Do you read?

[thetrees]

OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go":

Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth

Ahh...Follett.

I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ...

This is the first one of his I've read, and of course it's totally unlike the rest of his stuff, being mediaeval and all that. It's OK so far, but a bit erm, unchallenging. Don't know if I'll finish it.

I was quite gobsmacked that the venerable Mr Mooney had picked my fave book (Pillars) up in the first place, and then you qualified your original post with this one!

I won't recommend 'World Without End', the 'Pillars' sequel, which I have recently finished, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same

I am currently reading Bill Bryson's 'A short history of nearly everything', but that's a bit hard going for me.

I am resigned to being a fiction reader..........

[Gabby15]

I read a few autobigraphy's, Recently finnished Chris Jericho's, If you're a fan of wrestling it's a must read, even if you're not, i'd still highly recommend it. Currently reading Controversy creates cash, by Eric Bischoff, good read so far.

[mjmooney]

I was quite gobsmacked that the venerable Mr Mooney had picked my fave book (Pillars) up in the first place, and then you qualified your original post with this one!

I may go back to it. It was OK, I just didn't feel... engaged with it. I'm really into history (fiction and nonfiction), but the middle ages is really not "my" period, I prefer 19th/20th century.

I have Bryson's "Everything" in the loo, just read the odd few pages now and then.

Getting near the end of "The March" now (very good), soon to start on Joe Haldeman's sf novel "The Forever War".

Current nonfiction is Austerity Britain, really enjoying it.

[leviramsey]

I may go back to it. It was OK, I just didn't feel... engaged with it. I'm really into history (fiction and nonfiction), but the middle ages is really not "my" period, I prefer 19th/20th century.

If I may recommend The Cousins' Wars... you kind of get a new perspective on the three civil wars of Anglo-America (though it must be said that the bit of hostilities during the Napoleonic unpleasantness (aka the real second world war)) with the argument advanced that all three of them were fundamentally different acts in the same conflict. It deserves kudos for at least trying to tell the history from both sides of the Atlantic.

I hadn't known how controversial the American Revolution was in Britain (more especially so in England, more especially in the South East)... it's quite likely that an outright majority of English voters in the 1770s were in favor of conciliation (though the rotten boroughs etc. managed to keep the North government in power and thus continue the war), especially prior to the Declaration of Independence and after the entry of the French and Spanish into the conflict. Indeed, General Howe promised his constituents in Nottingham in 1774 that he would refuse any order given to attack the colonials (as did a large number of other senior officers, among them Amherst and Burgoyne). It could definitely be argued that Howe at various points when the rebellion could have been successfully suppressed deliberately chose to undertake strategies & tactics to reduce the chances of success, the prime example being his decision not to sail up the Hudson to seal off New England, thus allowing the 9 southern and middle colonies to be brought back into the fold while conceding at least temporary independence for New England.

These pages are aimed at both British and American audiences, a challenge in itself. Any American has read British works that mix up the two Dakotas, and very few Americans could draw a half-decent county-by-county map of Britain (especially now that the old boundaries have been changed to make way for fakes like Avon and Cleveland). The confusion of Bridgwater, Bridgnorth, and Bridport makes it all too clear how British writers can mix up the various Springfields and Middletowns. These, of course, are only the tip of the interpretive iceberg. With rare exceptions, we have all grown up thinking British or American. Very few think biculturally, even if we have spent several years on the other side. You can see it in the history books. Americans generally only do British history in manageably short chronological chunks. Although dozens of British historians are in residence at American universities (not least Yale), most of their books continue to be about Britain. Which is all well and good, since for at least a hundred million Americans, the British Isles are the Old Country.

The drawback is that the reverse is not true. How many Britons see the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand as the New Country? By this, I mean the entities charged with our common economic, cultural, and political interest: to keep the rest of the world speaking English, the lingua anglica. Some Britons look to the United States, to be sure -- certainly the million or two who are increasingly transatlantic. But my use of the term "Anglo-America" is probably more wish than hard analysis. Too few Americans and Britons have looked at history with a mind to explore the bases of the extraordinary interrelations of these two nations. That, too, is part of the story I have tried to tell in linking the Cousins' Wars and positing Anglo-America as something we -- Washington and Westminster -- should take seriously.

This history, then, is unusual for several reasons. First, because it tries to encompass both countries [ruminating at length at the colonial role in the English Civil War and the British role in the US Civil War --LR]. Second, because it tries to do so through the concepts of war, politics, and a relationship that occasionally verges on indivisibility. The third unusual angle is an attention to the principally religious character of wartime loyalties during the American Revolution is aimed at proving a vital point: the importance of dissenting Protestantism in the breakaway of the thirteen colonies and in underpinning their divergent politics and civil culture.

I'll summarize the book, though...

English Civil War

Victors: Puritans and nonconformists; Low church Anglicans; Supporters of a Republic; Entrepreneurs; Small industrialists; The maritime sector; Economic nationalists; Backers of westward expansion

Losers: High church Anglicans; Monarchy; Aristocracy; Royal monopolists; Manorial agriculture; Opponents of westward expansion

American Revolution

Victors: Yankees, Presbyterians, and Low church Anglicans; Supporters of a republic; Small industrialists; The maritime sector; Economic nationalists; Backers of westward expansion

Losers: High church Anglicans; Monarchy; Aristocracy; Royal Placemen; Mercantilism; Coastal residents who looked eastward across the Atlantic

US Civil War

Victors: Yankees, Northern Presbyterians, and Reformist Evangelicals; Supporters of a united republic; Opponents of slavery and the plantation system; Entrepreneurs; Industrialists; Economic nationalists; Backers of westward free-soil expansion

Losers: Liturgical churches that did not oppose slavery; The would-be Southern Aristocracy; Slavery and the plantation system; The South as a region; Conservative opponents of democracy and reform in the United States and Britain

A very interesting book (and yes, its analysis to some extent colored my post on the word "bluenose")...

[nrogers]

Just reading - The Matrix Ate My Baby by Andrew Gibbons, it's a excellent look at how technology has hurt todays children's growth and intelligence!!

[PauloBarnesi]

Just finished McMafia by Misha Glenny; its subtitle explains it pretty well – A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld

Well worth reading

[metalhead_villain]

Just finished reading - Heart shaped box by Joe Hill very good read.

Now I have just started reading "the children of hurin" by tolkien.

and Have just ordered a book called "the kalevala" off amazon, Its a book of finnish poetry, amazing stuff.

[mjmooney]

If I may recommend The Cousins' Wars... you kind of get a new perspective on the three civil wars of Anglo-America (though it must be said that the bit of hostilities during the Napoleonic unpleasantness (aka the real second world war)) with the argument advanced that all three of them were fundamentally different acts in the same conflict. It deserves kudos for at least trying to tell the history from both sides of the Atlantic.

Sounds right up my street Levi, thanks for the tip. It'll have to take its place on a very long shortlist, though!

[Designer1]

Just finished McMafia by Misha Glenny; its subtitle explains it pretty well – A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld

Well worth reading

Going to check that one out Paul. Sounds like something I would enjoy.

[mjmooney]

This is thread is turning into quite a useful "book club" for reviews and recommendations. Perhaps we should make it a sticky.

[Super-Villan]

I've just started Falling Man by Don Delillo. I'm not a big fan of all these authors who insist on bringin 9-11 into their work, seemingly for fear of missing out on a trend, but I'm a huge fan of Delillo (White Noise, Libra, the peerless Underworld) so this could be an interesting one.

Just finished American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Excellent, but not quite the classic I'd been led to believe.

[sam100]

I've just started reading Chuck Liddell's biography, it's been a pretty good read what i've read so far

[BillyShears]

Still ploughing through McCarthy's work. Halfway through 'Blood Meridian'.....gruelling.

[leviramsey]

Silverfin by Charlie Higson (aka Ian Fleming's estate tries to create their own Potter franchise... I had held off on buying any of that series until I recently noticed that several Bond fans/anoraks whom I highly respect had nothing but praise for it).

Have to say that I agree with the fans/anoraks... Higson's writing is what you'd imagine Fleming would have written for the story, and gradually aspects of Bond's adult character come out (as well they should). Highly recommended.

[nrogers]

Just finished The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini, one of the best books I have ever read!

[leviramsey]

Inspired by my reply in another thread, I've dug out Travelling Music again...

Michael [his motorcycle riding partner on tour and the band's security director] and I also sometimes listened to a series of CDs of mixed tunes I had programmed to be played over the PA system in venues before our shows, and during the intermission between sets.

I started making these mixes in the late '70s, mainly because we had a soundman with questionable taste, and after hearing our audiences assailed with mindless heavy rock every night (even before we went on!), I decided to do something about it. It is a measure of passing decades that the "ShowTapes" were made on cassette at first, then DAT, and for the most recent tour [2002] on CDs. Next tour, no doubt, they'll play straight from the computer.

I always thought of that platform as my private radio station, a chance to reach people with the songs and artists I liked at the time, especially the more obscure ones an American audience wasn't likely to hear on their local mainstream rock station. I also tried to program the music to follow the dynamics of the evening, from the opening of the doors until the anticipation was building right before showtime.

On those first ShowTapes, in the late '70s, I was mixing in a lot of the so-called "new wave" of music of the time: Talking Heads, Ultravox, Japan, Joe Jackson, and The Police. We were touring in Britain once at that time, and our sound engineer told me that when a song by The Police came on, the English audience actually booed. Hard to believe, but so it was.

The cassettes from the Signals tour, in 1982, neatly hand labeled on the spine "Rush Radio," and with my drawing of the fire hydrant from the album cover, offered a selection of lesser-known songs from that era: New Musik, Simple Minds, King Crimson, U2, Ultravox, Max Webster, Joe Jackson, Japan, Thinkman, Go, XTC, Talking Heads, Jimmy Cliff, a couple of Pete Townshend's solo songs, Bill Bruford's jazz-rock excursions, and the ponderously-named-but-ethereal-sounding Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark.

Ten years later, on the Counterparts tour in 1993, I was broadcasting DATs with that tour's bolt-and-nut logo on the spine. These included songs by Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Tragically Hip, Faith No More, Urge Overkill, Smashing Pumpkins, Roger Waters, Gene Loves Jezebel, Tom Cochrane, Curve, Big Country, Chapterhouse, and Temple of the Dog.

For the Vapor Trails tour in 2002, I changed my programming style (or what the radio people call "format"), for the first time. As much as I had always resisted nostalgia, the prevalence and popularity of "classic rock" radio was undeniable (at least one station in every city), and it had somehow become more than nostalgia. At its best (say 25% of what such stations played), it was the heritage of rock music, and might even be called history. There was also the splintering of popular music, especially on the radio. Compared to the variety of pop music I head on my transistor radio in the '60s, when AM stations tried to be all things to all people, when you might hear Louis Armstron, The 1910 Fruitgum Company, and the MC5 on the same station, modern radio was fiercely segregated into demographics and market segments. The gap between rock and hip hop might be invisible to a fan of Limp Bizkit or Linkin Park but it remained vast between a fan of those bands and, say, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Madonna, and Frank Sinatra -- you weren't likely to ever hear all of them on the same station.

Unless it was programmed by me. I wanted to juxtapose what I thought was the best of modern music with what I considered to be real classic rock -- not just because I liked it in 1969, but because it sounded great to me now. This was music for a rock concert, so I did leave off Sinatra and Madonna, but I alternated The Who with Linkin Park and Radiohead, Led Zeppelin with Tool and the Tragically Hip, Jimi Hendrix with Vertical Horizon, and Pink Floyd with Coldplay. Once again, I was programming my own little radio station, to my own "format."

[Chindie]

Finally got the Algebraist done with bout 3 weeks ago. Bloody hell, what a slog... a bit of a disappointment overall, my first real delve into sci fi and while it;s all very well imagined and whatever else... there's not a whole lot to like about it. 500 odd pages of...well... not a lot? Characters aren't terrible likeable, the description of things just didn't seem to 'fit' with what my mind said they would be which was something that started to bug me after a while. The main one of these being the fact that the main character spends almost the entirety of the book in a 'gascraft' a little arrow shaped ship he uses to spend time to with an alien species in the universes gas giants. Except I just couldn't get past the idea of a little ship interacting with these creatures. It just didn't seem to fit.

Add in the fact that the first 300 pages of the book feature sod all happening effectively and it just brings the whole thing down. Banks is still scene setting 200 pages in. The last 200 or so pages were better, we get some action but it's still hard to genuinely care about any of it.

In the meantime however I investigated Neil Gaimans American Gods for the second time. Brilliant smart book. The premise is just so simple but great. What happened to the old gods? Odin, the Egyptian idols, the little myths and legends of the worlds cultures? They went to America, carried in the stories of immigrants to the New World and finding themselves having to do things a bit different in the face of the new gods, of technology and other features of modern life. It's a weird book, it's rambling in parts but has so many great ideas in it. It also features the Gaiman staples, explicit in parts and gruesome in others, but it's genuinely like nothing else I've read. Throughly recommend it for people interested in a bit of fantasy writing that has something slightly new.

I'm yet to find a copy of House of Leaves, sadly. Be interested to know if anyone on here had read it and their thoughts since I've heard it becomes a bit of chore in parts but is brilliant if it grabs you. Also seems to be more popular in America so perhaps Stateside Villans could inform?

[metalhead_villain]

Atm im reading "the prose edda" its a book of norse mythology, Odin, Thor, Loki, You know the type

[tarjei]

May I ask why? :shock:

[Pelle]

Atm im reading "the prose edda" its a book of norse mythology, Odin, Thor, Loki, You know the type

Is it true that the Thor-character was made up with Mellberg as the role modell?

I've just started to read "1984" by George Orwell. It has started pretty promising. Anyone read it?