The Book Thread

Philly_Q

@mo6020 thanks for those.  I've seen the film of The Ritual and I've certainly heard of Stephen Graham Jones, but I think the others are new to me.

mo6020

All good, man. Horror isn’t really my specialist genre, but I do enjoy it.  

Placidcasual79

thanks for starting this thread @ennspek - I love to read - I always have a book on the go and normally a couple in the up next pile...... If I can't find something new to read I'll reread something. I've read. some of my favourite books 8 or 9 times..... the difficulty I have is I don't know anyone else who really reads or how to find good stuff to read - I'd like to find a book equivalent of Mojo magazine or something.... I've worked my way trough a few. of those 100 books to read before you die - and on the other hand I've read plenty of those pretty awful books you get in the supermarket - the Lee Child, Karen Slaughter type stuff - mindless page turners.

I'll check in on this thread regularly to get id@ ;

This week I've finished 'The Shards' - Bret Easton Ellis' latest..... it's his best imho..... it's the same aesthetic as all his books, the tension, the implied dread, the dark humour..... its really enjoyable.....
And I've just started reading 'The Corner' by David Simon and Edward Burns -  the people who did Homicide and the Wire. It's excellent, one of those books that draws the characters so vividly you feel like you would recognise them on. the street. 

duotone

Finished Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger. Its a brilliant college football book set in Odessa, Texas during the High Schools 1988 season. A wonderful book & I'm really not sure what I want to read next...probably something not set in Japan or sports related atm, after finishing two lately like that.

goldtop

At long last, I got around to reading Neuromancer, by William Gibson. Might be my new favourite book (previously Perfume, by Suskind).

It is super-dense with detail and at times I could only read a chapter at a time. But the story's great and the world Gibson creates seems, now, uncanny in its vision. I'd guessed that it pre-dated the Blade Runner, but it actually came out afterwards.

Philly_Q

I'm reading Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome.  It's good, and very amusingly written, but really it's just a string of little essays and musings held together by the thinnest of plots.  I think I'll take a break before reading the sequel, Three Men On The Bummel, as I suspect it will be more of the same.

bobblehat

Just started listening to Dave Grohls Story Teller . about a 3rd of the the way through and really enjoying it.

Pjon

Placidcasual79 said:

This week I've finished 'The Shards' - Bret Easton Ellis' latest..... it's his best imho..... it's the same aesthetic as all his books, the tension, the implied dread, the dark humour..... its really enjoyable.....
And I've just started reading 'The Corner' by David Simon and Edward Burns -  the people who did Homicide and the Wire. It's excellent, one of those books that draws the characters so vividly you feel like you would recognise them on. the street. 

One of the best books I've read this year and for a long time, and I think I agree that it's his best. It couldn't be any more Bret Easton Ellis before becoming parody, but I thought it was excellent. I got a little concerned about leaving my Kindle anywhere, in case anyone read it, because of all the very graphic descriptions of sex. and then I left it in the work kitchen overnight. Thankfully it was in the same place when I found it the next day and my colleagues haven't questioned my choice of pornography!  

Pjon

Philly_Q said:

I'm reading Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome.  It's good, and very amusingly written, but really it's just a string of little essays and musings held together by the thinnest of plots.  I think I'll take a break before reading the sequel, Three Men On The Bummel, as I suspect it will be more of the same.

I love those books, and have always enjoyed the idea of doing that trip down the Thames but have never got off my backside to actually do it. Bummel isn't as good as Bike, but it's worth reading.

mo6020

I've recently read Taylor Brown's first two books, Fallen Land and The River of Kings. They were both great.

I like books about places and these very much are about the land rather than the people. 

Synopses below...

Fallen Land: 

Fallen Land is Taylor Brown's debut novel set in the final year of the Civil War, as a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward.

Callum, a seasoned horse thief at fifteen years old, came to America from his native Ireland as an orphan. Ava, her father and brother lost to the war, hides in her crumbling home until Callum determines to rescue her from the bands of hungry soldiers pillaging the land, leaving destruction in their wake. Ava and Callum have only each other in the world and their remarkable horse, Reiver, who carries them through the destruction that is the South. Pursued relentlessly by a murderous slave hunter, tracking dogs, and ruthless ex-partisan rangers, the couple race through a beautiful but ruined land, surviving on food they glean from abandoned farms and the occasional kindness of strangers. In the end, as they intersect with the scorching destruction of Sherman's March, the couple seek a safe haven where they can make a home and begin to rebuild their lives.

Dramatic and thrillingly written with an uncanny eye for glimpses of beauty in a ravaged landscape, Fallen Land is a love story at its core, and an unusually assured first novel by award-winning young author Taylor Brown.

The River of Kings:

Two brothers travel a storied river’s past and present in search of the truth about their father’s death in the second novel by the acclaimed author of Fallen Land.

The Altamaha River, Georgia’s “Little Amazon,” has been named one of the 75 “Last Great Places in the World.” Crossed by roads only five times in its 137-mile length, the blackwater river is home to thousand-year-old virgin cypress, descendants of 18th-century Highland warriors, and a motley cast of rare and endangered species. The Altamaha has even been rumored to harbor its own river monster, as well as traces of the most ancient European fort in North America.

Brothers Hunter and Lawton Loggins set off to kayak the river, bearing their father’s ashes toward the sea. Hunter is a college student, Lawton a Navy SEAL on leave; both young men were raised by an angry, enigmatic shrimper who loved the river, and whose death remains a mystery that his sons hope to resolve. As the brothers proceed downriver, their story is interwoven with that of Jacques Le Moyne, an artist who accompanied the 1564 expedition to found a French settlement at the river’s mouth, which began as a search for riches and ended in a bloody confrontation with Spanish conquistadors and native tribes, leaving the fort in ruins and a few survivors fleeing for their lives.

In The River of Kings, SIBA-bestselling author Taylor Brown artfully weaves three narrative strands—the brothers’ journey, their father’s past, and the dramatic history of the river’s earliest people—to evoke a legendary place and its powerful hold on the human imagination.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

After discovering Sebastian Barry by reading the Booker-nominated Old God'sTime I've been working my way through quite a few of his books in between others.

The 'McNulty Family Trilogy' (The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, The Secret Scripture, and The Temporary Gentleman) was exceptional, especially the middle one. And Days Without End and its sequel A Thousand Moons were arguably even better. Convinced me he's one of the best living writers in the English Language. Wish I'd read some of his stuff earlier!

Most recent book I've read was On Java Road by Lawrence Osborne. Bought purely on the strength of the strap line on the cover saying "The bastard child of Graham Green and Patricia Highsmith". Turned out to be neither. Average at best - lesson learned to not believe the blurbs! 

RocknRollDave

Currently reading Julia by Sandra Newman, which is a retelling of Orwell’s 1984, but, as the title implies, from Julia’s perspective not Winston’s. 

Just under halfway through, enjoying it so far. 

Blueingreen

Just finished:

Long Island:  Colm Toibin.  A sequel to Brooklyn.  Like Brooklyn fairly soapy, melodramatic events conveyed in a very controlled, formal, rather detached style.  I found it more enjoyable than Brooklyn but my favourite Toibins are The Magician (fiction based on the life of Thomas Mann) and especially The Master (fiction based on an excerpt of the life of Henry James).

Absolutely and Forever: Rose Tremain.  Hard to describe, very idiosyncratic coming of age novel.  Posh girl born to stuffy upper middle class parents in the 50s, who wants to rebel but has some terrible luck. I'm a fan of Tremain except that I don't much like historical fiction, which makes me avoid some of her books.  I don't consider this historical fiction, although technically it qualifies. This is very good Tremain but not the one I'd recommend to people reading her for the first time - I'd go with The Gustav Sonata.

Recently started:  The Bee Sting, Paul Murray and Bel Canto by Anne Patchett.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Blueingreen said:

Just finished:

Long Island:  Colm Toibin.  A sequel to Brooklyn.  Like Brooklyn fairly soapy, melodramatic events conveyed in a very controlled, formal, rather detached style.  I found it more enjoyable than Brooklyn but my favourite Toibins are The Magician (fiction based on the life of Thomas Mann) and especially The Master (fiction based on an excerpt of the life of Henry James).

Absolutely and Forever: Rose Tremain.  Hard to describe, very idiosyncratic coming of age novel.  Posh girl born to stuffy upper middle class parents in the 50s, who wants to rebel but has some terrible luck. I'm a fan of Tremain except that I don't much like historical fiction, which makes me avoid some of her books.  I don't consider this historical fiction, although technically it qualifies. This is very good Tremain but not the one I'd recommend to people reading her for the first time - I'd go with The Gustav Sonata.

Recently started:  The Bee Sting, Paul Murray and Bel Canto by Anne Patchett.

Long Island is going to be my next Audible listen. Loved Brooklyn, and the audiobook is narrated by Jesse Buckley, so it should be fantastic. 

I read The Bee Sting last week - very good indeed.

duotone

I’m currently 1/3rd of the way through this Alexander McQueen book. It’s the first fashion designer book I’ve ever read, but I’m really enjoying it.

Blueingreen

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

Blueingreen said:

Just finished:

Long Island:  Colm Toibin.  A sequel to Brooklyn.  Like Brooklyn fairly soapy, melodramatic events conveyed in a very controlled, formal, rather detached style.  I found it more enjoyable than Brooklyn but my favourite Toibins are The Magician (fiction based on the life of Thomas Mann) and especially The Master (fiction based on an excerpt of the life of Henry James).

Absolutely and Forever: Rose Tremain.  Hard to describe, very idiosyncratic coming of age novel.  Posh girl born to stuffy upper middle class parents in the 50s, who wants to rebel but has some terrible luck. I'm a fan of Tremain except that I don't much like historical fiction, which makes me avoid some of her books.  I don't consider this historical fiction, although technically it qualifies. This is very good Tremain but not the one I'd recommend to people reading her for the first time - I'd go with The Gustav Sonata.

Recently started:  The Bee Sting, Paul Murray and Bel Canto by Anne Patchett.

Long Island is going to be my next Audible listen. Loved Brooklyn, and the audiobook is narrated by Jesse Buckley, so it should be fantastic. 

I read The Bee Sting last week - very good indeed.

I listened to it on Audible.  Jessie Buckley is indeed terrific.

About 120 pages into The Bee Sting, enjoying it a lot so far.

EricTheWeary

duotone said: I’m currently 1/3rd of the way through this Alexander McQueen book. It’s the first fashion designer book I’ve ever read, but I’m really enjoying it.







I’ve been to his grave ( apologies if that’s a spoiler!).