What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Quint]

Most of the way through the fifth of The Cycling Anthology series, I have the feeling they are running out of ideas, don't see how though, my daughter (to cheer me up re hospital visit) bought me "The Country Set" more of a dip into rather than read, tis by Hannah Dale and the drawings are most excellent.

[Mr Larrington]

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.  Early doors yet but signs are good, especially with a main character named Joe Spork.

[Ham]

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Actually made me say "what the fuck?" out loud on the bus the other day. Luckily it was the 14 and nobody noticed.

Thanks for that, on a whim I added to my holiday reading, I'd say the book is more satisfying than the ending, but overall enjoyed. May even go and find some of her others as apparently that is her 10th book.

ETA apparently, that's the only one in Kindle format so I won't be having any others in a hurry.

[Thing2]

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.  Early doors yet but signs are good, especially with a main character named Joe Spork.

I've just finished it, and I enjoyed it muchly. It had me in giggles in some places, which is very rare for a book.
I've recommended it to the friend who is letting me borrow Rivers of London, which I am really looking forward to (mostly due to the praise on here).

[T42]

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.  Early doors yet but signs are good, especially with a main character named Joe Spork.

A faiseuse d'anges in C18/C19 France was an abortionist.

[tiermat]

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.  Early doors yet but signs are good, especially with a main character named Joe Spork.

I've just finished it, and I enjoyed it muchly. It had me in giggles in some places, which is very rare for a book.
I've recommended it to the friend who is letting me borrow Rivers of London, which I am really looking forward to (mostly due to the praise on here).

If you want the series on epub, let me know.

[Ruthie]

Just finished The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

A novel about social injustice in Britain, set in the 1920s.

It could have been written last week.  I've come over all socialist.

[citoyen]

Lucy Porter mentioned the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in her show last night, which made me think I should get my son to read it - he's 16 and studying history for A-level so I think really needs to read it.

So should I, for that matter.

[Ruthie]

I only read it, because I had a really interesting patient I was chatting to, who recommended it.  He seemed like the kind of wise old chap I should take notice of, so I did read it, and I'm glad I took up his suggestion.

I just need to find a proper Party For The Working Man to vote for now at the election 

[Mr Larrington]

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.  Early doors yet but signs are good, especially with a main character named Joe Spork.

I've just finished it, and I enjoyed it muchly. It had me in giggles in some places, which is very rare for a book.
I've recommended it to the friend who is letting me borrow Rivers of London, which I am really looking forward to (mostly due to the praise on here).

Good-oh.  It was a pressie from Dr Larrington, whose form for book recommendations is generally pretty good.  We are eagerly awaiting the Anbaric Distascope adaptation of "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell", wot was another one of hers.  I suppose I ought to re-read it before that happens.

[mattc]

Gibson's Peripheral is glowing in my TBR pile, and now this on the radio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02j2b59

William Gibson
World Book Club

This month World Book Club talks to cult American-Canadian writer William Gibson about his much garlanded novel that launched the cyberpunk generation with one of the last century’s most potent visions of the cyberspace future.

The first winner of the science fiction ‘triple crown’ of awards for the genre, Neuromancer conjures a nightmare world of concrete megacities trapped under geodesic domes and run by shadowy megacorps. Washed-up computer hacker Case longs to escape by jacking into the technicolour but terrifying virtual reality of the Matrix, and is glad to be hired by a mysterious employer and his alluring sidekick Molly to pull off the ultimate hack.

55 minutes
 
Tomorrow
20:05
GMT
BBC WORLD SERVICE
 
Wed 11 Feb 2015
09:05
GMT
BBC WORLD SERVICE

(I always like the way World Service schedules include the "GMT" )

[Dibdib]

It is, I think, about time I had another crack at reading the combined A Feast For Crows/A Dance With Dragons (books four and five of A Song of Ice and Fire).



I haz a spreadsheet. Reading a book shouldn't need a spreadsheet. 

[Steph]

Um. Naughty post. New book in throes of publishing: "Sweat and Tears"; should be available in next day or so.

Anyone with lingering abuse triggers should stay away.

[mattc]

William Gibson's Peripheral is glowing in my TBR pile,

30 pages in - I have no idea what is going on.

I've never had this problem with Gibson,  and I've read plenty of weird SF shit over the years. Has his prose gotten even more terse and opaque?  Or am I just getting older and dumber?

EDIT: Aha! Just read the spoiler-laden Guardian review. The comments are mostly:
"I was ready to give up after 50 pages - but then read this review. Thanks!"

I feel better now 
(but I'm a bit disapointed in Gibson - books shouldn't be this hard to follow. I'd read Booker winners for that sort of thing. )

(click to show/hide)

Like every other Gibson book its told in 2 (or more) rapidly alternating plot strands. Now usually these gradually approach each-other, and eventually interact, usually approaching a multi-viewpoint climactic showdown. I would never have guessed that in this one, Strand2 is set many years further in the future.

[Ruthie]

Re-reading White Fang by Jack London, the horror story from which every horror film ever takes its template.

It's brilliant.

[Mr Larrington]

Finally finished "Angelmaker", which was OK but not, I think, worthy of the praise plastered all over the cover.  Which means I'll have to think of something else for Miss von Brandenburg's birthday present chiz.  Now on "Prayer For The Dead", the fifth instalment of James Oswald's Inspector McLean series.  Halfway between Rebus and Peter Grant - set in Edinburgh and with mild supernatural overtones.  I am fervently hoping that no further Heavy Things land on top of his newly-restored Alfa.

[Ham]

Finally finished "Angelmaker", which was OK but not, I think, worthy of the praise plastered all over the cover.  Which means I'll have to think of something else for Miss von Brandenburg's birthday present chiz.  Now on "Prayer For The Dead", the fifth instalment of James Oswald's Inspector McLean series.  Halfway between Rebus and Peter Grant - set in Edinburgh and with mild supernatural overtones.  I am fervently hoping that no further Heavy Things land on top of his newly-restored Alfa.

Which Alfa? I may have to acquire, although I will first have to manually disengage the automatic safety mechanism that clicked in with the words "supernatural overtones"

[Steph]

'Proud', by Gareth Thomas and ghost.

[Mr Larrington]

Finally finished "Angelmaker", which was OK but not, I think, worthy of the praise plastered all over the cover.  Which means I'll have to think of something else for Miss von Brandenburg's birthday present chiz.  Now on "Prayer For The Dead", the fifth instalment of James Oswald's Inspector McLean series.  Halfway between Rebus and Peter Grant - set in Edinburgh and with mild supernatural overtones.  I am fervently hoping that no further Heavy Things land on top of his newly-restored Alfa.

Which Alfa? I may have to acquire, although I will first have to manually disengage the automatic safety mechanism that clicked in with the words "supernatural overtones"

Doesn't say specifically but it's from the 70s and has a roof, so my guess would be a Tipo 105/115 GT - the 1963-77 one.

[Ham]

Finally finished "Angelmaker", which was OK but not, I think, worthy of the praise plastered all over the cover.  Which means I'll have to think of something else for Miss von Brandenburg's birthday present chiz.  Now on "Prayer For The Dead", the fifth instalment of James Oswald's Inspector McLean series.  Halfway between Rebus and Peter Grant - set in Edinburgh and with mild supernatural overtones.  I am fervently hoping that no further Heavy Things land on top of his newly-restored Alfa.

Which Alfa? I may have to acquire, although I will first have to manually disengage the automatic safety mechanism that clicked in with the words "supernatural overtones"

Doesn't say specifically but it's from the 70s and has a roof, so my guess would be a Tipo 105/115 GT - the 1963-77 one.

Hot damn. A roof you say? Probably the GT Junior, ordinary version. Even an writer couldn't destroy a Zagato bodied one, shirley?

I may have to get involved.

[Mr Larrington]

Deffo a roof, and rear seats big enough to fit DC Stuart MacBride into.  It doesn't play a major role in the way that Morse's Lancia Jag does, though it might if the books ever get ruined for the Anbaric Distascope.

[DaveJ]

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Actually made me say "what the fuck?" out loud on the bus the other day. Luckily it was the 14 and nobody noticed.

A bit odd, I found.  Might return to it and actually finish it, sometime.

I quite enjoyed that.  I don't know where I thought it was going, but then it headed up somewhere completely different, the "number 14" moment I would guess.

I've been rereading bits from Andy Weir's "The Martian".  The story of the book is good too.  One moment he's publishing installments on the internet, then he self publishes it as a Kindle book, then he's got a Publisher, and now Ridley Scott is filming it.  Looking forward to seeing it.

 

[T42]

William Gibson's Peripheral is glowing in my TBR pile,

30 pages in - I have no idea what is going on.

I've never had this problem with Gibson,  and I've read plenty of weird SF shit over the years. Has his prose gotten even more terse and opaque?  Or am I just getting older and dumber?
...

I'm around p.30 as well. Sort-of getting it.  If he were a fencer he'd use absence-of-blade all the time - nothing much to get hold of.

Just finished Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the Bottom of the Lane".  Nice little story - Guillermo del Toro could make a nice little film out of it.

[Ham]

Deffo a roof, and rear seats big enough to fit DC Stuart MacBride into.  It doesn't play a major role in the way that Morse's Lancia Jag does, though it might if the books ever get ruined for the Anbaric Distascope.

Ah, gentlemen, that reminds me.

Anyone else devoured the James Leasor (author), Jason Love books? Plus his They Don't Make Them Like That Any More

It is some years in the past wot I read them, I may go for the Kindle versions and see how they read 30+ years on. As I recall, they were the very best fictional story PROPER CAR books evah, he really knew and loved old cars. Plus, James Leasor qualifies as a PROPER GOOD EGG, having entered into a correspondence with one of his fawning readers, and invited said reader to visit and see his Cord. Regrettably, no photographic record exists

I commend his books to the house.

[citoyen]

The Girl Who Played With Fire

File under More Of The Same. The blend of obsessively detailed descriptions of products and obsessively detailed descriptions of torture and murder remind me in some ways of American Psycho. I wonder if Stieg Larsson was a Brett Easton Ellis fan.

It's a bit of an antidote to all the PG Wodehouse I've been mainlining recently.