What books are we reading at the moment ?

[chrisbainbridge]

  Very much enjoyed Circe.

[andrewc]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/can-science-fiction-wake-us-up-to-our-climate-reality-kim-stanley-robinson


A hike with KSR.    I've not read his latest one yet.   

[Kim]

I've not read his latest one yet.

It's much like his others, only with less hiking and more blockchain.

[Mr Larrington]

Termination Shock, the most recent offering from Neal Stephenson.  Near-future setting – COVID–19 has been followed by COVIDS–23 and –27 – with a sort-of climate-changey theme.  Panning out quite nicely, though the main question so far is: will the Queen of the Netherlands get off with the hunter of feral hogs?

[Ashaman42]

Finished On The Road a couple nights ago.

I really didn't get why it's raved about.

[rafletcher]

The latest from Chris Hammer “Opal Country”, another outback crime novel.

[Nuncio]

Finished On The Road a couple nights ago.

I really didn't get why it's raved about.

Maybe best read in adolescence.

[FifeingEejit]

I bought "the great railway bazzar" not long after I finished reading "kingdom by the sea".

So far I've determined that you could now title it "railway journeys you can no longer do"

There is no Paris-Istanbul train
An American getting into iran is only slightly less plausabe than a brit
Taking a bus across Afghanistan, no ta
Through the kyber pass, you're having a laugh.
I suppose the journey in Turkey and India might be possible without suffering from deth.

He's now trying to get to Ceylon which I believe nö longer exists.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[nicknack]

To the Lighthouse, Woolf V.

How are you getting on with it/how did you get on with it? I think I tried it a very long time ago and failed.

Oh finished it in about 4 or 5 sittings, I found it quite interesting at how easily my own thoughts would fit into the thoughts that form the story and not distract from what was going on.

Phare do's.

   

[FifeingEejit]

I missed that at the time...

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[fd3]

Rivers of London series by Ben Aasonovitch.  Just finished Foxglove Summer (though the library provided the sequel out of sequence).  Very readable but it could be better - most books end very quickly/abruptly (Foxglove and Broken Homes most obviously) - could be really quite good if only ...

[citoyen]

Finished On The Road a couple nights ago.

I really didn't get why it's raved about.

Maybe best read in adolescence.

If you were a teenager in the 1950s, perhaps.

I probably should give Kerouac another go. I formed an opinion about him ~30 years ago, but I've changed a bit since then. Maybe he has too...

[Mr Larrington]

My recollection of reading “On The Road” while not a teenager was that I quite enjoyed it but then I, like Kerouac, was probably drunk at the time.

[Legs]

He'll be 100 next month.

[FifeingEejit]

My recollection of reading “On The Road” while not a teenager was that I quite enjoyed it but then I, like Kerouac, was probably drunk at the time.

I was sober when I read it, and quite enjoyed it.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[ian]

It's one of those books that's OK, probably had its time and place, but I can't say I'd want to read it again, or can explain its persistent popularity. It's not that good.

[Mr Larrington]

He'll be 100 next month.

Or at least he would be if he hadn’t died in 1969

[nicknack]

I read it about 10 years ago (or 20 - it's much the same to me now) and thought everyone in it needed a bloody good slap. One of the most irritating books I've ever read.

[FifeingEejit]

It was that the subjects needed a "bloody good slap" that made it enjoyable.
If they had been dull boring standard 1950s kids it would have been a children's book.

[Legs]

He'll be 100 next month.

Or at least he would be if he hadn’t died in 1969

Indeed.  He's exactly 95 years older than my youngest.

[Mr Larrington]

Termination Shock, the most recent offering from Neal Stephenson.  Near-future setting – COVID–19 has been followed by COVIDS–23 and –27 – with a sort-of climate-changey theme.  Panning out quite nicely, though the main question so far is: will the Queen of the Netherlands get off with the hunter of feral hogs?

(click to show/hide)

Yes.  Yes, she did.

Not quite up to the standards of Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon but still a cut above yer average techno-thriller nonse.

Now onto Graham Hurley's Last Flight To Stalingrad which may or may not be part of his loosely-connected Wars Within series.  We'll have to wait and see whether Dieter Merz turns up.  I expect he will.  Mr Hurley has been busy since the plague struck, having published no fewer than five novels in the past couple of years

[coops456]

Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.  Just finished Foxglove Summer (though the library provided the sequel out of sequence).  Very readable but it could be better - most books end very quickly/abruptly (Foxglove and Broken Homes most obviously) - could be really quite good if only ...

I really like this series, so much so that I read them (and the graphic novels) from the library and then bought the audiobooks, which are probably even better. It feels so grounded in reality despite being full of acktul magiks, and the characters are pleasingly diverse and also fun. Novella What Abigail Did That Summer is probably my fave cos young Abigail kicks arse and the foxes crack me up.

Just finished Richard Osman's second Thursday Murder Club, which I enjoyed more than the first.
In a complete change of style, I'm now reading the phenomenal The History Thieves by Ian Cobain, about how the British state has consistently hidden or obfuscated its actions at home and abroad - to the point that you are left wondering about the accuracy of anything written about British history, certainly in the 20th century. Absolutely mind-blowing.

[rafletcher]

The latest 'Detctive Gallileo' offering from Keigo Higashino, "Silent Parade".

[Mr Larrington]

To my great astonishment, Dieter Merz has not yet showed up but his wife has, as a corollary of being the ex-wife of another protagonist.

[fd3]

Novella What Abigail Did That Summer is probably my fave cos young Abigail kicks arse and the foxes crack me up.

I love his use of yoot speak.
What I liked less in later books is the dropping in of "this obviously happened in a short story/graphic novel".  I think the idea od add-in graphic novels is okay, but I would like a series of books to run without needing to read up on other media.
The juxtaposition of cop drama and magic makes the magic seem less afar fetched and more real, a bit like the vampire in shadow of a vampire.