Last Book You Read....

[Jmothecat2]

A Very English Scandal.
Lib Dem leader Jeremy Thorpe conspires to murder his gay lover in the 70s.
Excellent read.
And a true story as well.

I picked that up from Waterstones recently, haven't got round to reading it yet though.

[The Saintee]

2 minutes ago, Jmothecat2 said:

 

I picked that up from Waterstones recently, haven't got round to reading it yet though.

 

I really enjoyed it. Hopefully you do as well. I think a tv version has been made also.

[mighty meadow]

Just read 'The Last Days Of Disco' by David F. Ross

Two friends decide to try their hand at mobile DJing. pissing off the local gangster in the process. Set in early 80's Ayrshire, mainly Kilmarnock, Troon and surrounding areas. Few laugh out loud moments and more than a few moments I can relate to given my attempts at DJing in my younger days. Well worth a read. 8/10

 

Now onto 'This Is Memorial Device' by David Keenan.  A story about Airdrie's finest, fictional, post-punk band.

[Raidernation]

Work colleague bought me Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott for Christmas, great book (if not the easiest to read due to the archaic prose style)

[moniton]

With the old breed- Eugene Sledge: enjoyed this, it fleshed out some of the things detailed in " The Pacific " . A good companion to the series 6.5/10
Don Quixote - wow, what a revelation, I absolutely loved this. There were a few episodes that went on too long ( a dream sequence ) but, on the whole, a fabulous read considering how old it is. 9/10
Now onto "Somme" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore then "The Quarry " by Iain Banks.

[tongue_tied_danny]

I picked up a copy of The Metamorphoses in a second hand shop the other day. I've never read any Kafka before but I suppose this is a good place to start.

[Richey Edwards]

Current reading.

[JustOneCornetto]

Cottoned on to Haruki Murakami via David Lynch and just read Norwegian Wood which I believe is his most straight forward story. I'm not a big reader of fiction but I got engrossed in this story and will definitely try some more of his books expecting more in the way of surrealism/sci-fi.

[LondonHMFC]

Dog Rounds: Death and Life in the Boxing Ring, written by Elliot Worsell. Worsell was at ringside the night Eubank Jr pulverized Nick Blackwell. He was also in the changing room during the aftermath. 

Worsell, someone who had been invovled with boxing his whole life then starts to question his relationship with the sport, and sets out to speak to those who have killed opponents in the ring to see the problems that they face.

Really good read, some parts are particularly hard to get through, but Worsell writes incredibly well. 

[mighty meadow]

Finished 'This Is Memorial Device' by David Keenan.

One of my favourite books  in a long time.  Memorial Device are a fictional post-punk band from Airdrie and this is their story told through a series of interviews with members of the band and various people from the scene.

Sex, drugs, rock n roll and death.

You end up wishing that they had been a real band.

 

Also read 'Good Me, Bad Me' by Ali Land on my wife's recommendation. Told through the eyes of a teenage girl whose mother is a serial killer.  Not a book that I would have picked myself but decent enough if mostly unbelievable.  Read it in  less than a day which probably says everything.

 

Now reading 'The Rise Of The Miraculous Vespas' by David F. Ross, follow up of sorts to 'The Last Days of Disco' . Again set in Kilmarnock and featuring some characters from his previous novel. Not far enough in to tell the plot but going well so far.

[mighty meadow]

Not had much time to read this last few days but finished 'The Rise and Fall Of The Miraculous Vespas' by David F. Ross this morning.

Great stuff again. 

The Miraculous Vespas are a fictional band from Kilmarnock in the early 80s. Featuring various characters from 'The Last Days of Disco'  and many others including Billy Sloan, The Mary Chain, Orange Juice and Boy George.  Lots of laughs, Ayrshire gangsters, Glasgow music venues, drugs, alcohol and violence.

Highly recommended.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

The Mortal Engines quartet by Philip Reeve - The right balance between terrifying and comforting when you go back to a formative part of your youth ~ten years later

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - A forgettable voice amidst an unforgettable sea of millions of forgettable voices

[Miguel Sanchez]

5 minutes ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

The Mortal Engines books were absolutely class - hope the film coming out does them justice.

The trailer horrified me but it was nice to go back to the books, I'd been meaning to do it for a while.

[deadasdillinger]

In the last few months, I've read - Limmy's Thats Your Lot (hilarious), Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance (fascinating), Kill Your Friends by John Niven (top notch, delighted to hear he's doing a sequel), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (enjoyable, though the secondary plot with the grandparents was a load of shite), A Life In Parts by Bryan Cranston (interesting enough), f**k Whales by Maddox (hysterical), Battle Royale by Houshum Takami (interesting to read having been such a fan of the film for so long), Moneyball by Michael Lewis (pretty dull), The Artist Being Iniesta (not bad), Stewart Lee's book (fantastic), Ruth and Martin's Album Club (great), I Can't Belive You Just Said That by Danny Wallace (disappointing) , and currently reading Bruce Dickinson's autobiography (alright) and Poverty Safari (cracking, but hard in places).

On 08/01/2018 at 11:31, mighty meadow said:

Finally,  spent New Year on Arran reading Kerby by Graeme Johnston.  Subtitled 'Funny Tales From A  1990's Scottish Childhood', well I did laugh (final chapter) but until then it was pretty much struggling to justify the 49p I paid for it in the local charity shop. Sorry 2/10

I'll not give up the day job just yet then!

[Miguel Sanchez]

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

The sort of thing which would be much more engaging if it was written after the school of thought it helped inspired had developed sufficiently so that people writing about it know how to attach believable characters to its premises

[Ya Bezzer!]

I almost finished 'Steppenwolf' about a year ago but with only a couple of chapters left clumsily dropped the book in a deep puddle and completely ruined it.  Anyway, I was impressed enough to try another Hesse novel and I picked 'Narcissus and Goldmund'.

Essentially it's about a young man that rejects religion and society in Medieval Europe to go off and have adventures on the road (i.e., serial shagging and a couple of justifiable homicides) before having to come to terms with the end of his youth, his artistic creativity and his own mortality.

As a 40+ man child a lot of the mental conflicts of Goldmund struck home with me and the Black Death sections really gives an insight into what a terrifying time it must have been when anyone at any time could be touched by death and be gone in a matter of days.  In particular the scene where Goldmund discovers the dead family in the abandoned farm house is quite chilling.  In many ways the book reminded me of the great Soviet war film 'Come And See' in it's creepy, claustrophobic and  all pervading sense of death., the idea that the skeletal hand is never more than an inch away from your shoulder.  How do you live your life?  And how do you come to terms with the inevitable?

It's beautifully written and genuinely philosophical.

Moving on to Paul Bowles 'The Sheltering Sky', and I've just ordered Robert Byron's 'The Road to Oxiana', 'Southern Mail/Night Flight' by Antoine Saint-Exupery and John Reed's '10 Days That Shook The World'.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Ya Bezzer!

[DiegoDiego]

3 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Robert Byron's 'The Road to Oxiana'

It's not among my favourite travel books. It's great in parts but I'm nowhere near well enough versed in ancient architecture to understand what he's on about half the time. Rory Stewart wrote the introduction to the edition I have, I cannot recommend his "The Places in Between" enough.

[Ya Bezzer!]

9 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

It's not among my favourite travel books. It's great in parts but I'm nowhere near well enough versed in ancient architecture to understand what he's on about half the time. Rory Stewart wrote the introduction to the edition I have, I cannot recommend his "The Places in Between" enough.

I'll not claim to be an expert in ancient architecture but I know a little bit and I'm quite interested in it.  

I have a romantic fascination with Afghanistan/Hindu Kush/Punjab/Kashmir/Central Asia.  I think it probably originally stems from reading about the campaigns of Alexander the Great so 'The Places in Between' sounds interesting. Maybe if I live long enough to read all the books I want to read I'll get round to it, I'll certainly stick it on the list.

I would absolutely love to travel the Karakorum Highway but will probably never get there.

 

[DiegoDiego]

2 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

I have a romantic fascination with Afghanistan [...] so 'The Places in Between' sounds interesting.

I highly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in either travel or the region. It has far more in common with the travels of Thesiger or Fermor than anyone from this century while at the same time completely opening my eyes to the realities of life in Afghanistan and the complexities of the country. He constantly links the places he passes through to historical events, especially to the Mughal emperor Babur. Stewart both knows his history very well, but also the present, having been deputy governor of a couple of Iraqi provinces. For someone with your interests I'd call it a must read.

I've travelled extensively and my favourite part of the world is Central Asia: the landscapes, the history, the food, the women, the pace of life. If only they were a bit better at football.

[the jambo-rocker]

Since the turn of the year, I've made it a habit to make sure I read hardback every day, even if it is just a bare minimum of ten pages.

So far this year.

Nutmeg 6 :Does a periodical count as a book? 

Fever Pitch: Very enjoyable read. Nothing like the film really; I found myself nodding to a lot of it, and that quite a few mannerisms of going to the football still stand as relevant as they do today even after nearly three decades.

How the Brain changes itself: Fascinating, but a difficult prose. It took me a lot longer to get through this. I don't if it's down to the way it is written, or if I'm genuinely that dim (75% sure it's the latter). For some of the stories on brain plasticity, it has definitely changed my view on how the brain works, changes over time and what it does when you lose something, whether it's a limb, an eye or even how people come back from a stroke.

Right now I'm reading Deep Work: In a world where our attention spans are getting shorter, it's an interesting perspective so far in why this is become the norm and what we can do to combat our own.