Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ?  (Read 835541 times)

ian

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5775 on: 15 October, 2019, 12:33:29 pm »
Pity the translator. Though it's a rather opulent sentence. And he did do shorter, the opening of A Thousand Years of Solitude is as good as debut sentences get.

Paul

  • L'enfer, c'est les autos.
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5776 on: 15 October, 2019, 12:37:22 pm »
Just A Hundred years, I think.
What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?

ian

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5777 on: 15 October, 2019, 12:52:06 pm »
I was thinking of the author's cut. That one has the deleted paragraphs restored.

Longerer is betterer.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5778 on: 17 October, 2019, 01:19:56 pm »
I've just given up half way through Peter Robinson's latest Inspector Banks - except he's a superintendent now. Just bored with the premise and the characters, and a pedestrian plot. 

On to the next in the pile, a Jussi Adler-Olsen "Dept. Q" story, The Hanging Girl.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5779 on: 17 October, 2019, 02:23:24 pm »
I've just given up half way through Peter Robinson's latest Inspector Banks - except he's a superintendent now. Just bored with the premise and the characters, and a pedestrian plot. 

You didn't miss much.  And the sub-plot with Ray's grilf looks set to be dragged out over at least one more volume before Banks can do the decent thing and drink himself utterly to DETH.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5780 on: 17 October, 2019, 02:57:56 pm »
Jon Krakauer's book on the 1996 Everest expedition, Into Thin Air - the film Everest is based on it. Fascinating.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5781 on: 17 October, 2019, 08:20:19 pm »
Jon Krakauer's book on the 1996 Everest expedition, Into Thin Air - the film Everest is based on it. Fascinating.
And, some might say, seriously flawed. Still very gripping though.
See if you can find 'The Climb' by Anatoly Boukreev. He gives a very different perspective.
Rust never sleeps

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5782 on: 18 October, 2019, 09:39:58 am »
Jon Krakauer's book on the 1996 Everest expedition, Into Thin Air - the film Everest is based on it. Fascinating.
And, some might say, seriously flawed. Still very gripping though.
See if you can find 'The Climb' by Anatoly Boukreev. He gives a very different perspective.

Will do - thanks. I've already run across him in Krakauer's book.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5783 on: 18 October, 2019, 09:50:12 am »
Normandy 44 - James Holland

A study of the build up to D-Day, the invasion itself and the battle for France. So far its excellent, he has loads of archive material from people who were there, not just the top brass but those in the middle roles and at the sharp end, planners, captains of the naval armada, pilots and squad commanders both on the Allied and German sides.

Perhaps Mark Francois and Nigel Farage et al should be forced to read books like this so they have some actual knowledge about WW II rather than what they seem to have gleaned from Commando and Victor comics. Massive world wide integrated supply lines for food and equipment and a huge multinational military. Not plucky Britain standing alone in any shape or form.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

ian

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5784 on: 18 October, 2019, 01:30:36 pm »
Yeah, but Francois' dad was there, so he's an expert. Admittedly, Francois Jnr is scared to go on any beach in case he's mistaken for a comedy-sized beach ball.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5785 on: 19 October, 2019, 09:18:58 am »
Francois aka "Inch-High Private Pike"
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5786 on: 19 October, 2019, 07:55:13 pm »
After seeing Mr Larrington's post, I got La Belle Sauvage.

I'm currently enjoying it; it's as engaging as The earlier books.

Thanks to Mr L.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5787 on: 21 October, 2019, 08:21:40 am »
Jon Krakauer's book on the 1996 Everest expedition, Into Thin Air - the film Everest is based on it. Fascinating.
And, some might say, seriously flawed. Still very gripping though.
See if you can find 'The Climb' by Anatoly Boukreev. He gives a very different perspective.

Well, his ghost writer, DeWalt, does. Krakauer refutes the damning statements made about him in the postscript to his 1999 edition, and most of the guides/mountaineers I've seen interviewed since reading his book support him, e.g. Reinhold Messner.  DeWalt also changed the sense of at least one interview to make it look as if Krakauer lied about Boukreev's actions.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5788 on: 22 October, 2019, 10:26:13 am »
T42, I thought of your strap line again the other day: I've just finished re-reading The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers and there is another fine bottle-cleaning incident for Bunter to blow up about!  I never tire of her books, even though I know the plots.  Her mastery of landscape is up there with Buchan and even when you know the story it's fascinating to see how she lays the seeds of the plot as you go along.  In this particular case, I love the milieu (bell-ringing), too.  My brother rings, not too far south of the Fens, where Tailors is set, and I have tried but my hands are too damaged to grip properly, now.  But the book will do!

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5789 on: 22 October, 2019, 11:47:08 pm »
Dandelion wine by Bradbury, Coraline by Gaiman and the amusingly titled "Carbon Diaries 2015" (the author escapes me). 
simplicity, truth, equality, peace

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5790 on: 23 October, 2019, 08:38:46 am »
T42, I thought of your strap line again the other day: I've just finished re-reading The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers and there is another fine bottle-cleaning incident for Bunter to blow up about!  I never tire of her books, even though I know the plots.  Her mastery of landscape is up there with Buchan and even when you know the story it's fascinating to see how she lays the seeds of the plot as you go along.  In this particular case, I love the milieu (bell-ringing), too.  My brother rings, not too far south of the Fens, where Tailors is set, and I have tried but my hands are too damaged to grip properly, now.  But the book will do!

Aye, The Nine Tailors is grand. Even if you remove the crime & detection story there's a full novel left, and it's fascinating.

Bell-ringing in the English fashion is utterly missing here, and it's one of the few things we miss.  As Wimsey observes at one point, when the French have a full peal they just play hymns on it.  Our local Temple of Doom just has two or three bells and the ringing style is every man for himself. Or rather, it's probably the curé pressing a button and a Crowley-model randomiser driving the hammers.

I haven't read one of the Wimsey novels for years. Our collection is all New English Library paperbacks; the glue went about 30 years ago, so that if you open one you get a handful of pages and glue-dust. Time for the electronic versions, I think.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5791 on: 23 October, 2019, 09:31:22 am »
Have you tried sites like Alibris?  You can still get the occasional paperback there.  Ours are getting pretty battered, too, so electronics may be on the horizon.  Not the same, though, is it?!

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5792 on: 23 October, 2019, 02:02:00 pm »
I dunno: I can get the same ebook on my tablets & my phone so that I can go on reading during lunch.

Google Books has The Nine Tailors at 2.99€. They also have a different edition at 12.99€. Go figure. I'd say it must be the hardback but I've already cracked that one once.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5793 on: 23 October, 2019, 08:57:21 pm »
I have all the Wimseys read to me by Ian Carmichael. Can't imagine them any other way, now.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5794 on: 24 October, 2019, 02:19:31 pm »
Carmichael's the one I see when I'm reading them.

I'm reading The Nine Tailors now.  The differences in the social order come across much more strongly now than when I first read it, around 1970: e.g. the rectory at Fenchurch St. Paul boasts a maid, a cook and a gardener, the rector treats the villagers as if he were their schoolmaster and the villagers all accept it as right and proper.  I never noticed that first time around.

Long time ago now.  For all we go on about the vile Tories, some things have changed.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

IanDG

  • The p*** artist formerly known as 'Windy'
    • the_dandg_rouleur
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5795 on: 24 October, 2019, 03:59:43 pm »
The Debatable Land - Graham Robb

Time to get myself some local(ish) knowledge.


Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5796 on: 25 October, 2019, 05:50:51 pm »
Anybody read the more recent Alistair Reynolds books?
I read them up to On The Steel Breeze and didn't finish that trilogy as I wasn't finding them that engaging.

I see there's another Prefect book and the Revenger series out since then. Any good? Or is he just doing it for the money now?

I've enjoyed the Revenger series so far - OTT gothic steampunky Pirates in Spaaaaaaaace...

ian

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5797 on: 25 October, 2019, 06:46:44 pm »
I did get to the end of House of Suns (that it took so long should tell you something). The ending wasn't what I anticipated at least, but really the plot was a lot stretched and not entirely sensical, and it took a long while to get to somewhere interesting and then the moment it did: the end. The annoyingly indistinguishable first-person PoV persisted until the end. The idea of people looping around the galaxy on epic timescales was very good, but the rendering not so, you'd think the characters would have a bit more to say on having been alive for millions of years and having seen innumerable civilisations rise and fall. And the central, mildly incestuous romance about as torrid as a shallow, lukewarm bath. Pondering flashback subplot appeared entire superfluous.

Not awful, but I could have passed on it. And I've still not found Century Rain mostly because every time I glance up to the yeti-besieged summer house, it's always raining.

I'm going to try to be one of the clever kids and read this year's Pulitzer Prize winner next. Or next but one.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5798 on: 29 October, 2019, 10:05:27 am »
Returning to The Nine Tailors, it really does get offensive at the end:

(click to show/hide)

So that's all right then. I know that it should be read in the light of its day, but I still find it moderately disgusting. I don't think I'll read any more Wimseys.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5799 on: 29 October, 2019, 10:34:21 am »
A. A. Dhand's third DI Harry Virdee book, set in Bradford.  Literature it's not (simplistic, even), but interesting for being written from the perspective of a Sikh police officer married to a Muslim woman.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)