What are you reading at the moment?

quarky

Love that series. I read The Burning Land last May, so should probably read the next one in the series.

Just finished this:

Just reading this:

Skipped

Just finished reading this:



I thought it was dull and poorly written

"The Queen called a special meeting of the royal Way Ahead Group, chaired by herself. It was around this time that a decision was made by senior royals to eliminate Princess Diana – with the acquiescence and knowledge of the leaders of the UK, France and USA: Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Bill Clinton.

Diana, Princess of Wales was a “loose cannon”, had caused too much trouble and now had to go. "

equalsql

Bill Bryson on great form.
His rye description of Eastleigh in the book is exquisitely accurate:

"Across the way at the bus station, two men in bomber jackets were having a morning aperitif from matching cans of lager. A pigeon picked at a cigarette butt and squeezed out a little shit."

Priceless stuff

>:D<

Skipped

equalsql said:

Fantastic! I have just decided what I am reading next. I wanted something uplifting.

RocknRollDave

Chris Brookmyre's latest one, Black Widow.

Enjoying it, quite a lot of suspense so far, which you could also interpret as 'not much has actually happened' but definitely an improvement upon some of his more fantastical recent ones.

therose789

Finished this a couple of weeks ago and it blew my tiny little mind. 

Currently reading Love Wins by Rob Bell 

I know he's a pastor/christian/whatever and that would put a lot of people off however this book is also blowing my tiny mind! 

Next on the list is some reading for Uni...

SRich

I'm a sucker for music biographies, and this one has the extra interest of Dave Stewart being from my home town. Man the guy has produced some amazing artists - Dylan, Tom Petty- the list is endless. Quite the naive document of his life (and it doesn't sound ghost written), but the anecdotes are great.

Neil

Currently reading Pure Gold, David Gold's (chairman of West Ham) autobiography.

My son bought me a copy and had  it dedicated to me.

Really interesting story of a tough and incredibly poor East end childhood before his rise.

quarky

boogieman

equalsql said:

Bill Bryson on great form.
His rye description of Eastleigh in the book is exquisitely accurate:

"Across the way at the bus station, two men in bomber jackets were having a morning aperitif from matching cans of lager. A pigeon picked at a cigarette butt and squeezed out a little shit."

Priceless stuff

>:D<

I'm reading BB's "America Summer 1927" at the mo. Excellent stuff too, although it doesn't have the humour of Little Dribbling.

tabbycat

 

bobblehat

Just finished Bob Harris' autobiography "Still Whispering" 

Incredible career and the anecdotes are great. A bit self indulgent at times but these are easily skimmed through.

Only 99p on the kindle store!

Just started Game of Thrones . A much easier read having seen the series. I could imagine some may have given up after the first few chapters.

quarky

GuyBoden

I must reread.......................

Skipped

Reading the new Paul McCartney bio by Philip Norman. These two have had a slightly frosty relationship ever since Norman's Beatle book "Shout" which McCartney though was unkind to him. But after making contact McCartney gave him tacit approval for a new book (and gave access to his staff).

This book is excellent. If you enjoyed Shout you will like this. There are little snippets of trivia every couple of pages that are new to me and even the first few chapters about his early family life have held my attention.

jpttaylor

Halfway through Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr - a very strange but enthralling book.

On the subject of books about the Beatles, I hugely recommend reading Revolution in the Head by Ian McDonald. It chronicles song by song the context of their discography and impact that they have had on society. Some details have been disputed by McCartney, but it's a really interesting read.

Paul_C

Finished the Ted Chiang, back to Hannu Rajaniemi with The Fractal Prince.

Grunfeld

This won the Wellcome book prize this year, so obviously it has a medical theme.  Really well written and it's an account of some of conditions which are often called "psychosomatic" -- i.e there's no organic medical cause for the problem, whether it's blindness, or uncontrolled seizures, or inability to walk -- and yet the problem is still very real for the patient.  Fascinating stuff -- especially the accounts about how the presentation of these conditions is linked to patients' ideas of illness and their culture and so on.  So you get these psychosomatic illnesses all around the world but they change depending on where the patient lives. 

Suzanne O'Sullivan, "It's All In Your Head"

boogieman

Skipped;1078836" said:

Reading the new Paul McCartney bio by Philip Norman. These two have had a slightly frosty relationship ever since Norman's Beatle book "Shout" which McCartney though was unkind to him. But after making contact McCartney gave him tacit approval for a new book (and gave access to his staff).



This book is excellent. If you enjoyed Shout you will like this. There are little snippets of trivia every couple of pages that are new to me and even the first few chapters about his early family life have held my attention.

Ooh cheers for that, I'll have to give it a go, I thought "Shout" was a great book.

I've just finished Danny Baker's "Going off alarming", part two of his autobiography. Nowhere near as good as the first one unfortunately. It's absolutely full of gratuitous swearing; I'm no prude but it really grates after a while and loses all impact. I've never particularly liked DB as a person but he's extremely funny when he's on form. This book lacks that humour and just comes across as a tale of self-love and a history of every showbiz person he's met. Disappointing.

Jalapeno

Not as good as the first two in the series, really messy plotline IMHO, but OK.