Last Book You Read....

[Melanius Mullarkey]

Hiroshima - John Hersey, brutal stuff.

Have moved on to Nagasaki - Life after a Nuclear War by Susan Southard. Ramps up the brutalness. 

[DiegoDiego]

Hang on, so you're saying he advocated shagging twelve year-olds? Can you provide a reference?

There's loads on it. Basically in 1977 a bunch of French intellectuals signed a petition to abolish the age of sexual consent in France (or at least decriminalising relations between adults and children). Foucault, Derrida, de Beauvoir and so on were all signatories. It's relatively common knowledge and easily googleable.

 

There's a reason the same year Polanski chose France to flee to after raping a thirteen-year-old.

[Duszek]

Ah, cheers, just looked into it. The petition was signed by, among others, Bernard Kouchner (founder of Medecins sans Frontieres) and Jack Lang, future Minister of Culture. However misguided this now appears, probably unfair to tar them all as child rapists.

[Stellaboz]

The Hogfather.

10/10. This might have just become my favourite Discworld novel. The way Terry Pratchett wrote was sheer genius, taking real life issues and wrapping them around this fantasy world.

Half way through Thief of Time and its also fast becoming a favourite. I was always a Night Watch fanatic but the Death series is just as good.

[NotThePars]

4 hours ago, Duszek said:

Ah, cheers, just looked into it. The petition was signed by, among others, Bernard Kouchner (founder of Medecins sans Frontieres) and Jack Lang, future Minister of Culture. However misguided this now appears, probably unfair to tar them all as child rapists.

It's like when Ad Lib spent an inordinate amount of time on here defending incest. It really shouldn't ever get to that stage.

[Duszek]

Sartre is worth reading, I’ll leave it at that.

[Mark Connolly]

1 hour ago, Duszek said:

Sartre is worth reading, I’ll leave it at that.

But if you didn't think that, you wouldnt exist.

Or something.

[Ya Bezzer!]

On 23/07/2020 at 15:12, Duszek said:

Equally enjoyable, in a different genre, was Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant, who I knew as a short story writer but not as a novelist. A cracking yarn about a despicable shyster who seduces his way to the top. 

↑↑↑ driven mad/deid of syphilis

 

 

I'm a fan of Maupassant.  It's a shame he didn't write more novels but the short stories are also excelent.

Bel Ami is an infuriating read, in a good way, because he's such a complete c**t and you turn page after page thinking 'OK surely now he'll get his comeuppance.....OK......now then? Maybe he'll get his comeuppance this time?  Right!  He's not going to get away with this!  Now?  OK, not now.  Must be the next chapter....apparently not.....now?'

I've been very lazy with reading lately, picked a few books that haven't exactly been page turners and been slacking off.  When I finish the current one I'll bring my reviews up to date. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Ya Bezzer!

[Duszek]

37 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

IBel Ami is an infuriating read, in a good way, because he's such a complete c**t and you turn page after page thinking 'OK surely now he'll get his comeuppance.....

Spot on. Maupassant has a lot of fun cranking up the reader’s outrage. A great modern example of this is Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth. Mickey Sabbath has to be experienced to be believed.

[CountyFan]

I fear I am about to significantly lower the tone here but bear with me. 

Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club is absolutely terrific. 

[tongue_tied_danny]

I've been reading a lot of military history recently and I'm currently working my way through Armageddon by Max Hastings.

This details the final months of the European theatre in WW2. The western and eastern fronts are given more or less the same coverage. There's also a lot of detail regarding the day to day lives of individual soldiers. 

A very well written book. One of the better history books that I've read.

Edited September 29, 2020 by tongue_tied_danny

[Duszek]

12 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

I'll be choosing something lighter for my next read!

[NotThePars]

1 hour ago, Duszek said:

 

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

maybe something betwixt these two?

Going by their trajectory they'll be committed Marxists in the next five years

[blackislekillie]

19 hours ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

I've been reading a lot of military history recently and I'm currently working my way through Armageddon by Max Hastings.

This details the final months of the European theatre in WW2. The western and eastern fronts are given more or less the same coverage. There's also a lot of detail regarding the day to day lives of individual soldiers. 

A very well written book. One of the better history books that I've read.

Hastings' military histories are brilliantly researched and totally engaging. When you've finished Armageddon I'd recommend Nemesis, about the war in the Pacific. His book on Vietnam is very good as well, but not as comprehensive  as Neil Sheehans'  A Bright, Shining Lie. I've just started Chastise, Hastings book on the dambusters. Guy Gibson was 24 yr old when he led that mission, an age when I could rarely find my arse with both hands.

[Monkey Tennis]

I'm in a book group through work that I actually quite like because it points me towards stuff I wouldn't otherwise read and I've wound up enjoying much of it.

The latest though was Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.  From what I'd heard, I'd thought in advance that it might be quite an important, zeitgeisty book.

By Christ, it's not.  In flashes it threatens to say something, but it gets drowned by lame adolescent prose.  Rubbish.

[tongue_tied_danny]

9 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I'm in a book group through work that I actually quite like because it points me towards stuff I wouldn't otherwise read and I've wound up enjoying much of it.

The latest though was Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.  From what I'd heard, I'd thought in advance that it might be quite an important, zeitgeisty book.

By Christ, it's not.  In flashes it threatens to say something, but it gets drowned by lame adolescent prose.  Rubbish.

Me ex-girlfriend was in a book group. I thought i'd give it a try so I went along to one of their meetings, but it was just bollocks.

The book of the month was One Day by David Nicholls, which was the worst kind of rom-com crapola imaginable. 

Annoying, most of the people in the group hadn't actually bothered reading it. The whole thing was just an excuse for a bunch of middle aged women to get out of the house and drink prosecco.

Edited October 1, 2020 by tongue_tied_danny

[Monkey Tennis]

46 minutes ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

Me ex-girlfriend was in a book group. I thought i'd give it a try so I went along to one of their meetings, but it was just bollocks.

The book of the month was One Day by David Nicholls, which was the worst kind of rom-com crapola imaginable. 

Annoying, most of the people in the group hadn't actually bothered reading it. The whole thing was just an excuse for a bunch of middle aged women to get out of the house and drink prosecco.

I think that's how lots of book groups tend to operate.

The one I'm in is nothing like that at all though really.

[Mr Tourette]

I fear I am about to significantly lower the tone here but bear with me. 
Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club is absolutely terrific. 

Just finished that a couple of weeks ago and agree it was surprisingly good

[scottmcleanscontacts]

Finished the Brothers Karamazov which I thought was excellent but as Detournement said up the thread the best bits are the sections when Dmitry is out on the pish. 
Moved on to 'Last Days in Old Europe' which is effectively a memoir by Richard Bassett who was a foreign correspondent for the Times in central Europe in the 80s. So it's basically about him kicking about Trieste, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw etc. Very well written and enjoyable to read about these places and get some of the wee vignettes of life in those times. However, the guy lost my goodwill about 2/3 of the way through because he's just beyond parody in terms of how much of an upper class stereotype he is. This is a guy who finished his law degree at Cambridge in 1979 and without any journalism training decided to move to Trieste, and rock up at the HQ of the times and ask to be a foreign correspondent. He then seems to spend most of the next decade living with various fallen aristocrats, attending operas and debutante balls etc and playing in orchestras.
At one point he arranges to go for dinner with a press officer for the British Embassy, assuming he'll be a spy, and then is bitterly disappointed that the guy 'spent the whole meal talking about football and reggae music', and concludes he must have been wrong. Then at another point he embeds himself with some army regiment in Berlin and spends a week dossing about their officers mess, in which he attends a party and thinks wistfully about all these gimps in their full dress uniforms opening champagne bottles with swords and how 'it couldn't have changed much since Omdurman or Balaclava'. The fact he must only have been in his 20s at the time just makes it worse. 
It's short enough and I enjoyed reading it for the style and the settings etc but little of note beyond the wee sketches of life in these places happens, and it's self-indulgent to the point where after a certain stage it was just winding me up. 
Have moved onto The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford which is the third in the Frank Bascombe series, enjoying it very much so far. 

Sounds like it was written by Mark Corrigan. Interesting though, think I'll give it a shot.

[Highland Capital]

What is it with TV presenters becoming budding novelists all of a sudden?  I see Graham Norton and Richard Osman both have a novel in the top 10 this week.