Author Topic: What books are we reading at the moment ? (Read 846437 times)

Ham · « **Reply #5250 on:** 16 February, 2018, 09:46:44 pm »

Just chewed my way through the Pillars of the Earth trilogy by Ken Follett.

As ever he is a good storyteller but this opus straddles the years before history with our first vestiges of authoritative record and charts a path for the tensions and clashes between authority, religion and the masses. Would it be very bad of me to say he brings the Black Death to life? So much happened in those years from the Norman Conquest to now that still affects us. You can read these books as a ripping yarn, equally you may find that they are astonishingly thought provoking.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #5251 on:** 18 February, 2018, 02:51:27 pm »

Atomised - Michel Houellebecq,translated by Frank Wynne

One of the stash of French novels I got for our summer holidays last year but I never got round to this one.

God its depressing but I've started so I will finish.

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #5252 on:** 19 February, 2018, 03:02:11 pm »

A new William Gibson, discovered in the library

The Peripheral

Only 40 pages in so far. It has all the gibson stuff, so I'm enjoying it. Who cares what the story is about. Sit back and enjoy the words.

andrewc · « **Reply #5253 on:** 19 February, 2018, 03:19:17 pm »

Quote from: mrcharly-YHT on 19 February, 2018, 03:02:11 pm

A new William Gibson, discovered in the library

The Peripheral

Only 40 pages in so far. It has all the gibson stuff, so I'm enjoying it. Who cares what the story is about. Sit back and enjoy the words.

It's excellent , though quite depressing when you ponder the implications of his future. I think a sequel of sorts is in the pipeline for April.

Wascally Weasel · « **Reply #5254 on:** 21 February, 2018, 02:04:04 pm »

A big stack of books on music and music history (rock & pop) mostly from the 70s & 80s. It's research!

Jakob W · « **Reply #5255 on:** 21 February, 2018, 04:10:32 pm »

Recently, a couple of cycling bios: Wm. Fotheringham's Fauso Coppi book, and Richard Moore's _Slaying the Badger_; the first was good, the second excellent. And now, a book on plywood... (https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/plywood-a-material-story-148486.html)

Paul · « **Reply #5256 on:** 22 February, 2018, 01:27:09 pm »

Jingo, by Terry P. It's cracking, and light relief after so much ancient Greek.

Vimes, Carrot, Angua, Nobbs, Colon, Detritus: the gang's all here.

Quisling · « **Reply #5257 on:** 23 February, 2018, 12:04:10 pm »

Counting Sheep by Philip Walling.
https://www.worldofbooks.com/counting-sheep-a-celebration-of-the-pastoral-heritage-of-britain-by-philip-walling-gor006644714.html?keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIttXyq_672QIVa7HtCh3txQdXEAQYAiABEgKrmPD_BwE

It's very good. The Quisling family keep a small flock and this book is useful in understanding the breeding and lineage of different sheep types but is also an excellent history of the British countryside, the vast wealth made from wool and the transition from wool to meat production to feed the increasingly urban workforce. For an alternative point of view read George Monbiot's "Feral" in which he argues that sheep have destroyed our natural wilderness.

andrewc · « **Reply #5258 on:** 23 February, 2018, 12:36:48 pm »

Quote from: andrewc on 31 May, 2016, 05:32:18 pm

"The Traitor" by Seth Dickinson (also published as The Traitor Baru Cormorant).
SF of the sociological type, reminds me a bit of Le Guin, which is no bad thing.
Only partway in, but so far it's good.

I've just seen that a sequel to this is being published in October. "The Monster Baru Cormorant"

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/seth-dickinson-answers-5-questions-monster-baru-cormorant/

Edit - a review of the previous book. I'll have to give it a re-visit before I get the new one.

http://sfreviews.net/dickinson_traitor_baru_cormorant.html

Quisling · « **Reply #5259 on:** 27 February, 2018, 03:50:31 pm »

A natural history of the hedgerow, and ditches, dykes and dry stone walls - by John Wright, that chappie off River Cottage.

https://profilebooks.com/a-natural-history-of-the-hedgerow.html

Recommended for anyone with an interested in natural history and, er, boundaries. I'm enjoying it a lot.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #5260 on:** 27 February, 2018, 06:17:00 pm »

Yorkshire ~ Richard Morris. Subtitled, with typical Tyke understatement, "A Lyrical History Of England's Greatest County". A bit of a scattergun approach so far, but still entertaining. So far I have learned that Whitby whaling skipper and Arctic explorer William Scoresby later entered the Church, and as the Reverend Doctor William Scoresby, is about to clean up Bradford.

Jakob W · « **Reply #5261 on:** 27 February, 2018, 06:24:56 pm »

Many have tried...

Legs · « **Reply #5262 on:** 28 February, 2018, 08:19:19 am »

Quote from: Ham on 16 February, 2018, 09:46:44 pm

Just chewed my way through the Pillars of the Earth trilogy by Ken Follett.

As ever he is a good storyteller but this opus straddles the years before history with our first vestiges of authoritative record and charts a path for the tensions and clashes between authority, religion and the masses. Would it be very bad of me to say he brings the Black Death to life? So much happened in those years from the Norman Conquest to now that still affects us. You can read these books as a ripping yarn, equally you may find that they are astonishingly thought provoking.

I've read these in the past few years, finishing with A Column of Fire a couple of weeks ago. They are exceptionally thoroughly researched (I thought The Pillars of the Earth was a bit architecture-heavy, mind) and very enjoyable.

Steph · « **Reply #5263 on:** 28 February, 2018, 12:26:56 pm »

Quote from: pcolbeck on 18 February, 2018, 02:51:27 pm

Atomised - Michel Houellebecq,translated by Frank Wynne

One of the stash of French novels I got for our summer holidays last year but I never got round to this one.

God its depressing but I've started so I will finish.

I read what he describes as his first novel (eh?) and rather liked it

"HP Lovecraft Contre le Monde, Contre la Vie"

It is a sort of biography of HPL concentrating on his aversion to sex and deeply racist world-view.

hatler · « **Reply #5264 on:** 28 February, 2018, 12:39:12 pm »

The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier. He really was a hippy. He's just got to Cape Horn.

Jack Standish · « **Reply #5265 on:** 02 March, 2018, 09:14:14 am »

Reading Frank Herbert again. I keep coming back to his dry, rugged style.

Steph · « **Reply #5266 on:** 03 March, 2018, 05:39:11 pm »

Dragon in the Sea was always a fave.

T42 · « **Reply #5267 on:** 04 March, 2018, 09:14:46 am »

I liked that one too. And the one with the real Jasper's - Santaroga Barrier?

In fact, I liked all his stuff until he started cranking out sequels to Dune. They weren't bad, they were just bandwagon, and introduced too many factors that hadn't been mentioned in the main book.

Steph · « **Reply #5268 on:** 04 March, 2018, 09:32:57 pm »

Santaroga Barrier is the Jaspers one indeed.

Nuncio · « **Reply #5269 on:** 05 March, 2018, 01:16:04 pm »

Quote from: Nuncio on 31 January, 2018, 01:30:31 pm

Anyone else dabbled with Orhan Pamuk? I'm 150 pages into A Strangeness in My Mind (translated from Turkish by the author) and am enjoying it in a cosy, comfort-reading kind of way. It's about Istanbul over the last 50 years or so, mainly through the eyes of an ingenue who moves there from the Anatolian countryside and becomes a street vendor of yoghurt and boza, like his dad.

Finished, eventually. V good. After the first 150 pages I was keen to visit Istanbul. By the end I felt I didn't need to.

And with an abrupt change of pace, now on to 1974 by David Peace, the first of the Red Riding series. No chance of visiting Yorkshire in the 70s now, thank goodness. It was very grim oop North.

T42 · « **Reply #5270 on:** 12 March, 2018, 08:13:51 am »

I started one of Pamuk's years ago, but was beset by too many oughts at the time and couldn't settle to it.

Right now I'm reading Dan Simmons's The Abominable, with Whymper's The Ascent of the Matterhorn on the side for background. Simmons' version of idiomatic 1924 English causes the odd wince, but since his narrator is an American it's tolerable. Whymper's prose is very easy on the eye.

Assuming that Simmons' research is accurate and that he's not embroidering (aye, sure), the expedition to Everest on which Mallory & Irvine died took along 60 tins of quail in foie gras, 300 hams and several dozen bottles of champagne.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #5271 on:** 12 March, 2018, 12:49:21 pm »

Quote from: T42 on 12 March, 2018, 08:13:51 am

Assuming that Simmons' research is accurate and that he's not embroidering (aye, sure), the expedition to Everest on which Mallory & Irvine died took along 60 tins of quail in foie gras, 300 hams and several dozen bottles of champagne.

It's been a while since I read Walt Unsworth's "Everest: A Mountaineering History", but those numbers sound abiut right

T42 · « **Reply #5272 on:** 12 March, 2018, 12:55:12 pm »

Nowadays they'd have PETA after them.

rafletcher · « **Reply #5273 on:** 12 March, 2018, 06:16:07 pm »

Mick Herrons latest Slough House / Slow horses opus, London Rules.

David Martin · « **Reply #5274 on:** 25 March, 2018, 07:32:23 pm »

Just read 'Raven Black' - You know the initial suspect didn't do it but the real culprit was a bit of a surprise.