Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ? (Read 846680 times)

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #3625 on:** 30 December, 2014, 01:37:53 pm »

Woe! My Kindle has run out of voles, though at least it gave me a freebie copy of Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" before the flatteries went bat.

mattc · « **Reply #3626 on:** 30 December, 2014, 01:45:56 pm »

Quote from: Dibdib on 29 December, 2014, 11:07:10 pm

I'm taking a little break from the Discworld to launch myself head-first into ALL the Tolkien. I've read some of it in dribs and drabs over the years but I've either forgotten or didn't notice the importance of half of it, so now I'm actually paying attention.

I can recommend the track-list I used for Tolkien <mumble> years ago: skip the Sillymarion and finish off with Bored Of The Rings instead. It's rather good, and you'll really need it by that stage!

perpetual dan · « **Reply #3627 on:** 30 December, 2014, 11:18:59 pm »

View from a Hill, by Mark Burgess. Very enjoyable so far.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #3628 on:** 31 December, 2014, 03:10:43 pm »

Just finished Peter May's "Enzo Files" series. Enjoyable enough but somehwat formulaic. You can guarantee that in the course of each book Enzo will get beaten up, have a brief affair with at least one female protagonist and have Troubles with at least one of his daughters. And in the last one a suspect wears a béret. This is ponciness of the very worst sort - the italics and Frenchification, not the headgear - and should be discouraged. With a lump-hammer if necessary.

Common sense says that there must be at least two more as yet unwritten/unpublished, because Enzo tells us that this is so.

Dibdib · « **Reply #3629 on:** 31 December, 2014, 04:11:54 pm »

Quote from: Dibdib on 29 December, 2014, 11:07:10 pm

I'm taking a little break from the Discworld to launch myself head-first into ALL the Tolkien.

Hobbit romped through, onto Fellowship which I seem to have on both my Kindle and in paperback. I'm going for the Kindle version mostly because the paperback is starting to fall apart.

In fact, I seem to have a small pile of Tolkien paperbacks I'd mostly forgotten about, usually pinched from my Dad, including two copies of The Hobbit which are both older than I am (one's pretty sturdy and one is rapidly disintegrating, so is being left well alone).

Quote from: citoyen on 30 December, 2014, 02:24:01 am

I never managed more than a few pages of the Silmarrillion, despite several attempts. I gave up when it eventually dawned on me that the problem was not my reading ability* but the fact that it's a shit book.

*I was off the scale on those school reading age tests by age 10.

Yeah, I'll see whether I actually read the Silmarillion. At best, it'll probably be behind Unfinished Tales and Tom Bombadil (I'm not that fussed for the poems, but they might grow on me.)

L CC · « **Reply #3630 on:** 01 January, 2015, 10:45:00 am »

I'm listening to "How to Flirt With A Naked Werewolf"

It's formulaic tosh with one dimensional characters and a 'plot' so predictable you've probably already guessed what happens.

I'm loving it.

Peter · « **Reply #3631 on:** 01 January, 2015, 10:47:37 am »

Don't you love these "self-help" books!?

tiermat · « **Reply #3632 on:** 01 January, 2015, 11:45:45 am »

Have finished "One Man and His Bike" by Mike Carter, am 2/3rds of the way through "Dust" and a 1/3 of the way through "Gironimo"

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #3633 on:** 01 January, 2015, 05:43:13 pm »

I read these blog posts this week

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/12/26/top-ten-books-ive-read-this-year-a-feminist-perspective/

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/12/29/top-10-books-by-novelists-of-colour-published-in-2014/

I've read some of the books on the first list and none of the books on the second. I've bought some for my nook, added some to my "to be reserved" list on my library account, and just downloaded the library copy of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

andrewc · « **Reply #3634 on:** 01 January, 2015, 07:05:59 pm »

After reading some comments here I worked my way through all 5 of Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" series, highly entertaining.

citoyen · « **Reply #3635 on:** 01 January, 2015, 09:03:33 pm »

Quote from: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 01 January, 2015, 05:43:13 pm

I read these blog posts this week

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/12/26/top-ten-books-ive-read-this-year-a-feminist-perspective/

I could take that list more seriously if it didn't include Remarkable Creatures, which is an awful piece of tat. Yes, from a "feminist" perspective it does at least place Mary Anning centre stage where she deserves to be, but then it spoils the effect somewhat with a tawdry cliched invented sex scene that has no basis in historical fact and massively diminishes Anning's status as a self-determining human being.

citoyen · « **Reply #3636 on:** 03 January, 2015, 12:57:31 am »

Out Of Time by CM Saunders.

A short spine-chilling novella about a writer with a dark secret who finds himself having a very strange holiday adventure... Not my usual kind of thing but the author is a friend so I thought I'd give it a go. First half is a bit meh but once the weirdness kicks in, it gets better. And quite gruesome at times. I predicted the twist in the ending though. Anyway, not bad in a Tales Of The Unexpected / Twilight Zone / Hammer House Of Horror kind of way - fine if you like that kind of thing.

L CC · « **Reply #3637 on:** 03 January, 2015, 10:57:56 am »

Quote from: Peter on 01 January, 2015, 10:47:37 am

Don't you love these "self-help" books!?

O. My. G.
It's a trilogy.

Now enjoying The Art of Seducing A Naked Werewolf.

I'll get my real brain back eventually.

mattc · « **Reply #3638 on:** 03 January, 2015, 11:07:32 am »

Quote from: fboab on 03 January, 2015, 10:57:56 am

Quote from: Peter on 01 January, 2015, 10:47:37 am
Don't you love these "self-help" books!?

O. My. G.
It's a trilogy.

Now enjoying The Art of Seducing A Naked Werewolf.

I'll get my real brain back eventually.

Love the category it's in:
www.amazon.co.uk › Books › Romance › Paranormal › General

I don't want to know what the 'non-general' sub-categories are ...

David Martin · « **Reply #3639 on:** 03 January, 2015, 11:54:49 pm »

Worked my way through Copeland: Alan Turing's Electronic Brain, then Alan Turing: The Enigma. Just starting on an abridged version of D'Arcy Thompson's Growth and Form.

I do have a copy of The Breakaway on the Kindle to read in due course.

In between times I am revising my maths education with some elementary calculus.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #3640 on:** 04 January, 2015, 01:48:21 am »

Quote from: Ham on 18 December, 2014, 09:25:44 pm

Quote from: Mr Larrington on 11 December, 2014, 01:39:44 am
Natchez Burning ~ Greg Iles

GN: 800+ pages so will keep me going for a day or two
BN: Fifth of a series, the first four of which I have not read
GN: Stephen King likes it
BN: Dan Brown likes it

Thanks for Greg Iles, perfect accompaniment to manflu what I have been SUFFERING with. I've gone for chronological order and chewed my way through the first two Penn Cage stories. Raymond Chandler, he's not, it's a shame he hasn't got a good editor, but enjoyed none the less. I seem to have no 3 on my Kindle now.

Encouraged by this I am now kindling my way through the earlier ones. Currently at 72% of the first one because iTunes keeps requiring my attention.

lisat · « **Reply #3641 on:** 04 January, 2015, 07:00:17 am »

Having got a kindle for Christmas I am enjoying EF Benson, starting with Queen Lucia.
I have also made a start on Underworld by Don DeLillo.

Marco Stefano · « **Reply #3642 on:** 04 January, 2015, 08:30:06 am »

I inherited the complete works of Dickens a couple of years ago, now reading Martin Chuzzlewit. Once tuned in to the writing pattern & language, very enjoyable and funny, similar to Wodehouse (well, the other way round, but you get the drift).

Nuncio · « **Reply #3643 on:** 04 January, 2015, 08:59:57 am »

And i have just started re-reading David Copperfield, and am finding it a joy - a bit of comfort reading for this time of year.

citoyen · « **Reply #3644 on:** 05 January, 2015, 02:09:52 pm »

The Race Against The Stasi: The Incredible Story Of Dieter Wiedemann, The Iron Curtain And The Greatest Cycling Race On Earth by Herbie Sykes

Having heard several recommendations for this from various sources, I downloaded it for my Kindle the other day and started it yesterday. Very good so far, a fascinating story well told - I'd go so far as to say it's living up to its lengthy subtitle so far. Properly educational too - Dieter Wiedemann and the Peace Race are subjects I knew absolutely nothing about before starting this. Only other remark I would add is that due to the format, with lots of short interviews interspersed with documents from the Stasi files, it doesn't work particularly well on an ereader - this is one that would probably be better to read in print.

citoyen · « **Reply #3645 on:** 05 January, 2015, 02:15:28 pm »

Quote from: lisat on 04 January, 2015, 07:00:17 am

Having got a kindle for Christmas I am enjoying EF Benson, starting with Queen Lucia.

Funnily enough, the Mapp & Lucia books were among the first I added to my Kindle when I got it. I got totally hooked on them and read the whole series over the space of a few months in late 2012.

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #3646 on:** 06 January, 2015, 12:50:34 pm »

Quote from: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 01 January, 2015, 05:43:13 pm

I read these blog posts this week

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/12/26/top-ten-books-ive-read-this-year-a-feminist-perspective/

http://mediadiversified.org/2014/12/29/top-10-books-by-novelists-of-colour-published-in-2014/

I've read some of the books on the first list and none of the books on the second. I've bought some for my nook, added some to my "to be reserved" list on my library account, and just downloaded the library copy of Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I'm about 80 pages from the end of Americanah, and I don't want it to finish. Loving it.

jsabine · « **Reply #3647 on:** 07 January, 2015, 01:09:05 am »

H is for Hawk. Not really sure how to categorise this one - it's part memoir, part nature book, part biography of TH White, part elegy to the author's father, even enough of a falconry manual to give a numpty like me delusions of knowing something about the subject - but I read it at a sitting.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #3648 on:** 13 January, 2015, 10:01:24 am »

Mary Beard - Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations

This is basically a collections of her book reviews from the LRB, TLS etc of other authors books on classical subjects plus some lectures she has given. Unless you have some knowledge of the classics don't bother but if you do its insightful and funny.

tiermat · « **Reply #3649 on:** 13 January, 2015, 11:10:55 am »

In dead tree version, this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hungry-Cyclist-Pedalling-Americas/dp/0007278845

In pixellated data version, this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Believe-Yesterday-through-History-Adventures/dp/0099492989/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421147394&sr=1-11&keywords=tim+moore

The former is much better than the latter, but that could be to do with me having more interest in cycling than historical re-enactment.