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    Have started reading Iron Gustav: A Berlin Family Chronicle by Hans Fallada. Had quite the publishing history.

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      Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
      I was going to add Mick Herron's Slow Horses to the espionage thread, but besides being an excellent spy story it's also remarkably prescient. Published in 2010 it not only predicts, pretty exactly, how and when the extreme right would take over the Conservative party. It also has a diaphanous and devastatingly accurate portrayal of Boris Johnson, as their leader in waiting.
      Just managed to borrow a copy of this today. Looking forward to it based on the recommendation and good feedback elsewhere.

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        How We Win by George Lakey.

        It's really making me think.

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          Mrs Caliban and Other Stories it is. The title novella is as good as billed, and I finished the second in the collection this afternoon. Really enjoying it.

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            Open City by Teju Cole - magnificent writing. Just a lonely German-Nigerian narrator wondering around New York and then Belgium, musing and meeting various people, but I'm loving every page.

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              I've just finished reading Educated by Tara Westover, which is very well written, and fascinating. It's been on best-seller lists for ages, and loved by people like Barack Obama. But it does feel a little self-aggrandising, and that leads me to wonder about how truthful of some of the content is.

              Next up is - finally - Gravity's Rainbow. If experience of Pynchon is anything to go by, I'll love it but will still be reading it next easter.
              Last edited by San Bernardhinault; 31-10-2019, 14:07.

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                Good luck with that. I will go to my grave never having finished a Pynchon book, despite at least two valiant efforts.

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                  I’m reading a 1950s crime novel called Corpse Diplomatique by Delano Ames which I bought for its nice cover (one of those green penguins with a montage of news clippings). It’s a bit too clever-clever but has the charm of being set in Nice in that time before mass tourism which I remember fascinated me in Irwin Shaw stories of the period.
                  I thought the author’s name was familiar and I found I had him on a list of crime novels set in Spain (he moved to the Costa Brava later) The Man in the Tricorn Hat. Sadly unavailable for less than £20.

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                    Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                    I've just finished reading Educated by Tara Westover, which is very well written, and fascinating. It's been on best-seller lists for ages, and loved by people like Barack Obama. But it does feel a little self-aggrandising, and that leads me to wonder about how truthful of some of the content is.
                    Haha...yes, same here. She's changed a lot of names and places, and when I read it very little had been verified / corroborated. Maybe different now. I enjoyed it but was a bit skeptical a the time. I read Hillbilly Elegy right before it, and it rang much more true.

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                      I may start a Books on Film thread, but just finished Final Cut by Stephen Bach about the disastrous making of Heaven's Gate by Michael Cimino. I'd read the broad strokes before in a number of other books, but this was the deep dive written by one of the producers. It's a tale of ego, fear and bad management. It was the result of a hundred small decisions that added up to a catastrophe. It killed one of the most storied studios in Hollywood history.

                      It's on all the must-read lists about film, and I can see why. It's honest, insightful educational and entertaining.

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                        Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                        I was going to add Mick Herron's Slow Horses to the espionage thread, but besides being an excellent spy story it's also remarkably prescient. Published in 2010 it not only predicts, pretty exactly, how and when the extreme right would take over the Conservative party. It also has a diaphanous and devastatingly accurate portrayal of Boris Johnson, as their leader in waiting.
                        Last night I read the chapter where Johnson enters the narrative. It's definitely him, and devastating in how it shows the differences between his bumbling persona and the nastiness of the real man. Which makes me wonder: was Herron the only writer predicting today's Tory party as far back as 2010?

                        Does Herron maintain this quality in his subsequent Slough House books?
                        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 04-11-2019, 15:56.

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                          I've read three of them so far, and I'd say on the whole yes, with a couple of caveats. It could be me, but he appears to fishing for a TV series sometimes. He even describes characters who resemble well known actors, Jackson Lamb looks like Timothy Spall, for example. Not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe indicates he's looking at the possibilities of a different medium beyond the book which can lead to formulaic writing. I should emphasise however that hasn't happened yet.

                          Johnson is mentioned in the second book, but has an even bigger role in the third one than he did in the first. I suspect he'll appear in the others too. He's defence minister by then, which means he has a more direct influence on Slough House and "The Park" than he does in the first.

                          was Herron the only writer predicting today's Tory party as far back as 2010?

                          Good question. Now, of course, it's a burgeoning genre. I just finished The Cockroach (recommended), and am about to start LeCarré's latest. But earlier than that none I'm aware of.

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                            I've just started Nemesis Games, the fifth book in The Expanse series.

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                              Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                              I've just started Nemesis Games, the fifth book in The Expanse series.
                              About halfway through this and it's quite disjointed, jumping about between the main characters. I'm finding it a bit annoying.

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                                I am one book into the Patrick Melrose series by Edward St Aubyn. It's a beautiful, engrossing book, highly rewarding but a very tough read. Although I appreciate that it contains "acerbic comedy" (Zadie Smith review), mainly at the expense of the pretentious friends of the family, I doubt it will make me laugh very often because the topic is just too dark and distressing. Strong echoes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, I felt.

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                                  I'm in the final 10 pages of the Ronan Farrow book Catch and Kill, about the whole Harvey Weinstein / Matt Lauer thing. It's an incredible story and makes NBC look like craven cowards and liars. And Weinstein comes across as every bit as malicious and villainous as you'd imagine.

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                                    Finished Iron Gustav, and started Julian Cope's Japrocksampler this week, making lots of notes.

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                                      Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                      I am one book into the Patrick Melrose series by Edward St Aubyn. It's a beautiful, engrossing book, highly rewarding but a very tough read
                                      Just to echo your comments. So harrowing, so beautifully written.

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                                        Originally posted by RobW View Post
                                        Finished Iron Gustav, and started Julian Cope's Japrocksampler this week, making lots of notes.
                                        Largely excellent read, though got bit weary of Cope's undiluted enthusiasm by the end. Still, have good lot of albums to check out.

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                                          I've read The Queeriodic Table by Harriet Dyer. It's a very brief introduction to LGBT+ culture. It also has ta great diagram to explain what all the different things are regarding gender and sexuality which really helped me "get" it.

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                                            I've just finished 'Trumpet' by Jackie Kay. Loved it, Kay writes so poetically and uses different voices so beautifully.

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                                              That Kay annoys people such as transphobe /aspiring Fascist/Linehanite Stuart Campbell in her role as Scots Makar makes me really want to check her out.

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                                                She is an excellent writer LS, and it pleases me to hear that she isn't anti-trans (writers and other creative types I like turning out to be transphobes is an ongoing low-key fear of mine).

                                                Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                                                Next up is - finally - Gravity's Rainbow. If experience of Pynchon is anything to go by, I'll love it but will still be reading it next easter.
                                                I really liked it, but at first was hopelessly confused. After a couple of hundred pages I stopped, went back to the beginning and then read it through, and found it much more manageable for the restart.

                                                Just finished 'A Safe Girl To Love', a book of short stories by Canadian trans writer Casey Plett. Really affecting and highly recommended. I have her novel 'Little Fish' and will post about that when I've read it.

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                                                  I'm often confused by Pynchon but the vocabulary is so rich that it's sort of worth treating first readings as enjoyable surrealistic dream reads. Logical understanding may or may not come later.

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                                                    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                                    Does Herron maintain this quality in his subsequent Slough House books?
                                                    I'm mid-Joe Country, the most recent of the 'Slough House' series. In it Peter Judd (aka Boris Johnson) reappears after a couple of volumes away. Out of government and running his own PR company named Bullingdon Fopp, he's planning another run at 10 Downing Street and needs MI5's black info. In return, over lunch with the current #1, he lets drop his youthful bonking session with the current PM (by inference Theresa May.)

                                                    It's really very funny, and not at all like the series' publicity which promises a modern LeCarré.

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