Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ? (Read 846653 times)

andrewc · « **Reply #2900 on:** 12 July, 2013, 03:09:53 pm »

I read the Hilary Mantel ones last month and thought they were very enjoyable and I don't normally do historical fiction. Now looking forward to the next one...... I wonder how she'll end it ..... ;-)

L CC · « **Reply #2901 on:** 12 July, 2013, 06:19:22 pm »

I couldn't finish the Hilary Mantel books. As I (still! ) can't read, and have to have my books read to me, it could just be the narrator (Simon Vance) not really holding my attention.

Peter · « **Reply #2902 on:** 12 July, 2013, 08:42:57 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 12 July, 2013, 03:06:27 pm

I've just had a bit of a Kindle binge and bought:

Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
An Unsuitable Attachment and Quartet In Autumn by Barbara Pym

I wasn't planning to go mad like that but the Hilary Mantel and Rachel Joyce ones are available for knock-down prices at the moment, and Peter reminded me of Barbara Pym after mentioning her in another thread, so I had a look at what stuff of hers was available on Kindle and those two were just £2.39 each, so well worth a punt.

Peter - I can tell I'm going to enjoy An Unsuitable Attachment just from the description of the Vicar and his wife...

Quote
Set in St Basil’s, an undistinguished North London parish, An Unsuitable Attachment is indeed full of the high comedy for which Barbara Pym is famed. There is Mark Ainger, the vicar, who introduces his sermons with remarks like ‘Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.’ His wife Sophia with her cat, ‘I feel sometimes that I can’t reach Faustina as I’ve reached other cats.’ Rupert Stonebird, anthropologist and eligible bachelor. The well-bred Ianthe Broome who works at the library and forms an unsuitable attachment with a young man there. The sharp-tongue Mervyn Cantrell, chief librarian, who complains that ‘when books have things spilt on them it is always bottled sauce or gravy of the thickest and most repellent kind rather than something utterly exquisite and delicious.’ There is also Daisy Pettigrew, the vet’s sister, another obsessional cat person, and Sister Dew who bears a strong resemblance to Sister Blatt in Excellent Women.

Great stuff! Aren't the names great? In ExcellentWomen features an anthropologist called Everard Bone - I'm not altogether convinced Barbara Pym is completely innocent in this case!

Guy · « **Reply #2903 on:** 16 July, 2013, 10:35:43 am »

Having just finished Nick Pope's "The Uninvited" I'm trying to work out whether Pope is a starey-eyed credulous whacko or a subtle author of dry SF humour $:-\$

Either way, some bits of the book had me in stitches

Ham · « **Reply #2904 on:** 16 July, 2013, 11:52:24 pm »

Anyone (with a Kindle) on the lookout for holiday reading could do worse than search for Megapack

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D341689031&field-keywords=megapack

Some great stuff, mostly for less than 50p. A lot of SF/Fantasy/Horror, but some other stuff too

citoyen · « **Reply #2905 on:** 26 July, 2013, 09:05:29 am »

A bunch of Kurt Vonnegut books are currently down to 99p for Kindle. That'll be a good reason to break my self-imposed purchasing ban then (imposed until I clear the backlog on the to-read pile...)

Edit: while browsing, also came across We by Yevgeny Zamyatin for 99p and couldn't resist...

Also bought Sutler, the first part of the Booker-longlisted The Kills by Richard House, which sounds fascinating.

citoyen · « **Reply #2906 on:** 26 July, 2013, 11:06:55 am »

Quote from: Ham on 16 July, 2013, 11:52:24 pm

Anyone (with a Kindle) on the lookout for holiday reading could do worse than search for Megapack

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D341689031&field-keywords=megapack

Some great stuff, mostly for less than 50p. A lot of SF/Fantasy/Horror, but some other stuff too

Hell's teeth! Are you trying to bankrupt me? Only 34p a time is too tempting but they soon add up...

andrewc · « **Reply #2907 on:** 26 July, 2013, 01:30:34 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 26 July, 2013, 11:06:55 am

Quote from: Ham on 16 July, 2013, 11:52:24 pm
Anyone (with a Kindle) on the lookout for holiday reading could do worse than search for Megapack

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D341689031&field-keywords=megapack

Some great stuff, mostly for less than 50p. A lot of SF/Fantasy/Horror, but some other stuff too

Hell's teeth! Are you trying to bankrupt me? Only 34p a time is too tempting but they soon add up...

That's dangerous stuff ! There's authors in those SF collections I've not read since I was a teenager haunting my local library!

citoyen · « **Reply #2908 on:** 29 July, 2013, 01:12:52 pm »

Peter (and anyone else who's interested) - Barbara Pym came up for discussion on yesterday's edition of Open Book on Radio 4. Well worth a listen for anyone not acquainted with her work.

They also discussed The Professor Of Poetry by Grace McCleen and The Trip To Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink by Olivia Laing - both of which sound very interesting indeed and are now on my to-read list.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037gnxt

andrewc · « **Reply #2909 on:** 29 July, 2013, 11:09:33 pm »

Currently half way through Neptunes Brood by Charles Stross.

Have just ordered Meet Me In Gaza by Louisa Waugh. I remember reading & enjoying the regular articles she wrote for New Internationalist when she was working there.

Steph · « **Reply #2910 on:** 31 July, 2013, 01:04:08 am »

Mr Stross is also the author of "Rule 34", which says a lot about his interests.

For those who are unfamiliar with his work, can I really, really recommend his "Laundry" books? His novella "A Colder War" was based on the idea that Lovecraft's work was factual. The Laundry books extend this idea...

"We're here..."

Pingu · « **Reply #2911 on:** 31 July, 2013, 10:28:13 pm »

red marley · « **Reply #2912 on:** 31 July, 2013, 10:41:51 pm »

Just finished Christopher Brookmyer's Bedlam. It's his first foray into SF and reminds me of Iain M Banks' Surface Detail with a touch of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror series. It's an easy, page-turning read and will appeal to anyone who misspent their youth playing computer games in the 80s and 90s. It touches on some classic SF themes as well as a few contemporary satirical digs (there's a great setup for an extended gag at Daily Mail readers' expense). Perhaps not quite as clever as it promises, but a fun and thought provoking read nonetheless.

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #2913 on:** 01 August, 2013, 12:49:28 pm »

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert JK Rowling Galbraith. I was just finishing the second Game of Thrones book when the library emailed to say my reservation for The Cuckoo's Calling was ready for collection, so I'm taking a break from swords and incest. I started it last night, read three chapters, so far, so good.

Bledlow · « **Reply #2914 on:** 01 August, 2013, 11:06:46 pm »

Just finished Wages of Destruction. Uncomfortable reading in places, but a good piece of historical writing.

andrewc · « **Reply #2915 on:** 01 August, 2013, 11:33:32 pm »

Quote from: Steph on 31 July, 2013, 01:04:08 am

Mr Stross is also the author of "Rule 34", which says a lot about his interests.

For those who are unfamiliar with his work, can I really, really recommend his "Laundry" books? His novella "A Colder War" was based on the idea that Lovecraft's work was factual. The Laundry books extend this idea...

"We're here..."

Rule 34 was excellent, as was it's predecessor Halting State High quality, near future SF/Policiers

I second Steph's recommendation for the "Laundry" series. Excellent stuff, a nice balance of spy story & pure horror.....in one of them the protagonist expounds the reasons he & his partner are childless .. "Could you have children, if you knew you might have to cut their throats, to save them from the nightmare to come...."

Charlie has an excellent blog at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/ in which he frequently bounces ideas off his readers, some of which may even make it onto the printed page...

Riggers · « **Reply #2916 on:** 02 August, 2013, 09:26:46 am »

Hadn't heard of this author before, and not reading yet, but intrigued enough to possibly 'get', is Richard Kadrey.

Taken this description from Cory Doctorow on boingboing.net:

Kill City Blues is the latest in Richard Kadrey's amazing hard-boiled supernatural thriller series Sandman Slim. I've been a Kadrey fan since his landmark debut novel Metrophage, and have read and enjoyed all his work since, but Sandman Slim are the novels Kadrey was born to write.

Sandman Slim is a "Sub Rosa," part of the hidden world of magical people and beings who live beneath our noses. A precocious and gifted magician, he inspired jealousy in his coven, who conspired to send him to Hell while he was still alive. He was a novelty in the Underworld, and was sent to fight in a gladitorial pit, and eventually trained to be an assassin. After a daring escape from Hell, he returned to Los Angeles to reap a horrific revenge on the former friends who'd doomed him.

That was several books ago. Now, in book five, Sandman Slim has been around the block a few times, experienced several dramatic turns in his life, fought off zombies and vampires and creatures from beyond the universe, discovered the true identity of God and Lucifer, and stumbled upon the universe's impending unwinding.

Kill City Blues is the story of that impending universal destruction, and it revolves around the hunt for an artifact that may be our plane's only defense against the elder gods who are seeking to break in and reclaim the reality that was stolen from them. And of course, Sandman Slim isn't the only one hunting for it. His quest leads him -- and his competitors -- to Kill City, a dead Santa Monica megamall where the roof caved in and killed hundreds. Now it is haunted, and squatted by feral sub-rosa and "lurkers" and worse things. The quest through Kill City's demon-haunted, blood-drenched halls and towers and deeps is one of the great horror setups of all time, and delves into situations that would turn Clive Barker's stomach, the likes of which haven't been seen since the heyday of splatterpunk.

rafletcher · « **Reply #2917 on:** 02 August, 2013, 09:44:50 am »

"Domestique" by Charly Wegelius. Makes a change from my usual run of crime / thrillers / police procedurals.

citoyen · « **Reply #2918 on:** 02 August, 2013, 10:10:25 am »

"The Great Gatsby" by some American dude called Gerald Scott-something-or-other. I think it's based on a film...

(Not read it for years but it's a perennial favourite, always worth a re-read. Still utterly brilliant.)

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #2919 on:** 05 August, 2013, 08:26:39 pm »

I read An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym based on Tiermat's review. It was OK, not enough cats. Rather abrupt ending though.
I have just finished The Ocean at the end of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Typical Gaiman fair, a good page turner, I enjoyed it.

No idea what to read now, I want to save The Hydrogen Sonata for my holidays so I could do with a couple of recommendations to keep me going then....

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #2920 on:** 05 August, 2013, 08:28:40 pm »

I finished The Cuckoo's Calling, didn't work out who did the whodunnit, then once it was revealed realised there's a glaringly obvious clue on every page. I enjoyed the book and I'd definitely read the next one.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #2921 on:** 05 August, 2013, 08:34:03 pm »

Anyone read any Banana Yoshimoto?

I've signed up to Goodreads but thus far I'm not that impressed with the recommendations....

citoyen · « **Reply #2922 on:** 06 August, 2013, 08:20:33 am »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 05 August, 2013, 08:26:39 pm

I read An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym based on Tiermat's review. It was OK, not enough cats. Rather abrupt ending though.

I know what you mean about the ending. I agree with Philip Larkin about Ianthe, and with Pym herself about John, who seems a somewhat underdeveloped character:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Unsuitable_Attachment

Maybe it wasn't the best one to choose for an introduction to Barbara Pym but that was a decision based on price... Anyway, I found it very funny and certainly enjoyable enough to make me want to read more of her stuff.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #2923 on:** 06 August, 2013, 11:55:07 am »

I'm sorry, I wrote Tiermat instead of citoyen, my bad

Squarewheels · « **Reply #2924 on:** 07 August, 2013, 10:07:10 pm »

Currently reading Ice Cold in Alex by Christopher Landon.

Previously been reading The Blue Max by Jack D. Hunter, The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill and The Colditz Story by Pat Reid.

Anyone spot a theme...?

Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ? (Read 846653 times)

red marley