What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Mr Larrington]

The thing that puzzled me about "Life" was how on earth His Keefness ever remembered all the details, unless he had some sort of amanuensis following him night and day since 1962.  In which case the amanuensis would likely be dead.

[citoyen]

Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn

Having just finished the excellent Some Hope, which is no.3 in the Patrick Melrose series, I'm moving straight on to no.4. I do like his style. Some Hope centres around a dinner party featuring a cast of obnoxious poshos, including the thoroughly awful Princess Margaret (based on first hand knowledge, apparently), but it's much better than that makes it sound. Very funny, in a waspishly Waugh-esque kind of way.

[Graeme]

Getting annoyed with 'One hundred percent lunar boy'. I want it to be good because the author was in a band I like.

Managed to speed read 'Fresh!' in the pub this evening. Feeling encouraged by that academic book. It is odd that I'm enjoying (really really enjoying) academic books much more than novels these days.

[citoyen]

Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn

Having just finished the excellent Some Hope, which is no.3 in the Patrick Melrose series, I'm moving straight on to no.4. I do like his style. Some Hope centres around a dinner party featuring a cast of obnoxious poshos, including the thoroughly awful Princess Margaret (based on first hand knowledge, apparently), but it's much better than that makes it sound. Very funny, in a waspishly Waugh-esque kind of way.

Mother's Milk is superb. Finished that and straight on to At Last, the final volume, which is fairly flimsy and feels like a bit of a postscript but rounds off the series nicely. It strikes me that in the hands of a different writer the series would have made a pretty harrowing misery memoir, but Edward St Aubyn is too wedded to irony to go down that route. Considering the awful things that happen to Patrick (all autobiographical), the books really shouldn't be as funny as they are.

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And was I right to cheer when the odious Nicholas Pratt dropped dead at Patrick's mother's funeral?[/quote]

Now on to The Thirty-Nine Steps for a bit of light relief. Proper ripping yarn, this.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Just finished Alan Warner's Morvern Callar. Amazing book.

[tiermat]

Having finished "On Such a Full Sea" I have moved onto Boy, Snow, Bird

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I read that a few weeks ago and really liked it.

[L CC]

I was looking for some cheerful predictable froth so downloaded Lisa Jewell's 'The House We Grew Up In' and instead had horrific foreshadowings and came home and threw things out.
I even had a warm and friendly chat with No2Son, JustInCase. 

[Mr Larrington]

The rate at which my "To Read" pile is growing is causing respected physicists to rethink their theories on the expansion of the universe.  Note to self: do not allow yourself to be distracted by the book section when visiting Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles for the ooh a new Jo Nesbø sole purpose of buying Brown Drink.

[ian]

A Song of Shadows (apparently the 13th Charlie Parker book, blimey) – kept me up past well past sensible bedtime o'clock.

[menthel]

High rise by J.G. Ballard. Might be good, not sure yet as I have only read the first few pages!

[Mr Larrington]

High rise by J.G. Ballard. Might be good, not sure yet as I have only read the first few pages!

I rather liked that when I read it as a young Mr Larrington, after hearing the Hawkwind track it inspired.

[menthel]

High rise by J.G. Ballard. Might be good, not sure yet as I have only read the first few pages!

I rather liked that when I read it as a young Mr Larrington, after hearing the Hawkwind track it inspired.

Is it Moorcock Hawkwind? If I had my headphoes I would have instituted a search of Napster, but without them I think I might get a funny look in the open plan office!

[Mr Larrington]

First appeared on "PXR5" circa 1979.

[menthel]

First appeared on "PXR5" circa 1979.

Will have a look once I get somewhere more suitable for listening.

[lisat]

Silence of the Sea. An Icelandic thriller/suspense with maybe a bit of horror later.  Nice easy read for my Cyprus break.

[T42]

Donna Tarrrttttt (delete to taste) The Goldfinch.  Wife called it riveting. Guess I'm case-hardened.

[ian]

Donna Tarrrttttt (delete to taste) The Goldfinch.  Wife called it riveting. Guess I'm case-hardened.

Nah, it's duller than ditchwater on a grey, wet Wednesday afternoon in February. And it goes on forever. And then when it gets to forever, with barely a stop for sandwiches, it carries on. It might never end. I have a suspicion she's still adding pages to the end when no one is looking.

[citoyen]

Quartet In Autumn - Barbara Pym

Oh my.

I don't know if it would be appropriate to say I enjoyed this one. It's rather bleak, quite upsetting even. Philip Hensher described it as "a spare masterpiece in loneliness", which is spot on. But it also has moments of humour - proper laugh out loud stuff. And some moments where you really don't know if you should be laughing or recoiling in horror.

It reminds me a lot of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. And of Patrick Hamilton's Slaves Of Solitude.

Barbara Pym was recommended to me by Peter OTP but this is still only the second of hers that I've read. I must read more. I like her style.

[Mr Larrington]

And to return things to the level of Philistinism Thee Panel can expect from Yours Truly, having disposed to Carl Hiaasen's solo fiction and non-fiction I am now on the three novels he wrote in collaboration with Bill Montalbano prior to the publication of "Tourist Trap".  Generic airport fodder really.  Not many laughs.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Just finished All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld. Atmospheric, menacing, sad. Really liked it.

[Peter]

Quartet In Autumn - Barbara Pym

Oh my.

I don't know if it would be appropriate to say I enjoyed this one. It's rather bleak, quite upsetting even. Philip Hensher described it as "a spare masterpiece in loneliness", which is spot on. But it also has moments of humour - proper laugh out loud stuff. And some moments where you really don't know if you should be laughing or recoiling in horror.

It reminds me a lot of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. And of Patrick Hamilton's Slaves Of Solitude.



Barbara Pym was recommended to me by Peter OTP but this is still only the second of hers that I've read. I must read more. I like her style.

Glad you appreciated it!  Her life was a little bleak by the time she wrote "Quartet In Autumn", including fourteen years of not being published.  Her earlier work is more light-hearted and just as well-written.

Peter

[citoyen]

Yes, I think you recommended her on the back of me saying I'd enjoyed EF Benson, and I understand Barbara Pym's earlier stuff is much more whimsical in that vein.

It's the quality of her writing that makes her so good to read - says an awful lot without seeming to say much at all.

[pcolbeck]

Justina Robson's "Quantum Gravity" SF series.

A weird mashup of cyborg SF / fantasy but really enjoyable. I knew her years ago (like 15 or so) when she was the partner of one of my work colleges at the time. She was an aspiring novelist at the time and now it seems she is quite famous.

[Nuncio]

Finished David Copperfield eventually.  Apart from the long self-indulgent 'tail' and the usual criticism of his depiction of his female love-interest characters, I enjoyed it (again). I like the perambulations between Yarmouth, London and Dover.

Then The Bone Clocks. Loved the writing throughout, but while I could cope with the odd hint of the fantasy in the first few chapters, the full blown anchorites v horologists stuff turned me off. I liked the extended epilogue though - back to earth with a thud. I'll be back to David Mitchell once he's written a 'straight' novel.

Now on C J Sansom's Sovereign. I find the writing wooden to the point of being stilted, such a contrast with Wolf Hall (and The Bone Clocks). Still, I'm half-way through and am involved just enough to want to know what happens next.