Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ? (Read 846652 times)

TheLurker · « **Reply #4275 on:** 17 January, 2016, 09:02:27 am »

Moderately topical. War and Peace. Was given a two volume, paperback, copy in 1979. Tried _numerous_ times over the years to read it. Never got past chapter 3. The books went to Oxfam about 4 years ago still unread and the second volume unopened from new

Likewise the Silmarillion, but have no intention of ever bothering with it again.

citoyen · « **Reply #4276 on:** 17 January, 2016, 10:53:28 am »

I liked what I read of A Suitable Boy but that was many years ago and it was less than 100 pages. I shall try it again one day.

One I really must pick up again is David Simon's Homicide. I started it on holiday one year, got a bit over halfway then never picked it up again even though it's brilliant.

Auntie Helen · « **Reply #4277 on:** 17 January, 2016, 01:31:01 pm »

I liked A Suitable Boy (read it yonks ago) except at the very end I was appalled by a major plot decision by the heroine. Which spoiled it for me really. But I thought it was very well written, and I do like books about India anyway.

tiermat · « **Reply #4278 on:** 17 January, 2016, 02:20:43 pm »

Have now finished "The Anarchist Detective", so have moved on to a non fiction book, in this case "¡Guerra!", again by Jason Webster.

I am really enjoying the Max Camara books, if anyone wants to borrow any, or all, of the first three, let me know.

Aidan · « **Reply #4279 on:** 17 January, 2016, 02:46:25 pm »

Currently reading Home is Elsewhere by Heinz Stucke, a brief write up and selection of photos of 50 years on his bike travels. First impressions are : the orange paper is hard work, there are some good photos and some interesting snippets and he definitely has a germanic taste in shorts

Ill update this as I finish it.

rogerzilla · « **Reply #4280 on:** 17 January, 2016, 03:46:07 pm »

Just finished The Man In The High Castle (and no, I haven't watched the Amazon series which is very loosely based on it). Some good bits like when Mr Tagomi slips into an alternative reality for ten minutes, and a fairly clever denouement. Howveer, it feels unfinished or at least rushed, and apparently there was going to be a sequel, which never quite got written.

Steph · « **Reply #4281 on:** 17 January, 2016, 04:40:36 pm »

The bit that has lived with me since reading 'High Castle' is the casual reference to 'the African Experiment' and the cigarette lighter proposal.

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #4282 on:** 17 January, 2016, 06:51:33 pm »

Quote from: Auntie Helen on 17 January, 2016, 01:31:01 pm

I liked A Suitable Boy (read it yonks ago) except at the very end I was appalled by a major plot decision by the heroine. Which spoiled it for me really. But I thought it was very well written, and I do like books about India anyway.

I love it and re-read it now and again. I kind of agree with you about the plot decision, but I think she was probably right in the long run.

ian · « **Reply #4283 on:** 17 January, 2016, 07:57:19 pm »

Quote from: citoyen on 17 January, 2016, 10:53:28 am

I liked what I read of A Suitable Boy but that was many years ago and it was less than 100 pages. I shall try it again one day.

One I really must pick up again is David Simon's Homicide. I started it on holiday one year, got a bit over halfway then never picked it up again even though it's brilliant.

When you've finished that, try The Corner, where he (with Ed Burns) flips sides, and gives the view of a Baltimore street corner, with the dealers and characters who populate it and a year in their lives. In a similar way it's acutely observed and non-judgemental. The frustrations of the authors occasionally comes through, but it never turns into a polemic, not even when it's truly deserved. Probably one of the most stunning indictment of the failed War on Drugs written. Yet it's not always bleak because it's filled with people who have hopes and dreams similar to the rest of us, but are a stuck in a world we wouldn't recognise. I'm not sure how much has changed in the last twenty years, but I suspect very little. I still occasionally get the train through Baltimore (which cuts by many of the less salubrious inner city suburbs) and while there some development, it's most a case of pulling the more dilapidated blocks of row houses down and building squat, glum apartment blocks, there's still people sitting around, houses decaying, but every here and there's a house or a block that's perfectly maintained (there's a nice blog article here).

ElyDave · « **Reply #4284 on:** 17 January, 2016, 08:28:47 pm »

Quote from: TheLurker on 17 January, 2016, 09:02:27 am

Moderately topical. War and Peace. Was given a two volume, paperback, copy in 1979. Tried _numerous_ times over the years to read it. Never got past chapter 3. The books went to Oxfam about 4 years ago still unread and the second volume unopened from new

Likewise the Silmarillion, but have no intention of ever bothering with it again.

I did manage to get through War and Peace, but it was very slow in parts.

Similarly Moby Dick some long tedious passages and a bit of a whimper rather than a bang of an ending.

Tigerrr · « **Reply #4285 on:** 18 January, 2016, 07:20:52 am »

Just put down Cox's Human Universe. He writes science very well, esp the mind boggling stuff about expanding universes, quarks and stuff. The fragility of Homo sapiens survival is inescapable. And the thought that we may be superseded in due course by conscious self replicating and evolving machines is daunting, but makes sense.

geraldc · « **Reply #4286 on:** 18 January, 2016, 11:15:05 am »

Moby Dick, never finished. Back when reading groups where all the rage, I went on holiday with my mates and we all decided to read the same book, namely Moby Dick. On the holiday, bags got lost at airports, minor road accidents, and just a series of calamities. It was decided that Moby Dick was a cursed book, and we should not try and continue to read it (no one was really enjoying it anyway). All the copies of the book were left at at the cottage we stayed in. So if you're ever staying in a cottage in Tournon D'agenais and there are multiple copies of Moby Dick on the shelves, don't pick it up, it's cursed!

rafletcher · « **Reply #4287 on:** 18 January, 2016, 03:23:11 pm »

One I never finished (and indeed, I can't even remember what prompted me to start it in the first place) was "The World According to Garp" by John Irving. And I may or may not have not have finished Solzheniskyn's "The Gulag Archipelago", although I did manage "Cancer Ward".That was a laugh a minute!

These days there are many I don't bother to try and persevere with. I read mainly crime fiction now, and I read for entertainment (I always have) rather than education of great literary style, so if it doesn't flow and pull me in it gets dumped. That includes two recent Grishams, and several of the Nordic authors, though often the translations let them down I think.

Currently reading "Snow White must Die" by Germany's best selling crime author (I believe) Nele Neuhaus. It's nearly good. I shall persevere for now. Edit. I didn't, it's in the return bag.

L CC · « **Reply #4288 on:** 18 January, 2016, 04:21:06 pm »

Quote from: rafletcher on 18 January, 2016, 03:23:11 pm

One I never finished (and indeed, I can't even remember what prompted me to start it in the first place) was "The World According to Garp" by John Irving.

There is fashion in such things, and John Irving is a bit out of fashion now, but I'd still say that was a pretty good book.

IQ84 is my latest abandoned masterpiece. Needed more (IQ?) from me than I had to give.
The Luminaries also required a greater luminary than me.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #4289 on:** 18 January, 2016, 08:22:44 pm »

Miss von Brandenburg went through an Irving phase so I dutifully read the ones lying around the house but never engaged with them.

As to "The Gulag Archipelago", imagine my delight after struggling through two fat and tiny-printed volumes to find it ending almost in mid-paragraph. "Ah," they said, "volume three hasn't benn translated yet". That was some time in the 1970s and I never was tempted to seek out the third part.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #4290 on:** 20 January, 2016, 03:34:28 pm »

Now started the latest of Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae bokks "In The Cold Dead Ground". They have just found a stiff with a tattoo on his shoulder. Of a narwhal

Eccentrica Gallumbits · « **Reply #4291 on:** 20 January, 2016, 05:24:43 pm »

Quote from: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 13 January, 2016, 12:27:11 pm

Just started Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Finished it. Loved it. Beautiful and tragic.

Started The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.

Legs · « **Reply #4292 on:** 21 January, 2016, 02:41:59 pm »

I never finished A Suitable Boy either - I got about halfway through. I also didn't get very far in The Woman in White, which is weird because I've loved all the other Wilkie Collins I've read (No Name, The Moonstone and Armadale). And I only got a few chapters into Leon Uris' Exodus.

citoyen · « **Reply #4293 on:** 21 January, 2016, 02:56:06 pm »

Quote from: Legs on 21 January, 2016, 02:41:59 pm

I also didn't get very far in The Woman in White, which is weird because I've loved all the other Wilkie Collins I've read (No Name, The Moonstone and Armadale).

The Woman in White is the only Wilkie Collins I've finished. Of course, it's also the only one I've started.

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #4294 on:** 22 January, 2016, 08:27:21 am »

The Fault in Our Stars

ugh, that's a tear-jerker.

tiermat · « **Reply #4295 on:** 22 January, 2016, 09:10:24 am »

Quote from: mrcharly on 22 January, 2016, 08:27:21 am

The Fault in Our Stars

ugh, that's a tear-jerker.

Indeed, now watch the film...

Make sure you have a hanky at the ready.

Vince · « **Reply #4296 on:** 22 January, 2016, 09:55:27 am »

Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride. It hasn't stopped raining yet.

I saw MacBride on the Breakfast program earlier in the week and thought he came over very well, so bought his first book.

L CC · « **Reply #4297 on:** 22 January, 2016, 09:58:08 am »

Quote from: mrcharly on 22 January, 2016, 08:27:21 am

The Fault in Our Stars

ugh, that's a tear-jerker.

Did you not find it, erm, sickly? I thought it was worse than Twilight in the teen-romance stakes.

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #4298 on:** 22 January, 2016, 10:06:22 am »

Quote from: fboab on 22 January, 2016, 09:58:08 am

Quote from: mrcharly on 22 January, 2016, 08:27:21 am
The Fault in Our Stars

ugh, that's a tear-jerker.

Did you not find it, erm, sickly? I thought it was worse than Twilight in the teen-romance stakes.

I've no intention of watching the film - that, I've heard, is fairly saccharine.

Not finding the novel sickly. It seems more grounded. The kids self-knowing acknowledgement of 'cancer perks' and how that informs their conversation and language. Uncontrolled emission of body fluids, non-compos mentis behaviour; the ugly business of slowly dying.

geraldc · « **Reply #4299 on:** 22 January, 2016, 10:19:38 am »

As it's the new year, I traditionally indulge in a binge of self help or instructional books. Amazon must know this to be a fact as they tailor their special offer kindle books to entice me.

Quiet, The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain. Pretty interesting, but I think I'm an ambivert. Think I may have to pull the trigger and get the audio book version.

And some grammar text books for various foreign languages that I claim on my CV...