đź“š I am currently reading

I would prob have “The First Half of any Charles Dickens Novel” in my top 10 books or whatever. They seem to wander a bit as they go on, prob something bout how they was written, in weekly doses for newspapers or whatever it was, i.e. so by the time he approaches the end he’s kind of straight-jacketed himself, and can’t go back and change things. If that makes sense.

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I think I get that. First Dickens book I’ve read (passed me by at school, too busy reading Stephen King and James Herbert). But that makes sense from this one. Will have to read a few more.

I read that a few years ago, when the Blair comparisons felt more immediate and therefore worked better. I can see what you say about Cameron, but I don’t think I could re-read it and see anyone other than Blair as Lang - all the more so given the part played by Lang’s wife. Like you, I enjoyed reading it.

Yes, Dickens wrote a lot of his novels for publication in popular journals - hence the tendency for each chapter to end with some kind of cliff-hanger. It does show in Great Expectations, but it’s a brilliant novel nonetheless. I’m pretty sure, too, that a good number of novelists of that era, here and elsewhere, had works published in the same manner - Dostoevsky springs to mind, though I could be wrong.

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Great Expectations was one of my GCE books, Intiniki, but, despite that, I really like it.

I Let You Go is worth reading and has a really good twist to it that I defy anyone to see coming. It would make a good TV thriller.

Ploughed my way through Tale Of Two Cities as I had not read any Dickens and thought it was time I did. Found the language hard going but they guy can tell a tale f’sure.

I am now nearly at the end of Book 2 of Song of Ice and Fire and am enjoying it as much as the TV series. There are so many characters and threads that it helps we make sense of the series. One thing that puzzled me though - the obsessions the author has with tunics and clothes. It is a time of war and austerity yet none of the high born wear the same thing twice! If there we less descriptions of the kit I’d have far fewer books still to read! Still, a ripping yarn all the same and well worth reading if this is your type of thing.

Gradually working through volumes of The Walking Dead comics. Not exactly high culture, but they’re pretty bloody evocative for a collection of black-and-white scribblings.

If you watch the TV show, they’re best taken as a different take on the same universe. Anybody expecting the same storylines will likely be left cold.

I was only ever in it for the zombies. I could have totally done without the “storylines”.

Zombie stories are never about the zombies. Always about the living. That’s just the way they work.

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Have you seen Made In Chelsea?

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I :heart: Made in Chelsea. Ask me any question! I have S Mathews on speed dial.

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OK, WTF are you two Geyers talking about?

And Sir Stanley is dead, have some respect FFS

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No currently reading, but just finished reading, The Circle by Dave Eggers. It is a fiction book, but not to far of becoming reality!

There were over 150,000 books published in the UK last year. If you read one book a week every week between the ages of 20-60 you would have read a little over 3000 books in your lifetime.

Assuming I reach that ripe age I’ve got about 2000 books left in me.

I need some life changing fiction and, possibly Bletch’s recommendation aside, I’ve seen nothing that fits the bill so far on this thread. What do I need to read?

No historical fiction, please - I’m done in with all that.

Finally finished Great Expectations (I really don’t sit down, stop and read enough) and have moved on to Chavs: The demonization of the Working Class. Some similar themes really!

In the final volume of Simon Schama’s History of Great Britain. As I think I’ve remarked before, I’ve also been reading Churchill’s take on our history too, and needed something a little less jingoistic and religiously ordained. If you listened to Churchill, you’d be hard pushed to separate divine providence with our own history. He’s clearly a believer. What’s clear from both works is that religion, far from ever achieving anything, has been one of the key drivers in pretty much every important element of our constitutional makeup. Specifically, sectarianism has been responsible for a hell of a lot.

It’s an interesting revelation to anyone who lives in this tolerant age of gay marriage and freedom of worship. The age of reason we live in is largely built on religious deviation, and the rights that those deviants were looking for and fighting for within a largely religious framework.

One of the books more controversial sections is on Cromwell. The book argues that the massacre at Drogheda was never a mass cleansing of women and children, citing records after 1649 showing residents living before and after the attack. The oft-repeated claim is that Cromwell ordered his forces to kill everyone, which is incongruent with much of the rest of his character. It’s definitely true (Cromwell’s own account) that his forces put all of the military to the sword, but Schama argues that this probably saved lives later on as other towns gave up without resistance.

I’ve always been very patchy on certain parts of English history. I’ve enjoyed Schama’s take immensely.

I’m about to embark on 'Go Set a Watchman - with trepidation

Just noticed this thread:

I am currently reading (as in have read at sometime in the past month, have not yet finished, but have not given up on)

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross

Sports Analytics by Benjamin C. Alamar

Big Data Baseball: Travis Sawchik

The Secret Footballer’s Guide to the Modern Game by Anon

Corsair by James L. Cambias

The Dark Between the Stars by Keven J. Anderson

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark

The Year’s Best Military SF amd Space Opera by David Afsharirad

Dire Predictions by Michael E. Mann and Lee R Kump

I have finished reading in the past month:

Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant by Hy Conrad

The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross

Working for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher

Money and Soccer by Stefan Szymanski

The End of All Things by John Scalzi

What If? by Randall Munroe

Vieled Alliances by Kevin J. Anderson

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

The Game by Jon Pessah

So what are you, Loser D, the professor of reading or something?

I know this might be an unpopular thing to say, but the Atticus Finch of Mockingbird isn’t necessarily inconsistent with the one in Watchman. Firstly, he’s a six-year-old’s interpetation in the orginal. But there was always, in my view, something of the lawyer standing by his principles (fair access to a jury trial, etc) rather than someone acting by his wider social beliefs in Mockingbird.

I read it (a long time ago) thinking how could Atticus take the outcome of the trial, and then the events of that night, with such quiet calm. Not that he would have condoned the murder - but it did seem odd at the time. He clearly wasn’t going to find himself on the barricades during any civil rights action (as unlikely as that would have been in the 30s).

He was a good man of his time (and idealised by a child) and the times changed - which is something a great novelist ought to reflect. I don’t get the outrage at his portrayal in Watchman.

(I’ve tried writing this without any spoilers - hard work!)

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