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Thread: The Book Thread

  1. #651
    Man(c) of the People igor_balis's Avatar
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    Despite only really loving Weird Weekends, and actively disliking his newer stuff to the extent that i stopped bothering about 10 years ago, I have really been enjoying Louis Theroux's autobiography. Audiobook,naturally.

    The stuff around his time at uni, and scrabbling around for crappy work after he graduated is particularly interesting. He's a good egg, but I wish he'd never decided to be a SERIOUS DOCUMENTARY MAKER, cus he's so much better in his weird weekends approach.

  2. #652
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    Yeah I read it and thought it was terrific. He goes a bit OTT on the Savile stuff later on but I suppose that is what he's known for.

    And from the book you infer why he doesn't do any more weird weekends etc, which is that he clearly (even if he doesn't quite say so) finds the approach shallow and cheap.

  3. #653
    Man(c) of the People igor_balis's Avatar
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    I've always thought a smidgen of it was trying to impress his dad, the PROPER writer.

    To be fair to him, he shouldn't have kept doing weird weekends type stuff his whole career, and moving into more serious stuff was probably the right move. Deep down I just wish he was better at it.

  4. #654
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    His dad sounds like a cunt to be honest. I can't remember how far through the book he details his dad's antics at his wedding, but, yeah.

  5. #655
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    Anyone read the Moscow trilogy from Simon Sebag Montefiore? Absolutely brilliant.

  6. #656
    Senior Member Vercetti's Avatar
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    Pretty sure they're on my list.

    I've read his two Stalin biographies, which I thought were quality.

  7. #657
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    Re-reading Three Men in a Boat. Funniest book written in English, don't sue me.

  8. #658
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vercetti View Post
    Pretty sure they're on my list.

    I've read his two Stalin biographies, which I thought were quality.
    I've got those - Young Stalin and Stalin right?

  9. #659
    Man(c) of the People igor_balis's Avatar
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    Just finished the Crying of Lot 49. Enjoyed it. The stream of consciousness stuff confused/annoyed me at times, but the plot is quite easy to follow, despite being fairly deranged. The thing that absolutely makes the book is the comedy though. It's genuinely very funny throughout, and it would be a load of pointless wank without that.

  10. #660
    Just Luca, but still a DJ Luca's Avatar
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    Pynchon is a wonderful author (I assume this is linked to your TP quiz from the other day). In the realm of absurd, laugh-out-loud dark humour, I also thoroughly enjoyed Catch-22.

  11. #661
    Senior Member Vercetti's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kikó View Post
    I've got those - Young Stalin and Stalin right?
    Those are the ones.

    I have a bit of a thing for Soviet stuff, so I hammered out both of those, a couple of Lenin biographies, and "The Last Empire" about the eventual collapse of the USSR, in a short amount of time.

    I also bought, but have yet to read, Gorbachev's autobiography. Should have got bang into that during the lockdown, really.

  12. #662
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    Just started on this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Russia-Bloo.../dp/0008300054

    You might like it.

  13. #663
    Senior Member Vercetti's Avatar
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    I'll check that out, cheers. Looks right up my street.

    I'm about to crack on with this. Should see me through a couple more days of nothing.

  14. #664
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    I've started with the Discworld series over the last few weeks I've been enjoying it. I've finished the The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic (both good, I probably preferred the latter but they're just one long story really) and nearly finished Equal Rites, which has definitely been my favourite so far. It feels like a massive step-up in his (presumed) mission of using the the fantasy genre to satirise various real life issues.

  15. #665
    Senior Member Disco's Avatar
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    It really starts getting into its stride now so you're in for some good ones, you only really notice it going back to them but the first three feel like a slightly different style. Your last sentence is bang on, although for me he manages to stop short of being preachy or too on the nose and lets the satire do the work for him.

  16. #666
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    Yeah as it goes on I think it's less laugh-out-loud funny but as Disco said, you're right with the last bit.

    I've started listening to a podcast called Desert Island Discworld where it's a guest coming on to talk about a specific book. A lot of them talk about how you could skip the first two and that in Equal Rites the Granny Weatherwax character is almost in her Beta form before she gets fully fleshed out but I read them in order and was never put off. I think the issue is probably more if you read those after. I've finished them all now, Alex, and you've a lot of good shit to come. There aren't really any proper duffers in my opinion but you're about to get into a run of exceptional books from the point you're at.

  17. #667
    Man(c) of the People igor_balis's Avatar
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    The end of the affair by Graham Greene is quality.

  18. #668
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Disco View Post
    It really starts getting into its stride now so you're in for some good ones, you only really notice it going back to them but the first three feel like a slightly different style. Your last sentence is bang on, although for me he manages to stop short of being preachy or too on the nose and lets the satire do the work for him.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ian View Post
    I've finished them all now, Alex, and you've a lot of good shit to come. There aren't really any proper duffers in my opinion but you're about to get into a run of exceptional books from the point you're at.
    You weren't wrong chaps. Mort was excellent, and definitely my favourite of the series so far. Death's cameo's in the previous three were always highlights, so a book that revolved more specifically around him was always going to be a winner.

    I find a lot of the funnier bits are the ridiculous little asides that Pratchett occasionally throws in, usually for the purpose of comedy world building. I often find myself laughing out loud at them.

  19. #669
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    I've just finished Blood Meridian. That was an interesting book. Very bleak, but often quiet profound. It seems to go out of it's way to disavow any romantic notion of the Old West. Just "violent men committing horrible acts" is the prevailing order of business. Which I imagine it's probably quite close to the real thing.

    I've never read any McCarthy before. I maybe wouldn't have it down as the absolute nailed on classic it often seems to be regarded as (his style of writing is a little off-putting and hard to follow at times, I found) but it certainly held my attention. Quite an intense read in places. The Judge is as fascinating a character as I've come across in a long time.

  20. #670
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    Blood Meridian is the closest I've ever come to just binning off a book altogether.

    Hated it. I've read that and The Road and I'm all for not being a grammar Nazi but McCarthy's work is just obtuse to me.

    And the bloke just wants to read a book and not have to activate his brain to work out who's saying what or whether what's happening is a verb or an adjective and he thinks oh ffs i need to double check this last sentence so anyway the protagnist says the thing or has he done the thing is really not clear but hopefully the next couple of sentences will clear it up nope oh bloody hell what is this shit anyway the read is fighting his every instinct to close the book and not read the next Malazan because honestly what even is this anyway a person does another terrible thing and shrug whatever everybody does terrible things all the time fucking hell thought the reader how much of this book is left oh jesus there are still 128 pages im not sure this sentence will ever end let alone the book

  21. #671
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    That is exactly what I was getting at with my comments regarding his writing style Ian.

    Massive, earth shattering events would quite often just casually occur in the middle of one of his massive, unpunctuated missives and have you reading back entire pages like "hang on...what now?". I actually had a quick look online right after I finished it and I seem to have completely mis-interpreted the ending for this very reason!

    The lack of quotation marks in particular is infuriating. It's not clever at all, and I don't know why the publishers indulged him in that nonsense. There were also large chunks of dialogue and, sometimes, entire run-on conversations that would occur completely in Spanish which, not knowing any Spanish, was a bit odd.

    I'm sure he would, from the artistic perspective, tell you that he was putting you in the position of the protagonist who (presumably) also did not speak Spanish. I could have very much done without it though.
    Last edited by Alex; 21-06-2020 at 08:09 PM.

  22. #672
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Although I finished The Road it bored the shit out of me.

    I started Blood Meridian years ago and gave up very quickly.

  23. #673
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    The Road pissed me right off as well to the extent I won't even try Blood Meridian. One has to be entertained by this stuff ffs.

  24. #674
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    Is The Road the same then, I'm guessing? With the style of writing?

  25. #675
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    If anything I found it a pain in the arse in the opposite way to what Ian said (not having read Blood Meridian), as it was all in short sentences. Starting with the wrong words. He looked at the ash and the trees. Bleeding dead grot from the moon. That boded barren ill. He didn't know why. An eagle lurched overhead and he wondered if the sky would shed its silliest metaphors. Until the night time came. Then the non-sequiturs rose, misshapen, blue. Like the sea he remembered from childhood.

  26. #676
    Senior Member Alex's Avatar
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    I might give that a wide berth then. I'm not saying I won't read anything else the guy has done as, generally speaking, I did enjoy it. I'm just not sure I can be arsed again right now.

  27. #677
    I used to be funny.
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    That would send me round the bend. Like a poem that's winding up for 800 pages with no finish.

  28. #678
    Senior Member mugbull's Avatar
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    Nothing can be worse than Joyce

  29. #679
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    Before I read Blood Meridian (for "fun") I'd have said the worst book I ever read was Samuel Johnson's Rasselas whoch I had to read for A Levels. Some Abyssinian prince is kept with his siblings in a secluded valley to protect them from the world, or whatever. He's miserable because boo hoo my pampered life is too boring.

    So he decided he's going to get out of the Happy Valley, see the world and FIND THE SECRET OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. So about 20 years later (not exaggerating) he finally manages to escape, ponces about places in Egypt for a bit and then decides his quest is impossible and just fucks off back to the valley. The end. It's only 90-odd pages but I'm not sure I've ever endured a more pointless story.

    In other reading news, I've barely read anything in lockdown other than re-reading old stuff before bed when I'm tired and don't want to concentrate. If not having an hour of commute every day is going to be the norm I'm going to have to make time for myself to read because I had so much time to read going to/from work before I didn't bother much in the house unless the mood particularly took me. I'm going to make a push to get Steel Frame finished though because it is really good.

  30. #680
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    I'm currently making my through Slaughterhouse 5 and it really wasn't the book I was expecting it to be. So it goes.

  31. #681
    I used to be funny.
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    My reading gets done during the breaks I give myself whilst working from home. Usually 5-10 minutes an hour and then whatever spare time I have on my lunch.

  32. #682
    Senior Member mugbull's Avatar
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    I just started reading Vonnegut too, Breakfast of Champions. A lot like Joseph Heller, but even more idiosyncratic

  33. #683
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    Just thinking about Heller and Catch 22 gives me a minor migraine.

  34. #684
    Senior Member mugbull's Avatar
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    That was such a good book though

  35. #685
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Catch 22 is another I gave up on.

    Vonnegut is great though.

  36. #686
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    Been working my way slowly through The Five (about the lives of the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper) - it's an excellent read but I go through phases of being really into reading and others where I just don't make the time to do so. Hoping to read more in the school holidays, and have bought Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann to spur me on to finish The Five.

  37. #687
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    I've barely been reading properly during lockdown but I'm making an effort to finish Steel Frame. It's building up to a nice mech battle which I am thoroughly in favour of.

  38. #688
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    I have finished the book! I am a reading god. Despite my lockdown habits holding up my finishing it Steel Frame is excellent.

    I've moved onto The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack, about a fella who through circumstances I haven't got to yet has been reanimated to become a zombie slave for some sort of sea-monster-fishing operation. It's by Nate Crowley whose games writing I love and is very funny on Twitter and interviews and podcasts and things so I've got high hopes for this.

  39. #689
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    I've got four books to read on my holiday (or finish):
    - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid
    - The End of Poverty - Jeffrey Sachs
    - The Barrytown Trilogy - Roddy Doyle
    - My Life in Football - Kevin Keegan.

    Should be a nice varied mix of topics.

  40. #690
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    I don't really do biographies but I might get the Bob Willis one.

    Bob.

  41. #691
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    That would be a cracker actually. I highly recommend Bobby Robson's audio book as the great man narrates it.

  42. #692
    mischamischaracterisation Dquincy's Avatar
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    Currently reading this. Really good so far.


  43. #693
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    Rusty Firmin is a good name.

  44. #694
    I used to be funny.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kikó View Post
    I've got four books to read on my holiday (or finish):
    - My Life in Football - Kevin Keegan.

    Should be a nice varied mix of topics.
    Let me know what you think of that one. I might pick that up at some point.

  45. #695
    Administrator Kikó's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kikó View Post
    I've got four books to read on my holiday (or finish):
    - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid
    - The End of Poverty - Jeffrey Sachs
    - The Barrytown Trilogy - Roddy Doyle
    - My Life in Football - Kevin Keegan.

    Should be a nice varied mix of topics.
    - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid
    Absolutely brilliant crime thriller. Set in Derbyshire in the 60s , a disappearance of a young girl gets the outsiders called in to help the backwards village of Scarsdale. I think I'll pick up some more of the McDermid books - she's got a whole series around Manchester which I never realised.

    - The End of Poverty - Jeffrey Sachs

    Last book I read off the 4. More interesting when he's talking about the countries development (case studies of India, Russia etc interesting), less interesting when he's spelling out the practical steps on how (probably because it's the same message a number of times - give more aid to allow countries to rise out of the poverty trap). Worth a read if you are into the subject matter.

    - The Barrytown Trilogy - Roddy Doyle

    This is 3 books into one - the Commitments, the Snapper and the Van. Written in conversational style across the books, it follows an Irish family across 3 different subject matters. The Commitments is the set up of a soul band in Dublin (became this film- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101605/) , the Snapper is the young girl having a baby from a mysterious father (or she doesn't want people to know who it is) and the Van is about a chipper van being bought and run based around the 1990 Ireland WC run). The Van is just brilliant. The scenes as these daft old blokes try and work this pokey chip van while having stones thrown at it by the local chavs, chip fat flying everywhere, sweat dripping off and mixed in with Ireland's world cup run is just a joy. Well worth a read.

    - My Life in Football - Kevin Keegan.

    I was a bit disappointed in this one. Keegan had an amazing career and considering he made it was a miracle in itself but something about the story was flat. I think the best thing was Keegan describing Jimenez at Newcastle. What a complete fraud of a man he is, the best anecdote was them meeting with Luca Modric's agent and him being told by Jimenez that Modric was too small and wouldn't make it in the Barclays Premier League sponsored by Barclays!

  46. #696
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    The Commitments is great.

  47. #697
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Champagne Football is proving entertaining.

  48. #698
    Senior Member Lofty's Avatar
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    Got Wenger's book but not sure whether to ingest it via audiobook and have him read it to me. The only problem is, as predicted by the Arseblog podcast, he is a bit drier when reading from a script than when he was in organic conversation like interviews etc.

    Really need to get back into fiction reading too, at one point I was reading 3 books a week but I couldn't tell you the last time I read one.

  49. #699
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    By checking this thread the other day I realised I'm only on about my fourth or fifth book this year.

    I really need to force myself to include a bit in my daily routine (other than just before I go to sleep) to make up for the fact that I'm not reading an hour per day while commuting.

  50. #700
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    I consumed Ferguson's autobiography (barf) via audiobook and I would say it was a lot better having Kenny McScot, the generic Scotsman read it to me than it would have been having the man himself doing it slurring the words between glasses of Barolo. Whether that would be the same for Wenger I don't know, but he never really learned to speak English intelligbly so I reckon it would grate.

    I've wanted to read some Roth for a while so currently reading The Human Stain - the writing is top drawer, even though I sometimes wish these people were capable of writing about characters that aren't Ivy League English professors.

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