Seat68 Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 The one I am listening to is pretty good. I am addicted to the Alex Cross series by James Patterson and this is the latest, Criss Cross. It's very poorly written as all of the series are but it's my crack and I can't stop reading each new one he puts out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wazzap24 Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 (edited) Need to do more reading this year. I’ve been reading The Stand for the best part of 18 months now and I’m not even 1/2 way through! Edited January 7, 2020 by wazzap24 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 ticked one off already on the goodreads challenge. Slow Horses - by Mick Herron - a very breezy spy novel, heavy on the farce and black comedy. Very dialogue-heavy so reads like it's screaming out for it to be adapted for TV, but it was good and I've just googled it and it seems they are making one - but sadly for Apple TV. Gary Oldman starring. Could be very entertaining, based on the characters Herron draws. Will have to zip on quickly through the series before the adaptation is made. Also blasting my way through Ben McIntyre's The Spy and the Traitor about Oleg Gordievksy the KGB man spying for britain, and how he was rescued from Moscow once he was suspected. McIntyre knows his shit and I've read a few of his others on the spy theme, and this is no different. Thrillingly written and fascinating history to boot. Michael Foot's codename in the Soviet records was Agent Boot. Very imaginative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 Just over a quarter of the way through War and Peace, get a bit confused with the war sections, but think it's really well written, Tolstoy seems to be a deep thinker, and understands human nature very well, can relate to a lot of the character's thoughts and observations, despite the fact that it was written over 150 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 17, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted February 17, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, useless said: Just over a quarter of the way through War and Peace, get a bit confused with the war sections, but think it's really well written, Tolstoy seems to be a deep thinker, and understands human nature very well, can relate to a lot of the character's thoughts and observations, despite the fact that it was written over 150 years ago. Fantastic book, and a much easier read than its reputation would suggest - it was written as a magazine serial, so it has short chapters, always the key to fast reading a long book. All my female relatives say they wanted to skip the 'war' bits; as a military history fan, I liked them the best. Edited February 17, 2020 by mjmooney 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 17, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted February 17, 2020 Talking of long books (but not short chapters this time), I'm on my second attempt at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain". Started it years ago, and fairly quickly gave up. This time I'm sticking at it, and nearly at the halfway point. It resembles Proust's "A La Recherche du Temps Perdus", in that it's a long philosophical novel in which basically nothing happens. But the descriptive passages are excellent, and the trick is to luxuriate in the stately slowness of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 19, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted February 19, 2020 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 I have that Thomas Mann book lined up somewhere in the long list of unread books on my shelf. I read Buddenbrooks a couple of years ago and really enjoyed that, so looking forward to Magic Mountain when it comes around. Currently, inspired oddly enough by a passage in a John Grisham easy read, reading books about the POW experience in Japan and Burma. Read Eric Lomax' The Railway Man and now on Unbroken the biography of Louie Zamperini. It's an astonishing story. Already read about him surviving 47 days on a raft across the pacific ocean after a plane crash, and now he's with the Japanese It's just such horrific treatment. I feel like it's not understood / appreciated in the same way we think of the european death camps. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 20, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted February 20, 2020 I'm seeing a pattern... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC_Hitz Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 Amazon recommended the Lieutenant Riem series. A sort of Bernie Guntheresque detective series set in 80's East Germany. They read very easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 2 hours ago, AVFC_Hitz said: Amazon recommended the Lieutenant Riem series. A sort of Bernie Guntheresque detective series set in 80's East Germany. They read very easily. couldn't find that on Amazon when i searched for it .. who is the author ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC_Hitz Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 11 hours ago, tonyh29 said: couldn't find that on Amazon when i searched for it .. who is the author ? Sorry, spelling mistake. It's the Reim series by Max Hertzberg. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PussEKatt Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 What about, Lynda La Plante,Lee Child and James Patterson.No one has mentioned any of them ?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Can anyone recommend a history of spices book or a history of the Silk Road? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 2 hours ago, maqroll said: Can anyone recommend a history of spices book or a history of the Silk Road? Peter Frankopan has written two really good books on the Silk Road. The first is a really big broad sweep from the beginnings right up to the 20th century I think. Writes well and packed full of detail. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 6, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6, 2020 3 hours ago, maqroll said: Can anyone recommend a history of spices book or a history of the Silk Road? This one's about the British/Dutch fight for the nutmeg trade in the East Indies, rather than the silk road, but it's a good read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 just finished Richard Flanagan's 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' - a fictionalised tale about a Burma / Japanese POW. Having previously read a couple of memoir / biographies, reading a fictionalised version of it was a little weird, especially as the narrative interweaves a 'forbidden' love story into the mix, and there are breakway segments that are given over to other POWs, the Japanese and Korean guards he faced and the women in his life. A central point is looking at the consequences of surviving those horrors ( from different points of view ) on an individuals ability to live life thereafter. It is fascinating, but didn't care much for the love story element, and often times the language is needlessly flowery. Plenty of poetic allusions and references that equally I couldn't give a damn about, but overall still a worth while read. Unbroken btw was just astonishing. Back on the Pratchett now re-reading Guards! Guards! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 15, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted March 15, 2020 The Magic Mountain seems very appropriate at the moment. Possibilities to read next: Daniel Defoe: Journal of the Plague Year Albert Camus: La Peste Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted March 18, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted March 18, 2020 Looking for some advice form the readers. I want to get my mom a book or two for Mother's Day seeing as we're all going to be inside a lot more for the near future! Does anyone know any good books about Irish history? Even better would be specifically Cork or West Cork. I don't want it to be like a textbook, it has to be entertaining. So even a fictionalised version of something would be right up her street. She loves books like that so that's what I'm after. Some examples of what she's read recently would be Black 47 by Laurence Power, and "The Stolen Village" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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