What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Tail End Charlie]

Popped into my local "The Works" yesterday and bought a History of England in 100 Places. Does what it says, very interesting reading about all sorts of eclectic places. Will give me several ideas for planning tours.

[Wascally Weasel]

Reading 'Bedlam', the new Brookmyre.

[citoyen]

Reading 'Bedlam', the new Brookmyre.

Chris or Christopher?

[Wascally Weasel]

Reading 'Bedlam', the new Brookmyre.

Chris or Christopher?

Christopher Brookmyre this time.  Heavily game related, there is apparently a First Person Shooter (FPS) game being produced that ties in somehow - I'm currently at work so I'm unable to google anything remotely related to computer games from here, although if you google RedBedlam and Brookmyre you should get some useful links.  Personally RedBedlam are not a company that I would have been expecting great things from but I'll be very happy to be wrong.

[citoyen]

Interesting. I've only read one of his and it was a "Chris" - wasn't all that impressed but I think the "Christophers" would be much more up my street.

d.

[Wascally Weasel]

Interesting. I've only read one of his and it was a "Chris" - wasn't all that impressed but I think the "Christophers" would be much more up my street.

d.

I thought the first of the 'Chris' ones was alright but didn't enjoy the second one as much.

I get the strong impression that he is looking for a new voice but hasn't quite found it yet.  Personally I think he writes teenagers really, really well, especially in 'A Tale Etched in Blood & Hard Black Pencil' which is my favourite Brookmyre.  I think there's a lot more he could write around teenagers, with or without the crime element.

[rogerzilla]

Just re-read Hardy's "A Pair Of Blue Eyes" (one of his so-called minor works) for the first time in years.  It's a kind of prototype for both "The Return Of The Native" and "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" but the final three chapters are absolute genius.

[citoyen]

I've started Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford, though I fear it slightly exceeds my current mental capacity...

General tiredness and other mental deficiencies mean it's taken me a while to get going with Parade's End. This is not an easy read. Wildly non-linear narrative, turbulent streams of consciousness, statements presented as fact from one point of view directly contradicted a few pages later from another... But now I've hit my stride, I'm finding it very hard to put down. It is utterly mesmerising. Even when I'm not reading it, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about it.

I'm reading the three volume edition on Kindle (as edited by Graham Greeene, omitting the fourth volume) and I'm 18% through so far. In print, it runs to something like 900 pages of dense type. It's going to keep me busy for a while longer yet.

I loved last year's BBC adaptation but there is soooo much more in the book that didn't make it to the screen. (Though having seen the TV version is making the book a little easier to follow.)

d.

[ian]

Hmm, I'd never noticed there was a Brookmyre dichotomy. That's what I get for sitting at the back of the class and paying no attention.

I did finish Blue Remembered Earth and forgot to do my book report. It wasn't bad, but expect to feel short changed that you've read effectively a 500 word prologue. It also read awkwardly, since the protagonists were African, but probably could have equally come from Haverfordwest. Every now and then you're told that the announcements are in Swahili, just in case the reader forgets they're African. A bit of a conceit which brought nothing to the to story. Also the lead character had a sudden turn from whiny doofus to dynamic go-getter mid-book, that you felt had more to do with an editor saying 'you know, he's a bit annoying' than plot. A small flurry of decent ideas but the pacing was glacial, and you could almost feel the author treading water until the next volume.

Now sampling John Dies at the End which, on the basis that I never like things that people tell me I'll like, I didn't expect to like. But the first couple of pages have been quite amusing. Apparently, already a movie, so again I'm not paying attention at the back.

[citoyen]

Hmm, I'd never noticed there was a Brookmyre dichotomy. That's what I get for sitting at the back of the class and paying no attention.

You can probably be excused because it seems to be a fairly recent development in his career and, afaict, not as pronounced as the Iain [M] Banks dichotomy - I believe Where The Bodies Are Buried is the first "Chris" and that only came out in paperback six months or so ago.

As an aside, in trying to verify this information via the medium of Wikipedia, I discovered that Brookmyre has a recurring hero, Jack Parlabane. I wonder where he got the name from - one of my all-time favourite novels, The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies, has an anti-hero called Parlabane. Not exactly a common name... If Brookmyre counts Robertson Davies as an influence, that definitely makes me want to read more of his work.

d.

[ian]

Ah, the insatiable crime thriller market. Claims them all in the end. I can't blame them, it feeds the kids. I quite enjoy Michael Marshall's turn in that arena, but his books come off a bit creepier than most.

Reminds me that I did read the first Jack Reacher novel to see what that was all about. Hmm, didn't entirely live up the hype. Maybe the later ones in the series are better. Too much coincidence and Jack Reacher can probably simultaneously kill ten men by merely blinking at them (now I do believe Tom Cruise can do this, because he harbours the spirits of empathic aliens).

As a worrying nod to culture, I've read every Robertson Davies novel, and not solely as an attempt to persuade an attractive Canadian girl to sleep with me.

Before you worry, I've already got my tickets to Die Hard V.

[citoyen]

Jack Reacher can probably simultaneously kill ten men by merely blinking at them

I've never got beyond reading the Wikipedia page about Jack Reacher, which is hilarious. Probably unintentionally. (Mainly the bit under the heading "Skills".)

d.

[Littlesox]

Bit behind the times I'm afraid (well, there are only so many hours in a day).

Half-way through The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo.

Need to get it finished so I can then watch both versions of the film for comparison.

[Tail End Charlie]

Just finished "The Hundred Year Old Man who climbed out of the window and disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson. It's funny book, the main character is a bit like Forrest Gump in that he ends up meeting world leaders, for the first three quarters of the book it had me laughing, but it got a little contrived towards the end. I'd still recommend it though.

[clarion]

Photography by Eric de Mare.  I had forgotten how influenced I was by this book.  It has the most wonderful set of plates in the middle, including shots by HC-B, Adolf Morath, Moholy-Nagy, Newman, Brandt and many others.  Beautiful.

Sadly, it was written a bit early to give me advice on taking incident light readings with an Invercone, which was why I picked it off the shelf initially.

[Mrs Pingu]

Just finished "The Hundred Year Old Man who climbed out of the window and disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson. It's funny book, the main character is a bit like Forrest Gump in that he ends up meeting world leaders, for the first three quarters of the book it had me laughing, but it got a little contrived towards the end. I'd still recommend it though.

I'm reading that just now, too.

[citoyen]

Of Mice And Men.

Read it when I was at school more years ago than I care to remember. Now my son is reading it for his GCSE coursework, so I thought I'd read it again in order to be able to discuss it with him & help him with his homework...

Bloody hell, I'd forgotten quite how harrowing a read it is. Brilliant, but harrowing. 

d.

[citoyen]

...and following that with:

The Art Of Fielding by Chad Harbach.

Supposedly the new Next Big Thing in American literature. Not greatly impressed so far. It feels over-polished and boringly conventional, like it's self-consciously ticking all the Great American Novel boxes. And it's about baseball. Even the author's name sounds like something a marketing department came up with to fill a "Great American Novelist" brief. He's no Jonathan Franzen though.

d.

[Karla]

I've just finished Flaubert's Parrot.  Deano should be proud of me for finally reading a Julian Barnes book - I once asked him "Who's Julian Barnes?"

It was good and I genuinely enjoyed it, but I think I'd have appreciated it more had I read any Flaubert first.

[citoyen]

I *love* Flaubert's Parrot! I had read Madame Bovary before I read it but I'm not sure it really did add to my enjoyment or was in any way necessary. As long as you have a general idea of who Flaubert was and know that he wrote Madame Bovary, that's probably enough.

It's a while since I read either, though. I should read both again.

Edit: just googled a bit to remind myself of some detail of Flaubert's Parrot and it probably does help to know that the narrator's life story does in some respects mirror Monsieur Bovary's... Tbh, it's such a long time since I read it that I don't remember much about it - I mainly remember the brilliant bit about Madame Bovary's eyes changing colour. Damn, you've made me really want to read it again now.

d.

[citoyen]

Island Of Wings by Karin Altenberg

The first half of this novel failed to grip me but I'm glad I gave it a chance because it picks up in the second half. This is the third book I've read recently that was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, the others being Emma Donoghue's Room and Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie. I know the Orange Prize has come in for criticism, mainly from stupid people, but this is the kind of book that to me justifies its existence because it's very much about being a woman, and if our society were not such that it makes that a fitting theme for a novel, this book would not have needed to be written. Anyway, more importantly than what awards it may or may not have won, it's a good read.

Fuller review...

(click to show/hide)

Much of the first half is fairly straightforward descriptive prose about the landscapes and hardships of life on the remote island of St Kilda. It's well written, evocative, and interesting enough as natural history documentary. In the second half, the setting becomes both a catalyst for the deterioration in the relationship between the missionary minister Mackenzie and his wife Lizzie, and a metaphor for broader themes of isolation and loneliness, identity and self-determination. Lizzie is increasingly cut off from her emotionally cold husband, who asserts his authority over her by making her pregnant (again and again), subsuming her individual character into the roles of mother and minister's wife, with obvious parallels in the way he attempts to impose his Christianity and civilisation on the islanders, making little allowance for her or their individual needs and desires. Although Lizzie never learns to speak Gaelic, so is unable to communicate properly with the islanders, she shows far more understanding and empathy than her husband with their customs and beliefs, which in their subordinate relationship to the mainland mirror her position as a woman in a patriarchal society. Unfortunately, the novel never quite manages to fully engage you emotionally because the writing about the scenery is on the whole better than the writing about people (admittedly, I've been spoilt lately by reading Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, which takes you deep into the psyche of its characters in a way Karin Altenberg never manages to do).

[Mr Larrington]

Finished The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid this morning.  I didn't see that ending coming...

[mattc]

Just finished Silver Linings Playbook [as in the Oscar-feted film].

Good, but quite a tough read - you really feel for the guy, but he's so deluded that you can't see how he's ever going to improve his life.

The film sounds like a much happier/funnier spin. But I'm also left thinking that a lot of scenes were intended to be funny, but due to the deadpan writing style just came across as rather sad.(To this reader.)

There were some genuinely uplifting moments in there.

[Ham]

Hmm, I'd never noticed there was a Brookmyre dichotomy. That's what I get for sitting at the back of the class and paying no attention.

You can probably be excused because it seems to be a fairly recent development in his career and, afaict, not as pronounced as the Iain [M] Banks dichotomy - I believe Where The Bodies Are Buried is the first "Chris" and that only came out in paperback six months or so ago.

As an aside, in trying to verify this information via the medium of Wikipedia, I discovered that Brookmyre has a recurring hero, Jack Parlabane. I wonder where he got the name from - one of my all-time favourite novels, The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies, has an anti-hero called Parlabane. Not exactly a common name... If Brookmyre counts Robertson Davies as an influence, that definitely makes me want to read more of his work.

d.

Just caught that - I, too, list Roberston Davies as one of my all time favourite authors (and one of my most  prized posesions is a brief correspondence I had with him in the 80's/early 90's - his handwriting and style is is everything you would expect)

Do let me know if there is ANY similarity.

[Biff]

Just found this in a charity shop. Invaluable.