UKC

It's been a while (iirc) so here, once again, for your delectation and delight, is the time honoured 'Tall Clare's 'what are you reading?' thread'.

So - what are you reading?

I've just finished Rock Athlete by Ron Fawcett - I found it surprisingly compulsive, and it felt very honest.

Currently reading 'Pies and Prejudice' by Stuart Maconie - I suspect I'd be enjoying it more if I didn't keep hearing Maconie's voice narrating it in my head.

In reply to Tall Clare: I've just finished "The frozen water trade", a history of the ice trade, mainly in (and from) America. A fascinating read. I'm currently reading "One good turn", a history of the screw and screwdriver!

In reply to Tall Clare:

The very thick 'The empire of the steppes: a history of Central Asia' by Rene Gousset.

This might take a long time...

After which I'll read something lighter.

In reply to Tall Clare: Working my way through the Iain M Banks culture stuff, recently finished Player Of Games and now onto Use Of Weapons. I'm enjoying his stuff more than any si-fi I've read in years.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I just read rock athlete too, I liked it but due to my preference for sport climbing, bouldering, training etc I found Jerry Moffatt's more interesting.

Currently reading "In Defense of Dogs: Why Dogs Need Our Understanding" by John Bradshaw. It's an interesting look into previously accepted dog behaviour knowledge, based largely on wolf behaviour, and why it was wrong and that domestic dogs are completely different and summarises all the more recent work supporting that. The first 95 pages were pretty hard work as it just went through the history of how dogs became domesticated but the chapters I've just read are about training methods which are of much more interest to me.

In reply to Tall Clare: Under the Dome - Stephen King

In reply to Tall Clare:

Scotland's mountains before the mountaineers by Ian Mitchell

Not rivetting reading but interesing none the less.

In reply to Tall Clare:

If one can describe oneself as reading such a book; "[teach yourself] German in three months".
Also a (slightly out-of-date) biography of Steven Spielberg (featuring a brief appearance by one Gordon Stainforth)

In reply to Tall Clare: Part way through Rock Athlete, and also reading Here and There (again), Alone in Berlin, An Idiot Abroad (not as funny as the programme). Recently read The Lincoln Lawyer, which was entertaining.

In reply to Tall Clare: The Muhammed Ali biography, quite good so far.

In reply to Tall Clare: Just finished Trespass (Rose Tremain) and The Strange Case of the Judge and the Composer (Patricia Duncker). The first very good on the psychology of human beings, the second stimulating on the nature of messianic cults. Am now striving to read La Ronde des Innocents (Valentin Musso) - a French thriller - in the original French (ssemed a good idea as I'm in France).

In reply to Tall Clare: That's spooky. They're precisely the two books I've lent to someone who hasn't returned them. I like Maconie's line about there being no food that someone from Wigan can't see improved by encasing it in pastry!

In reply to Tall Clare: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not my usual style of book but some very interesting stuff about the meaning and concept of quality, and different approaches to life.

In reply to Tall Clare: Gary Gibson's latest space opera Final Days. Before that I read Supergods, comic writer Grant Morrison's 1st non comic book. Part history of the superhero in comics, part autobiography. He's an interesting and complex man. There's a passage where he describes taking hallucinogenic drugs then performing Chaos magic rituals, while dressed as a vinyl clad transvestite dominatrix, and makes it sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Portnoy's Complaint by Phillip Roth, about a Jewish man who masturbates obsessively and who has a guilt complex. Strange but compelling.

In reply to James Paul Robinson:

Just finished the Lost City of Z by David Gramm and now reading Tiger Force by Michael Salla about the controversial Vietnam platoon and the subsequent investigation.

Neither particuarly good tbh

In reply to Tall Clare: Atonement bysomeone whose name I can't remember.

In reply to Tall Clare:
Jerusalem - Simon Sebag-Montefiore
The English Language - Robert Burchfield
A Secular Age - Charles Taylor

& the current breakfast table read:
Cultural Amnesia - Clive James.

The pile of stuff waiting for my attention is not getting any smaller, there's two more books due to arrive in the next week or so!

PS Ms C cannot read anything by Clive James because she finds his voice so annoying.

In reply to Dave C:

I'm battling my way through a backlog in preparation for moving house. I've got to the point of realising that no matter how long some books sit on the 'to read' pile, I'm never going to get round to reading them, so they're going to the charity shop. The thought of moving the books that I *do* want to keep is making me feel faintly nauseous.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Red Rock Athlete earlier in the year, my best mate bought it for my ex for crimbo as she had no idea what to get him. I suspect it's had it's only reading until it gets either binned or taken to a charity shop.

On my bed I have Prince of Thorns and Unseen Academicals, depends on my mood which I pick up. On the table I have Poetry to get you through the Day (& Night), which could probably do with going back on the bookcase I guess.

In reply to Tall Clare:

The Cure of Souls by Phil Rickman - a faily lightweight but enjoyable Merrily Watkins novel about a female exorcist who generally makes a pigs ear of everything.

World of the Sagas, ed. Ornolfur Thorsson - a collection of Icalandic Saga translations. Currently reading the Vinland Saga.

In reply to Tall Clare: We did a bit of a clear-out before we packed up and moved over here but after 5 years we still needed to buy three new bookcases last weekend at IKEA to relieve the congestion (stacks on the floor, doubling up on shelves.)
PS I'm pleased to say my reading rate is now keeping up with the purchasing rate so the pending pile has stopped growing.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Variously: Fools Alphabet - Faulks, Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (he's written some great stuff) re-reading Waiting for War Claude Delarue - v good Eurpoean novel of the year some years ago and some M James Ghost stories

In reply to Tall Clare:

Ooh I quite like Pies and Prejudice and his other one On The High Teas.

Im currently reading More Money Than God, Hedge Funds and the making of a New Elite.

Just finished Its Not What You Think by Chris Evans too, was a nice holiday reading. Looking forward to Amazon delivering his second book.

In reply to wayno265:

Ian McEwan

I just finished Sarah Waters-The Little Stranger and I just don't get it.

Having finished it, it says "Not The End" which makes it look like there might be a sequel or a trilogy in total, or else it was just a little joke,
but if it is just a first book I wish I had known that in advance as I like to wait until a series is complete before starting it so I can plough through them in one go rather than wait years between books.

Just about to start on something else from that years Booker shorlist now but I can not recall what it is.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Nearly forgot to say - I've just finished 'By Nightfall' by Michael Cunningham, which annoyed me more than is reasonable.

In reply to Tall Clare: Rather poignantly I'm reading Walter Bonatti's 'The Mountains of My Life'

In reply to SGD:

I've not read that yet but it's on my pile. I think it might be next.

Just finished Learning to Breathe. GOt Rock Athlete to start this evening.

Recently rea Matterhorn (about a US company in Vietnam: I knew that before buying it). Very good but not as good as Dispatches which I highly recommend.

Also finished Iain M Bank's latest Cutlure novel, Surface Detail.

In reply to Flinticus:

My boyfriend read Matterhorn recently and said it was great. I read Dispatches a few years ago and seem to have misplaced my copy, but I recommended it to him. Might have to track down another copy.

In reply to wayno265: Atonement is an Ian McEwan book.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I tried to weed out the books that I will not (re)read from the piles and piles that inhabit my house. I had to give up! I kept moving them from the "to go" pile to the "to keep pile" - right waste of time!

In reply to Professor Bunsen:


It was from reading Booker Short (or long) Lists that I discovered Ian McEwan. Does anyone else use this tactic for discovering new writers?

In reply to BigHairyIan:

Yes...and am reading Patrick DeWitt's 'the Sisters Brothers' from this years list. It's great!

In reply to Flinticus:
I just finsihed Matterhorn too, I thought it was brilliant, not a great deal of Veitnam era fiction about yet.
I'm now reading The Secret Solider, some easy reading spy thiller thing. Entertaining enough and at the rate I read books entertaining is all I want, I'll be on another one tomorrow!

In reply to Tall Clare:
Almost finished First King of Shannara then I'll move onto the sword of shannara. Read them ages ago then put them in a box but I got a Kindle for my birthday so started reading through some of the prequels. Now I'm back on real paper

Also have a pile of 6 year old Street Rodder magazines I won on Evilbay last week.

In reply to Tall Clare:

A load of drivel on a forum I frequent

In reply to Tall Clare: I have to admit to usually giving these often pretentious threads a wide berth. However this one doesnt seem to have too much highbrow listings.

Im reading nothing, my kindle has froze.

In reply to The Outlaw Josey Wales:

Kindle, schmindle!

I didn't intend for it to be pretentious

In reply to Tall Clare: <--- Poke

In reply to Tall Clare:

Snow by Orhan Pamuk. A bit chewy but excellen.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Colin Thubron's 'To a mountain in Tibet'. Colin Thubron follows a pilgrimage to Mount Kailas, a sacred mountain in Tibet, shortly after the death of the last member of his immediate family. It's very thoughtful, and I've been learning about the intertwining of religions in that part of the world, including religions I'd never heard of. It also tells of the very many monasteries that were destroyed by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution. It's good, but not as good as 'Among the Russians'.

Before that, I'd made a start on Zola's 'The Kill', as part of our campaign to read all the Rougon-Macquart series, but I ran out of steam quite quickly. I'll get back to it at some point.

In reply to BigHairyIan:


I make a point of reading the booker short list every year, although I am usually a year or two behind as I tend to wait for paperbacks to come out.
I am also working my way back through the earlier booker short lists and i try to mix it up with some older classics and other random stuff that takes my fancy.

In reply to Tall Clare:
Fermat's Last Theorem, only just started it but seems fairly readable so far.

In reply to Tall Clare: Ah I spoke too soon!

In reply to Tall Clare: Has anyone actually read "Ulysses" by James Joyce?

In reply to Tall Clare:

Book three of Game of Thrones, I'm finding them addictive.

In reply to BigHairyIan:

That's good. I liked his Inspector Rebus books.

In reply to wayno265:


I do sometimes read books in foreign languages; I read Buddenbrooks in German recently (which was marvellous), and I'm a third of the way through vol.ii of Les Misérables at present (also marvellous).

But I don't speak Joyce.

In reply to Tall Clare:
>>

I thought that was total twaddle and I'm a fan of the man on the radio

In reply to Reach>Talent:

I'm looking forward to the sequel...

In reply to Tall Clare: High Crimes. Never thought a book would put me off Everest, good book, dreadful tales....

In reply to Tall Clare:


By way of light reading, I've just finished "The Hard Years" by Joe Brown, and have started the Thief of Time by Pratchett.

By way of serious reading, I've just started a commentary on the Gospel of St John (not Matthew, despite it being his patronal festival), and when that's finished, I've got Bede's commentary on the Song of Songs.

Y.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Calum's Road - Roger Hutchinson.

It's the bollocks.

In reply to Tall Clare:

It is a few years since I read it, but I remember rather enjoying 'Pies and Prejudice', I particularly enjoyed the stuff about what he knew best, the hinterland between Manchester and Liverpool.

I am currently reading 'Conditioning for Marathon Runners and Endurance Athletes' and wishing I had read it six months ago, I am also continuing my fondness for twentieth century American classics with a bit of Vonnegut. 'Breakfast of Champions' this time, the only Vonnegut I have read before is Slaughterhouse 5, which I thought was great.

In reply to Tall Clare: Just read Between shades of grey by Ruta Sepetys and really enjoyed it, an epic tale of hardship and suffering.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Very much biased towards the 'wrong' side of the pennines IMHO

In reply to Tall Clare:

Recently finished:
The Second Death of George Mallory, Reinhold Messner - a bit of an odd book, you get Mallory, Messner and Messner as Mallory.
The Ascent of Rum Doodle, W.E. Bowman - looking up techniques for dealing with altitude latitude.
Learning to Breathe, Andy Cave - great read.

Currently reading:
One hit Wonderland, Tony Hawks - it's light and fluffy.

Next up:
Let my people go surfing, Yvon Chouinard (the founder of Patagonia).

In reply to James Paul Robinson:

I really enjoyed that. Might be time for a re-read.

In reply to Tall Clare: The Island, Aldous Huxley

Will let you know how it finishes!

In reply to Tall Clare:

"Redemption Falls".

I know there are a few O'Connor fans on here who really liked "Star of the Sea". They have probably beaten me to "Redemption Falls".

If not, go out and find a copy tomorrow.

In reply to Tall Clare:

The Hacienda, How not to run a club, by Peter Hook.

Who knows where the time goes?

In reply to Tall Clare:

I try and alternate between fiction and more reference/educational type books. Finished the fiction yesterday and just started Carl Sagan's "Cosmos", which I picked up for a quid in the local charity shop. So far, I think it's a pound very well spent...

In reply to Tall Clare: Just finished Over Tyrolese Hills by F S Smythe and One Man's Mountains by Tom Patey (again).

In reply to wayno265:

It's not the same guy. The Rebus books are by Ian Rankin.

In reply to Tall Clare:

A book called Ballad of the Whiskey Robber.

It's a hilarious true story of a robber, active in Budapest around the time of the fall of Communism. Basically, everyone from Goverment official through to Police Officers and the thieves themselves are all incompetent.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just started The Magic of Reality, Dawkins' new kid science book - ok so far.

Also getting trough Walking The Watershed by Mr Hewitt of this parish. We're heading to Cumbernauld now. Memorymap is a great help with this book.

To be honest I'm struggling to read anything today as I had ankle surgery yesterday and the Tramadol is kicking in.

In reply to Tall Clare: D day by Anthony Beevor.

In reply to jonnie3430:

I'm reading book one, with books two, three and four threatening to collapse my already overburdened book shelves.

In reply to Craig Mc:

You have my sympathy. Unfortunately I'm also heading there today.

In reply to Tall Clare:
Another one for Stuart Maconie this time his new one "hope and glory" very good, must admit I can hear him when I read his stuff, but it don't bother me.

In reply to hokkyokusei:

I'm half way through that at the moment. Fantastic and fascinating read.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Matter - Iain M Banks

for the past 6 months....

In reply to Lisa_K:


send it to me !




currently reading Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri, just read a previous one of his and Invisble man (HG Wells on my phone !)

In answer to finding new authors, i got these out of a bag aog books destined fro charity shop at my mums, i have no plans just read whatever's about, and mosltly my SO's cast off (though she has a kindle now!)

and Bonnati book is great what a bloke !

In reply to anonymouse:

And now I'm reading book 2

In reply to Tall Clare: I started Fry - A memoir today, Just finished Stephen Kings The girl who loved tom gordon short story, I'm looking forward to andy K's new book

In reply to Tall Clare:

"A walk in the woods" - Bill Bryson

I find myself surprised by the remoteness of some of the east coast states.

In reply to anonymouse:

Do take your time reading it. At the rate it's going it'll be 50 years before the series are finished, if they ever are that is.

FWIW book 4 is rubbish, and 5 is a piss-take, specially considering it's taken him 7 years to write it, so by all looks he got bored/rich/demotivated and the series will never be concluded, so we'll never know how anything resolves...

(Bit of rant, i know, but WTF!)

In reply to Tall Clare: Explorers of the Nile was a pretty good read- did you hear it on R4's book of the week?

In reply to Removed User:

I really thought this a very funny read. Must give it another go sometime.

In reply to Sean Kelly:

Yes:

Katz - "she's pretty ugly isn't she?"

Bryson - "only compared to other women"

In reply to Removed User: Yes, it's a bit like Blackadder. There are so many quotable bits in the book. There was talk of a film but it must have been ditched. The bit I especially remember is Bill has not seen Katz since college days and he is somewhat put out when he first eyes a somewhat overweight out of condition Katz. Really brilliant writing. Then there is the business of trying to get a taxi in Dumbville, Tennessee! Then the whole chapter on Gris...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

I get into these series knowing that I never finish them. They usually start to meander around the third or fourth book as the author makes everything so complicated that not even he (or she) can remember who is who.

In reply to wayno265:

Yep, twice, this year and in around 1975.

To answer Clare (and to be really poncy) I'm on "Within a Budding Grove" at the moment, and on a similar timescale.

In reply to Tall Clare: on the latest game of thrones book its massive.I have a nasty habit that when i start reding a new book i then buy all books the author has out.
ian rankin
clive cussler
stephen king
george r martin
kathy reichs
tess gerttisen
trudi canavan
a few of who i read though the best books i have read lately are probaly the john twelve hawks books. probaly have over twelve hundred books in total sad i know

In reply to anonymouse:

Fair enough. One of my pet hates is when an author ends a book in a cliffhanger, with every single thread unresolved, and the next book is not even in the pipeline.

With many of these books is hard to tell if the last 100 pages are missing or it really is the rightful end.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Currently -

Dan Simmons - Hyperion and the three sequals. Third time through this book.

Peter F Hamilton - The Nano Flower

Philip Pullman - "The good man Jesus and the scoundral Christ"

Alastair Reynolds - Glactic North

"Chomsky" by John Lyons

and Lady Blue has just given me "Among Thieves" by Douglas Hulick.

In reply to Tall Clare:

f u ck books. watch tv.

In reply to Tall Clare: Im reading picture of dorian gray at the moment. free from the itunes book store btw it anyone wants to read it

In reply to Removed User:


Enjoyed that one...twice.

In reply to Tall Clare:
"Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch.
Good escapist read.
As was "Plugged" by Eoin Colfer

In reply to almost sane:

Enjoyed that.

In reply to Tall Clare:

White Mughals by william dalrymple. Pretty great so far (but I'm only half way through - long read.)

In reply to Mr Lopez: Just finished book 5 of a Game of Thrones and I absolutely loved it. I know that books 4 and 5 have taken a bit of a slating but I don't agree. I was lucky not to have to wait for the latest as I only started reading after watching the TV series but, even so, I think it's a bit unfair to judge how it'll be resolved when there's two more books to go.

As it is, I'm completely bereft and hoping it doesn't take him six years to write the next book.

In reply to alanw:


I won't be holding my breath...

After having it happen to me with 3 series (one of them i didn't know it was a trilogy until i finished the book, and had to wait 3 years for the second volume. Doh!) I now make a point of only starting them if it's completed, or if the author is reliable churning them out.

Waiting even a month or two for for a next instalment in a complex storyline can make reading quite disorienting.

With The Malazan Book of the Fallen (which i recommend highly and is now complete) i had to wait a month for the last book, and have had to be using forums to refresh events, characters, and threads to get the most out of it. Were that 3 years or five and i'd have to re-read 15,000 pages to get back on track. Not something i want to be doing any time soon...

In reply to Tall Clare: an optimists tour of the future - mark stevenson. it's very good.

In reply to Tall Clare: I've just finished Altered States by Paul J Newell.

I really enjoyed it, one of those which you don't want to put down.

In reply to Mr Lopez: This isn't my normal genre so I haven't been stung in the past with unfinished series. I'm tempted to wait till he's finished both books and then read/reread all of them in one go, although I doubt I'll have the patience for that.

That said, I'm confident he knows exactly what's going to happen - just don't ask what that will be.

In reply to anonymouse:


Book 3

In reply to Tall Clare: Hello Tal Clare, I am the said partner of the afore mentioned. We have read and thouroughly enjoyed Jim Perrin's 'River Map'
Its actually quite lovely.

In reply to Tall Clare:

End of Faith by Sam Harris.

Soon to be followed by Private Eye's 50th Anniversery Book

In reply to nigel nix:

If this is turning into a random book recommendation thread, can I make a random recommendation of AT THE LOCH OF THE GREEN CORRIE? It's the most extrardinary English-language book I've read in ages.

I've just bought The Spy Who Came In From The Cold after seeing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy this weekend. Looking forward to it - but I'm not sure whether it should come next on the pile, or I should finally get round to reading Bonatti's 'Mountains of my life'. What say the UKC Massif?

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Ooo! That's on my pile to be read in the next month too! Add that to the dilemma I've just posted.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Isn't that a trilemma?

In reply to anonymouse:

Very well observed, Mr Anonymouse. Have a celebratory biscuit.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I am just starting 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' by David Mitchell. I very much enjoyed his previous books so keen to get into it...

In reply to Tall Clare:
Don't mind if I do.

In reply to anonymouse:

Book 4 now. (Or book 3 part 2, if you want to look at it that way.)

In reply to Tim Chappell: I read the Loch of The Green Corrie after it was recommended on here by TobyS and DougG. This lead me to buy all the works of the poet Norman MacCaig. Excellent stuff.

I have my replacement kindle so its back to reading Remains of Elmet by Ted Hughes.

In reply to Tall Clare:

This thread

In reply to Tall Clare:
SS-GB by Len Deighton for, I think, the third time. G'night - off to engage with the last bit.

In reply to Tall Clare: could I just take this moment to remind you that October is the time when some of our house spiders (females) are at their largest?

In reply to The Outlaw Josey Wales:

No. No you couldn't.

Thanking you ta.

In reply to jonnie3430:

It's a separate book is it not? So, book 4 it is.

In reply to wayno265:

I got about halfway through, then skipped forward to see how it ended.

Shame it was the chosen work for my Oxbridge entrance interview and exam. Should have gone for something a bit more Topsy and Tim.

Currently I'm ploughing through Are You Dave Gorman? and Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier.

In reply to anonymouse:



Book 4

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just getting into a great book - The Time Travellers Wife, thoroughly enjoyable so far!

In reply to Tall Clare:

I'm still reading Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory - brilliant read. Academic in some areas but fascinating.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Never Let Go by Dan John. A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning

In reply to Tall Clare:

Currently on 'I Lucifer', very amusing. I have the latest Linwood Barclay waiting for me, but I just can't seem to get past the first dozen or so pages.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I'm in the middle of 'The Fall' by Albert Camus. A very interesting read on society.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I picked up a true bargain today TC , Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver some classic skribe from an amazing writer about his take on the modern blackman in america ( late 1950 - 60's ) I've wanted to read it for years & found it today in a charity shop for £1.30 80) happy bunny , I've seen these 1st ed's sell for $150.00 plus in the states .

Have scanned first chapter & liking all ready , dude was very sharp . . .

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just started The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.
Could be a long read!

In reply to Tall Clare: I'm still reading Atonement by Ian Rankin (having detoured via the latest excellent Lee Childs offering). It's getting good now, but still no sign of Rebus.

In reply to Christheclimber: Is that the The Brothers Karamazov which is a passionate philosophical novel that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality? Apparently is's a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia. Dostoyevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which is also the main setting of the novel. Since its publication, it has been acclaimed all over the world by thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Cormac McCarthy, Kurt Vonnegut and Pope Benedict XVI as one of the supreme achievements in literature.

Is that the right one, or am I getting mixed-up?

In reply to anonymouse:




Book 5 (sneaked in the new Lee Child between 4 and 5)

In reply to anonymouse: Lee Child's bloody brilliant. A Lee Child book keeps me off You Porn for a day or two.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

How did you guess?

In reply to Tall Clare: At the moment I am reading The Globe(Science of the Discworld II) and trying to get my head around phase space....

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

Is that the one where John Rebus is in danger of turning into Miss Marple.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:
<cough> McEwan, not Rankin. </cough>

In reply to Christheclimber:
Damn - beaten to it.

I like that idea though... : )

In reply to Tall Clare: I'm reading Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and really enjoying it.

In reply to Tall Clare: finally reading At The Loch Of The Green Corrie by Andrew Grieg .My word is it good.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just finished reading the bible.

<Spoiler alert>

He dies in the end.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just starting East of Eden and very excited about it too.

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

Ok. Thanks for sharing.

In reply to Tall Clare: Phoenix - Policing the Shadows. A secret war against Terrorism in Northern Island. It was the death of a senior RUC officer Ian Phoenix (1994 Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash and 24 anti-terrorist intelligence officers) which brought about the writing of this book - riveting!!!

In reply to Tall Clare:

Halfway through 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest', the last of the Millennium trilogy. I found each one has been better than the previous one, as if the author finally settled into a consistent style. This one carried straight on from the second one, which was good because I really enjoyed that one.

I don't know if these books are 'considered' good or not, but they are very addictive. I'd be interested in others' views.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Aye, it had me reaching for MacCaig's Collected Poems. Grieg writes beautifully of Norman and his pals. The author's own insight and introspection blends in perfectly, like a good malt and hill water.

Wonderful stuff.

My brother worked as a home help for Norman in his later years. A lot of the stories I've heard from my brother are in the book but there's more tales to tell of the old Milne's Bar crowd.

In reply to Tall Clare: Nothing! 1 of my dogs broke my kindle. ONE WEEK AFTER THE GUARANTEE RAN OUT!!!

In reply to Fredt:

Addictive but absolute bollox. And I read all 3.

In reply to bluebealach:

If you like that try Gangster by Peter Bleksley

In reply to jonathan shepherd:

Have you read his "The Shadow of the Wind" and " The Angel's Game"?

In reply to Henry Iddon:

A wonderful book. What an amazing breadth of knowledge he has - a true intellectual.

In reply to ThunderCat:

"Just finished reading the bible.

<Spoiler alert>

He dies in the end"

I just read the dictionary...the zebra did it

Back on topic...Selected Stories - Robert Walser, mainly to read the short story Kleist in Thum. (which I haven't read yet but have heard great things about)

In reply to Tall Clare:

Just finished The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks must be quite a strange bloke...

In reply to Tall Clare: At the risk of being laughed off the forum by the more 'intellectual' readers, I'm currently reading Clive Cussler's 'Spartan Gold'. It's much the same as most of his other books (he only really has one cast and one plotline, with many variations thereon), but it's good escapism and can be read without having to think very hard. Also, it's reasonably large print, which is starting to get important!

In reply to owlart: Frank Skinners autobiog. Its pretty kack really !

In reply to Michael Woods:

Then was gobbled up by a rampant zoonose.