What books are we reading at the moment ?

[harvey]

Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie

Interesting and well written modern, loosely remake of Sophicle's Antigone in British Muslim twist.
Good read!

[Tom B]

the autobiography of poet, soldier of fortune, airline pilot, swordsman and part-time Met'l Mayhem Merchant Bruce Dickinson

... who will be on your tv screen in a couple of weeks time, representing Queen Mary, London on Xmas University Challenge

[Nuncio]

Insidious Intent, number ten in Val McDermid's Tony Hill & Carol Jordan series.  1/3 of the way though and only one killin' but there's another one imminent.

Well, that was a bit unexpected, but La McDermid says in the Afterword that I'm not allowed to say any more.

I heard her interviewed about that and am intrigued. Do I need to read the preceding 9 for number 10 to make sense?

[Mr Larrington]

#10 does contain quite a lot of references pertaining to events in #9 and so on back to the beginning.

[pcolbeck]

Tamed: Ten Species that Changed our World - Alice Roberts

Very good so far on dogs.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

More Than This by Patrick Ness. Weird but good. Good but weird.

[Ham]

Funny old thing. I have a Kindle habit, have had for years now. But increasingly I find myself drawn to stuff I've read, and is somewhere in my real bookshelves - or at least was at one time. Mainly to avoid disappointment I think. Just loaded up the Alexandria Quartet. Ages since I've read it, but it's one of those that forces you to its own pace and rhythm.

[Paul]

Beowulf.

S'alright. I suspect JRRT read it.

[Jakob W]

Which translation? I remember the Seamus Heaney version being quite gripping.

[Mr Larrington]

Having laboured through King père et fils' weighty "Sleeping Beauties", which was so-so, now on "The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye", David Lagercrantz' second continuation of Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.  He's a better writer than Larsson (or at least has a better editor and/or translator) but I'm still not convinced.

[Paul]

Which translation? I remember the Seamus Heaney version being quite gripping.

That's the one. I'm still getting the hang of reading very old things. My 20th C brain expects more things to happen faster in stories, so I think I need to find a different gear for this stuff.

So, having read The Iliad, The Odyssey and Beowulf, what would the panel recommend?

[Jakob W]

ISTR I read the Heaney version one winter afternoon and evening; sat in the warm with a drink by my side and a gale blowing outside was probably good for getting into the mood.

As for other stuff - the epic of Gilgamesh? The Ramayana? Or something mediaeval?

[andrewc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid   for the story of the Trojans who escaped the Greek massacre.  Can't remember which translation I read.    The Viking sagas ?     


I've got a 2 volume set of Robert Graves "Greek Myths" I keep meaning to start.... 

[Mr Larrington]

Professor Larrington done a translation of The Poetic Edda a few years back which, to my everlasting shame, I have still not read.

[T42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneid   for the story of the Trojans who escaped the Greek massacre.  Can't remember which translation I read.    The Viking sagas ?     

Gawd. We did some of it in Latin class when I was 14. Can't remember a word. My daughter's beau refers to a prominent episode as Dildo, Queen of Carthage and Anus son of Primark.

[Steph]

I read it in Latin many, many years ago. It's first line was nicked by Shaw as the title of a play we did at school.

[T42]

I've forgotten even that - and all the Shaw plays I can remember were written by Oscar Wilde.

[mattc]

Which translation? I remember the Seamus Heaney version being quite gripping.

That's the one. I'm still getting the hang of reading very old things. My 20th C brain expects more things to happen faster in stories, so I think I need to find a different gear for this stuff.

So, having read The Iliad, The Odyssey and Beowulf, what would the panel recommend?

A decent dose of fresh air.

[Paul]

Which translation? I remember the Seamus Heaney version being quite gripping.

That's the one. I'm still getting the hang of reading very old things. My 20th C brain expects more things to happen faster in stories, so I think I need to find a different gear for this stuff.

So, having read The Iliad, The Odyssey and Beowulf, what would the panel recommend?

A decent dose of fresh air.

[T42]

Les droits et devoirs du citoyen (no, not OTP).  Excellent soporific.

[Mr Larrington]

Holding off reading my Christmas pressie until it's really Christmas, but have found a copy of China Miéville's "Kraken" in the to-read pile.

[Ashaman42]

Reading The Player of Games for the fourth or fifth time.

[Mr Larrington]

Holding off reading my Christmas pressie until it's really Christmas, but have found a copy of China Miéville's "Kraken" in the to-read pile.

Well, that was a struggle but I got there in the end.  Now on La Belle Sauvage which is an altogether easier thing.

[andrewc]

I finished Armistead Maupins “Logical Family” yesterday, now starting Mievilles “ Last Days of New Paris”.  I think it might help if I knew a bit more about Surrealism...

[T42]

Empty Space, the last of M. John Harrison's Kefahuchi Tract trilogy. His usual pessimistic view of humanity and other sentients.

Holding off reading my Christmas pressie until it's really Christmas, but have found a copy of China Miéville's "Kraken" in the to-read pile.

Well, that was a struggle but I got there in the end.  Now on La Belle Sauvage which is an altogether easier thing.

I thought Kraken was a barrel of crap, and I usually like Miéville's stuff.  I can forgive an author the odd bad book, though, if it helps them survive long enough financially to write the next good one.