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  • SnapSnap Frets: 6256

    The Dice Man! Long time since I read that, wow. The sequel is good too.

    I am reading Rejoice, by Steven Erikson. Very different to his Malazan stuff. Good.

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  • The Shepherd's Hut - TIm Winton.

    An Untouched House - Willem Frederik Hermans


    If you can read this then my time machine works.

     My feedback thread is here.

      http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57602/


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  • deanodeano Frets: 622
    Re-reading C. P. Snow's The Masters. It looks at the machinations and manoeuvring that takes place when a Cambridge college has to choose a new Master. It is set in 1937 and the protagonist, Lewis Eliot, watches and takes part in the politics behind the election.

    It is the fifth book in the Strangers and Brothers series that looks at Eliot's life and career as a barrister, Cambridge Don, Civil Servant and Lord in the House of Lords.

    I started reading them when I was introduced to the series 35 years ago whilst at school, when we rest Book 6 - The New Men, where Eliot is a Civil Servant in the War Ministry in the Second World War where he is part of the effort to develop the atomic bomb.

    I like them. They are very English, very "quiet". They are not Tom Clancy! The only problem with them is that as they are written from a first-person point of view, and they are about quiet academics, lawyers or politicians, Eliot is continually describing the inner thoughts, feelings and motivations of people around him. There is no "action" to reveal those internal thoughts so they have to be voiced by Eliot. I think that is their main weakness but if you can live with that, then they are quite brilliant.

    I have never met anyone who has ever read them (except those who were in my 'O' Level English Literature class in 1982), so it would be interesting if anyone else has.
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  • NiteflyNitefly Frets: 4902
    @deano - amazing!  Our Maud (Mrs Nitefly) did exactly the same as you, but about 15 years earlier.  Started with The New Men for 'A' level English Lit, and went back to read the whole series.

    She always spoke of them with great affection, but somehow I never got round to them myself.

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  • Just finished The Shepherds Crown, last of the Discworld series from Sir Terry Pratchett.
    Started reading one of them a few years ago on holiday, got into them and have worked my way through all 40 something of them.
    Quite sad thinking there will be no more.
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  • pmbombpmbomb Frets: 1169
    Just finished "War With Russia" by General Sir Somebody. Very plausible except for the method of NATO's victory. Also it's based on a US President who gives a toss, so another flaw there.

    Started The Handmaid's Tale but I know it's going to be grim so backed off for now. I'm more sensitive than I used to be.

    So it's a re-read of Snow Crash.
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  • pmbombpmbomb Frets: 1169
    pmbomb said:
    Just finished "War With Russia" by General Sir Somebody. Very plausible except for the method of NATO's victory. Also it's based on a US President who gives a toss, so another flaw there.


    SPOILER: it happened in 2017 ;-)
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  • vizviz Frets: 10644
    Just about to start that Max Hasting's thing on Vietnam, which I suspect may take about as long to read as the war itself...
    That’s nothing; I’m reading War and Peace which at this rate will take as long as both. 
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • pmbombpmbomb Frets: 1169
    it took me a couple of years to read War & Peace (in spurts).

    check out Vasily Grossman's Life & Fate if you're into chewy Russian reads. Solzenhitsyn too.
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  • quarkyquarky Frets: 2777
    pmbomb said:
     Solzenhitsyn too.

    Just read "Berlin The Downfall 1945", by Anthony Beevor, and reading No Greater Ally (about Poland in WW2) by Kenneth K Koskodan.

    Solzenhitsyn is next on my list! It is actually my wife's favourite book.
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  • Just read Michael Connelly's 'Dark Sacred Night'.
    Probably going to re-read 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' by John Fowles next.

    Regards, Max Hastings has anyone read his book on the Korean War? I may get this as my next choice as an audible book.
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  • CHRISB50CHRISB50 Frets: 4287
    The Templars - Dan Jones

    I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin

    But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to

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  • RMJRMJ Frets: 1274
    Calm Parents Happy Kids
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  • JerkMoansJerkMoans Frets: 8775
    Guitar Magazine - February 2019 edition
    Inactivist Lefty Lawyer
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  • viz said:
    Just about to start that Max Hasting's thing on Vietnam, which I suspect may take about as long to read as the war itself...
    That’s nothing; I’m reading War and Peace which at this rate will take as long as both. 

    I don't think Tolstoy ever read it all the way through....
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  • quarkyquarky Frets: 2777

    Regards, Max Hastings has anyone read his book on the Korean War? I may get this as my next choice as an audible book.
    No, but I read Bomber Command. Actually, that was an audio book from the library I think, so I like him as an author. He is no Beevor, but still good. Sorry, can't comment on any of his other books though.. 
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  • MoominpapaMoominpapa Frets: 1649
    Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd - absolutely fascinating book. It's a chronological narrative of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis  - which in itself is all very familiar stuff that has been gone over hundreds of times by historians - but she structures it around first hand accounts by a huge variety of foreigners who were in Germany for one reason or another during that period. So there are letters sent home by holidaymakers, memoirs by diplomats, excerpts from newspaper interviews with athletes who had competed in the 1936 Olympics, etc. Utterly absorbing and I highly recommend it.
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  • quarky said:

    Regards, Max Hastings has anyone read his book on the Korean War? I may get this as my next choice as an audible book.
    No, but I read Bomber Command. Actually, that was an audio book from the library I think, so I like him as an author. He is no Beevor, but still good. Sorry, can't comment on any of his other books though.. 
    I've read All Hell Let Loose and Catastrophe, so I kind of know what I'd be getting, but I've always fancied a bit of background on the Korean War which I know very little about.
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    quarky said:

    Regards, Max Hastings has anyone read his book on the Korean War? I may get this as my next choice as an audible book.
    No, but I read Bomber Command. Actually, that was an audio book from the library I think, so I like him as an author. He is no Beevor, but still good. Sorry, can't comment on any of his other books though.. 
    I've read All Hell Let Loose and Catastrophe, so I kind of know what I'd be getting, but I've always fancied a bit of background on the Korean War which I know very little about.
    I might have a look for the Hastings book on the Korean war. I got the Bruce Cummings one cheap on Kindle but there's very little background on the war, just straight into military strategy stuff. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • PhilW1PhilW1 Frets: 941
    I don’t know if these have been mentioned already but three I really enjoyed and the only books I’ve read more than once are 
    Catch 22
    One flew over the cuckoos nest and 
    To kill a mocking bird
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