[Misc] What Book are you Currently Reading?

[Beach Hut]

I've just started The Broken Road, the third of the walk to Constantipole trilogy. I mentioned it earlier in this thread as next in line to read ... and then misplaced the book. I'm glad I've found, it's as interesting as the other two

I like his books but they are harder to read as written a while back

 

[Gwylan]

I like his books but they are harder to read as written a while back

I'm so envious of his journey. Leaving England in the midst of a depression to waltz around Europe for several years, just stopping to stay at various castles and shag various women. And all in a world that was set to be torn apart forever. What a life he led!

 

[Beach Hut]

One Summer America 1927 - Bill Bryson

Have not read this for ages, in fact only once so bound to be excellent (again)

 

[Palacefinder General]

Three quarters of the way through Michelle Obama’s excellent autobiography. A well-written, inspirational, fascinating and thought-provoking read, even if, like me, you have little interest in US politics..

My fiction fix alongside that - ‘Endangered’ by C.J. Box.

 

[Barry Izbak]

I am having a sabbatical from my usual choice of crime thrillers and reading This Sceptered Isle by Christopher Lee (no, not that one)

It's the book that accompanied the BBC Radio series on the history of the British Isles from 46ad to 1901. It's a long read, but plenty of fascinating things I hadn't heard before.

 

[Fitzcarraldo]

Recently finished Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, which is about the Jean McConville kidnapping and Gerry Adam's alleged involvement. A properly good read.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

Difficult Women - A history of feminism in 11 fights by Helen Lewis- fascinating and eye opening accounts of different women's battles. The joy is that she doesn't sanitise or whitewash the women, nor does she canonise them.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Currently reading Up Pohnpei, A Quest to Reclaim the Soul of Football by Paul Watson (not that one). A factual book about a young Englishman who, convinced he can play international football if he just finds a team weak enough, ends up travelling to Micronesia on a whim and coaching a small island side. I love travel books (and football) and this is an amusing cross between the two with plenty of cultural insights thrown in. Really enjoying it.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Before we was we, sort of memories of incidents from members of Madness from when they were kids through the early years of forming a band.

Right bunch of Graffiti artist, drug taking, thieves, it’s actually a boring book, not recommended.

 

[pearl]

Recently finished Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, which is about the Jean McConville kidnapping and Gerry Adam's alleged involvement. A properly good read.

Didn't know about the book, but I remember her disappearance, will check that out

 

[pearl]

Before we was we, sort of memories of incidents from members of Madness from when they were kids through the early years of forming a band.

Right bunch of Graffiti artist, drug taking, thieves, it’s actually a boring book, not recommended.

I got halfway through Debbie Harry's book, was like reading a shopping list, boring a hell

 

[Beach Hut]

Solo - William Boyd

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr. This is the penultimate book in the Bernie Gunther series. Kerr died quite recently in his early 60s.

 

[Saladpack Seagull]

Armageddon (The battle for Germany 1944-45) by Max Hastings. Re-reading this to change things up after reading a lot of American Civil War stuff lately.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Tim Book Two: Vinyl Adventures from Istanbul to San Francisco by Tim Burgess

Excellent easy read and all about record shops and records, talks about music that was recommended to him, people from Tony Wilson to Paul Weller so far and ramblings in between.

I have been doing his Listening Party's that have been brilliant and love his approach to life. https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/index.html

 

[RossyG]

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. Great first 300 pages, but the next hundred (with a further hundred to follow) seems to lack his usual polish, as if he got bored or needed to hit a deadline and decided to plough on. Hopefully the ending will be good, although King isn’t known for those.

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

Brilliant book about the story of how the SAS was formed, with tales from its early days raiding in the deserts of North Africa, & beyond.
Thoroughly recommend for those into military history.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. My original idea was to find out how much worse things were then - and they were - but some things in there could have been written this week, such as the desperation of some people to ignore lockdowns. Then, though, the authorities were a bit stricter and had officials on duty outside affected houses to make sure people didn't go out. Interestingly, a lot of people took refuge on boats and ships that were moored in the middle of the Thames all the way from the present Pool of London all the way down to Greenwich.

Quite a lot of it is like a modern-day news bulletin, with lists of the numbers of dead in various areas, and grim recountings of individual tragedies but it has its lighter moments too. One man managed to get so drunk that he lay down in the street and went to sleep and was mistaken for a corpse that someone had thrown out of a house. So he was slung onto a cart full of dead bodies and woke up just as they were all about to be flung into a mass grave.

 

[RossyG]

Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. My original idea was to find out how much worse things were then - and they were - but some things in there could have been written this week, such as the desperation of some people to ignore lockdowns. Then, though, the authorities were a bit stricter and had officials on duty outside affected houses to make sure people didn't go out. Interestingly, a lot of people took refuge on boats and ships that were moored in the middle of the Thames all the way from the present Pool of London all the way down to Greenwich.

Quite a lot of it is like a modern-day news bulletin, with lists of the numbers of dead in various areas, and grim recountings of individual tragedies but it has its lighter moments too. One man managed to get so drunk that he lay down in the street and went to sleep and was mistaken for a corpse that someone had thrown out of a house. So he was slung onto a cart full of dead bodies and woke up just as they were all about to be flung into a mass grave.

I’m sure you do, but you know it’s a novel (a terrific one) and not an actual journal, don’t you? De Foe was five when the plague raged so he would’ve been fairly aware of it, and probably heard lots of stories that he fictionalised too. But it is fiction primarily and our hero is a character.

There are certainly parallels with how people reacted to a virus, then and now, although of course the plague was way deadlier. Catch it and 99% of the time it’s a death sentence.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Due to lack of new material, have just started trying to re-read Jpod by Douglas Coupland. Doubt I'll get beyond the first couple of chapters, just seems horribly contrived and HACKNEYED now, same as Generation X and Microserfs before it. Really really haven't aged well. But enough about myself already