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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mordor: twinned with Slough
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
With Doublethink's permission * have started a new book thread with the title being a great quote from Mary Schmich.
Over the last couple of weeks * have read my way through the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. * tend to read and reread them every few years and every time * pick up on something that is fantastic, wonderful and entertaining. The relationship between Holmes and Watson is always entertaining and the descriptions of the clothes and the lifestyles people had then fascinate me. There is some racism (and the highly unlikely name of a character called Mohamet Singh) but that's just of it's time although it reads badly now.
* find it fascinating that Conan Doyle, who was a believer in spiritualism and all sorts of oddness, could write a character like Holmes.
Today * bought The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz which is supposedly a new Holmes book. It will be a wee while until * read it (due to my purchase of many of the suggestions on the previous book thread) but * can't imagine it will be anything like as good as the real Holmes. We shall see.
[ 20. September 2014, 06:35: Message edited by: Firenze ]
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Anent detective fiction - the good news is that there is a current author, Paul Halter, who is writing locked room mysteries in the tradition of John Dickson Carr. The bad news is that he has none of that author's flair for atmosphere, and no discernible turn for convincing characters or dialogue. Admittedly, I'm reading him in translation from the French - but I think if he had those qualities, they would survive.
Anyway, off to grub among the Kindling for a stock of holiday reading to take away next week. Any suggestions - particularly 'tec fiction - gratefully received.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I would recommend against Death comes to Pemberly - it was very disappointing. Mostly seeming to be taken up with exposition of Austen's world and little noticeable detection either.
On the other had, An Instance of the Fingerpost is possibly one of the best mysterys I have read - but not true detective fiction in that it is set during/just after the English civil war so no actual policeman. The chapters are written from the viewpoints of several characters, and they are very well inhabited. The title refers to eye witness evidence as being the one 'instance of the fingerpost' that you can identify in an inquiry.
[ 16. September 2012, 13:29: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Instance of the Fingerpost is brilliant. Among other things, the way it presents events which can be read in different ways - not an easy trick to pull off from a writing POV.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
One of my favourite authors is Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of his best is The Queen of the South - it is a crime novel rather than a detective story. But there are lots of twists and turns, and mysteries within the text to solve. It is written in third person partly, and then in terms of a journalist attempting to piece together the story of the main character's life.
Again, real efforts to create distinctive character voices, and to convey cultures I am really unfamiliar with. Moves from Mexico to Europe and draws a lot of parallels with the wild west when thinking about the world of drug trafficking.
There is a little more sex than I would prefer in a novel of this kind, but it is not written in such away that you feel like the author is trying to slip in some porn to keep you interested. It is one of the few novels where the idea that it advances the plot or reveals character seems to have some validity.
[ 16. September 2012, 14:58: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
This afternoon I reread The Recruit, the first of Robert Muchamore's Cherub series of teen novels. Well written and pacy but possibly not as smooth as some of the later titles - I think he captures teen-boy angst really well and believably for the target audience whilst not being in the least didactic about it.
I have just been looking at Amazon and am sad to see they have currently stopped doing the free delivery of some stuff to India if you buy over 50 quids worth so I have put the titles I am missing on my wish list for a while to see if they bring back the free shipping otherwise my great nephew will have a stack of books to bring over in November!
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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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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Instance of the Fingerpost is brilliant. Among other things, the way it presents events which can be read in different ways - not an easy trick to pull off from a writing POV.
Yes, but best of all is that you still know whodunnit at the end, so it both embraces post-modernism and then very firmly puts it in its place.
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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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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
One of my favourite authors is Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of his best is The Queen of the South
Actually, that was where he lost me. I loved The Flanders Panel and particularly The Dumas Club - essentially the ones with an antiquarian element - but not the contemporary stuff.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Clearly we have some similar tastes in authors. For relaxin holiday reading - if I am not going with Pratchett - I frequently re-read CS Forester's Hornblower novels or O'Brien's Abrey / Mataurin series. They are both set in the time of the Napoleonic wars, though I believe Hornblower is slightly later than Aubrey. They both become Naval Captains (Mautarin is Aubrey's surgeon + friend and sails with him).
Most of the stuff they do appears to be based on the real life exploits of Lord Cochrane - if you read enough novels in this genre Ramage for example - you end up recognising the engagements. Especially the one where the fleet catches a load of Spanish galleons before the formal declaration of war.
Aubrey is more believably a man of his time, believing very much in heirachy and the traditional roles and ways of doing things. Mauturin provides the liberal counterpoint. Where as Hornblower is portrayed as very tortured man burdened by a 20th century sensibility a good half century before his time. Once you get past the jargon they are both very engaging series and usually contain some elements of puzzle amongst the action sequences.
The Aubrey novels are the better written I think, and if you are interested in that historical period they have a good level of detail. O'Brien is very good at conveying the gist of communal conversation and they also have more humour than the Forester novels.
Here is the first of the series.
[ 16. September 2012, 17:02: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
One of my favourite authors is Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of his best is The Queen of the South
Actually, that was where he lost me. I loved The Flanders Panel and particularly The Dumas Club - essentially the ones with an antiquarian element - but not the contemporary stuff.
I liked Queen of the South, but much preferred The Club Dumas, which I found to be rather like Eco but without the intellectual pretentiousness (I do like Eco, but...) I really enjoy the Captain Alatriste novels, in which Perez-Reverte essentially channels Dumas, but does him one better by having real depth to his characters.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I do enjoy the Dumas club, but I feel I haven't read enough of Dumas to appreciate it as much as I should. If I were to start reading Dumas - which would you recommend first off ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I do enjoy the Dumas club, but I feel I haven't read enough of Dumas to appreciate it as much as I should. If I were to start reading Dumas - which would you recommend first off ?
I suppose The Three Musketeers is the obvious choice. I read it in childhood in a bowdlerised translation which left it totally obscure as to what D'Artagnon was up to in Milady's bedroom - I can remember being mystified as to why he had no clothes on in the subsequent scene. The Count of Monte Cristo was in a version probably equally coy and ponderous, but the basic idea is so gripping, it draws you in. And I read Twenty Years After - again in an edition which I suspect was first published in the 19th C - but being hampered, at age 9 or 10, by a certain lack of knowledge of 17th C history - didn't really grasp some of the detail.
I'm sure racier and truer version are available nowadays.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
For detective novels, I've just discovered Melvin R Starr's Unquiet Bones - which is the first chronicle of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon from 1363. I'm finding it engaging, a sort of secular Cadfael, 200 years later, with a sense of humour, neat turn of phrase and modern English barring untranslatable terms, some of which are still the correct words. There is a glossary, which I checked, which is pretty accurate, although he's slightly scrambled his pollarding and coppicing, but I'll give him that - they're pretty arcane terms for similar techniques. I haven't finished this one yet, but it might be worth looking for.
I don't know who you've read in detective fiction. Have you read Kate Charles' Wesley Peterson series where modern day murders echo archaeological ones? Or Linda Fairstein's New York murders? She like Kathy Reichs is writing about the day job. Linda Fairstein was a prosecutor for sex crimes as is her heroine.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I liked the couple of Linda Fairsteen's books that I read too.
I also agree with Doublethink about Death Comes to Pemberley . I stupidly had high hopes for it, but I rarely enjoy an author using someone else's characters.
Huia
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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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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
I've just finished Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. (I've been on a bit of a Tudor kick recently, having worked my way through many of Alison Weir's books on the wives earlier this year.) Wolf Hall is a telling of the Henry and Anne Boleyn story with Thomas Cromwell as the central character, in that all the action is seen through Cromwell's point of view. Her Cromwell is a complex and driven manager, the one who makes things happen, has the connections, evaluates and appraises everything from financial, legal, tactical, and even artistic angles almost simultaneously. Much of what we see Cromwell doing is putting all the pieces in place to get Henry's divorce and Anne's subsequent enthronement. Ambitious, opportunistic, and tough, he is also shaped by a childhood under a terribly abusive father, and so is generous, taking widows and orphans into his household.
Of course the English reformation is at the center of the story, and Mantel paints Cromwell as a nascent Protestant even from his boyhood, before Protestant was a word. Thomas More is depicted as harsh, unyielding, and unkind to his wife (which startled me, having the Paul Scofield version of Thomas More etched in my brain).
I enjoyed Mantel's writing style very much; it is frequently almost lush in its details. (Cromwell's checkered history as merchant, soldier, household servant and blacksmith's son, informs what he observes and how he takes in information. There's barely a garment worn in this book that doesn't have its fabrics observed and priced.) There were several times where I stopped and re-read a paragraph just because the way she phrased it was just so good.
I have two minor quibbles with the book. It took me several pages to get accustomed to the point of view. Cromwell is always "he" and when the action shifts to another character, it's a little hard to keep the "he's" straight. The other quibble is more a matter of the period as well as a pond difference -- I experienced this with Weir's books too -- it's a bit challenging to have characters referred to by their given names at one point and by their position names at another. The extensive family trees and "cast of characters" provided at the beginning of the book were very useful for this American!
Wolf Hall ends just as things between Anne and Henry start to go south. I'm looking forward to picking up the action with the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
One of my favourite authors is Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of his best is The Queen of the South
Actually, that was where he lost me. I loved The Flanders Panel and particularly The Dumas Club - essentially the ones with an antiquarian element - but not the contemporary stuff.
I've only read his Dumas Club but I loved it and have more of his on the way. I can't wait! and yes, my interests are in the antiquarian side rather than straight crime. I'm a history freak.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
For detective novels, I've just discovered Melvin R Starr's Unquiet Bones - which is the first chronicle of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon from 1363. I'm finding it engaging, a sort of secular Cadfael, 200 years later, with a sense of humour, neat turn of phrase and modern English barring untranslatable terms, some of which are still the correct words. There is a glossary, which I checked, which is pretty accurate, although he's slightly scrambled his pollarding and coppicing, but I'll give him that - they're pretty arcane terms for similar techniques. I haven't finished this one yet, but it might be worth looking for.
I read that and enjoyed it, but I read it soon after reading Ariana Franklin's Mistress Of The Art Of Death series and it pales in comparison. Historical accuracy I can't speak to, but Franklin's characters are driving and engaging and her plots will not leave you wanting. Melvin Starr is good - but Franklin is better.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
I have two minor quibbles with the book. It took me several pages to get accustomed to the point of view. Cromwell is always "he" and when the action shifts to another character, it's a little hard to keep the "he's" straight. The other quibble is more a matter of the period as well as a pond difference -- I experienced this with Weir's books too -- it's a bit challenging to have characters referred to by their given names at one point and by their position names at another. The extensive family trees and "cast of characters" provided at the beginning of the book were very useful for this American!
I think this is fair comment. Occasionally, she does say "He, Cromwell" but I suspect that an exasperated editor probably forced this on her. It's obviously deliberate - she does similar things in "A place of greater safety", which I found even more confusing, perhaps because I know the period less well. In fact, it took me some time in that book to work out who the lead character actually was - I mean, the name by which he is normally known -I'm not going to say it, because that is a deliberate ploy, I assume, and I wouldn't want to spoil that for anyone who hasn't read it yet.
But why does she do it? Perhaps it serves to remind us that this is a partial view - we are very much inside Cromwell's head, which I love, although we don't seem to have much access to his memory banks. When we do, it can come as quite a shock, as with the incident that at least partly explains his Protestant sympathies.
And don't blame your problem with the names on your being American. I know the period quite well, so I know, for example, who the Howards are, but I still had to stop and check fairly often in the Who's Who. More so, funnily enough, at the second reading - the first time I just tended to go with the flow.
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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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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm reading Frankenstein right now, and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by it. Of course, like everyone else I'm familiar with the meme of the Frankenstein monster, but the story isn't at all what I expected. Much better, in fact.
It seems that there different kinds of ethics at play here, especially surrounding Frankenstein's guilt, and what exactly he's actually guilty of. Is he guilty because he created a monster, like he thinks himself? Or, as the monster argues, is he guilty of creating something --someone!-- and than leaving him alone?
I'm 80% through the book right now, and am thrilled to find out what kind of ethics will win out. (Don't tell me yet! ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
I think this is fair comment. Occasionally, she does say "He, Cromwell" but I suspect that an exasperated editor probably forced this on her.
Thanks. I'm glad it's not just me. I like your premise about the editor.
quote:
And don't blame your problem with the names on your being American. I know the period quite well, so I know, for example, who the Howards are, but I still had to stop and check fairly often in the Who's Who. More so, funnily enough, at the second reading - the first time I just tended to go with the flow.
Yes, there were many times I just gave up and kept reading. "Hmm, is Southhampton Anne's uncle? Or it is Suffolk? Oh, well, carry on...."
It happens when I'm reading Ecclesiantics. Over here we tend not to refer to a bishop by the name of his see, i.e., it would never occur to me to write +Chicago instead of the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee. So at first it would throw me a bit when people would refer to +London, etc. [/tangent, sorry]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
I had the same problem with the use of 'he' in Wolf Hall.
Loved the book all the same and I'm now reading Bring Up the Bodies.
I'm just wallowing in the Tudor-ness of it all, though grateful that I'm not there in reality .
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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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Percy B
Shipmate
# 17238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
For detective novels, I've just discovered Melvin R Starr's Unquiet Bones - which is the first chronicle of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon from 1363. I'm finding it engaging, a sort of secular Cadfael, 200 years later, with a sense of humour, neat turn of phrase and modern English barring untranslatable terms, some of which are still the correct words. There is a glossary, which I checked, which is pretty accurate, although he's slightly scrambled his pollarding and coppicing, but I'll give him that - they're pretty arcane terms for similar techniques. I haven't finished this one yet, but it might be worth looking for.
I don't know who you've read in detective fiction. Have you read Kate Charles' Wesley Peterson series where modern day murders echo archaeological ones? Or Linda Fairstein's New York murders? She like Kathy Reichs is writing about the day job. Linda Fairstein was a prosecutor for sex crimes as is her heroine.
Thank you for this, I have never heard of Melvin Starr and look forward to giving him a try. I enjoy medieval mysteries.
Yes, I have read Kate Charles and enjoy them very much.
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Mary, a priest??
Posts: 582 | From: Nudrug | Registered: Jul 2012
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
...
An Instance of the Fingerpost is possibly one of the best mysterys I have read - but not true detective fiction in that it is set during/just after the English civil war so no actual policeman. The chapters are written from the viewpoints of several characters, and they are very well inhabited. The title refers to eye witness evidence as being the one 'instance of the fingerpost' that you can identify in an inquiry.
I started that book years ago, but I found it very hard going and never finished it. Currently in the Ship's book club and reading The Daughter of Time . I have read a bit of Shakespeare and even took a course in it at university, so I was v. familiar with Richard III. I still have my copy of The Riverside Shakespeare which was the text for the course.
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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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Amazing Grace
High Church Protestant
# 95
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Posted
Mamacita, don't feel bad; I'm moderately expert on the period (English history pre-Union was one of my discount tickets out of my very boring home town) and I still need the table of contents to keep the players sorted out.
"All these people are related to each other. Fortunately, the cardinal left him a chart, which he updates whenever there is a wedding." - from Bring Up the Bodies
I've been rereading BUtB and Wolf Hall since I got my copy of the former back from my dad.
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WTFWED? "Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck" - the Gator
Memory Eternal! Sheep 3, Phil the Wise Guy, and Jesus' Evil Twin in the SoF Nativity Play
Posts: 6593 | From: Sittin' by the dock of the [SF] bay | Registered: Jul 2003
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
I have just finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Having read some reviews, it appears that most readers are women and most of them think it is self-indulgent because it is about a woman who doesn't seem able to get over a messy divorce and who travels the world to 'find herself'.
I disagree with those reviewers - maybe because I am a man? There is a lot of accurate observations about the difficulties people encounter when meditation.
I have already ordered the sequel.
Anyone else know this author?
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have just finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
More than I managed to do. I'm afraid my feeling about the book were similar to The Guardian critic's about the film.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I have just finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Having read some reviews, it appears that most readers are women and most of them think it is self-indulgent because it is about a woman who doesn't seem able to get over a messy divorce and who travels the world to 'find herself'.
I disagree with those reviewers - maybe because I am a man? There is a lot of accurate observations about the difficulties people encounter when meditation.
I have already ordered the sequel.
Anyone else know this author?
I (a woman) enjoyed the book very much. I also like the follow-up,
Committed.
It's a while since I read the first one, but I seem to remember that although she did sail very close to self-indulgence, she somehow--IMO-- got away with it, because the book is universal enough that many people can "relate." I could certainly identify with her desire to become closer to the divine but also to enjoy the good things of life to the full. And I enjoyed her voice.
A wonderful book that is, it has just come to me, related in a sort of way is Teach Us To Sit Still by Tim Parks. Well known as the author of Italian Neighbours and other books about his life as an Englishman in Italy, plus brilliant novels like
Europa , he addresses something different in this book. It's a memoir of how meditation helped him with strange and intractable pains he suffered for a long time....Some have also found this book self-indulgent but I think it's fascinating, especially in what it reveals about the mind-body connection. And I like his voice as well, his wry humour.
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Pondering.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Yesterday I saw an ad in the paper for "John Saturnall's Feast" by Lawrence Norfolk, and it sounded like an enjoyable, interesting sort of historical novel. I'm half thinking about taking the plunge and getting it off Amazon. Has anyone read it, or got any views?
(ETA I could really get into a good historical novel right now.)
[ 21. September 2012, 19:59: Message edited by: Ariel ]
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
I haven't read this one, but did enjoy Lawrence Norfolk's first book
Lemprière's Dictionary It's quite a challenging read though, but rather brilliant.
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Pondering.
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Could you tell us more about it ?
We are trying to avoid this becoming a list thread.
Thanks,
Doublethink
Temporary Heaven Host
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Sorry Doublethink. Yes, I absolutely agree this should be more than a list thread.
I'm afraid I couldn't remember much more about Lemprière's Dictionary . I do know it was unusual and complex and required quite a lot of attention to follow it, but interesting--and I very much admired Norfolk for doing something so different.
Since I wrote the earlier post, I've read a review in today's Saturday Guardian of the new Norfolk mentioned by Ariel, John Saturnall's Feast . Justine Jordan praises this highly, and compares it to the previous books by Norfolk, "historical novelist extraordinaire," as she calls him. And she says, "But if the novel is less determinedly unusual than Norfolk's Lemprière's Dictionary or The Pope's Rhinocerous, its focus [on food in 17th century Britain] lends it clarity, and the material is fascinating."
Her phrase "determinedly unusual" for the first two books conveys what I was trying to say.
His work is well worth reading as long as you're prepared for the unusual, ambitious, and rather brilliant.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
I finished Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies yesterday and am ready to pick up the next installment, sad that I will have to wait awhile. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
As in Wolf Hall, the story unfolds through Thomas Cromwell's point of view. His expert pragmatism has a decidedly cynical edge now, and because his gathered "family" of protegés and apprentices is mostly grown up, we see less of his tender side. We see Cromwell, ever Henry's go-to man, orchestrate Anne Boleyn's fall. In Wolf Hall we saw his merchant/accountant's brain cataloging commodities in the estates of the nobility and the clergy. In Bring Up the Bodies he is still cataloging, but it is an inventory of gossip, observations, slights and jokes, which he draws upon to create a narrative that will get Henry's job done. The scenes where Cromwell interrogates Anne's suspected lovers are chilling: quote:
Would Norris understand if he spelled it out? He needs guilty men. So he has found men who are guilty. Though perhaps not guilty as charged.
A thread of melancholy runs through the book. If I may include one more quote, I was struck by this passage where Cromwell reflects on a conversation with his son Gregory about the doctrine of Purgatory and whether Gregory should continue to pray for his deceased mother and sisters:
quote:
Imagine the silence now, in that place which is no-place, in that anteroom to God where each hour is ten thousand years long. Once you imagined the souls held in a great net, a web spun by God, held safe till their release into his radiance. But if the net is cut and the web broken, do they spill into freezing space, each year falling further into silence, until there is no trace of them at all?
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished Wool by Hugh Howey which I started to see what the fuss was about (in my particular corner of the internet it was highly praised).
It's set in a post-apocalyptic world where what's left of humanity lives in an underground silo and the worst crimes are punishable by being sent outside for 'cleaning' which involves spending your last few minutes while the poisonous atmosphere eats through your suit, wiping down the cameras so that the silo-dwellers can temporarily get a clear view of the outside. But, as ever, all is not what it seems. Is the silo really all there is?, is the outside really a poisonous uninhabitable wasteland?
First thing to say about Wool is that it was originally published in 5 parts and it shows. The first part - the original short story - is complete in itself. However it gives away some information as part of its climax that I think you'd want to keep back if writing the novel from scratch. Parts 2-5 are more connected but suffer from having being written individually and so characters and plot elements that seem central in part 3 may not be by the end of 5. Particularly with the characters it was harder to care when you realised they may not be around that much longer.
That said it was an intriguing world. (I was going to say "well-built" but you could pick holes in it all day long if you'd a mind to. I don't usually.) And he certainly knows how to create tension. I can see exactly why Ridley Scott bought the film rights. The best bits read like set pieces from a good SciFi thriller movie.
He's written a prequel which I hear good things about and which was at least written as a complete novel from the word go. I will probably check it out eventually but it's not next on my list.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I've just finished reading Iris Murdoch's An Accidental Man. I tried Murdoch when I was a teenager and didn't get on with her (apart from The Bell; only re-discovering her recently (last couple of years) thanks to a Real Life book club. I've already re-read some of the ones I started with, just for the sheer pleasure. However, I've really struggled with this one - many characters neither engaging nor even likeable – particularly the eponymous protagonist, who this NYT review says is “marvelously mapped out”; I'm not so sure. All this coupled with huge doses of relentless misery and a sense of many wasted lives.
I know that human beings are often inconsistent and fickle creatures,and Murdoch captures that well, but I find it difficult when characters are so inconsistent that there is no sense of a thread and one cannot form any real idea of what they might or ought to do. The review cited above says that there are parts which are intended to be emotionally gripping that end up being flat. I wonder if she did intend emotionally gripping. Although I was compelled to read to the end, I also got so distracted that I found myself wondering what Wodehouses's Bertie Wooster would make of some of the women. He'd have found them all terrifying, I think. I suspect that, like Wodehouse, Murdoch is less convincing when she moves out of what is really a very narrow class comfort zone. She can do refugees and other classless people but is perhaps not good at any British characters below the upper-upper middle.
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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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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished discworld #25 i.e. The Truth.
Due to what I'd heard about it I'd pegged it as just the next book to get through before I could read Thief of Time but actually I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's about the arrival in Ankh-Morpork of the newspaper business. It has a few new interesting characters (and after Wool I realised how skilfull Pratchett is at drawing characters) as well as old favourites. It hits a lot of familiar themes and some of the jokes are re-treads but at least it didn't have multiple-ending disease which he suffers from at times.
Overall it was a pleasant way to spend a rainy Sunday.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
I find it fascinating that Conan Doyle, who was a believer in spiritualism and all sorts of oddness, could write a character like Holmes.
Today I bought The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz which is supposedly a new Holmes book. It will be a wee while until I read it (due to my purchase of many of the suggestions on the previous book thread) but I can't imagine it will be anything like as good as the real Holmes. We shall see.
Conan Doyle based Holmes on a Dr. Bell, who used Holmesian-level observation to diagnose his patients.
Since you're exploring neo-Holmes stories, how about Laurie King's Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series? They're very good.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I remember liking Hawksmoor, though it's a good while since I read it. It left with me a tendency to stare narrowly at any actual Nicholas Hawksmoor churches.
I also associate it with Fowles A Maggot which I see was published in the same year. Perhaps there was a vogue for weirdy post-modern historical novels.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
/Tangent/
At the risk of being deemed silly, the cheapest discount ticket to Reading I have been able to find (from London Paddington) is £16.40 single.
That seems quite a lot but perhaps there is a bus which is cheaper.
Of course you can read while you're on the train!
/Tangent ends/
More seriously, my wife is a school librarian in a very deprived area and she does see reading as a ticket to anywhere for these children whose horizons are so terribly restricted.
[ 25. September 2012, 16:15: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished Darkside - by Belinda Bauer, which is the second in a sort-of-but-not-really trilogy of crime thrillers set in an Exmoor village. It was bleak, melancholic and gripping. I particularly liked the way the characters are drawn. The protagonist is a village policeman who has to help solve a series of murders and butts heads with an arrogant bombastic superior officer sent as part of a homicide task force to investigate the crimes. What's interesting about this is that you're all set up for this second character to be a caricature, a simple idiotic obstacle to the real hero solving the case, but in fact you find yourself sympathising with him more than you'd think. And although he blunders about he does actually get quite a lot right.
The ending was a bit of a WTF moment. I saw it coming but rejected it as I couldn't see how the author could pull that off. I'm still in two minds as to whether she did or not.
Since some of the characters re-appear in the sort-of sequel Finders Keepers I've gone straight on into that to see if it provides any answers. If not, on the basis of the first two books, it should at least be a cracking good read.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
Currently ploughing through Margaret Thatcher's autobiography for my Newly Accredited Minister studies. Which could be subtitled "Why I was right and everyone else was wrong." And, for all the (genuinely) fascinating insights, at times it can be very,very dull, with painstaking detail about things that most people wouldn't be interested in.
Could do with something very light and funny and inconsequential to read afterwards. Any recommendations?
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I could encourage you to read A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French for October with the Ship's Book Club if you want light weight. It's told in a series of diary entries from different members of the family. I like the characterisations. The daughter's teenspeak entries are all too familiar from working with teenage girls, as are the mother's professional calmness. The teenage boy has a whole other dimension that made me giggle for completely different reasons. I want others to read it to see if they agree with me on this one. It got very mixed reviews, which I can understand as I think people will find it a marmite book.
If not you could virtually murder someone, that's good escapism.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
My current library book is Billy Connolly's 'Journey to the Edge of the World', which is the tie-in book to his TV series from a few years ago where he travelled from Nova Scotia to Vancouver via the north-west passage. Towards the end of the last version of this thread I had read Simon King's Shetland Diaries, another TV tie-in, and I remember commenting then that I wished it had more pictures. This book by Billy Connolly is *exactly* what a TV tie-in book should be like - glossy, beautiful, and at least one picture on every page, stills from the series. I love his commentary, he has such respect for the people and place, and also drops in a lot of musings about his own life and past and place in the world. Yet another library book I suspect I'm going to end up buying as I want to keep it - it's an absolute joy.
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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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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
Since some of the characters re-appear in the sort-of sequel Finders Keepers I've gone straight on into that to see if it provides any answers. If not, on the basis of the first two books, it should at least be a cracking good read.
...and it was an ok read. Not as much a must-read-just-one-more-chapter-before-bed as Darkside but I still wanted to know what happened. It was a bit stranger and perhaps that put me off. It did give some answers, sort of, to outstanding character questions.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Keren-Happuch
Ship's Eyeshadow
# 9818
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
...
Could do with something very light and funny and inconsequential to read afterwards. Any recommendations?
Well, for truly light and inconsequential, I'm currently reading The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe. I haven't seen the recent film, but the book came first and is one of a series. It is incredibly silly, very funny and occasionally quite satirical. And features the Bishop of Oxford as the bad guy (which in the film was apparently changed to Queen Victoria)...
I am also reading Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe, translated by Jamie Bulloch. It's a fascinating and poetic insight into the great 17th century Chinese artist Bada Shenren, and only short. The style means I can't race through it like I usually do as I have to keep stopping to think about stuff. Hence also needing the Pirates to clear my head.
Oh, and I'm still in the middle of God Collar too - I put it down somewhere and never got back to it. I'm finding the combination of theological musing and ranting about BT and the post office rather odd, but really must get back to it. I don't know what's happened to my attention span - I never used to read more than one book at a time!
(Great thread title, by the way. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
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Travesty, treachery, betrayal!
EXCESS - The Art of Treason
Nea Fox
Posts: 2407 | From: A Fine City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Mr Curly
Off to Curly Flat
# 5518
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Posted
Have just filled in some idle moments this weekend with The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, latest in The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
While I'm currently writing suspense/thriller, I prefer to relax with quaint and quirky.
mr curly
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My Blog - Writing, Film, Other Stuff
Posts: 2645 | From: Curly Flat | Registered: Feb 2004
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
It's been around for nearly ten years now, but Luke Timothy Johnson's The Creed, pitched roughly at an undergrad audience, is a magnificent defence of Christian creedal orthodoxy. He perfects the art of sailing between the schylla of "silly political machinations from a long gone world" and the carybdis of "this is a stone-tablet document dictated by God" (as every biblical theologian should), and treads lightly on the filioque. I personally, when I am supreme dictator of the world, will ensure that this is compulsory reading for all human beings over the age of 17.
These days I'm too lazy/tired to read too much, so it'll still be a day or so before I finish it. It should be about a six hour read as it's very lightly but cogently written.
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I'm just finishing Zadie Smith's On Beauty which really has been a ticket to a new place for me, as the main focus is on people of African-British, African-American, Caribbean and mixed race. Although race is central to the story, it's not really the main issue - it's a story about families and relationships. Some of the reviewers quoted in the blurb describe it as funny, but it's a pretty painful kind of funny.
Apart from the above, it also introduced me to a new poetic form: the pantoum. There's a terrific example in the book, which turns out to have been borrowed from a real life poet and leant, by special permission, to a fictional character.
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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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Lady A
Narnian Lady
# 3126
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Posted
I just finished reading The Hobbit. It's been quite a few years since I did and thoroughly enjoyed Bilbo's first appearance again. *Happy Sigh*
Posts: 2545 | From: The Lion's Mane, Narnia | Registered: Aug 2002
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