Books you are reading
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- vietnammer
- Bucky the beaver
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Re: Books you are reading
Re-discovered Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies after being distracted from it before. Eye-opening tale of India in the very early days of the Raj (British East India Company) centred mainly on Indian life and its near-complete mismatch with British authority. Problem with Kindle editions is they don't generally come with a glossary, and this book sure needs one. It's exercising the mind working stuff out though.
Glad to see there's a further two in a trilogy ahead.
Glad to see there's a further two in a trilogy ahead.
Online
- wolf359
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Re: Books you are reading
I am a shameful reader, despite being well educated and spending hours reading technical stuff, forums, reddit etc. I rarely read fiction.
I have however recently read The Hobbit for the first time and am now unto Tom Bombadil in the Fellowship of the Ring.. If i make it to the next chapter it will be the furthest into the book I've ever been (this is my 3rd attempt into reading it -2nd was 20 years ago).
I should read more but find it hard work to be honest.
I have however recently read The Hobbit for the first time and am now unto Tom Bombadil in the Fellowship of the Ring.. If i make it to the next chapter it will be the furthest into the book I've ever been (this is my 3rd attempt into reading it -2nd was 20 years ago).
I should read more but find it hard work to be honest.
- szola
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Re: Books you are reading
A sad read. Good book. Plenty left unsaid in it.
Recommended to anyone who votes Tory, or believes in the concept of the free marked.
Written in 1944, still relevant. Unfortunately for many, Hayek became more popular in the post-war years, not Polányi.
You'll want to log off the news, and the internet after this one.
NotPetya was bad? Stealing documents before the US election 2016 and targeting voters by a foreign adversary frightening? Micro-targeting vaccine disinformation worrying?
It'll just get more messy in time....
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Winifred Holtby ~ South Riding
I absolutely loved this epic, sprawling story of the politicians and citizens of a fictitious version of Yorkshire in the early 1930s. Holtby wrote it in her 30s and knowing she only had a few years to live, and it's an ambitious and affecting novel about women and community.
I absolutely loved this epic, sprawling story of the politicians and citizens of a fictitious version of Yorkshire in the early 1930s. Holtby wrote it in her 30s and knowing she only had a few years to live, and it's an ambitious and affecting novel about women and community.
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Re: Books you are reading
I have occasionally dipped into detective/thriller books and have never read one I could recommend.
As they become popular I'll try a new author.
But the endings invariably disappoint.
I know how hard it must be to provide a perfect unravelling, but.....I deserve one after reading 3 or 400 pages.
As they become popular I'll try a new author.
But the endings invariably disappoint.
I know how hard it must be to provide a perfect unravelling, but.....I deserve one after reading 3 or 400 pages.
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- SoulCircus
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Re: Books you are reading
Every so often I get an urge to read Cormac McCarthy, and on inspection realised I've never read Blood Meridian. So currently putting that right. Holy smokes it is violent.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Have you read Suttree, SC? Apologies if we've had this conversation before, but that's by far my favourite. I started with the American Trilogy, and loved the slow pace (150 pages on a bloke tracking a wolf anyone?), then moved on to Suttree and thought it was stunning, an all-time top 10 book, and then moved on to Blood Meridian and The Road. You probably know, but he has two new novels due out later this year, telling the same story from the point of view of two different characters.SoulCircus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:27 am Every so often I get an urge to read Cormac McCarthy, and on inspection realised I've never read Blood Meridian. So currently putting that right. Holy smokes it is violent.
- SoulCircus
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Re: Books you are reading
I haven't read Suttree KH, I've heard a lot about it so will add to my TBR, thanks for the rec. Yes, I did see he had two books out, didn't realise they were linked in such a way though. He's pushing 90 now so they could well be his last.Korea Hammer wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 5:13 pm Have you read Suttree, SC? Apologies if we've had this conversation before, but that's by far my favourite. I started with the American Trilogy, and loved the slow pace (150 pages on a bloke tracking a wolf anyone?), then moved on to Suttree and thought it was stunning, an all-time top 10 book, and then moved on to Blood Meridian and The Road. You probably know, but he has two new novels due out later this year, telling the same story from the point of view of two different characters.
- last.caress
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Re: Books you are reading
One of my favourite books. Took me three goes to really get my head around the prose but, once I was into it, I couldn't get enough of it.SoulCircus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 9:27 am Every so often I get an urge to read Cormac McCarthy, and on inspection realised I've never read Blood Meridian. So currently putting that right. Holy smokes it is violent.
A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
I mean, f***! That's up there with Melville. That's close to Shakespeare. Language like that, for me, is like heroin. If he only existed, I'd make a deal with the Devil just to be able to write like that.
- SoulCircus
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Re: Books you are reading
Yeah, that's quite a quote. McCarthy is very interesting stylistically as his books contain very little in the way of internalisation - I'm about a third of the way through Blood Meridian and know nothing more about the Kid than when I started. But those long sentences, lack of commas, and prose with those biblical undertones are really quite incredible.
- Cuenca 'ammer
- ex 'ouston 'ammer
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Re: Books you are reading
can't remember and it's been literally years and years since I picked up a copy of A Clockwork Orange, but didn't that have the same or similar style ? no punctuation, no capitals, you couldn't figure out where one sentence finished and another started.
could be completely off base on this one.
was driving me mad so I had to google..not quite but not far off...
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter b*stard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg.Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with.
could be completely off base on this one.
was driving me mad so I had to google..not quite but not far off...
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter b*stard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg.Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Sergei Dovlatov - The Zone
A short book by the dissident Russian writer, Dovlatov, alternating between sketches of life working as a guard in a Soviet prison camp and letters from the writer to his editor. Good, but felt incomplete and fragmented. Not quite as enjoyable as I was hoping it would be.
A short book by the dissident Russian writer, Dovlatov, alternating between sketches of life working as a guard in a Soviet prison camp and letters from the writer to his editor. Good, but felt incomplete and fragmented. Not quite as enjoyable as I was hoping it would be.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
David Szalay - All That Man Is
This is described as a novel but is really 9 short stories about men at different stages of life. There are some minor weaknesses, but overall I thought it was excellent.
This is described as a novel but is really 9 short stories about men at different stages of life. There are some minor weaknesses, but overall I thought it was excellent.
- bonzosbeard
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Re: Books you are reading
A favourite for me was Le Carre 'A Delicate Truth'.
Talk about it being a film. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I've read some duller ones from him.
Talk about it being a film. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I've read some duller ones from him.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Elizabeth Taylor ~ Angel
This was great. I have instantly ordered a couple more of Taylor's novels.
This was great. I have instantly ordered a couple more of Taylor's novels.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Percival Everett - The Trees
Another winner from a very underrated writer. At times, hilariously funny and at times horrific and unsettling. His best, for me, is still Erasure, but all his books are worth reading.
Another winner from a very underrated writer. At times, hilariously funny and at times horrific and unsettling. His best, for me, is still Erasure, but all his books are worth reading.
- Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading
Abdulrazak Gurnah - Paradise
This might be the best book I've read this year. It's a 1994 novel set in early twentieth century East Africa and tells the story of a boy sold by his family to a rich Tanzanian trader. Beautifully written and mixing fables, traditions and religious allegory, I thought it was excellent.
This might be the best book I've read this year. It's a 1994 novel set in early twentieth century East Africa and tells the story of a boy sold by his family to a rich Tanzanian trader. Beautifully written and mixing fables, traditions and religious allegory, I thought it was excellent.
- smuts
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Re: Books you are reading
The Peter Guralnick Elvis books. Very good and in depth.
Richard Osman's new Thursday Murder club one The Bullet that missed. More of the same but still enjoyable.
Just started Fairy Tale, the new Stephen King.
Richard Osman's new Thursday Murder club one The Bullet that missed. More of the same but still enjoyable.
Just started Fairy Tale, the new Stephen King.
- Tenbury
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Re: Books you are reading
Sorry to have missed the CMcC conversations, IMO one of the greatest writers ever. I buy and read Suttree every spring and then give it away.(The early novellas are astonishing but very bleak)
Currently reading Seneca (mostly on the shortness of life), him and Montaigne are the best antidote for the autumn blues.
Currently reading Seneca (mostly on the shortness of life), him and Montaigne are the best antidote for the autumn blues.