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  • Sam
    replied
    Finished Heaven and Hell last night. I'm slightly surprised it's taken two months to get through. I've started The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. I have a sort of eerie sense I've read it before, but can't remember doing so and it's not on my Books Read list, which I started at the start of 2020. It was on page 1 of my Kindle home page and when I opened it it went straight to the end of the book. That suggests my girlfriend read it, but she's insistent she's not read it ever, on my Kindle or otherwise. Most curious.

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  • Sam
    replied
    Congrats, Levin!

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  • Levin
    replied
    Bloody hell. I've finished a book. I was starting to worry that I'd lost the ability to read. I think the last think I finished was in The beginning of 2021.

    The glorious thing that helped me was The Last Blade Priest by WP Wiles (published elsewhere as Wil Wiles). It's a really engaging fantasy novel with some nice world building, some interesting trope twists and a mountain god.

    It is sadly setting itself up for further volumes but don't let that put you off.

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    I'm enjoying Shalimar The Clown by Salman Rushdie. It has that joyous exhuberance but also underlying darkness of Midnight's Children.

    Dusk At Dawn by W.E.B. DuBois is the last in a trilogy that he started with Souls Of Black Folk and Darkwater, but with a 35 year spread in publication (so the first has the perspective of 1905 and this is the year before Pearl Harbor). His ability to weave his biography with the history of his era, Reconstruction to FDR, is stunning.

    David Conn's book on FIFA and David Ritz's biography of Aretha are both well crafted and perceptive. Conn seems to give Blatter some benefits of the doubt regarding whether he was deeply criminal or just corrupted by his failure to rein in the extreme greed of Havelange, Warner etc and the bribery culture that some members of all the confederations seem to have engaged in (but there are noble exceptions: Bahamas plays a key role in Warner's downfall). The English are also dirty as fuck: a Thailland friendly that is a pure bribe and willingness to hand over overseas TV rights.

    The domestic abuse that Aretha survived while producing some of the greatest music ever made makes her story even more remarkable but also sad. I hope she had some happy moments in her senior years to reflect on how much her art had changed the culture and lifted soul to an ever higher plane.
    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 27-12-2022, 12:22.

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  • steveeeeeeeee
    replied
    Currently reading "The Prime of Miss Jean Bodie" and struggling with the repetition. I'm about 40% through the book and haven't learnt anything that wasn't introduced in the first 5 or 6 pages.

    Spark does describe the mind-wanderings and thoughts of pre-teen girls well, though, the walk through Edinburgh old town has been the highlight of the novel, so far, but I'm hoping it picks up a bit.

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  • Levin
    replied
    I'm reading again. I can't remember the last time I've been able to sit and read for more than a couple of pages.

    The book is The Last Blade Priest by WP Wiles (otherwise published as Wil Wiles). Its a pleasure to read with some really nice world building.

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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    Yes, in fact I'm staring at the file folder containing it on my desk. He critiques the upper class "public school" 2d weeklies very well, as you'd expect. However I'm not sure why but he omits the 'Halfpenny" six panel per page illustrated comics that were their more widely read working class contemporaries? Orwell did write a rather prudish essay on the Art of Donald McGill — of seaside postcard fame — at about the same time, which he considered merely "low humour." I wonder if he felt same about the Bash Street Kids?

    Turner, who was more of a chronicler than critic, mentions Orwell's article and also the spluttering ire it drew from Charles Hamilton the principle writer for Magnet and Gem. Turner obviously thoroughly enjoyed recording the spat. Boys Will Be Boys is out of print (I think) but I found a second hand hard back as my old paperback had fallen apart.
    Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 14-11-2022, 23:38.

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  • Jon
    replied
    Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
    Finally I've begun re-reading E.S Turner's history of early British comics, Boys Will Be Boys. Which I thoroughly enjoyed about twenty years and will now read more critically with a prospective project in mind.
    Sounds interesting, Amor. Have you ever read Boys' Weeklies? It's an essay by George Orwell and can be found in his Inside the Whale collection. He critiques stories from The Magnet and The Gem plus the Tuppenny Bloods published by DC Thomson.

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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    My long haul through Infinite Jest continues. That makes it sound like a chore, but it's far from that. It's absolutely fascinating. I'd have jacked it in ages ago if it wasn't. Despite its length it's the type of book that you can put down for days and quite easily walk back into it's world later.

    Meanwhile I've finished Straight Man by Richard Russo, which was OK-ish but not as interesting, or amusing, as I'd hoped. My daytime book is Peter Ackroyd's bio of William Blake, which I read about half of several years ago, but for some reason never finished. Can't think why because, like everything I've read by Ackroyd, it's well written without being flashy, and highly informative. Has anyone read his bios of Chaplin or Hitchcock? I'm curious because they're somewhat of a departure for him and I wonder what he brings to the, already considerable, library on both men. Finally I've begun re-reading E.S Turner's history of early British comics, Boys Will Be Boys. Which I thoroughly enjoyed about twenty years and will now read more critically with a prospective project in mind.

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  • RobW
    replied
    Finished Philip Norman's biography of Buddy Holly, and momentarily going back to reading fiction with Nightmare Alley

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  • Jimski
    replied
    I absolutely loved We Have Always Lived in the Castle - one of my favourite reads of the last few years. I enjoyed the way Jackson got me to sympathise completely with an objectively utterly unlikeable person.

    And I also like Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe books, and indeed everything else I've read by him. His masterpiece is Canada.

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  • Sam
    replied
    I have finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which did indeed get better once I hit what turned out to be a bit less of a twist than I first interpreted it as, but still left me ultimately a bit unsatisfied.

    When I go to bed in a little while I'm going to start Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife by Bart D. Ehrman. It's been a long time since I read any proper history of religion books (having done half of my degree in religious studies and comparative religion), so I'm looking forward to it.

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  • Felicity, I guess so
    replied
    I'm finally reading Lonesome Dove
    Uncomfortable bedtime read. Not because of the casual racism and sexism but cos an 843 page brick is awkward with a weakened wrist

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  • Sam
    replied
    OK, last night I hit the passage in the book where the twist is revealed, and my view of everything I'd read up that point did a triple pike somersault. Suddenly this is a much more interesting novel than I thought I was reading.

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  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    I've now started We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
    'Her masterpiece', it says at the start of the edition I've got. Does anything happen at some point? I'm about 40% of the way in and very little has done so far.

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  • imp
    replied
    Originally posted by steveeeeeeeee View Post
    Currently reading Roald Dahl books to my daughter, I though she might be a bit too young, but she absolutely loved "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and has got obsessed and asks me to re-read her favourite bits (Augustus Gloop falling in the chocolate river and the children leaving the factory). Have just started "Matilda", but I already get the impression it is a bit too grown up for her, chapters are a bit longer and most importantly, there's no chocolate and a lot of the literary references are just way too obscure for her.
    No chocolate in Matilda? I suggest you jump straight to The Cake Scene.

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  • Sam
    replied
    Finished Death and the Penguin about 24 hours ago; I've now started We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

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  • steveeeeeeeee
    replied
    Currently reading Roald Dahl books to my daughter, I though she might be a bit too young, but she absolutely loved "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and has got obsessed and asks me to re-read her favourite bits (Augustus Gloop falling in the chocolate river and the children leaving the factory). Have just started "Matilda", but I already get the impression it is a bit too grown up for her, chapters are a bit longer and most importantly, there's no chocolate and a lot of the literary references are just way too obscure for her.

    But it's a nice feeling, Roald Dahl single handedly got me into reading at the age of 8. I remember every book I was forced to take from the library would be totally dull, then one day I borrowed the BFG and never looked back. I was worried he'd be dated, or a bit too scary, but she couldn't have been more engaged with CatCF.

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  • Felicity, I guess so
    replied
    Finished Babylon Berlin
    Not sufficiently different from the TV version to race through it but worth the read. Dithered for a day or two but restarted Tim Moore Nul Points in the bath last night.
    Dunno why it didn't grab me the first time, I loved his cycling books but this account of the failures at Eurovision did have me chuckling and mildly surprised at some of the early trivia about the song contest. Now he plans to visit each of the nul pointers to turn it into a travel book.

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  • imp
    replied
    Definitely ditch The Sportswriter - dense and fucking unreadable, and it doesn't get any better. For some reason, I read the second one in the trilogy too, possibly thinking I was missing something because the books were so highly praised.

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  • Jobi1
    replied
    Halfway through Chapter 5 of The Sportswriter and I think I am going to ditch it. Ford can certainly write, but the characters are just hateful and the anachronistic references to/descriptions of Black people are so awkward. Life is too short to persevere with books you're really not enjoying.

    Picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights straight from the source the other day while we were having a weekend away in the area. Was going to save that until later in the year but might just get stuck into that now.

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  • Sam
    replied
    Originally posted by Jobi1 View Post

    That would be me. I really enjoyed it, but still not sure I'd look into the next books in the series. I'm always very wary of literary sequels. And speaking of books in series...
    It's very entertaining so far. I'd missed that it was part of a series, but I wanted my pick this time to be quick and fun, and this fits the bill (I'll go for 'pun intended' there, since penguins' beaks can apparently be called bills).

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  • Jobi1
    replied
    Originally posted by Sam View Post
    Finished Strangers on a Train last night. Very good indeed. I've now started Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, which someone else read quite recently upthread, if I remember rightly.
    That would be me. I really enjoyed it, but still not sure I'd look into the next books in the series. I'm always very wary of literary sequels. And speaking of books in series...

    I decided the Gogol collection was a bit much to tackle in one go so am breaking it up with other things, and in my continuing attempts to make a dent in my "to be read" pile have picked up Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, which someone gave me years ago. Have to be honest I'm really not enjoying it so far. The main character seems thoroughly dislikeable (perhaps that's the point) and the language is, well, kinda racist. I'll give it a couple more chapters...

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  • Sam
    replied
    Finished Strangers on a Train last night. Very good indeed. I've now started Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, which someone else read quite recently upthread, if I remember rightly.

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  • steveeeeeeeee
    replied
    Finished "Lonely City", then read "New York 1979" by Kathy Acker, only 60 pages long and as much as I try a d want to like Kathy Acker, I just don't get it. However, there's a great reading list at the end of the novela, which I shall be referring to for future reading.

    Just started "Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the miracle of Failure", which I bought by mistake while browsing it in the Kindle store. It's good so far, I really like Lias Saodi's writing (recent story in The Quintus is fantastic) but was a bit taken unaware by it being written in 3rd person, but the book is co-written by Adelle Stripe, so imagine she is writing the initial sections about Saodi's family

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