Last Book You Read....

[Gnash]

On 22/10/2020 at 01:37, Arabdownunder said:

Just rattled through the new Rebus. Getting more and more difficult for Rankin to construct a narrative in which a retired detective can  get involved in solving murders.  

I've read 4 back to back and definitely agree that the premise is wearing very thin.  Enjoyable enough though. 

I've moved on to How to build a Universe by the Infinite Monkey Cage team, which similtaneously raises and lowers the tone on this thread.

[Mr Tourette]

Talking of Booker prize winners:-

Just finished A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. About politically sponsored gang violence and CIA involvement in 70s Jamaica, including the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. The gangs spread from there into the crack cocaine wars in USA in the 80s and early 90s

Tremendous stuff and a lot of it I had no idea about before hand

[BillyAnchor]

I tried Shuggie Bain, my granny lived across from the Sighthill high flats so seemed something I'd get into. I found the characters stereotyped beyond tolerance and gave up after about 40 pages, maybe it improved but I couldnt take it.

[RH33]

On 23/10/2020 at 12:12, Shandön Par said:

New Rebus book. Alright. A bit Midsummer Murdery. Prefer the sections on the Edinburgh villains. 

Less Than Zero, by James Easton Ellis. I had to google this to check it really did come from 1985 and wasn't some marketing ploy. "Timeless" can be a naff phrase but it felt like it could have been written today. It's a fairly short book and follows our main character, Clay, as he returns from uni to LA for the Christmas hols. It's a world of rich kids who are desperately lacking guidance. Cool, bleak, too much too young stuff. Or a dark comedy horror. Really impressive book. 

 

I’ve just ordered the new rebus. 

[Granny Danger]

17 hours ago, BillyAnchor said:

I tried Shuggie Bain, my granny lived across from the Sighthill high flats so seemed something I'd get into. I found the characters stereotyped beyond tolerance and gave up after about 40 pages, maybe it improved but I couldnt take it.

Slight divergence, but one of the huge benefits of the Kindle is being able to read a fair sample prior to spending.

[Shandon Par]

22 hours ago, Mr Tourette said:

Talking of Booker prize winners:-

Just finished A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. About politically sponsored gang violence and CIA involvement in 70s Jamaica, including the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. The gangs spread from there into the crack cocaine wars in USA in the 80s and early 90s

Tremendous stuff and a lot of it I had no idea about before hand

Absolutely loved that. Pre-COVID it was meant to have been picked up by Amazon to turn into a tv series. Some really powerful scenes in it, like the burial. 

[Shandon Par]

11 hours ago, RH33 said:

I’ve just ordered the new rebus. 

Hope you enjoy it! It reminded me a wee bit of when old tv shows ran out of ideas so would send the cast on holiday. The best stuff in it is the grittier Edinburgh underbelly IMO. Still enjoyed it though - tend to get through Rebus books within a day or two and can’t put them down.

[tongue_tied_danny]

5 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Slight divergence, but one of the huge benefits of the Kindle is being able to read a fair sample prior to spending.

You can do that in Waterstone's. 

 

[Granny Danger]

6 minutes ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

You can do that in Waterstone's. 

 

^^^^ tier 1

[NotThePars]

I finished The Years of Rice and Salt which I really enjoyed.

 

It ended up sticking loosely to the format of following a Revolutionary, a Pious Man, and The Scientist through key points in the history of the world within the novel which broadly followed along the lines of our history but with a corresponding rise of China, India, Muslim Europe and Asia, and the resilient Native Americans culminating 3/4s of the way through in a world war that lasts 67 years and kills roughly one billion of the world population.

 

After that is maybe the strongest part of the novel as it becomes more meditative and sorta acts like a critique of history as a discipline and the novel Robinson is writing.

 

The ending is very muted but I think it suits the story that Robinson was trying to tell and it would’ve been worse if it had ended either with the Long War or the Chinese communist revolution that followed.

 

Anyway I fancy something a bit less reflective and subdued so I’ve picked up A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back which is a collection of short stories by a load of authors focusing on characters and events from the Empire Strikes Back. Presumably it’s so Disney can pad out the EU after wiping virtually everything from before the acquisition but there’s a few authors in it I really like so it’ll be cool to see what they do with the premise.

 

[Hauzen]

This might have been covered elsewhere. Maybe not. But it's possible. I read a Lee Child book recently. The other day, maybe yesterday. Maybe a different week. But definitely read it. Literature. Like poetry but bigger. 

 

Honestly how the f**k is he a best seller? The prose is hideously stilted and lazy, and Reacher seems like an annoying c**t as well.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Hauzen said:

This might have been covered elsewhere. Maybe not. But it's possible. I read a Lee Child book recently. The other day, maybe yesterday. Maybe a different week. But definitely read it. Literature. Like poetry but bigger. 

 

Honestly how the f**k is he a best seller? The prose is hideously stilted and lazy, and Reacher seems like an annoying c**t as well.

Have to admit they're a guilty pleasure but I agree with every word of that. Every book is virtually identical, he 's clearly found a format that pays and sees no point in changing it. He's even franchised the actual writing off to his brother now.

[Monkey Tennis]

I've just finished 'A Long Petal of the Sea' by Isabel Allende.

It's only 300 odd pages, but felt like a bit of a slog by the end.

It's one of those sweepily ambitious things spanning several decades and a couple of continents, following characters exiled first from Franco's Spain, then becoming exiled from their new home in Pinochet's Chile too.  

Despite occasional nice touches, I got a bit bogged down in the prose at times, but translations can sometimes feel a bit like that.

I learnt some stuff I didn't know, like that France housed fleeing Republican Spaniards in Concentration Camps so dreadful that 90% of the children in them died.  The attempt to weave fiction into these events wasn't that successful in my view though, maybe because of the unconvincing characterisation.

Basically, it was ok, but I'm not clamouring to unearth her other stuff.

[NotThePars]

Picked up Knausgaard again and just wanted to quote this bit that made me laugh: “During these past weeks writing about Mein Kampf I have been contemplating what I know about evil. Before I started I never gave it a thought, it was an issue belonging to my teenage years, my Bjorneboe period, when I felt personally responsible for all humanity.”

[Detournement]

4 hours ago, NotThePars said:

it was an issue belonging to my teenage years, my Bjorneboe period, when I felt personally responsible for all humanity.”

That's what happens when you don't w**k. 

 

[saint dave]

Couple of Vietnam war books recently.

Vietnam : An Epic Tragedy , 1945 - 1975 by Max Hastings

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

Usual in-depth storytelling and detail from Max Hastings , starting with the fall of the French to the end of the American war with interviews from soldiers and politicians from all sides. Goes into great detail about how the South Vietnamese government did basically nothing for their own people , allowing the communists to spread propaganda and win over many of the people , especially away from the cities.   9/10

Chickenhawk is a biography of a helicopter pilot from training through to the end of his active duty tour of Vietnam with the first created fully airborne and airmobile regiment , the 1st Cavalry. Quite a narrow focus , but , still a good read . 7/10

 

 

 

 

 

[Granny Danger]

Just finished Empire Falls by Richard Russo.  Might have enjoyed it more had I been a US resident and understood some of the more underlying themes.  Not sure it deserved the Pulitzer but hey ho.

[tongue_tied_danny]

20 hours ago, saint dave said:

Couple of Vietnam war books recently.

Vietnam : An Epic Tragedy , 1945 - 1975 by Max Hastings

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

Usual in-depth storytelling and detail from Max Hastings , starting with the fall of the French to the end of the American war with interviews from soldiers and politicians from all sides. Goes into great detail about how the South Vietnamese government did basically nothing for their own people , allowing the communists to spread propaganda and win over many of the people , especially away from the cities.   9/10

Chickenhawk is a biography of a helicopter pilot from training through to the end of his active duty tour of Vietnam with the first created fully airborne and airmobile regiment , the 1st Cavalry. Quite a narrow focus , but , still a good read . 7/10

 

 

 

 

 

I'll have to get my mitts on the Hastings one. He's a really good writer.

My favourite 'nam memoir is In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff. The author was a self confessed shitebag who pretty much avoided combat but he does spin a good yarn.

Edited November 28, 2020 by tongue_tied_danny

[Monkey Tennis]

Middle England by Jonathan Coe.

Quite enjoyable.   In it, he attempts to wrestle with how ill at ease with itself England seems to have become in the last decade.  He does so with some of the characters from The Rotters' Club and its better sequel, The Closed Circle.

I like Coe - The Rain Before it Falls for instance is terrific.  This works fairly well but in looking at demographics, it feels a bit 'by numbers' at times.  The old lady lurches too easily into quoting Enoch Powell with approval, while the cool young, right on, student displays casual but vile anti semitism. 

Other bits are more subtly observed, but I'm not sure that the book achieves much more than being an agreeable enough read.

[Stellaboz]

Red Mars. 

Absolutely incredible epic tale of 100 people going to  Mars to initiate plans for colonization. It just utterly blows up from there into something insane. Found it impossible to image a lot of the time, but it's a fantastic read which explores future possibilities on the red planet, as well as the self-destruct nature of capitalism and society as we know it today.