mjmooney Posted December 25, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted December 25, 2022 1 minute ago, Rodders said: Also got a special hardback edition of the Count of Monte Cristo to enjoy at some point too! Great, great book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted December 25, 2022 Share Posted December 25, 2022 I'm reading Dune at the moment. Hopefully the remaining five books in the series are as good as this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted December 25, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted December 25, 2022 1 hour ago, villa89 said: I'm reading Dune at the moment. Hopefully the remaining five books in the series are as good as this. They aren't. Sorry. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted December 26, 2022 Share Posted December 26, 2022 Best books read this year: looking at my spreadsheet... fiction Tana French - The Searcher - thriller-western set in rural Ireland, conveys the mood terrifically well Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain - astonishingly effective portrait of poverty, isolation, addiction, domestic abuse in north scotland during the 80s. Can see why it won awards. Largely bleak but hewn through with compassion for the mother and son. Terry Pratchett - Witches Abroad - more straightforward tp compared to some of the previous discord novels. Good fun. Octavia Butler - Kindred - written in 1970s, use of time travel to confront US slavery, really good tale, going back and forth between 1970s LA and 1850s South Mick Herron - Bad Actors - even more politically pointed than usual, though perhaps no surprise there Ian Rankin - A Heart Full Of Headstones - he's still going strong with the rebus novels, honestly I think the past few books in the series have been really excellent Somerset Maugham - Cakes And Ale - I just love his writing. Everyman Best of Wodehouse - ditto Sally Rooney - Beautiful World Where Are You - I know some people really dislike her work, but despite it sometimes feeling really quite cold, I am always absolutely drawn in by the end. Janice Hallett -The Appeal- a murder mystery, that could be accused of being gimmicky, as it's all done through emails, letters, texts etc, but honestly I really enjoyed it - a good holiday read if anyone needs a recommendation for a light xmas read. Non Fiction Amelia Gentleman - The Windrush Scandal Exposed - enraging Oliver Bulloch - Butler to the World - ditto, delineating Britain's role in expediting financial chicanery as a substitute for losing colonial lands, the wretched way of trying to maintain power and influence Julian Sancton - Madhouse At The End of the Earth - biography of one of those turn of the century adventures to the antarctic that doesn't go swimmingly. Really engrossing. Adam Rutherford - Control - excellent primer guide to eugenics Raynor Wynn - The Salt Path - the author and her husband lost all their money with bad investments, hubby got a terminal diagnosis and so they upped sticks and decided to walk the coast of cornwall Thomas Harding - Hanns and Rudolf : the german jew and the hunt for the kommandant of auschwitz - really well written. Sathnam Sanghera - Empireland - synthesises literature on the empire really well done. The more personal and non specialist historian perspective gives it a more intimate colour. Anita Anand - The Patient Assassin - excellent book on the amritsar massacre and the chap umad singh who ended up assassinating the arsehole who ordered it. John Bew - Citizen Clem - biography of attlee. As a one volume book it is excellent, though there are areas, I'd have loved to read more of from the government years, but very easy to read. I've read plenty of other decent books this year, but those are the better ones 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 31, 2022 Share Posted December 31, 2022 Just finished (thanks to an unwanted spate of insomnia) Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, who previously wrote the excellent The Martian. Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.Or does he? This too is a fantastic piece of science fiction, with the emphasis on science. Thoroughly enjoyable and a film adaptation is in the pipeline. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talldarkandransome Posted December 31, 2022 Share Posted December 31, 2022 Halfway through The Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fightoffyour Posted December 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted December 31, 2022 On 25/12/2022 at 15:35, Rds1983 said: My wives bought me this for Christmas. Can't wait to read it. Absolutely love the Discworld series. Just one book between them all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted December 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted December 31, 2022 5 hours ago, fightoffyour said: Just one book between them all? They like sharing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted February 2, 2023 Moderator Share Posted February 2, 2023 I'll just leave this here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC_Hitz Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 4 hours ago, BOF said: I'll just leave this here. Christ, I wince at people who turn down the corner of a page to use as a book mark. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 2, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 2, 2023 Has anyone read the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch? I'm halfway through the first book and quite enjoying it. Wondering if it's worth committing to the series or if this is a highpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 2, 2023 Share Posted February 2, 2023 10 hours ago, BOF said: I'll just leave this here. I can remember Bernard Levin writing that he took a paperback of Anna Karenina with him on a long journey, and tore out the pages as he read them: I thought it was an odious thing to do. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 3, 2023 Moderator Share Posted February 3, 2023 Has anyone else read the two new ones from Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger and Stella Maris? I'm interested in peoples thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMelvillan Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: Has anyone else read the two new ones from Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger and Stella Maris? I'm interested in peoples thoughts. Came on here just to mention the very same thing. I await peoples responses with anticipation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 3, 2023 Moderator Share Posted February 3, 2023 5 hours ago, TheMelvillan said: Came on here just to mention the very same thing. I await peoples responses with anticipation! Spoiler There's some discussion about whether The Passenger is the character's coma dream, or that in Stella Maris we're dealing with an unreliable narrator who prefers to think of her brother as gone because it's easier for her, I even saw something that suggests that they're the same person and that her mental illness is largely centred around her carrying the second personality of her 'brother' in her head - but I think that they are actually just two different stories - different timelines with the same characters, with her dying first in one and him coming a cropper first in the other - it makes sense in that way as to why he'd have separated it into two books rather than have it as a single story - not that it really matters as I suspect the plot is much less important than ruminating on life, age, loss and why we're here. I really enjoyed both, although I'm not sure I've come to any conclusions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 On 26/12/2022 at 17:27, Rodders said: John Bew - Citizen Clem - biography of attlee. As a one volume book it is excellent, though there are areas, I'd have loved to read more of from the government years, but very easy to read. There is a scathing one-star review on Amazon for this - obviously written by a Lefty. https://tinyurl.com/44e4nr47 Quote This book is not worthy of a professional historian. The author appears to be completely devoid of analyticial skill. He ignores the fact that Attlee was a member of the Simon Commission set up in 1928 to decide the future of India to which the British Government did not appoint a single Indian member. It met whilst a leading member of the Indian Congress Party - Lajpat Rai - a friend of Kier Hardie and one of the original founding members of the British Labour Party - was beaten to death outside by the police whilst leading a totally peaceful demonstration against it. The Commission had demanded that action be taken against the protestors. He was the Deputy Prime Minister in a Government which deliberately promoted the Bengal famine in which over 4 million people died. Food was burnt and exported from India systematically. He authorised the imprisonment of hundreds of Congress leaders in India when Deputy Prime-Minister at a time when Churchill was abroad. Attlee’s role in the massacre of 20,000 Indonesians in 1946, in the savage suppression of the Indonesian nationalists, has been written out of history. And it is not mentioned in this book. Attlee and Ernest Bevin authorised the re-arming of Japanese prisoners of war to enable them, with the utmost cruelty, to massacre of the very Indonesian forces who had previously helped the British and Indian troops to defeat the same Japanese troops. So pleased was Attlee with the Japanese that he wanted to award the Japanese commander, Major Kido, the DSO for carrying out the massacre so efficiently, but was dissuaded because of the adverse publicity which would have resulted. Attlee also authorised the carpet bombing of Surabaya, knowingly incinerating thousands of civilians in a densely populated city. A Cabinet minute states that Attlee proposed diverting the Windrush to East Africa and putting the black passengers to work picking monkey nuts. And he was personally responsible for the forcible exile of the Botswana King Seretse Khama from Botswana because he had married a white woman. The fact that Attlee accepted a hereditary Earldom speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of his claim to believe in Labour Party values. In short Attlee besmirched the reputation of the Labour Party and this nation. He should have been tried in the International Criminal Court. As far as domestic policy is concerned, he did nothing to promote workers' control of the nationalised industries simply creating state monopolies run by capitalist tsars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 23, 2023 Share Posted February 23, 2023 On 25/12/2022 at 16:38, mjmooney said: Great, great book. Prompted by your positive appraisal, I decided to read The Count of Monte Cristo and have to agree it is a tremendous book. I had never really fancied it before because I had seen too many poor adaptations, which obviously missed out most of the story. Great characters and in particular villains, some very witty dialogue, and some very clever plotting, adds up to a brilliant book. On conclusion I decided that in many ways, French writers are better than the British, and the one thing which struck me about this, and thinking of Zola et al, is that the French don't tend to indulge in mawkish sentiment like so many of the British big-hitters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 23, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 23, 2023 52 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: On conclusion I decided that in many ways, French writers are better than the British, and the one thing which struck me about this, and thinking of Zola et al, is that the French don't tend to indulge in mawkish sentiment like so many of the British big-hitters Glad you enjoyed it. I totally agree about the French v British 19th C writers. I'd say the same about the Russians and Americans, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 23, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 23, 2023 (edited) Currently on my second attempt at this. Widely regarded as the third great 20th Century epic (to rival Ulysses and A La Récherche du Temps Perdu). Edited February 23, 2023 by mjmooney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 23, 2023 Share Posted February 23, 2023 3 hours ago, mjmooney said: Currently on my second attempt at this. Widely regarded as the third great 20th Century epic (to rival Ulysses and A La Récherche du Temps Perdu). I can still remember the sheer beauty of Ulysses but I never quite understood what was so special about Proust. Presumably, The Man Without Qualities must offer some difficulty if you gave up on it, although sometimes its a case of wrong time - wrong book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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