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Last Book You Read....


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‘Working’ from home is doing great things for my reading. I’m onto Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pecuchet now after Fante’s Brotherhood of the Grape. Next up, Simone de Beauvoir and Witold Gombrowicz.  After that, Finnigans Wake.

I guess I should thank the fuckwit who thought it was a good idea to eat a pangolin.

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In the last days before the lockdown I met a Macedonian bird doing a PhD on Zola so I'm reading some of his stuff in a vain attempt to impress her.
My initial attempts included a discussion about apartheid and barefoot running before realising I'd got the wrong Zola.

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In the last days before the lockdown I met a Macedonian bird doing a PhD on Zola so I'm reading some of his stuff in a vain attempt to impress her.
My initial attempts included a discussion about apartheid and barefoot running before realising I'd got the wrong Zola.


I’d have gone with a Gianfranco joke, but nice attempt.
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13 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

In the last days before the lockdown I met a Macedonian bird doing a PhD on Zola so I'm reading some of his stuff in a vain attempt to impress her.
My initial attempts included a discussion about apartheid and barefoot running before realising I'd got the wrong Zola.

Try Therese Raquin. Very accessible sex/murder romp.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Poverty Safari - Darren McGarvey (Loki)

A really thought provoking book that takes a very critical look at the approach of the left to poverty. Very interesting observations about the nature of deprivation and how we perceive it, told through the author's own experiences. Well worth a read and has certainly given me plenty to think about.

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After putting it off  (to my shame) for years, I finally picked up The Stand by Stephen King and found that I just couldn't put it down. 

For the last two weeks I've been completely immersed in this book. I think it was maybe the 1100 page length of it that was discouraging me, but the story just flows.

Very topical stuff even though it was written in the 70's. 

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Lockdown has brought out the child in me it seems. Having found two Alex Rider books in the charity shop, I am now powering through them. Read the first 5 or so in school, so now, 15 years later I am trying to round off the series. Seems Horowitz never stopped writing them! Some light easy reading never goes amiss.

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Reading some Italo Calvino. His book of short stories, 'Cosmicomics' is absolutely sensational.

The Aquatic Uncle is a must read from it.

If you like surreal and bizarre stories, this is the guy.

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1 hour ago, paul-r-cfc said:

Lockdown has brought out the child in me it seems. Having found two Alex Rider books in the charity shop, I am now powering through them. Read the first 5 or so in school, so now, 15 years later I am trying to round off the series. Seems Horowitz never stopped writing them! Some light easy reading never goes amiss.

We have some long road trips as we ferry my stepkids back and forth for summers and Christmases, and the Alex Rider audiobooks never fail to keep everyone entertained. Cheesy as hell but really good fun. His series about mystical kids and The Old Ones was pretty good too. Power of Five or something like that. The first in the series, Raven's Gate, is creepy as f**k.

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2 hours ago, paul-r-cfc said:

Lockdown has brought out the child in me it seems. Having found two Alex Rider books in the charity shop, I am now powering through them. Read the first 5 or so in school, so now, 15 years later I am trying to round off the series. Seems Horowitz never stopped writing them! Some light easy reading never goes amiss.

He also wrote a Bond novel relatively recently, which was decent enough.

As a kid I was a huge fan of his Diamond Brothers series. Tempted to try to find them again tbh!

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Just reading Good Omens, I enjoyed the tv show and thought I would give the book a chance. It’s an enjoyable enough way to kill some lockdown downtime, and was only £4 in Asda.
Have decided when that is finished to reacquaint myself with my favourite book of all time Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. He has that American habit of using a paragraph when a couple of sentences would do but all is forgiven when you lose yourself in his books. Imagine a tale of the opening up of the American west but told by an Old Testament preacher- genius. Looking forward to it as you may guess.

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We have some long road trips as we ferry my stepkids back and forth for summers and Christmases, and the Alex Rider audiobooks never fail to keep everyone entertained. Cheesy as hell but really good fun. His series about mystical kids and The Old Ones was pretty good too. Power of Five or something like that. The first in the series, Raven's Gate, is creepy as f**k.
Loved the Power of Five but lost track after number three. The school I worked in this year had them all and I planned to catch up before we all shut!
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The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

When I was 21 I read this - among other things - and decided I wanted to write crime books. Given this is a post-modern collection of stories which might or might not be about the same person, or the author, who might be a character in all of them or at least himself, and the descent into madness and death by nearly everyone involved, I have a reasonable idea of why that summer went the way it did.

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Guest Moomintroll
Just reading Good Omens, I enjoyed the tv show and thought I would give the book a chance. It’s an enjoyable enough way to kill some lockdown downtime, and was only £4 in Asda.
Have decided when that is finished to reacquaint myself with my favourite book of all time Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. He has that American habit of using a paragraph when a couple of sentences would do but all is forgiven when you lose yourself in his books. Imagine a tale of the opening up of the American west but told by an Old Testament preacher- genius. Looking forward to it as you may guess.
Open yourself up to all of Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's other books, I have read them all & they will not disappoint.
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Open yourself up to all of Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's other books, I have read them all & they will not disappoint.
Seconded. Pratchett, while an outstanding writer, wrote mainly due to a formula, imho, but you literally never know what you're going to get with Gaiman. American Gods is a particular favourite of mine, and I have an attachment to Neverwhere, which was my first encounter with him.

How you doing now, btw, Moomintroll?
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On 19/03/2020 at 19:28, DiegoDiego said:

In the last days before the lockdown I met a Macedonian bird doing a PhD on Zola so I'm reading some of his stuff in a vain attempt to impress her.
My initial attempts included a discussion about apartheid and barefoot running before realising I'd got the wrong Zola.

I used to know a Macedonian bird who was into Dostoevsky. Mad cow. Fortunately the one I'm friends with now prefers less complicated stuff like Agatha Raisin.

Emile Zola had a brother who wrote cheesy novels. He was Gorgon Zola.

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"Out of the Dark" - Gregg Hurwitz

If you're into thrillers and you haven't checked out the Orphan X books then get on them, you are missing out otherwise.

This is the 4th of the series and the best yet. Don't want to say much on the plot as it may give away aspects of the earlier books but the level of detail is astounding. A page turner in every respect and the first time in a while, (probably since the last one) that I have blitzed a book this quickly. The development of the main character since the first one is also brilliant in making you care about a character that could easily be cold and unlikeable.

Pleased to see the fifth one came out in January so I don't need to wait for it!

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