What books are we reading at the moment ?

[tiermat]

The basic premise is that as soon as the long list comes out you download/buy/borrow all 13 books.  You then have until the prize announcement to read all 13.  The time between longlist publication and final is 13 weeks. 1 book per week is doable if they are His Bloody Project or the like.  All goes to Hell in a handbasket if Hilary Mantell or the like have a book in the list!

I started His Bloody Project yesterday afternoon and could happily have finished it in a single sitting if not for having other things to do. Looking forward to reading the last section, the report of the trial, tonight. If only all Booker nominees were like this, I could read an awful lot more of them. I finished Bring Up The Bodies in a matter of a few days but that's only because it was holiday reading and I had nothing better to do. I've still got A Brief History of Seven Killings on my 'to read' pile but haven't worked up the appetite for it yet.

The only one I have started and never finished was "A Brief History..." There was just something about it that I didn't get on with.  "A Little Life", by Hanya Yanagihara was a completely different matter, though and I finished in a couple of days sat around a Moroccan swimming pool.

[L CC]

On Audio His Bloody Project is read by Cameron Mowat and Crawford Logan.
It is utterly brilliant.

[ian]

The basic premise is that as soon as the long list comes out you download/buy/borrow all 13 books.  You then have until the prize announcement to read all 13.  The time between longlist publication and final is 13 weeks. 1 book per week is doable if they are His Bloody Project or the like.  All goes to Hell in a handbasket if Hilary Mantell or the like have a book in the list!

I started His Bloody Project yesterday afternoon and could happily have finished it in a single sitting if not for having other things to do. Looking forward to reading the last section, the report of the trial, tonight. If only all Booker nominees were like this, I could read an awful lot more of them. I finished Bring Up The Bodies in a matter of a few days but that's only because it was holiday reading and I had nothing better to do. I've still got A Brief History of Seven Killings on my 'to read' pile but haven't worked up the appetite for it yet.

The only one I have started and never finished was "A Brief History..." There was just something about it that I didn't get on with.  "A Little Life", by Hanya Yanagihara was a completely different matter, though and I finished in a couple of days sat around a Moroccan swimming pool.

I got through it. It was technically brilliant and certainly established as time and place but it suffered from the usual, excessive length and unnecessary overcomplexity, needless characters and it occasionally got difficult to tell the difference between gangstas #12, #14, and #23 beyond their mutual love of big knives and sexual violence. Somewhere there was as a far snappier 300pp novel wanting to break free.

[T42]

Shame that no one, to the best of my knowledge, added the option of a Jamaican patois to Hawking's speech synthesizer.

There's a lovely wee gag in Le Magnifique when the R on JPB's typewriter gets stuck and all his characters start speaking Martiniquais.

[citoyen]

On Audio His Bloody Project is read by Cameron Mowat and Crawford Logan.
It is utterly brilliant.

I'm familiar with Crawford Logan from playing Paul Temple in the more recent radio adaptations... Can't quite imagine him playing a 17yo Highland crofter, so I presume he's reading the other documents. 

[Legs]

It is truly an excellent read. 

[woollypigs]

Hmm I might have to bail or try again later on this book The Humans by Matt Haig. 50 pages into 322 and yet to have a laugh, The jokes I do see them and I like that style cause I loved Phil Janes and Douglas Adams styles to name but a few but this book just falls flat to me.

[fuzzy]

Stephen King 11.22.63 Well written so far.........early days.

Wasn't that turned into a filum or tv series?
Seem to recall watching something like it.

[Mr Larrington]

The Coffinmaker's Garden ~ Stuart MacBride.  On the down side, all the killin's are historical thus far, but there have been, at a conservative estimate, about twenty-five of them.  And none of the victims was a parakeet either.  Even though it's set in the fictional town of Oldcastle, the weather is just like it is 99% of the time in Logan McRae's version of Furryboottoon.

That was rather fun inna-gratuitously-violent-stylee.  This easily-amused Unit was also taken by the reaction of a Rothesay book group to a Logan McRae novel.  They didn’t like it

[woollypigs]

Stephen King 11.22.63 Well written so far.........early days.

Wasn't that turned into a filum or tv series?
Seem to recall watching something like it.

Your recalling is good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11.22.63

[Ashaman42]

Just finished Absolution Gap which is the third of the Revelation Space trilogy.

I rather enjoyed the first, wasn't quite as keen on number two.

This one, well I started it in December. December 2018.

[fd3]

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet.

Loved this book when I read it as part of my Booker Prize challenge.

I read it a few years ago.  It did nothing for me - makes me think of Dom Jolly explaining that he didn't find Vic and Bob funny, despite recognizing all the evidence that they were hilarious.

[rafletcher]

Carl Hiason's Squeeze Me.  It contains refernce to the POTUS Florida residence "Casa Bellicosa".  It's pleasant enough, and mildy amusing.

[Canardly]

Just started reading The Anarchy by Dalrymple. What a pleasant lot the East India Company were.

[hatler]

Oooo. That's one down in my bedside pile. Really looking forward to it.

[T42]

False Value by Ben Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaronovitch. It plods, pun intended. I have it on a tablet and I keep flipping out to read the Graun and the NYT in hope of something cheering.

[Ashaman42]

I've started The Earthsea cycle by Ursula K Le Guin. It's a series I've heard of and seen referenced for years.

I can't say I'm enthralled. It's fine, nothing outright wrong with it, it's just not grabbing me.

I expect I'll continue and see where it goes though.

[ian]

Just finished Absolution Gap which is the third of the Revelation Space trilogy.

I rather enjoyed the first, wasn't quite as keen on number two.

This one, well I started it in December. December 2018.

I bet you spat at the ending.

I did find a copy of Century Rain in the summer house which I remembered as his best book, so I'm re-reading and quite enjoying. The noir doesn't quite come off, but he's no Chandler, but points for trying.

[citoyen]

I've started The Earthsea cycle by Ursula K Le Guin. It's a series I've heard of and seen referenced for years.

I can't say I'm enthralled. It's fine, nothing outright wrong with it, it's just not grabbing me.

I loved those books. When I was 10.

I've often thought about re-reading them as an adult but have never got round to it.

[TheLurker]

I've started The Earthsea cycle by Ursula K Le Guin. ... it's just not grabbing me.

Like Citoyen I suspect it's a series best read before a certain age, say about 16.  I read them when I was about 12 or 13 and really enjoyed them.  I think they'd been on Jackanory and I then found them in the local library.

I've often thought about re-reading them as an adult but have never got round to it.

I've still got a copy of the Tombs of Atuan. Haven't read it for a few years, but I thought it had aged pretty well the last time I did.

[rogerzilla]

John Masefield's account of Gallipoli.  It's grimmer than the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan, because not only is the death rate far worse, you know it's all going to be in vain.

[woollypigs]

It was called The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, btw

Many thanks for the recommendation. I really enjoyed this. Must have been a bit of a kick to the teeth of the first Europeans to arrive there to only find goods and trade from Europe there already

[pcolbeck]

Dominion - Tom Holland

Not about Christianity per say as a religion though there is a lot in there about the history of Christianity, but more about the impact of Christianity on Western thinking. Excellent so far.

One hilarious one star review on Amazon complains that it focuses too much on religion - well yes its a book about how a religion affected society wtf did they expect it to contain?

[fimm]

I've started The Earthsea cycle by Ursula K Le Guin. ... it's just not grabbing me.

Like Citoyen I suspect it's a series best read before a certain age, say about 16.  I read them when I was about 12 or 13 and really enjoyed them.  I think they'd been on Jackanory and I then found them in the local library.

I've often thought about re-reading them as an adult but have never got round to it.

I've still got a copy of the Tombs of Atuan. Haven't read it for a few years, but I thought it had aged pretty well the last time I did.

I re-read them but I agree that they're probably more aimed at younger people - however I also think they get more adult as you go through so it is worth sticking with them if you can.
Le Guin returned to Earthsea much later in her life and wrote two more books set there which are rather different and darker and more adult than the original three. I need to re-read and finish the last one (I have no idea why I didn't finish it).

[Ashaman42]

I ended up reading Earthsea #2 and I've got #3 & #4 there on the bedside table, tis a big omnibus tome.

I'll read the rest I've got and see if I have the rest in the library. I don't know which books I actually have after a few book fair runs when I came away with several veg boxes of sci fi and fantasy paperbacks.