Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ?  (Read 835516 times)

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5325 on: 13 May, 2018, 11:09:04 am »
The Big Nowhere, next one of Ellroy's LAPD/LASD opi.  Striking vocabulary.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5326 on: 13 May, 2018, 05:24:14 pm »
I think Ellroy's LA quartet are brilliant and probably his best books, but they're a claustrophobic headspace to be in - I found I had to take a break after reading more than one in a row. After _American Tabloid_ he got too big to edit IMO; the later books are just sprawling messes. I still have a charity shop copy of _Perfidia_ on the shelf, mind; I just need a long holiday to get round to it (so maybe in a decade or so...)

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5327 on: 23 May, 2018, 10:30:25 am »
99p for the Kindle version of Adolph Hitler, my Part in his Downfall

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00A8TUXTG/

It's be wrong to say I'd forgotten how funny he was, but it is just as good on re-reading.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5328 on: 23 May, 2018, 01:05:37 pm »
I think Ellroy's LA quartet are brilliant and probably his best books, but they're a claustrophobic headspace to be in - I found I had to take a break after reading more than one in a row. After _American Tabloid_ he got too big to edit IMO; the later books are just sprawling messes. I still have a charity shop copy of _Perfidia_ on the shelf, mind; I just need a long holiday to get round to it (so maybe in a decade or so...)

Sorry to hear I'm starting with the best of them: downhill from here, then.

Currently into LA Confidential, reading out choicer bits of non-PC to the missus. Never mind the Dambusters' dog, if they'd used the real text in the film there'd have been cinemas on fire right across the US.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5329 on: 23 May, 2018, 10:02:18 pm »
Re-reading “Farthest North” by Fridtjof Nansen. Very readable account of his multi year exploration of the polar region starting in 1893.

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 #5330 on: 24 May, 2018, 04:31:51 am »
Having finally put Jo Nesbo's "Macbeth" to bed, it's the turn of Arnaldur Indridason's "Reykjavík Nights".  No killin's as such yet but it's still early.
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 #5331 on: 24 May, 2018, 08:09:47 am »
Back onto Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne.  Gorry, this dialect is going to take some getting used to...
That was awesome - not one of his higher-acclaimed works but one of my favourites.

Now I'm plugging through Ken Follicle's Century trilogy.  Lots of coalmining, espionage, and bodice-ripping so far.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5332 on: 24 May, 2018, 11:46:04 am »
I am enjoying another foray into the paranormal romance genre.

Mr Smith I suspect is enjoying it somewhat less.

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5333 on: 25 May, 2018, 10:46:44 pm »
Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India, by Shashi Tharoor is on my kindle at the moment.


Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5334 on: 26 May, 2018, 12:30:38 am »
Soon to be filmed by Tarantino as Inglourious Brit-tards.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5335 on: 16 June, 2018, 01:54:02 pm »
I've just bought The Colour of Magic as it was on offer from the big river place. The odd snippets of Pratchett I've read over the years have never made me want to investigate further, but for 99p, I'm prepared to give him a chance.

To balance that, I also bought something with more intellectual heft: William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

redshift

  • High Priestess of wires
    • redshift home
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5336 on: 16 June, 2018, 07:28:41 pm »
I've just bought The Colour of Magic...

The first of the main Discworld books, but by a long way not the best. YMMV, of course.
L
:)
Windcheetah No. 176
The all-round entertainer gets quite arsey,
They won't translate his lame shit into Farsi
Somehow to let it go would be more classy…

tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5337 on: 17 June, 2018, 08:27:35 am »
The Blood Road Logan Mcrae #11.

It's still raining

Only one person has died, so far

Lots of other stuff has happened, in between books, like Logan joining Professional Standards, and buying a house, and finding a new squeeze.
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5338 on: 17 June, 2018, 12:17:55 pm »
Just finishe “Love like Blood” by Mark Billingham.  I’m a bit of a billingham fanboy and this book was one of his best I think.

Now getting into “The Crow Girl” by Victoria Bergmans Svaghet which is shaping up very nicely.
It’s transllated from Swedish and I sometimes think translated books can be tough going but I don’t find that at all with this book

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5339 on: 17 June, 2018, 12:53:20 pm »
I've just bought The Colour of Magic...

The first of the main Discworld books, but by a long way not the best. YMMV, of course.

Would I lose anything by not reading them in order? I thought I ought to start at the beginning.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5340 on: 17 June, 2018, 01:11:30 pm »
Some of them, in particular the Watch novels, form a series within the series, but otherwise I think you'd be OK with reading them out of sequence. I am not an expert, though.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5341 on: 17 June, 2018, 01:21:32 pm »
The Colour Of Magic (and the second half of the story, The Light Fantastic) was an antidote to fantasy novels when it first came out, back before the rest of the Discworld novels had been written.  It's not a terrible place to start, as long as you do so with the understanding that if you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't dismiss the entire Discworld because of it.  If nothing else, it would be a shame to miss out on The Luggage.

There are several series-within-a-series, chiefly the City Watch (start with Guards Guards), The Witches (start with Equal Rites) and Death (start with Mort), which are all much stronger stories than TCOM/TLF.  The various new-technology-comes-to-the-Discworld stories could also be considered as a series, though I reckon you need some prior Discworld experience to fully appreciate them.

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 #5342 on: 17 June, 2018, 08:44:48 pm »
The Blood Road Logan Mcrae #11.

It's still raining

Only one person has died, so far

Lots of other stuff has happened, in between books, like Logan joining Professional Standards, and buying a house, and finding a new squeeze.

Ooooh goodie!  Somethings to look forward to on my return from Northern Climes!
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5343 on: 18 June, 2018, 12:36:26 pm »
I just finished The Craftsman by SJ Bolton. Loved it. Police, murders, Pendle witches, double-crossing, human sacrifices, and an overall atmosphere of creepy chilling menace.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5344 on: 19 June, 2018, 04:19:29 pm »
The Blood Road Logan Mcrae #11.

It's still raining

Only one person has died, so far

Lots of other stuff has happened, in between books, like Logan joining Professional Standards, and buying a house, and finding a new squeeze.

Ooooh goodie!  Somethings to look forward to on my return from Northern Climes!

Now finished it. It is very good. All his best characters are in it.

Now reading Garnethill by Denise Mina. Completely different pace.
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5345 on: 19 June, 2018, 04:49:43 pm »
I've just bought The Colour of Magic...

The first of the main Discworld books, but by a long way not the best. YMMV, of course.

Would I lose anything by not reading them in order? I thought I ought to start at the beginning.

As others have said, though not critical, in order is generally good but not essential.

I've been reading the odd one as they come up reduced on Kindle, just finished The Light Fantastic. I find it interesting how his writing develops. As Kim says, those early books are based in the Fantasy genre of the period, written by someone who had been doing a Sarah Huckabee for the Nuclear Generating Board, and had been tinkering with the similarities between nuclear and magic for years. The ideas fizz out at a rate of knots because, why not? The later books develop ideas more fully, some feel like a sentence turned into a volume. They are often much more about the people, and the parallels to the normal universe are closer.

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 #5346 on: 21 June, 2018, 07:33:56 am »
Fatal Passage ~ Ken McGoogan.  Biography of John Rae who, unlike the vast majority of Victorian Arctic explorers, seems not to have been a total berk.
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 #5347 on: 21 June, 2018, 08:07:40 am »
I've just bought The Colour of Magic...

The first of the main Discworld books, but by a long way not the best. YMMV, of course.

Would I lose anything by not reading them in order? I thought I ought to start at the beginning.

As others have said, though not critical, in order is generally good but not essential.

I've been reading the odd one as they come up reduced on Kindle, just finished The Light Fantastic. I find it interesting how his writing develops. As Kim says, those early books are based in the Fantasy genre of the period, written by someone who had been doing a Sarah Huckabee for the Nuclear Generating Board, and had been tinkering with the similarities between nuclear and magic for years. The ideas fizz out at a rate of knots because, why not? The later books develop ideas more fully, some feel like a sentence turned into a volume. They are often much more about the people, and the parallels to the normal universe are closer.

In the 70s Larry Niven published an article about the structure of the Ringworld, and also discussed other kinds of macrostructures such as Dyson spheres and a world where all the matter in a system had been formed into a disc with gravity perpendicular to the surface. Unlike TP, he had the sun bobbing up and down through a hole in the middle (thus obeying physics) but he also commented that such a world, with its long shadows, would be a great setting for a swords and sorcery novel.  When the first Discworld novel appeared I thought "aye aye, someone else reads Larry Niven".

...

They'e not Diskworld in the US, are they?  :sick:
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Steph

  • Fast. Fast and bulbous. But fluffy.
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5348 on: 24 June, 2018, 04:08:17 am »
I remember the Niven essay. And I have checked: the works remain discworld in USA nia.
Mae angen arnaf i byw, a fe fydda'i

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: What books are we reading at the moment ?
« Reply #5349 on: 24 June, 2018, 08:08:10 am »
I rather suspected they did.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight