What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Kim]

To be fair, the dull exposition - if not the science^[1] - is the whole point of the book.  Though it does end up reading uncannily like one of my ride reports, which is probably why I don't have a blog.

Ob-xkcd:



I must confess, I'm intrigued by how the movie's going to turn out.  Obviously terrible.  Terrible, of course.  My money's on big visuals that go to some lengths to get Mars right, let down by a script with an over-reliance on duct-tape and Hollywood-scienceing the shit out of things.  And not enough Richard Dean Anderson.


_{[1] The whole plan hinged on the natural curiosity of potatoes.  And a failure to appreciate quite how nasty hydrazine can be.  He got the feeling of accidentally bricking something important bit right, though.}

[Ham]

....and speaking of informative reviews, I've just found this site http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/ while looking into some questions raised by the Ken Follett book. I have a suspicion it might lead to some odd purchases.

[ian]

To be fair, the dull exposition - if not the science^[1] - is the whole point of the book.  Though it does end up reading uncannily like one of my ride reports, which is probably why I don't have a blog.

Maybe it changes – I've just read another couple of reviews – and it seems not. But that endless exposition kills it dead for me. I don't really care, tension was flatter than roadkill after the 18-wheeler description had rolled over, stopped and then reversed back to be sure. There was no description of Mars, surely one of the most incredible sights any human can have, nor anything about how that makes him feel? Nothing about himself, the people back home, love and loss, surely something that being marooned a bazillion miles from everything and everyone would bring into laser focus. Doesn't that bode for a monumental perspective? Apparently not. And in that very Dan Brown way, the reader has to be told everything. Every-fucking-thing.

And then there's the language, rather than sound like an astronaut, whom you'd imagine is a highly trained, educated, and kind of on-point guy, he's comes across like a fourteen year boy. In fact NASA seems to be staffed entirely by children. I've heard of budget cuts, but that's shocking. Not least because they'll likely be using the Hubble to look down girls' cleavages.

It just one dimensional, no style, no verve. Words for the sake of them. I still don't get the popularity. Mind you, I don't understand TV talent shows. The list of things I don't understand is epic.

[Peter]

I've just finished "The Watchers And The Watched" by Sid Chaplin.  Chaplin wrote many episodes of "When The Boat Comes In" and the stories on which Alan Plater based "Close The Coalhouse Door".   I wish he could be "re-discovered": he writes about life and relationships in such a down-to-earth way yet with a wistfulness that respects the dreams of ordinary people, even the moribund working class.  Thanks to Deano for putting this my way.

[billplumtree]

Peter: I'll second that.  The Day of the Sardine was my introduction to Sid Chaplin.  You've inspired me to go and read it again now.

[Deano]

I couldn't find either of my copies of The Day of the Sardine, which is why he got the Watchers and the Watched

The Leaping Lad is a great collection of stories, too - but that was completely unobtainable, the last time I tried to get a copy. I read Newcastle University's copy, though (twice).

[jsabine]

The Leaping Lad is a great collection of stories, too - but that was completely unobtainable, the last time I tried to get a copy.

Several on Abebooks: I've just bought the cheapest one though.

(I'm sure a loan could be arranged given the number of Sid Chaplin fans that seem to be coming out of the woodwork.)

[Peter]

We seem to have got a nice little group going here, jsab.  I'm a bit worried that the membership criteria may be predictive: at least two of us have face-planted this year....

[tiermat]

The Burning Room by <somebody or other >,  it's OK, as far as penny dreadfuls go. The reason I popp in here was that I notice that the Booker long list has been published. Do I go for trying to read 12 books* before the winner is announced?

*Yes,  I know there is 13, but I have already read "A Spool of Blue Thread"

[mark]

Just finished "Go Set A Watchman", the recently released work by the author of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Definitely worth reading, either by itself or together with "To Kill A Mockingbird". I'm starting on "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II".

[Steph]

Charlie Stross' latest Laundry book, The Annihilation Score. No spoilers here: it's actually written from Mo's viewpoint rather than Bob's. Enjoyed it, as I always do, and it was interesting to see him doing something I do by telling parts of an existing story from a second viewpoint, you get to see other characters developed in a different way.

Enjoyed it, but I did think the ending was a little precipitate. I also don't think Charlie got more than a little way into female thinking.And you try and walk in heels that high yourself, Mister Stross.

As a parallel. stemming from that book, I am now reading The King in Yellow, and it is interesting to see how what was science fiction in many ways (19thC book set in the 1920s) failing to extrapolate the future in anything other than Victorian concepts. There are other considerations, such as the casual antisemitism, that jar.

[Legs]

Just getting into A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.  I hope it starts going somewhere, soon.

Done.  It got quite good towards the end.  Now reading Christophe Bassons' autobiog, wot I got off the S. American river site for 99p.  Will probably get meself another Stephen King afterwards...

[Mr Larrington]

Just started "No Cure For Love", the "new" non-Banks Peter Robinson.  It ws actually published in 1995 but not in BRITAIN and since Banks got popular people are asking silly money for secondhand copies.

[tiermat]

First of the Man Booker long list, "The Illuminations" by Andrew O'Hagan.

So far I am about 30 pages in, starts out in a retirement community in Scotland.

I am looking forward to the Tom McCarthy and the Bill Clegg ones.

I may be thwarted in my ambition to read all 13 by October, though, as a couple aren't published until September....

[Chris S]

The Martian is possibly no literacy masterpiece because it was written by a Computer Programmer who spent his AOL layoff money on taking three years off work (well, out of work) to write self-published pap on the Internet.

It was reader feedback that drove it from a virtual blog (yes - it sounds like a blog, because that's almost how it started) to a printed book.

A lot of the science was reworked as time went by - readers would correct Andy Weir's science, and it was updated over and over until being fixed in stone when committed to paper.

Interesting interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SemyzKgaUU

Ironic Moment - Andy Weir pulling apart some of the Plot Holes in the film Gravity 

ETA: I'm being a bit harsh on Andy Weir here - he's a top of the line geek. No, I mean really geeky. Watch the video. He also comes across as a really nice guy whose overriding sense of The Martian is "Wow - I didn't expect all this shit to happen."

[tiermat]

I finished "The Illuminations" by Andrew O'Hagan, it is slow to start, a little disjointed (it does jump between Scotland and Afganistan) but settles down a bit later on.  Not brilliant, though, and I have to wonder how it got into the Man Booker Long List, I will be surprised if it, and "A Spool of Blue Thread" make it onto the short list.

I have moved on, rather rapidly, to "The Moors Account" by Laila Lalami.  Think of a re-writing of Don Quixote, by a modern author, and the location changed to The New World (It starts with them landing at La Florida) in the 15th Century and you won't be far off.  A good deal easier to read than Don Quixote, though.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Last time I had to stop reading a book because I was howling with laughter on the bus, it was The Tartan Special One. Today, it's a James Herriot book, and a farmer expressing frustration at an uncooperative cow with "stand still, tha shittin' owd bovril."

[Ruthie]

Don't Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli - the first Charlie Mortdecai novel.

Hilariously, whimsically violent and terrifying.  It's a story about art theft, but written in a style that owes more than a little to PG Wodehouse.  I adored it.  Apparently they made of a film of it, which was a massive flop, and I'm not surprised because the genius of this book is all in the writing.

Also, a bit of it takes place at Carnforth Station and Leighton Moss RSPB reserve, and I've bin there on m'bike, so I enjoyed that too.

[Jurek]

Being there always adds.....

[andrewc]

Read all 3 of the Mortdecai books earlier this year, having read the middle one in my teens. First was the best, last one rather nasty. Haven't seen the film but the reviews were not encouraging ...

[Ruthie]

I might not bother with the others then.  The first one was nasty enough.

[Ruthie]

Clothes Music Boys by Viviane Albertine.

Apparently the trade copy had the original title (Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys) but my copy doesn't.

This might be the most honest book I've ever read.  The Slits aren't my favourite punk band, but I think that's just because their music doesn't get much airplay any more, and isn't so familiar.  But I gave the book a go, and oh my, what a woman Viv Albertine was and is.  She can bloody write, too.  She transported me to the '70s, and art college, and life in that mad punk clique.  She doesn't dress up anything to make it look pretty and somehow that makes it seem more real than anything else I've ever read about that era.  The grunginess of the '70s comes through like the smell of rotting rubbish.

She brings you right into the present, too, and so much of what she writes, I could have written myself, about motherhood, and the love you have for your children, and the loss of self that comes with all that.

I absolutely love this book.  Now I need to go and listen to her new album.

[fuzzy]

Victoria Pendleton's autobiography.

She was a bit troubled as a young wasn't she?

[Ham]

Just finished another of Amazon's 99p offers, the story of Eddie Chapman, aka agent zigzag (amongst other alias), one of the most incredible life stories you will ever read.

It is not the greatest literary work of all time, in some ways that helps as the invented bits are so clearly literary (cough) devices that the background facts shine through. However, as the background facts often include contemporaneous assessment of his state of mind, that's sometimes a deceiving approach.

The book is a detailed retelling of the story of a crook and inveterate womaniser turned spy turned double agent who played a potentially significant part in the outcome of WWII. Entirely fascinating stuff.

[clarion]

Just finished a short one - 100 Acts of Minor Dissent by the ever-entertaining Mark Thomas.  I wish there'd been more about the process and evolution of the project, instead of just the Acts themselves, but it was an enjoyable read.