Books you are reading

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The Old Man of Storr
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by The Old Man of Storr »

Rocketron wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 7:38 pm Go to home page. the book you are reading will be at the top of the list.
Right click, you will receive a dropdown menu.
Downclick until you get to start from the beginning then hit the centre.
How very kind of you , thanks for that . :newthumb:


Actually went back on my Kindle as I spent the whole weekend in hospital [ long story short - thought I was dying but I didn't ] :grin:


Been reading the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories - not bad really , better than I thought they'd be - read A Study In Scarlet and now nearly finished The Sign Of 4 . Bit different to the films .
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Hope you're on the mend, ToMoS.

My aunt gave me a hardback collection of those ACD stories when I was 10 or 11. One of those formative books for me, although I couldn't be objective about how good they really were.
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The Old Man of Storr
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by The Old Man of Storr »

Korea Hammer wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:04 pm Hope you're on the mend, ToMoS.

My aunt gave me a hardback collection of those ACD stories when I was 10 or 11. One of those formative books for me, although I couldn't be objective about how good they really were.
Read all the bigger stories now on the short stories - got a bit samey and now losing interest , still not 100% though so it could be illness / tiredness - brought down Nathaniel Philbrick's ' The Last Stand ' [ Custer / Sitting Bull ] this morning as I'm fed up of Netflix too . :grin:
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Diane Williams ~ The Collected Stories

300 stories, written over 30 years, and collected in the nearly 800 pages of this new anthology, these highly experimental, avant garde pieces of flash fiction are condensed and oblique pieces, challenging what a 'story' can be. Themes of domestic life, female relationships and sex recur throughout and the writing style is minimal, spare and disorientating. Williams is often described as a 'writer's writer' and has been extremely influential. I came to her through the recommendation of a young American writer, Kathryn Scanlan (whose own The Dominant Animal collection packs 40 stories into about 130 pages). However, I must say I enjoyed Scanlan's book much more than this. There were occasional moments of brilliance and humour (in one story, about a page and a half long, a woman has an ambiguously sexual thought about her dog and then later, serving breakfast for her husband downstairs, commands him to 'Sit!'), but most of the time I found this too willfully experimental and difficult to get a foothold with.
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djbubbles
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by djbubbles »

Heading on holiday in October and im looking for a couple of books. What West Ham player has the best autobiography? Also maybe a West Ham book about our firm and ive already read Cass. And maybe a wildcard about West Ham that somebody would recommend. Thanks in advance
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Kristin Hersh - Seeing Sideways

Kristin Hersh has been something of a hero of mine for 35 years, and this, the second of her two memoirs, is probably a book for her listeners rather than the general reader. Unlike other rock autobiographies, it reads more like a prose poem, full of vivid imagery and unusual metaphors. It wouldn't appeal to everyone but I loved its honesty and poetry.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Burnley Hammer »

The Old Man of Storr wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 9:06 am
Yeah , I posted that when the Kindle format was completely new to me - Jen stuck a few books on it for me so I read a few - still don't know how to return to the beginning of a book .

Not actually bought a book for my Kindle as of yet , I probably never will [ but never say never ] - I don't think they're good value for what you get , obviously some of them are free - however , I love the feel and sense of ownership of a real book . The Kindle still has its place I guess .
I've downloaded hundreds for mine - you just need to know where to look ;)
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Jean Genet ~ Querelle Of Brest

Set in the criminal underworld of 1940s Brest, Genet's writing mixes high and low styles in this extremely explicit and morally ambiguous story of a bisexual serial killer.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Elizabeth Harrower - The Catherine Wheel

I'm a big fan of Harrower, who I discovered last year, but would say that this one is a bit less effective than her most famous book, The Watchtower, and my personal favourite The Long Prospect. Nevertheless, she's an interesting writer whose studies of sexual politics and the psychology of the domestic lives of women in the 50s are well worth reading.
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szola
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Re: Books you are reading

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Tenbury
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Tenbury »

Re the book about travelling the world on two wheels ^^^^^^ (did a fair bit meself back in the mists of time) you'll have to go a long way to surpass 'Jupiter's Travels' by Ted someoneorother, as with all proper travel, its as much about your head as your machine.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

That Kelman book is one of my all-time favourites. Might be due a reread actually, but I do have a volume of his short stories that I haven't read before too.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

On the wild offchance that someone has read Cortázar's Hopscotch - which chapter sequence did you read? I'm thinking of going in with full hopscotch mode.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

Tenbury wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:03 am Re the book about travelling the world on two wheels ^^^^^^ (did a fair bit meself back in the mists of time) you'll have to go a long way to surpass 'Jupiter's Travels' by Ted someoneorother, as with all proper travel, its as much about your head as your machine.
Ted Simon. The old fella just joined Twitter as himself, not as his company. Made all his followers sit up and pay attention. Hasn't posted too much of interest yet :) btw, that book is on my list. Along with Walter Colebatch's Sibirsky Extreme

Great reads for the dark and cold winter season! Same Colebatch's is so expensive. The price tag has been putting me off for years.
Spalding's gem is also on my list, and also a bit too expensive at the moment
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szola
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

Korea Hammer wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 5:14 pm That Kelman book is one of my all-time favourites.
Read it as you recommended it :smiler:

Was a bit heavy to get into the setting, but once immersed it was a good read
Made me think about Trainspotting and how much better the book was than the movie
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

szola wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 8:04 am Made me think about Trainspotting and how much better the book was than the movie
:thup: Kelman broke down the doors for writers like Irvine Welsh. When HLIWHL won the Booker, half the judging panel walked out in protest because of the dialect.
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Roby
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Roby »

Just over 100 pages into The Reckoning by John Grisham.

It was on all the best sellers list when it came out a year or two back but bloody hell, it’s slow…
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by vietnammer »

The North Water: Halfway through it before belatedly finding the show is on iPlayer. Going to finish the book first.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Tenbury »

All a bit cut and paste for me, Viet, not bad though.

Just been sent Stephen Fry's 'Troy'. Read his other stuff on Greek myth a bit back, love it.
If, like me, your knowledge of the subject starts and ends with the odd Harryhousen movie, thoroughly recommended.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

Tenbury wrote: Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:06 am Just been sent Stephen Fry's 'Troy'. Read his other stuff on Greek myth a bit back, love it.
If, like me, your knowledge of the subject starts and ends with the odd Harryhousen movie, thoroughly recommended.
Mythos came in the post earlier this week, looking forward to reading it.
(was recommended by Peterson during a talk he had with Fry)

If you don't borrow books in libraries this site is a gem imo
https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb
So far all the books I've bought have been excellent quality, even if not mint
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