What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Did You See Melody? by Sophie Hannah, and The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

[citoyen]

Monsieur Pamplemousse by Michael Bond, as recommended upthread by someone - I believe it was Ham but CBA to check. I've lost my reading mojo lately so wanted something not too challenging to ease myself back into the habit and Ham's description made this sound just the ticket - and so it has proved to be. Delightfully silly but very well written with it.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Boy's Life by Robert R McCammon

Very good. It's filed in the 'fantasy' section, but it is only fantasy in the sense that it is written from a young boy's point of view, seeing a world from a mind filled with imagination.

[T42]

Reamde, Neal Stephenson, second time around.

Thinking of re-embarking on the Baroque Trilogy, but can't decide whether to read Cryptonomicon before or after.

[Mr Larrington]

Thinking of re-embarking on the Baroque Trilogy, but can't decide whether to read Cryptonomicon before or after.

YMYA.  I finished Seveneves on the way to USAnia, re-read Cryptonomicon to remind myself what Stephenson's like when he's on form and am now on The Baroque Cycle for the third time of asking and liking it a lot more this time round.  Possibly because it's on my Kindle and not in fat, small-printed and coming-unstuck-at-the-seams paperback form.

[T42]

We have the hardbacks, which are wretchedly heavy for reading in bed and make a bloody great thump on the floor if you fall asleep. So would a tablet, though.

[Legs]

Boy's Life by Robert R McCammon

Very good. It's filed in the 'fantasy' section, but it is only fantasy in the sense that it is written from a young boy's point of view, seeing a world from a mind filled with imagination.

I've heard good things.  Maybe the next thing on my Kindling list...

[Ham]

Monsieur Pamplemousse by Michael Bond, as recommended upthread by someone - I believe it was Ham but CBA to check. I've lost my reading mojo lately so wanted something not too challenging to ease myself back into the habit and Ham's description made this sound just the ticket - and so it has proved to be. Delightfully silly but very well written with it.

It was I, indeed, glad you're enjoying. I'm still working my way through the stack, interspersed with other stuff.

[geraldc]

Origin by Dan Brown

After picking the novels of Dan Brown for my Mastermind Specialist Subject, I realised that for that one day of filming, I was perhaps the nation's foremost expert on Dan Brown novels (or at least in the top 10). If I don't continue to read his works, I won't have a claim of being in the nation's top ten at anything.

I think he's getting better at writing, I'm a few pages in, and haven't snorted derisively once. However I may have just addled my brain by over exposure to his literary style and techno babble/"academic" research.

[ian]

You should read the one where Sophia Langoustine, the renowned art collector, well-known literary critic, and daughter of the Prince of Homardy, and I – with the help of my assistant Trieste Bouffant Bunny-Pillow – gallop around Britain from Didcot to Bootle chasing a mystery that will change the world. The truth comes out in a climactic scene in a Doncaster Travelodge. I won't be giving too much away by saying it involves clowns.

[Torslanda]

Shame you couldn't find a plot twist to include Honeysuckle Weekes, which has to be one of the most preposterous stagenames of all time...

[Mr Larrington]

I have news.  It's her real name.

[T42]

IIRC her sibling(s) had odd names as well.

<google google google>

Rollo and Perdita. And she's married to one Lorne Stormont-Darling so nothing's going to change much.

[TheLurker]

Well having called Mr. Aaronovitch a slacker only a month or so ago I have to at least, in part*, retract that.  The latest Peter Grant story "The Furthest Station".  Good fun as always.

*It's not a full retraction because it's only 120 pages or thereabouts so more of an amuse-gueule than an entrée and certainly not a plat principal, but one is grateful that it appeared this year and not two years hence.

[Peter]

Shame you couldn't find a plot twist to include Honeysuckle Weekes, which has to be one of the most preposterous stagenames of all time...

Her real name is even weirder - but not as weird as her husband's!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeysuckle_Weeks

[David Martin]

Kat Arney - Herding Hemmingways Cats.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Well having called Mr. Aaronovitch a slacker only a month or so ago I have to at least, in part*, retract that.  The latest Peter Grant story "The Furthest Station".  Good fun as always.

*It's not a full retraction because it's only 120 pages or thereabouts so more of an amuse-gueule than an entrée and certainly not a plat principal, but one is grateful that it appeared this year and not two years hence.

I laughed all the way to Glasgow on the train reading it.

[mrcharly-YHT]

'Voyage' by Stephen Baxter

Alternative history book. Astronauts going to mars in the 80s using Saturn rockets etc.

Long on the NASA issues and Astronaut training, I keep thinking it is dragging but can't put it down easily.

[ian]

I have news.  It's her real name.

My god, she's so posh her name alone needs a large stately home. When she dies her corpse will be subject to a tussle between English Heritage and the paramilitary wing of the National Trust. And she'll have her own tea room.

[citoyen]

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

If anyone were coming to Vonnegut as a new reader and asking for a recommendation, this would not be the one I would suggest. It's good though, in a very Vonnegutian way. Ting-a-ling!

[T42]

I must have read it, along with the rest of his, but I can't remember it.  SIG.

I think my favourites are Mother Night and Cat's Cradle.

[citoyen]

I think my favourites are Mother Night and Cat's Cradle.

Cat’s Cradle is unequivocally my favourite but God Bless You, Mr Rosewater is the one that has made me laugh out loud the most.

[ElyDave]

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

If anyone were coming to Vonnegut as a new reader and asking for a recommendation, this would not be the one I would suggest. It's good though, in a very Vonnegutian way. Ting-a-ling!

Not read that one, I think the first I read was a short story collection The Bagombo Snuff Box, I think 2 Be Or Not 2 Be was one of his as well,  followed by Slaughterhouse 5.


Stephen Baxter - I have one of his on my shelf - Anti Ice, was thinking about rereading it as my next home-based real life book, rather than travelling electrons

[Legs]

Just about to embark on Battlefield Earth by the legendary L. Ron Hubbard, fully expecting it to be totally shit.  I detest nearly all sf, but I found this doorstop of a book at my in-laws and thought that the first couple of chapters wouldn't be a complete waste of very much of my time.  I've looked at some of the reviews online, and the only positive ones seem to be from Scientologist fruitcakes.  Watch this space.

[spesh]

Just about to embark on Battlefield Earth by the legendary L. Ron Hubbard, fully expecting it to be totally shit.  I detest nearly all sf, but I found this doorstop of a book at my in-laws and thought that the first couple of chapters wouldn't be a complete waste of time.  I've looked at some of the reviews online, and the only positive ones seem to be from Scientologist fruitcakes.  Watch this space.

I guess somebody had to so that the rest of us are spared the experience.