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What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,628 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    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.

    Great author. The Human Stain is another fantastic book that springs to mind.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,202 ✭✭✭✭ILoveYourVibes


    Danny the Champion of the world.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,897 ✭✭✭megaten


    Arghus wrote: »
    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.


    Read this a good while back and really liked it. Can't remember where I read it but apparently a lot of his peers didn't actually like his work at the time and thought it was usually superficial? It amused me since his book inspired the grand budepest hotel and I'd definitely consider Wes Anderson a director concerned with aesthetics above all else. (Still like both though).


  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    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!

    Well, I really enjoyed that! Thanks for the recommendation. :)

    Currently reading Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow. It's the story of how he came to uncover Weinstein, and boy was he persistent and tenacious in the face of serious threats and intimidation.

    Also reading Divine Fury - A History Of Genius, by Darren McMahon. I have an issue with his narrow definition of what constitutes genius. It's an okay read, I'm only halfway through though so it might get better - or not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 165 ✭✭Little Miss Fairy


    Just finished The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. A beautiful book.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,628 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    megaten wrote: »
    Read this a good while back and really liked it. Can't remember where I read it but apparently a lot of his peers didn't actually like his work at the time and thought it was usually superficial? It amused me since his book inspired the grand budepest hotel and I'd definitely consider Wes Anderson a director concerned with aesthetics above all else. (Still like both though).

    I think he was a very, very successful writer in his time, which will always lead to people hating you. And he was a contemporary of many novellists who experimented with the form of the novel, so his old fashioned style might have seemed a bit pedestrian in comparison.

    But, from what I've read of him, I wouldn't call him superficial myself. His style is very gentle and very polished, but to me that's just the sign of how good he is. It takes a lot of hard work to make it look so easy.

    I found his memoirs to be emotionally raw, wise, with so much to say about human nature.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,897 ✭✭✭megaten


    Arghus wrote: »
    I think he was a very, very successful writer in his time, which will always lead to people hating you. And he was a contemporary of many novellists who experimented with the form of the novel, so his old fashioned style might have seemed a bit pedestrian in comparison.

    But, from what I've read of him, I wouldn't call him superficial myself. His style is very gentle and very polished, but to me that's just the sign of how good he is. It takes a lot of hard work to make it look so easy.

    I found his memoirs to be emotionally raw, wise, with so much to say about human nature.
    For what its worth I think I've found the article I was thinking of, or at least one that makes similar points.


    https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n02/michael-hofmann/vermicular-dither


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 884 ✭✭✭_Godot_


    I'm rereading Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,300 ✭✭✭✭razorblunt


    Just finished The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. A beautiful book.

    I bought that for my nephew as I heard great things about it, read a few pages and instantly bought another for my son, to read to him when he's older.


    I've just started into Star of the Sea, the famine stories are heartbreaking, twice I had to put it down and take a break and I'm not 100 pages in.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,499 ✭✭✭IamMetaldave


    Cult of the Dead Cow - Joesph Menn

    Really interesting read about probably the most famous hacking group out of America.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,368 ✭✭✭bladespin


    A tale of two cities, going through the classics.

    MasteryDarts Ireland - Master your game!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,272 ✭✭✭Barna77


    bladespin wrote: »
    A tale of two cities, going through the classics.
    It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
    Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,368 ✭✭✭bladespin


    Barna77 wrote: »
    It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
    Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

    I'll persevere, going through a list of 'must reads'.

    MasteryDarts Ireland - Master your game!



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    Barna77 wrote: »
    It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
    Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

    No problem with classics, but I gotta lot of problems with Dickens.


  • Registered Users Posts: 73 ✭✭Gillouise


    I started 'Gone with the wind' over the weekend. One of those books that you always hear people talking about but I never had any interest until it was on special offer at the weekend on Kindle.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    Ah, if we're talking classics, that's more like it!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,026 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    razorblunt wrote: »
    I bought that for my nephew as I heard great things about it, read a few pages and instantly bought another for my son, to read to him when he's older.


    I've just started into Star of the Sea, the famine stories are heartbreaking, twice I had to put it down and take a break and I'm not 100 pages in.

    Star of the Sea sounds interesting I'll have to add it to the list


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,628 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    bladespin wrote: »
    I'll persevere, going through a list of 'must reads'.

    The only Dickens I ever read was Bleak House and I found it an absolute chore.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,026 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Arghus wrote: »

    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 kind of way.

    Sounds like I wrote a book on a bender and was too drunk to remember.

    As the bowl of petunias said "oh no not again"


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,368 ✭✭✭bladespin


    Arghus wrote: »
    The only Dickens I ever read was Bleak House and I found it an absolute chore.

    Read Nicholas Nickleby a while back too, it was ok, enjoyed it in way.

    MasteryDarts Ireland - Master your game!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 984 ✭✭✭gutenberg


    bladespin wrote: »
    A tale of two cities, going through the classics.
    Barna77 wrote: »
    It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
    Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.
    quickbeam wrote: »
    No problem with classics, but I gotta lot of problems with Dickens.
    Arghus wrote: »
    The only Dickens I ever read was Bleak House and I found it an absolute chore.

    The only Dickens I've ever finished was A Tale of Two Cities. Everything else I've tried of his, was a big fat nope.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,016 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    Barna77 wrote: »
    It started it some years ago. I'm no fan of Dickens but gave it ago.
    Nope. I gave up after a few chapters.

    Would you say...it was the worst of times?

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,639 ✭✭✭completedit


    I heard the News today- Paul Howard.


  • Registered Users Posts: 258 ✭✭ClydeTallyBump


    Now onto Renia's Diary by Renia Spiegel.


  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Brief Answers to the Big Questions - Stephen Hawking.

    Some answers aren't that brief in this short little book, but it's thought provoking and easy to read. One for the curious rather than the scholars.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Fourteen Byzantine Rulers by one Michael Psellus writing in the 11th century so a contemporary account of life in the Byzantine court and beyond. For someone so far back in time you get a real sense of the man and his world.

    We Have Capture by Tom Stafford. Astronaut, test pilot and more. Flew on Gemini and Apollo, commanding Apollo 10 and got within 10 miles of the surface. Then he was commander of the Apollo Soyuz joint US/Soviet mission, came up with the original specs for the B2 stealth bomber on a cafe napkin and was an unofficial ambassador to the Soviet union space guys.

    Just finished The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann DFC. Free French pilot who flew with the British RAF during World war two, flying Spitfires and then Tempests in ground attack missions. He kept a daily dairy in case he was killed so his family left in France may one day read them. Scary numbers of his fellow fliers didn't come back. Flying a Spitfire across the English channel at wave top height under the German radar at 300 mph, through mist, where the slightest misfire from the engine meant instant oblivion and emerging from said mist to face at the level of the deck a German anti aircraft ship, open fire and pull up and hit a cable with his wing. Unreal.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Posts: 26,052 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    I remember reading about that guy. It's hard (for a devout coward like myself) to conceive of such bravery.

    I've a bio of Audie Murphy on my reading list - To Hell And Back - another amazing person who was at the front in the bravery queue.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,480 ✭✭✭✭Tauriel


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Just finished The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann. Free French pilot who flew with the British RAF during World war two, flying Spitfires and then Tempests in ground attack missions. He kept a daily dairy in case he was killed so his family left in France may one day read them. Scary numbers of his fellow fliers didn't come back. Flying a Spitfire across the English channel at wave top height under the German radar at 300 mph, through mist, where the slightest misfire from the engine meant instant oblivion and emerging from said mist to face at the level of the deck a German anti aircraft ship, open fire and pull up and hit a cable with his wing. Unreal.

    RTÉ aired a very good documentary during the week called Spitfire Paddy about an Irish man who joined the RAF at 17 in the late 1930s. I found it very interesting.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,047 ✭✭✭appledrop


    Just finished 'Pull of Stars' by Emma Donoghue.


    To be honest I've very mixed feelings on it.



    I bought it based on premise of it being about Spanish Flu outbreak in Dublin hospitial set over 3 days.


    However what it actually was was 3/4 pregnant women's experience of Spanish Flu in tiny maternity ward + way too graphic childbirth scences+ I say that as a woman!


    However parts of it were enjoyable but didnt like ending as too rushed without giving it away.


    Anyway I then started 'Conversations with Friends' by Sally Rooney. Sweet Jesus it seems like a load of pretentious nonsense like something a college student would write thats in Dramsoc. Ill give it another go but not right now. Has anyone else read this does it get better?


    So my current choice is new Kathleen Mac Mahon book ' Nothing but blue sky" My god its a powerful book. Basicially about a man dealing with grief after death of his wife. Ive already cried twice!


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    RTÉ aired a very good documentary during the week called Spitfire Paddy about an Irish man who joined the RAF at 17 in the late 1930s. I found it very interesting.
    Probably Brendan "Paddy" Finucane? 30 "kills" shot down by ground fire IIRC.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,480 ✭✭✭✭Tauriel


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Probably Brendan "Paddy" Finucane? 30 "kills" shot down by ground fire IIRC.

    That's the one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 684 ✭✭✭farmerval


    Just finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
    OK read, very dystopian future for the setting. Far from the best Atwood book I've read.

    Also finished History of the rain by Niall Williams. Lovely read, very lyrical prose and all very Irish. Lots of long flowery ways of saying things, long descriptive sentences and still a story slowly but surely going somewhere. Really enjoyed it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,272 ✭✭✭Barna77


    quickbeam wrote: »
    No problem with classics, but I gotta lot of problems with Dickens.
    I do love the classics, but Dickens is an absolute yawn fest

    Maybe his books could help me sleep better ...
    Would you say...it was the worst of times?
    Hard times


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,480 ✭✭✭✭Tauriel


    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors by Dan Jones. This is a fascinating insight into the Templar Knights, from their foundation, successes, losses in the numerous Crusades in the Holy Land and eventual downfall orchestrated by King Philip IV and Pope Clement V.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,026 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors by Dan Jones. This is a fascinating insight into the Templar Knights, from their foundation, successes, losses in the numerous Crusades in the Holy Land and eventual downfall orchestrated by King Philip IV and Pope Clement V.

    Its a fascinating story. I read Piers Paul Reads account and its long but well worth it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 548 ✭✭✭JasonStatham


    The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien.

    Some cool characterisation in there. The main villain is called Morgoth.

    Man you know you're really Goth, when you have Balrogs guarding treasure, your main mode of public transport is a huge spider, and your main man is Sauron.

    Gangster.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,946 ✭✭✭✭Mars Bar


    I'm just starting "52 Times Britain was a Bellend: The History You Didn't Get Taught At School". I really hope it lives up to its title. From reading the reviews it seems to have upset some precious Brits so that's a good sign.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,016 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien.

    Some cool characterisation in there. The main villain is called Morgoth.

    Man you know you're really Goth, when you have Balrogs guarding treasure, your main mode of public transport is a huge spider, and your main man is Sauron.

    Gangster.

    That’s really something you should keep to yourself.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,129 ✭✭✭TheRepentent


    Mars Bar wrote: »
    I'm just starting "52 Times Britain was a Bellend: The History You Didn't Get Taught At School". I really hope it lives up to its title. From reading the reviews it seems to have upset some precious Brits so that's a good sign.
    Yeah with that name alone you'd have to give it ago

    Wanna support genocide?Cheer on the murder of women and children?The Ruzzians aren't rapey enough for you? Morally bankrupt cockroaches and islamaphobes , Israel needs your help NOW!!

    http://tinyurl.com/2ksb4ejk


    https://www.btselem.org/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,262 ✭✭✭✭Autosport


    The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard, sounds good so hopefully it is :)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,695 ✭✭✭Lisha


    Autosport wrote: »
    The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard, sounds good so hopefully it is :)

    I’ve seen the nothing man being recommended so I think I’ll give it a go too. I’m currently reading Charity Norman’s Freeing Grace, it’s excellent. I just finished listening to the Secrets of Strangers By Charity Norman And oh my word that was excellent.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,633 ✭✭✭✭Buford T. Justice XIX


    Mars Bar wrote: »
    I'm just starting "52 Times Britain was a Bellend: The History You Didn't Get Taught At School". I really hope it lives up to its title. From reading the reviews it seems to have upset some precious Brits so that's a good sign.

    First of a series?:D

    I must give that a look over.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 744 ✭✭✭Kewreeuss


    Picked this thread up at page 15, and have downloaded already 14 Byzantine Rulers. Looking forward to it. I've just finished Terry Brankin has a GUN by Malachi O'Doherty. I was disappointed, it had so much promise. Ex giustiziere of the IRA now a solicitor, apparently plagued by guilt that he gave the go-ahead to bomb the wrong target. It wasn't a monotonous read, there were quite
    a few threads to the story but it felt as if half way through the author ran out of steam and wrapped the whole lot up very quickly. Or maybe he was told edit edit edit and he did but what was left wasn't succinct. So yeah, premise is great but I wasn't satisfied.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,969 ✭✭✭✭alchemist33


    The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb. The real-life story of Allied (mostly Norwegian) attempts to sabotage the Norwegian hydro-electric plant producing heavy water for the Nazis' atomic weapons programme. This is the story the old film The Heroes of Telemark is based on and it's a great story, well told. Highly recommended for anyone interested in history, war, real-life heroism.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,026 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Tigerbaby wrote: »
    A, Just finished my ( 3rd or 4th !!) re-read of all the discworld books, and I also loved the Night Watch and Death books.

    However, as a stand-alone book, I found "Small Gods" one of his best.

    On a similar seam of writing, I am in the middle of reading Walter Moers Zamonia series of books. Buy the actual books, not kindle, as the illustrations within are essential to the stories.

    Moers is ( almost) up there with Pratchett for inventiveness, fun and sheer craziness.

    enjoy

    Small God's might be his best book in the series standalone or otherwise.

    Unrelated to Prachett I would highly recommend the recently deceased Carlos Ruiz Zafons series Cemetery of Forgotten Books which begins with "Shadow of the Wind" outside of a cracking story the man had a real love for books


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 744 ✭✭✭Kewreeuss


    Couldn't sleep last night, finished the City that we Became by NK Jemisin.
    Great story, Fantastical, thoroughly engaging and very contemporary about New York developing avatars and a consciousness. Looking forward to reading the next part when it comes out.
    Neil Asher's The Human is calling now.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Kewreeuss wrote: »
    Couldn't sleep last night, finished the City that we Became by NK Jemisin.
    Great story, Fantastical, thoroughly engaging and very contemporary about New York developing avatars and a consciousness. Looking forward to reading the next part when it comes out.
    Neil Asher's The Human is calling now.

    Recommend reading her Broken Earth trilogy as well. She's a pretty amazing writer.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,129 ✭✭✭TheRepentent


    Recommend reading her Broken Earth trilogy as well. She's a pretty amazing writer.
    Second this..great series

    Wanna support genocide?Cheer on the murder of women and children?The Ruzzians aren't rapey enough for you? Morally bankrupt cockroaches and islamaphobes , Israel needs your help NOW!!

    http://tinyurl.com/2ksb4ejk


    https://www.btselem.org/



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 744 ✭✭✭Kewreeuss


    I'll check them out. Thanks


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 984 ✭✭✭gutenberg


    Started Philippe Sands' 'The Ratline' about the Nazi Otto van Wachter, his wartime career and his escape after the end of WW2. I'm a few chapters in and it's already gripping.

    I loved Sands' East West Street so couldn't wait for this one (had to wait for husband to finish it first, grrr!).


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