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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Readme: the book thread.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Kindle, paper, vellum, papyrus, clay tablet... What are you reading?
Firenze
Heaven Host
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
How to be Good by Nick Hornby. Too early to say yet.
Just finished Huckleberry Finn. Haven't read it since childhood (in fact I think my dad must have read it to me, and left out the bit about the feuding families) so although I loved it, I never really appreciated what a great book it was.
Also just finished Why genes are not selfish (etc.) by Colin Tudge - really useful explanation of the science of why Dawkins is Wrong - at least the Biology of why Dawkins is wrong, I'm not sure about the Physics, because I don't have Physics to that level. He seems to take a similar line to Fritjof Capra, and I know some physicists don't really rate Capra, though I daresay that's a topic for a different thread.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I'm in the middle of 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke, which is a jolly romp of cross-Channel japery and Francophobia.
Also waiting for the next Philippa Gregory to come out in paperback.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I've just returned a book by Joanna Trollope to the library - I must say I prefer Anthony.
I'm re-reading A Darker Place by Laurie R King on my kindle. It's about a woman, an expert on religious movements whose husband and child were killed in a cult years earlier, who is sent into a cult by the FBI to check whether this one too is going to implode.
I like Laurie King as she writes interesting women. She's probably best known for her Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell series, but I think Folly is my favourite, along with the earlier Kate Martinelli series.
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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marzipan
Shipmate
# 9442
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Posted
Currently I'm not reading anything, in an attempt to make myself revise the Highway Code for when I take my driving test in a couple of weeks.
My sister got me The Ice Dragon for Christmas - I think it's the shortest George RR Martin book there is (it's an illustrated children's book about dragons). Only problem was I finished it the day after I got it (but if you have kids who are into dragons, they'd probably like it. Chapters are short so it could be a bedtime story).
Though I do need to see if I have a copy of witches abroad floating about so I can maybe join in the book club this time around
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formerly cheesymarzipan.
Now containing 50% less cheese
Posts: 917 | From: nowhere in particular | Registered: May 2005
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
I'm finishing the last few pages of PD James' A Taste for Death (hardback ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ). I've got an increasingly large pile of books to get though (added to by Christmas gifts, of course), including the next two Merrily Watkins stories; the new Anthony Horowitz Moriarty; a children's historical novel; and a biography of Harry Houdini.
Dontcha just lurve books... ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
I'm in the middle of 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke, which is a jolly romp of cross-Channel japery and Francophobia.
I read that last year - I enjoyed it, although I think he was trying a little hard to be Bill Bryson.
I've got a few books on the go at the moment, primarily John G Geer's "In Defense of Negativity" (about attack ads in presidential campaigns - interesting but I'm not far enough in to be convinced yet), and Caroline Sullivan's "Bye Bye Baby" about Bay City Rollers fandom in the 1970s (gently amusing).
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
Have just finished Gun Machine by Warren Ellis, and would heartily recommend it as a fresh spin on the American crime thriller. It has some of Ellis' usual preoccupations of interconnectedness and new technology and the weirdness of the world at large, but it doesn't read like any of his other work. A lovingly-crafted gem.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
... "Bye Bye Baby" about Bay City Rollers fandom in the 1970s (gently amusing).
Do you roll up your jeans and put on stripy socks and a tartan scarf while you're reading it? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I am reading Lady Audley's Secret, by M.E. Braddon. Also At Day's Close, nonfiction by A. Roger Ekirch.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Just finished my first book of 2015, Susan Jane Gilman's The Ice-Cream Queen of Orchard Street, a fantastic, rollicking historical novel that will also tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the history of ice-cream making in America. I loved every minute of it.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
New paperback: In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood - an account of her lifelong appreciation of science fiction. It's very readable and very thought provoking so I keep rereading bits. Examples of her ideas in the first chapter include a discussion of the origins of superhero costume, and an explanation of how Batman expresses Jungian archetypes.
On my IPad (ie a book to fall asleep with when the light turns itself off) I'm rereading The History of Mr Polly (HG Wells).
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Aravis:
New paperback: In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood - an account of her lifelong appreciation of science fiction. It's very readable and very thought provoking so I keep rereading bits. Examples of her ideas in the first chapter include a discussion of the origins of superhero costume, and an explanation of how Batman expresses Jungian archetypes.
On my IPad (ie a book to fall asleep with when the light turns itself off) I'm rereading The History of Mr Polly (HG Wells).
Thanks for that, I've just bought it on kindle. The handmaid's tale is probably my favourite fictional novel.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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StevHep
Shipmate
# 17198
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Posted
I'm nearly at the end of Là-Bas by Huysmans on Satanism in fin de siècle Paris and the serial murder of children in the Middle Ages by Gilles de Rais one time comrade of St Joan. Its very French.
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My Blog Catholic Scot
http://catholicscot.blogspot.co.uk/
@stevhep on Twitter
Posts: 241 | From: Exeter | Registered: Jul 2012
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Read All You Need is Kill after watching the movie version, Edge of Tomorrow last week. Fun, short, pacy SciFi (time loops and alien invasion)
Just finished Witches Abroad for the Jan book group. I enjoyed it better than I expected. Saving my thoughts for the other thread obviously.
Posts: 3690 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
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Posted
I've just finished Stephen Spielberg and Duel - The Making of a Film Career, which was very interesting. As well as interviews and the background to making the movie, it contains the whole screenplay of Duel , which is almost as exciting to read as watching the film.
I'm now reading Zombie Apocalypse: Horror Hospital by Mark Morris.
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“Oh the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” ― The Day of the Doctor
Posts: 1189 | From: West of the New Forest | Registered: Sep 2010
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
Having bought Boy and Going Solo from the shop at the Roald Dahl museum in August, I'm thoroughly enjoying the latter.
His time in Africa first working for Shell, then as a fighter pilot in WW2 was extremely eventful, and as you'd expect, the books are vividly written.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I loved "Boy." I read the chocolate shop chapter aloud to one of my classes once.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
I've just started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Has anyone read it? I'm finding it a bit hard to get into, but think it will get easier once the story proper starts.
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Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yes, it's a wonderful novel, deserving of all the prizes it has won! But it's Dickensian, as you probably know just by hefting it. A slow dense read rather than a fast sharp one. The difference between a beef daube, cooked for seven hours over a slow flame, and a fast stir-fry.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Athrawes:
I've just started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Has anyone read it? I'm finding it a bit hard to get into, but think it will get easier once the story proper starts.
I really enjoyed it, despite it being heavy going. Even better is her book of short stories of faerie, 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu', which I read beforehand.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell when I read it a few years ago. I keep hearing rumours of a sequel and/or a movie adaptation, but nothing definite about either. The novel took her 10 years to write, apparently, so I guess I shouldn't be holding my breath for the sequel, although the ending pretty clearly set up the expectation that there would be more to come.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
At the moment I am reading The Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (all three volumes of it) but only in the way of business.
This evening I hope to have time to read With Fate Conspire - also a book about faeries, by Marie Brennan this time (the final one in her Onyx Court series).
Just before Christmas I read Jen Williams' The Copper Promise (great book, although the heroes have the weakest excuse to go down into the dungeon EVER) and Kristin Cashore's trilogy Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue - also highly recommended for anyone who likes fantasy.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Whilst away at the weekend I finished Joseph Hansen's excellent
Living Upstairs - it had been years since I read it and I was fairly gripped, not only by the plot twists but also by the fabulously tight writing.
I am now happily revisiting Lake Wobegon, again a long time unvisited but surely worth it. Laugh out loud funny.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
How to be Good by Nick Hornby. Too early to say yet.
I liked it, but then I am not everybody. I plan to continue reading the tome for the Ship's book club on Nook. I am about an eighth of the way through it and shall continue later today, carrying on until I finish. It is an epic adventure of 800 pages and I will read it twice before asking questions. Book is Arcanum, written by a Shipmate...
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell when I read it a few years ago. I keep hearing rumours of a sequel and/or a movie adaptation, but nothing definite about either. ....
I've seen a press photo, so they've definitely filmed at least part of an adaptation. The title characters are played by Bertie Carvel (late of Babylon and the Wrong Mans) and Eddie Marsan.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Rev per Minute
Shipmate
# 69
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Athrawes:
I've just started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Has anyone read it? I'm finding it a bit hard to get into, but think it will get easier once the story proper starts.
I loved it, when I read it a few years ago. I saw a trailer recently for a BBC adaptation and found confirmation on IMDb - not sure of the start date though.
Currently on a Pratchett thing - just read Dodger and currently Raising Steam. The first was better than expected - basically Ankh-Morpork meets Dickensian London - and the second is an enjoyable Discworld romp. I am a bit worried about the way the fundamentalist (deep down) dwarves are encouraging young dwarves to attack modern technology - though reading it in the week of the Charlie Hebdo attack might have made me a bit sensitive to simplistic stereotyping. That said, I should cherish new Pratchett while we still have him.
I read Witches Abroad a while ago when I first got my Kindle, but it seems to have disappeared from my screen and my list of purchases - not at all sure why, and asking the Amazon help desk was a waste of pixels. Anyone have a suggestion as to why?
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"Allons-y!" "Geronimo!" "Oh, for God's sake!" The Day of the Doctor
At the end of the day, we face our Maker alongside Jesus. RIP ken
Posts: 2696 | From: my desk (if I can find the keyboard under this mess) | Registered: May 2001
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cosmic dance
Shipmate
# 14025
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Posted
On finding out that I would have to wait for weeks in the library reserve queue to get my hands on The Rosie Project, I bought it on my Kindle. A very funny and relaxing holiday read. And a very recognisable main character if you live with anyone even slightly on the autism spectrum. Also on Kindle I am re-reading Middlemarch for the first time since my student days. What a genius was George Eliot! I appreciate it so much more with a lot of years behind me.
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"No method, no teacher, no guru..." Van Morrison.
Posts: 233 | From: godzone | Registered: Aug 2008
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Having only managed to finish 40 books last year, am looking to increase that in 2015. So far, I've finished Kate Fox's Watching the English and Catherine Osborne's Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.
Am now ploughing my way through Mark Miodownik's highly entertaining Stuff Matters.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Having only managed to finish 40 books last year, am looking to increase that in 2015. So far, I've finished Kate Fox's Watching the English and Catherine Osborne's Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction.
Am now ploughing my way through Mark Miodownik's highly entertaining Stuff Matters.
Sipech, what did you think of Watching the English? It has been on my wish-list for a while but I have not actually bought it yet.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
Sipech, what did you think of Watching the English? It has been on my wish-list for a while but I have not actually bought it yet.
I rather enjoyed it. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, as I had thought it would be a literary form of observational comedy, when in fact it's more of an informal sociological study. So it's not exactly a rehash of Bill Bryson's
Notes From A Small Island.
There are some omissions, such as the difference between rural, suburban and urban lifestyles. That said, there is rather a lot about class and class anxiety in there. But it's well worth reading, as I'm sure there'll be things that you recognise there in either yourself or in the those around you as well helping to discover some odd customs you weren't aware of.
For example, a colleague of mine frequently refers to "wetting the baby's head" which I thought was just an Essex euphemism for a christening when it turns out that it actually means going for a drink with a new father.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished Revival by Stephen King. It was OK. I think what I thought it was going to be about - a horror/supernatural thriller based around the world of tent revival missions - was only really a small part of the book. In fact I think there's a short story/novella in there about that and the rest is really the story of a man's life over 50 years. If you realise that it's not too bad, otherwise it feels like a very long set up to not that thrilling a conclusion.
Posts: 3690 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
I think Watching the English is brilliant--the first edition, haven't read the latest updated one but I would think it's even better. The author, Kate Fox, was very entertaining at the Cheltenham Literature festival this past October.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
I've just read a delightfully dull book. I spotted it in the Oxfam bookshop, where (presumably based on the dull description on the back cover) it was a bargain at £2.99.
It's The Aul' Days ; published in 1984, it is the autobiography of Ewan Forbes, full of mildly amusing anecdotes about a childhood filled with with dogs, ponies, cousins and music lessons. Then there was the disappointment of paternal objection to University, but persistence won through, and the author graduated in medicine and became a doctor. More mildly amusing anecdotes about life as a country doctor, marriage, becoming a church elder, and the joys of fly fishing.
A life well lived, with family, friends, career, church, animals.
No mention anywhere that Ewan Forbes started life in 1912 as Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill, no mention of the all-girls school, no mention of being a debutante in a white silk gown presented at court, no mention of the court petition to be issued with a fresh, male, birth certificate, (which enabled his marriage to Isabella to take place, and which enabled him to be ordained as an elder at a time when the eldership was still barred to women).
Just a cosy autobiography by someone who enjoyed dogs, ponies, life in the countryside, who loved his wife, and who was an exemplary country doctor and pillar of his community.
A charmingly dull read.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I've never heard of this person, but my goodness, that seems like a rather large detail to leave out of one's autobiography. Presumably the omission was deliberate -- it couldn't have slipped his mind, could it?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
It's very carefully written to imply a boyish childhood, without ever actually saying so. He was 40 when he got his new birth certificate, although of course he'd been gender-neutral "Dr Forbes" prior to that.
I had a lump in my throat reading it - warmly written, with no suggestion that life had been particularly difficult. He was born 5 miles from where I live, and some of the older people at my church remember him and speak highly of him.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
I am reading "The Way North," edited by Ron Biekki, an anthology of authors from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Funny story: I'd bought this book, and a book on hunting morel mushrooms that I'd intended to give Dear Partner for her birthday, back in July when we were Iin northern Michigan for our annual family vacation with the visiting LA kids/ grandkids. Sometime in the weeks that followed, which were also very busy for us, I forgot about these books totally. When DP's birthday approached I did finally remember the mushroom book, and searched high and low for it, but to no avail. So imagine my surprise when, Christmas morning, DP handed me two carefully wrapped gifts that turned out to be...my two missing books! She'd found them tucked away in one of our little caches of family Christmas presents that we collect during the year as things go on sale. So apparently I have too many books! We had a good laugh over that one. But, anyway, I'm partway through the anthology, which has the sort of melancholic feel you'd expect coming from writers in the isolated north woods.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
My God, I just read the most incredible book! It's an uncorrected proof, so the final edition might have a few changes and maybe some more pages? Anyway, it's called "Afterparty" by Daryl Gregory. Has anyone else read this? I love the Dr. Gloria character. A sarcastic but loving guardian angel. If you like science fiction with a bit of theology thrown in and you like Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, you'll probably dig this book. I hope Daryl Gregory writes a sequel.
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cosmic dance:
On finding out that I would have to wait for weeks in the library reserve queue to get my hands on The Rosie Project, I bought it on my Kindle. A very funny and relaxing holiday read. And a very recognisable main character if you live with anyone even slightly on the autism spectrum. Also on Kindle I am re-reading Middlemarch for the first time since my student days. What a genius was George Eliot! I appreciate it so much more with a lot of years behind me.
Agree on both counts. I loved every minute of "The Rosie Project," it was just so much fun and "Middlemarch," is on my short list of greatest novels ever. I think it should be required reading before marriage. It had so many good examples of how hard it can be to actually live with our choices.
Yesterday I started, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I'll be back in a few months with a review. It's 1267 pages in my large print version. My thumbs hurt and there's very little room for my dog on my lap! I love this writer, though, her detailed descriptions may make her books massive, but they certainly do put you in the moment.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
You might be interested in the Ship's Bookclub thread on The Rosie Project. We weren't so impressed. In fact, I think some of us were quite rude about it.
I am still enjoying Mel Starr's Hugh de Singleton books and am rationing them. So far I've read The Unquiet Bones, A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel, A Trail of Ink and Unhallowed Ground, two of them over Christmas. There are three more published. They are detective stories in the style of Cadfael. Set a couple of hundred years later, in and around Oxford and this chief protagonist is a surgeon.
Having seen him on The Write Stuff I discovered Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne series, and have read a few of those on my megacommute and while travelling around. The protagonist here is a contemporary London policeman. The originals were bought at two for £5 at a bus station before I started on a 5 hour journey, but I've since bought some for the Kindle. There's a TV series too. Pushed to give some idea of Tom Thorne, he's a bit like a North London version of Rebus.
One of the very cheap offerings from Kindle when I was buying books to go away was Fractured by Dani Adams, which was based on an interesting idea and would be difficult to discuss without spoilers. I wouldn't pick up her next book as I have a limit to how much chick lit I can read and I suspect from the blurb it might be a rerun of the same idea, neither was her writing wasn't so great I want to read her again. However, the reviews on Amazon are mostly brilliant. (I suspect I'm still suffering from the purchase of The Rosie Project for the Kindle with the offerings suggested now.)
And for breaks between books, I'm reading Saki's short stories - one or two each gap. They are a bit of a liability to read on the tube as they tend to make me laugh out loud, and sitting sniggering at a Kindle tends to get you strange looks.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
I have broken out of solely comfort reading and picked up some non-fiction again. I am currently reading The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives but I am not sure I will make it to the end. I am finding it very hard going - not helped by the fact that I know the wrong Ancient Middle Eastern language (and my German is rusty and my French was never up to academic book standard).
I am sure that, for the majority of readers, transliterating Egyptian hieroglyphs into Hebrew is helpful, but it is hard enough for me to remember which set of symbols is which name, without having to also remember that a blocky Y-like thing represents a forearm. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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cosmic dance
Shipmate
# 14025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
You might be interested in the Ship's Bookclub thread on The Rosie Project. We weren't so impressed. In fact, I think some of us were quite rude about it.
Umm..I just thought it was a fun holiday read, not great art or psychology.
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"No method, no teacher, no guru..." Van Morrison.
Posts: 233 | From: godzone | Registered: Aug 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
cosmic dance - I couldn't even read The Rosie Project as a light holiday read as I found the misconceptions so irritating. But I was frustrated by the inaccuracies in Longbourn too.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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cosmic dance
Shipmate
# 14025
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Posted
Yes, I guess I don't know much about autism so misconceptions are not such a concern for me. I agree that misconceptions about a subject that you know about are very irritating.
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"No method, no teacher, no guru..." Van Morrison.
Posts: 233 | From: godzone | Registered: Aug 2008
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I am still enjoying Mel Starr's Hugh de Singleton books and am rationing them. So far I've read The Unquiet Bones, A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel, A Trail of Ink and Unhallowed Ground, two of them over Christmas. There are three more published. They are detective stories in the style of Cadfael. Set a couple of hundred years later, in and around Oxford and this chief protagonist is a surgeon.
Thanks for that. I hadn't heard of these and will have a look for them. (Hopefully they won't be too gory.)
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Sandemaniac
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# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
And for breaks between books, I'm reading Saki's short stories - one or two each gap. They are a bit of a liability to read on the tube as they tend to make me laugh out loud, and sitting sniggering at a Kindle tends to get you strange looks.
Have you got as far as The Unrest Cure? Possibly the nastiest, most twisted, sickest, most anti-Semitic and savagely funny thing I think I've ever read? Definitely NOT to be read on public transport, especially if passing anywhere near Golders Green because I don't think you'll ever be able to explain it away, but it certainly made me think when I could breathe again...
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Jemima the 9th
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# 15106
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Posted
Acts and Omissions - Catherine Fox. So far (early days) so fabulously bitchy about the Church of England. A good thing.
Posts: 801 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2009
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
I've just been moved, stunned, and generally had my mind blown by the first chapter of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I've never read history like it. When he pauses in the story to set out his manifesto, it's done with a kind of matter-of-fact passion such that I expected to hear the Marseillaise playing in the distance or something.
I'm not saying this is a book I'll read from start to finish all at once - it's very thick and history and I don't often get on together - but for now, I'm hooked.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The Book of Negroes (called Someone Knows My Name in the USA market) by Lawrence Hill, which is also just started as a miniseries by CBC, coming elsewhere next fall. It is excellent.
The actual Book of Negroes was kept by the British to reward the 3,000 blacks who fought for the British against the revolutionary Americans. The people listed in the book were given freedom in Canada. The fictionalized narrative is about a woman who was enslaved in Africa and sold in North Carolina.
I's also recommend The Orenda by Joseph Boyden. Set in the 1600s in eastern Canada (New France), it traces the interaction of the Huron,Iroquois and Haudenosaunee people, with the French missionaries. The spirituality and culture of the Indians is enlightening, though aspects of their culture will probably trouble some readers. It may sound a little too Canadian to you, but I don't think it is. "Orenda" sort of means "soul" but seems to mean a more connected and less individual soul.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Sandemaniac - Yes - already read The Unrest Cure - that was fearsomely savage. I have always loved Tobermory the speaking cat.
Jemima - Catherine Fox has been recommended to me by other people. Interesting to see her name come up here.
@Ariel - so far the Hugh de Singleton books aren't particularly gory - very much Cadfael like in that respect.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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