📚 I am currently reading

Just finished ‘The Great Game: On Secret Service In High Asia’ by Peter Hopkirk.

A look at the machinations of Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia in central Asia, tales of the first Afghan war and the battle for control of the various Khanates bordering Britain’s Indian Empire. Interesting stuff. Lots of detailed accounts from British and Russian officers and adventurers.

Just moved on to Robert Fisk’s ‘The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of The Middle East’ for something a little more up to date.

Bought my first book since the Lee Child short story combo ready for holidays.

Artemis - sequel to The Martian. Hope it’s beach reading!

No spoilers D_P, have it being delivered tomorrow. Enjoyed T’Martian so thought I’d give it a go.

Yeah, funny how I chose it.

Lee Child’s new novel is not yet published. So Dan Brown would be the perfect beach book. Unfortunately here it is only in Hardback, not an “Airport Edition” - The Hardback weight b asically screwed up our entire carry-on limits on the flights Sunday as we now have to take a laptop and were always taking our entire collection of Camera Kit and Lenses.

I was browsing in Krakow Duty Free no less and there it was. Just like you I thought “I liked the Martian”…

It already caused me grief because when I went to check in for my rebooked flight after the delay, my carry-on baggage was 1kkg too much and I ended up having to row with the Station Manager to keep the bloody thing!

And no spoilers - Won’t open mine until Sunday at the earliest and then only if Gulf Air’s Entertanment system is shit! 24th December on the Beach is the plan :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’ve heard it’s not a very good follow-up to The Martian (which was superb). Let us know what you think…

EDIT: Ah, just seen that you like Dan Brown :lou_eyes_to_sky:

1 Like

I read Inferno(it’s shit). I much preferred Craces digested read. Anyone that hasn’t read Inferno and plans to, don’t read below.

Seven kilometres out into the azure waters of the Adriatic, the Provost – the head of a top-secret organisation called the Cornsortium, which specialised in contriving idiotic plotlines – stood at the prow of his 237m yacht, the Mendacium. I may have finally taken on a plotline too stupid even for me, he thought.

Dr Elizabeth Sinskey, CEO of the World Health Organisation, combed her Medusa-like grey hair and thought unnecessarily of the glucocorticoid treatment that had destroyed her reproductive system. Her mind then switched to that fateful meeting she had had with Bertand Zobrist. “The population of the world is growing too fast,” the billionaire geneticist had said urgently. “If we are not careful, there will soon be eight billion Dan Brown readers. We must have a cull.”

“So let’s get this straight. Zobrist left a trail of pointless clues to where the virus wasn’t, so the whole book has been a total waste of time?” Sinskey’s mouth stretched into a knowing but sad smile. “That’s about it. But at the end of the day, you will still have four billion readers, so you can’t complain.”

Digested read, digested: A divine comedy

Not reading, but listening to an audio book. Tim Shipman’s Fall Out, the necessary sequel to All Out War. It’s epic, almost 30 hours in length. It’s mostly an examination of the May triumvirate, and how they got it so wrong. I’m up to the part where she’s trying to woo Trump.

The honey moon period, eh?

Excellent so far. Driving up to Liverpool tonight so will have heard considerably more.

Things can only get better by John O’Farrell.

Plots his adolesence spent waiting for Thatcher to fuck off and a Labour government to take power.

Enjoying it so far.

Didn’t know you could read tbf

:lou_wink_2:

1 Like

On a topless beach on a sun lounger with a Pins Class?

Or $0.50 A pint beers?

Yes guilty.

I prefer Lee Child but already read thus years release.

I am Jack Teacher (the real one not the Tom Cruise impost0rr midget)

As mentioned in another thread, just finished the first two Hannibal Lecter books ‘Red Dragon’ & ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ in quick succession.

Both excellent, easy to read, tension builders.

If you’ve seen the movies then you will definitley enjoy them, the plots are basically the same but with all the extra background information you would expect. in Red Dragon particularly there are 3-4 chapters purely on the title character’s childhood and upbrining that molded him into the beast in the book.

What I like most about the books is that they are reffered to as the Hannibal Lecter books, despite the fact that in the first two books he is barely in them which builds you up to the 3rd book where he is the main protagonist. It’s clever writing by Thomas Harris and works well.

Lecter is an anti-hero no doubt about it.

Finished The Good Immigrant the other day. It’s lots of short stories from BAME writers/actors/artist. What it is like to be an immigrant or the child of one. Good read and thought provoking.

Been meaning to pick that up. Lots of people I like have contributed.

That’s one that came out through Unbound isn’t it? I quite like their business model; it seems to be producing some very interesting writing. I recently read The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth which, as a novel written in an approximation of Old English, probably wouldn’t have been picked up by publishers but turned out to be a fantastic read. Very pertinent about nationalism and cultural imperialism.

1 Like

After the recent film adaptation of IT I decided to read the book again, depsite this film being much better than the mini-series in the 90s (??) it still lacks a lot from the book.

Definitely worth reading if you don’t want to go to sleep at night.

As an aside the best adpatation of Stephen King books into films, for me, is The Green Mile and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (The Stand doesn’t count as that was a TV mini-series). All the rest you need the King imagination part to make the book work, something that always lacks in the films.

1 Like

Ew i hate Green Mile. There is a lot I would take before that! Running Man, Stand by me, Carrie

Halfway through The Bottom Corner: A Season with the Dreamers of Non-League Football by Nige Tassell

A really good insight into non-league football and some of the characters that inhabit the nether regions of the football pyramid

Crash by JG Ballard. I saw the film many years ago and wondered how true it was to the book. If anything the book is even more pervy. If you like your sex off the scale kinky, this is for you!

Just finished Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad. It’s a deeply affecting read, or listen as it was in my case. It’s a brilliant study of arguably the most important battle in world history, a titanic struggle between two totalitarian states. As a reader, the only side I could pick was that of the common soldier, sent into this crucible by armchair megalomaniacs that never knew the hardships they were creating or perpetuating, Hitler being especially prone to his own press. Stalin doesn’t come out of this much better as a human being, even though the Soviet Union was the nation that managed to achieve the imperial expansion it sought pre-war, including a large part of Germany.

Along with Verdun, Stalingrad is up there for one of the least-wanted representations of hell on Earth. Human beings so malnourished that when many eventually got food, it killed them, because the body’s ability to process fats had atrophied. A Wehrmacht sent into territory they were told was full of sub-humans, with an order to kill all partisans, and a very loose definition of what a partisan actually was.

The SS, operating behind the front lines, applying Nazi “policy” to any “untermencshen” unfortunate to come their way. POW camps that were just barbed wire enclosures, with no shelter, where soldiers were simply left to die. Summary executions and collective punishment meted out by the Nazis, returned in spades by the Soviets.

Insane decisions from the totalitarian leaders. Stalin disappeared from view in the first three weeks of Barbarossa, simply because he couldn’t believe he was wrong (he’d been warned for months beforehand and attributed it all to a Churchillian plot to bring the Russians into the war), and probably had cause to dwell on the 30K experienced Red Army officers he’d purged in the preceding decade. The last comment I’ll make on the contest between the two leaders, and it’s not one made by the book, but Stalin, whatever else he was, was a man learning harsh lessons from huge mistakes. Hitler was someone convinced that previous success made future success inevitable.

The human cost was incredible. Barbarossa took at least 26m lives. Stalingrad was the furthest the Nazis ever got, and from Beevor’s account, seems to be an illustration of just how depraved and immoral we humans can be when motivated, properly or otherwise.

Arguably humanity’s darkest moment.

2 Likes

I ‘enjoyed’ this too.

If this sort of thing had been on the syllabus I may have enjoyed History at school.

Still, it’s no Spinning Jenny.

2 Likes

Just finished reading the Helliconia trilogy (Brian Aldiss), the first 2 were very good I feel he ran out of ideas for the 3rd part.

Still interesting scientific ideas and good social commentary.

Especially liked the idea of necrogenes!

I also learnt some new big words which I am unlikely to remember or use in RL

1 Like