Fuck it I've just bought this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...gotten_Soldier
Fuck it I've just bought this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...gotten_Soldier
I haven't read many books like that. Dave might have.
Are yours more historical fact? I'm afraid to go down that route in case I get one that's exceptionally dry and boring (because I have a short attention span). I'm nearly finished TM which is some achievement given my desolate motivation. I've really enjoyed it. I've not finished my American Politics book and I don't think I will. It's one where you have to take notes.
Read Birdsong, if you can handle a bit of arty farting about. He writes war scenes better than anyone I've come across.
Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Archer is well-known as a disgraced former-politician who has spent some time in jail, however he is also reputed as an excellent and prolific writer. This was an early work and seems to be among his best known. It concerns the fortunes of two contrasting figures, an American banking heir and a Polish immigrant throughout the twentieth century and the rivalry that develops between them. I liked Archers writing style, and the first portion of the book in particular is very well done and evocative. Unfortunately I did feel that as things developed, the plot contained far too many contrivances, success came far too easily for the main characters and their behaviour towards each other increasingly petty. Still, I felt it worthwhile and enjoyed the historical panorama despite the flaws.
I like the good Jeffrey Archer books. I enjoy their scope.
First Among Equals is also enjoyable. Although there are two versions, with a major character removed from one of them, and his plot beats given to the other characters as appropriate. This led to one very confusing conversation between myself and a friend, as her favourite character wasn't in my version of the book.
The new Bryson book is entertaining, as I expected/hoped. There's a bit more Grumpy Old Man-ing in there and so far he's done a bit more waffling about historical stuff related to the relatively few places he's been rather than going to as many places as my memory has him going to in Notes from a Small Island but I'm enjoying it a lot all the same.
Finished Dubliners last night, for school. On the surface it's quite boring, dig a bit deeper and some of the stories are absolutely brilliant (some are still just boring). The ending of The Dead naturally transcends the rest of it.
I'm up to Act IV in Macbeth. Shakespeare is fucking stunning, isn't he? There's no one else really comes close.
I've never met a more intellectual 9-year old. Props Stillinger
I'm reading the Horus Heresy series which is set in the Warhammer 30k universe. Those of you that don't know what that means, well in, you have a social life no doubt.
Macbeth is for school too, for the record. That said, I did forget another book I just finished, A Woman in Arabia, about Gertrude Bell (whom more people should know of). I wasn't a huge fan of the style - it tells the story of her life interspersed with excerpts from her letters - but they pulled it off really nicely and the finale, the creation of modern Iraq, was surprisingly emotional for me. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in the events of Lawrence of Arabia, or just of the Middle East in general.Originally Posted by mokbull
Warhammer.
Never played it IRL but the PC games were fucking incredible.
The Art of Stillness by Pico Llyer is a great one sitting read.
Arousal: The Logic of Sexual Fantasies
Interesting shit. The dude that reckons that sexuality cannot really be expressed when the individual holds feelings of shame and guilt, and that sexual fantasies are ways in which the person circumvents any of those things is able to express their sexuality without any of those feelings. So, for example, someone who has submissive fantasies might on some level feel a bit guilty about how powerful they are in day to day life, or they might feel ashamed of sexuality and general and only feel comfortable about it when they're being 'forced' into it. On the other hand, dominant fantasies can relate to feelings of powerlessness in day to day life or, on the other hand, guilt about hurting people - being able to 'hurt' or overpower someone in a safe environment in which they other person enjoys it can enable that person to let go and stop worrying about doing it.
He boils a lot of it down to childhood and upbringing in the development of 'pathogenic' beliefs about oneself which can lead to certain fantasies developing to circumvent the guilt/shame associated with them. All that is pretty standard psychodynamic stuff. He talks a fair bit about standard BDSM but also fantasies like transvestism, being raped, being pissed on and fetishes for inanimate objects and stuff like that. Really interesting. The main thing to bear in mind though is that any one fantasy can arise for any number of different reasons, and the particular reason depends entirely on the person in question. He sets out a decent toolkit for figuring it out though, and figuring out why people fantasise about what they fantasise about.
Casino by Nicholas Pileggi
This is the book that led to Scorsese's movie of the same name. Being quite familiar with the latter and having previously enjoyed Wiseguys which has a similar relationship with Goodfellas, I thought that reading the true story of events might be interesting. It is, in case you don't know, the story of Frank Rosenthal and Anthony Spilotro, both figures connected to the Chicago Mafia, who ran casinos and organised crime in Las Vegas for a number of years.
It does give a lot more info than the movie, which changed all of the names and quite a few of the events in order to make for better storytelling. The result is something more brutal and less glamorous than what we seen onscreen. Unfortunately however there are drawbacks - narration is minimal and the stories are told by interweaving interviews with several of the participants. As a result it can be difficult to keep track of all of the names, to tell who is speaking, and worse, who is being honest (these are criminals and conmen after all). So - worthwhile but only because it was fairly short.
I finished The Book of Strange New Things last week. It's about a Christian minister who goes as a missionary to a new planet where a corporation has set up a base to minister to the aliens there. It's really good.
I've started David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks now. I loved Cloud Atlas but this one might be a little too fantasy-ish for my liking based on what I've read so far.
Just ordered Bridge On The River Drina. My obsession with the Balkans continues. That Sarajevo meet is definitely on, @Spoonsky.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, by Jeff Chang
It starts back in the 50's and 60's to give a proper sense of social context to it all. It's discussed the social history of the Bronx and Kingston so far. Only three chapters in but it's a cracking read.
With all the downtime at work I'm starting a rampage through classic fiction. First up, Tender is the Night. Gah. I hate Americans, especially Americans poncing about in Europe between the wars.
You're reading in work? Do they not see you? Won't they go mental?
Not a physical book, obviously. I achieve remarkable amounts, including all my daytime posts on here, just glancing at my phone (and they can't really see what I'm doing at my desk anyway).
This about sums up my thoughts on it as a whole. It's not his best book by any means but I love a bit of Bryson so it was still damn good.
I'm now onto House of Chains of the Malazan series. It's off to a good start though so far it has mostly appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with any of the other three books. I know that'll come from the blurb on the back and there have in the last page or so been a few nods towards existing characters and events but not much so far.
I was really disappointed by the new Bryson effort. He has become too miserable about anything which he perceives to be modern. I found it a bit boring and, by the end, even began to dislike him a bit. I wish I'd left it alone.
I thought he was a right tit throughout the original one, but still brilliantly funny and right. I started this one but put it down after about ten pages.
My step-dad has the new one. It was an utterly painful first chapter, what an old moaning cunt.
I'd definitely say that his recent books before this have been better served by him writing about something he's interested in because in Little Dribbling he clearly still loves the UK but spends too much time mooching about the South complaining about things ways in which Britain has changed that he doesn't approve of rather than visiting new places he didn't go to in Small Island and talking about those. And some of the things he's moaning about just aren't things we haven't heard a zillion times. We're well aware that Katie Price is an idiot, Bill.
I liked it but it's probably his worst book when compared to his previous high standards. His old travel books are still his best stuff but I've really enjoyed everything of his, really. One Summer: America 1927 was brilliant.
To be fair I was reading previously about an 18 year old young man describing the horrors of the Eastern Front so you can understand why I found it annoying and pathetic.
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs by Irvine Welsh
Another of my periodic visits to the precariat of Edinburgh with Irvine Welsh. This one is partially on familiar ground, the protagonist being an unlikeable and vindicative alcoholic, but also somewhat surreal as it centres around a supernatural plot device linking him to another character.
It's genuinely hilarious in places, and despite the premise being a little unusual for Welsh, the characters are real fleshed-out human beings. As always the scathing yet sympathetic portrayal of modern society in its alienation and depravity is quite enriching. I must remember to return more often.
Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt against Rome, AD66 by Neil Faulkner
Ancient history can often be a very dry read, a consequence of both scholarly uncertainty about the events and the remove at which they exist from the reader. This account of the Jewish uprising of the first century by Neil Faulkner makes amends for this by applying a Marxist perspective to the tale, casting the Romans and their Hellenised client elite (including the temple authorities) as the oppressing classes, and the mostly rural peasantry over which they rule as the oppressed. It's an interesting and very worthwhile approach - while it obviously has it's limitations, it lends an immediacy to the story and empathy towards its participants.
The uprising, the subsequent sacking of Jersusalem, and destruction of the temple were among the central events influencing the formation of Christianity and in the formation of what we now know as Judaism. Faulkner covers this, the prior history of the region, Roman politics, military strategy and much else besides, covering an impressive amount of ground in less than 300 pages.
The sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple are key events when one considers Israeli actions in 1967 as well.
Lads, if anyone is interested thebookpeople.co.uk are doing some quite excellent box set deals e.g. there's a Max Hastings set of books (Bomber Command, Das Reich, Battle for the Falklands) for a fiver (circa £30+ on Amazon for all three separately), a Hemingway set for £9 (including his major works) and others which may appeal.
Inferno by Dan Brown.
After the last one I had decided not to read Dan Brown any more, however having been in Venice recently and hearing that this was partly set there, I decided to give it a go. The plot concerns an attempt to release a bioweapon by a terrorist concerned with overpopulation. He's obsessed with Dante, bases much of his plan around Dante's Inferno and leaves clues to the location of the weapon also based on Inferno for Professor Langdon and other characters to find.
Of course this is as silly as it sounds. It is more of the same - obviously nonsense in a lot of the detail (no, IQ's don't go up to 202) and with a convoluted plot that has so many rug-pulls that you're left with very little firm ground on which to stand. The dialogue and writing generally is clunky and unsubtle. And yet as a travel guide it has some merit - I did learn more about the things I'd seen in Venice, I learned enough about Florence to want to see it, and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has now become something I will make it my business to go to at some stage.
Getting through Bridge on the Drina. The author so vividly described a bloke being tortured then eventually impaled on a stake for maximum keep alive/humiliation that I felt a bit queasy afterwards and still cannot escape the images my brain has created.
Finally finished all of ASOIAF a couple of nights ago. Limiting myself to 1 chapter a night before bed meant it took forever, but it was worth it. I actually didn't think it declined at all after book 3 which is what I was warned of. Obviously book 3 had all the big events, but I enjoyed the slower paced focus on smaller characters just as much. God knows how some people have coped waiting 4 years for the next one.... but come 2020 I'll know their pain when it still isn't published.
Moved onto the Prequel which is really a collection of shorter stories, but am really enjoying that too.
Yeah, but have you wanked over it yet?
Finished the fourth Malazan book. So good. If it turns out Eriksson can keep up this quality over all ten, and having done so in the course of about twelve years, Martin might as well top himself and let somebody else finish the job for him.
Moving onto Shakespeare's Local. a book about The George Inn in Southwark and that I bought because the author, Pete Brown, was described as "Bill Bryson for beer lovers." He doesn't quite have the style of Bryson's that has me enjoying basically anything he writes but it's been interesting enough so far.
A Feast For Crows is the weakest because it focuses on the 'less interesting' characters, but A Dance With Dragons is great. Book six might never see the light of the day at the rate we're going.
On balance, I preferred the one with Brienne slugging her way through bogs and Davos sitting in pubs to the one with dragontits being terminally dull.
I didn't think either of you two would be into that stuff.
Have you read them? They're basically history books at this point.
That Malazan stuff sounds great, just very daunting.
No and I'm not sure what that means.
Fiction being history? This is Joe trying to be clever again. We all know what happens when he does that.
They read like history books but from a first person perspective. The whole story is basically a rip-off of the War of the Roses with Dragons. It's why I like them, I only read non-fiction generally but they read so well it could just as well be.
I don't get that. Pretty sure Lewis is the same. It's such an odd view to take.
I don't read enough to justify reading something not real. Game of Thrones I just wanted to know the plot as people on reddit were shit posting spoilers.
That doesn't make it less weird.
I got about an hour into Atlas Shrugged at university, but apart from that I probably haven't read a fiction book since sixth form.
I thought that when I was about 17, but quickly realised it was a fucking stupid position to adopt.
Yeah I can't usually be arsed with fiction either, apart from the odd sci-fi book. Feels like self-indulgent shite a lot of the time and I don't feel like I get much out of it.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote