Last Book You Read....

[Duszek]

L'Amiral, a short novel by the great Blaise Cendrars, set on an ocean liner sailing from Brazil to Europe. Cendrars' autobiographical novels are awesome. Prior to that, Un Cirque Passe by Modiano, which takes place in a dreamlike vibe, and before that Rabbit is Rich by Updike, the third in a cracking quartet (quadrilogy?) about an unassuming American guy, one volume published each ten years. 

[Miguel Sanchez]

1 hour ago, coprolite said:

The vast majority of the world ‘s population is comparatively uneducated compared to people that are more educated than them.

Sport is a profession in which you are less likely to be held back by a lack of education. 

You’re also less likely to do an Accounts degree or finish that HNC in hospitality if you already earn a 6, 7 or 8 figures in your early 20s.

So compared to professional writers (for example)  they would be less educated.

My point is that, really, it’s a shame that so many educated people are unathletic.

Have you read The Game by Ken Dryden?

[DiegoDiego]

(quadrilogy?)

Tetralogy.

I've had a Modiano sat on my pile for a while now. Hopefully I'll get round to it soon.

[coprolite]

9 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Have you read The Game by Ken Dryden?

No, i’ve Seen the film with Michael Douglas though.

[Duszek]

3 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

Tetralogy.

I've had a Modiano sat on my pile for a while now. Hopefully I'll get round to it soon.

Go for it. Don't know which book you have but all the ones I've read have been short, engaging yarns... I've heard people criticising Modiano for all his books being very similar. but you could level that against plenty of writers.

[Saigon Raider]

Just finished Dark Money which looks at the massive spending by groups funded by the Koch brothers and how it has affected US elections - I loved it and with De Vos, etc now in the cabinet you can see the massive influence it has had.

Started The Five Giants - a history of the welfare state, supposedly a classic and has been updated up to 2016.

[Savage Henry]

Finished James Comey's A Higher Loyalty.   Sped through it.  Really interesting stuff, even if much of it has nothing to do with Donnie.  Feels like it's been rushed to print, though, but apparently he wrote it himself, so maybe he's just not a great writer.  

Moving on to The Dreyfuss Affair by Pierre Paul Read.  Speeding through this, too.  Modern history is where it's at.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I don't know why anyone ever reads anything else.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

It's a testament to his writing ability that he can make something so dangerous and tragic seem like something you still want to do.

[Hampden Diehard]

Baghdad FC. Great story about football in Iraq just after us and the Americans "liberated" it. No one comes out of it particularly well.

[Duszek]

Just finished Rabbit at Rest, the last in John Updike's magnum opus, the Rabbit tetralogy. Highly recommended. Much perceptive insight into the human (well, male) condition.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Just finished "A Life Too Short" after starting it a while back and forgetting about it.

It's a harrowing read about Robert Enke, the German international 'keeper who took his own life by walking out in front of a train just before the 2010 World Cup, for which he was a leading contender for the No1 jersey.

Highly recommend it.

[welshbairn]

Must have been hard being a short goalkeeper. 

[Hampden Diehard]

Must have been hard being a short goalkeeper. 

Aye...Queen's Park can only sign so many of them.

[Antlion]

Ken Follett’s ‘A Column of Fire’, another follow-up to his Pillars of the Earth, this time set in Elizabeth I’s reign. It’s nearly a thousand pages long, and I stuck with it, but it was pretty uninspiring. Essentially it was the story of an enormous cast of impossibly handsome men and beautiful women witnessing the major events of history (from Mary Queen of Scots’ execution to the Spanish Armada to the Gunpowder Plot) whilst having occasional sex and battling psychopathic villains. The history kept it moving, but the actual plot just seemed to hang on major events rather than the events being a backdrop. 

[moniton]

Finished 4th of July creek- very reminiscent in parts of Cormac McCarthy and all the more enjoyable for it. 7/10
Had no new books ready so rattled through Trainspotting- still enjoyable but showing its age in parts.
Now onto " A farewell to arms" by Hemingway

[King Kebab]

Just finished an experiment that was 4 years in the making and took a further 3 years to carry out, after reading and thoroughly enjoying Conn Iggulden's epic "Emperor" (Caesar) and "Conquerer" (Khan) series of books, I made the decision to wait until I was in possession of ALL of his next opus before reading it, namely his "War of the Roses" quadrilogy!!!

After moving house a couple of years ago I've only just recently came across the box in the attic which contained the first three volumes, they're all sitting braw on the shelf now next to the fourth one which was a pretty lonely looking thing for the last three years!!![emoji1]

Anyway, like the rest of his books they are a fantastic read, I have to admit I thought that the subject matter, ye Olde England, might have been a bit fey and more of a bodice ripper than his previous works, but no they are tremendous and are really on a par with his other books, they really do get into the blood and gore of that time period and like all his other books, you cannot put them down, that was over 2000 pages I did there in a week, spanning 30 years of two families destroying themselves as they tried to destroy each other and not caring as their country was being destroyed at the same time and still it flew by and at the end I was still wanting more!!!

I would recommend this to anyone even as a starting off point to jumping into the Iggulden world!!!

The only good thing to come out of waiting to read his series in this fashion is that because I am quite anal about reading authors that I really enjoy and collect, I like to read all their books in chronological order as I kind of like to see them evolve and to see how they develop as writers and it also therefore means that I don't have to wait until next year to read his works again, I've had his next book "Dunstan" sitting on the shelf since last year and now also have "The Falcon of Sparta" which came out last week to enjoy and as both are stand-alone novels I can just get tore in about them!!!

 

[Scary Bear]

Just finished an experiment that was 4 years in the making and took a further 3 years to carry out, after reading and thoroughly enjoying Conn Iggulden's epic "Emperor" (Caesar) and "Conquerer" (Khan) series of books, I made the decision to wait until I was in possession of ALL of his next opus before reading it, namely his "War of the Roses" quadrilogy!!!
After moving house a couple of years ago I've only just recently came across the box in the attic which contained the first three volumes, they're all sitting braw on the shelf now next to the fourth one which was a pretty lonely looking thing for the last three years!!![emoji1]
Anyway, like the rest of his books they are a fantastic read, I have to admit I thought that the subject matter, ye Olde England, might have been a bit fey and more of a bodice ripper than his previous works, but no they are tremendous and are really on a par with his other books, they really do get into the blood and gore of that time period and like all his other books, you cannot put them down, that was over 2000 pages I did there in a week, spanning 30 years of two families destroying themselves as they tried to destroy each other and not caring as their country was being destroyed at the same time and still it flew by and at the end I was still wanting more!!!
I would recommend this to anyone even as a starting off point to jumping into the Iggulden world!!!
The only good thing to come out of waiting to read his series in this fashion is that because I am quite anal about reading authors that I really enjoy and collect, I like to read all their books in chronological order as I kind of like to see them evolve and to see how they develop as writers and it also therefore means that I don't have to wait until next year to read his works again, I've had his next book "Dunstan" sitting on the shelf since last year and now also have "The Falcon of Sparta" which came out last week to enjoy and as both are stand-alone novels I can just get tore in about them!!!
 

I read this post and thought ‘maybe he isn’t a prize roaster and a mind cripple’. Then I saw all the multiple exclamation marks. Then I remembered you giving it all the faux grief about some football player getting assaulted, when you actually enjoy blood and gore. You are a monster.

[King Kebab]

I read this post and thought ‘maybe he isn’t a prize roaster and a mind cripple’. Then I saw all the multiple exclamation marks. Then I remembered you giving it all the faux grief about some football player getting assaulted, when you actually enjoy blood and gore. You are a monster.

If all you took from that previous conversation was some deluded idea of "faux grief" then not only did you allow the point being discussed to completely elude you, but you have also allowed your inherit twattery to wander and pollute yet another thread which bears no relation to that discussion, no wonder even fellow fans of your own Club think you to be a prize welt, enjoy your day!!!

[Scary Bear]

If all you took from that previous conversation was some deluded idea of "faux grief" then not only did you allow the point being discussed to completely elude you, but you have also allowed your inherit twattery to wander and pollute yet another thread which bears no relation to that discussion, no wonder even fellow fans of your own Club think you to be a prize welt, enjoy your day!!!

All that reading and you still use three exclamation marks in every post. Do those authors use three exclamation marks at the end of every sentence?