Books you are reading

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lewisham-mer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by lewisham-mer »

Korea Hammer wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 12:52 pm Might just not be your thing l-m. But I often think having to study a book can kill the enjoyment of it a bit. Plus, for me, it depends a lot when you read certain books. I don't think I would've enjoyed it so much when I was 18.

Dickens certainly isn’t my thing… (except maybe A Christmas Carol - thanks to the Muppets).

Also did Shakespeare, Chaucer, for GCSE and A-Level - loved both (and still do), along with Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Wilfred Owen. I was always the first to be called on to read I class (which I got to resent over the years).

I remember one book was so bad that even the teacher abandoned it half way through … Three Men In a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Tedious for adults let alone 15 year olds .
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

lewisham-mer wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:15 pm (except maybe A Christmas Carol - thanks to the Muppets).
The definitive text! :newthumb:
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Rocketron »

Three Men In a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Tedious for adults let alone 15 year olds .
I liked it. :chin:
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Tenbury »

Me too. I don't get all the anti Dickens stuff either, TBH, stuff like 'Hard Times' aren't exactly literary masterpieces, but still manage to be strong stories that illustrate well the fault lines in 19th century social history.
[Having said all that, when I was a teenager, I was drawn rather more towards Hunter S. Tompson!]
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szola
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

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Re: Books you are reading

Post by WHU Independent »

My mate gave me For The Claret and Blue by Micky Smith, a book about "The Battles, The Pain, all the greatest stories from the Staunchest Football Fans on Earth", printed in 2004.

I'd like to make clear that I'm no football Hoolie and never have been in the ICF, but as one of the "older statesmen" of this forum, I've been in a number of scrapes and episodes in my time, because back in the day at certain moments you were simply forced to defend yourself or get your head kicked in. Such was the name of the game in those olden days.

Now I've read a number of "hooli" books from WHU lads to a number of other "chaps" who support other teams. Some are good, some are dreadful and some are passable The bad ones usually go "we went to XXX's ground run their mob, took the piss and had a right result." They also make claims such as "YYY's mob never turned up and claimed they had a result against us because we at a place that we weren't" and "they gave it the big un with the verbals because they were protected by the old bill."

Now there are some small elements of the aforementioned in Smith's book, but for me, Smith gains instant credibilty because when he mentions a number of incidents that I was also at, and it went down 100% as he has written them down. I've also had independent confirmation from a Lincoln "chap" (before I read the book) that a WHU contngent got bashed by a Lincoln firm years ago, when we played them at home, and Smith mentions this in his book.

In addition, Smith covers a wide range of topics and not just terrace battles. Mannygate, the terrible Bond Scheme, the Hillsborough disaster, Banning Orders, the Old Bill all get a chapter and unlike other hooli books, it makes a very pleasant change from the continual fighting stories that other authors rattle off machine gun style -only to get very stale, very quickly.

Smith also make a lot of social commentary on the way football has changed for the worse - the prawn sandwich brigade, no more standing, the corperate element, The intrinsic greed that runs throughout football, the price of going to a game etc etc - and it makes for a refreshing read.

Another thing that makes this book refreshing is that Smith has obtaned a lot of stories from events that he wasn't in attendence at, by people that were, and they are put over from all sides of the story. Man U, Millwall and many other non whu fans get to tell their tale.

That said this book is nearly 20 years old and the language used within it and some of the terms used to describe various groups of people would be totally unacceptable in this day an age.

That aside, I thoughly thorughly enjoyed this book and was happy to see that a certain Mr Graeme Howlett gets a mention in the acknowledgements as well ashis own personal chapter on KNUMB penned by his very hand.

If you need a reccomedation for this book, don't take my word, take Graeme's!
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Metal Hammer »

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Quite enjoyable so far.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Chicken Run Supreme »

Korea Hammer wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 10:01 am Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

I've always avoided Dickens, ever since a traumatic encounter with the 900-odd page Our Mutual Friend as a student, but I have to say I enjoyed every page of this.
There is definitely a big difference between reading for pleasure and reading because part of your curriculum.
Charles Dickens wasn’t on my reading list for A Level but I read Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield and loved them.
My A Level curriculum included Alexander Pope, Geoffrey Chaucer, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy and Evelyn Waugh among others and did not enjoy these so much although I appreciated the literary craft of the latter 3 more than Chaucer
and Pope who were a bit out of my comfort zone.
Dickens’s Great Expectations remains one of my favourite reads, it is simply perfect.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by jacko »

Hmm. I loved studying books and through by degree was introduced to some brilliant Latin American writers. I think I like the books more having studied them and understood them better.

Love dickens, particularly, David copperfield, great expectations and bleak house.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Burnley Hammer »

Just finished reading:

Goodnight Jim Bob: On the Road with Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (Jim Bob)
The Boy from the Woods (Harlan Coben)

Has Harlan Coben ever written a book that's not about somebody disappearing?

I'll also be working through the following 2 books throughout the year:

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Live Like a Stoic: 52 Exercises for Cultivating a Good Life.

I'm just about to start:

The Secret Life of Genes.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by westham,eggyandchips »

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Re: Books you are reading

Post by last.caress »

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All the names - of the gangs and of the individual gang members - are different (the "Warriors" from the movie are the "Coney Island Dominators"; Cyrus, the leader of the "Gramercy Riffs" is now Ismael, the leader of the "Delancey Thrones"; the "Orphans" are the "Bolinquen Blazers"), the protagonists ate all about ten years younger in the book than they are in the film, and while it's not as action-heavy as the movie, the violence is uglier when it surfaces. Still, it was a good, quick slice of pulp fiction. I liked it.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Burnley Hammer »

Just started reading this after ordering it from the library... looked right up my street!

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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Burnley Hammer wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:20 pm Just started reading this after ordering it from the library... looked right up my street!
He was on Ricjard Herring's podcast Burnley, in case it's of interest:
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by last.caress »

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I've read this one before, fancied another go.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by WHU Independent »

"Paint My Name in Black and Gold - The rise of the Sisters of Mercy "- Mark Andrews

I am, admitedly, a massive SoM fan. I've seen them about 6 times in all, but the whole band are of great interest to me and when I got this book for Xmas I wanted to save it for a time where I could savour it. That time was this week.

It's got to be said that this book is an easy read. It's written in a "chatty" style and I like the way each story or situation uses a quote from someone who was there. To this end the book has a fantastic "Notes on Sources" section (basically references) to back up any claims. It reminds me of "Please Kill Me" (by Legs Diamonds, another brilliant book about the rise of the New York Punk scene) where various people verify/dispute what happened at a certain juncture.

From the seminal moment the band started as a prototype, to the addition of Andrew Eldrich, through to the sacking of a few members (Marx and Gunn) to the inclusion of Wayne Hussey it's all there - right up to the moment Hussey/Adams leave and form the Mission and Eldrich meets Morrison and goes on to create SoM version 2.

The book focuses it's attention on Eldrich for a sizeable chunk, as he is seen as the drivig force behind the band. Producer, song writer, band manager, drum machine programmer and graphic designer of the band, he is established as the driving force behind it all. Marx?Gunn/Adams and later Hussey seem to be all in it for the rock and roll lifestyle - drugs, women, booze, having a laugh when on tour, drugs, and more drugs and booze.

Eldridge does the drugs, drugs and more drugs bit but seems to be more happy laying awake all night thnking about stuff - mainly how to develop the band. All the bad members come over a real laughs - Eldrich not much. Sure he has a wicked sense of humour and his audience put downs are legendary, but he's not one for high jinks and stuff.

Eldrich comes over as a complex character. I lost count of how many times people in the book say he is "very Clever" or "very intelligent "Apparently he is a public scholboy, with a gift for languages and only gave up studying Cantonese in a posh Uni because year one didn't involve going to China. He's well read, well versed in al forms of art (cinema, pantings, literature) and seen as somewhat as a "renaissance man."

On the other side of the coin, he's an obsessive control freak, who has to get things perfect, with a dour personality (although he can be nice when he wants to be), vengeful, with a spiteful tongue, who was massively addicted to drugs (Amphetamine - it makes him seriously ill twice in the book) and hardly ever slept.

All in all this is a well written, interesting, page turner. I was somewhat upset it ended where it ended but I'm assuming that there is a Mission?SoM version 2 book in their somewhere - and I'd gladly read it if it was published.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

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The crime against the defenseless is complete, when their stories remain untold.

A vital contribution to the current world tension, and what can happen when processes are free from external scrutiny.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Burnley Hammer »

Recently finished over the last couple of weeks:

Looking Good Dead (Peter James)
Dead Man Walking (Paul Finch)
Lifeless (Mark Billingham)

Next up is:

Deadland (William Shaw)

On order from the library:

I always Find you (John Lindqvist)
The Other People (C.J. Tudor)
The Girl in the Ice (Robert Bryndza)
#Taken (Tony Parsons)
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by last.caress »

Burnley Hammer wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:50 pm Recently finished over the last couple of weeks:

Looking Good Dead (Peter James)
Dead Man Walking (Paul Finch)
Lifeless (Mark Billingham)

Deadland (William Shaw)
I sense a theme there, BH. :)
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Burnley Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Burnley Hammer »

last.caress wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:01 pm I sense a theme there, BH. :)
I grew up reading horror... mainly Graham Masterton, James Herbert, Brian Lumley, Shawn Hutson, and Dean Koontz. Even at age 13, whilst not many others were into reading, my school reading diary was completely filled with horror book entries. Never liked Stephen King though... he waffled too much and there were often large tedious chunks of his books where nothing much happened. A bit like my posts on the coronavirus thread.

I grew out of it and moved to crime fiction. I never grew out of my need for a decent bodycount though. They need to be a bit pulpy - I get bored easily otherwise. I like Jo Nesbo and Michael Connolly too, and also Stuart MacBride.
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