Current Reading - Books best thread

[Gerontophile]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Currently reading Doug Stanhope's book "Digging Up Mother - A Love Story" which is exactly as you might expect if you know anything about Doug Stanhope.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

WOM wrote:

About a hundred pages into All The Light We Cannot See now, and it's very good indeed. There are two storylines told in alternating chapters which follow two people through the second World War - one a blind French girl, the other a German boy recruited into the army. I like the writing, I like the scope of it and so far I'm enjoying the story.

I'm in roughly the same spot now and you're bang on. Not sure how it's going to turn out, but it's hooked me. I really wish writers wouldn't use similes, though, like a that . They're pointless wankery.

Thanks both for recommending this. Was available on sale (£1.99) and a good read for the last few days. I'm assuming there is or will be a film in the works - it has that kind of feel to it.

[Sam]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I can see that, I think, but I rather hope not to be honest. Although if there is, I'd certainly go and see it.

I'm about 150 pages into A Brief History of Seven Killings. No-one mentioned how poetic bits of it are. Mostly I'm reading it slowly not because it's grim (though it is) but because I've got so much else going on at present that when coupled with my newfound crippling addiction to chess I don't have much reading time at the moment...

It's very bloody good, though.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Just wrote a whole bloody essay on a bunch of holiday reading and lost the whole damn thing. Haven't the heart to retype it, so here's the twitter version:

Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff: fascinating

Donal O'Shea's The Poincare Conjecture: not bad, but I've read plenty of pop maths books I've enjoyed more.

Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa: only 300 pages or so into this so far (it's v long!) but so far it's fantastic.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote:
Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa: only 300 pages or so into this so far (it's v long!) but so far it's fantastic.

I second that.

[Levin]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Thirded.

And The Right Stuff is good as well.

[Mumpo]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Last novel I finished was Lynne Reid Banks' The L-Shaped Room - I thought it was going to be gritty kitchen-sink stuff but though it kicks off in that vein, it peters out to a rather tame conclusion. Its attitude to race, while probably seen as progressive at the time of its publication in 1960, is toe-curling stuff now. Still, Banks can fashion a catching turn of phrase - I especially liked "she poured the coffee, which was so strong it practically snarled as it came out of the pot".

Now on to Virginia Woolf's Orlando, which I'm massively enjoying. There's something about the detached aristocratic tone in which she writes that magnifies and develops humorous conceits into hugely satisfying comic episodes. The fact that the narrative progresses ambiguously through history lends the story a restive, disturbing air, and the capricious use of fantastic elements - not least the central character's gender realignment - is skilfully used to augment comments on contemporary issues. At first it felt like the rambling nature of the story would eventually grate, but it works perfectly if you allow yourself to get lost in its temporal miasma.

Found Eric Newby's Love and War in the Apennines fora pound the other day, that's coming on holiday with me next week, along with David Millar's Racing Through the Dark.

[kokamoa]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote:

Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff: fascinating

I've just started reading his second novel, A Man in Full. Loved The Bonfire of the Vanities, but got progressively more irritated by Back to Blood.

Last book I read was The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger. Very good indeed.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

There doesn't seem to be a thread for current cycling books, so here's my review of the excellent 'The Race Against the Stasi' by Herbie Sykes.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I've just started reading his second novel, A Man in Full. Loved The Bonfire of the Vanities, but got progressively more irritated by Back to Blood.

More or less snap (and I think that our shared view is also both the commercial and critical consensus which makes for a disappointing lack of controversy). Loved TBOTV, liked AMIF and have "temporarily" abandoned BTB, possibly for quite a while, feeling underwhelmed. I haven't tried "I am Charlotte Simmons" yet - BTB happened to be on the shelves of our local Oxfam bookshop, IACS didn't.

I tend to ignore the fact that the fiction and non-fiction are by the same man, though. I found The Right Stuff fascinating for numerous reasons, partly because of the surprising insights into how the astronauts (and their wives) thought and felt, and partly for the explanation of the special political context (arms race-related paranoia at the USSR's initial lead in orbital space flight) which meant that in terms of national idolisation and profile that first space programme was so much bigger a deal than anything that followed, except possibly the first moon landing.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Reading some cracking political biography at the moment. Current book Pistols at Dawn by John Campbell, a chapter each on the intense rivalries of

Pitt v Fox
Castlereagh v Canning
Disraeli v Gladstone
Asquith v Lloyd George
Bevan v Gaitskell
Macmillan v Butler
Heath v Thatcher
Brown v Blair

The title is a reference to the fact that the second of the above pairs actually fought a duel (not lethal, by luck) while they were members of the same Cabinet.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I admire Bronowski greatly, and loved the TV series of The Ascent of Man, but I wonder what evidence he had to support that speculation on the origins of war. From the research into the lives of competing hunter gatherer tribes of the Amazon (many of which indulge in a fair bit of lethal mutual war), analysed in Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature, I suspect he is essentially wrong on that point.

[Lang Spoon]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Evariste Euler Gauss wrote: I admire Bronowski greatly, and loved the TV series of The Ascent of Man, but I wonder what evidence he had to support that speculation on the origins of war. From the research into the lives of competing hunter gatherer tribes of the Amazon (many of which indulge in a fair bit of lethal mutual war), analysed in Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature, I suspect he is essentially wrong on that point.

Barbara Ehrenreich in Blood Rites postulates that we were weak and passive until we got smart enough to take on the predators that (often solely) preyed on us, that human sacrifice and our concept of the Other (the enemy always dehumanized as monsters) are a result of trying to appease the beast (leave a poor scapegoat at the edge of camp for a big cat's dinner) or putting the skills we learnt in fighting back against animals against other people.

So violence would predate settled agriculture. Not convinced by this either and I realise that's a pretty shite précis I've given. The book is worth a look but.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Anton Gramscescu wrote: I found the third book least interesting because it's mostly not set in Naples. The fourth book is not irritating, but the spine of the plot is preposterous, as we can discuss when you get there.

I raced through the fourth installment at even greater speed than the first three. I suppose I was a little put out by the very final plot twist (SPOILER: the dolls), though it was a kind of rounding off you could argue was necessary given how epic the story of the friendship was. So while I think it would have been better left open-ended, it was probably trying to tell us something about Lenu's bent for self-destruction when it came to friendship, life, intimacy, and that this was a wholly too-late stab at recompense of some kind.

Other than that, what did you find preposterous about the 'spine of the plot', because I'm not sure what you're referring to. The missing child? Nino shagging the 50+ year-old nanny?

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

SPOILERS SPOILERS IF YOU CARE ABOUT ELENA FERRANTE SPOILERS

That she'd stick with Nino for so long when a) he wouldn't leave his wife, and b) he's obviously a wanker.

Also, making him a Socialist MP was a bit too broad, too obvious (though I did like the way her ex in-laws got theirs...thought that was very true to life).

Re: the dolls. it's never too late.

[delicatemoth]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Ferrante's books are still permanently borrowed from my local libraries, so I have to settle for football books. Just finished Rock 'n' Roll Soccer - The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League by a disreputable-looking cove called Plenderleith. It's great, really hits the sweet spot of imparting lots of meaty information without becoming dry, and the story is fascinating. One of the best books of its type.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Thank you very much, delicatemoth. Always happy to sub in for Ferrante. And as I always tell people who have read my books - you have now joined a very small, elite club...

Back to Ferrante SPOILERS:
Re. Nino - I thought the narrator was down on herself for sticking with Nino, fully aware of the contradiction of being with such a manipulative philanderer while her own books and political position were shaped by her feminist stance. And there was a point where she was economically dependent on him, when he was paying for the first Naples flat, so there was that factor. I felt she was holding out hope that he would change because she thought he was her One Big Love from way back.

I don't think being a Socialist MP in Italy in the 70s had much to do with socialism - it was New Labour way before its time, wasn't it? Again, I thought that was the point - that after all the circle's fiery, youthful ideals, and their working class background, he had sold out for such a middle-of-the-road party to be a career politician.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

New Labour were disappointing rather than corrupt. But yes, that was the point, I just thought that for a story that was so artfully told, Nino's fate was lacking in subtlety.

[Incandenza]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I finished True Grit by Charles Portis yesterday. It was very good indeed.

[Mark S]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I have a £20 book voucher burning a hole in my pocket - should I buy 'Living On The Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager’ by Mike Calvin? To put this in context, I thoroughly enjoyed his book on football scouts - 'The nowhere men.'

[Mark S]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I see the long list for the William Hill Sports Book of the year has been released. Joey Barton's autobiography is included. Good going, his book was only release yesterday! Anyone read any of the nominees? http://www.williamhillplc.com/newsmedia/newsroom/media-releases/2016/longlist

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I haven't read any of them but a couple of people I know who have read "Barbarian Days" speak very well of it.

[Incandenza]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Can't remember the last time I read two novels in a row rather than just nonfiction, but I just finished Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog.

I started reading Winslow's The Cartel, which got some great reviews. I found out that The Cartel was a sequel to The Power of the Dog, but the latter book didn't get anywhere close to the attention of the former when it was published.

It's a pretty brutal and sprawling book. It's about the drug war and runs from the mid 1970s up to the late 1990s. The DEA, CIA, contras, right wing death squads, Mexican drug cartels, the Catholic Church, and the PRI are all part of the story. There are about 4 major characters that it takes turns focusing on, and it can be a lot to take in.

I liked it, but the writing can swing between trying too hard stylistically and then clunky and sparse. He's been compared to James Ellroy, but I'd say that he's not as self-consciously slavish to his style as Ellroy can be.

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Now that I'm [finally] finished All The Light We Cannot See (excellent...loved it)...I'm starting on Yiddish for Pirates. Just shortlisted for the Giller, so should be decent.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Crusoe
Posts: 4981

posted 09-02-2016 08:26

Just about finished with Andy Beckett's Promised You A Miracle: UK 80-82. Like his previous book on the 1970s it's very rich and varied with some interesting backwards-looking interviews, not at all dry or dusty, although that does mean there are some odd gaps and overlong tangents.

Chapters are organised more by topic than chronology: Ron Arad chairs, the Metro, Charles & Diana, cricket, Chariots of Fire, monetarism, Toxteth, nuclear bunkers, the GLC, Right to Buy, the LDDC, the Iranian Embassy siege, the Falklands, changes in musical tastes, Channel 4, Greenham Common, etc. Immensely readable stuff.

What Crusoe said. I'm a third of the way through this. From a purely personal perspective, given that I was in the sixth form and then gap year for most of that period, it's interesting to see the balance between stuff I remember easily being acutely aware of at the time, what I'd more or less forgotten and what I'd never been aware of. A compelling read.