Thread: Heaven: Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
(Thread title quote from Neil Gaiman. According to the internet, so it must be right).

What are you reading in 2016?

I'm starting off (well continuing) the quest to conquer Mount TBR with Mike Ormsby's "Never Mind the Balkans, here's Romania". He's a British journalist who has lived on and off in Romania for years, is married to a Romanian, and clearly knows and loves the country. This book is a selection of short essays on aspects of life there - each one is just a couple of pages long, and kind of remind me of Radio 4's "From Our Own Correspondent" type pieces. As someone who has also lived there as a British expat I am enjoying this very much. I've also got the Romanian translation, so am reading one English then the equivalent Romanian piece which I hope will shave some of the rustiness off my language skills.

[ 21. February 2017, 19:53: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Book tokens make even better gifts because I can choose the world I visit and if it's from
Scorpio our local independent bookshop, it doesn't have a cut off date

I was given a $30 token for Christmas, which I have already spent several times over in my mind. I feel like I did when I was a child in the local dairy (convenience store, corner shop) with a shiny thrippenny bit, choosing between aniseed balls (7 for a penny, but not my favourite taste) and spearmint leaves (3 for a penny, and heavenly).

This year I want to keep a track of books I read and am pondering the best way to do this

Huia
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
I have book tokens too. Most exciting! I might try to find a nice small independent bookshop in London in which to spend them. Suggestions welcome!

I'm currently reading the Laidlaw trilogy by William Mcilvanney . I realised when he died that I'd never read anything by him, so I got the first Laidlaw book on my kindle.
It's wonderful stuff, really considered and well crafted writing, with some lovely bits of dead-pan Glasgow humour, and some real consideration of some big issues. It crackles with life and intelligence. I wish i had discovered his work sooner.

As well as wanting to read his entire oeuvre, I'd like to read more Scottish authors' work this year. I haven't read a lot, considering I'm Scottish, and I think I'd enjoy reading more. Again, recommendations welcome!
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I found another $15 book token which I though was past it's use by date, but isn't. Riches beyond measure!

Luvanddaises I will be watching to see any recommendations you get too.

So many books - so little time!

Huia
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua is one I read last year, and would recommend to just about anyone. It's a graphic novel (but don't let that put you off), and it's got a bit of everything. Unusual little gem, and rather lovely.

Probably my favourite book of last year was the light, funny and clever Doctor Dogbody's Leg by James Norman Hall. I read a lot of historical naval fiction, but even if you don't, it's a lovely book.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I finished 2015 with two fairly modern histories of Indian involvement in the 1939-45 and then the 1914-18 European wars so am starting 2016 with yet another reread of Kipling's Captains Courageous but I have not yet chosen its successor. As we have guests arriving on Tuesday for a three week stay probably something fairly light but will see what grabs me when the time comes.
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by luvanddaisies:
As well as wanting to read his entire oeuvre, I'd like to read more Scottish authors' work this year. I haven't read a lot, considering I'm Scottish, and I think I'd enjoy reading more. Again, recommendations welcome!

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Well, you did ask:

Iain Banks. O Caledonia (by Elspeth Barker, I think). Sunset Song (if you didn't do it in school). The Visitors by Simon Sylvester is recent and Scottish. I loathe Neil Gunn, but you might like it - start with The Silver Darlings. Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. James Robertson - The Testament of Gideon Mack, and his recent one And The Land Lay Still. Denise Mina for Glasgow set crime, Ian Rankin for Edinburgh. Ali Smith for literary stuff. John Buchan, Muriel Spark, Dorothy Dunnett (if you want weighty historical saga).

I'll stop now...
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
What a lovely resolution, luvanddaisies. Glad to recommend a few. I'm sticking to ones set in Scotland, though there is a lot by Scottish authors set further afield too.

Andrew Grieg, The Return of John MacNab. Great fun, but probably best if you first read John Buchan's John MacNab.

D.K. Broster, The Flight of the Heron. For sheer, soaring, homoerotic, Jacobite romance. Unbeatable!

Catherine Carswell's The Life of Robert Burns (1930) is a classic in its own right, and well worth the read.

J.G. Lockhart, Adam Blair. Walter Scott's son-in-law tells a thoughtful tale of lust and presbyterianism!

Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped. Of course.

John Prebble, Glencoe. Because you have to have a John Prebble in there, and Glencoe tells a vivid and moving tale.

My favourite Walter Scott is Old Mortality, with The Bride of Lammermoor coming a close second. No one dissects Scotland quite so brilliantly as does Scott.

Happy reading! Let us know how you get on.
 

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Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
My daughter bought Vargic's Miscellany of Curious Maps for me.

I'm still working through it. It's uneven but fascinating. I think some 'shrooms and acid may have played a part.
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 
That sounds rather interesting, and like one of those beautiful books that are lovely just to be around too.

<scribbles down Scottish writer suggestions>
Thanks

Has anyone seen this ?
And would anyone fancy it as an on-the-ship thing? I can't imagine reading as few as twelve books in a year, so I think it should still leave me plenty of time to explore more Scottish writers too. The categories are pretty loose, so it should t be onerous, and it would be interesting to see what people choose and why they choose it - which might also generate ideas for things to read too.

If there is a bunch of people here up for it, do you think it would be worth giving it it's own thread so as not to derail this one?
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I have just been putting books back on the shelves, as completed books often end up languishing on my bedside table for a while, and I spotted my old copy of 1066 And All That - no idea what it was doing on the fiction shelves but there you are. Anyway it seems a suitably light read for the day - then I spotted it was priced at 4 shillings!

It is a fairly old Penguin edition, printed in 1970.

I am looking forward to this.
 

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Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
Wodders, that is a Good Thing. I adore that book, and the Knotweed and I are word-perfect on far too much of it!

AG
 

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Posted by Bibaculus (# 18528) on :
 
Luvanddaisies - I quite like the idea of the reading challenge. It would certainly mean I would read things that I otherwise wouldn't read, and outside my normal, probably rather narrow, range of books, which would be no bad thing. I might give it a go. Thanks for the link.
 

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Posted by Hail Mary (# 18531) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Huia:

This year I want to keep a track of books I read and am pondering the best way to do this

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quote:

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Over on Goodreads the book gets a 4.5 star average review, which amazes me (meanly, I wonder if the author got her friends to write reviews).

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quote:

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Originally posted by luvanddaisies:
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua is one I read last year, and would recommend to just about anyone. It's a graphic novel (but don't let that put you off), and it's got a bit of everything. Unusual little gem, and rather lovely.

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I haven't yet managed to organise myself into buying the hardcopy, but I've been reading the original webcomic since 2009 It's on my shopping list...

I tend to give a list of ISBNs to the maternal Knotweed before Christmas (with title, author, pb/hb and publishing country details as well). She then passes details round the clan, and I get books! Unfortunately I've now finished reading all the latest Vorkosigan books, so will have to wait for the next one to be in the local library system (no shelf space for it until it gets to paperback) Currently flicking through an interesting set of papers, main book title is The materiality of magic.
 

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Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
Over the Christmas holidays, in between singing, cooking and partying, I read The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson, the sequel to Notes from a Small Island. While it was an enjoyable read, as D. pointed out, Mr. Bryson is becoming a little, um, curmudgeonly. Things seem to annoy him a lot, and at times he seems to be turning into Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Having said that, for the most part he seems to retain his love of Britain and his wry amusement at our little eccentricities.

I've just started on The Blackhouse by Peter May; it's the first in a trilogy of detective novels set on the Isle of Lewis and so far I'm finding it quite unputdownable.
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
For anyone who read and enjoyed Catherine Fox's Acts and Omissions, which we read for Ship's book club here last year and was a wonderful discovery for me, and its sequel Unseen Things Above -- she's just started posting installments of the next book on her blog.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Piglet:
Over the Christmas holidays, in between singing, cooking and partying, I read The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson, the sequel to Notes from a Small Island. While it was an enjoyable read, as D. pointed out, Mr. Bryson is becoming a little, um, curmudgeonly. Things seem to annoy him a lot, and at times he seems to be turning into Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Having said that, for the most part he seems to retain his love of Britain and his wry amusement at our little eccentricities.

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Gave that to my Mum for Christmas. She's loved his other works and the cover features the Seven Sisters which is quite close to where she grew up. I'm rather indebted to him for shaking my hand in Durham cathedral when, in his role as university chancellor, he conferred my degree on me.

Odd thing was, I also gave her an NLT bible as that's the version her church uses. She said it was "the sublime and the ridiculous" though I'm not sure which was which!
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Here's another reading challenge similar to luvanddaisies from upthread. It's one book a month too with things like 'read a book by a local author' and 'read a book based on a true story'.

RE: Christmas books. I'm pacing myself with my Christmas books: volumes 2-5 of the Locke and Key graphic novels and a collection of Christmas detective stories from a friend who received the same thing from me
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Re novels with Egyptian setting:

Elizabeth Peters' mystery series about Amelia Peabody, Victorian Egyptologist, is wonderful, wildly popular, and has some wicked humor. The author is a Egyptologist, writing under a pen name. I love that she includes real people from the time. (E.g., Howard Carter, Walter Budge, etc.) I think there are probably 25 books or so in the series, by now.

The books are so popular that some libraries keep them under lock and key, because fans steal them.
 

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Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re novels with Egyptian setting:

Elizabeth Peters' mystery series about Amelia Peabody, Victorian Egyptologist, is wonderful, wildly popular, and has some wicked humor. The author is a Egyptologist, writing under a pen name. I love that she includes real people from the time. (E.g., Howard Carter, Walter Budge, etc.) I think there are probably 25 books or so in the series, by now.

The books are so popular that some libraries keep them under lock and key, because fans steal them.

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Barbara Mertz wrote as Elizabeth Peters. Her "Red Land, Black Land" was a staple of mine during my Egypt period.

And if I am not mistaken she died not long ago. Sadly missed.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Much though I liked Amelia Peabody, I also liked Elizabeth Peter's modern heroines, Vicky Bliss, the museum curator and Jacqueline Bliss, the librarian who kept getting into trouble.

She died 8 August 2013 aged 85.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I'm currently reading Em Teu Ventre ("In Your Belly") by Portuguese writer José Luís Peixoto. It is about the three children to whom Our Lady appeared in the village of Fátima in 1917.

It is very good. I like the down-to-earth feel of the book, describing the fuss in the village after the BVM appears. Quite a lot of people would prefer that she hadn't and that everything would go back to normal
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I've just been reading "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" which I bought years ago and shelved at the time as it annoyed me. I still find it annoying. There is some good advice but the book has its share of eyebrow-raising tacit assumptions. One being the principle of taking responsibility for your own life, which is fine until you discover that illnesses are entirely your own fault. (Try telling that to a child with the flu or someone with cancer.)

Then there's the idea that as everybody is afraid of trying new experiences, you're all in the same boat, so go ahead and do it anyway. Not that that's even logical, also not everybody has the same anxiety levels, and some people eagerly anticipate new experiences. A book best read in small doses and thought over for yourself rather than followed as a guide.

I've now moved on to Evangeline Walton's "Mabinogion". I've just rediscovered it after many years. It's a fairly free, novelized version but it brings the stories to life and I got completely absorbed in it to the point where I nearly missed my stop on the train this morning, and had to take the book on the bus at lunchtime to find out what was going to happen to Pwyll next.
 

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Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Piglet:
... I've just started on The Blackhouse by Peter May; it's the first in a trilogy of detective novels set on the Isle of Lewis and so far I'm finding it quite unputdownable.

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Finished the third one last night and am now suffering withdrawal symptoms ...

It's possible that the unputdownability was due to its being set on an island*, and that the main characters were a few years younger than me, so I could sort of identify with them. A jolly good read anyway.

* not the right island, but let's not split hairs
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Have just finished Love Stories for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman and would heartily recommend it to lovers of the odd. Only about love if you squint at them sideways, each story has some plot weirdness treated like an everyday act and taken to it's logical conclusion. What would happen if one day Luxembourg disappeared? What would happen if your wife wanted to split up and returned your heart, freely given in your youth, back to you, still beating, in a Tupperware box?

A little arch, but well worth reading.

[ 13. January 2016, 21:56: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by Marama (# 330) on :
 
I've just looked at the challenge luvanddaisies posted above (3Jan) and I think it looks interesting. So I'm game to have a go, if others are. Now semi-retired, I'm trying to get a bit more methodical about my (non-work) reading.

I've been picking a book per library visit off the shelves completely at random - this time it's Elizabeth Hay, 'Alone in the Classroom'. I'd never heard of her, but I'm finding it extraordinarily atmospheric.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I have just finished First Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, an eminent neurosurgeon, describing what a neurosurgeon’s life is like.

For me, the most interesting aspect revolved around some of the ethical dilemmas of neurosurgery and medicine in general, particularly around the treatment of patients with terminal illnesses.

Some readers may also enjoy his obvious contempt for NHS managers.

They are a couple of fairly graphic descriptions of cutting people’s head open but don’t be put off – I am extremely squeamish and I was ok.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've just started Elly Griffiths' third book about Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist in Norfolk (and now single mother). It's called The House at Sea's End, and involves coastal erosion uncovering an old mass grave. Really, I'm reading it because I once lived in Norwich, where I was an archaeologist, so it's bringing back a lot of good memories of that time for me.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Marama:
I've just looked at the challenge luvanddaisies posted above (3Jan) and I think it looks interesting. So I'm game to have a go, if others are. Now semi-retired, I'm trying to get a bit more methodical about my (non-work) reading.

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I decided to do luvanddaisies' reading challenge as well - I like such schemes, as it makes me pick up books I might never have thought of otherwise. A few years ago I read through the alphabet (by authors' surnames) - the only criterion was that the book be a 'significant' book in one sense or another. It was great.

So I have made a start on luvanddaisies list, and to make things more intentional, have also decided to work through it in order. This meant that the first one had to be 'a book published this year', and as I began on 4th January, this didn't give me a lot of choice. But a hunt through Amazon yielded a sports autobiography published on Jan 1st, and so that is what I am now reading.

I have never actually read a sports autobiography before. I am now realising why.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

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LeRoc: I'm currently reading Em Teu Ventre ("In Your Belly") by Portuguese writer José Luís Peixoto.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
This meant that the first one had to be 'a book published this year', and as I began on 4th January, this didn't give me a lot of choice. But a hunt through Amazon yielded a sports autobiography published on Jan 1st, and so that is what I am now reading.

I have never actually read a sports autobiography before. I am now realising why.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hedgehog:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
This meant that the first one had to be 'a book published this year', and as I began on 4th January, this didn't give me a lot of choice. But a hunt through Amazon yielded a sports autobiography published on Jan 1st, and so that is what I am now reading.

I have never actually read a sports autobiography before. I am now realising why.

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Pardon me while I pick my jaw off the ground. Whose autobiography? I suppose it helps you have some interest in the sport, but, for example, I love baseball but there are VERY few autobiographies (or even just biographies) of baseball players that I'd want to read. Honus Wagner, maybe.

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Is the surprise at me not having read a sports autobiography before? I'm not really a sporty type, I'm afraid. And I tend to go for prose that's a little more ... worthy ...?

It is called "Man vs Ocean", and it is the account by the British open swimmer, Adam Walker, of swimming the "Ocean's Seven" - seven great swims including the Channel, Gibraltar-Morocco, the Cook Strait, etc. I admit I have learned a lot, and it is an admirable achievement. But I won't be rushing out to read another.
 

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Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :
 


I was more shocked that anybody would voluntarily read a sports autobiography unless they were either (a) being paid to do so, or (b) was a zealous sports fan. And from your post I suspected that you didn't fit either category.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
Yeah, you read me. But hey, I'm always open to new things.

[ 17. January 2016, 22:10: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
 

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Posted by Marama (# 330) on :
 
I'll admit I thought it would be easier to read a book published in 2016 rather later in the year, but I admire cottontail''s dedication in actually reading a sports autobiography!

I've started with 'a book published before you were born'(though it could fall into other categories)-Arnold Bennett''s 'An Old Wives' Tale'. I read a few 19th century classics last year, so this is a continuation. So far I'm enjoying it (and the fact that such classics are free or very cheap to download)
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I just finished Sundiver by David Brin. I was slightly disappointed, I usually love Brin, but this was just not quite. Maybe because it was one of his earliest, if not his actual first, books.

quote:

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Much though I liked Amelia Peabody, I also liked Elizabeth Peter's modern heroines, Vicky Bliss, the museum curator and Jacqueline Bliss, the librarian who kept getting into trouble.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marama:
I've started with 'a book published before you were born'(though it could fall into other categories)-Arnold Bennett''s 'An Old Wives' Tale'.

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Are those taking the reading challenges reading books that overlap categories, or designating a separate book for each? Or am I overthinking it

I'm attempting both challenges mentioned upthread, so after my current reading I've got The House on Haunted Hill for a book made into a film, and Allen Ginsberg's Howl for a book that has been banned, although it could also cover a book published before I was born.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
I have not read through this thread but wanted to say that I have just finished reading a really excellent book, A Scandalous Life' by Mary S Lovell, a biography of Lady Jane Elizabeth Digby, one of the most interesting, intelligent and influential (in Syria particularly) , most beautiful women in mid/late 19th century. Mary Lovell was the first biographer to be allowed access to the full archive of the lady. I would be most interested to know if anyone has read it?Jane Digby led the sort of life that, if you made it all up, no-one would believe it.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
I have now listened through the above posts. It's always fascinating, isn't it, to hear what varied likes there are in reading. It's just about impossible to choose a book for someone else!
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I have a habit of picking up books outside the local Sallies shop. These are the ones that are put in there by the staff, with hopes someone will take them away and thus reduce the amount of unsaleable stuff that they have to pay to be taken to the dump. One such book was my reading on Christmas Day and I really enjoyed it, so I will go in and make a donation next time I'm passing*.

The latest was The Flying Squad by Edgar Wallace. I used to read my mother's EW's when I was a child so picked it up out of nostalgia - it was dreadful. I kept hoping it would get better. Obviously nostalgia isn't all it used to be

*My rule is - if I enjoyed it they get a donation, if not they don't, but it either case I dispose of the book for them so it's win/win as far as they are concerned.

Huia
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I've just started 'How to be a Tudor' by Ruth Goodman. It very much looks at the social history of the period, my favourite historical era. Ruth was the historian and TV presenter for the 'Tudor Monastery Farm', 'Edwardian Farm' (set in a village near me), and other historical Farm series. So she is well qualified to be the author of such a book.

I like the idea of trying to get inside what it must have been like to live at the time, rather than just look at external events.
 

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Posted by Marama (# 330) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:

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Are those taking the reading challenges reading books that overlap categories, or designating a separate book for each? Or am I overthinking it

[/QUOTE]

I had planned to do one book for each category, so books which could fall into 2 (or more) get counted where most convenient, or needed! But I don't think there are any strict rules about it.

I have found 'The Old Wives' Tale' a revelation: it includes an extraordinary description of a birth (by a man), of the siege of Paris in 1870, and a surprising amount of dry wit
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I just bought For Whom the Bell Tolls. It's a long time since I've read Hemingway and to be honest, I don't remember which ones I've read and which ones I haven't. I'll just start reading and see if it rings a, erm … bell.
 

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Posted by Yangtze (# 4965) on :
 
I have owned a copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls since I was a teenager and yet still never read it. Look forward to hearing how you get on with it - if you report favourably maybe I'll actually break my copy open.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I read For Whom the Bells Toll on my A-Z book project! I can't say I enjoyed it exactly - it is very distressing in places - but it has one of the best endings in all literature. Sheer perfection.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
My Mum and I were discussing this list that has been doing the rounds this week, of the top 25 19th Century Book that people wanted to read but hadn't. Between us we have read 24. By that I mean that Mum has read 23 of them, and I've read 1 and two halves.

I may try and add a couple to my own list year just to balance things out a little.

[ 23. January 2016, 23:09: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :
 
Just finished Baroness Orczy's Unto Caesar. It is one of her lesser efforts, set during the Rome of Emperor Caligula. The plot is thin, with practically zero twists. It is padded out to make a novel by excessive amounts of description. One of the big set pieces is at the Circus Maximus and so one would expect a certain amount of description of the Circus. But when she uses an entire chapter to do nothing but describe various aspects of the Circus without moving the plot forward even a little, I beginning to sense padding. Add to that her usual tendency to have the characters review, in their thoughts, the prior action in the novel (multiple times), you end up with a fairly tedious read.
 

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Posted by Sarasa (# 12271) on :
 
ArachnidinElmet said:

quote:

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My Mum and I were discussing this list that has been doing the rounds this week, of the top 25 19th Century Book that people wanted to read but hadn't.

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quote:

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Yangtze: I have owned a copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls since I was a teenager and yet still never read it. Look forward to hearing how you get on with it - if you report favourably maybe I'll actually break my copy open.

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Okay but it may take a while. I'm a slow reader (don't have much time).


I think I've read eight books of the list.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I've read 19 of them, and half-read 2! And actually, far from them being 'worthy', I've loved every one of the 19. Not so much Moby Dick, and David Copperfield - they are half-read for a reason!

Though the other book challenge includes 'a book you have started but not finished'. Maybe I should have another go at one of these.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I've read 7 of them on that list (and, unlike Cottontail, loved David Copperfield and have reread it several times - it's by far my favourite Dickens) and started one other (The Woman in White) but not got very far. I have 6 others of them on my TBR pile (7 if you include The Woman in White, which in all honesty I should - I haven't read enough of it to claim anything much about it other than ownership!).

I finally read War & Peace last year and am surprised at how long the smugness about that is persisting (I mention it at every opportunity! ).
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I have read 21 of them, but confess that I cannot recall what some of them were like.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I think I've read eight, but I can't remember which Dickens I've read, and which I've seen on film.

Tess was a set text at school, and I hated it. The only interesting thing about it was the Thomas Hardy quote that Tess could not be set in Aberdeen, because of Aberdeen's more ...ahem... relaxed moral code. (I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember exactly what Hardy said about Tess and Aberdeen, but that's the jist of it.)
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Ariel:

quote:

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If we're talking 19th century fiction, bring on Marie Corelli, H.G. Wells, Algernon Blackwood, Conan Doyle, and more of Wilkie Collins.

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quote:

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Jane R: *Some* of us have read Madame Bovary in the original language. It was pretty dull in French, too.

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Yeah, me too.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
Some of the books on that list, there’s a good reason why people don’t get through them. Madame Bovary is the single most tedious waste of my time I have ever ploughed my way through for the sake of my education. NOTHING happens. For five-hundred extremely long pages. I hated Moby Dick for much the same reason.

I also very much disliked Heart of Darkness. “Bloody racist” is right (with thanks to Chinua Achebe).
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I liked the descriptions of whaling in Moby Dick. But don't expect a lot in terms of plot.

(I admit to having read the book because Jean-Luc Picard likes it )
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Moby Dick is basically a collection of essays on topics related to whaling (the sea, ships, the whiteness of the whale, etc.) held together by a thin strand of narrative. IMHO it's a bathroom book.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by North East Quine:

Tess was a set text at school, and I hated it. The only interesting thing about it was the Thomas Hardy quote that Tess could not be set in Aberdeen, because of Aberdeen's more ...ahem... relaxed moral code. (I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember exactly what Hardy said about Tess and Aberdeen, but that's the jist of it.)

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quote:

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I am currently reading a new debut novel, Joanna Cannon's The Trouble with Goats and Sheep.

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Your description has convinced me to buy this for my Kindle. i too lived in the East Midlands during that summer, though I was a few years older than the girls in the story.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I hope you enjoy it. I should add there is one particular plot device which I don't think is quite working, yet, but it's not enough to sabotage the overall enjoyment!
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
I usually have several books on the go, at least one of them being a re-read. The current re-read is "The White Witch" by Elizabeth Gouge. I'm also reading "Scripture as Spirituality" by Richard Rohr and progress with that is slow because I have to keep stopping and let my mind and theology be blown (in a good way). A book I keep meaning to read is David Nicholls' "One Day." Apparently it was one of the last books my brother read and enjoyed before he died in 2011 and it's his copy that I have. I've tried before and haven't been able to get into it; part of the problem is that it's written in the present tense and I always find that hard work.

I can see lots of other books I want to read from this thread too. As if I didn't always have a long list of Books In Waiting.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Piglet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Piglet:
... I've just started on The Blackhouse by Peter May; it's the first in a trilogy of detective novels set on the Isle of Lewis and so far I'm finding it quite unputdownable.

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Finished the third one last night and am now suffering withdrawal symptoms ...

It's possible that the unputdownability was due to its being set on an island*, and that the main characters were a few years younger than me, so I could sort of identify with them. A jolly good read anyway.

* not the right island, but let's not split hairs

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cottontail:
My favourite Walter Scott is Old Mortality, with The Bride of Lammermoor coming a close second. No one dissects Scotland quite so brilliantly as does Scott.

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I will own up to having read all Sir Walter's novels. I don't recommend anything later than Ivanhoe other than Redgauntlet.

I'd put The Heart of Midlothian top, with the two Cottontail mentions close after.

The novella The Highland Widow is the only work in which we hear directly of the effects on the Highlands of the post Culloden oppression and very powerful it is too.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The Lymond books are the greatest. Utterly addictive.
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I just finished the latest Lois McMaster Bujold novel, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

All her books are excellent but I have to admit to a few issues with this one. Still I recommend it to anyone looking for a good science fiction romance type of novel.
 

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Posted by Jemima the 9th (# 15106) on :
 
Just finished Fathomless Riches by The Revd Richard Coles. I really enjoyed it - loved the tales of sex, drugs and rock n roll earlier in the book, and I found the telling of his conversion quite moving. I think it's also a bit of a love song to the CofE, and a good thing for that too.

Now on to English Passengers, by Matthew Kneale. Recommended on Radio 4's "A Good Read" recently, which is always a good thing in my book. Set in the 1850s, and one of our chief protagonists (a clergyman) is off to prove the writings of his recently published pamphlet "A proof against the atheisms of geology" by chartering a boat and sailing to Tasmania, where the Garden of Eden was. Obviously.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I am envious, Nicholemr! Have not yet got a copy myself yet.
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
Brenda C, I pre-ordered it from Barnes and Noble and had it delivered. Got it this past Monday, started reading it immediatly.
 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 
Its very different from the others, and it feels as though it might be the last Vorkosigan novel. I think she was going for inner dramas rather than the fast paced action. Still not sure what I think, but I enjoyed it.

For myself, I want to read more about Scottish history. Northern Quine suggested some that I devoured last year. I would like to read more social history rather than the overall sweep of events. Interesting that Aberdeen has been mentioned, because that's one of the places I'm interested in, particularly Peterhead. Any suggestions?
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Thank you to whoever first mentioned The Rivers of London series of books on here, I have read and re-read them with enjoyment. I was delighted than the Hanging Tree which will be the 6th in the series is to be published in June. I am 12th on the Christchurch Public Libraries list of people to reserve this book, but that's only because the Library staff member refused my bribe to delete everyone else from the list (Actually they will probably buy more copies than that so I shouldn't have to wait long after it's been processed ).

Has anyone else read Susan Hill's latest Simon Serrailler book The Soul of Discretion ? I have just finished it. Simon goes undercover in a penal therapeutic community for paedophiles. There is also the rape of an adult woman by a respectable character that mirrors some of the issues in dealing with the paedophile ring. It wasn't an easy book for me to read.

Huia
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Huia:
Has anyone else read Susan Hill's latest Simon Serrailler book The Soul of Discretion ? I have just finished it. Simon goes undercover in a penal therapeutic community for paedophiles. There is also the rape of an adult woman by a respectable character that mirrors some of the issues in dealing with the paedophile ring. It wasn't an easy book for me to read.

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Yes, I just finished it myself. It was a traumatic book in many ways - especially the ending. I like this series and this detective, although sometimes the upper middle class angst can get a little wearing. This one may be her best yet, I think. But yes, very disturbing.

Continuing the Book Challenge, the task this month was "A book you can read in a day". I had a day off yesterday, and spent almost the entirety of it reading Dorothy L. Sayers, "Whose Body?" It was my first encounter with Lord Peter Wimsey, with whom I was assured I would fall in love. Well, maybe a little, but I find myself rather more attracted to Parker ...
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Slowly making my way through For Whom the Bell Tolls. I find it interesting, although rather militaristic. Currently at page 148. I don't have a lot of time to read, and my tendency to fall asleep after three pages doesn't help either
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Just finished reading the last book in Jim C. Hines' Ex Libris series. The first in the series is called Libriomancer. The hero is a librarian and an expert in libriomancy (magic using books) with a magic fire spider as a sidekick. It's great. Similar idea to Jasper Fforde's book-jumping, but instead of real characters going into books, the characters in these stories can pull objects out of books into the(ir) real world.

[ 18. February 2016, 10:57: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Just read in slightly over a day (well, bedtime Monday night to a very late bedtime Tuesday night) the latest release by one of my favourite authors, Joshilyn Jackson (we read her Gods in Alabama as Ship's Book Club selection here some years ago). This one is called The Opposite of Everyone and I loved it and may have cried a bit at the end.

This is a break in the midst of the Lymond chronicles. I think I need Lymond therapy, or at least a dedicated Lymond discussion board, to process this series.

[ 18. February 2016, 12:56: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There is an entire and active Lymond fandom out in the internet, which you could look into. It is not quite as bad as LOTR fandom, but very nearly. (Why some enterprising TV exec has not made these into a series is mysterious to me; there's gold in them thar hills, boys. Also Georgette Heyer, whose novels seem ordained by a provident God for endless BBC serialization. They wouldn't even need to buy new wardrobe, just recycle all the high-waisted gowns from the Austen shows.)
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
There's a great Lymond discussion board as a subset of an Outlander discussion board, which I have been reading. For Queen's Play they had a chapter-by-chapter discussion from last year, but the book I just finished reading, Disorderly Knights, they're only just starting a chapter-a-week read-through now. Since I was exercising extreme self-control to make the whole book last me a week, a chapter-a-week discussion isn't much use to me while it's ongoing. I love reading discussions of things I've already read and seeing other people's insights and explanations to help me understand and process things, especially with these books which are so dense and packed with information.

I have mixed feelings about how these would be as a TV series. I mean it would be wonderful to see them done with good writers and actors, of course, but TV series are so good at messing up great books if they're badly done. Or even if they're oversimplified, which would be a real problem here as the books are so complex.

At the same time, they're so full of action and swashbuckling that they would make great TV, even if some of the subtlety of character development was lost. I don't think they could actually use the Jane Austen period drama costumes as there's nearly a 300-year gap between the eras, but I'm sure the BBC costume department has stuff lying around that would work well for mid-1500s Scotland (and the various other countries where the action takes place).
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
LOL, just reread your post, Brenda, and realized that the comment about reusing Austen costumes was in reference to Georgette Heyer books not to the Lymond books ... that makes a lot more sense!! Disadvantages of skimming someone's post quickly.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There was a year when there were two separate British movies about Scotland. (One was with Mel Gibson and then there was a second.) So I know they've got masses of kilts and costuming lying around.
The presence of an active fandom helps to keep these people on the straight and narrow -- the Outlander fan community is a prime example. The TV people know that they need to keep the rabid fans happy, and that if they do the pickings will be good. I haven't read the books nor seen the shows, but am tell that the Outlander show is very true to the written works.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Good grief Brenda, are you talking about Braveheart?! Braveheart isn't a British film and bears only a passing resemblance to the life of William Wallace. It ignores the cultural differences between Lowland Scots and Highlanders, contains a number of historical inaccuracies and is about events that took place in the 14th century, so even if the costumes were accurate they wouldn't be much use for filming a drama set in the 16th century.

Having said that, the BBC have done several TV series about the 16th century, most recently 'The Tudors'. They could certainly recycle those costumes. Only Highlanders would have worn kilts/plaids in the 16th century; courtiers and Lowland Scots would have worn clothes similar to what the English were wearing at the time.

[ 18. February 2016, 14:59: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

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Jane R: *Some* of us have read Madame Bovary in the original language. It was pretty dull in French, too.

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Yeah, me too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
LOL, just reread your post, Brenda, and realized that the comment about reusing Austen costumes was in reference to Georgette Heyer books not to the Lymond books ... that makes a lot more sense!! Disadvantages of skimming someone's post quickly.

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I Googled as a sanity check as I didn't think I'd ever seen a film adaption of Heyer's books. Turns out I was right, there have only been two film adaptions. Despite much lobbying over the years.

I was surprised ...

Tubbs
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I can guess why -- the Heyer estate is being chary of permission. Possibly this was mandated by Heyer herself, in her will or in her instructions to her literary executor. But works do not stay in the estate's purview forever. At some point they'll be public domain. And the TV series will coin money.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
At the same time, they're so full of action and swashbuckling that they would make great TV, even if some of the subtlety of character development was lost.

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Yes - they're very visual books. It would be essential to find the right leading actors, though.

You can guess what would happen. Lymond would be played by someone with red hair and Philippa would be a feisty action heroine with some extra fight scenes thrown in just for her, in between her ongoing flirtation with Jerott.
 

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Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :
 
I've just checked the list and have read 16 of them. Also there are two I started but didn't finish (Madame Bovary and Moby Dick).
I'm puzzled as well by the inclusion of Little Women. It's a book I'm very attached to, but why is it on the list of books people intend to read but haven't managed to do so? It's easy to get into, and readily available in charity shops, cheap classic editions and via Kindle or IPad (free).
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Aravis I re-read Little Women recently after a gap of 45+ years and I almost didn't finish it because it bored the socks off me. I added it to my kindles and it was probably worth what I paid for it.

Apologies if this is someone's childhood favourite - I also read one of my childhood favourites and I was appalled (it was much worse).

Huia

[ 19. February 2016, 01:59: Message edited by: Huia ]
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust
 

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Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust

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quote:

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Originally posted by Helen-Eva:

quote:

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Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust

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I know someone who read history at Uni because she read that book and fell in love with John of Gaunt!

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She sounds like a gal after my own heart! When I'm down or life sucks I lose myself in history
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
I was similar with Jamaica Inn. Loved it first time, but when I re-read it 10 years later I was rather underwhelmed.

I'm now wondering if I can ever re-read other books I've loved lest the same thing happen.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Author Jo Walton created a term for this. It is the Suck Fairy. "What happened to Little Women? It was so great when I was eleven! But in the intervening thirty years the Suck Fairy got to it."
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Author Jo Walton created a term for this. It is the Suck Fairy. "What happened to Little Women? It was so great when I was eleven! But in the intervening thirty years the Suck Fairy got to it."

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Most of the books I loved when I was younger have stood the test of time for me when I go back and reread them.

One I read over and over when I was in my early 20s that I have never gone back to reread in the last 25 years is Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, which was quite popular in some Christian circles when it came out because of the author's friendship with C.S. Lewis. Did anyone else here read it? When I was young I thought it was an incredibly moving memoir about a beautiful and tragically doomed love story, but as I think back on it from the perspective of adulthood I think of it as being about a pretty dysfunctional relationship, actually. I think if I did go back to that the Suck Fairy would have gotten there first.

Little Women is timeless for me because even though I read it as a kid, the only two things that bothered me then still bother me now and otherwise I love everything about it. Those two things being, obviously, the deep narrative wrongness of pairing Laurie up with Amy instead of Jo, and the passivity of the entire family in sitting around watching Beth die without appearing to attempt any medical intervention whatsoever.

I guess those are spoilers but I think I am safe in assuming that book has passed the sell-by date for spoilers.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
One I read over and over when I was in my early 20s that I have never gone back to reread in the last 25 years is Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, which was quite popular in some Christian circles when it came out because of the author's friendship with C.S. Lewis. Did anyone else here read it? When I was young I thought it was an incredibly moving memoir about a beautiful and tragically doomed love story, but as I think back on it from the perspective of adulthood I think of it as being about a pretty dysfunctional relationship, actually. I think if I did go back to that the Suck Fairy would have gotten there first.

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Yes, I read that more than once - also its sequel "Under The Mercy" which wasn't as memorable. My memories of it are much the same as yours and I completely see what you mean about it actually being a dysfunctional relationship - certainly immensely claustrophobic and introverted. Did the author marry again, do you know?

As a young and ardent convert back in the 80s I was much impressed by "Where Eagles Soar" by Jamie Buckingham (author also of "Risky Living"). I still have my copy but don't think I could bring myself to reread it. I remember one particular passage where he talks about taking a belt to his son and getting into bed with his teenage daughter. All in the context of an incident of sibling teasing and subsequent father-daughter reassurance, but even so - yikes!

I guess I'm just gullible - I completely bought into the Laurie/Amy pairing and while I always identified with Jo I was entranced by the account of Amy "prinking" herself for the dance with Laurie, tying up her golden curls and draping herself in white muslin. I was convinced by the idea that Jo needed a man rather than an immature boy. And I just blubbered over Beth... was a doctor really not mentioned at all?
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
If Beth had tuberculosis there wouldn't have been much point in summoning a doctor as there were no effective treatments for it in the 19th century. No antibiotics, no vaccines, no CAT scans...
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
Didn't Beth have heart problems as a result of rhumatic fever as a child? Not that anything could have been done about that either...
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I don't think Beth has tuberculosis. I had a vague impression that whatever she had was a long-term complication of the scarlet fever she suffered as a young girl (I was thinking of heart trouble, but it's rheumatic fever, isn't it, that can leave you with a weakened heart?). Tuberculosis is the great literary killer of nineteenth-century heroines, but I don't recall Beth coughing into blood-stained hankies much, though I could have forgotten that. It just seems strange to me that when the topic of Beth's illness is introduced in the second part of the book, when she's in her late teens, there's never a single mention (as their was with her earlier illness) or her seeing a doctor, or any sort of treatment, or even being told there's no hope of treatment. There's no specific diagnosis and everyone just seems to accept that she's dying. Even for the 1860s that seems a little cold for a girl of 19 or so.

Beth dies of a terminal case of Authorial Intent.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Cross-posted with nicolemrw ... maybe it was rheumatic fever she had. I thought it was scarlet fever. Nice assortment of fevers to choose from in the good old days.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
unfortunately rheumatic fever is still very much with us, and here seems to be a disease of the poor exacerbated by crowded living conditions.

I am tempted to go into a political rant here, but it's heaven, so will spare us all.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Cross-posted with nicolemrw ... maybe it was rheumatic fever she had. I thought it was scarlet fever. Nice assortment of fevers to choose from in the good old days.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Beth died of complications following scarlet fever, the story is apparently based on Louisa May Alcott's sister.

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That link doesn't actually give much in the way of a plausible diagnosis -- just says that she never fully recovered and that she got weaker and weaker until she died. Is that something that would actually happen, five or six years after having had scarlet fever? What would the actual cause of death be?

[ 19. February 2016, 23:37: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Heart failure of some sort, if I remember correctly. My mother was worried about it with me (but then, she always worries ).
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
This blogger discusses the two issues much more cogently IMO.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
This blogger discusses the two issues much more cogently IMO.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
We've had a lot of mileage out of "Little Women", but if anyone wants to post about other books on this thread, please feel free.

I'm re-reading Frank Herbert's "Dune" trilogy, which I haven't read for years, and enjoying it. I found it cryptic at the time, but am now realizing how much I missed the first time around.

If anyone is interested in the themes and etymology there's a good article here.

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Oh, l loved Dune trilogy years ago. I'm a little wary of re-reading it (given my experience with Katherine as explained above), think I might give it a go at some point though, I'm reading the Feb Tyler book at the moment.
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 
Oh, forgot to say, brilliant link to article!
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
I loved reading the Dune series, but I ended up getting to into it I read the first 5 books between doing my mock GCSEs and my finals and subsequently dropped a grade on 7 subjects.
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Sipech:
I loved reading the Dune series, but I ended up getting to into it I read the first 5 books between doing my mock GCSEs and my finals and subsequently dropped a grade on 7 subjects.

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The first book or two are seminal in the field, but when the franchise was handed off to others there was a sharp drop.
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The first book or two are seminal in the field, but when the franchise was handed off to others there was a sharp drop.

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Mm, I loved the first three, but not the subsequent ones so much, so I tend to agree with you.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There is a movie, and I seem to recall a TV dramatization as well. The movie was horrible.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Another Dune fan here. Yes,avoid the film. The mini series is much better.
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 
Yes, I've seen both and agree (though the books are much better in my opinion).
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I enjoyed the trilogy and the film, but didn't like the subsequent books much. A series often seems to lose its way after a while and I felt this was one such.

Has anyone else been reading something interesting/enjoyable?

[ 22. February 2016, 18:08: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I like the first 5 original Dune books, the sixth one was becoming a bit too vague for me.

The posthumous prequels and sequels, some of them are reasonably good SF books in their own right. But they don't live up to Frank Herbert's standard. And many fans (including me) dislike the direction in which they've taken the Dune universe.
 

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Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 
I've just finished Anthony McGowan's Hello darkness.

A compelling exploration of mental illness in the style of a noir thriller set in high school with an ending that is both inevitable and unsatisfying.

(To continue the tangent, the Dune novel I most enjoyed was Chapter house, which probably makes me persona non grata!)
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Ooh, Dune. My favourite book for many years. I was given a copy for my 14th birthday, read it over a weekend, and then turned round and read it again. And then used it later on as the subject for a GCSE book review. See, see, it was schoolwork all along, honest

Speaking of SF, I've just finished Infernal Devices by KW Jeter. An early steampunk novel, the sentence by sentence writing is really lovely and all the faux Victorian stuff really sets a scene. The plot though, is a complete mess. The main character could almost entirely be lifted out of the story without changing it much and there's a really large chunk of exposition to make up for the clueless hero. Disappointing.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
I had the exact opposite experience when reading The Affinity Bridge by George Mann. Great plot, interesting characters... let down by appalling prose style. Reading it was like listening to Les Dawson playing the piano. You'd be reading along happily, thinking 'Yes, this is good' and suddenly, in the middle of an otherwise innocuous sentence, there would be an adjective (or adverb) that *sounded* similar to the right one for that context but was ever-so-slightly wrong.

Halfway through I skipped to the end to find out what happened, because I couldn't stand it any more.

(For non-UK readers: Les Dawson playing the piano )
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Maybe they should start writing books together?
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I am only slowly climbing out of a deep slough of research, which I must and shall put behind me. I need to read something totally different! But before I shake the Victorians utterly off of my sandals, has anyone read any of the works of Thomas Carlyle? I have read some of his wife's letters, which are great fun, and am hoping to avoid reading the man's own works.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I found Sartor Resartus deeply depressing because it expressed my deepest fears as to the meaninglessness of life.

It was a relief to turn to Ruskin.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I do not want to actually read any of his works. Life is too short, and I have miles to go before I sleep. You confirm my feeling. (But how was Ruskin? Anything you recommend?)
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I would strongly recommend the lecture "The Works of Iron" and the fairy story "The King of the Golden River".
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Oh my gosh. These Lymond books. I'm going to need therapy when this is all over.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
You have not read them before? They are huge and fat and unutterably gripping, so reserve a chunk of time to devour them in peace. Otherwise your work and sleep will suffer, because that last volume is a rocket ride.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
No, this is my first time through. I've been putting them off for awhile because they seemed like a big committment. And yes, they are definitely interfering with both work and sleep (mostly sleep though). I'm just starting the fifth book.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
Both the pieces of Ruskin are in this very good book here

http://www.amazon.com/Unto-Other-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140432116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456392610&sr=1-1&key words=ruskin+unto+this+last

The introduction and commentary are very interesting.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I feel bereft - I've lost my kindle at a bus stop.

I'm saving madly.

Huia
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 

 

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Posted by Sarasa (# 12271) on :
 
Hiia - I feel your pain. I managed to put mine in the washing machine last summer - it didn't like it, though the cover came out looking very clean. Got a new one (the old one was an early make) which I like even beter.

Someone might hand it in - fingers crossed.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Since your Kindle account is your own (separate from any device) is it endangered when you mislay your device?
 

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Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
On the other hand it might well mean that Amazon are able to link the Kindle back to you. There is advice for UK users at Amazon.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Can you link your Kindle account to other devices? I can read books on my Kindle account on my smart phone, Kindle and tablet (and they usually manage to start me at the right place.)

You might find a tablet is more use to you.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Just been totting up my book total for the year. I keep a book diary running from March to February and had been attempting a Personal Best. I made it by 7 books Might try and do it again, but that might be asking a bit much without deliberately reading thinner books which is a bit silly.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:
Just been totting up my book total for the year. I keep a book diary running from March to February and had been attempting a Personal Best. I made it by 7 books

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:
Just been totting up my book total for the year. I keep a book diary running from March to February and had been attempting a Personal Best. I made it by 7 books

---

Had to read that twice, as I thought you said "made it to 7 books".

---

Not quite. I made it up to 80. Other years have been as low as 30-odd, depending on what's going on. Normally I don't go for a particular number but was trying to discipline myself to not leave books unfinished.

I'm reading The Tain at the moment. The Irish legend about a long and bloody war started because a husband and wife fall out over the quality of their respective livestock.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Coming up to the last few chapters of the last book of the Lymond Chronicles now. I am simultaneously unable to put it down, and trying to slow down so it's not over too soon.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There are books I specifically save for times of horrific tedium. If I am stuck in bed on chemotherapy, or having to nurse a sick relative for six weeks, or have to travel on business to Las Vegas, I resort to these sure reads, which I am careful to either not begin now or to not reread often. The Lymond books are these. When I am in traction, or have back surgery, I will need all six volumes. (For years I had the Horatio Hornblower books in permanent holding pattern, knowing I would need them some day. Then I spent six weeks in Oregon with the sick relative, and oh! they were marvelous.)
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Coming up to the last few chapters of the last book of the Lymond Chronicles now. I am simultaneously unable to put it down, and trying to slow down so it's not over too soon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Both the pieces of Ruskin are in this very good book here

http://www.amazon.com/Unto-Other-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140432116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456392610&sr=1-1&key words=ruskin+unto+this+last


The introduction and commentary are very interesting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Her real name was Gruach, apparently, which sounds like a particularly unpleasant Scottish porridge, so maybe Groa is the least-offensive variation Dunnett could find.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
Yes, say hello to Jerott for me. He was always one of my favourite characters, with Marthe and the Dame de Doubtance not far behind. There is only one Francis Crawford, though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sarasa:
I've just finished The Trouble with Sheep and Goats by Joanna Cannon that Jack the Lass mentioned a page or two ago. I like the evocation of the East Midlands int he seventies, a place and time I knew well, and some of the writing and characterisation was top notch. I wasn't too convinced by the way the story was told though.

---

I'm glad you liked it (albeit qualified liking! ). I personally liked how it was told, from the view of different residents - I seem to get on better by and large with books where there are different perspectives and the picture is built up gradually that way, rather than books entirely from one perspective. The bit that didn't work so well for me was the girls' search for God.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I was never keen on the Scottish settings in the Lymond books: the attraction for me was the Mediterranean. The books are set in the Tudor period, although the Dame is clearly a leftover from medieval days. I'd love to read her backstory.

[ 03. March 2016, 17:01: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sarasa:
I've just finished The Trouble with Sheep and Goats by Joanna Cannon that Jack the Lass mentioned a page or two ago. I like the evocation of the East Midlands int he seventies, a place and time I knew well, and some of the writing and characterisation was top notch. I wasn't too convinced by the way the story was told though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Don't know if you're a fan of the Outlander series (they do nothing for me at all) but the author enjoys a rabid fandom and she recommends the Lymond books for people who need more about medieval Scotland.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I also bought The Trouble with Sheep and Goats based on Jack the Lass's recommendation -- it's in my (very large) collection of to-be-read books.

---

Eek - I feel the weight of responsibility, I hope you like it! (or at least don't hate it! )

I'm just starting "Madame de Treymes" by Edith Wharton now. I've never read any of her work before, but as this is a short novella it should hopefully be a gentle introduction (and if I don't like it at least it won't take hours I'll never get back again!).
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There is a huge, vast subgenrelet called time travel romance, of which Outlander was the kickoff best-seller (in the same way that Jane Eyre is responsible for all those governess in weird manor novels). They all have essentially the same plot -- a hunky Viking/Scotsman/knight/Moor/whatever is confronted via time travel with a modern female, and they have lots of sex. I discover that this subgenrelet is now broken down into even finer subdivisions, Viking TT, Scots TT, and so on.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sarasa:
Crime and Punishment is one of my favourite books, probably due a re-read, when I get to the end of the pile of books I've got waiting.

---

I'm hating it so far. It's such slow going, the characters haven't been properly introduced and I've no idea what's going on.

When I read The Double, it struck me how Kafka-esque Dostoevsky's writing was, but for the last 2 commutes, I've been reading a letter that was in a single paragraph that spanned multiple pages and which made no sense whatsoever. It wasn't until I got to the end and double-checked the name of the signatory with the character list that I realised it was from his mother. I thought it was the mad ramblings of the main character himself.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I think the pleasure one takes in those big chunky Russian novels depends a lot on the translation.

I tried Crime and Punishment a first time and didn’t get on with it at all. I picked it up again later in another translation and loved it.

In a similar vein, The Brothers Karamazov gets my vote for the greatest novel ever written by anyone, but the Penguin translation of it is horrible.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I think the pleasure one takes in those big chunky Russian novels depends a lot on the translation.

I tried Crime and Punishment a first time and didn’t get on with it at all. I picked it up again later in another translation and loved it.

In a similar vein, The Brothers Karamazov gets my vote for the greatest novel ever written by anyone, but the Penguin translation of it is horrible.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Her real name was Gruach, apparently, which sounds like a particularly unpleasant Scottish porridge, so maybe Groa is the least-offensive variation Dunnett could find.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:
The other slightly wacky book that I haven't yet finished is The Lost Art of Walking a non-fiction book by Geoff Nicholson. A reviewer writing in the NY Times about one of his earlier books, Bleeding London said, Mr Nicholson relates his story with such brio and demented charm and I think the same could be said of this book.

---

Demented charm is right. I love Geoff Nicholson, but his stuff is utterly barking, each in an entirely unique way. I'll have to look that one up.
 

---

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I have just finished Persuasion by Jane Austen. It was delightful (I hadn't read it before and came to it completely blind, having not seen the TV adaptation from several years ago). Of course it was obvious from the beginning whom Anne would end up marrying, and who would turn out to be the Mr Wickham equivalent, but that didn't stop me thoroughly enjoying it. I think I still prefer Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility, as there seems to be much more going on in both of those, but Persuasion was a very pleasant and pleasing companion this last week.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
I know there are some fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the Ship. If anyone remembers Spike's unfortunate pre-Vampire poetry, they'll know why, when a modern occurrence of the word 'effulgence' used without irony popped up in the book I was reading, I nearly giggled myself of my chair.
 

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Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :
 
Just finished reading 'Killers of the King' by Charles Spencer, dealing with the capture and trial of Charles I, the Cromwell problem(s), the Restoration and the pursuit, capture and execution of those who signed Charles I's death warrant.

Very thoroughly researched and very well written -- I had not known (or had forgotten) that several of the fugitives made it to these colonies.

For serious history, it is pretty quick reading.

Did't wake up to the fact that Charles Spencer is IRL Earl Spencer, formerly Viscount Althrop, etc. Made is scholarship even more impressive IMHO.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
March's challenge has been "A book you've been meaning to read". Last summer, inspired by the coming 1916 commemorations in Ireland, I picked up The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargias Llosa, which is a fictionalised account of the life of Roger Casement.

I can't say I am getting on very well with it. The author has done his research, and I am learning a lot, which is something. But he can't seem to decide whether he is writing a novel or a biography, and so it is not the best example of either category. Sometimes the factual detail overwhelms the writing. And at other times there seems to be a failure of imagination. It's as if Vargias Llosa doesn't quite 'get' his protagonist - Casement simply doesn't come alive from the pages. In particular, he is very coy about the man's sexuality, and so leaves it largely unexplored, so that overall the characterisation is a bit flat.

All that means that I haven't got very far with it. Only a couple of days of March left, so I am going to have to have a good run at it to see if I can finish.
 

---

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

Cottontail: But he can't seem to decide whether he is writing a novel or a biography

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:

---

Cottontail: But he can't seem to decide whether he is writing a novel or a biography

---

I guess this fits in with Latin American magical realism?

---

quote:

---

Cottontail: it has one of the best endings in all literature. Sheer perfection.

---

Funny, the ending didn't do much for me. I found it rather predictable. I guess there's no arguing about taste.


At the moment I'm in a smallish African city without a book store
 

---

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
I finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls!

quote:

---

Cottontail: it has one of the best endings in all literature. Sheer perfection.

---

Funny, the ending didn't do much for me. I found it rather predictable. I guess there's no arguing about taste.

---

Someday we shall debate that over a beer. Or a large gin.
 

---

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

Cottontail: Someday we shall debate that over a beer. Or a large gin.

---

I'd love to!
 

---

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
At the moment I'm in a smallish African city without a book store

---

quote:

---

Brenda Clough: Now I have more books than I could ever carry, vast Victorian triple-deckers, on my Ipad.

---

The problem is that I'm not a very organised person

But I'm in the capital of the country now. The problem has been remedied
 

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Posted by Marama (# 330) on :
 
ON the same challenge as Cottontree I have read the following so far this year (I haven't been doing the categories in order):

Book chosen for you by your husband or child: Iain McCalman, 'The Reef: a passionate history' (2013) Environmental history of the Australian Great Barrier Reef, complements David Attenborough's TV series, showing here now.

Book that was banned at some point: Nadine Gordimer 'July’s People' (1981) 1981 Set in an imagined future, as blacks revolt and take over the South African government. Maureen and Bam Smales, liberal and reasonable people, and their three children flee the city helped by their servant July, and shelter in his village. Investigates reversals of role and power, and warns liberal SA whites that they need to share resources and power, not just be polite to the servants. I'd not read Gordimer before - very powerful.

Book recommended by your local library or bookseller: Andrei Makine, 'The Life of an Unknown Man' Another new author to me. Powerful elegy to the power of love in the midst of appalling barbarity (the seige of Leningrad and the gulags). Started slowly, but gripping after first 40 pages.

Published before you were born: Arnold Bennett The Old Wives’ Tale' (1908)

Published this year: Donna Leon, 'The Waters of Eternal Youth' The latest Inspector Brunetti mystery, good as usual

And now I'm about to tackle a book which definitely intimidates me - Joyce's 'Ulysses'
 

---

Posted by Marama (# 330) on :
 
My apologies - Cottontail!
 

---

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Re: Reading challenge books.

I've just finished Becoming, Unbecoming by Una as 'a book which you can read in a day'.

An autobiographical graphic novel, It is the story of Una growing up in 1970s West Yorkshire, at a time and place of casual sexism and violence against women, set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper killings and how the former facilitated the latter. Some of the newspaper headlines and quotes from investigating policemen are just gob-smacking to anyone brought up in a different way. The last chunk of pages are depictions of what the dead women might have looked like if they had been alive today, concentrating on the victims instead of the more usual interest in the serial killer.

Not my usual reading preference by I would definitely recommend it.
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Wendy Moffatt's new biography of E. M. Foster is a great improvement on the efforts of others. I ended up liking the man a little, having felt very negative towards him previously.
 

---

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marama:


Book that was banned at some point: Nadine Gordimer 'July’s People' (1981) 1981 Set in an imagined future, as blacks revolt and take over the South African government. Maureen and Bam Smales, liberal and reasonable people, and their three children flee the city helped by their servant July, and shelter in his village. Investigates reversals of role and power, and warns liberal SA whites that they need to share resources and power, not just be polite to the servants. I'd not read Gordimer before - very powerful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marama:
ON the same challenge as Cottontree I have read the following so far this year (I haven't been doing the categories in order):

Book chosen for you by your husband or child: Iain McCalman, 'The Reef: a passionate history' (2013) Environmental history of the Australian Great Barrier Reef, complements David Attenborough's TV series, showing here now.

Book that was banned at some point: Nadine Gordimer 'July’s People' (1981) 1981 Set in an imagined future, as blacks revolt and take over the South African government. Maureen and Bam Smales, liberal and reasonable people, and their three children flee the city helped by their servant July, and shelter in his village. Investigates reversals of role and power, and warns liberal SA whites that they need to share resources and power, not just be polite to the servants. I'd not read Gordimer before - very powerful.

Book recommended by your local library or bookseller: Andrei Makine, 'The Life of an Unknown Man' Another new author to me. Powerful elegy to the power of love in the midst of appalling barbarity (the seige of Leningrad and the gulags). Started slowly, but gripping after first 40 pages.

Published before you were born: Arnold Bennett The Old Wives’ Tale' (1908)

Published this year: Donna Leon, 'The Waters of Eternal Youth' The latest Inspector Brunetti mystery, good as usual

And now I'm about to tackle a book which definitely intimidates me - Joyce's 'Ulysses'

---

You've been doing a lot better than I have, Marama. I got stuck on "The Dream of the Celt' by Mario Vargas Llosa, which is a very important story, but was a bit of a plod to read. But today I have finished it!

So now I am just starting a book recommended by a local bookseller. I wandered into the great wee bookshop in Biggar, Scotland, and just asked the server outright. She had spotted me hovering over the crime section, and so pulled out Marjorie Allingham, 'The Tiger in the Smoke'. Both the book and the author are new to me, though I know it is a classic of the genre. It has begun very well, and I have high hopes for this one.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I'm currently reading Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land) by Mozambican writer Mia Couto, about the civil war that took place in his country.

Couto is one of the best writers of Africa; I've read a couple of his books already, and I spoke with him a couple of times.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I just reread 1984, which I hadn’t read since I was in school. I had forgotten what a truly phenomenal book it is. I think Orwell’s Oceania might be the most terrifying place every imagined by a human being.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
Having finshed Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? and Phineas Finn, the Irish Member I'm now reading Balzac's Cousin Bette.

What immediately strikes me is the difference between English and French C19 novels. In England, sex can't be mentioned other than as a tradgedy, in France it is talked about all the time, albeit in a pretty cynical way.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Just enjoying re-reading Alexander McCall Smith's "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books. Not only are they lovely, gentle, sunny books that really evoke the atmosphere of Africa, but how could anyone not like an author who is "an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta."

(Thank you Wikipedia.)
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Just finished reading A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman -- it's the latest biography of Charlotte Bronte. A grand example (Dante is another) of how harsh life circumstances can produce great art.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've just finished Charles Stross's Iron Sunrise, an SF political thriller involving space Nazis and exploding suns - it's a lot better than I'm making it sound, and the teenage heroine, Wednesday, is a good character. There's also a character on the space Nazi (he calls them ReMastered) side who is basically Servalan from Blakes Seven, which is a lot of fun in a warped and twisted sort of way.
The next book on my bedside table is by the Ship's own Brenda Clough! I don't think I've ever seen one of her books in the UK before, but I recognised the name and grabbed it! The title is How Like a God.
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I'm reading Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars. Beautiful, wistful, sad, about the fall of an empire. I'm hoping for but not counting on a happy ending for the protagonists.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Good heavens. I know there is no UK edition (if the one you are holding is printed in Britain for Heavens sake let me know) so it must be an import, Rarissimo!
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
How Like a God is the only one of Brenda's works I've read (I enjoyed it), but I cheated and got the ebook.

Is/was there a sequel? It finishes in a logical place, but you are left wondering what happens next...
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
How Like A God is secondhand - it must have come in with someone's collection - and is a US edition that has wandered across the Pond. I'm looking forward to reading it.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Yes, there was, titled The Doors of Death and Life (from the text I think in Exodus). (I am the type of knitter who knits a garment as big as there is yarn. And there was more story, so I just kept on knitting...) Not sure it is available in eformat, however. Tor will have it, if there is. But it didn't sell and they wouldn't buy any more, alas! I may get them all up on Book View Cafe some fine day.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
Thanks to the bus journeys to and from the General Assembly, I have finished April's reading challenge - The Tiger in the Smoke by Marjorie Allingham. It turned out to be a jolly good romp of a police procedure, with a genuinely scary villain roaming the streets of post-war London in a proper old peasouper. And it was surprisingly theological too ... about how evil, which can seem so compelling and energetic, is utterly empty and cannot sustain even those who embrace it. In the book, evil is ultimately overcome, not by even police-sanctified violence, but by true goodness and pity and laughter.

The book suffers a bit from too many heroes. Albert Campion, who I think is the star detective of her earlier novels, here has almost nothing to do, and the story would have worked perfectly well without him. He does manage to rescue one of the other heroes at one point, but not by any particular insight or act of bravery, and actually, it was a bit stupid of him not to let the police do it. The main police detective is the best of the heroes, and I wish it was more his book. He is compellingly similar in personality to the villain, and I was expecting a proper show-down between them that never happened. But the vicar is a very convincing and tough-minded old saint, and a good contrast to the various heroic men of action.

So in short, I will read Allingham again. Meanwhile, it is on to May's challenge: a book you should have read at school. This one was all over the Higher English syllabus back in the 1980s, but I never read it: Neil Gunn's, The Silver Darlings.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
If you've not read Allingham, then you have a lot of treat in store. Did you know Campion is supposedly modelled on George VI?
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I did not know that! So now I have a mental picture to help me along.

I'm definitely going to read more, and I hope that Campion got a bit more to do in his younger years.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I think Tiger in the Smoke is her best work. I wouldn't dream of calling it a romp. A wonderful sinister atmosphere.

As I remember the other hero - Geoffrey - spends half the book in the hands of the sinister gang - a nice change from the cliche of the helpless heroine.

Wodehouse and Christie continued to turn out works post WW2 barely adapting the formulas of their 1930s works. They are fun if you like the formula but not a patch on the earlier work.

By contrast, Allingham's work developed after WW2 to produce more interesting works, of which Tiger in the Smoke is definitely one.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
Tiger in the Smoke is one of my two favorites. My other favorite is Tether's End. It's possible that Tether's End was published under a different title in Britain.

Moo
 

---

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
Tiger in the Smoke is one of my two favorites. My other favorite is Tether's End. It's possible that Tether's End was published under a different title in Britain.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
With luck, the senile decay of memory will enable me to enjoy them again.

---

{tangent alert}

When my grandmother was in her seventies, she said that when she was younger she enjoyed reading the novels of William Faulkner, but she felt depressed afterwards. Now that her memory was failing, she could enjoy reading the novels, but she didn't remember them well enough to feel depressed.

{/tangent alert}

Moo
 

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Posted by Egeria (# 4517) on :
 
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series; there's a story with a whole vanished world inside of it. Characters you come to know as though they were members of your family (and sometimes loathe as though they belong in the "difficult relatives" discussion--hi there, Mrs. Williams). Settings that burn themselves into your memory and make you want to start checking out fares to faraway places. The small vignettes that pop into your mind and make you smile: Jack singing along while the crew practices the Hallelujah Chorus, the men trying to comfort frightened slaves who've been taken off a pirate ship, Stephen talking to the Bishop's mule..."you are a kind of tame mule, I find."

I have never been a really big fan of Peter Wimsey, but I did have a good time last weekend reading Jill Paton Walsh's pastiche The Late Scholar. The Oxford setting was part of the charm--I definitely class this novel as comfort reading--especially since I once spent a couple of happy weeks there when researching my dissertation As for Gaudy Night , I wish I could enjoy re-reading it. As a fan of mysteries and historical novels, I've encountered a lot of nasty villains in my time (Dorothy Dunnett's got some of the very worst, and most persistent, evil characters I can think of), but the perp in Gaudy Night was just so detestable, so foul, that I can't seem to pick that book up again. (Perhaps making matters worse is my experience as a student sharing an office with The Queen of Malicious Gossip. She didn't go in for poison pen letters, but character assassination, rather than archaeology, was her main interest in life.) If I want to revisit Oxford in fiction, I will have to find an alternative.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Egeria:
the perp in Gaudy Night was just so detestable, so foul, that I can't seem to pick that book up again.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.

---

I find her enormously believable. And I agree - very much to be pitied. She's not likeable, of course, and I don't enjoy reading her parts of the story, but she provides a necessary contrast, and the book would be much poorer without her.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:
Have never read anything by Virginia Woolf before, but am going to have a go at Mrs Dalloway this weekend. Also just coming to the end of H is for Hawk, which is very very good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I felt great sympathy for her. But there we go, reactions differ. A little reminder that inequalities are due to class as much as to gender.

---

I find her enormously believable. And I agree - very much to be pitied. She's not likeable, of course, and I don't enjoy reading her parts of the story, but she provides a necessary contrast, and the book would be much poorer without her.

---

I wonder if Sayers based her on a real person.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I've just picked up another Edward Rutherfurd doorstop-size multi-generational epic at the railway station, where they have a book swop area. (Everything goes really quickly, no matter what it is.)

This time, it's "The Forest", set in and around the New Forest in England. I quite like his books but he does have the irritating habit of half developing a scene and plot, then you abruptly find he's moved on a century or so and what's happened to the characters you'd just got to know? Not always as well written or fleshed out as I'd like but still interesting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
And spiteful though she is, from her point of view, it is the women dons who are limited, with the leisure to study prosody and not having to bring up two girls and keep a fulltime manual job.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
I've just picked up another Edward Rutherfurd doorstop-size multi-generational epic at the railway station, where they have a book swop area. (Everything goes really quickly, no matter what it is.)

This time, it's "The Forest", set in and around the New Forest in England. I quite like his books but he does have the irritating habit of half developing a scene and plot, then you abruptly find he's moved on a century or so and what's happened to the characters you'd just got to know? Not always as well written or fleshed out as I'd like but still interesting.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doone:
Mm, I agree, but I did think it one of [Edward Rutherfurd]'s better ones when I read it some time ago.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:
There are sufficient lacunae in the records of the lives of most historical figures that you can slip in any feasible incidents you please. And even more do, with an invented character.

What irritates me is making the character totally anachronistic in language, beliefs and attitude, plus totally immune to the social conventions of the day. In fact, those are invoked - usually in a highly cariacatured form - just so the writer can say through the heroine 'what silly attitudes! See how much more liberated and enlightened we are today!' Never any suggestion that sexual promiscuity, for example, might have its downside in any era.

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I've only read a few of the Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily series of crime novels, but she uses the fact that the heroine's detective work is not an acceptable occupation for a Society Lady in Victorian times to drive the story forwards in really clever ways.

That seems a far more sensible approach. But that involves doing some research and who's got time for that

Tubbs
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I have just finished Book 5 of the Reading Challenge - "A book you should have read in school". I chose The Silver Darlings by Neil M. Gunn, and it was a good choice. Set in Caithness c. 1810-30 as the herring industry was taking off, it is about a people in transition from an old world to a new one. It was beautifully written with likeable characters, and although there is no 'plot' as such, it is full of both tragedy and adventure. The descriptions of the seas and the storms are wonderful.

Men are true heroes in Gunn's book - noble, pure, and immensely strong mentally as well as physically. The women are likewise noble and pure, though they are obviously some holy mystery to Gunn. (Mind you, all his characters are holy mysteries to some extent.) His male lovers have a habit of overpowering their feebly-protesting women, who then melt in glad surrender. (I'd have liked a faint 'Yes yes' in among the faint 'No no's.) But the sea is the main character, to be loved and fought and overcome by the men, and yet to compel them and overcome them in return ... a bit like the women, really.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
I'm hoping to kill several birds with one stone during my holiday reading, including Jane Eyre as the 'book you should have read at school'. Everyone else seems to have read it as a teenager.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I read Jane Eyre at school - but I never realised what a feminist book it is until I saw it on stage last year! Charlotte Bronte presented her heroine with all the choices available to a young woman in her position (starting with becoming a governess, then the option to become Rochester's mistress, or marry St John to be his helpmeet) and she sticks to her principles and comes through to what she wants in the end.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
And she poured all of her personal life into the work. So vividly, that when the book came out the unfortunate proprietor of Lowood School (which really exists under another name, and was neither worse nor better run than any other boarding school in Britain of the period) was excoriated and pilloried in the press.

It is fun to read the critiques of JE from the day. People complained bitterly of how passionate and stubborn Jane was, totally unwomanly and an inappropriate example for young minds. 'Coarse' was the favorite epithet. When you read it, see if you feel it is coarse.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.

Next up, a new book: Melissa Hastings' "Rain: Four Walks in English Weather". Looking out of the window (granted, in Scotland, but still) I can't help feeling it's very apt reading for now.
 

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Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:


Next up, a new book: Melissa Hastings' "Rain: Four Walks in English Weather". Looking out of the window (granted, in Scotland, but still) I can't help feeling it's very apt reading for now.

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Mm, it's raining here as well, and poor Glastonbury is not far down the road from us

[ 25. June 2016, 16:51: Message edited by: Doone ]
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've just finished William Goldman's "The Princess Bride" (yes, *that* Princess Bride). The film's much better - I found Goldman's frequent asides in the book increasingly unnecessary and annoying. When he just stuck to the story it was great, and I loved that I had the image of the cast in my head as I read. But if you're just going to do one or the other, watch the film.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls
At the moment I'm in a smallish African city without a book store

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Have you read Shakespeare in the Bush?

and Scoop by Evelyn Waugh which can be bought online?

[ 28. June 2016, 04:42: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
Has anyone else read any Jasper Fforde? I've just started The Eyre Affair (under 'a book recommended by a best friend'), and I am not sure yet if it is very good, or too-clever-by-half. I'm not loving it yet ... I think that will depend on whether the characters and the story are strong enough to overcome the cleverness. Which they may be.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I loved it. See if the ending does not make you shout with joy.
But he went on to write a number of sequels, which are more annoying.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
You have to be in the mood (and possibly on holiday). The Tuesday Next ones were tolerable, but I started on one of the Nursery Crimes and found I couldn't be arsed.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I have a Jasper fforde sitting on my to read pile that I've failed to get into a couple of times. It needs more time and attention than I have to give it normally.

I finally read The Dark is Rising over half term, which was a Ship's Bookclub book a few months back and loved it. I think I must have read Under Sea, Over Stone and that trilogy previously.

I signed up foe one of these book club things that ask members to comment on book covers and posters for new books, and as well as winning a free book for discussing my natural history book collection, they must have got fed up with my response of 'that poster/cover is worst because it's selling this author as chick lit, and she's better than that', so the last author was Eva Dolan who has a series of detective novels based on characters from a hate crimes unit in Peterborough. I was prompted to buy the first in the series and am enjoying it so far, albeit finding it bleak reading at moments during the Brexit campaign.
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
That's interesting and helpful - thank you. They do seem to be a particular taste, which I am hoping I acquire. I appreciate the incentive to keep going to the end, Brenda.

[ 29. June 2016, 15:41: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
No, I haven't been able to manage anything else by Fforde, either. This cannot be a good thing, IMO.
The entire question of book covers is a painful issue and could absorb much discussion. It helps however to think of them as a semiotic signal. It is not important, if the armor isn't right, the main figure is the wrong race, or the entire thing looks like a bodice ripper. All a cover is is the signal, to the reader (or more crucially the bookstore buyer) about what kind of book it is inside. Hence the use of very standard tropes like hunky shirtless heroes under a swooshy purple title (romance) or swords and dragons (fantasy). Anything more you get out of the cover is an extra.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
If you can afford to commission artwork, make sure your artist is classically educated. One of the crime novels of a successful author depicted a melange of the significant objects mentioned in the text, including a stone statue of a baby deer. Because the story made much play of a marble faun.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Owtch! But one of the great pitfalls in the world of letters is the almost-correct word. This has become far more common here in our internet day, when you can just google a word and slam it into the text without fear or favor.
My favorite example is from a student manuscript. It was a vaguely Tolkienish fantasy. The heroine had a magical ring, which she carried around her cervix. I couldn't face it. I said to the author, This is not in my job description. Take this word, and google it. Absorb its meaning fully, and then change your manuscript. Do not tell me anything about what you know, understand, or assime about the meaning of the word. Leave my ignorance pure and untouched. Please!
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Birth control methods in Middle Earth. Very under-explored subject.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I love everything Jasper Fforde writes, but I can completely see how his writing wouldn't appeal to every reader. I think he's one of those writers where you either love him or you don't and there's not a lot of middle ground.

Brenda, I would have had a hard time restraining hilarious whoops of laughter if I had to discuss that MS with a student. Do you have any idea where she THOUGHT the cervix was?
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
I think I am one of those rare middle ground people, Trudy! I've finished The Eyre Affair (thanks to train journeys today), and I quite liked it. The adventure was fun, the characters likeable, and the craziness, though tiresome at times, was okay once I got used to it. So fair enough. I may read another some time, but I'm not too worried.

Though - sorry, Brenda - I actually didn't like the ending so much. I was rooting for her to get together with one of the other characters, so was a trifle disappointed. I think this must be the middle child in me: I always seem to be a bigger fan of the sidekick than the hero ... Parker instead of Lord Peter, Horatio instead of Hamlet, Dick instead of Julian ...
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The cervix thing was a prime example of Roget's Disease. In which, troubled by the thinness of your vocabulary, you open the thesaurus and have at it. If you look under 'neck', you will find 'cervix' as one of the entries. I gather this means that the character was wearing the ring around her neck, Frodo style. But I carefully did not ask for details. There are some things on does not want to know.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I have become a fan of the British Library reissues of early crime classics, and have a binge every time they bring out a new set. I have just been delighted by 'The Secret of High Eldersham' by Miles Burton, aka Cecil Street, published in 1930, because it does something more recent novels have driven me up the wall for not doing. (And TV - yes you, 'New Tricks'.)

The hero goes to a remote village where newcomers find themselves unwelcome. There are 'mommets' ('poppets' in 'The Crucible'), mysterious gatherings with misused church candles and a person with sleeves ending in cloven hooves.

And it is not a long established Wicker Man tradition going back hundreds of years. It has been cooked up by someone who has read too much Margaret Murray. Hooray! The right history for it. Though I suppose, being closer to the source, attribution was easier.

I won't say why, because of spoilering, and the book is a little hazy on the original setting up. But I was so pleased to find something rooted in reality.

[ 05. July 2016, 19:04: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 

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Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
Having finished Jasper Fforde in record time, I am now back up to speed with the reading challenge. Book 7 is "A book that was published before you were born". As this is a rather sweeping category, I decided to narrow it down by choosing a book that was published just before I was born. So I invested a book token that has been lurking in my purse, and am about to embark upon Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Oh, what pleasures lie before you!
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I've just been working my way through a stack of Mary Stewart novels. They may be dated by now but the Crystal Cave novels are still excellent, polished and articulate, and the best Arthurian novels you will find.

I've now embarked on John Buchan's "Witch Wood" which I attempted to read as a child and didn't like. It makes more sense as an adult, though I do hate it when authors attempt to present dialect speech as it's spoken and write in an accent. It takes longer to decipher and it's quite irritating. Still, the book is quite interesting so far.

There's a definite difference in style between the more leisurely pace of novels written decades ago, which are more descriptive and set the scene rather better, than the cut-down sort you get these days which generally have at least one gratuitous sex scene. There was more of an art to writing in those days.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I've got that Buchan somewhere - must look it out. And am now getting a horrible feeling that I disposed of the Merlin series of Stewarts during a purge. I do hope not.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I've now finished reading John Buchan's "Witch Wood". It was the novel the author regarded as his own favourite, and it is indeed a good story, but (for anyone not familiar with Scottish dialect) sadly hampered by the prolific use of dialect speech.

"There's a wheen fosy bodies yonder, and they're as keen at a niffer as a Musselburgh wabster..."

When every page is liberally sprinkled with this kind of thing, it can make it difficult to get the details of the story. None the less an interesting read that kept me guessing how it would turn out. That's the mark of a good book: when you have to stop reading, for whatever reason, you go on thinking about it, wondering how it will end and what will happen to the leading characters. It didn't end the way I thought it would, either, which is good.

[ 10. July 2016, 10:09: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
That may be the reason I started but never got very far. Hmm. But I obviously thought it worth keeping about.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I have just started reading the 2-for-1 of Dr Johnson's "A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" (published originally in 1775) and James Boswell's "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" (published originally in 1785), both accounts of the two men's tour together around the Hebrides in summer 1773. I'm so far only a short way into Johnson's Journey (which starts in Edinburgh and heads up the east coast, before heading west a bit later), but am already enjoying it immensely. He manages to be bitchy, scathing, snobby, and yet also enchanted, without being overly wordy. I enjoyed the sum total of his remarks on Dundee ("We stopped a while at Dundee, where I remember nothing remarkable..."). And then I was very taken by a passage after he leaves Aberdeen, which I reckon is referring to the area of epic sand dunes now occupied by Donald Trump's monstrosity of a golf course (and which nature is, as predicted, already trying to reclaim): "We travelled over a tract of ground near the sea, which, not long ago, suffered a very uncommon, and unexpected calamity. The sand of the shore was raised by a tempest in such quantities, and carried to such a distance, that an estate was overwhelmed and lost. Such and so hopeless was the barrenness superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground."
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I'm a great Johnson fan. I last read the Journey when I visited Edinburgh. I have to say I haven't bothered with Boswell's journal though.


That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!

Beautiful!
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
and began reading it. By page 14 I had decided a)

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I love everything Jasper Fforde writes, but I can completely see how his writing wouldn't appeal to every reader. I think he's one of those writers where you either love him or you don't and there's not a lot of middle ground.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Although don't you wonder what Mr. Melendy was doing?

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Briefly I did, on this re-reading. I can't say it even crossed my mind as a child.

Now partway through Cynthia Harnett's "The Wool Pack."


[ 31. July 2016, 21:25: Message edited by: Nenya ]
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I like the idea (all my own work) that he is secretly James Bond.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Brenda, I can't remember if he was away all the time - if so maybe he was in jail for insider trading.

quote:

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Originally posted by Nenya:
Now partway through Cynthia Harnett's "The Wool Pack."

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You just sent me scurrying to Google. I remember enjoying her historical novels as a child, particularly The Load of Unicorn . I must see if the library has any of them.

I must have read thousands of books since I read them, but they were both well written and exciting.

Just checked Amazon On the other hand the Library has all of them

Thanks Nenya - it will be a break from murder mysteries.

Huia

[ 01. August 2016, 08:16: Message edited by: Huia ]
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I can't recall the details, but he was away for most of the books -- a tradition in children's literature, so that there are no adults to intervene/appeal to in crisis/stop you from having fun. In the E. Nesbit books the parents tended to be war correspondents, traveling far away. In the LION WITCH & WARDROBE the parents are in London while the kids are safely out in the boondocks. Huckleberry Finn's father was a vagrant.

These are all depressing. Far better for Mr. Melendy to be James Bond, slipping awawy for horrible adventures parachuting out of jump jets and fighting SMERSH and then coming back to pay the property taxes and see to the leak in the cupola.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I have just overdosed on fathers, having given in to temptation at the supermarket checkout and bought "Harry Potter and the Cursed Chiild".

A very fast read, without the description which would be covered by all the theatre stuff.

Satisfying. And sent me to find out about Tom Riddle's orphan status (not a spoiler).

It leaves me with a couple of questions, instead of the one I had after the original books.

Why did Rowling not show any female bullying at Hogwarts? Hermione, one would think, could have attracted it for her ancestry.

My new one. Why are there no problems with mothers?

And another new one, just surfaced. Why no female/female friendships, when friendship is a major thread throughout the series?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:

Why did Rowling not show any female bullying at Hogwarts? Hermione, one would think, could have attracted it for her ancestry.

My new one. Why are there no problems with mothers?

And another new one, just surfaced. Why no female/female friendships, when friendship is a major thread throughout the series?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I like the idea (all my own work) that he is secretly James Bond.

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That is genius.

Alternatively he could just have had a minor admin-type role but made out that he was indispensable to get time away from the family.

I read "The Load of Unicorn" years ago but didn't like it as much as "The Wool Pack" and must have got rid of my copy as I no longer seem to have it.

I think Barbara Sleigh's Carbonel books might be next.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I missed the Millicent thing - but in my experience as pupil and teacher, sustained female bullying is much more common than the sort of thing shown by Draco, Flashman and co. And it was absent. Rowling must have been very lucky at school.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:

And another new one, just surfaced. Why no female/female friendships, when friendship is a major thread throughout the series?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
Atttractiveness wasn't the driver of f/f bullying at primary school.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gill H:
Luna Lovegood is bullied and excluded.

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Yes indeed, but by everyone, for being weird, rather than the specific f/f cliquey behaviour Penny was talking about.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I had the next book in the Rivers of London series ( The Hanging Tree, ) on reserve at the Library. Last night I received an email saying that the publican date had been "indefinitely delayed"

I did some Googling and I didn't get a clear idea of why.

Does anyone know please?

signed Bereft
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
If you know the publisher, go to their web site. Google and see if the author has a web page. Or, go over to Goodreads (www.goodreads.com) and search on the author and title in the discussion groups, to see if anyone else is chattering about it. Finally, go over to Amazon, search on the book's name, and see if there is any discussion or gossip. It may be as simple as a contractual difficulty.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Amazon seem pretty definite that it will be released 21 September next year.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Thanks Firenze and Brenda

Next Year!!!!???? Damn, I did check Amazon and I thought they meant this year - I shouldn't look things up when I'm tired and cranky.

Maybe I'll go back and read all of Douglas Adams again, or have another go at Terry Pratchett. I loved Maurice and his mice, (thanks to Doublethink for the recommendation) but never got into anything else.

Huia
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
According to my daughter and Google, Ben Aaronovitch has been writing comic books - and continuing the Rivers of London series in that format. According to his blog there are two graphic novels out that fit into the series and another that continues the story line. There are another two planned that continue the chronology before The Hanging Tree.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Oh, no. I hate graphic novels. And I love his stories.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Yeah, Ariel, my thoughts entirely. One of the reviews was fairly disbelieving about having to pay at least the cost of a novel to buy a short story in comic book form.

It also means carrying books not a Kindle.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
You can get graphic novels in e-format. It is in fact better -- you can biggify the art and see the detail.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
you can biggify the art and see the detail.

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Wash your mouth out! The word I believe you are looking for is 'enlarge'. It's preferable to such butchering of the language!
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
You can get graphic novels in e-format.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
you can biggify the art and see the detail.

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Wash your mouth out! The word I believe you are looking for is 'enlarge'. It's preferable to such butchering of the language!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
Oh, no. I hate graphic novels. And I love his stories.

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Me too.

When I was a child a graphic novel would be one that went into lurid details, . The first time I saw the term used (as an adult) was as a classification in a bookshop. I sidled up to the shelf for a peek and was surprised to find that they were only what I would have called comic books. The only graphic novel I have read was one by Neil Gaiman, though I suppose the
Classic Comics I read as a child were similar. I remember they were helpful to me as a child sorting out the difference between Agnes and Dora in David Copperfield . I always wanted to read their version of War and Peace , but if they did one I never saw it.

Huia
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've been following the Ben Aaronovitch comic books, and really enjoying them. I think the artwork is good, as well.
My first ever foray into the world of comic books was years ago in London, when I started reading Green Arrow stories, on the grounds that you couldn't go far wrong with what was basically an updated Robin Hood. It turned out I had just caught by chance one of the best stories of the 1980s, by Mike Grell, where Oliver Queen has moved to Seattle with Black Canary and opened a flower shop called the Sherwood Florist.
The second thing I tried, again totally by chance, was Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman (who I'd never heard of back then).
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There are things you can do, and stories you can tell, only in the graphic-novel format. Just like there are stories that only can be told on stage with actors, or only on wide screens with CGI and SFX.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Eigon - thanks for the info re the Ben Aaronovitch graphic novels. I need to see what's in the Library and stretch my comfort zone a bit.

Now my kindle has sorted out its problem (without the phonecall I was dreading having to make to Amazon) I have been re-reading a series called Midnight Texas by Charmaine Harris. I have the first two books downloaded and the third isn't available on kindle. I was until I walked into the small, suburban branch of the Library and there it was, sitting on the Best sellers shelf at $3 a week. Better that than $US10 ($14-01 plus tax).

I my library

Huia
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Huia:
... I have been re-reading a series called Midnight Texas by Charmaine Harris. I have the first two books downloaded and the third isn't available on kindle...

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quote:

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Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:
Particularly clever is how some second string characters from those other series make appearances in this series: all her books, including the non-supernatural purely detective novels are set in the same universe.

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quote:

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Originally posted by jedijudy:

So as to not spoil the story for those who want to read it, I will not post specifics about the book. The characters don't really act as we would think from reading the previous novels. There is a very large gross, yuck factor in the story. The ending is very weak.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
There are rather a number of candidates for the title at various times.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
At very nearly sixty-seven and a half years old I am attempting The Scarlet Pimpernel for the first time. Very stylised.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nenya:
I read "The Load of Unicorn" years ago but didn't like it as much as "The Wool Pack" and must have got rid of my copy as I no longer seem to have it.

I think Barbara Sleigh's Carbonel books might be next.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:
In second year, the set book was D K Broster's The Flight of the Heron - a work of simmering homoeroticism one now realises (though even at 12 we could see it was all about these two chaps and the supposed female love interest was nowhere).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Sailing across the Channel doesn't take long in reasonable conditions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marama:
Yes, I loved 'The Flight of the Heron' too. It is clearly homoerotic, but oddly seems to have teenage girls swooning over it, and was written by a woman. So it's a bit more complex than just homoeroticism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Crossing in foul weather on a car-ferry Seacat was not nice a few years ago. We went very slowly, and the motion of a catamaran on rough water is much more sick-making than the motion of an ordinary ship.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sarasa:

I'm also annoyed by the delay in the next Ben Aaronovitch novel. I don't get on with graphic novels at all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Because travel is by and large dull, and by definition is not your destination (where all the action will be) there is a powerful artistic temptation to simply shorten any transit time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eigon:
Gosh, I was an innocent child! I was one of those teenage girls who swooned over The Flight of the Heron without noticing any homoeroticism at all,

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
No, born into Mormonism and later a Methodist. Can anyone recall the name of the story with one character named Eliada?

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It was "Tell Us a Story". It's in the anthology "Ingathering".
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Ah! Thank you.
 

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Posted by Tukai (# 12960) on :
 
The funniest book I have read this year is "A man you can bank on" by Derek Hansen. A small Australian town makes good use of a million dollar stash of cash that big-city thieves have buried nearby. But when those thieves get out of jail 10 years later, mayhem ensues comparable to that in the best of Carl Hiassen's Florida capers.

And I can also commend the series of spy novels by Stella Rimington, featuring a female agent of MI5. Since Rimington rose through the ranks to become head of MI5, it is not surprising that her depiction of interagency rivalries and patronising male bosses sounds authentic. What is more of a surprise is the quality of her writing and plotting.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I'm not a big fan of poetry, on the whole - I just find it really very daunting. But I have just finished a beautiful book of poetry, "Nort Atlantik Drift" by Robert Alan Jamieson, which is a series of short poems in Shetland dialect, with commentary and translation in English. The poems actually work pretty well in English, but I was pleased at how much of the dialect I was able to get (I read them first). I found them really beautiful and profound yet also very simple - musings on island life, seafaring, travelling, home, history. My only complaint about the book was that the photographs which accompanied every poem were a bit grainy. Shetland is so beautiful I really wanted to see it in all its glory.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I have spent a satisfying couple of days renewing acquaintance with familiar Henderson stories, and going on to meet new ones. One to go.

She doesn't seem to be very sympathetic to the cultish end of the Christian spectrum, does she?
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I've been enjoying rediscovering Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books, as a pleasant, delightful bit of escapism. I just bought myself "Moominpappa at Sea", which I hadn't read before.

If you think the Moomin stories are simple little stories for children, then "Moominpappa at Sea" will change your mind about that. Not only is it a creepy and uncomfortable read, it's also a rather adult portrayal of the effects of claustrophobia, isolation and adversity on a tiny group on a small island. I carried on reading it because I needed to know how it ended, but can't say it was either light or pleasant. It had the ring of truth about how perception can be distorted into obsession and delusion.

The bits where the trees and rocks could be seen moving of their own accord, and how nothing seemed to thrive on the island, just added to the general flavour of, for want of a better word, malaise. I hadn't seen the Moomin world as dark before, and it doesn't strike me as a children's book. I don't know that I'd want to read it again.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
Having read Finn Family Moomintroll as a child and liked it, I thought I'd try the others a few years back.

The earlier Comet in Moominland seems to me to be about imminent nuclear destruction. I didn't enjoy it.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
Even as a child, I picked up a constant undercurrent of melancholy in the Moomin books - but I did like Moominmama in Moominpapa at Sea, painting a mural on the lighthouse wall that she could disappear into.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
We read the Moomin books when we were children - my next sister down fell in love with them and I picked them up after her. She was convinced that the Groke was Ted Heath. This was in the middle of the three day week power cuts of the 1970s, but having just googled, the similarity is completely lost in the film version.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
I've been reading Mary Roach's Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. It's fairly light hearted, yet graphic at the same time. I must confess to feeling rather queasy on the commute to work yesterday while with reading about autocoprophagy.

 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I am thinking of having another go at Kafka. I tried reading The Trial ages ago and gave up, I think partly on account of the suckiness of the (French) translation I read it in.

Who’s read it? Which translation did you like? Which one should I avoid like the plague?
 

---

Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I am thinking of having another go at Kafka. I tried reading The Trial ages ago and gave up, I think partly on account of the suckiness of the (French) translation I read it in.

Who’s read it? Which translation did you like? Which one should I avoid like the plague?

---

No idea on French translations. I read Idris Parry's English translation. It was still tough going, but mainly because of the lack of the overly long paragraphs (a single paragraph could be up to 3 pages) but I understand that was a feature of Kafka's writing, not the translation or editing.

If you've not read any Kafka before, then The Trial is possibly diving in at the deep end. Have you read any of his short stories? In The Penal Colony and The Metamorphosis are excellent.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I've read the short stories but gave up on The Trial.

No problem with English translations. I picked it up in French at the time because it was in a second-hand book shop (but I guess there was a reason the original owner didn't want it anymore ).
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
The Trial was required reading for a 20th Century Literature course I did as part of my teacher training about 40 years ago. It made a big impact on me, but I never got into anything else Kafka wrote.

Huia
 

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Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
Books make great gifts... yes indeed and as a child I did not consider Christmas or birthday to be complete without books figuring as gifts. Yesterday I received a belated birthday present from my sister. Passages of Time by Mary Edgeworth David, the daughter of a distinguished geologist here.

Certainly a world is inside it. She was born in nineteenth century, and lived in several places I knew of near me here now. Her father's house was on the road named after him in Hornsby and I passed it on the way to my high school in that road.

There is a fascinating account of her childhood in the BLue Mountains here, of learning to drive and acting as a driver in WW I. The book has a well drawn picture of life in a world very different today. You may find it in a library but the book is out of print and I just bought the last copy in Australia as a present for my brother.

A glimpse of a world quite different to today.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
For me the most exciting book news of the week is that Arundhati Roy's second novel will be published next year - I think it is likely to be a must-buy.

It reminds me that I really must re-read The God of Small Things, a staggering work.
 

---

Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
I mentioned Edgeworth David and his house. His daughter's description made me think it was another street. Indeed. Some misinformation was common among local peoples when I went to school in area. It should have been Burdett Street for anyone interested. His daughter was born 1888 and died at around 100 years.
 

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Posted by Barnabas Aus (# 15869) on :
 
I have read Mary Edgeworth David's biography of her father, but not Passages of Time. Prof. David Branagan has also written a superb biography of TWED, who is revered in our district for his geological work on the coalfields and for his relationship with the miners in the tunnelling corps on the Western Front. I think he was only the second private citizen in NSW to be accorded a State funeral, after Henry Lawson.
 

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Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :
 
Unfortunately, Barnabas, you may have to borrow from a library. My sister bought my copy knowing I would enjoy it. My brother was very interested in it too. I spent quite a bit of time tracking it down yesterday and finally found a second hand copy in hopefully good condition. The only copy available in Australia. I snapped it up and have had it sent directly to him.

They lived when she was young at Woodford in the Blue Mountains and her descriptions tallied with time spent by me a bit higher up. A big dose of nostalgia.

[ 06. October 2016, 23:14: Message edited by: Lothlorien ]
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I just downloaded Garth Nix's new Old Kingdom novel, Goldenhand, to my Nook and have started reading it. Very enjoyable so far.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
This morning I finished the ninth [and final?] book in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series, The Days of Anna Madrigal. Even more bitter-sweet than any of the previous stories but ultimately, I think, triumphant. I finished at just before 8am and it is now nearly 11am and I am still teary eyed!

I love my Samsung Tablet with its Kindle app.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I enjoyed a famtasy "The Goblin Emperor" by Katharine Addison. It's all about court politics but a gripping yarn. I think someone may have recommended it on ship.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've only just got round to reading How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman. It's a tiny thing, a companion to Neverwhere (in which the Marquis loses his magnificent coat), and it is wonderful. It reveals more about the Marquis de Carabas's past, and introduces the Elephant of Elephant and Castle (characters are named for London Underground stations, so there is an Earl at Earl's Court, and an Angel called Islington), and the sinister Shepherds of Shepherds Bush.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
For my own nefarious purposes, I have been ISO of a 19th century novel with certain specific qualities. And, eureka! I have found it: Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert, published 1862. Has anybody read it? He is better known for Madame Bovary, which I have read, but which is entirely different in tone and subject. I shall not have time to read it until 2017.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I've only just got round to reading How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman. It's a tiny thing, a companion to Neverwhere (in which the Marquis loses his magnificent coat), and it is wonderful. It reveals more about the Marquis de Carabas's past, and introduces the Elephant of Elephant and Castle (characters are named for London Underground stations, so there is an Earl at Earl's Court, and an Angel called Islington), and the sinister Shepherds of Shepherds Bush.

---

My first encounter with Neverwhere was on tv (which I think predated the book, but could well be wrong), in my head the Marquis de Carabas & the Angel Islington will always look like Patterson Joseph & Peter Capaldi (and vice versa).
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
You're quite right, ArachnidinElmet - Patterson Joseph was brilliant as the Marquis, and although Benedict Cumberbatch has a marvellous voice, he still wasn't quite right as the Angel Islington on radio.
I understand How the Marquis got his Coat Back is going to be dramatised for radio this Christmas - not sure who's going to be in it.
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
Just finished Jim Crace's Quarantine. I expected better from a book that won the Whitbread Novel Award.

It just petered out into nothingness. The promise of the opening was left wilted in the Judean desert, the life drained from it, just as the life was drained from the characters. It was all a bit 'meh'.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
In a break in my Harry Potter-athon after Volume 4 I am re-reading Gita Mehta's entrancing A River Sutra about a semi-retired bureaucrat running a Government Rest House by the Narmada River in Central India and the strange characters he encounters. It really is a fabulous read, I don't know why I have left it so long before reading it again.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
I just finished Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon, which is the eighth book in the Outlander series.

The adventures of Claire and Jamie continue during the time of the American Revolution. They interact with George Washington, Benedict Arnold and other historical figures. Meanwhile, back in twentieth century Scotland, daughter Brianna and her children and husband have their own problems to deal with.

So, I'm ready for the ninth book! Bring it on!
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Yes, this is one reason I could do with a time machine. I doubt we'll see book nine until 2019--a year earlier if we're very lucky.
 

---

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
There are snippets available!
 

---

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Has anyone else here read The Silent Mentor. This book is a spiritual memoir set in a fictional narrative and I am still trying to sort out what I make of it.

Jengie
 

---

Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
I finished His Bloody Project last week (then read the latest of Jonathan Stroud's fab Lockwood series). His Bloody Project is set in a crofting community in the Highlands in the 19th century and relates to a boy who murders one of his neighbours and two members of the neighbour's family. I'm from the Highlands, and the crofting community aspects rang true from what I know about the geography and the history of the area. The subsequent trial and associated write-ups also convey a lot about attitudes to Highlanders at that time, again it rings true. I tend to like novels based on "found documents", if they're done well, and this one really is. It's Booker-nominated, which doesn't always equal readable, but I found it very easy to read and got quite into it very quickly.

I'm very much hoping my dad doesn't see it, as otherwise it's totally going to be part of his Christmas present - crofts, history and the law is a perfect combination!
 

---

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I want to hear about the new Jonathan Stroud. I have been recommending his Bartimaeus trilogy for years, as the equivalent of crystal meth in book form.
 

---

Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
Then hear about the new Jonathan Stroud you shall! It's the 4th in his series about Lockwood & Co, ghost hunters. The world is relatively modern-day, but lacking in internet and mobile phones, with a serious ghost problem. Ghosts can kill, people don't go out at night just in case, and only children/teenagers can actually see them. There are two major agencies who deal with The Problem, Lockwood & Co is a small agency and unique in that it's run by teenagers - Lockwood, George and Lucy. Lucy is the narrator, occasionally aided by a skull in a jar which only she can hear (his snarkiness is not dissimilar to Bartimaeus in some ways). I discovered them when my colleague left the first one on my desk, which she did when she read something she thought I would like (always accurately).

The most recent book, The Creeping Shadow starts with the team dealing with a nasty ghost of a cannibal, then moves to a village with a major ghost problem - especially the eponymous Shadow. There are relic hunters, rival agencies, corrupt officials all contributing to the plot (and The Problem). The books are funny and fast-paced, but they also deal well with the relationships between the agents - and there are some nice digs at how a bunch of teenagers would organise their home/diets as well. If you liked Bartimaeus then definitely read these.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I read the first of the Bartimaeus books, and agree it was a rattling read (albeit the footnote thing was overdone). OTOH, the story arc and character development of the next two are so obviously signposted that I feel no curiosity to read them.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The momentum of Bartimaeus #1 was such that it carried me through 2 and 3 without my noticing. One of my pet literary theories is that authors converse, over time, with their works. (I saw a promo film only this morning, arguing that Worlds of Warcraft is actually a reply to Dante's Inferno. The Bartimaeus books are clearly a reply to Rowling's Harry Potter works.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
I read the first of the Bartimaeus books, and agree it was a rattling read (albeit the footnote thing was overdone). OTOH, the story arc and character development of the next two are so obviously signposted that I feel no curiosity to read them.

---

quote:

---

The "Rivers of London" series is another that started off with a brilliant first book but flagged a bit after that. Still great reads though, and I re-read the series from time to time. There's a new one due out next month, too.

---

Are you sure it's coming out next month? I've been waiting for it for months, the date has been pushed back.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
"The Hanging Tree", due out on November 3rd. That may just be UK distribution, though.
 

---

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I hope it's not just UK. I enjoy that series, although I think the first was the best.

Huia - off to investigate at the library - where a quick catalogue search brought up only some country and western music called The Hanging Garden

[ 21. October 2016, 21:42: Message edited by: Huia ]
 

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Posted by Tobias (# 18613) on :
 
On the subject of the Bartimaeus books:

After reading, and indeed enjoying, the first one, I looked desultorily through the numerous quotations (preceding the title page) by reviewers and other authors praising the book. I was surprised to find it called something like 'a deft and subtle satire on New Labour'.

Is that true?

(I am presuming that the publisher would not have printed the quotation with the book if it were a complete misinterpretation, though that may be a wrong assumption on my part.)

I found it very off-putting. I hadn't picked up on any satire, and wouldn't have known enough about UK politics to make any sense of it if I had - and so was left with something of the feeling of the patronised child over whose head the adults are talking.

[ 22. October 2016, 09:32: Message edited by: Tobias ]
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tobias:
...was left with something of the feeling of the patronised child over whose head the adults are talking.

---

quote:

---

"The Hanging Tree", due out on November 3rd. That may just be UK distribution, though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:
I finished His Bloody Project last week (then read the latest of Jonathan Stroud's fab Lockwood series). His Bloody Project is set in a crofting community in the Highlands in the 19th century and relates to a boy who murders one of his neighbours and two members of the neighbour's family. I'm from the Highlands, and the crofting community aspects rang true from what I know about the geography and the history of the area. The subsequent trial and associated write-ups also convey a lot about attitudes to Highlanders at that time, again it rings true. I tend to like novels based on "found documents", if they're done well, and this one really is. It's Booker-nominated, which doesn't always equal readable, but I found it very easy to read and got quite into it very quickly.

I'm very much hoping my dad doesn't see it, as otherwise it's totally going to be part of his Christmas present - crofts, history and the law is a perfect combination!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nicolemr:
*sigh* Just checked barnes and Noble and they are saying it will be available in January. No fair!

---

Amazon.com have it as available on Nov 3


I just re read Foxglove Summer on my kindle and the advertisement to pre order came up.

Huia
 

---

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Is this the right place to ask learned shippies what they make of the ending of Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot'? I finished it today, and found one or two web places where other readers confirmed my impression of 'a long daytime soap with some good bits which kind of falls off a cliff at the end'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

the only right outcome here for Virtue is a lonely room in a clinic, in a coma.' Or is that the point? 'Be Christ, get crucified, deal with it'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
"The Hanging Tree", due out on November 3rd. That may just be UK distribution, though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Just over a century since it was first published yesterday I finished Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Lost Prince. I think it is my favourite Burnett so far, nowhere near as syrupy as Fauntleroy or The Secret Garden and streets ahead of The Little Princess. It is fairly certain that I shall read it again soon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
...I topped mine up yesterday...

---

...and spent most of it this morning when I remembered Alan Garner!
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Excellent - which Garners did you get? I was somewhat taken aback by his later work. "Thursbitch" and especially "Boneland" were powerful, elliptical books that I wasn't at all sure I wanted to read again.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I bought The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, Elidor and Thursbitch - the last being the only one of his that I haven't read before.

I am deliberately not putting too much money on my gift card account as I know only too well where that could lead! Now I will allow myself to add another Rs 1000, about UKP 12.50, later in the week.
 

---

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Not The Owl Service? (I'd forgotten Alan Garner too, but loved his books)
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Be prepared for a jump in style when you get to "Thursbitch". It's a far more sophisticated and less straightforward piece of writing than his earlier works. Also, you may find it holds emotional shocks.
 

---

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
Yes, I pondered The Owl Service, which I found a bit disquieting when I read it in my teens but ran out of money. Next time.
 

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Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
We seem to be keeping Chapters (the bookshop chain over here) in business at the moment; as our belongings (including most of our books) are in storage, we keep having to top up our supply.

At the moment, I've just started Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell, which is a fictionalised account of the story of Emma of Normandy, second wife of Æthelred the Unready. I'm finding it quite unputdownable, and it has the two-edged advantage of being written in (a) the past tense and (b) the third person. Hurrah!

It's a slight departure for me: most of the historical fiction I've been reading recently centred round the protagonists in the Wars of the Roses, but this is quite literally a whole new era - Emma was born in a year with only three digits in it ...
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
My brother in the US and I both loved Alan Garner so I recently bought him the third book in the Weirdstone of Brisingamen trilogy which I never actually finished myself and can't remember the title.

My favourite book of his is Red Shift which I must read again to see if I still like it. I also liked The Owl Service for the brooding sense of menace.

Huia
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I was rather hoping that someone here would enlighten me as to the name of the third in trilogy but it seems I am to be disappointed.
 

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Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
Its called Boneland
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
As with "Thursbitch" it's a far more sophisticated piece of writing than his earlier works. Don't expect it to be anything like in the same vein or half as accessible. You may find it disquieting. It left me with a lot of unanswered questions.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
So far I think I am enjoyng Thursbitch and will probably buy Boneland when I finish this one. The reviews I have just read make it sound worth the money.

Thank you Kitten for the name and Ariel for your comment.

[ 01. November 2016, 11:47: Message edited by: Welease Woderwick ]
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I've just finished Thursbitch ten minutes ago and am not at all sure about it. I think I enjoyed it but will have to think about it before I finally decide - I suppose I'm a sucker for triumphant endings and I think this one qualifies.
 

---

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
I agree Lothlorien, it is all their [collective] fault!

eta: I topped mine up yesterday but happily there is an Amazon.in so I can pay in rupees.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It is not really accurate to call Boneland part of the same story as Weirdstone and Gomrath, even though some of the same characters appear. It is an entirely different novel, in a quite different and very adult style, and if you are looking for a work in anyway similar to the first two you will be disappointed. I have never seen prose pared down so taut and thin; it takes great skill to do that but it's not an easy read.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I picked up The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross on Monday, and foolishly started reading it while waiting for the bus home.
I have now put aside all my other reading to concentrate on the further adventures of Bob and Mo, and a plot that reaches back to the Russian Civil War around 1921.
One delight was in recognising the author of a letter Bob finds in an old file from the clues "Evgenia and I" and "Manchester Guardian". Charlie Stross has involved Arthur Ransome in the story!

---

Ransome was married to Trotsky's secretary so it all fits - it sounds like a book I might enjoy, if I ever get aroound to reading a book I've never read before.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Now we're in the final stretch, how is everybody doing with their 2016 reading challenges?

I was doing pretty well in the first half of the year trying to complete both challenges mentioned upthread, but then ground to a halt. I'm still reading, but not going out and searching for books that fit the categories. Am still short a library recommendation and a new author among other things.

I'll soon be finished with my 'friend recommendation': The Brendan Voyage written by Tim Severin who built a leather and wood curragh to replicate one reportedly sailed by St Brendan, and sailed across the Atlantic.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
WW - yes, Charlie Stross made it fit very well! The Fuller Memorandum was a bit too much full on horror for my tastes - I prefer the snarky humour to the gore and zombies - but very well done.
It also involves a combat violin, for use against demonic entities!
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
After a few slightly heavier reads, I'm now back with a couple of fiction books. Firstly "Redwall" by Brian Jacques, which I was given as a present by a school friend and never managed to finish so I'm giving it another go, and secondly Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" - again another I read at school and never since, and other than cultural references to 'the wife in the attic' I remember next to nothing about it.

I must admit I'm making slightly heavy weather of Redwall. It's well written, but it's just not grabbing me yet. I'm determined to finish it this time though, although I doubt I'll read any more of the (very extensive) Redwall series.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I haven't read Redwall either. But let us know how you like Jane. An entire genre was built upon that book.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I'm back Delderfield-ing again - I've just purchased Kindle editions of the A Horseman Riding By trilogy so that is me living in a bubble until about Christmas! Last night I also bought a field guide to Indian Birds, which I shall now have to learn to navigate on my Tablet.

All good fun.

One of the neat things about re-reading old favourites is sitting there thinking:

NO!! Don't marry her, she'll never make you happy - marry the other one instead! You will in the end anyway.

Delderfield is a bit transparent at times but it is all very well written.
 

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Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :
 
I just finished a reread of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London books... did we discuss them on this thread or was it the comfort reading thread? Anyway, they are wonderful, and I can't wait until The Hanging Tree is released in America.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I raved about The Rivers of London after following someone's recommendation some time ago. I've just re-read them and I think Whispers Underground is my favourite. I am waiting with impatience for the Hanging Tree and am hoping that my early reserve at the Library when the new date was set* will mean I am one of the first to borrow it.

* Thanks to Ariel for mentioning it

Huia
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I read a surprisingly good (for a freebie!) book recently, a memoir of life in contemporary rural North Carolina, "Memory Cards" by Michael Brantley. He's a pretty ordinary guy - same age as me, now working as a teacher of creative writing, married, previously a professional photographer, brought up on a tobacco farm. Rather than being a linear memoir, each chapter takes either a topic or a person in his life and provides little vignettes about them, leaping backwards and forwards in time much like memories tend to. Having read some reviews I know that some people really didn't get on with that style of writing, but it really worked for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and liked him very much. The one thing he said next to nothing about was politics, but from his descriptions and views of church, guns, farm life, and family life, amongst other things, I'd hazard a guess that he'd most likely be a Republican voter. I found myself wondering what on earth he'd made of 2016 politics (the book was published in 2015, so before all the madness really took off), as despite describing himself as conservative, he didn't come across at all like the stereotypical Trump supporter has this year. I'll keep an eye out for other things he writes.

[ 22. December 2016, 13:11: Message edited by: Jack the Lass ]
 

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Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
With just a few days left in the year, I'm on course to finish 53 books, totaling 14,000 pages of reading. Got 3 on the go at the moment:

• The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
• Further Mathematical Diversions by Martin Gardner
• Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincy

 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
We read Rivers of London as a Book Club book a few years back - mea culpa.

(Procrastination are us)
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
YaY! The Hanging Tree arrived at the library for me, but I am keeping it to start on Christmas night. I always check the reserves shelf first when I visit the library in case something has arrived since the bulk email notifications were sent out. Good thing the area around the reserves shelf is not a quiet part of the library as I let out a loud noise

Huia - letting my joy be unconfined.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
For Xmas a relative who knows I am reading old books sent me a curiosity: Sex Training in the House, by a Dr. Winfield Scott Hall. It came out in 1927, and is positively stiff with the most appalling advice and knowledge. Did you know that getting your feet wet while you are menstruating can damage your childbearing ability? That having sex more than twice a month leads to sterility, debility, and weakness in children?
It's not quite in period, but I am inflicting this advice in this work on my characters anyway. I can think of nothing that would make you unhappier than being married to a man who follows this book.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Would that I could find you the book (probably 1900 or thereabouts) which my parents had and have probably discarded. It was written by a woman and gave excellent advice on those subjects in a very starched up and "delicate" style. You could tell she felt frighteningly progressive, but determined to do right by her readers (particularly on the subject of "the rhythmic clock," i.e. menstruation.)
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
This one is mostly taken up with urging boys not to masturbate. There's also a good deal about eugenics.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Bleurrghhh.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I have an .pdf of Knowledge for the Growing Boy [1954, revised edition 1964] by Sid G. Hedges which a former colleague [sexual health worker] sent to me that is utterly abysmal and factually highly dubious.

A definitive guide to how NOT to do it all!
 

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