross. It's a summary of the lives and survival tactics of a number of Jews who managed to remain alive and somewhat free in Berlin during the Second World War.

I've visited holocaust museums in Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in NYC and Auschwitz, now this is something I'd get my teeth into.

Foweva Awone · 14-07-2020 10:31am

I'm reading "American Dirt", Jeanine Cummins. Frickin hell, it's a book that just grips you from the very first page. It feels like the best book I've read in a long time, and I'm only a few chapters in. Cannot put it down!

TheRepentent · 14-07-2020 1:47pm

Gone back to old school fantasy , one of my favourite books and read at a young age . Magician by Raymond E Feist.

Remember queueing up to get my trilogoy of Midkemia tbooks signed in Easons many years ago (all 3 got chewed to bits by a boxer pup !) . Was at the age where I was into DnD ande asked him if he was ever gonna release any modules for his universe ....he kindly told me to check out ADnD and nothing to stop me creating it myself

14-07-2020 2:54pm

Foweva Awone wrote: »

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs. I have to admit, I'm kind of loving it!

I read that a couple of years ago, enjoyed it but didn't like the movie.

American Dirt next for me so!

bmc58 · 14-07-2020 4:24pm

I Am Nobody wrote: »

Rereading The Stand by Stephen King

Brilliant author,if you like to be scared.

Foweva Awone · 16-07-2020 9:53pm

Just as an FYI, you can order library books online again. In case anyone else apart from me has been eagerly awaiting this date ... I've a very long list to start working through!

quickbeam · 16-07-2020 9:55pm

My library used to have a place where you could drop in unwanted books. It was great for decluttering my own read piile, as well as picking up other books that look interesting. They're not back to doing that yet, though I await that moment eagerly.

megaten · 16-07-2020 11:19pm

Foweva Awone wrote: »

Just as an FYI, you can order library books online again. In case anyone else apart from me has been eagerly awaiting this date ... I've a very long list to start working through!

Got an email that two books are ready for me this morning. Delighted, the all-Ireland loan thing was the best thing the libraries have ever done.

Foweva Awone · 17-07-2020 6:56am

megaten wrote: »

Got an email that two books are ready for me this morning. Delighted, the all-Ireland loan thing was the best thing the libraries have ever done.

It's great isn't it, and it's also super handy being able ro return anywhere in the country, I get around!

nigeldaniel · 17-07-2020 10:00am

I am having to make do with rereading some old books as I have not been out to buy any new or secondhand ones. I tend to buy in shops and not online. At the moment I am going through two books, one for evening reading, and one at the weekend. 'Teach us to sit still' and 'Othello'

megaten · 17-07-2020 10:13am

Foweva Awone wrote: »

It's great isn't it, and it's also super handy being able ro return anywhere in the country, I get around!

It just expands the catalog by such a massive degree and makes the smaller branch libraries so much more useful.

appledrop · 19-07-2020 8:17pm

Just finished Michelle Obama book which was enjoyable for an autobiography.

Next up Emma Donoghue The Pull of the Stars about Spanish Flu in Dublin in 1918 so should be an interesting read especially at the moment!

4Ad · 20-07-2020 10:08am

Foweva Awone wrote: »

I'm reading "American Dirt", Jeanine Cummins. Frickin hell, it's a book that just grips you from the very first page. It feels like the best book I've read in a long time, and I'm only a few chapters in. Cannot put it down!

I agree, fantastic read, it was so tense....

JasonStatham · 20-07-2020 10:39am

I am reading Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. It just feels like a teenage girls fantasy stuck in a 1920s Errol Flynn movie, father than a sci fi. I'll try to finish it.

farmerval · 22-07-2020 9:08pm

Maybe you should talk to someone, a Therapist, Her Therapist, and our lives revealed by Lori Gottlieb

Basic story, a therapist in the midst of a personal crises attends another therapist, the book is about her own patients and also her own therapy, so a look from both sides of the couch.
Well written, easy read yet quite revealing.

bladespin · 24-07-2020 12:43pm

Homer's Odyssey - it's brilliant, keep imagining the old argonauts movies.

Barna77 · 24-07-2020 1:31pm

Dracula.
No explanation needed

gutenberg · 28-07-2020 1:59pm

Started John Lanchester's The Wall. Only a few chapters in so I'm reserving judgment. Interesting premise.

ClydeTallyBump · 28-07-2020 2:55pm

I just finished How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee. It was quite an emotional read at times. It is about a woman's experience as a comfort woman in Singapore during WW2. Horrific.

gmisk · 28-07-2020 4:29pm

The woods by Harlan coben....it's good trashy fun

I have to say I loved sphere by Michael Crichton the film was useless in comparison

Mars Bar · 28-07-2020 4:53pm

A Girl From Nowhere - James Maxwell

Kamu · 28-07-2020 4:56pm

Mars Bar wrote: »

A Girl From Nowhere - James Maxwell

I read that too as an Amazon free read thing.
Was grand, if a little formulaic.

Mars Bar · 28-07-2020 5:04pm

Kamu wrote: »

I read that too as an Amazon free read thing.
Was grand, if a little formulaic.

Ah, how did I miss that?
I enjoyed the Evermen Saga so I hope this won't be disappointing.

Kamu · 28-07-2020 5:28pm

Mars Bar wrote: »

Ah, how did I miss that?
I enjoyed the Evermen Saga so I hope this won't be disappointing.

Going by my Goodreads,.I read it in April, so it was an Amazon free read them.

I gave it 3 stars, perhaps 3.5 would be fairer. Some of the reviews on Goodreads were ridiculous though. Taking the lead character way out of context, for example.

mariaalice · 29-07-2020 7:02pm

Mother of All the Behans by Brian Behan and a chick-lit book where one of the characters is a nun.

29-07-2020 7:08pm

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/565319.Fire_in_the_Lake

Just exceptional. A masterpiece.

JasonStatham · 29-07-2020 9:46pm

Star Wars: Lords of the Sith by Paul Kemp.

It's about Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. Gangster, they are.

An Ri rua · 29-07-2020 9:49pm

-Principles & Practice of Radiesthesia - Abbé Mermet
Dowsing. Wholeheartedly, if you've an enquiring mind.

Cat Sense -John Bradshaw. A very serious study of cats from a cat lover & scientist. 100% recommended.

The Landscape of Slieve Bloom - John Feehan. As the title says. John, a native of Birr, is a scholar and has produced s stellar tome ón his native mountain. From many angles.

Ón leave and have an absolute library of books to get through.

BraveDonut · 30-07-2020 11:58pm

Just finished "Natchez Burning" By Gregg Iles.

Came highly recommended. At 1000 pages I was looking forward to settling in to an epic tale of deep-south race/human rights related murder, past and present.

I can honestly say that this this one of the worst books I have ever read

Hugely overly long
The author constantly recounts/repeats/retraces the facts
Whimpers out with a 'suspenseful' finish and does not resolve even half of the plot lines

stay away:mad::mad:

on the plus side though - it did help a bad sleeper fall asleep more often

Arghus · 31-07-2020 2:19am

Been neglecting this thread for a while but I have been reading. The last ones I finished:

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig: Zweig's memoirs of growing up in the Europe of the late 19th century and up until his contemporary account of the rise of Nazism in Europe. Powerful stuff, the man had a hell of a life and lived through some crazy, crazy times. World War One, the craziness of the interwar years, the hope in internationalism and the darkening of unimaginable evil across the continent. Zweig is a seriously under appreciated writer these days. Feels completely fresh for a novel from eighty years ago.

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard: The black sheep of an aristocratic family returns home after a family tragedy. The book is basically a 400 page rant, one giant paragraph, no separate chapters. Just a relentless, unceasing diatribe against just about everything: religion, history, family, patriotism, photography, modern society. But it's funny in a really bleak way.

Home and Away: Writing about The Beautiful Game by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund: A collection of emails sent between the two authors during the 2014 World Cup. Reflections on football and all kinds of shyte. Sometimes great, mostly just okay. I love Knausgaard's novels and I love football, so I was left kinda dissapointed, sadly.

Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel: Took me a while to get into the style and it's occasionally a bit confusing, but when the intrigue and backstabbing starts kicking off it becomes a lot more gripping than I had anticipated. Quite good.

Transit by Rachel Cusk: Absolutely amazing semi-autographical novel about the daily life of a middle aged female writer. Not much really happens in the way of plot: she moves into an apartment, she gets her hair done, she gives a talk at a book festival etc, etc. But it's the style. Every little vignette becomes an examination on some deep concern in life - what is freedom, what is change, what is authenticity... It sounds heavy but it's not. Her style felt completely unique, the prose is icy and precise in a way I'd never read before. One of those that is extremely easy to read, effortless, but you can tell every sentence was agonised over. She takes you by the hand and without you even knowing how or when it just happened you're grappling with deep existential questions. How this woman is not absolutely huge is baffling.

Bring Up The Bodies by Hillary Mantel: The sequel to Wolf Hall and it's the superior novel IMO. Everything is a bit better. The plot is more focused, the narrative voice is more defined, the intrigues are even more diabolical and the history is absolute dynamite. Pretty, pretty good.

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wesson: Perfunctory enough account of the making of Chinatown. Starts off really well with an account of what Roman Polanski's crazy life was life in and around the murder of his wife. But then it just becomes a fairly by the numbers account of how a famous movie was made. Not bad, but could have been much better.

TenLeftFingers · 31-07-2020 2:34am

1/ Alien: The Official Movie Novelisation
2/ Alan Dean Foster
3/ A spaceship crew returning from a work contract are woken from hypersleep to respond to an unidentified transmission from the depths of space
4/ If you liked the movie Alien, this book is a must read. It is not a direct translation of the movie. The writer has a sublime style of writing that gives the characters and environment a depth that you won't have seen. There is a vivid atmosphere, something I thought would be lost in translation.

It's not exactly the same as the movie because it was apparently created before the movie was completed, based on an source material.

Errashareesh · 31-07-2020 2:50am

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Excellent - love him. American Pastoral is amazing too.

Will then watch the TV series of The Plot Against America.

What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

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