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Last Book You Read....


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5 hours ago, Stellaboz said:

I've been gifted a book called "I, Claudius".

Very sceptical that I'll enjoy it but I'll give it a bash.

BBThee made serieth of it yearth ago, might thtill be available.

It ith.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Claudius-Complete-BBC-Disc-Box/dp/B001HSO4EM

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Most recently read....   

Financial Peace Revisited  by Dave Ramsey.

Financial advice good.  Not too interested in his 'red neck'/Republican attitudes to anything that might sound vaguely socialist.

That bit smacks pretty much of the US ethos of every man/woman for themself.

But the financial advice good.

 

Currently reading....

Doughnut Economics - Seven ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist 

by Kate Raworth.

The antidote to neo-liberal economics.

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Seriously, the last book I read was Time and Time Again by Ben Elton - guy is sent back in time to prevent the Great War happening because he thinks it will turn the twentieth century into a golden age. Things don't go quite according to plan...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Moby Dick/Melville - Its well written and the character of Captain Ahab is compelling but the fiction often takes multiple chapter detours to explain the history, mythology and study of whales. It made me think this would be a more interesting cetology work than story.

Bob Dylan Chronicles  Vol.1 - Good to re-read. Love the guy. Can really sense the annoyance as being labelled "voice of a generation" dragging him down in the late 60's. Intentionally making bad records to get people away etc. Wish he'd bring out volume 2

Wire in the Blood/Val McDermid - Its pretty well documented the character of Jacko Vance is Jimmy Saville. Grim but pacy. Would read more in the Tony Hill series. 

 

 

 

 

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On 21/07/2019 at 14:31, GordonD said:

Seriously, the last book I read was Time and Time Again by Ben Elton - guy is sent back in time to prevent the Great War happening because he thinks it will turn the twentieth century into a golden age. Things don't go quite according to plan...

Ben Elton and  time travel.

Has anyone told Richard Herring about this?

Read quite a lot in the first half of the year and burned out a bit.  Just started up again after a month break.

If I've read something reviewed on Better Than Food it was only by chance, I don't use it to pick my books, but whenever I watch it it always inspires me to get reading.  And so it was this week. So thanks man.

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I seem to be going through a phase of reading novels by comedians in which somebody tries to erase a World War from history. This time it was Making History by Stephen Fry, in which somebody uses a time machine to dump sterilisation tablets in the well of an Austrian village, so that Hitler was never born. As with the Ben Elton book, the world that results is far from Utopia...

Enjoyed it, though large chunks of it are written in screenplay format for no apparent reason, which was intensely irritating.

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6 hours ago, GordonD said:

I seem to be going through a phase of reading novels by comedians in which somebody tries to erase a World War from history. This time it was Making History by Stephen Fry, in which somebody uses a time machine to dump sterilisation tablets in the well of an Austrian village, so that Hitler was never born. As with the Ben Elton book, the world that results is far from Utopia...

Enjoyed it, though large chunks of it are written in screenplay format for no apparent reason, which was intensely irritating.

I've read them both too. The Stephen Fry one was my favorite. Time and Time Again was okay but Ben Elton just tries so hard to prove to the reader that he's done his research and his scenes of "love-making" were just cringe.

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Just battered through several books in last 3 weeks or so.

Just finished The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Brilliant follow up to The Underground Railroad. Not as good though.

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinham Braithwaite.
Brilliant and darkly funny read.

Rosewater by Tade Thompson.
Start of a trilogy. Set in 2066, Nigeria. It goes back and forth between 2066 and 2050. Sci fi at its best. Well worth the read.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck. A shirt story by one of my favourite authors. He did no wrong in my eyes.

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Just finished ‘Ghost Rider’ by Neil Peart. As a long time Rush fan, I was obviously well aware of the double tragedy that hit Neil, and had always wanted to read this. I put it off for years, but bought the book two weeks ago and it was a difficult, but ultimately rewarding read. The guy is a wonderful writer, and it certainly isn’t bleak all the way through, far from it. If you aren’t a Rush fan, and don’t know the kind of quiet publicity-shunning character that Neil Peart is, and have no attachment to the guy through years of his music, then probably not for you. It definitely helps to be invested in the man behind the book and you go into it knowing what he went through.

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Recently read:

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Plague by Albert Camus 

Portnoys Complaint by Philip Roth

Amerika by Franz Kafka

 

I am currently reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Unexpectedly found some of the dialogue rather amusing:

Spoiler

The part when one of the inmates from the insane asylum mistakes Mr Norton for Thomas Jefferson. 

 

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I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

900 pages of repetitive rubbish, I was willing it to end. Seems a movie is being made, it should maybe work ok on screen.

Just starting - The Cyclist Who Went Out In The Cold - Adventures Along The Iron Curtain Trail by Tim Moore.

The author attempts to cycle the length of the old 'Iron Curtain' from Northern Finland/Russia, all the way to Bulgaria on an old, slightly modified East German shopping bicycle.

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"Enver Hoxha- The Iron Fist of Albania" by Blendi Fevziu. 

A rather interesting read. Hoxha was a bit of a tinpot Stalin, even his death seemed to mirror Stalin's demise in that he lapsed into a coma similar to Stalin at the end. 

I suppose one thing I got out of it was a feeling that the Yugoslavs were perhaps lucky to have Tito. He made mistakes but compared to Hoxha they got off lightly.  

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Managed to binge through a few novels over the last couple of months: I picked up Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland & The End Of The World and enjoyed it, although it was a bit challenging at times. I've got The Elephant Vanishes sitting on my shelf, so will delve into that at some point soon.

Followed that up with another Japanese translation: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Very short, finished it in a couple of days, and bought it on a recommendation from one of the Waterstone's staff.

The last two books I've read are the first two in Raymond Chandler's Marlowe series - The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely. Great fun, aged terribly in some respects (although not nearly as much as the Ian Fleming stuff I read last year), but I've really enjoyed them. Bought the third and fourth novels yesterday.

 

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