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.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
One of my favourite authors is Arturo Perez-Reverte, one of his best is The Queen of the South

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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

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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.

---

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 ?

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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.

---

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.

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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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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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! )
 

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Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :
 

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.

---

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.

---

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.

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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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
I have just finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

---

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?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:


On the other had, An Instance of the Fingerpost is possibly one of the best mysterys I have read

---

Likewise ... I rated it a 5/5 on Librarything
 

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Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :
 
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.

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.

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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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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. )
 

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Posted by Mr Curly (# 5518) on :
 
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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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
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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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
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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Posted by Lady A (# 3126) on :
 
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*
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
Amongst the books I have shipped over here, mostly survivors of my late father's collection, is The Importance of Being Idle compiled by Stephen Robins - it makes being a feckless layabout a very proud thing to be!

It is the perfect bedside book.

[Why do I constantly read the title to this thread as being about Reading, the town in Berkshire, UK? Am I alone in this?]
 

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Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
[Why do I constantly read the title to this thread as being about Reading, the town in Berkshire, UK? Am I alone in this?]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
Yes - Fr. Brindley of Holy Trinity Reading used to advertise 'fast trains from Paddington'.

---

When they were run by British Rail.
 

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Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by chive:

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cara:

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.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
Just reading some of Mrs Gaskell's novels. I've just finished "Sylvia's Lovers", which is great - read it years ago and liked it, though it is a sad story. Her characterization is really good, I generally find she draws a very clear portrait of the characters and they come across as quite real.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thurible:
Have just read the new Ken Follett, Winter of the World. Tripe but good tripe that kept me gripped to my kindle for a few days.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chive:

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.

---

Nearly finished it. It is nearly as good as the genuine article! It is full of the usual Doyle stock characters and settings: dodgy aristocrats, vicars up to no good, street urchins, and of course good old (reliable if unimaginative) Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade. To say nothing of the great genius himself who hasn't lost any of his skill at disguise.

I just get a slightly uneasy feeling that it's full of linguistic and other anachronisms but I can't put my finger on any of them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by chive:

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.

---

Nearly finished it. It is nearly as good as the genuine article! It is full of the usual Doyle stock characters and settings: dodgy aristocrats, vicars up to no good, street urchins, and of course good old (reliable if unimaginative) Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade. To say nothing of the great genius himself who hasn't lost any of his skill at disguise.

I just get a slightly uneasy feeling that it's full of linguistic and other anachronisms but I can't put my finger on any of them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:

[Why do I constantly read the title to this thread as being about Reading, the town in Berkshire, UK? Am I alone in this?]

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:

[Why do I constantly read the title to this thread as being about Reading, the town in Berkshire, UK? Am I alone in this?]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Now that' interesting. I wasn't aware there was a reliable translation of the Septuagint into English.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
Anthony Horowitz wrote one of my favourite episodes of Robin of Sherwood - Children of Israel, which explained the position of Jewish people in Medieval England beautifully, within an exciting plot. I think the children in that episode were his own children, too.

---

The writing in Robin of Sherwood was very good. Where else on the box would you find stories that include Arthur of Brittany, Adam Bell, Isabella of Angoulême and Herne the Hunter ?
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I've just finished Unity by Michael Arditti. It's written as if an investigation into the filming of a movie about Unity Mitford (an interesting enough subject anyway) in the late 1970s. During the filming one of the actresses blows herself, and several others, up at a memorial service for the Munich Olympic victims.

It's written from a number of viewpoints - letters from the script writer, the diary of one of the actresses, emails and discussions between people.

I found it a fascinating discussion of evil and fascism from both the left and the right. It also shows how the generation after those Germans involved in the Holocaust cope with the consequences of their parents actions.

I really enjoy Michael Arditti's books and I think this is my favourite. Clever, deep and very satisfying.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I've just finished "A Passage to Africa" by TV foreign correspondent George Alagiah. It starts of detailing his own family's emigration from then-Ceylon to newly independent Ghana when he was 5, and then subsequent chapters detail some of the countries he worked in as a correspondent - including Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Zaire (now DRC), Zimbabwe, South Africa. He talks about stuff that happened while he was working and reporting and his impressions of the wider history/context - it's interesting, though of course harrowing too. It was published in 2001 and it was really interesting reading it a decade later with subsequent knowledge about what happened - I think he's rather too optimistic about Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, for example - and I would love to see him write an updated version giving his take on the last decade. As I was reading it you could tell he was a foreign correspondent, a lot of the phrases were very TV news-friendly I thought, he's good at distilling complex issues into a short paragraph, although of course in the distillation a lot of important detail is lost, as with any TV news report.

Next up: the first part of Stephen Fry's biography, "Moab is my Washpot". It's not our usual book group fare, and I rarely read biographies, but I'm looking forward to this one.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've just finished "A Passage to Africa" by TV foreign correspondent George Alagiah. It starts of detailing his own family's emigration from then-Ceylon to newly independent Ghana when he was 5, and then subsequent chapters detail some of the countries he worked in as a correspondent - including Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Zaire (now DRC), Zimbabwe, South Africa.

---

Mini name-drop time here, I knew him slightly when we were at university, and we met again quite by accident in a cheap hotel/guesthouse on the island of Lamu in Kenya in about 1981 - so we caught up and chatted and he told me about some of the things that were later in the first part of that book. Fascinating stuff and some background to the civil war that kicked off in Sri Lanka a few years later. The next time I saw him he was probably on TV talking to Nelson Mandela.

So when I read George's book it took me back to an Indian Ocean evening and palm trees and Tusker beer

[ 11. November 2012, 13:14: Message edited by: ken ]
 

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Posted by Huntress (# 2595) on :
 
I'm currently reading the Game of Thrones series, but alongside other, different books; partly to make them last longer, partly to avoid emerging blinking and disoriented on the other side. I know there has recently been a Game of Thrones thread and I won't go into much detail here, apart from to say that they are very good escapism for me - I've read a lot of historical novels and I like the alternate fantastical history presented in them.

I'm also reading my way through Patricia Wentworth's series of mysteries, which are particularly good for fitting into a bag and reading on the train or in a coffee shop. She is a great observer of human behaviour and her detective 'Miss Silver', an apparently harmless elderly lady who is often knitting for various relatives, is a wonderful character - compassionate but sharp as a tack. I really like escaping into the 1940s and 1950s world portrayed in the books, in which ladies wear hats and many problems are discussed over afternoon tea, and there is drama during cocktail hour.
They have an element of nostalgic cosiness to them, but the crimes and evil deeds are not sugar-coated. Nor, however, are they uncomfortably graphic.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
My quibble with the Wentworth books is that there are always a couple of characters - the ingenue and the nice young man - who are never going to turn out to be the murderer. At least Agatha Christie occasionally makes an apparently sympathetic character be the killer.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
Yes, but on the whole Wentworth was a better writer than Christie.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
Yes, but on the whole Wentworth was a better writer than Christie.

---

Most people are a better writer than Christie.

If you like Wentworth, Anthony Gilbert is another name to look out for.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Unusually for me, I've just read a hot-off-the-presses first novel.

Alas, Laurie, the heroine of Zoe Venditozzi's "Anywhere's Better Than Here" is young enough to be my daughter, and, instead of empathising with her youthful angst, I found myself longing to dish out wisdom over coffee and biscuits, give her grotty flat a quick once-over with a pile of J-cloths and some elbow grease and give her a tenner with the instruction to buy herself a wee treat.

Youthful angst? I'm now full of middle-age angst that I've turned into my mother at some point and never noticed.

[ 26. November 2012, 07:36: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
I've just finished Sacrilege by S.J. Parris, a historical novel featuring the (real-life) Italian philosopher/alchemist/spy/whatever Giordano Bruno. It's the third in a series (a fact I didn't know when I bought it), and I think I'll have to get the others and do a bit of back-tracking. A good read.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Heavens.....I've been so seduced by the Circus games that I forgot all about this interesting thread....

I would have chimed in at several moments...I'd have told Scots Lass,for example, that I too love Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle which I first read at 18 (perfect age) but then again in my forties, when I liked it just as much. At which point I had a Dodie Smith craze and read most of her memoirs as well as the biography of her by Valerie Grove. Never got around to the novels you mention, though.

I've just read Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. This was short-listed for the Booker Prize and I heard her speak at the Cheltenham Festival (along with the other short-listed authors except Hilary Mantel and Will Self). I admire it very much...it's beautifully written but in a spare yet vivid way. After I'd finished I found it haunting me. It's about a family on holiday in southern France, an older poet, a younger poet...about going home, or the difficulty of so doing...Oh dear. Like so many good books, it's all in the writing, and it's hard to convey its atmosphere.

Now I've just started something completely different, Henry James's The American. I love James, though the later ones are rather heavy going. This is his third novel. He hasn't got into his really long-winded, ultra-convoluted full-blown style yet. I'm enjoying it so far.
 

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Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
Just finished "Cancer Ward" by Solzhenitsyn. Lots of well-drawn characters - Rusanov the doctrinaire Communist with the ever-so-bourgeoise outlook is particularly memorable. Gets a bit bogged down with the philosophical musings and agonized introspection of the hero though. I guess all in the great Russian tradition...
 

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Posted by Dormouse (# 5954) on :
 
I've never read any Jane Austen. I downloaded her complete works onto my Kindle for 0,89€ - because it seemed like a bargain!! The first novel it brings me to is Sense & Sensibility - do people think that's a good one to start with, or should I try another one first? Advice welcome!
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I find it very difficult to get on with Jane Austen, but I did enjoy Northanger Abbey after I'd seen a TV adaptation of it. I've got a very visual imagination, and I just couldn't "see" what was happening in the books until I'd seen it on telly.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Pride and Prejudice is probably the 'easiest' - but also the best, so you might want to save that one up.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
My favourite Jane Austen is Emma. And I think it would be a good one to start with as well.

I enjoyed Henry James's The American very much, although I was irritated beyond belief by the footnotes in the edition I had. It was an edition I picked up very cheap second-hand and obviously prepared for students who knew nothing at all. ("Paris" capital of France. The Seine, river running through Paris..." etc. ) Also the preface gave away the whole crux of the story on the first page.

But anyway, a good read about the encounter of the title's American with an old and very proud French family.
 

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Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
I would just start with "Pride and Prejudice", Dormouse. If you don't know whether you are going to like Austen or not, why not give her the best possible chance?
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I've just started reading Jostein Gaarder's "The Christmas Mystery". It's a children's tale for advent, each chapter represents another window from 1st-24th Dec. Each chapter takes about 5 minutes to read so having caught up yesterday on the train (the book arrived on Thursday) I'm reading it a chapter a day to spin out the magic. So far I love it, and (like Joachim, the boy in the book) can't wait to see what's behind the next window.

Plus a 5 minute read is perfect for my attention span
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
I loved Jostein Gaardner's Sophie's World and also Vita Brevis --the latter was called That Same Flower in the States--why? It drives me mad when titles are changed..

Anyway, VIta Brevis is a letter to Saint Augustine from the mother of his son Adeodatus. Whom one cannot help but feel he treated shabbily, according to his Confessions. This book brings her alive, tells the story from her point of view..I'm sorry if this sounds vague, I don't have the book to hand, but it's well worth a read and I think one of his lesser-known works?
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Percy B:
I just learned today that Margaret Yorke has died. Her obituary is in today's London Times.

Anyone read her? Anyone suggest a good one to read from her works?

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quote:

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Originally posted by venbede:
I'm reading Charles Dickens' other Christmas Books, ie not A Christmas Carol (which is a work of genius). The Haunted Man and The Battle of Life.

---

Not forgetting The Chimes which was as popular as Carol at the time, but hasn't lasted as well. It's interesting to consider why this is, since they have very similar themes. IMO, it's that Scrooge is an infinitely stronger character than Trotty Veck, and the supernatural elements - the Spirits of Christmas - are more numinous than any amount of goblins (a species that haven't lasted).
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
I'm reading The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis, a marvelous historical thriller in the vein of The Name of the Rose or An Instance of the Fingerpost. Machiavelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the famed courtesan Damiata team up to catch a serial killer, with political implications. There's a "CSI: Renaissance Italy" aspect to it, with Leonardo inventing forensic science and Machiavelli working on becoming the first forensic psychological profiler, with arguments about whether it's more useful to try to understand a murderer in order to catch him, or whether one should stick to hard empirical data. Very well researched and well written.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I've just finished reading ' A 1960s childhood - from Thunderbirds to Beatlemania' (Paul Feeney). Not the best-written book in the world, but full of nostalgic memories which means the enjoyment can override any annoyance.

Now I'm reading 'Quiet: The power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking' (Susan Cain). It's a book Mr. C. chose with his Christmas book token, but I've commandeered it first - he's too quiet to complain
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
Over Christmas I read a couple of books, firstly Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" which I'd bought to read when the Ship book group discussed it several months ago but never quite got round to I thought it was excellent - disturbing, but a very compelling read, and I really liked how she wove her story of trying to gain the family's trust alongside both Henrietta's story and those of her family and the HeLa cells and the various scientists and doctors involved (for those unfamiliar with the book, it is the true story both of the cells behind the most successful cell culture line in medical research, and of the woman who had them taken from her). Racism, research ethics, technological progress, medicine - all intertwined so personally, it was really uncomfortable reading, but at the same time I couldn't put it down.

The other book I read, which was just *beautiful*, was Judith Schalansky's "Atlas of Remote Islands". Schalansky was born in East Germany in 1980, and talks in the introduction of how she used to trace her fingers over atlas maps and imagine visiting places. This book takes some of the remotest islands throughout the world, two pages per island, the left hand page being a story from the place (history, myth, factoid) and the right hand page being a scale drawing of the island. It's really hard to describe, but it I thought it was beautiful.

Now I'm reading "The Innocent Anthropologist" by Nigel Barley. It's basically his field notes from his first fieldwork in a remote village in Cameroon in (I think) the late 70s/early 80s, and I'm loving the healthy realism about the realities of fieldwork. It's not disrespectful or condescending the way that lots of early anthropology was, and it's as much about his disasters as it is anything else. As someone who has done ethnographic fieldwork abroad (although I'm not an anthropologist) I'm finding lots I recognise. A very enjoyable read.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I have a kindle

I've gone a bit wild downloading free stuff... Almost all of Jane Austen (for some reason Sense and Sensibility isn't free, and I didn't bother with Mansfield Park because I think it's crap), Great Expectations, Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground and The Possessed, some random bits of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Grimm's Fairy Tales. I decided to start with something a bit on the short side so read Pride and Prejudice at my parents' over the holidays and I'm now working on The Princess and the Goblin (George Macdonald)(which is awesome and I can't believe I'd been missing it all this time).

After that I am going to start ploughing through Les Misérables (in French). Which may take me slightly longer...

Woohoo free stuff!
 

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Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
Over Christmas I read a couple of books, firstly Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" which I'd bought to read when the Ship book group discussed it several months ago but never quite got round to I thought it was excellent - disturbing, but a very compelling read, and I really liked how she wove her story of trying to gain the family's trust alongside both Henrietta's story and those of her family and the HeLa cells and the various scientists and doctors involved (for those unfamiliar with the book, it is the true story both of the cells behind the most successful cell culture line in medical research, and of the woman who had them taken from her). Racism, research ethics, technological progress, medicine - all intertwined so personally, it was really uncomfortable reading, but at the same time I couldn't put it down.

The other book I read, which was just *beautiful*, was Judith Schalansky's "Atlas of Remote Islands". Schalansky was born in East Germany in 1980, and talks in the introduction of how she used to trace her fingers over atlas maps and imagine visiting places. This book takes some of the remotest islands throughout the world, two pages per island, the left hand page being a story from the place (history, myth, factoid) and the right hand page being a scale drawing of the island. It's really hard to describe, but it I thought it was beautiful.

Now I'm reading "The Innocent Anthropologist" by Nigel Barley. It's basically his field notes from his first fieldwork in a remote village in Cameroon in (I think) the late 70s/early 80s, and I'm loving the healthy realism about the realities of fieldwork. It's not disrespectful or condescending the way that lots of early anthropology was, and it's as much about his disasters as it is anything else. As someone who has done ethnographic fieldwork abroad (although I'm not an anthropologist) I'm finding lots I recognise. A very enjoyable read.

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Just a quick post to say what wonderful suggestions. I have always had an interest in remote islands and after posting here am going to look up that atlas on amazon!

Trouble is I got an e mail yesterday saying avoid amazon because they are big tax evaders in the UK ! Hmmm not sure I have the courage to take that step
 

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Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
Currently reading “Jeremy Clarkson – The Top Gear Years”.

Be advised that the book is a collection of pre-published articles from the Top Gear magazine from 1994-2012, so if you read that magazine you may well have read some of the pieces in the book.

Having said that, if you haven’t read the material before and you “get” JC, it’s a very good read. I like him and have always enjoyed his polemic, exaggerated-for-effect, left-baiting, shock-jock style.

I would advise any Ship-mates who don’t like their port-sidedness to be mocked to avoid this book like the plague, but to be frank, you were never going to go within a country mile of this book anyway, were you?
 

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Posted by moonfruit (# 15818) on :
 
A few things I've been reading recently -

A friend lent me State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett, which after a slightly slow start, grabbed hold of me totally. It's about a scientist, researching a fertility drug deep in the Amazon - no-one's really heard from her in years, until her drug company send another scientist to find her, who then dies. Upon his death, another person is sent after her, and their story takes up most of the book. I was slightly frustrated at the end, as I wanted to know more about what happened to a couple of the characters, but ultimately a compelling read.

Equally compelling was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It's hard to say too much about it without giving it all away, but if you're looking for an emotional rollercoaster of a book, this is it. When a man's wife goes missing, let's just say all is not what it seems.

Anyone read either of these?
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I spent a lot of my holiday reading the Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant. Some compelling reading.
Today I've just gotten "Uncle Scrooge -- Only a poor old man" by Carl Barks due to the evil influence of various people on here.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dormouse:
I've just been given a Kindle touch for my birthday. I don't quite know how I feel about it, yet...I've not downloaded anything - I think Mr D who gave it to me is a bit frustrated by this, but I can't explain why not. I almost feel like I'm betraying "my" books!!!

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quote:

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Originally posted by moonfruit:
Adeodatus - if you're enjoying Jasper Fforde, be sure to check out Shades of Grey as well. It's not a Thursday Next book, but it is very interesting, the basic premise being that society is structured based on what colours people can see, with those who don't see enough colour relegated to an underclass called 'the greys'. Well worth a read.

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It's on my Kindle, waiting to be read. (It was on offer at a ridiculously low price a few months ago.)
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
TurquoiseTastic just asked about Susan Howatch on the question thread. It appears she's retired at age 72 after a mere 20 or so gigantic novels. Don't you just hate that?! Thank goodness Ruth Rendell hasn't taken that attitude; she's 82, and I thought her latest was one of her best.

I get seriously sad when we lose any of our great writers. I grieved for Norah Lofts. I could never begin to thank them enough for all the hours of pleasure they've given me.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I'm a lover of tree books. I've made my living in the past writing typographic and font software and there's nothing like a lovely well printed book. However I'm an omnivore and the Kindle is a great way to increase the mix.
The paperwhite is a big improvment on the original, the extra resolution and the back illumination really help. The internal illumination makes it now my preferred reading in bed option
It's also great just to tuck in your pocket and be able to carry a spare half dozen books for when you get stuck in a waiting pattern. The fonts are legible without the eyestrain of a lcd screen but they still haven't gotten the page layout done right. I may have to go do that myself...

I just read the Memoirs of Ulysess S Grant which i wouldn't have done if I had to carry around a big book. It's comforting to have an extra Wodehouse for emergencies. ;-) It hasn't stopped the purchase of print books though. ;-)

The main problem is I haven't figured out how to select from the new books that are only available on Kindle. A lot of them look like trash and I don't want to wade through a slush pile to find the gems.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
TurquoiseTastic just asked about Susan Howatch on the question thread. It appears she's retired at age 72 after a mere 20 or so gigantic novels. Don't you just hate that?!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The main problem is I haven't figured out how to select from the new books that are only available on Kindle. A lot of them look like trash and I don't want to wade through a slush pile to find the gems.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Adeodatus-- David Sedaris is like Prozac to me. I highly encourage you to go on a bookstore / Kindle binge and track down everything he wrote. Well worth it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by nickel:
“God’s Hotel: a Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine” – Victoria Sweet. One of those books that makes you shake your head and wonder why we do such stupid things, when a simpler, kinder approach would be more effective and more efficient. Must read more by this author (And, sweaters for everybody!)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Moo: // "Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Mr. Merryman". //

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quote:

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Originally posted by nickel:
I thought my library had one more book by Dr Sweet, but I was wrong. I must have seen it on Amazon: "Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine (Studies in Medieval History and Culture)" -- looks good, but it's almost $50 -- not sure I want to pay that much without looking for a cheaper copy first. On the other hand, she is a very good writer...

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• Everyone else will have got there first
• I won't get through it in time anyway
• I can't be bothered because there is no point.
• There is no point, and therefore I can't be bothered

quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
The last thing I read was an exhaustive biography of JFK by US broadcast journalist Chris Matthews. It was on my wife's Nook e-book.

My brother-in-law, Patrick J. Larkin is a published author has several e-books out which are suspense thrillers (ala Tom Clancy who he is acquainted with). He's on the west coast and his east coast writing partner at the time was Larry Bond; he is now writing books under his own name.

I am slowly writing a book about fictionalized characters I have met in real life and their adventures. I hope to finish it in time for NaNoWriMo.

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Cool, I've read a couple of Larry Bond thrillers such as Red Phoenix and loved them. I'll look out for your BiL's name and check them out.

How cool is it around here, that I can have a conversation with someone who is related to someone who works with one of my favourite authors? Forget Kevin Bacon, we have 3 degree's of Larry Bond!!
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
My Kindle is the keyboard version from a couple of years ago - I can't abide touchscreens and since I read before bed, I don't like backlit versions since it feels like a computer. I've been gradually working through all the Agatha Christies and since I've been low on funds, free ebooks on various mythologies from around the world. I tend to read non-fiction, even non-fiction about other people's fictions Ebooks are also brilliant for short story collections, and I've been devouring the Sherlock Holmes and HP Lovecraft ones.

Having been reading about the Society of the Holy Cross and also the book of Call The Midwife and its philanthropic High Anglicanism, does anyone have any recommendations for books on 19th Century Anglican priesthood and opposition to High Church movements/the Public Worship Regulation Act? It sounds rather specific but I figure that if anyone knows, a Shipmate will!
 

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Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 
C J Sansom's Winter in Madrid is currently 20p on Kindle. It's excellent.

Thurible
 

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Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Having been reading about the Society of the Holy Cross and also the book of Call The Midwife and its philanthropic High Anglicanism, does anyone have any recommendations for books on 19th Century Anglican priesthood and opposition to High Church movements/the Public Worship Regulation Act? It sounds rather specific but I figure that if anyone knows, a Shipmate will!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
IIRC (it's about 15 years since I read it) Goeffrey Rowell's The Vision Glorious had some good material on philanthropic Anglo-Catholicism - Fr Prynne and the Plymouth cholera epidemic, that sort of thing.

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Very enjoyable.
 

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Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 
The Vision Glorious was one of the most boringly written things I've ever read. Which, given that the content is something I found terribly interesting, was quite an odd mix.

Thurible
 

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Posted by Margaret (# 283) on :
 
No one could accuse The Secret History of the Oxford Movement of being boring, though. I haven't read it for years, but I've still got a copy in my study: exciting revelations about the wickedness of the confessional, and the penances handed out - I seem to remember something about "Englishwomen being beaten on their bare backs"
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I am very much enjoying Mark Forsyth's Horologicon which is all about obscure English words. For instance, if your boss is talking conciliatory nonsense at a meeting, (s)he is a mugwump. Instead of leaving the house with an umbrella in the morning, say you are taking your bumbershoot. The most delightful word in the English language is wamblecropt and I think he might have a point about that (you'll have to read the book to find out what it means) .

He has another one, the Etymologicon, a tour de force of the origins of English words, which I liked as well but I think the Horologicon is even better.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:
I've just finished Beloved
It was also a great one for the book group because, although we all liked it, it also stimulated a discussion that kept going (more-or-less) on topic for the full ninety minutes and then some. I wonder how many others on board have read it, and whether it's worth nominating for the Ship book group.

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I've read it with two different real life book clubs and both times the discussion triggered the biggest near-screaming fights the groups had ever had. I never would have believed that retired literature teachers could get so angry.

 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
I've just finished Mark Forsyth's Etymologicon and enjoyed it very much--it's the sort of book with which you--well, I-- drive everyone mad in the vicinity by readings bits out. I look forward to the Horologicon.

I read Beloved years ago and thought it very good--horrifying, of course.

I have recently discovered Javier Marias and read A Heart So White (in English translation). I thought it was wonderful--I love W.G. Sebald and the two have many affinities, indeed Sebald called Marais a "twin writer." Similar sort of melancholy, thoughtful, meandering meditations--but in Marias there is also an involving story that you want to follow to the end. Like the books of Sebald, this one by Marias (the only one by him I've so far read) has a special atmosphere but one that's hard to describe or define.
 

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Posted by geroff (# 3882) on :
 
Having mis-read the thread title as a town in Berkshire, England wondering how it can be a ticket to anywhere, I have now read the thread!
Having not enjoyed the film/musical version of Les Miserables at the cinema last week I have now embarked on the novel (in English, but not sung). This may take some time because I am a slow reader when I have Other Things To Do, but I didn't think I fancied it as a holiday read.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
does anyone have any recommendations for books on 19th Century Anglican priesthood and opposition to High Church movements/the Public Worship Regulation Act? It sounds rather specific but I figure that if anyone knows, a Shipmate will!

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I can't lay hands on my copy of Judgement on Hatcham so I can't say who was the author (Joyce Coombs?) but it gives a blow by blow of Father Tooth SSC's improvements and the machinations of his opponents (including attending a said Holy Communion, just in order to stand in front of the altar rail to prevent the sole communicant receiving - because the BCP says there must be three communicants.)
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Kipling again-- Kim was praised upthread and now I'm reading Julian Barnes's new essay collection Through the Window and find two essays about Kipling and his relationship with France. Interesting--and another nudge Kim -wards.

But I want to take a minute to praise Julian Barnes. I think Flaubert's Parrot brilliant. Very much admire Arthur and George . And I thought his recent Booker-winner The Sense of an Ending powerful, subtle, moving, economic, and the kind of book that you immediately want to read again once you've finished it for the first time.

I'm having trouble putting my finger on what his particular gift is (remembering the injunction on this thread to say more than just "I loved it" or "I hated it"!). Immense readability and yet layers meaning. Straight-foward style yet underlying complexity.

He's so gifted at non-fiction as well--the recent Nothing to be Frightened Of is a confrontation with the biggest bugaboo of our time, Death--an extended personal and yet wide-ranging essay that is interesting and compelling.

His critical writing--as for example in his essay on Penelope Fitzgerald, which is in Through the Window --often makes you want to go back again and read the book in question with renewed attention and appreciation.
 

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Posted by Dormouse (# 5954) on :
 
Anyone else read Ken Follet's "Fall of Giants"? I read his "Pillars of the Earth" series and enjoyed them, but I have found this book tedious, with certain bits of writing jarringly bad. I usually can't put books down and finish them quickly. I've been reading this since before Christmas.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Hm Dormouse, this isn't a proper answer to your question really--some people rave about Follett, especially Pillars... , but I've heard others say his books are not well written. This has put me off (life is short, etc!) so I've never read him...unlikely to now, as you're adding your voice to theirs!
 

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Posted by nickel (# 8363) on :
 
Science! Tattoos! "Science Ink" by Carl Zimmer. Not only do you see pictures, there's a page or so write up of what & why & how the tattoo relates to a scientific field of study. Physic equations. Molecules. Darwin's finches. Swamps. Planets. My favorite was probably the most simple: a stack of four lines, three lines, and three lines. It harks back to tattoos found on the "ice man" frozen in the Alps 5000 years ago.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Sounds interesting, nickel. I enjoyed a fascinating book about tattoos called...hmmmm...am not where my books are.

Ok, found it on Amazon: Written on the Body :the tattoo in European and American History by Jane Caplan. (The subtitle and the author's name are important to distinguish it from the novel of the same basic title by the brilliant Jeannette Winterson).

I haven't read others to compare, but it seemed to me an excellent survey of tattooing through history. Convincingly argues that slaves in ancient Rome were often marked with a tattoo, and that the ancient Britons tattooed themselves.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've nearly finished "The Disorderly Knights" by Dorothy Dunnett - the third Lymond book. I've found it less gripping than the first two, somehow, although that might be more to do with my own frame of mind. There are some things I've found disturbing too.
 

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Posted by The Intrepid Mrs S (# 17002) on :
 
Not actually reading, but listening to an audiobook - 'Murder in Peking' by Paul French. It's quite recent, I think, but an account of the murder of a young girl in 1930's Peking. She's the daughter of an ex-British Consul, and French's treatment of the twin dichotomies of European and Chinese Peking on the one hand, and the schoolgirl Pamela/young woman Pamela on the other, is really fascinating.

As an aside, I was deeply moved by the parallels between her situation and that of other young girls 'led astray' looking for love and fun, in much more recent times. I really wanted to hug my own daughter out of sheer gratitude for her survival of adolescence!

And having it as an audiobook means you can't skip ahead - you have to listen to it at the pace the author wrote it.

Mrs. S, absolutely riveted by it.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Just finished two books:

"I Leap Over the Wall" by Monica Baldwin. A fascinating account of someone who entered an enclosed order of nuns in 1914 and came out in 1941, to find the world much changed. Her reflections, and her difficulties in adjusting to the new world in which she finds herself, make this a fascinating read. What comes across is that the convent left its mark; she might have left it physically but her outlook is still very much the "ex-nun" rather than the spinster relative.

The other book is "The Coram Boy" which was on a book swop table. Set in the 17th century, it tells the tale of two boys, one African, one the illegitimate son of a gentleman, who grow up together in an orphanage. It is a children's book so it turns out all right in the end, but there are some thinly veiled references to some of the altogether less savoury practices of the time, and the two boys narrowly escape slavery. It's an odd read, less predictable than you think, and at times a bit uncomfortable. Not one to keep, but one to return to the book swop table.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
On a related theme to the Monica Baldwin book, Karen Armstrong has written two books about her life in a convent and then outside. The first one, "Through the Narrow Gate," was written soon after she came out and later she says it was written too soon and without enough distance and was inaccurate and unbalanced in many ways.

The later book, The Spiral Staircase, is one of the best memoirs I've ever read. It describes her youth, her attraction to the convent while still a girl, her life there--pre-Vacitan II-style novitiate, severe and aimed at crushing the spirit out of the young women. damage mental and physical ensued....she left, and then had to readjust to the world. But as she herself says, her life as a writer is very cloistered and dedicated, in a way like being a nun still. (Except for her public speaking engagements--I've heard her speak live and she is an absolutely riveting speaker. )

An amazing writer as well--"Spiral Staircase" has stayed with me, its tone, its depiction of the strong desire for a path, a vocation, the way it illuminates and brings alive the contours of her mental and spiritual quest, the way a poem by T S Eliot clarified so much for her--written n a way that's restrained and yet all the more profoundly moving.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Just finished "I Shall Wear Midnight", the last of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching quartet. (It's a branch of the Disc World series.)

Tiffany is a girl in a very rural region called "The Chalk". Throughout the quartet, she grows into being a witch and into being herself.

The Tiffany books are much quieter than most of the rest of the DW series, IMHO. There's definitely humor and wit and puns, but not usually in a raucous way. (Ok, except when the Nac Mac Feegle are around... ) The books are deeply rooted in the land.

I've read (and reread) the previous Tiffany books ("Wee Free Men", "A Hat Full Of Sky", "Wintersmith", and "I Shall Wear Midnight"). I strongly recommend reading them in order, so you can pick up on nuances.

The whole quartet is awesome. But the last one is...wow...just wow.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dormouse:
Anyone else read Ken Follet's "Fall of Giants"? I read his "Pillars of the Earth" series and enjoyed them, but I have found this book tedious, with certain bits of writing jarringly bad. I usually can't put books down and finish them quickly. I've been reading this since before Christmas.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've nearly finished "The Disorderly Knights" by Dorothy Dunnett - the third Lymond book. I've found it less gripping than the first two, somehow, although that might be more to do with my own frame of mind. There are some things I've found disturbing too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Smudgie:
Diana Gabaldon is one of my favourite writers but I'd say she's more of a writer for women rather than men if you get my.. er.. drift. The writing is from a female viewpoint and the male protagonists are... er... good food for the imaginations?

If his English is good, how about John Grisham, though that's not historical fiction. Ellis Peters is good, and I have just finished Martyr by Rory Clements which I could hardly put down. Very readable, slightly gritty, three dimensional characters, and a touch of humour - with Shakespeare's elder brother John as the main protagonist.

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Thanks Smudgie, that's really helpful. Historical fiction isn't my thing at all so I was a bit clueless. Martyr looks promising, and the reviews there also led me to CJ Samson, those books also look like they'd fit the bill. I think that's one lot of presents sorted for the next few Christmases and birthdays (we've been getting him CDs for the last several years so this will make a nice change!).
 

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Posted by Boadicea Trott (# 9621) on :
 
Chive,

I am in the process of reading Bad Pharma and it is bringing me out in a cold sweat of fear. I knew the pharmaceutical industry was on occasion economical with the truth, but Bad Pharma is terrifying.

Have you read "The Patient Paradox: Why Sexed Up Medicine is Bad for Your Health " by Dr Margaret McCartney ? She looks at the whole of medicine, not just medications. I've just finished it and it was a fine -if jaw-dropping - read.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
Oh yes, I'd second the "Patient Paradox" recommendation, which I read last year (I think at the end of the previous book thread ). It's brilliant, and very readable. I think I said then anyone who likes Ben Goldacre would like Margaret McCartney - it's very "Bad Science"-ey. She often appears on Radio 4's "Inside Health" (she's a Glasgow GP).
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Scots lass:

quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've nearly finished "The Disorderly Knights" by Dorothy Dunnett - the third Lymond book. I've found it less gripping than the first two, somehow, although that might be more to do with my own frame of mind. There are some things I've found disturbing too.

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Are you not finding yourself saying "Where is Pawn in Frankincense, I must start it immediately!"? Certainly that's my reaction to the end of The Disorderly Knights, I immediately wanted to know what happens next!
There are some disturbing aspects to it though, mainly around Joleta. Although Pawn in Frankincense is probably more so, but you can let us know what you think when you've read it!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've got Pawn in Frankincense lined up, but I'm almost scared to start it, because so many people have said they hate it or that it's heart breaking.

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quote:

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Originally posted by chive:
I've just read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre and it terrified me. It's about how drug companies, regulators, medical journals and doctors all conspire (knowingly or unknowingly) in a distortion on drug trials etc. Some of the statistics and stories were absolutely shocking. It made me wonder if we really do know the efficacy and safety of the drugs we take every day.

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I finished that recently, and it's the little details that really hit me. I knew the broad brushstrokes of it, but seeing it all set out point by point was quite shocking. But don't get terrified, get campaigning. And remember that the solution (or part of it) is more and better research, not the rejection of it.

I'm now onto The Geek Manifesto by Mark Henderson, which is another very good, important and timely book on why science matters and why we should be making sure it plays a proper role in politics and public life in general.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
Bump.
 

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Posted by Freelance Monotheist (# 8990) on :
 
I've just started G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown Mysteries, as they were going cheap on the Amazon Kindle site. I'd seen the TV version some time ago, but the books are so much better. I get the pleasure of detective fiction with the feeling that I'm reading something high-brow/intellectually stimulating! I'm also reading a really fascinating Young Adult novel set in a dystopian society where the US is split into The Republic, that's warring with The Colonies. Basically a teen girl and boy from different social classes end up on the run together, after discovering that The Republic isn't as benevolent/truthful as it seems. The first book is called Prodigy, and I finished it in a few hours, so now I'm onto the sequel, called Legend.
I've also just finished the latest Oscar Wilde Mystery by Gyles Brandreth, and this one takes place when Oscar Wilde is in prison, towards the end of his life, and a series of murders of chaplains & prison warders takes place in the various prisons he's transferred to (Pentonville, Wandsworth & Reading). There's a lot of detail about the prison regime which is pretty horrific, but most of the books uncover the darker aspects of life at the time. Brandreth recounts Oscar's encounters with various well-known literary/artistic/scientific figures of the time, which is really interesting too, and I get the feeling the crimes are based on events that actually happened. Also, a lot of Wilde's bon mots crop up in various situations, so it's fun trying to guess when they'll crop up/which play/story of his they're from.
 

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Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 
Ooh, ooh, more Oscar - I greatly enjoyed Brandreth's Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders(Oscar and Conan Doyle: how ) so you've prompted me to check on the others...

I recently started on Matthew Lewis' The Monk, written in 1796 and which fairly races along and is very modern in style. The blurb says it 'still terrifies, over 200 years after it was written'... I can't wait

I'm also working my way through the Merrily Watkins series, by Phil Rickman, which I got into courtesy of a thread here on the Ship - for which, many thanks!
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I'm giving up buying books for Lent and you people are just big nasty temptors.

This year I have decided that I'm going to work my way through the complete work of Trollope. Last year I managed the entirety of Tolstoy and loved them. I'm not finding Trollope so much fun though
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I am reading ian Kelly's Mr Foote's Other Leg - a biography of the actor, writer, wit and amputee, Samuel Foote.

We're just off to a rip-roaring start in which he gets out of debtors' prison by writing up the ongoing story of the trial and execution of one of his uncles for the murder of another.

Take that, Hello magazine.

[ 15. February 2013, 16:55: Message edited by: Firenze ]
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
I recently finished re-reading Murder at St. Adelaide's.

It's about a private detective who is asked to come back to the convent school she attended years before. The mother superior has a job for her.

The book has an interesting plot and well-developed characters. What interested me most, however, was the background. The author obviously attended such a school, and she remembers details of her schooldays. Things have changed greatly since Vatican II. The school has closed, and there are no novices at the convent. I enjoyed getting a picture of a way of life with which I was completely unfamiliar.

Moo
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Just finished Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I certainly will. It's a wonderful novel, with a structure that could easily have come off as annoying postmodern pretension, but doesn't, mostly because Mitchell never forgets that he's telling a story about people--and he's really good at that. There are six story lines, different genres set in different times and places, with only minimal overlap of plot and character, but thematically it all comes together in the end.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I'm re-reading John Lahr's biography of Joe Orton - Prick Up Your Ears which is at times hilarious - weird to think he would have been 80 on New Year's Day just gone had he lived!
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I'm reading Winterkartoffelknödel by Rita Falk. The title means "Winter Potato Dumplings" and food features fairly heavily in it. It's billed as a provincial crime story and is the first in a series starring a Munich policeman who gets sent packing back to his rural Bavarian village after a break down of sorts. At the moment I'm 3/4 in and it's still not clear whether or not any crime has actually been committed, or whether it's all in his head.

Very funny in a dark kind of way.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
I loved Mitchell's Cloud Atlas long before it was a film. I think Mitchell is brilliant. His much more straight-foward books Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet are wonderful too--the former a coming-of-age story with an excellent evocation of childhood and adolescence, and the latter a historical novel.

I haven't seen the film--recently read an interesting review of it (possibly by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker?) where he compares it to the book, especially the structure, multiple story-lines etc, and said the film didn't work as well--yes, have just checked, he says the story-lines are too tangled in the film and you have no time to settle into any one of them. But still, sounds worth seeing, and many reviewers have raved.

Interestingly, another writer came out with a novel also called
Cloud Atlas at around the same time. Unfortunate co-incidence for both authors, as when both David Lodge and Colm Toibin simultaneously brought out novels based on the life of Henry James.

I've just finished Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, about a poet who is stuck in writing an introduction for his poetry anthology, whose girlfriend has just left him, and whose life is falling apart in many ways; in which he expounds his ideas and thoughts about poetry--and life-- in a way that's engaging and readable and original--as you'd expect from the brilliant Baker. I enjoyed it very much.
 

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Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I've never read Follett, but I discovered that my brother-in-law (who is German) is a big fan. His English is practically perfect (of course!), but I wonder if reading something not in your mother tongue helps to overlook the worst of the bad writing? I don't know.

I was looking for something similar to get him for presents and now that I know he's into historical fiction like that was wondering about trying Diana Gabaldon? Has anyone read any of her stuff? Would you recommend it? There were so many books of hers I didn't know where to start so got him a comedy instead for Christmas, but I got the impression from the cover art that her stuff is along similar sorts of lines to Follett.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I was looking for something similar to get him for presents and now that I know he's into historical fiction like that was wondering about trying Diana Gabaldon? Has anyone read any of her stuff? Would you recommend it?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by lily pad:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
[...]
I was looking for something similar to get him for presents [...]

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[...] What about sending him a book by James Michener? [...]

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
In every case, I've found the books far more enjoyable and absorbing than when I read them in my late teens or 20s. Am I getting to be a smarter, more thoughtful reader in middle age, I wonder?

---

A retired English professor taught a course on Shakespeare for the retirees at our Senior Center. She was in her late twenties when she wrote her dissertation, and she said she was not mature enough at the time to understand everything Shakespeare was saying.

Moo
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I agree; I think life experience adds a lot to your appreciation of any literature -- which makes it ironic that the only exposure many people get to great works of literature is at an age when they're least prepared to appreciate them (and forced to read them under duress, which is another whole problem).
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
On the other hand, there is the phenomenon that we discussed on these boards a long time ago, which is that you tend to meet less life-changing books as you get older. I enjoy the greater depth - there's so many books I want to re-read now - but I do miss the Wow! life-changing experience coming along every coupla years (or even months in some cases).
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've found a whole new genre to play in.
I'd always avoided graphic novels - not because I thought they were trashy, or anything like that, but because I didn't really know where to start with them. I didn't really want to read "superhero fights crime" stories and though I was aware that wasn't all there was to graphic novels, I didn't know where to find them.
I find now that Neil Gaiman is my 'gateway drug' to the genre, as I have just been reading Marvel 1602, which takes Marvel superheroes and places them in the year 1602 - old Queen Elizabeth is dying, King James of Scotland hates witches (so that's the X-men in trouble for a start) and there's a fascinating plot involving the Four of the Fantastick, a blind Irish minstrel, Count Otto von Doom, the Spanish Inquisition, and a young girl from Roanoake colony who's come to see the Queen with her Native American protector. Oh, and Sir Nicholas Fury is the Queen's spymaster, Dr Strange is her physician, and Fury's assistant is a young lad called Peter who has a fascination with spiders!
I found that I didn't need to know any previous history of the superheroes involved, and I already had some familiarity with them from movies.
I understand the sequels are not as good as the first story, being by other authors, but I'm going to be tracking them down anyway - and I'll be browsing the shelves of Forbidden Planet next time I'm in Cardiff, too!
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Oh, I love me a graphic novel. I learnt to read on Marvel comics (amongst other things), so never had the anti-superhero thing some others do, but completely get how all those decades of slightly silly backstory can seem weird to purely prose readers. The best comics add something in a single panel that would take a whole chapter to explain in words.

Eigon, if you like the historical detail in the Neil Gaiman stuff, try Alan Moore's 'From Hell'. You have to have a fairly strong stomach, and try to forget the dodgy Johnny Depp film, but the depth of detail is incredible. There's a whole subplot about Nicholas Hawksmoor, the architect, and his interest in the occult. Also the paintings of Walter Sickert and what it was like to have Queen Victoria as your mum.

[ 20. February 2013, 21:43: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
Golly, that sounds good! Thanks, ArachnidinElmet!
I do have an interest in Hawksmoor, having read the novel by Peter Ackroyd, and I've read a book about Sickert that suggested he was Jack the Ripper. And I haven't seen the Johnny Depp film. I've also heard good things about Alan Moore (and some weird things!).
While I'm looking out for that one, I have Grandville, the first Inspector Le Brock story, and The Longbow Hunters, starring Green Arrow, looking down at me from the "to-be-read" shelf.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
I tried to read Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor, but got stuck half way through. This seems a good time to have another go.

Grandville is an excellent book; I bought it off the back of seeing Bryan Talbot at the Thought Bubble conference in Leeds. Inspector Brock is definitely the most charismatic (and weirdly attractive) lead character I've come across to have the head of a badger.

[ 21. February 2013, 23:40: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:
I tried to read Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor, but got stuck half way through. This seems a good time to have another go.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Percy B:

The news of her unprovoked comments about the Duchess of Cambridge put me off the author a little, but I will try not to let it bother me!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Percy B:
No I haven't read the lecture - just the press report. I am pleased you say it's not what it seems.

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quote:

---

'The point... is to show those on the fence that belief need not mean the abandonment of intelligence, wit, emotional honesty. In this, Francis Spufford succeeds to an exceptional degree.' Theo Hobson, Times Literary Supplement

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quote:

---

Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I have finally slogged my way to the end of Les Misérables. I honestly think the last volume is the weakest of the five, which is a bit irritating after you've already waded your way through a thousand-odd pages. Also of all the wordy digressions that go on for chapters, I have to admit that I find the one about the sewer one of the less inspiring ones.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
... but I certainly share your thoughts about the sewer digression. Also, not knowing much of these matters (or wanting to) I wondered, Is Hugo correct about this? Would human sewage make wonderful fertilizer if only we channeled it properly? Surely if this were true, in 150 years since he wrote that someone would be actually doing it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
... but I certainly share your thoughts about the sewer digression. Also, not knowing much of these matters (or wanting to) I wondered, Is Hugo correct about this? Would human sewage make wonderful fertilizer if only we channeled it properly? Surely if this were true, in 150 years since he wrote that someone would be actually doing it?

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A number of people are.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Just finished Jeanette Winterson's memoir Why be happy when you can be normal?

The title is what her adopted mother said to her when she said she was a lesbian and wanted to be normal.

Perhaps it's better to have read Oranges are not the only fruit first.

Despite her mother's Elim church trying to exorcise her of her lesbianism and locking her up for three days with no food, she is quite without self-pity and appreciative of the meaning and support that church could give in the context of working class Accrington in the 60s.

I found it very moving and hopeful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Just finished Jeanette Winterson's memoir Why be happy when you can be normal?

The title is what her adopted mother said to her when she said she was a lesbian and wanted to be normal.

Perhaps it's better to have read Oranges are not the only fruit first.

Despite her mother's Elim church trying to exorcise her of her lesbianism and locking her up for three days with no food, she is quite without self-pity and appreciative of the meaning and support that church could give in the context of working class Accrington in the 60s.

I found it very moving and hopeful.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Freelance Monotheist:
About a third of the way through Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Really quirky and odd set-up for a story, but so intriguing.
I couldn't get on with her novels about the policeman at all, but this seems like a return to form. I love Human Croquet though and still consider that to be her best work and one of my favourite books!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Just finished Jeanette Winterson's memoir Why be happy when you can be normal?

The title is what her adopted mother said to her when she said she was a lesbian and wanted to be normal.

---

quote:

---

I understood twice born was not just about being alive, but about choosing life.

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quote:

---

Mrs Smalley opened her mouth underwater to praise the Lord and lost her top teeth. ....I saw a lot of working-class men and women — myself included — living a deeper, more thoughtful life than would have been possible without the Church. These ' were not educated people; Bible study worked their brains. They met after work in noisy discussion. The sense of belonging to something big, something important, lent unity and meaning

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quote:

---

He shoved me onto my knees to repent those :words and I felt the bulge in his suit trousers. He tried to kiss me. He said it would be better than with a girl

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Perhaps it's better to have read Oranges are not the only fruit first.

---

There's a good film of that. Saw it on the PBS network, years ago.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
"Charmed Life", by Diana Wynne Jones. This is the first book I've read by this author, after several people have recommended her.

It was very readable, lively and interesting, and the story was original. I don't know whether I'd want to read it again, though. It was clearly aimed at children and isn't as grown-up in tone as some other children's books I've read. But it would be a great book to read to a child. I also found Chrestomanci irritating - too much of a fop without a great deal of character.

But good fun overall, and I wouldn't mind reading another.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've just been reading Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman, a graphic novel (the pictures are by Dave McKean).
I sort of remember reading it when it first came out, in 1988, though at the time I had no idea who Neil Gaiman was - I was just looking for a comic that was a bit different from Superman and other caped crusaders.
There was an awful lot that I missed first time round that I've picked up this time. For instance, I know more or less who Swamp Thing is now, and I have at least heard of the Arkham Asylum (but who was the little man in the big hat, I wonder?). And it's a brave storyteller who kills off the main character right at the beginning of the story.
It does make me happy though, to think that somewhere in the Amazon rainforest there are purple flower ladies being worshipped by Amazonian Indians.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Ooh, Black Orchid. I've got a copy of the first edition of the comic signed by Dave McKean. Worth nothing on Antiques Roadshow, but it makes me happy.

I read the first couple of stories in an anthology series (the name escapes me, Shockwave maybe?)which also included Grant Morrison's Animal Man and a Hellblazer story. It came out in the early 90s and specified 'for more mature readers' on the front due to the sex and drug use and violence. As a teenage reader of superhero comics it was catnip.

[ 31. March 2013, 22:14: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I just finished Caesarion by Dutch writer Tommy Wieringa, but I have to say I wasn't much impressed by it. Especially because of the clichés: a boy discovers that his mother was in the porn industry, he looks in the jungle for his father who abandoned him when he was young, he becomes a gigolo for rich elderly ladies, his mother dies of cancer because she only resorts to alternative treatments... It was a bit too much for me.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Someone lent me "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones. What a delightful read - unpredictable, interesting and amusing. I've been lent the DVD as well, I don't much like animations but the story has been so enjoyable that I'll watch it and see how it goes.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
Someone lent me "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones. What a delightful read - unpredictable, interesting and amusing. I've been lent the DVD as well, I don't much like animations but the story has been so enjoyable that I'll watch it and see how it goes.

---

Except it's more manga, and can't capture the play on Howl/Hywel.
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
I have recently read two novels by Peter Ackroyd, both about murders in London: Hawksmoor and Dan Leo & the Limehouse Golem .

They are both clever, post-modernist works but at an ordinary, story level, you can also smell the hovels in which people lived - and died.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
They're both stoating reads, though of the two, I thought Hawksmoor the more compelling. There's something about the 17thC and the blend of surviving ancientry and nascent modernity (Newton was an astronomer and an astrologer) which makes it such a good locale for a certain sort of novel ( An Instance of the Fingerpost is another case in point).
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
Does that mean I ought to forgive Ackroyd for his utterly inaccurate portrayal of the Public Record Office in The House of Doctor Dee and read one of them? I didn't much like it anyway to be honest, are the others better?
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Inaccuracies about the PRO are the least of it; he was totally off boil in Dr Dee IMO.
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
I'm sure that was the least of it but it was what stuck in my memory! (Over-attached to my profession, perhaps...)

I'll try and track down the ones mentioned up-thread and give him another try.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
Because it was free on Kindle... I just finished Apparent Danger, the true story of the fundamentalist pastor of the first megachurch in the USA, who was put on trial in Texas in the 1920s for shooting a man to death.

It's a phenomenal courtroom drama that I was completely gripped by. (I was a bit bummed at how the trial turned out, but that's history's fault, not the author's )
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
If the Dr. Dee mentioned above is the one from Eliz. I's time, try the novel "The Fyre Mirror". I don't remember the author's name, but she's written a series of Elizabethan mysteries--with the queen as sleuth!


 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I'm in the middle of Pratchett's Snuff - was really enjoying it, but kind of stalled. It's a big hardback though and doing lots of travelling next week so will need lots of littler books to take with me. Choices, choices...
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Just finished Guy Gavriel Kay's latest, River of Stars. Wonderful, wonderful fantasy. Actually I guess that depends on what you read fantasy fore --it's barely fantasy at all; the fantastic elements are very minimal. It's more like parallel-world history -- his Kitai is basically medieval China, but making it fantasy leaves him free to play fast and loose with history. And I love that it's set in something other than a European society, since most fantasy worlds are so Eurocentric. Very rich, very detailed, very real characters, as always with Kay. And then I had a Twitter conversation with him (fangirl squeeeee!!! GGK answered me on Twitter) about how unfair it is (for both author and reader, in a way) that an author works for 3-4 years on a book that I can finish reading in 3-4 days ... and then long for more ....
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Just finished The Black Count by Tom Reiss, a biography of the father of Alexandre Dumas pere (also named Alex Dumas). One of the best biographies I've read in a long time--he was clearly the inspiration for many of his son's protagonists (a great soldier, a principled republican, a thoroughly decent human being, and an unjustly persecuted prisoner). If you didn't hate Napoleon already, this book should do the trick.
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
Just finished C.J. Sansom's Dissolution which has been on my radar for years, since reading shipmates' recommendations. Over the last year or so, I've read a couple of others in the Shardlake series, and Winter in Madrid - all good - but didn't bother too much to track down Dissolution because I'd heard it done as a radio play and wasn't that impressed. Well, that was my loss - I thought it was very, very good and stands comparison with The Name of the Rose IMHO.

I must say, Sansom's view of Cromwell accords more with what I used to think before I read Wolf Hall. I rather fell in love with Mantel's Cromwell. I've got Bring up the bodies sitting on my shelf - I'm saving it for the summer, as I hope I'll then have more chance to savour it; Sansom has whetted my appetite.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I'm distantly related to Cromwell: maybe he wasn't all bad....
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
I just want to say what a smug feeling it gives one to read (and say positive things on the internet about) a book (The Black Count) only days before it wins a Pulitzer Prize.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
At my father-in-law's house yesterday, we heard Samuel L. Jackson read a charming little book aloud on his wife's Kindle: it was called "Get the Fuck to Sleep!" Not appropriate for schools or houses with pre-adolescent children!!! Very funny!
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
I've just finished The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory. It's written through the eyes of Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker* and wife of Richard III, which puts quite an interesting light on the major players in the Wars of the Roses, and portrays Warwick himself as a bit of a rat who'll sacrifice anything, especially his two daughters, to fulfil his own ambitions.

* As it says in 1066 and All That, if you wanted to be King in the fifteenth century, you had to apply to him.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
Sounds interesting, Piglet. I read Jean Plaidy's (I think!) version of Anne Neville years ago. I'll have to try and track this one down.

Lymond fiends may be interested to know that I'm now onto The Ringed Castle. Enjoying it a lot so far as the political bits are more up my street this time.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Speaking of Philippa Gregory, I've just finished re-reading The Virgin's Lover. She does seem to be the modern successor to Jean Plaidy. I like her earlier novels - the more recent ones seem to be written in present tense which I don't care much for. Anyway, this is the story of the young Queen Elizabeth I coming to the throne and her romance with Sir Robert Dudley (the death of his wife Amy Robsart remains an open verdict to this day).

Interestingly, it portrays Elizabeth as a nervous, insecure young girl who by the end of the novel is almost completely under the spell of Robert Dudley. You start out liking him, but by the end of the book it's pretty clear how ambitious he is (or how the author has portrayed him, he expect to be king and thinks it's where he should be) and how dominant a personality he is, and the interplay between characters, with his sometimes ally and sometimes political opponent Lord Cecil, is fascinating.

It was a good read, though I could have done with fewer references to Elizabeth's nails and cuticles, which always seem to suffer at moments of crisis, or look particularly good when she's happy.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I've just finished "A Childhood in Scotland" by Christian Miller. It's the autobiography, up to age ten, of Christian Grant, born into a wealthy family in 1921. She recounts, in crisply photographic detail, the surroundings in which she grew up, her home, the nearby village, the local kirk, the clothes they wore, the books they read and the food they ate.

In the midst of plenty, her life was solitary with her four oldest siblings mostly at boarding school. Her parents, she presumed, loved her, but "in spite of their undoubted concern, three of the twelve indoor servants ... were employed for the sole purpose of making sure that my parents had as little as possible to do with us."

I was enthralled by this book, both by the minutiae of her life and the emotional vacuum at the centre of her family. Only 97 pages long, I was disappointed to reach the end.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I seem to remember Elizabeth's bottom lip featuring a lot in that book too, Ariel - she bit it constantly when she was anxious.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I have such an ambivalent relationship with Philippa Gregory -- some of her books I love, and some really bore me. I very much disliked that one with the young Elizabeth that made her seem such a weak and passive character. In her recent series about the Wars of the Roses, the one I really loved was The Red Queen, where she pulled off the difficult trick of taking a really unlikeable character, Margaret Beaufort, and making her a compelling central character without in any way whitewashing her or making her any nicer. The others have been all right but not nearly as good as that one, in my opinion.
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
... written in present tense which I don't care much for ...

---

Preach it, sister!

When I started reading The Kingmaker's Daughter that was exactly what I thought. I'm glad I persisted with it though - it was a good read, better IMHO than The Virgin's Lover.

It's also part of the reason I can't be doing with Hilary Mantel. I know that's treason, verging on heresy these days, but I don't care. I wonder why authors do that? I mean, it's patently obvious that the events they're describing happened in the past, so what's wrong with the past tense?


 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Philippa Gregory's later novels come across to me more like a kind of self-indulgent vicarious experience, where she describes events as they unfold, present tense, first person. OK now and again but it's a shame she's switched to using that style for all her novels. Also, it limits an author to pretty much only being able to describe events they witness.

Having said that, I went round the bookshops last night to see if I could get any more of her novels that weren't 1 sg. pres. and found two, so I'll be reading "The Changeling" which is aimed at young adults and "The Virgin Earth" which is about John Tradescant and his adventures in the New World. I've read that before, and it was interesting.

I couldn't get on with Hilary Mantel at all, by the way - someone lent me "Beyond Black" a few years ago and I finished it more out of a sense of obligation to the lender than anything.
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
I love Mantel, but don't really care for Beyond Black. I've determined, one day, to give it a second chance, but it's my least favourite. I started with A Place of Greater Safety - it took a lot of getting into, but in the end I loved it. I know what piglet means about the style, though. I don't normally care for it - and it seems most peopl I know find it maddening - the use of ambivalent pronouns even more so, but Mantel is just different (and brilliant), IMHO. I recommend Fludd for beginners.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
I've decided I really ought to plough through the works of Walter Scott so its round the second-hand shops to find a few. I read Waverley years ago (wet holiday in remote cottage, limited books...)
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I've just finished reading 'Under the Same Stars' by Tim Lott. It's a story of two brothers meeting up after a long gap to embark on a journey to see their father one last time before he dies. The journey opens up old memories of how the brothers did/did not get on, their troubled relationship with their father, their differing attitudes to religion, their relationships with their partners, and the cultural differences between America (where one brother now lives) and England (where the other brother remained living).

Interesting quotes, to give you a taster for the rest of the book, include:

'I'm not a Christian like you. I don't have to go around forgiving every fucking prick in the Universe'.

'We don't know about outcomes. It isn't given to us. You just do what you must, or what you're brave enough to do'.

'The headlines made him feel oddly cheerful. It was the comforting predictability of the English mind, he supposed - the habit of expecting the worst and being vaguely reassured when it transpired'.
 

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Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
I've just read a really charming little book.
Lost Cat appealed to me because I'm a cat lover, a lover of San Francisco, of illustrated books, and a bit of a geek.

The author, Caroline Paul, is laid up with a broken ankle after crashing her ultralight plane. While she's still in bed, one of her cats disappears. He's gone for five weeks before he saunters back into the apartment. He's perfectly healthy, has gained a little weight, and isn't interested in eating at home.

The author and her girlfriend (who's also the illustrator) do what any young hip SF geeks would do. They equip the cat's collar with a GPS device and set about finding where Tibby (the cat's name is Tibia) has been hanging out.

The subtitle is "A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology". If any of those appeal to you you'll enjoy the book.
 

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Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
I like to read novels set in places I would like to visit or have visited.

I enjoyed recently Henning Mankel's 'the dogs of Riga' for example, though its set in a soviet world.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Just devoured (heh heh) Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth in a day and a half ... loved the voice of the main character and the pages kept turning quickly as I wanted to find out what happened to her. Really enjoyable book.

In my project to read or re-read classics I'd either missed or hadn't appreciated the first time around, I've gotten to Hemingway and am hating him much less than I remember doing in my 20s.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
This book is a hilarious read and also makes a great gift. I loved the fact that the 'cat' writing it has attitude, it is definitely not a fluffy bunny (or pussy) book. I read the whole book in half an hour, but would recommend that what you actually do is read the poems slowly and savour the humour, perhaps two or three poems at a time rather than continuously all at once.

If you are wondering what to send your relatives who are always posting cute kitty pics on Facebook, then perhaps this is the correct antidote!
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
I have just finished the first book of the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King. My BFF suggested that I would probably enjoy the stories since I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, and one of the locations is on the Downs, which is a favorite place of ours! It helps to have an idea of the location when reading, IMHO.

Forgive me if we've already discussed this series. There have been so many great suggestions!

Anyway, Sherlock Holmes is keeping bees after retiring (at a very young age!) He has met young Mary Russell who at 15 is someone Holmes has discovered can think! He takes her as his apprentice, and has some interesting adventures in the first book ("The Beekeeper's Apprentice".) My friend was right, I did enjoy it, so have gotten the next two books from the library and will start "A Monstrous Regiment of Women" this evening.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Just finished "The Changeling" by Philippa Gregory. As she says, it's her first fictional historical novel, rather than a fictionalised biography, and aimed at young adults. It came across pretty much like her own version of "The Name of the Rose" with a young monastic investigator sent by the Inquisition to root out wrongdoing and correct error where he came across it. Which is quite a good premise for a leading character as it gives lots of scope.

Anyway, off he goes to a nunnery and has a few adventures as he investigates the sudden suspicious death of a nun, other weird happenings and the disclosure that the convent has been poisoned by belladonna, and acquires some motley companions on route which sets the scene for sequels.

It was an interesting read but not one that I ever really got into. It felt altogether too much like some very modern characters having been transplanted into a historical setting, and didn't really convince as a historical novel. Also, the "discussion questions" at the end put me off - this is the second children's book I've seen that has these, and to me it gives the book an "educational" feeling which feels inappropriate for what is essentially light entertainment.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
A lot of books nowadays include questions at the end because of the popularity of book clubs. Sometimes the publisher asks the author to make up a list of questions for possible book-club discussion.
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
My copy of The Kingmaker's Daughter had a book-club question section; I thought exactly what Ariel thought and ignored it.

At the Cathedral sale yesterday D. bought a slim volume called Romantic Royal Marriages, despite the fact that it's by Barbara Cartland. It purports to tell the stories of royals who married for love, rather than for political reasons, but it's so sugary it would rot your teeth (and had one or two factual errors and omissions).

Published in 1981, the last page bears a photograph of the Prince and Princess of Wales (whose qualifications for entry in the book were dubious, to say the least) with the caption "and they lived happily ever after".

Oh dear ...

[ 06. May 2013, 03:03: Message edited by: piglet ]
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
My Kindle has died Would like recommendations for gothic horror, Victorian fantasy/sci-fi, Lovecraftian horror/fantasy. Thanks!
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
Re the discussion questions in the back of the book: I've had to provide them for each of my last couple of books, and I have attended book club meetings where they used the discussion questions as well as many where they didn't. Discussion is invariably more interesting if they ignore the questions. I suppose it gives people a place to start, but I don't find it produces nearly as interesting discussion as people just giving their impressions of the book.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
My Kindle has died Would like recommendations for gothic horror, Victorian fantasy/sci-fi, Lovecraftian horror/fantasy. Thanks!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I just glanced at this thread title again and the first thing I thought is how can the city of Reading be a discount ticket to anywhere?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I just glanced at this thread title again and the first thing I thought is how can the city of Reading be a discount ticket to anywhere?

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An association with the town* in Berkshire has already occurred to several other Shipmates.

*not city

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quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:


Lymond fiends may be interested to know that I'm now onto The Ringed Castle. Enjoying it a lot so far as the political bits are more up my street this time.

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My favourite of them! Perhaps because I've always been fascinated by Russia since I was a melodramatic teenager. But also, I think, because his group of friends/subordinates really take shape and a life of their own
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Haydee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:


Lymond fiends may be interested to know that I'm now onto The Ringed Castle. Enjoying it a lot so far as the political bits are more up my street this time.

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My favourite of them! Perhaps because I've always been fascinated by Russia since I was a melodramatic teenager. But also, I think, because his group of friends/subordinates really take shape and a life of their own

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Anyone else read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life? I found it completely riveting and I'm dying to talk about it with someone ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Anyone else read Kate Atkinson's Life After Life? I found it completely riveting and I'm dying to talk about it with someone ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've just finished it. I liked it a lot although I found Lymond at his most unlikable, if that makes any sense.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Thanks for sharing the link to your review (I haven't posted mine yet). I put my lengthy comments over on your blog so as not to spoil it too much here for anyone who hasn't read it. I think I had some of the same doubts you did about the ending, but they bothered me less because overall I found the book more engrossing than you did, probably because the concept is one that's always fascinated me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've just finished it. I liked it a lot although I found Lymond at his most unlikable, if that makes any sense.

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I'd say the first Lymond novel was the one where I found him quite irritating. A pretentious quote for every occasion. He'd calmed down a bit by the Russian one. My favourite character is probably still Jerott Blyth, though.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tree Bee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Thanks for sharing the link to your review (I haven't posted mine yet). I put my lengthy comments over on your blog so as not to spoil it too much here for anyone who hasn't read it. I think I had some of the same doubts you did about the ending, but they bothered me less because overall I found the book more engrossing than you did, probably because the concept is one that's always fascinated me.

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I agree with you Trudy, I loved Life After Life too. As for Ursula's mother, there was a hint right at the end that she was experiencing repeated chances of life too as she had scissors to hand to cut the cord. And I guess if you're caught in a repeated loop suicide might seem attractive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:

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Originally posted by Tree Bee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Thanks for sharing the link to your review (I haven't posted mine yet). I put my lengthy comments over on your blog so as not to spoil it too much here for anyone who hasn't read it. I think I had some of the same doubts you did about the ending, but they bothered me less because overall I found the book more engrossing than you did, probably because the concept is one that's always fascinated me.

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I agree with you Trudy, I loved Life After Life too. As for Ursula's mother, there was a hint right at the end that she was experiencing repeated chances of life too as she had scissors to hand to cut the cord. And I guess if you're caught in a repeated loop suicide might seem attractive.

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I thought that about Sylvie and the scissors too -- doesn't she say something like "Practice makes perfect?" I also thought Teddy might have been experiencing the repeated lives. Doesn't he say "Thank you" to Ursula near the end, as if acknowledging that she's done something that made his rescue possible this time around?

I'm still a bit worried about spoilers but in another way it doesn't really make sense because it's hard to "spoil" a book where the main character lives her life over and over with several different outcomes. SPOILER -- Her brother is killed during the war! SPOILER -- No he's not!! Either could be equally possible, or likely, which is what I loved about the book.

I particularly liked the several times Ursula tried (in response to that nagging sense of deja vu) to do something that would change her destiny, like the time she runs out of the house instead of into the cellar during the bombing ... and the end result is the same anyway. I don't know why but I found that really interesting.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scots lass:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
I've just finished it. I liked it a lot although I found Lymond at his most unlikable, if that makes any sense.

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I'd say the first Lymond novel was the one where I found him quite irritating. A pretentious quote for every occasion. He'd calmed down a bit by the Russian one. My favourite character is probably still Jerott Blyth, though.

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I'd be inclined to agree with that, from the reader's perspective. Lymond is at his most damaged in The Ringed Castle (referred to by everyone I know who's read it as "the Russian one") which is why he's most difficult to like, but he's a bit more of a smart-arse in the first one! When you realise his age it makes a little bit more sense in some respects. I like how Phillippa develops in the later books though, and I do like her arrival home in this one.

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I found the first one difficult to get into, I hadn't a clue what was going on and there were all these quotations and references I didn't understand - I'd have given up except so many people raved about them! I enjoyed the second though, and yes, the rest is history
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I'm currently reading a book which was a birthday present from one of my sons, called 'Chocolate, a Global History' (yes, he knows me well!) by Sarah Moss and Alexander Badenoch. From it, I'm learning all sorts of interesting information about chocolate, not least that the women of C17 Spain couldn't last out the whole of Mass without sending for their maids to bring them cups of hot chocolate midway through the service! And that, when the bishop tried to stop it happening, he was mysteriously poisoned (by a doctored cup of chocolate)!

I wonder if a hot chocolate interval during Mass these days might catch on? Café church, anyone?
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
http://www.sainsburysentertainment.co.uk/media/ProductImage/largeImage/ProductImage-3086980.jpg

I'm reading James Hoggs' The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

All my prejudices about protestantism confirmed.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
That is an excellent book, Venbede! I also recommend Hogg's Tales of Love and Mystery.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I'm also reading my way through Walter Scott, and although Hogg includes the supernatural in a way Scott wouldn't dream of (there's always a rational explanation) his dialogue and narrative make Scott look mannered.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I picked up a pile of Georgette Heyers in a charity shop the other day, and then finally got hold of Jean Aiken Hodge's biography - The Private World of Georgette Heyer - from the library. The biog is interesting for any fan of the books because it uses them as the starting point - she was such a private person that the books were felt to be the best way to approach getting a sense of her life. You can also trace the development of her writing over the years.
 

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Posted by Freelance Monotheist (# 8990) on :
 
I've read Life After Life and thought it was really interesting, with all the attempts at changing history/the course of one's life hinging on a few details. I'm not sure I got the ending either and was still unsure what had happened to Ursula in her life.I thought the version where Ursula plans to get a degree but ends up travelling & staying in Germany really interesting but didn't catch the references to Sylvie and/or Teddy also being able to change the course of their futures. I was, however, very annoyed at the Time review that reveals who Ursula shoots, which had me guessing as it could potentially have been another person. Thankfully I'd finished the book by then, but it still annoyed me!
On my Kindle, I'm now reading The Great Gatsby before I see the film, and so far I find all the characters pretty annoying or despicable. My paper (library book) is by Maggie O'Farrell, about a father who walks out on his wife & his 3 children come back (all with their own baggage/secrets) to help/see their mother. It's really good so far.
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Freelance Monotheist:
My paper (library book) is by Maggie O'Farrell, about a father who walks out on his wife & his 3 children come back (all with their own baggage/secrets) to help/see their mother. It's really good so far.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
Finished Alison Weir's historical novel "The Captive Queen", about Eleanor of Aquitaine. This was a lively account of a spirited personality and an era of history I wasn't that familiar with. I read this on the commute and it kept me interested; one of those books which almost make you wish the commute was a bit longer so you could finish it in one go.

It was easy to read, though it switches quite suddenly throughout from faux archaic to modern and back again - "You think she's hot, don't you?" "Father, do not impugn the lady's honour."

Fun to read, would look out for more by this author.

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I don't tend to like her historical fiction but love her biographies. Her biography of Eleanor is one of my favourites
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
The last comment has just reminded me that I had meant to post in here about Alison Weir. I've just re-read her 'The Princes in the Tower', prompted by the discovery of Richard the Third's body. It was interesting reading it in light of the discovery, and it was great to go over the background to their story. Not everyone might agree with her conclusions but her examination of the circumstances is thorough. I'm not quite at the end but will miss it when I've finished.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I really disliked Alison Weir's Princes in the Tower, but I can't remember why now. I remember objecting to her logic, but perhaps it was just that I disagreed with her conclusions...

It was interesting to see her and Philippa Gregory on that Anne Boleyn thing on BBC2 last night. Neither of them looked how I imagined, which shows how much attention I pay to author photos.

Anyway, I'm currently rereading a German thriller "Das Kindermädchen" by Elisabeth Herrmanns, which looks at the role of forced labourers from Eastern Europe for childcare in Nazi Germany.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

This takes place in Manhattan during 1937, beginning on New Year's Eve when our protagonist and her roommate pool their last few dollars and go out on the town. They end up sharing a table with the most elegant, handsome young man either has ever met. It's a three way infatuation-at-first-sight situation. He has never met such smart, good looking, witty women and they have never met anyone at all from his upperclass world.

Before the year is out they have all three grown much older and experienced tragedy and disillusionment, but it's all told with such vivid descriptions and atmosphere you won't want it to end.

The title comes from a guidebook on proper manners written by George Washington when he was sixteen.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I just started reading De intrede van Christus in Brussel ('Entry of Christ into Brussels') by Belgian writer Dimitri Verhulst.

Of course, it is inspired by the 1888 painting by James Ensor, but Verhulst took it quite literally.

Jesus announces that He'll return to Earth on July 21st. In the city of Brussels. Verhulst describes in hilarious detail the reaction of various people to this news, giving a poignant image of Belgian society.

I really like Belgian writing like this.
 

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Posted by Late Paul (# 37) on :
 
Finally got around to reading Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog. This is the 4th Jackson Brodie "Case Histories" book. bought it after watching the Jason Isaacs TV adaptations last year and thought I'd jump in on the one that hadn't been made for TV yet. Except now it has so that pushed me to actually read it - which was good because it got me out of a short spell where I hadn't been reading.

It was interesting to read this after having read Life After Life. It's a very different style of writing. Also quite dark - it concerns a historic murder that was thought at the time to be related to the Yorkshire Ripper. Not as dark as David Peace's 1977 but has some tough stuff in it. It also has a fair bit of humour and a protagonist that Atkinson clearly likes - the prose takes a lighter, wryer tone whenever it's his POV.

I like my crime fiction a little less convoluted I guess but this was fun all the same. I may read the next one but I'm not sure I'll go back and read the first three. I will however watch the adaptation of this which is sitting on my DVR.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Just finished Emily Purdy's "A Court Affair". I've been reading through a stack of historical novels lately, most are one-offs that I wouldn't read again, but this is rich, descriptive, vivid and with excellent characterization. It's advertised on its cover as a "Sunday Times bestseller" and deservedly so.

It's the story of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I. Most of it's told from Amy's perspective in retrospect in her final days of suffering from breast cancer. She is a likeable young woman most at home in the country, married to an increasingly abusive, sometimes violent husband who is infatuated with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a real coquette - you can see both her parents, Anne Boleyn and Henry, in her character. Privately, she has a lot of sympathy for Amy and sees straight through Robert. The deterioriating relationship between Amy and Robert is portrayed with a lot of insight.

Very well written, better even than Philippa Gregory. One to keep a copy of.

[ 30. May 2013, 18:34: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
Needed to be in the right frame of mind for this, but I am feeling brave so I'm going in.

I have attacked Notre Dame de Paris*. In French. 10% into the book I am starting to understand just why it is so long (Quasimodo only just made his appearance).

*Which for some reason that doesn't really make sense to me is translated in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame

[ 31. May 2013, 08:57: Message edited by: la vie en rouge ]
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I've got it in English; dunno how far I got into it, but abandoned it years ago. Did see the old black and white film though...


I'll get me coat.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Is it ok to ask for book recommendations here?

I'm interested in reading historical novels, but ones that are set in time periods we don't know an awful lot about. So not something from the Tudors or the late Renaissance, but something from the Babylonian era, or the darker parts of the Middle Ages for example.

Preferably not books of the kind "passive woman finds out she needs a man who can give her a sense of security" (I'm looking at the Book Groop right now )

Does anyone have an idea?
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Curiously enough I was just wondering about starting a thread on this very topic, as I'm looking for the same kind of thing. How about if I do so, and we can see what comes in?
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Great!
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Done! looking forward to some recommendations being posted there.

I'm just about to read "Time's Echo", by the way, thanks to the book group
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just finished Zbinden's Progress by Christoph Simon which was very enjoyable. It's one of those monologuey things with no plot but an engaging, garrulous narrator in his 80s looking back over his life and trying to enthuse anyone in earshot with his love of walking.

I'm about to start Véronique Olmi's Beside the Sea and not exactly looking forward to it: "a haunting and though-provoking story about how a mother's love for her children can be more dangerous than the dark world she is seeking to keep at bay". But I'm going to an event with the publisher and translator on Wed and feel the need to have read it first!
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I'm currently reading 'The Lay Clerk's Handbook' by Robert Dufton. Although the book is written in a somewhat naïve style (the author was 24 when he wrote it), and the proof reader - if there was one! - fell asleep on the job, the author has good experience of being a Lay Clerk himself, and is therefore well-placed to advise other current and potential Lay Clerks of the requirements, and pitfalls, of the job.

It would be a good gift to give a sixth-former thinking of spending his (and, more frequently, her) gap-year in a Cathedral choir but also for someone singing, or planning to sing, in a good church choir, as many of the sections would be equally applicable to the amateur SATB chorister.
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I've just read A Time for Machetes by Jean Hatzfield and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I've been fascinated by the genocide in Rwanda for a long time and read many books on the subject but this was far and away the best.

It's written by a French journalist who goes to a prison in Rwanda and interviews people who were involved in the genocide. People who murdered lots and lots of people. Reading it is sobering, saddening and horrifying. It's clear that although the perpetrators have pleaded guilty and confessed what they did during the genocide, they have no concept of the emotional impact of what they did.

It is also horrifying in its showing of the banality and normality of evil. One quote that summed the whole thing up for me was, 'For me it was strange to see the children drop without a sound. It was almost pleasantly easy.' These people weren't killing people they didn't know, these were their neighbours, people they drank with, people they went to church with.

It was interesting that most of the killers regarded themselves as Christians but managed to put their faith 'on hold' during the genocide. 'During the killings, I chose not to pray to God. I sensed that it was not appropriate to involve Him in that,' says a church deacon.

The book was horrifying but I think it is one of the few books that I feel it was important for me to read. There are very few books where someone sits down, interviews people like this and then publishes their words. To read this is to understand them a bit better and maybe understanding them might lead to preventing them in future. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Finally got my long-awaited copy of "Boneland", Alan Garner's conclusion to the Weirdstone trilogy, set 50 years on. Different people will have different opinions, but I disliked this book.

Essentially, the story is about Colin, now a bearded astrophysics professor aged around 60, who can't remember anything before the age of 13, and who's mentally unstable. He lives in a shack in a quarry and never leaves the Edge, which he must always keep in sight. He's haunted by looking for his sister who disappeared one night. He hears her voice from time to time, and has counselling sessions with Meg, who is trying to get him to remember. As well as the mental instability, Colin is described in the book as a bit Asperger's, and he's obsessed with birds. It's interspersed with the story of a nameless shaman who is trying to cut the image of a woman into a rock to bring her to life.

In between Colin hears his sister's voice (she's never named) and this is far removed from the Susan that you might expect from the earlier books. This one can be mocking and malicious and there are some distinctly creepy moments.

It wasn't a comfortable read. It felt more disconnected and stranger than "Thursbitch", and like peeking into the mind of someone suffering some kind of mental illness.

I think it probably is quite a clever book. It is a multilayered story with a lot of echoes of the earlier stories, and the end is quite clever... but I didn't enjoy it. If you're a Garner fan who hasn't read this, it's very different from the earlier novels so be prepared for something of a jump in perception and approach.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Hmm that's interesting, Ariel. I have the book but haven't read it yet. Thanks for the warning that it's a different kettle of fish.

Heard Alan Garner speak at the Cheltenham Festival of Lit last year and he was absolutely riveting. He spoke about his life as a writer, and read a bit from this latest book, raising goose-pimples. I think he is extraordinary. I was a Weirdstone of Brisgamen fan at 14 and now I am, well, considerably older than that; most other writers I loved at that age are no longer with us...it was wonderful to go and hear him and get the new book signed, lo these many years later!
 

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Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
Reading on the death of Iain Banks, and I'm interested. have not read his work. Where do I start?
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
Reading on the death of Iain Banks, and I'm interested. have not read his work. Where do I start?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Huia:
My favourite Alan Garner book is Red Shift .

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I think that is the best one, but my favourite one is The Moon of Gomrath! I guess I read it at about the right age to appreciate the sentimental and nostalgic character of it - a few years later maybe I'd not have liked it so much. I also loved the appendix which listed his sources - I went to the library and read most of them.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I treated myself to a basic Kindle the other day, and as an inaugural read, chose Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes. The writing is beautifully evocative, and the bits about the suppression of women's lives as pertinent as ever they were.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I got Red Shift as a school prize once - I chose it because I loved Wierdstone of Brisingamen and the Moon of Gomrath, but I didn't really understand it.
I've just treated myself to a copy of Boneland - which I will be approaching with caution after Ariel's review!
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
I hope people who have yet to read "Boneland" will post and say what they think. I'd be most interested to hear some other perspectives. I read it a second time and understood it better, but can't say that I like it.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just finished reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson after a very long wait for a library copy. It was very good, but I need to let it settle a bit before I can write about it.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
I just finished a murder mystery by Susan Wittig Albert. Her protagonist, China Bayles, is a sleuthing Southern herbalist. The series hasn't yet "caught" me in the way that some of my other favorite mystery writers have, but I'm going to go on and read another of her books.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts is the book I am currently reading. It is researched and published by the editors of Popular Mechanics magazine, a popular periodical about engineering for the layman. It recruited some of the best scientists, structural engineers and demolition experts in the world for its report. I am reading it on Nook.
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
In the bookshop the other day I spotted a book called Entry from Backside Only by Binoo K John which looks at the emergence of a distinct Indian English, or perhaps a family of Indian English. It's good fun.

and yes, it was the title that grabbed me first.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I've borrowed a gem of a book from a friend - 'Lost Treasures of Britain' by Roy Strong. It shows in full colour many of the mediaeval treasures which have been lost to the country or damaged due to deliberate acts or accident eg. the Reformation, Civil War, Fire of London, World War 2. Strong's argument is an interesting one - that, although these treasures were special and it is a huge shame that they were destroyed, the various waves of destruction paved the way for future innovators to produce their own contemporary art and architecture which, over time, has come to be valued as much as that which they replaced.

He argues that the wish to preserve the past, in a sentimental way, is a fairly recent phenomenon and one which would have been alien in many periods of history, where iconoclasm and recycling of building materials was the dominant ethos.

Were these people of history being wanton vandals or merely being practical and 'green'?
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
I hope people who have yet to read "Boneland" will post and say what they think. I'd be most interested to hear some other perspectives. I read it a second time and understood it better, but can't say that I like it.

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The copy I reserved became available at the library today. I also read an online review by Ursula Le Guin. It does seem to be a book that requires a bit of effort, and possibly more knowledge of English myths than I have. I'll take the plunge in the weekend and see how I go.

Huia
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I just picked up a copy of Captain Marvel: In Pursuit of Flight today - and I do hope there's more stuff like this out there. The superheroine has a sensible costume without showing acres of bare flesh, she's not someone's girlfriend, and the plot (a time travel one) takes in the women pilots who ferried planes around for the RAF and USAF in the Second World War, and the Mercury 13 women who trained to be astronauts and were denied access to the programme anyway. I thought it was brilliant stuff, and I'm adding Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel to the list of people I want to be when I grow up!
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I recently finished another Billy Connolly travel book, this time the book that accompanied the series he did a few years ago riding the length of Route 66 on a trike. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other one I read a few months ago (when he travelled the North-West Passage in Canada), but that was mainly because the Canada book had millions more pictures and better quality paper The actual writing was charming, as with the Canada book he just meets interesting people and finds the good in them, muses about life, reminisces about life in Scotland, raves about quirky art, and just throws himself into the trip. He's definitely a great travel companion.

Now I've just started my first ever Agatha Christie novel, "The Mystery at Styles" (it's a Poirot mystery). Each summer rather than choose a single book that we all read, my book group chooses a theme and then we all find random books that fit the theme and discuss them. This year the theme is the 1920s - although this book is set during WW1, it was published in the 1920s so that's a good enough link for me. I've only read the first chapter so far, and she's introduced so many characters - all of whom could have 'done it' - I might have to reread it just to get my head round who's who. The characters are mostly really posh - one man keeps referring to his mother as 'the mater' which made me laugh.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:

Now I've just started my first ever Agatha Christie novel, "The Mystery at Styles" (it's a Poirot mystery).

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quote:

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Originally posted by venbede:
Is that the Colin Watson who wrote the lovely Inspector Purbright and Miss Teatime at Flaxborough comedy crime novels? Quite wonderful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jack the Lass:

Now I've just started my first ever Agatha Christie novel, "The Mystery at Styles" (it's a Poirot mystery).

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Originally The Mysterious Affair at Styles but snazzied up for a modern readership I suppose.

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Or rather, that I got the title wrong "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is correct.
 

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Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :
 
I am currently reading "The Great Gatsby" after having first read it a very long time ago and I am also reading "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin". I am enjoying both of them a lot.

[ 13. July 2013, 07:06: Message edited by: Pancho ]
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
My bedtime book for the last few days has been Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at Whistle Stop Cafe which I finished last night - it really is a great read. The murder and cannibalism is amusingly done and the euthanasia bit is light and gentle. Poor Sipsy, she had a heck of a life!
 

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Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :
 
Found "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde (first pub 1979) in a charity shop. Perhaps not quite 'a masterpiece' (Margaret Atwood) but one of those books which makes you want to change your life a bit.

It begins as a work of anthopology: how gifts work in various tribes: S Pacific Islanders, N American Indians, Black 'Projects'. The subtitle "How the creative spirit transforms the world" is about art as gift giving and to be honest I didn't think the arty sections were as good as those on how gift giving supports communities.

I'd never heard of it before. Has anyone out there read it?

[corrected typo]

[ 18. July 2013, 11:36: Message edited by: que sais-je ]
 

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Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
I have really been getting into Douglas Hofstader's "I Am A Strange Loop", which is about consciousness and personality (but with all sorts of connections to e.g. Godel's theorem).

I was never able to make it through "Godel, Escher, Bach" by the same author (which my best friend used to rave about), not because I didn't like it but because it was too... well, I suppose too rich might cover it. It's extremely readable, but there's so much in it that it takes some time to digest it.

Anyway, I feel a Purgatory thread on consciousness coming on... but not until I've finished the book... otherwise it feels a bit like "posting a reply before you've read the rest of the thread"....
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
Currently reading Moon Shot, the true story of the events leading up to and including landing on the moon in 1969. I remember the day vividly as Deke Slayton and Alan Shepard were instrumental in getting the US there first. Introduction by a man who walked on the moon, Neil Armstrong. It's a good chronicle of a very exciting time.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I'm reading Roger Lovegrove's "Islands Beyond the Horizon" - he takes 20 obscure islands from around the world and talks about the past and present human contact/habitation and the impact of that and other influences (eg volcanic eruptions) on the flora and fauna of each island. It's introducing me to several islands I'd never heard of before, and I've found it fascinating.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Just finished "The Gowk Storm" by Nancy Brysson Morrison. I was crying by the end. She created an entirely believable sense of isolation, both physical and emotional. I intend to track down some of her other novels.
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
Not sure if this merits its own thread, or if this is quite the right place, but -

Can anyone recommend me a good, readable, 1-volume history of the USA? (Available on Kindle would be a plus.) I've decided I'm pathetically ignorant of it, and need educating.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Not sure if this merits its own thread, or if this is quite the right place, but -

Can anyone recommend me a good, readable, 1-volume history of the USA? (Available on Kindle would be a plus.) I've decided I'm pathetically ignorant of it, and need educating.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States" has a class struggle bias, but it will probably cover a lot of areas you didn't know. I'd suggest looking at wikipedia to see what is controversial is criticized for, but it is readable and gets away from "The great people did it all" model.

r

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quote:

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Originally posted by Thurible:
Now onto 'Moon over Soho' by Ben Aaronovitch - the second in the series of Peter Grant books. Described as 'like Harry Potter for grown ups' and they are a bit. A Met detective solves crimes - using magic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Thurible:
Read John R. Oren's "Stewart Headlam's Radical Anglicanism." Incredibly badly written but very interestintg.

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He was a fascinating man.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I have got to the end of the Lymond series! I finally finished Checkmate a few days ago, which was quite a rollercoaster ride...

I'm now reading The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars by Maurice DeKobra and translated by Neal Wainwright, which has to win some kind of award just for the title. It's enormous fun, a 1920s spy story set in London but translated from French. Was out of print for 50 years but has been reissued recently by Melville House.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Not a book but something tweeted by my local bookshop that made me laugh - 17 things only book lovers will understand.

My pile of books to read keeps growing - I keep forgetting a book while travelling and then buying two because it's such a good offer.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
Two very different memoirs I've recently read, both brilliant. Two Flamboyant Fathers by Nicolette Devas. She was Caitlin Thomas's sister and writes amazingly about her extraordinary childhood and young womanhood. The fathers are her own father Francis McNamara and the painter Augustus John, a father figure large in her life. She too became a painter and then later turned to writing. There's so much that is interesting, not just her background itself, but also about what drives an artist, what it's like to grow up surrounded by artists, how she discovered her own desire to paint, what made her and her (very different) sister Caitlin the way they were, etc. Fascinating and well-written-although, ni her rackety childhood, wonderful in so many ways, she didn't learn to read until she was eleven.

The other memoir is about another girl growing up with artists, Angelica Garnett's Deceived with Kindness .
As many will know, she was the daughter of the painter Vanessa Bell and niece of Virginia Woolf. Grew up thinking Clive Bell her father until in her late teens her mother told her it was Duncan Grant instead. Even if you are not interested in the whole Bloomsbury scene, it's a very interesting and well-written book about this mother-daugter relationship, growing up with artists, a fascinating look back by an adult who has, by the time of writing, been through a marriage with the friend of her parents who stood by her cradle and vowed to marry her...and birth of four daughters...is looking back and trying to understand the pattern of her life.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Has anyone else tried reading may we be forgiven by a.m. homes? It won The Women's Prize for Fiction - formerly the Orange Prize. I read the first 50 pages, then checked the Amazon reviews to see if it got better to find most reviews said the first few pages was the best bit and that I wasn't alone in not liking it. I suspect I'd like her short stories.

However, I enjoyed The Veteran by Frederick Forsyth - 5 short stories with twists - some better than others, but worth reading. They all have very different settings and Forsyth's research is, as always, detailed and fascinating. It was published in 2001, but the stories read as if they've been written over a number of years, one was dated 1977 and another was set in 1997.
 

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Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Has anyone else tried reading may we be forgiven by a.m. homes? It won The Women's Prize for Fiction - formerly the Orange Prize. I read the first 50 pages, then checked the Amazon reviews to see if it got better to find most reviews said the first few pages was the best bit and that I wasn't alone in not liking it.

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I gave up reading this after it gave me a nightmare. I found it to be a series of anxiety inducing situations so I stopped reading for my mental health!
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I loved it, thought it was amazing and when I finished it immediately went on amazon to order other books by her. I loved the claustrophobia the story induced in me.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizbethean England: both fascinating and salutary.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
My Young Man's favourite comic book superhero is Captain Britain, so he's lent me the origin story and a story called Before Excalibur. So I now know how Brian Braddock, physics student and heir to an ancient manor house with a supercomputer in the cellar, gets to be Britain's very own superhero with the help of Merlin. It then gets very complicated with alternate worlds, time travel and an Elfquest-esqe mutant girl called Meggan, who he ends up living in a lighthouse with.
Fun, but aimed squarely at teenage boys in the 1970s and 80s I think.

However, he also lent me Jenny Sparks, which is about a girl superhero who is also the spirit of the 20th Century. It's written by Mark Millar and it's excellent!
 

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Posted by Haydee (# 14734) on :
 
Elizabeth Gaskill - North and South - a wonderful book with a believable tension of attraction/not wanting to be attracted that is most unusual in Victorian novels (the respectable ones anyway )
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Haydee:
Elizabeth Gaskill - North and South - a wonderful book with a believable tension of attraction/not wanting to be attracted that is most unusual in Victorian novels (the respectable ones anyway )

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quote:

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Originally posted by Stejjie:
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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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you haven't read it, E.F. Bensen's Lucia series is the epitome of light and funny.

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quote:

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Originally posted by leo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you haven't read it, E.F. Bensen's Lucia series is the epitome of light and funny.

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A lot of people love that book but i found it trivial and superficial.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cara:
Interesting, Moo, re The Casual Vacancy . I haven't read it--have been put off by some of the reviews which emphasised that it's pretty dark.

I don't at all blame JKR for wanting to write something completely different, though. She has spoken in interviews of the sense of freedom this gave her.

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quote:

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I agree with Moo that a lot of the characters weren't likeable. It was dark, and hard going in places. It was one of those books that I got a lot more out of after I finished it, rather than enjoying as I read it. It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Someone lent me a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I really didn't like it. And I think that if I had read it when I was a twelve year old, I wouldn't have found these jokes funny either.

I guess my fault was also to compare it too much with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, which I did like.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Someone lent me a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I really didn't like it. And I think that if I had read it when I was a twelve year old, I wouldn't have found these jokes funny either.

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quote:

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It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jane R:
goperryrevs, re The Casual Vacancy:

quote:

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It's a very observant picture of British society, crossing class boundaries and pretty unashamedly pointing out hypocrisy and tragedy.

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Yes, it is, and as several other people have said it's well-written. It looked to me as if she was aiming for a 21st-century equivalent of Middlemarch - but that could be because I reread Middlemarch quite recently. She obviously had far more sympathy for the teenage characters than for the adults; but honestly, is it really likely that the dead guy was the only half-decent adult in the whole town? The law of averages suggests otherwise.

I didn't like it - partly because it's not the sort of thing I usually read, I suppose, but also because I don't think she has a real talent for doing tragedy (though the funeral scene was well done). I always thought the 'whodunit' and comedy in Harry Potter were the bits that worked best. I wasn't surprised to hear that she'd written a detective/thriller story.

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Interesting, Jane R. This is the kind of response to the book that I've seen enough times now to put me off reading it.... especially as I thought the Harry Potter books were brilliant.Middlemarch certainly does repay re-reading. I admire it and love it so much.

I am now reading a really interesting book (I've mentioned it already in another thread) called Keeping Faith: a skeptic's journey among Christian and Buddhist monks by Fenton Johnson. Its scope is much wider than the title implies, he looks not just at monasticism but at the whole search for meaning in life, why we search, different ways of doing that; looks at the Christian and Buddhist traditions, their different approaches, what they have in common...many literary and historical references, but lightly done, and all interwoven with his own search--grew up Catholic, is a gay man, now skeptical about faith but still drawn to it, and seeking to understand why....

I am in the middle, so don't know where it's going or will end up. Has anyone read any of his other books? One of them was a memoir of his childhood and also the story of his lover and the lover's death from AIDS....( Geography of the Heart ) and there are two novels, Crossing the River and Scissors Paper Rock .
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Just finished James Shapiro's Contested Will on the various proponents of 'real' author of Shakespeare. What was so interesting was how he places them in the context of all sorts of presuppositions of their own - and our - day on what poets should be like, what authorship is, how creativity works. Plus wider currents of thought - the Higher Criticism or psychoanalytic theory.

It's one of those books that make you question assumptions, which is always a good thing. Plus a very entertaining read.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
One of my daughters gave me that a few years ago. I love it.

My favorite bit was the account of a nineteenth-century 'scholar' who was determined to find a code in the plays saying Bacon had written them. He ended up saying that Bacon had written the code first, then the plays to fit it!

Moo
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
on a slight cross domain tangent, I've finally gotten the books organized in the living room, dining room and spare bedroom so they are all on shelves. A bunch went to the basement library (stacks) and a whole bunch went to the library sale. I've found a number of books I bought that slipped aside.

I'm currently re-reading a few Rex Stout Nero Wolfe mysteries out of nostalgia for old New York.
Next I've got to start some homework for getting a new programming job. I'm still reading chunks of the final Avram Davidson Vergil Magus series; "The Scarlet Fig"
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just finished reading The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain, translated from French by three people on behalf of Gallic Books. It is rather wonderful in a whimsical way. About President Mitterand's hat being left in a Parisian brasserie and changing the lives of all the people who come across it. Read it in an afternoon.

I'm now re-reading Lindsay Davis's The Course of Honour about the empereor Vespasian and Caenis.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I finished Alex Preston's 'The Revelations' today. Has anyone else tried it?

It's about a thinly disguised Alpha course in London and the clever but tortured young people who are running it. It's highly readable, but it doesn't quite ring true to me, although I've never attended an Alpha course. Why would such messed up people be given such a heavy responsibility? And why are all the Christians such unattractive characters? And despite the importance of 'the Course' being stressed at every opportunity very little is said about the reason behind it: Jesus Christ.

More than this, the novel seems slightly dated, even though it was only published last year. Alpha is presented as a being on the cusp of world domination, whereas it's already a cross-denominational, global phenomenon with a broad demographic; the characters' glorification of wealth takes no account of the financial crisis; and the ethnic and social diversity of London's Christian community is completely ignored. Yes, it's a novel not a social document, but it's clearly trying to say something timely about 'narrow evangelical Christianity'.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I'm in the middle of Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot, and it is brilliant! It's a comic, detailing the links between Lewis Carroll, the Liddell family and Sunderland, taking in all the history of Sunderland and the surrounding area from prehistoric times up through the Venerable Bede to the shipyards and trade of the 19thC century.
It starts with the characters in the Sunderland Empire, and does a run down of all the famous actors and comedians who have performed there - including Sid James, who died on stage and is reputed to haunt the theatre.
I'm somewhere in the middle of the book at the moment, where the author gets up in the middle of the night and has a crisis of faith about comic books - he thinks he should be writing about superheroes in cloaks and tights, and maybe he invented it all anyway and Sunderland doesn't really exist!
Highly recommended!
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
I'm enjoying - and I mean enjoying - Maddadam, the third volume im Margarer Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy. Is there anyone apart from me who likes this collection? Oryx and Crake itselft (the first book) is grim, of course, but I thought by RL book group would like the second book (The Year of the Flood if only because the religious group - God's Gardeners - is almost (but not quite) totally unlike* Quakers. They didn't.

Well, I can see why this third one didn't make it onto the Booker shortlist - the humour apart from anything else - but although perhaps I shouldn't commit before finishing, I think the three of them make a terrific read.

*Spot the Douglas Adams allusion
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I'm reading a racy baseball-themed novel that my wife put on her Nook for me called Stealing Home. It's about a young woman who seduces a baseball player to steal a valuable good luck charm so she can sell it and save the life of a 2-year-old girl with fatal heart disease. It was written by a young lady called Jennifer Seasons and seems promising....
 

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Posted by Clotilde (# 17600) on :
 
I'm in the closing chapters of Jane Shaw's book 'Octavia, Daughter of God' a fascinating biography of Mabel Barltrop and her followers in the Panacea Society.

How such 'proper' middle class English ladies could come to believe what they did and live how they did is a wonderful story.

Highly recommended!
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just finished Trieste by Dasa Drndic and translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac (sorry, the advanced diacriticals are beyond my coding skills). It is an almost unbearable account of WW2, the Holocaust and the Lebensborn project in the Balkans and Italy and mixes fiction with history, interviews, pictures and so on rather in the style of W.G. Sebald. I found the fictional voices utterly compelling, but that I was always wondering which parts were fictional and which weren't. Not at all easy to read but important.
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Clotilde:
I'm in the closing chapters of Jane Shaw's book 'Octavia, Daughter of God' a fascinating biography of Mabel Barltrop and her followers in the Panacea Society.

How such 'proper' middle class English ladies could come to believe what they did and live how they did is a wonderful story.

Highly recommended!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cara:
...Also, I think her father's books, "Jacob Wrestling," and the new one (hope I'm not revealing too much) are among the most intriguing books-within-books in literature...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:

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Originally posted by Clotilde:
I'm in the closing chapters of Jane Shaw's book 'Octavia, Daughter of God' a fascinating biography of Mabel Barltrop and her followers in the Panacea Society.

How such 'proper' middle class English ladies could come to believe what they did and live how they did is a wonderful story.

Highly recommended!

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Just checked it out -- looks absolutely fascinating! I love stumbling across historical stories I've never heard of and will probably read this one ... thanks.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cara:
just to add--Dodie Smith wrote many volumes of interesting autobiography, and Valerie Grove has written a good biography.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:
I was more taken with some modern days fantasy - Neil Gaiman and a writer new to me, Ben Aaronovitch. I've read the first Rivers of London novel, and downloaded the second. Anyone else familiar with the series?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:
I had the same problem with the Sanson book. Was he trying to riff on the idea of the omniscient detective, or what?

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Glad it wasn't just me! I've no idea what he was playing at.

I'm supposed to be reading She Rises by Kate Worsley at the moment, but instead I'm catching up with Inspector Montalbano, inspired by him being back on the telly. I'm currently on The Track of Sand.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I never did manage to get into the Kate Worsley book.

I did very much enjoy the Montalbano though, and am now on the next in the series - The Potter's Field.
It's very interesting reading them after having seen the TV adaptation, especially as Salvo is always moaning about his age, needing reading glasses etc and is clearly at least 10 years older than the actor who plays him. That wouldn't make such good TV though, I guess.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I'm in the middle of In Our Time, a collection of scripts of the Melvyn Bragg Radio 4 programme, which covers just about every subject you could think of. They did a fascinating four parter on the life of Darwin, recorded in places like Down House (his home) and the Natural History Museum. The rest are from the studio, and there's only one so far that I wasn't interested in - on Kierkegaard. The one on tea, on the other hand, was totally fascinating!
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I'm reading "Sexy Orchids Make Lousy Lovers, & Other Unusual Relationships" by Marty Crump. It's this month's free ebook from the University of Chicago Press. It's about how animals relate to themselves, other animals, plants and bacteria/fungi, and for what reasons (sex, food, shelter, etc). I particularly enjoyed the section on how animals co-exist with plants, for mutual benefit. It's in the form of a series of anecdotes which has reminded me of watching a nature documentary - it's not in any great depth (just as well, I'm not a zoologist) but is like the reading equivalent of watching a series of anecdotes about various animals and plants before the presenter goes onto the next anecdote about something else. I'm very much enjoying it.
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
Salvo is always moaning about his age, needing reading glasses etc and is clearly at least 10 years older than the actor who plays him. That wouldn't make such good TV though, I guess.

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quote:

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Originally posted by piglet:
I've just finished The Red Queen, part of the Cousins' War series by Philippa Gregory. It's the story of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, told (unfortunately) in the present tense with Margaret as the narrator.

Interestingly, it's not really all that sympathetic to her: she comes out of it as what I imagine she was: a scheming, ambitious and bitter woman who will stop at nothing to get what she thinks is, quite literally, her God-given right.

Like most fictionalisations of the events of late 15th-century England, it leaves you hanging as to Who Did It*, but hints quite strongly that it was the perfidious and ambitious Duke of Buckingham, at Margaret's behest, a theory I find readily plausible.

* i.e. killed the Princes in the Tower

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I'm reading her biography by Elizabeth Norton, which is very good. I think she had a lot of reason to be bitter and ambitious, as an heir to the house of Lancaster she was used as female pawn throughout her childhood. Her wardship was passed around according to the King's favour, Edmund Tudor who she married when she was only 12, was her second husband (the first was unconsummated) and owned her wardship. Her marriage to him was consummated at such a young age that it broke convention, all out of desperation to sire a male Lancashire heir to the throne. She was widowed at 13, almost died giving birth and was almost certainly left damaged and barren from the experience. She was barely a teenager! She married again within a year and spent the rest of her teens separated from her child whose wardship was passed around and fighting for his rights.
I am quite sympathetic to Margaret
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I recently read Patrick Gale's A Perfectly Good Man.

I was in a seriously bad state at the time and found it riveting and deeply consoling - more than consoling, inspiring that life and God were worthwhile.

Gale is clearly sympathetic to religion but is better known as a gay writer (not that that ought to define him). The witness to the hope and healing that can be in religious faith and practice were all the more powerful to me coming from outside the church.
 

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Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :
 
I will look out for this Gale book. I heard him speak at a literary festival once and was captivated. I think I've only read one of is books, though. (Hmmm....which?)


I have just finished Dickens's Hard Times. I thought I'd read all Dickens's novels but didn't remember this one. I think it is one of the best. Very moving portrayal of life in the industrial north, and also great depiction of the people in "the horse-riding," a sort of circus. A good story and of course some splendid characters.

I discovered Dickens rather late in life--in my thirties. We had his books at home when I was growing up, and I think I tried one when I was too young. When I finally read him again at an age to appreciate it, I remember being so happy that there were many more novels to enjoy...he really is a genius.
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I recently read Patrick Gale's A Perfectly Good Man
I was in a seriously bad state at the time and found it riveting and deeply consoling - more than consoling, inspiring that life and God were worthwhile.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cara:
I will look out for this Gale book. I heard him speak at a literary festival once and was captivated.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
I was more taken with some modern days fantasy - Neil Gaiman and a writer new to me, Ben Aaronovitch. I've read the first Rivers of London novel, and downloaded the second. Anyone else familiar with the series?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:

I'm somewhere in the middle of the book at the moment, where the author gets up in the middle of the night and has a crisis of faith about comic books - he thinks he should be writing about superheroes in cloaks and tights, and maybe he invented it all anyway and Sunderland doesn't really exist!
Highly recommended!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I mean to read Notes from an Exhibition soon - it's on the shelves. I read a number of early Gale novels about ten years ago and don't remember being that impressed.

F R Leavis (perversely) once said Hard Times was the only worthwhile Dickens novel. It's not. My big criticism is that Dickens is completely condemnatory of trade unions. How the blazes else are the workers ever to get some respect and a decent standard of living? (Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton is much less sentimental.)

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I've just finished Revelation, the fourth Shardlake novel by CJ Sansom. I'd read the second one, Dark Fire, before this, and found it enjoyable as a quick historical detective read. This one is rather better,... There's also a sub-plot about a boy in Bedlam which ties into the main plot perhaps a little too neatly ...I like the characters, so I shall probably read the other three in the series should I come across them.

---

I really enjoyed the first, Dissolution, which I think is one of the best; Sovereign was also very good; I wasn't quite so keen on Heartstone - too much about the Mary Rose - maybe I'd just OD'd on Sansom by that point.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I've just read Stone Cold by Robert Swindells, another teen fiction book that I've picked to work out how to teach it, but it's an amazing book and worth reading. I knew I appreciated Robert Swindells' writing from supporting the teaching of Wicked a few years ago, but this book reminded me how well he writes and tackles issues. Stone Cold has homelessness as a central issue, which remains relevant, Wicked deals with under age drinking and alcoholism.

His books are aimed at teenage boys, but it's not preachily defined, enough is inferential and touched on to make them layered and interesting.
 

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Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
I'm re-reading the Mistress of the Art of Death books by Ariana Franklin. Excellent stuff, set in 12th-century England, featuring a lady pathologist who investigates murders for Henry II.

Sadly, there won't be any more in the series, as Ms. Franklin died a couple of years ago.



PS I've just Googled her - someone seems to have written a posthumous sequel ...

[ 10. December 2013, 17:59: Message edited by: piglet ]
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I've just finished Revelation, the fourth Shardlake novel by CJ Sansom. I'd read the second one, Dark Fire, before this, and found it enjoyable as a quick historical detective read. This one is rather better,... There's also a sub-plot about a boy in Bedlam which ties into the main plot perhaps a little too neatly ...I like the characters, so I shall probably read the other three in the series should I come across them.

---

I really enjoyed the first, Dissolution, which I think is one of the best; Sovereign was also very good; I wasn't quite so keen on Heartstone - too much about the Mary Rose - maybe I'd just OD'd on Sansom by that point.

---

I've been OD'ing on them in quick succession after first seeing them recommended on this thread. I'm now reading Heartstone and disappointed to realize that when this one's done I'll actually have to wait for the next one to come out -- it's been so great reading a series with 5 books already written.

Does anyone else reading this series wish poor Shardlake would get laid finally? Or, more delicately, find a lady who returns his esteem?
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just started Philip Pullman's retelling of the Grimm tales. Haven't got very far in yet but it's interesting to see how they differ from what I remember, and stories I'd never read before as well.
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I've just read "Dedicated Lives" - a history of various small Episcopalian religious communities in Dundee, including the Community of St Mary the Virgin and St Modwenna, by Edward Luscombe, former Bishop of Brechin, and Stuart Donald, Epicopalian Archivist.

It includes some great photos, and fascinating details of an aspect of Victorian Dundee which was new to me.

This year is the centenary of the death of Mary Lily Walker , which was the impetus for both this book, and the biography of Mary Lily by Eddie Small, which I've also read.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
'The Image of Christ in Modern Art' by Richard Harries - having attended a couple of Gresham Lectures by him in London a few years ago, I wanted to try to understand some of the more modern religious paintings and sculptures I come across when visiting Cathedrals - perhaps if I understand them better I will appreciate them more. In only 156 pages, it is necessarily a whistle-stop tour, an overview, but that is a good starting point. Sadly, there don't seem to be any Christas or Chocolate Christs, the subject matter is fairly conservative - religious art thought worthy to have a place in modern cathedral life, rather than for shock value.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Leszek Kolakowski - 'Is God Happy?' A breathtaking series of essays by a Pole, about the failings of Communism (and also some deep thoughts about religion), all the more surprising for many having been written about 60 years ago, but suppressed by the communist government, and only very recently been published in English. He cuts through the pretence like a knife - I had never before seen the similarity between the artificial constructs holding communism in place and those used in religious cults, such as at Waco.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I am reading part of my own book, a failed NaNoWriMo project which fell about 8000 words short of the required 50,000 words, and doing a bit of editing. I am also working my way slowly through the works of the late Dame Agatha Christie.
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
Recently been enjoying Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers series, as recommended here. I finished Susan Howatch's A Question of Integrity, but can't think of much Heavenly to say about it - maybe I'll start a Purg thread in the New Year, if I have time for a good argument. Just finished Kate Grenville's The Secret River - excellent, but very dark towards the end, but a true kind of darkness - very real and very human. In a way, I know and understand more about the way white settlers behaved towards aborigine than I thought I wanted to know - yet I'm still very glad I've read it.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I did just reread "A Talent to Deceive", Robert Barnard's book about Agatha Christie. I found it insightful, although I'm not the keenest fan of Christie.
 

---

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I am still Delderfielding - I know it is not classic literature but he is a good storyteller. I am nearly at the end of the second volume of A Horseman Riding By which was the first I read of his some 30 or more years ago - my mum insisted I read it, which rather put me off, but I did and I liked it as much as I like it now.

Thanks to PeteC for putting me in touch with Abe Books which I have found to be a great, if economically dangerous, resource.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Have just finished reading Christmas present Asterix and the Pechts, 'translated into Pechtish' or sort-of Scottish dialect. The detail in the illustration is incredible, down to the stone carvings in the background and woad tatoos. Some characters have new Pechtish names: Obelix's dog, Dogmatix in English, is now Geitbiglix. Also I'll be borrowing some of the phrases. From now on, my Scottish friend who, when excited, has a little period of quicker and thicker-accented speech will be said to have 'the Bubbly Jocks'.

I'd forgotten in the intervening 2½ decades how good Asterix books are, and this one is a cracker.
 

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Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
I started off reading Tune In by Marc Lewisohn. This is part one of a three-volume biography of The Beatles, which covers up to December 1962. I've been waiting for this book (like other Beatles fans) for nearly 10 years, so it's disappointing to get a third of the way through the book and find that, actually, I don't really like these young men. In fact, so far, they're coming across as the kind of intimidating louts that I'd cross the street to avoid. For example, their treatment of Stu Sutcliffe - while they're happy to bully him (even his so-called best friend, John Lennon), they don't have the guts to actually fire him from the band.

After waiting for this book for so long, I'm now feeling the need to intersperse it with others. One of my Christmas presents was the novel Valentine Grey by Sandi Toksvig, which is about a young girl who pretends to be a man in order to fight in the Boer War. It's an excellent read so far. As well as Valentine's story, there's also a touching love story between her cousin Reggie and his lover, Frank.
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
Bereft of books over New Year I climbed out of my arrogance and read a Grisham on New Year's Day. Most pleasant. Now, inter alia I'm reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Love summer reading
 

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Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :
 
The gift of a Kindle from the Smudgelet for Christmas has broadened my opportunities for building on my rediscovered love of reading... though possibly not doing much for my new year's resolution of "getting things done". At the moment I'm Kindling Mappamundi by Chris Hewitt which is a nice easy read and my "real" book is The Summer House by Santa Montafiore which I am really enjoying racing though - another easy read and a fairly predictable storyline but one of those books you can laze away a good hour with.

Zappa, I've been a John Grisham fan for years - he's another author I'm planning to read more of.
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I'm currently reading national treasure Clare Balding's autobiography "My Animals and Other Family", about her childhood through the 'lens' of the various family pets and horses (her dad was a champion racehorse trainer). I'm really enjoying it, it's written with a very light touch, particularly when you consider what an unusual childhood it was - the Queen came to tea twice a year when she visited her horses there, and as well as family there are all sorts of characters around the place - nannies, stablehands, owners, etc. She's remarkably sanguine about her (pretty distant, ISTM) parents, and always writes with humour and affection. Definitely recommended.
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I finally managed to get my hands on Asterix and the Picts. Not as good as some of the classic Asterixes, but definitely a worthy continuation of the legacy.

(Sorry, just saw that it was mentioned before on this thread.)

[ 05. January 2014, 10:31: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I've just read my way through the complete set of James Bond stories. They were thoroughly entertaining if one puts the racism and sexism in their time context. Remarkably silly as well. It was entertaining to see the difference between the books and the films too. I now think I should read something a bit more serious.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I was reading The 4.50 to Paddington, but my wife apparently took the Nook with her to church. I cannot find it anywhere about the house! I am nearly done....
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I had a lovely lot of books for Christmas which should keep me going for a while.

I'm currently reading Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom, translated by Laura Watkinson, which I'm finding fascinating. And I'm also slowly working through Philip Pullman's retelling of the Grimm fairytales, - nice to dip in and out of, and with interesting notes at the end of each story. Even if the stories themselves are occasionally odder than I'd remembered!
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
I've just started reading The Cost of Sugar ('Hoe duur was de suiker') by Cynthia Mac Leod about the Dutch slavery system in Surinam. Very gripping.

quote:

---

Keren-Happuch: I'm currently reading Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom, translated by Laura Watkinson, which I'm finding fascinating.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
Well, I've never been to Chartres and am not likely to do so in the near future. But I am enjoying getting into a novel by Salley Vickers which is set there, called 'The Cleaner of Chartres'. Perhaps I'll want to visit once I've read the book?

---

It's lovely, (the book: for some reason I've been depressed the two times I've been to Chartres.)
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Has anybody else ever read a book wishing a different author had got ahold of the plot?

I've been reading The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The plot revolves around the restoration of a 15th century Flemish painting of a chess game and a mystery involving the players portrayed - but then one of the researchers ends up dead. *gasp* Is it connected? Will our heroine survive to solve the puzzle? Will anybody give a damn by the time we find out? It's written in a consciously literary way, leaving no detail unwritten but telling you nothing. The characters, to a man, are brattish and a bit stupid. The painting barely gets a mention after the first half, the rest of the story unravels in all directions by the end leaving truck-size plot holes. I was so disappointed and frustrated I nearly called the book to Hell and kept wishing somebody else could have rewritten the book.
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
I'm within 30 pages of finishing Ray Bradbury's Death is a Lonely Business, the first Bradbury I've ever read.

A strange, unsettling book, dripping with atmosphere. It's a stylish noir mystery, but with a generous dash of surrealism thrown in. Vivid characters, densely-painted locations and a level of creepiness that's made me averse to reading it at night.

Off to find some more by Mr Bradbury soon...
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Just finished "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith.

I enjoyed this at first, but found it a bit tedious as it progressed. Interesting, well written and full of character but quite insular. None the less, it does keep you wondering which of the three men in her life the heroine is going to end up with and whether her father will write anything again.

One of those books that you read once but probably not a second time, IMO.
 

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Posted by Barefoot Friar (# 13100) on :
 
Has anyone read "Love in the Time of Cholera"? What did you think?
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
I've just finished Longbourn, Jo Baker's retelling of Pride & Prejudice from the point of view of the servants. Mrs Bennet and Mr Collins come off better than you might expect, and Wickham is slightly more villainous! It's very good, readable and with attention to detail - often speech in this type of book jars as not quite right, but this didn't feel too far off. The household side of things also feels authentic, I remember reading some things about women in the home when I was at university and this all tied together with that, so I got the overall impression of a well-researched, well planned book. I started it on my commute home on Tuesday and finished it at lunchtime today, having wanted to read it in every spare minute and only not finishing it earlier because I had the tail end of a migraine to deal with!
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
Oh, I want to read that, Scot's Lass! I've just finished PD James' Death Comes to Pemberley - wasn't going to bother with it having seen iffy reviews when it first came out, but enjoyed the TV version in a low expectations, Christmassy kind of way and then found a copy for 20p in a charity shop...

Anyway, I did enjoy the book but was quite startled by how much was altered for the telly. Some of their changes seemed to make more sense of it and others less. I mostly liked the dialogue and found some of it quite convincingly Austenesque while other parts slipped more into standard crime novel. And a niggle which others on here might understand - I was so pleased for most of the book that the clergy were addressed as Mr Surname and then right at the end she slipped and Reverend Surname started creeping in. Grr!
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've just started Hobson's Choice, by Harold Brighouse, and I'm already delighted by the first scene, where Maggie sells boots to her sister's suitor. It's one of the great Manchester/Salford novels, and I thought it was about time I actually read it, having found The Manchester Man a year or so ago (and I enjoyed that, too - but how the hero suffers!). I've seen the film, of course, with Charles Laughton and John Mills.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
This week I've been reading two new books that have been quite absorbing. The first is "Twelve Years A Slave", which probably doesn't need explanation as the film's now in the cinema. It's a very articulate, well-written book that puts the author's point of view across extremely well; he doesn't play it for emotion, which makes the story more moving as it unfolds. The gaps, and silences, are also quite revealing. "I worked there for several years..." and you can only imagine what that long, dreary period in his life must have been like. The happy ending leaves you wondering about the others who weren't so fortunate.

The other book is "A City of Women" by David Gillham. Set in wartime Berlin, this tells the story of Sigrid, a young married woman whose soldier husband is mostly away at the Russian Front. Unfulfilled, she gets involved with a lover, and bit by bit, is drawn into the world of helping Jews to evade capture by the Gestapo.

Written in the present tense, so the story unfolds almost as a living thing moment by moment, there are plenty of twists in the tale. Despite the period references, this book sucks you in to a modern-feeling, claustrophic, tense setup as Sigrid slips increasingly more deeply into a frightening world where anyone can betray anyone at any turn. A very atmospheric read and for once a novel where you can't predict the outcome.

[ 07. February 2014, 17:21: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I've just whizzed through Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer, translated from German by Jamie Bulloch and Katharina Bielenberg. It's a love story told entirely in emails between two people who've never met but start emailing by accident. I found it gripping but rather unsettling and wasn't sure I liked either of the main characters all that much. Still, it's the sort of thing I want to see more of in translation, being non arty and pretentious, just a good story!
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Reading Sarah Water's The Night Watch again. Love how she captures the greyness of wartime/postwar (both periods are covered) London.
 

---

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:
I've just finished Longbourn, Jo Baker's retelling of Pride & Prejudice from the point of view of the servants. Mrs Bennet and Mr Collins come off better than you might expect, and Wickham is slightly more villainous! It's very good, readable and with attention to detail - often speech in this type of book jars as not quite right, but this didn't feel too far off. The household side of things also feels authentic, I remember reading some things about women in the home when I was at university and this all tied together with that, so I got the overall impression of a well-researched, well planned book. I started it on my commute home on Tuesday and finished it at lunchtime today, having wanted to read it in every spare minute and only not finishing it earlier because I had the tail end of a migraine to deal with!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm within 30 pages of finishing Ray Bradbury's Death is a Lonely Business, the first Bradbury I've ever read.

A strange, unsettling book, dripping with atmosphere. It's a stylish noir mystery, but with a generous dash of surrealism thrown in. Vivid characters, densely-painted locations and a level of creepiness that's made me averse to reading it at night.

Off to find some more by Mr Bradbury soon...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
I am still Delderfielding - I know it is not classic literature but he is a good storyteller.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
The book is beautiful and weird and I'm not sure if I love it or am trapped in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:
A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale - very topical as it starts with assisted suicide and then looks at its effects on various characters in a Cornish village, including the vicar who is accused of being an accomplice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I recently read Patrick Gale's A Perfectly Good Man.

I was in a seriously bad state at the time and found it riveting and deeply consoling - more than consoling, inspiring that life and God were worthwhile.

Gale is clearly sympathetic to religion but is better known as a gay writer (not that that ought to define him). The witness to the hope and healing that can be in religious faith and practice were all the more powerful to me coming from outside the church.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'm within 30 pages of finishing Ray Bradbury's Death is a Lonely Business, the first Bradbury I've ever read.

A strange, unsettling book, dripping with atmosphere. It's a stylish noir mystery, but with a generous dash of surrealism thrown in. Vivid characters, densely-painted locations and a level of creepiness that's made me averse to reading it at night.

Off to find some more by Mr Bradbury soon...

---

Something Wicked This Way Comes is probably my favouritist book ever. Just sayin'

---

quote:

---

I've been reading The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The plot revolves around the restoration of a 15th century Flemish painting of a chess game and a mystery involving the players portrayed - but then one of the researchers ends up dead. *gasp* Is it connected? Will our heroine survive to solve the puzzle? Will anybody give a damn by the time we find out? It's written in a consciously literary way, leaving no detail unwritten but telling you nothing. The characters, to a man, are brattish and a bit stupid. The painting barely gets a mention after the first half, the rest of the story unravels in all directions by the end leaving truck-size plot holes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
...Rereading Lord of the Rings at the moment - ran out of new books to read and no time to go to the library.

---

NOOOO I have nightmares like that.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
After my comments on Patrick Gales’s A Perfectly Good Man I received a private message from a Shipmate who had put me on their Ignore List so I could not reply.

Trying to remain heavenly, I would say here so s/he can read it:

ONE A Perfectly Good Man is not about nor does it condone assisted suicide. As a trained volunteer at Cecily Sanders’ St Christopher’s Hospice, I do not support euthanasia.

TWO If my correspondent had been aware of my domestic arrangements (sharing my life and bed for the last thirty years with another man) I am sure my correspondent would have been more tactful in her/his comments on homosexuals (sic).

THREE If I’m looking for amusing pot boiling trash, I can imagine Ben Aaronovitch (who my correspondent suggested as preferable to Patrick Gale) would be a good idea. As it was I was undergoing an exceptionally nasty course of chemotherapy last autumn, during which reading A Perfectly Good Man gave me faith in the working of God’s grace, for which I am deeply thankful

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quote:

---

NOOOO I have nightmares like that.

---

Nightmares about reading Lord of the Rings?! Surely you jest.

On the other hand, rereading it has reminded me why I found Aragorn so annoying. All this talk of women being treasure makes me want to slap him. At least Faramir talks to Eowyn like she's a real person.
 

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Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
I assumed that the nightmare related to running out of new books
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Yes, sorry, I meant running out of new books. Thinking about having nothing to read makes me break out in a cold sweat. Luckily, a look around my living room (and bedroom, and spare room etc) shows that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Well, I thought that was what you meant...

I never said I'd run out of things to read. That's not going to happen here either - when I finish the new books I just reread some of my favourites from the rest of the collection (est. between 5 and 6 thousand).

I did enjoy reading Simon Morden's 'Arcanum' a couple of weeks ago, though. Great idea, brilliant world-building, good characters. Highly recommended to anyone who likes fantasy, and I'm not just saying this because he's a shipmate.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Hmm, that's interesting. That sounds like my Mother's habit of buying books little and often. She reads them more or less straight away and when she's done, rereads, buys a new one or steals mine.

I buy books less often in higher quantity, to be read at some point in the future, and consequently about 50% of my books are unread. The only exceptions are books in series bought as they come out. The book I'm reading at the moment (about a field archaeologist who can see ghostly images of the past on her digs) was bought about 15 years ago and has been sat on a shelf waiting to be read.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
I read *very fast* so a TBR pile doesn't last very long around here... Your book about the archaeologist who sees images of the past sounds interesting. Details, please!
 

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Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
Books are the only thing I receive at Christmas and birthday. Having received Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God at the start of November, I'm currently at about page 700, also known as "just short of half way".

My pile of unread books is currently stacked up on my floor and comes to half way up my thigh. Probably the most foreboding volume there is Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
The book about the archaeologist mentioned above is 'The Falling Woman' by Pat Murphy. I'm finding the characters a little unsympathetic at the minute, but the writing itself is enjoyable, and it's turned out to be a very quick read.
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:
I've just finished Longbourn, Jo Baker's retelling of Pride & Prejudice from the point of view of the servants.

---

Thanks for posting about this. I'm just getting to the end and have enjoyed it enormously. There are one or two things I'm not sure I agree with, but they're interesting rather than irritating, and thinking about them has actually enhanced my enjoyment of the book.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I have just finished The Shock of the Fall and thought it was phenomenal, one of those rare books that is raved over but actually truly deserves the hype. It is a portrait of a young man with schizophrenia, written in the first person. The author, Nathan Filer, is a registered psychiatric nurse – presumably one of the ones who get referred to in the book as “Nurse Whatsit and Nurse Thing and Nurse the Third”.

It’s not a nice book, exactly, but fantastically well written and very compelling. You know that something terrible happened in the narrator’s childhood but only find out very late in the game what it was. His schizophrenic hallucinations are linked to this incident.

The narrator admits that one of the worst things about his illness is how selfish it makes him, but I found the character strangely likeable. He doesn’t turn up to appointments, goes off his meds for a while – but in a funny way you can see how it all makes sense to him. And now and then, despite claiming to be totally selfish, he does something genuinely kind.

I also found the book a real eye-opener about mental health services in the UK. The narrator ends up inside a police cell for his own safety (his first major schizophrenic episode – the emergency services have nowhere else they can take him) and his description of an acute psychiatric hospital is grim (“There is literally nothing to do.”). The book ends when his community mental health centre gets closed down.
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 
I read The Shock of the Fall recently too and thought it was a fantastic book. It's also written by someone who has some understanding of how crap UK mental health support can be and how much worse it is getting. I was speaking to my psychiatric nurse (a job I believe the author does or did do) today and she says her case load is now three times what it was a year ago and everyone is struggling to cope and it's become crisis management instead of support to prevent crises. Typical short term thinking.
 

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Posted by Silver Swan (# 17957) on :
 
I recently read Mark Vonnegut's new memoir, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness, Only More So and would like to read his earlier one, Eden Express. He is a very honest writer as well as being insightful and witty.
Here's an excerpt - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130537541
 

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Posted by The Machine Elf (# 1622) on :
 
I've just finished 'The Social Amoebae: The biology of cellular slime molds' by John Tyler Bonner. It's probably the best written science book I've ever read - completely clear explanations to someone who hasn't studied biology since high school, but every fact backed with a citation to original research papers if you want to look further.

It describes cellular slime molds (the ones which live as individual amoebae, then when they run out of food gang together to form 'slugs' which crawl to the surface to form fruiting bodies to distribute spores, rather than the plasmodial ones which map subway systems) and various attempts to find the chemicals which govern the various social formations and might give clues how cells in higher animals differentiate and develop.


TME
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
I've just finished a book about the great ideological clash of the 20th century--no, not the Cold War, John McMillian's Beatles vs. Stones. It's cultural history, not music criticism, so he doesn't take a side, and it's not as if there are a lot of new facts to be revealed, but he does have some interesting insights. Not that he's going to change anybody's mind.

[ 10. March 2014, 01:54: Message edited by: Timothy the Obscure ]
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I'm currently reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, and really enjoying it.

I have had some difficulties with my new Sony ereader and only chose to download this book at the library as part of learning to use the system, but it's a wee gem. I can see that I'm going to get more practice downloading her other books

Huia
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Nadia Bolz-Weber - worth reading? Anything similar by anyone a bit less intimidatingly cool?
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. I had read her "talented Mr. Ripley," series but not this one, probably because it was published under "Claire Morgan." I imagine, in 1952, she didn't dare write about lesbians under her own name.

It opens with our young protagonist, Therese working at a mind numbing job in a department store and dating a nice young man whose proposals she keeps refusing. Then a striking woman walks up to Therese's counter to buy a doll for her daughter and the world slips sideways. From Carol, Therese is intensely aware of the "salt" that was missing in her other relationships.

As Therese pursues Carol we worry for both of them; not just that one might hurt the other, but that the people around them might make them pay a terrible price for stepping out of the conventional line.

There were some very suspenseful parts but ultimately this is not one of Highsmith's mysteries, rather an intriguing, often lyrical love story.

What prompted me to read this was the news that Cate Blanchett and Mara Rooney are making a film of this called Carol. I can't wait.
 

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Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 
Some while ago somebody on these boards mentioned Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series, which I have very happily been reading through. Then I came across his new series about Doctor Dee, and I'm reading the first one, The Bones of Avalon - not only John Dee but Glastonbury, alchemy, witchcraft, murder, King Arthur.... cor! it's wonderful. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book, The Heresy of Dr Dee, to turn up through my letterbox, so thankyewverymuch whoever mentioned Phil Rickman here

[ 21. April 2014, 13:07: Message edited by: Pine Marten ]
 

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Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I just finished "A Time to Keep Silence", by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This is a lovely short (less than 100 pages) account of his travels to various monasteries (two in France, Benedictine and Trappist, and the abandoned rock monasteries in Cappadocia in Turkey) and his reflections on monastic life from the perspective of an outside observer. It was a really lovely book to read over Easter, and I now really really want to go and see the Cappadocian monasteries.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
I made the big mistake of using some of my rare spare time downloading free Nook books. Now, there are a lot of wonderful classics that are free. The ones I looked at recently are no more classic than my cat.

I don't even want to tell you their titles because they are so awful.

Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by jedijudy:
Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
Following a visit to Edinburgh I've got one of Iain Rankin's Rebus detective novels and Iain Bank's Complicity. Not my sort of thing, but I'll be interested.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by jedijudy:
I made the big mistake of using some of my rare spare time downloading free Nook books....

I don't even want to tell you their titles because they are so awful.

Just for y'all, I'll continue digging through them in case there is a gem hiding in the sewage. I'll let you know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Try Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes books: they're in the public domain!

---

quote:

---

Mrs Oliphant ( Hester) and Susan Ferrier.

Has anyone read any of these? What did you think of them?

Huia [/QB]

---

Margaret Oliphant. Her Miss Majorbanks is in Penguin and I enjoyed it. She was very prolific.

Susan Ferrier was Regency rather than Victorian and only produced three novels. I've read one (not Marriage, but I can't remember the title). She is sometimes compared to Jane Austen, but she is far more diffuse (most novelist are).

Charlotte M Yonge was no fool, despite her reputation for in-yer-face piety. The Heir of Redclyffe might interest you.

Have you read any other Thackery? Pendennis is a good read, I seem to remember, as is The Newcomes. I've read Esmond twice and really don't appreciate it.
 

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Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :
 
Wow. Thank you all for a great list of books.

May I ask how you keep up-to-date with new releases or find out about "classics" or older books you may enjoy? I tend to either stumble across an author (at the library; through a friend; browsing my eReader's bookshop...) then devour everything by them if I enjoy it.

I did notice BBC Radio 4 has a book programme and there are columnist in newspapers, but I worry they may be a bit high-brow and intellectual for me.

Thanks.
Ian, enjoying entering the monastic world in Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time to Keep Silence currently.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
The BBC Radio 4 bookclub and book programmes various* are fairly wide ranging - this month's bookclub was The Slap.

Book at Bedtime, Book of the Week, A Good Read and the rest
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Thanks for the comments. I have not read Anne Bronte at allso well keep her in mind.

Moo, I loved reading Wives and Daughters and have Elizabeth Gaskell down as an author to follow up. The BBC also produced a televised version of this which I enjoyed.

Iain your local library may have lists of books that could be of interest on their website as well as readers and staff reviews of books. Ours is a treasure trove which I haven't yet fully explored.

Regarding The Luminaries a nit picking friend said it can't really be set in Hokitika as it doesn't have any sandflies in it (the West Coast of the South Island is notorious for them). He did say he thought it was well written though.

Huia
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
I've heard very good things about George Gissing. Apparently Grub St in particular has good women characters.

I promise I'm not being biased just because he came from the Rhubarb Triangle (there's a mini Gissing Museum in town).
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Elsewhere, a friend and I have proposed a Bronte sitcom. It should be titled something like THOSE CRAZY BRONTES, and star somebody like Michael Palin as Patrick Bronte. The absentminded vicar of a remote Yorkshire parish tries to raise a brood of four madcap teens perpetually getting into fun trouble. In episode 1, Emily and Bramwell paint the inside of the church door with modern art (= Alma-Tadema, probably), throwing Sunday's sermon completely out of whack.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
New Grub Street by Gissing is a pretty grim story of someone failing to make a living by writing. Like plays about the theater, writers writing about writing has a certain energy.
 

---

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
Now reading 'Perfect' by Rachel Joyce. Set in the 1970s, an eleven year old boy worries irrationally about the extra 2 seconds that are to be added to the year in order to balance slight discrepancies in time measurement, and what effect that will have on his family.

Wonderful detail on how a sensitive and thoughtful boy of that age views the world, sees life and interacts with family and friends.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Elsewhere, a friend and I have proposed a Bronte sitcom. It should be titled something like THOSE CRAZY BRONTES, and star somebody like Michael Palin as Patrick Bronte. The absentminded vicar of a remote Yorkshire parish tries to raise a brood of four madcap teens perpetually getting into fun trouble. In episode 1, Emily and Bramwell paint the inside of the church door with modern art (= Alma-Tadema, probably), throwing Sunday's sermon completely out of whack.

---

I'd definitely watch that!
 

---

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
Finally finishing the Niccolo Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. The last volume is Gemini, and is set mostly in late medieval Edinburgh. I may possibly go on from this to re-read the Lymond Chronicles, so I can work out how, exactly, they are related - and to enjoy the Errol Flynn-like adventures of Lymond himself, of course.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:
Mrs Oliphant ( Hester) and Susan Ferrier.

Huia

---

I saw Hester in a bookshop today and snapped it up. I looks interesting.

Apparently, Virago published a number of Mrs Oliphant's novels in the 70s when I bought one (The Rector?) Only Hester and Miss Majorbanks are currently in print. Her ghost story A Beleagued City was much admired by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The novel I've read by Susan Ferrier was The Inheritance. Wiki says her greatest influence was Maria Edgworth.
 

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Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :
 
Hester was Book of the Week on Radio 4 not long since. This thread's reminded me that I recorded it at the time and haven't listened to it yet. Hmm.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I am currently ploughing my way through Moby Dick. Ye gods and little fishes*, Herman Melville manages to make Charles Dickens look concise. How many ways are there to say “Captain Ahab had an implacable vendetta against the whale and lay awake all night brooding over it?”

I tried reading it years ago and never finished it (which is extremely rare for me). I’m now beginning to remember why, although I’m determined to get through it this time.

*or great big fishes, I suppose, considering the subject matter
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
True, but that's sort of the point. It's not about the plot, it's about giving him a jumping-off point for meditations on everything even vaguely related to whales, the sea, the color white... Sort of like a very long literary fugue.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
"Eight Days of Luke" by Diana Wynne Jones and "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch just arrived this morning. A hard decision which to read first, but I've gone for the DWJ - good as usual.
 

---

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
MOBY DICK is a book I could only ever read once. Like WAR & PEACE. (You have the battle of Borodino and you're not going to take us there? They're just going to =talk= about it?!?) Whereas I could read PRIDE & PREJUDICE once a year.
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I'm fifty pages into (Mrs)Margaret Oliphant's Hester and it seems gripping. More balls than Trollope, but then she's a woman.

I have read War and Peace twice, once within the last five months and I could consider it again.

I only read Moby Dick once a very long time ago and I mean to re-read it. But somehow, there's always something more interesting.

If I wasn't distracted by other books, I could well read the entire ouevre of Jane Austen every year.
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
I just finished re-reading Lady Susan and the two unfinished novels, The Watsons and Sanditon.

I enjoyed all three. The Watsons is vintage Jane Austen. Lady Susan, which is a very early work, gives a picture of a completely unscrupulous woman. I am very curious about how Sandition would have turned out. It is about the early stages of the transformation of a seaside village into a resort. Because Jane Austen never wrote anything like this, it's not clear how the novel would have ended.

Moo
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
Moo Reginald Hill, a British mystery writer based one of his books on Sandition which I had not read bfore. I did mean to go back and read it, but haven't yet done so.

The Odd Women is now waiting for me to collect at the library I think I'll wait until tomorrow when they have the drop-insession to help with technology as it's a biy of a challenge to get to.

Huia
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
The Jane Austen outside the Big Six that I love is the juvenilia Love and Freindship (sic). A glorious send up of the sentimental, melodramatic novel.

A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)
 

---

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
I've just finished The White Princess by Philippa Gregory - one of the Cousins' War series about the Wars of the Roses. This one is told through the eyes of Elizabeth of York, who was forcibly married to Henry VII after he won the Battle of Bosworth to unite the houses of York and Lancaster. Quite unputdownable, and it made me want to read the ones I haven't read yet (The White Queen, about Elizabeth Woodville, Lady of the Rivers about her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg and The King's Curse, told through the eyes of Margaret of Warwick).

I'm even beginning to forgive her for writing them in the present tense, which I find annoying, particularly in books set 500 years in the past.
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
Somebody at my wonderful library clearly has an interest in classic thrillers, so I have just read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. Oddly, the thing it reminded me of most strongly was the movie Dogville; I found it hard to believe that a place could be that cut off from centralised authority and still accessible by car!

I wanted to rewrite the first paragraph and reduce the number of simple sentences by using a relative clause but soon got used to his style, which did fit the action very well. As it is written in the first person, we know very little about the main character, not even his name, which felt odd, but it was a gripping read.
 

---

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :
 
I recently finished a selection of poetry by Kevin MacNeil called "Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides". I'm not a poetry natural, but did find this collection pretty accessible (it probably helps that I've been to the Outer Hebrides), although the more Buddhist themes were a bit beyond me sometimes.

I've got a couple of books on the go now: Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (which I've had for years and years but never got round to reading), and Charles Maclean "Island on the Edge of the World" which is a history of St Kilda. I'm yet to be convinced of "Curious Incident..."'s status as life-changing. It's clever, yes, and gripping. But I haven't completely warmed to it yet. The Maclean book yet again is making me want to visit St Kilda, it's such a fascinating place, with such a tragic history.
 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:

I'm even beginning to forgive her for writing them in the present tense, which I find annoying, particularly in books set 500 years in the past.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:


Currently reading "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch, the fourth in the series about Peter Grant, the young London policeman who deals with supernatural crimes. I loved the first three books but somehow this fourth one isn't grabbing me half as much and I feel I can take it or leave it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eigon:
I rather enjoyed Broken Homes - partly the sarky comments about post-war architecture and partly seeing just how formidable Nightingale can be in a fight! And it's got quite the cliffhanger ending....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:
Alongside these I'm reading Phineas Finn on my kindle. It seems really weird to be reading a Victorian novel on a e reader, a kind of time clash.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
I've been having an orgy of science-fiction recently. Reread Simon Morden's Samuil Petrovich trilogy (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
When Pete was here last winter he introduced me to the Vish Puri books by Tarquin Hall - okay, it's not great literature but it is well written, humourous detective stories. Great fun and a bit of a taste of India in all its contradictions.

---

quote:

---

I am leading the Ship's book group in February with a new 700-page book by Simon M. The first three chapters were great! See the thread for details and join us next year.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
... set in the 19th century. I haven't tried going there through Kindle ...

---

I knew these Kindle thingies were clever, but I didn't realise they did time travel ...
 

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Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
Had an interesting conversation yesterday regarding trilogies. I've read the 1st part of The Forsyte Saga and in my review, I made a comparison to The Lord of the Rings. I received the following comment:

quote:

---

The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy; it's a single work in six parts. It was only published in three volumes rather than one, or even six, for technical (cheaper to make three books than a huge one) and marketing reasons.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
LOTR is not really a trilogy, but it is always called that since it did appear in 3 books. It was (as others have pointed out) a gigantic single novel snipped by publisher demand into three chunks. I am told that post-war paper shortages forced this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
The Jane Austen outside the Big Six that I love is the juvenilia Love and Freindship (sic). A glorious send up of the sentimental, melodramatic novel.

A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tina:

Count me as another one who's reading through all manner of old stuff on an e-reader via Project Gutenberg. Did a chronological re-read of Jane Austen's work, now reading Trollope's Palliser novels, along with various eighteenth-century novels series!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There is a new Walsh Lord Peter just out --I must go and look for it. I found the first 3 or 4 only mildly interesting, but with the last one, suddenly, three-quarters of the way in, the entire work leaped to life and it was thrilling. (If and when you get there you will know it.) I am hoping that in the new volume she will have retained that thrill.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
I've been reading The Collected Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, and I think she would have hated having other authors use her characters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Having been unable to resist 40 stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett for 37p, I am now reading The Secret Garden, I think for the first time. I'm guessing that, if I had read it as a child, I would not have been so appalled at the way Mary is treated by the adults in her life. Having read a defintion of emotional abuse a couple of days ago dos not help.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by JoannaP:
[qb] Having been unable to resist 40 stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett for 37p, I am now reading The Secret Garden, I think for the first time. There was also a lot of classist stereotyping which I found quite hard work.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tina:

Count me as another one who's reading through all manner of old stuff on an e-reader via Project Gutenberg. Did a chronological re-read of Jane Austen's work, now reading Trollope's Palliser novels, along with various eighteenth-century novels series!

---

How are you enjoying the Palliser novels? I'm now up to The Prime Minister and am really enjoying them. Some years ago (OMG - maybe 25 or 30) they were adapted for TV with Susan Hampshire (I think) playing Lady Glencora.

Huia

---

Yeah, I'm enjoying them a lot - I'm also up to The Prime Minister now. I think part of the appeal for me is they're very mixed characters and you often aren't sure how their lives will pan out and whether the good or bad will win out - for example I started the PM thinking Ferdinand Lopez was a confident, decent bloke being discriminated against for his parentage; but now he seems to be a bit of a git And Lady Eustace is sooo bad but fun to read about!
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I loved A Piece of Justice by Jill Paton Walsh and was disappointed by the Lord Peter Wimsey books in comparison.

I've just acquired my daughter's cast off Kindle (she's bought a i-Pad) and am reading the stuff on it I want to read before I deregister her and register it to me and start putting my own choices on. I'm looking forward to Project Gutenberg and the other out of copyright books.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
I assume you mean the unsuccessful, IMO, Wimsey stories penned by JPW?

After all, Jill Paton Walsh was only 5 years old when the last Wimsey story by Dorothy Sayers was published.
 

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Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Yes, sorry, thought that was implicit. I find the Dorothy L Sayers books fascinating, with all their dated prejudices and mores, and found someone pastiching them not so great.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
So did I. But I do urge you to skip over to the second-to-the-newest one, THE ATTENBURY EMERALDS, and read it. Actually, just read the latter third. Suddenly plot and character line up and sing together in harmony. It's amazing.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I like listening to the Lord Peter mysteries on Radio 4, but have never actually read them. I think I saw a teleplay several years ago.

I just finished the June selection for Ship's book club and really enjoyed it!
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
If you were going to begin, I suggest THE NINE TAILORS, Sayers' best Lord Peter novel. A few of them really do have to be read in order, but this one is a delightful outlier. And if you don't like it then you don't have to get tangled up in the others.
 

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Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :
 
I wish Jill Paton-Walsh would stop writing faux Lord Peter books and go back to her own writing, which I enjoyed.

I honestly can't think of novels written as sequels by an author other than the original, that I have enjoyed I thought Pemberley was dire, despite enjoying that author's other books.

There was one short story written as a sequel to Jane Eyre that I rather enjoyed. I can't remember who wrote it but it became obvious to Jane that Bertha Mason had actually been driven mad by Rochester who was trying to do the same to her.

Huia
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Jill Paton Walsh's pastiches of Dorothy Sayers! They just don't work for me. Marrying Bunter off to a freelance photographer and giving him a cosy little mews flat so he can carry on being Wimsey's 'man' is Simply Wrong; modern ideas of how servants should be treated retrofitted onto an earlier society. It's nearly as bad as the later Pern books (I'm thinking of 'Masterharper' in particular here).

[ 06. June 2014, 08:52: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I have finished Moby Dick out of sheer bloody-mindedness. I am never going to read it again. Man that was a chore.
 

---

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
I never got beyond the first paragraph...
 

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Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
Haven't tried Moby Dick yet. In terms of the epics, I have a copy of War & Peace at home, but I want to warm up to it with Crime & Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov first.

Have just finished volume 2 of The Forsyte Saga.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Agree about the direness of Bunter in the mews. And oh lord, the latter Pern novels are to be strictly avoided.

I did read MOBY-DICK. Once was enough. I also read WAR & PEACE, and was annoyed. If the entire thing is going to revolve around the battle of Borodino, darn it I want a battle! I do not want to trail around on the verges of the conflict.
 

---

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoannaP:
Having been unable to resist 40 stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett for 37p, I am now reading The Secret Garden, I think for the first time. I'm guessing that, if I had read it as a child, I would not have been so appalled at the way Mary is treated by the adults in her life. Having read a defintion of emotional abuse a couple of days ago dos not help.

---

Yes - I read that recently and felt exactly the same (and wait till you come across Colin later in the book!). There was also a lot of classist stereotyping which I found quite hard work. I hadn't read it as a child, and had to try and remember how much 'of its time' it was. I did read (and reread, several times) "A Little Princess" as a child, and would like to reread it as an adult, but I'm worried that reading it with 21st century adult eyes will spoil the childhood memory of a magical story.

---

Oh God, I see what you mean about Colin. Ten years old and he has never spoken to another boy

By way of contrast, I have just finished Kate Atkinson's Case Histories and will definitely look for the next one in the library. I am not entirely sure about the "literary detective novel" sub-genre but Kate Atkinson does it better than Susan Hill.
 

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Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
Moby Dick has been on one of my library shelves for over twenty years. Some day, some year, I shall drag it down (again) and read it.

La vie en rouge, did you read it in French or English? If French, you have my humble admiration!
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
In defense of Burnett, it is only fair to say that Victorian and Edwardian medical practices would curl your hair. For instance after childbirth new mothers were to be kept in a dark room for six weeks. They had to nurse the newborn, of course, but they were fed on a diet of toast and water. Even the recipe fort his convection is depressing -- toast the bread and then boil it in water until it's a jelly. Strain off all the solids and feed the fluid to the patient.
 

---

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
. It's nearly as bad as the later Pern books (I'm thinking of 'Masterharper' in particular here).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Although I have a copy on my shelves I have never managed Moby Dick, I just can't get into it at all - and I have tried, honest.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
I never got beyond the first paragraph...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
In defense of Burnett, it is only fair to say that Victorian and Edwardian medical practices would curl your hair. For instance after childbirth new mothers were to be kept in a dark room for six weeks. They had to nurse the newborn, of course, but they were fed on a diet of toast and water. Even the recipe fort his convection is depressing -- toast the bread and then boil it in water until it's a jelly. Strain off all the solids and feed the fluid to the patient.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
They are just starting the BBC series here. I may have to look at it, if it is actually within shouting distance of the novel. (The best film version was the one starring Michael York!)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
but it's a bit like finding caviar in an iced bun.

---

Thanks for that image. I want to wash my mouth out.

Today I finished The Duke's Children which is the last of the Palliser novels. I liked the series better that the Barset novels as I find the characters more interesting.

I've now started The Odd Women by George Gissing, though I may splice in some contemporary light reading.

Does anyone else find themselves using old fashioned language in their everyday speech after immersing themselves in Victorian or Regency novels?

Huia

[ 09. June 2014, 09:01: Message edited by: Huia ]
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huia:
Today I finished The Duke's Children which is the last of the Palliser novels. I liked the series better that the Barset novels as I find the characters more interesting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
I'm still in the fifteenth century: I found an Anne Easter Smith book that I'd forgotten I had called Queen by Right which tells the story of Cecily, Duchess of York (mother of Edward IV and Richard III).

Like the Philippa Gregory book, quite unputdownable, but unlike PG she tells it in the past, and as a narrative rather than as though the author were one of the characters.

I still don't understand why Hilary Mantel gets all the history-as-fiction plaudits - give me either of these ladies any day!

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Thank you for this recommendation. I love good historical fiction (esp when written in the past tense) and will look out for this.

I'm not a fan of Hilary Mantel either. I read one of her books and didn't like it much, a feeling that was clinched by listening to her on the radio when she was discussing her latest novel, which all sounded a bit pretentious to me.
 

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Posted by moron (# 206) on :
 
Sorry if I've overlooked comparable recommendations but this post is an alternative to starting another thread so sue me.

Anything by Mary Doria Russell is nearly beyond my ability to put down; typically fatigue is the culprit.

From The Sparrow to Children Of God to Doc to A Thread Of Grace to whatever is next in no particular order have been a very enjoyable time investment. She makes implausible plot twists well erm you know because of the believability of the complex characters she creates.

Very good stuff.
 

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

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I still don't understand why Hilary Mantel gets all the history-as-fiction plaudits ...

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Originally posted by Moo:

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Originally posted by Huia:
Today I finished The Duke's Children which is the last of the Palliser novels. I liked the series better that the Barset novels as I find the characters more interesting.

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I like them better also, although I confess I tend to skip the political stuff.

Moo

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Originally posted by Huia
I wondered whether Trollope was punishing both Lady Laura and Mabel Grex for steppping out of their roles by not giving them happy endings.

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I don't think so. I think that he was more concerned with his craft than with dispensing happy or unhappy endings according to the merits of the character.

One of my favorite characters to read about is Lizzie Eustace, although I would have hated to know her in real life. One minor character I like is the factor of the Scottish estate.

Moo
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
He might not have been consciously thinking "ooh, pushy dame, must remember to smack her down before the last page." But there is a consistent tendency over the entire literature of the period to be sure that overly powerful women (especially sexual ones) had to Pay A Price in some way. It was a cultural expectation.
The big complaint about PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was the heroine's intelligence and outspoken quality. Austen heard and obeyed, and wrote MANSFIELD PARK.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I've just finished Two-Part Invention, by Madeleine l'Engle, and it turned out not to be comfort reading after all - but it is a very good book, being a moving account, towards the end of her husband's last illness and death.
Maybe I'll go for Diane Duane's A Wizard of Mars next. I've read the rest of the Young Wizard series and enjoyed them, and being Young Adult it can't be too harrowing, surely!
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
You could be safe with Diane Duane (it's been a while since I read anything of hers, but I don't remember her being particularly harrowing). But Young Adult fiction in general... perhaps not. They quite often have depressing themes. Or at least that's how it seems to me.

OTOH Diana Wynne Jones is usually classed as young adult, and she's not depressing at all...
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
A Wizard of Mars isn't harrowing--well, except to its characters. Just bring a bag of tomatoes, hey?
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Diana wynn Jones is a marvelous writer. One of the ones who should have lived forever.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
Really quite excited - last night I downloaded the Hugo awards packages to have a look at before I vote. This wasn't even possible when I last went to a WorldCon!
It's a great perk of Con membership, and I was very pleased to see that Paul Cornell's comic The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who was one of the graphic story nominations that is included (along with Girl Genius and a rather creepy George RR Martin offering called Meathouse Man). I wanted to read Paul Cornell's comic when it first came out, but missed the publication date because I don't live anywhere near a decent comic shop, so last night I had a look, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The Doctor goes to a convention and meets Matt Smith!
I seem to remember writing some fan fiction with a friend (to be fair, I think she had most of the good ideas) in which Spock goes to a Star Trek convention (time travel is obviously involved). It's one of those things that fans want to see their favourite characters do, and Paul Cornell did it brilliantly.
 

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Posted by TheAlethiophile (# 16870) on :
 
Finally finished N.T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Took 6.5 months to get through.

As a follow-up, have now started on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 
Quick book question - can anyone tell me some non-freaky twins in literature? I saw a play last night that had strange twins, and it occurred to me that many things with twins in make them a bit odd, which I find irritating as a (non-freaky, non-identical) twin. The only normal ones my friend and I could come up with were the Weasleys in Harry Potter.

That did mean that I'd instantly forgotten the twins in the YA book I've just read - Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which was not only about twins but about HP-style fan fiction and which I recommend if you want something enjoyable that will take about 3 hours to read - but to be fair to myself, my friend wouldn't have known what I was on about if I'd used that example. But now I want to try and find some others!
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I loved Fangirl.

As for non-freaky twins, there was nothing freaky about either set of Bobbsey Twins (Bert and Nan, Freddy and Flossie) except having such impressive detective abilities at such a young age. I guess it depends how stretchy your definition of "literature" is.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
IIRC the Elinor Brent Dwyer Chalet School heroines include one set of twins and they seem to largely be typical of her heroines i.e. early naughtiness leads to later head girl material under the reforming influence of the Chalet school.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
In Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar there are ten-year-old identical twin girls who are minor characters. They are very different in their interests. Ruth is very concerned with the impression she makes on others. She cares a lot about how she's dressed. Jane's main interest in life is horses, and she is indifferent to dress.

Moo
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
In Lori Lansens's The Girls, the twins are, in one sense, "freaky" in that they are conjoined twins but not at all freaky in the spooky sense I think you mean.

It's one of the most beautiful novels I've ever read, about sisterly love and the courage of people who live with disabilities.

Surprisingly not depressing but very life affirming.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
There are always the twins Daisy and Demi in LITTLE WOMEN, who seem to have been created by the author mainly so that she could use the cute names. In the later sequels the children are quite ordinary, the duller background kids to the more wild ones in the bunch.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Scots Lass

Diana Evans' novel '26a' is about a pair of twins growing up in Neasden. It's not freaky, but the twins' lives are complicated by their parents' unhappy marriage, and also by the fact that their father is a white Northerner and their mother a black Nigerian. There's a hint of magic realism that the twins' deep connection with one another and their Nigerian ancestry emphasises, but social realism is predominant, I'd say. It's an interesting novel and well worth reading.

Regarding my current reading, I've recently finished Peter Mayle's 'A Year in Provence' - the charming granddaddy of what seems like a whole subgenre of travel books. I've now headed to the Far East with 'China Road' by Rob Gifford.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I have slowed down in my reading of Remember, Remember (The Fifth of November) by a British author whose name I have forgotten. It is a brief history of the UK and I do not wish to go back 156 pages in order to find the lady's name as I am reading it on Nook study. It is a v. good history in spite of its short passages. I am about halfway through it....

Can anyone recommend a short history of The Great War? I am listening to the events of 100 years ago on Radio 4 and the music on Radio 3. My grandfather fought in World War I as a US Navy officer. I think my sister or I have his sword somewhere.... I remember seeing it in the cellar as a kid in Pasadena.
 

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Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
I continue apace ploughing through all the nineteenth century children’s classics available for free on Kindle.

I can’t believe I never read Black Beauty before. It’s a flipping amazing book and I has a big sad that I've finished it already.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Black Beauty is my 10-year old daughter's favourite book at the moment. I've lost count of the number of times she's read it.

I discovered yesterday that my husband had secretly ordered a copy of The Serial Garden without telling me - all of Joan Aiken's Armitage stories in one volume, including four that have never been published before. So I spent yesterday afternoon reading that from cover to cover. I think my favourite is still the one about the baby griffin (Mrs Nutti's Fireplace).
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
Oooh! Many thanks for telling me about that; now I just have to decide whether to keep it myself or give it to my mother...
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
You could buy more than one copy, you know

Just discovered that Seal of the Worm by Adrian Tchaikovsky is due out this week, so that's next weekend's reading taken care of...
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Jill Paton Walsh's pastiches of Dorothy Sayers! They just don't work for me. Marrying Bunter off to a freelance photographer and giving him a cosy little mews flat so he can carry on being Wimsey's 'man' is Simply Wrong; modern ideas of how servants should be treated retrofitted onto an earlier society. It's nearly as bad as the later Pern books (I'm thinking of 'Masterharper' in particular here).

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Originally posted by JoannaP:
I have just read A Presumption of Death, which I did quite enjoy, but it was clearly not a Sayers novel! Having said that, it has inspired me to reread Sayers for the first time in yonks, so it is not entirely bad. I thought JPW did quite well on the social attitudes of the time (as far as I could tell) but I was rather dubious about some of the espionage related stuff. Even if Lord Peter did know about Bletchley Park, there is just no way he would have mentioned it to Harriet.

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who dislikes Jill Paton Walsh's pastiches of Dorothy Sayers! They just don't work for me. Marrying Bunter off to a freelance photographer and giving him a cosy little mews flat so he can carry on being Wimsey's 'man' is Simply Wrong; modern ideas of how servants should be treated retrofitted onto an earlier society.

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I thought one of the things JPW did well was to explore how class boundaries shifted and the master-servant relationship changed post WW2. It seemed believable to me that while those roles were so rigid in the prewar world, in the 1950s Bunter's son could conceivably be going to school with Peter & Harriet's sons, and that Bunter would be struggling to maintain old-school propriety in a world where it was no longer expected. But, not having lived through that change in postwar British society, I can see that my assumptions may have been wrong. I'm just not sure why they're wrong and as the portrayal of class is one of the things that fascinates me most in the original Wimsey novels, I'd love to hear someone explain a bit more why JPW gets it wrong.

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Originally posted by Jane R
Another problem is Bunter's wife. She's a great character and I have nothing against her personally, but she must be middle-class and Bunter is presumably working-class; the divide between them is at least as great, if not greater, than the divide between Harriet (middle-class) and Wimsey (upper-class).

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I think most of what you say is probably right, although I disagree with you about it feeling wrong for JPW to include things in her novels that DLS wouldn't have been able to get away with publishing. Surely that's the advantage of writing the books in another era as historical fiction -- you can print things that people might have said, thought and done at the time that wouldn't have made it into contemporary books? I mean, presumably there were a lot of people at the time -- and Lord Peter, if a real person, might well have been one of them -- thinking or saying privately that Edward wasn't fit to be king. In that sense, surely the modern writer is able to be MORE accurate than the contemporary writer, who was constrained by the sense of what could and couldn't be published?

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Originally posted by Firenze:
Few writers can bear to inhabit past attitudes we now deplore. Could you really write a hero or heroine who was, quite incidentally, racist or snobbish and stayed that way?

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The novel is frequently a form that expects its protagonists to change in some way, so you probably couldn't have a novel that focused on a white slave owner, for example, without having their attitudes develop regarding black people. That doesn't mean they'd end up happy to marry their daughter off to a black man (I'm sure there were plenty of white abolitionists who wouldn't have gone that far!), but their perspective would have to develop in some important way. Their minds would no longer be closed.

Love, of course, often transgresses acceptable racial and class barriers, which must be why it's useful as an indicator of moral as well as emotional transformation in the novel.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
No doubt. But that is about writing a historical character from the POV of a modern sensibility. What I am questioning is whether any writer can create a character as if writing as a contemporary.
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Yes, but that's not the point, Svitlana. A modern writer would (obviously) write a novel from that point of view; any unrepentant slave-owners would be The Baddies and would probably get their comeuppance by the end of the book. But for Americans of the late eighteenth century, being a slave-owner was not incompatible with being pillar of society or even with being opposed to slavery in principle; Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves, for example, and only freed a handful of them. So eighteenth-century novelists writing about American society might have slaves around in the background for local colour (aargh - no pun intended) but their focus would be on the interactions of the white characters. British writers of the same period would not have featured working-class characters as the protagonists; not if they wanted their books to be published, anyway. Jane Austen couldn't have written Longbourn because at the time she was writing nobody was interested in the servants' relationships, whereas there were dozens of girls with inadequate dowries hoping to find a Mr Darcy of their own.

There are probably lots of basic assumptions we make (as members of modern society) that would seem odd to someone from the eighteenth century. We are opposed to killing animals just for their fur, but most of us are happy to wear leather and willing to tolerate vivisection. We care about the environment, but we also burn large quantities of fossil fuel so we can gossip on the Internet and holiday on the other side of the world. We hardly bat an eyelid at pictures of half-naked women on advertising hoardings, but any woman who tries to breastfeed her baby in public is labelled a slut. I'd love to know what the novelists of the 22nd century will make of us.

[ 09. July 2014, 12:01: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
We went to Larger Local Town to order Himself some new specs today then had a wander round the shops and the small branch of a larger local book chain was having a sort of book-fair thingy.

Yes, I do know it is dangerous for people like us to go to places like that.

Anyway, there, in full view, was a copy of William Dalrymple's latest - an analysis of the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th Century. How could I say no to that?

I couldn't.

Only available in India this year - first published in UK in 2013. And just under six quid for 500+ pages.

If I can finish with Paul Theroux tonight I can start the new Dalrymple tomorrow, cricket permitting.


 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Mmm. Firenze, I have tried it, climbing deep into the head of a historical figure. And a male one, to boot, but no point in doing things by half measures.
There's a sample up here:
http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/sample/revise-the-world-sample/
Tell me if you think I succeeded.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Mmm. Firenze, I have tried it, climbing deep into the head of a historical figure. And a male one, to boot, but no point in doing things by half measures.
There's a sample up here:
http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/sample/revise-the-world-sample/
Tell me if you think I succeeded.

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Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
Just to show to Trudy Scrumptious that there are some strange people around, I loved the Attenbury Emeralds. I've no pretension to being a literary critic, I am just a reader.

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Sometimes when I read a story which really moves me I will read it again within a few days or a week, sometimes starting again as soon as I finish the first round.

I was going to ask does this make me weird? but then I don't care if I am or not, so - do other people do this?

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Jane Austen couldn't have written Longbourn because at the time she was writing nobody was interested in the servants' relationships, whereas there were dozens of girls with inadequate dowries hoping to find a Mr Darcy of their own.

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:

... Sometimes when I read a story which really moves me I will read it again within a few days or a week, sometimes starting again as soon as I finish the first round. The most recent example is an internet story which I won't reference but often with printed books as well. The earliest time I can recall when I did this I was about 18 or 19 [so getting on for 50 years ago] and I have certainly been doing it pretty regularly since.

I was going to ask does this make me weird? but then I don't care if I am or not, so - do other people do this?

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I find myself using that embiggening gesture (fingertips together and then spreading them out) on screens that are not touch screens.

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I do it <re-reading>--sometimes immediately. Lewis considered this the mark of a good reader.

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Originally posted by Ariel:
Have just acquired a very battered old copy of Edward Rutherfurd's "London", which a relation recommended to me years ago. Fascinating stuff - another of those novels that tells you the story of various generations of the same family, in this case from the day the Romans arrived to modern times. Enjoying this a lot.

These sorts of books are tantalizing - you just get into one setting when the scene changes, and you jump forward a few hundred years and start getting used to new characters.

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Originally posted by leo:

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Originally posted by Ariel:
Have just acquired a very battered old copy of Edward Rutherfurd's "London", which a relation recommended to me years ago. Fascinating stuff - another of those novels that tells you the story of various generations of the same family, in this case from the day the Romans arrived to modern times. Enjoying this a lot.

These sorts of books are tantalizing - you just get into one setting when the scene changes, and you jump forward a few hundred years and start getting used to new characters.

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I love his books. 'Sarum' is best - telling the story of Salisbuty starting with Stoneheng.e

Less good is one of Russia called 'Ruska'.

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