Nearly finished First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, it's probably as close as you'll get to having an idea of what it must have been like to be a fighter pilot in WW2
I had a friend who was fighter pilot in WW2, Burma.
Quite few stories told, quite an eye opener.
Check out his memoirs.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/sparkes/contents.htm
I miss Edward a great friend.
While moving I found an handwritten list of book recommendations that I gathered up about 25 years ago, mostly with teh help of the old Iain Banks fan list culture@busstop.org. Lovely thing to find, just a total flashback to a happy place and while I've read a few there's a lot I've not so I thought it'd be great to dip into that
First off is Gridlinked by Neal Asher, because it was £1. Loads of people said was exactly like Iain M Banks and I'd definitely enjoy it. Absolute pish tbf, some good ideas but it's like a culture fanfic written by a 13 year old.
Still it can only get better
Nearly finished First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, it's probably as close as you'll get to having an idea of what it must have been like to be a fighter pilot in WW2
Oddly, I read that at the end of last year on a friend's recommendation and agree. Passed it on to my dad who also loved it.
Just finished the first two Slow Horses books - haven't seen the TV series. Enjoyable but lack the moral weight and anger of Le Carre's post-Cold War books.
Also read an old copy of The Changes Trilogy, the books the mid-70s kids' TV show was based on - would now be called YA fiction. Quite interesting.
Won't bother mentioning a dodgy cli-fi book the Guardian loved.
About to start Peter F. Hamilton's new book, Hole in the Sky. Love an Ark Ship story, me...
I’m sure some of these will already have been mentioned but still.
I’m trying to read more books this year, and the 3 so far have been:
Killing Thatcher by Roy Carroll. Really, really good read on the build up to the bombing if the Brighton Grand.
Bliss to be Alive by Gavin Hills. Lots of short pieces on everything from global politics to football to acid house. Very enjoyable.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Not sure it’s as good as The Martian, but another I really liked.
Next up will be Place of Tides by James Rebanks I think.
Just finished The Will of the Many by James Islington. I thought it was okay, but kind of like a mashup of the Hunger Games meets Harry Potter. The Ipcress File by Len Deighton was brilliantly written but I was absolutely clueless about the plot right up till the hero explains everything in the last few pages and I'm now just about to start Jerome K Jerome's Three Men on a Bummel. The follow-up to his lovely Three Men in a Boat. Looking forward to this.
Just finished The Bad Popes last night; doesn't sound like a promising topic, but genuinely fascinating how, between about 900AD and the sack of Rome in 1527, being Pope was basically just a licence to print money, so the Papacy was fought over, bought, sold, and generally about the most corrupt position in the known world. Tbh, from there I went to listening to a review of the new Melania film, and it's pretty obvious that Trump sees the US Presidency as the cardinals, Medicis, Borgias and all the other big families in Europe saw the Papacy at that time.
Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley. A good read, but a bloody depressing one. 😢
84K by Claire North. It's set in a dystopian near future UK and it's actually depressing me a bit how plausible it is. Other than that it's OK-ish.
Won't bother mentioning a dodgy cli-fi book the Guardian loved.
@montgomery I'm hoping this isn't Juice by Tim Winton, because I've just ordered that!
No, it was Thirsty Animals, swapped out in a local book exchange phone booth thing. I'm a bit jaundiced about cli-fi literature. I think it occupies the same territory as 'speculative fiction,' penned by authors who think they're too important for SF but who's output actually wouldn't stand up to the standards and expectations of real SF enthusiasts.
Read this years ago but didnt want to dig out my tatty copy to give for mates kids birthday, given the current state of the U.S/Europe/Russia/China relations I guess Huxley foresaw what was the obvious outcome
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
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You (all) need to read John Wyndham's 'The Chrysalids'....
Blood Red Snow by Korchorreck.
Memoir of a young WW2 German fighting on the eastern front. Brutal account of the constant slaughter of those around him - can only imagine how much worse it has to be on the Ukraine/Russian front lines with modern weaponry to survive against. Brutal.
Never heard of this^. Is it real, or something like Guy Sajer's 'Forgotten Soldier,' a great read and probably accurate synthesis of events that happened, but arguably discredited as actual autobiography?
I have two on the go at the minute (which is rare for me):
These two are following a couple of others of a similar vein. Hoping some external perspectives on Op Herrick and Afghanistan might help me put some things to bed. I've not found that resolution yet.
These two are following a couple of others of a similar vein. Hoping some external perspectives on Op Herrick and Afghanistan might help me put some things to bed. I've not found that resolution yet.
Have you ever read 'Quartered Safe Out Here' by George MacDonald Fraser?
He mentions the fact that almost nobody on the ground and certainly not the average squaddie ever has the slightest idea what the big picture is.
Edit: should have said that he illustrates this very neatly by writing about how his experience of a battle related to the official accounts.
Sounds like there's a lot of people on this thread reading WWII stuff.
Have any of you read 'The People's War' by Angus Calder?
He popped up on my radar as a poet, particularly his excellent poems about Edinburgh but apparently he was a historian first and TPW is supposedly a seminal work.
I'd be curious to hear what anyone who's read it thought about it.
Just about to start Sailing Close To The Wind - Reminiscences by Dennis Skinner. Last fiction book was Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre which was brilliant, sci fi, horror, alt future mash up.
Have you ever read 'Quartered Safe Out Here' by George MacDonald Fraser?
Cracking book, up there with First Light, although he's very much a product of his time. One wonders whether the Flashman books would get greenlit now...?
Hole in the Sky by Peter F Hamilton was rubbish, btw, don't bother.
Next up will be Place of Tides by James Rebanks I think.
I have that on a recommendation from a friend, not read it yet but it sounds ace. 🙂
Currently not that excited by Expected Goals - what is there to get excited about in a book on stats, I guess? - looking forward to Chasing Shadows by Dr Greg Skomdl, about the return of the great white shark to the eastern seaboard of America (didn't even know it had left! 🙂 ).
Shroud
Adrian Tchaikovsky
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210384823-shroud
Currently reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, set 1200, and 2005 Carcassonne. As historical fiction it's quite interesting, how accurate it is I'm not sure.
Also reading Tom Moorey "How to crack cryptic crosswords ", still a bloody mystery to me. 🤨
Never heard of this^. Is it real, or something like Guy Sajer's 'Forgotten Soldier,' a great read and probably accurate synthesis of events that happened, but arguably discredited as actual autobiography?
Apparently he wrote a diary on scraps of paper he kept inside his coat, and when returning home on leave would leave them at his parents home. After the war his wife married an American and some how they were taken there when some 40yrs later his daughter found them. She traced her father who deciphered them into a book.
As any autobiography/memoir, the hero is always the person writing it. But it does give a very different perspective on what the German grunts holding the line faced ..
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton was brilliantly written but I was absolutely clueless about the plot right up till the hero explains everything in the last few pages
I had the same experience with "A Funeral In Berlin ".
RIP my great uncle Corporal Isaac Blakeley - George Macdonald Fraser dedicated his book Quartered Safe out here too him - buried in Yangon (Rangoon) Military Cemetery - the attack when he was killed along with at least 3 others from the border regiment is described in the book - hoping for a settled time in Myanmar politics - so I can go pay my respects. Born in Whitehaven - KIA somewhere south of Mandalay March 1945.
On a lighter note - currently reading
Companion Guide to the Punic wars - a collection of different academics on the 1st (a bit of sparing) , 2nd (Hannibal turns up) and third (Grim for Carthage) Punic wars.
And
Panzers of Prokhorovka - er three German tanks lost on the days of the big tank battle.......hmmmm.....tank chasis numbers prove it apparently.
These two are following a couple of others of a similar vein. Hoping some external perspectives on Op Herrick and Afghanistan might help me put some things to bed. I've not found that resolution yet.
Have you ever read 'Quartered Safe Out Here' by George MacDonald Fraser?
He mentions the fact that almost nobody on the ground and certainly not the average squaddie ever has the slightest idea what the big picture is.
Edit: should have said that he illustrates this very neatly by writing about how his experience of a battle related to the official accounts.
I haven't. I'm keeping it my era for now, the search for meaning of the time I spent there is small and limited, learning why it was doomed to fail before it began is enlightening and disheartening all at the same time.
84K by Claire North
There's an author I need to go and find more from. I loved The First Fifteen Lives of thingy; Touch was great too - she has some fantastic ideas.
Ape and Essence
Would you recommend it/ say it's engaging? Brave New World's the only Huxley I've read, and it's obviously important but not instantly memorable.
I've just started The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Only about 50 pages in but love it so far - the initial threads are all pretty gripping and keep me reading to find out where it goes!
In a change from space opera and slowhorses I'm reading the ADHDadults book 'ADHD unpacked' (after getting into their podcasts).
A thread of this parish put me onto them, really interesting and accessible (both the book and the podcasts)
Interesting and terrifying reading especially when you think of who has the nuclear football
I haven't. I'm keeping it my era for now, the search for meaning of the time I spent there is small and limited, learning why it was doomed to fail before it began is enlightening and disheartening all at the same time.
I was listening to a podcast about OODA loops and they were interviewing a military strategist who talked about the difference between complicated and complex problems. He described the first Gulf War as a complicated problem. There were lots of variables but they could crunch the numbers and come up with a solution. He contrasted this with Afghanistan as a complex problem where no amount of number crunching or strategizing would yield a viable solution.
With the complicated scenario you're saying things like 'the enemy has X many tanks here so we're going to send X many anti-tank helicopters'. With the complex scenario you're dealing with things you can't predict like the guy who plants an IED because an American soldier ran over his dog.
I haven't. I'm keeping it my era for now, the search for meaning of the time I spent there is small and limited, learning why it was doomed to fail before it began is enlightening and disheartening all at the same time.
Quartered Safe Out Here is a brilliant memoir about the British soldier's experience of fighting the Japanese and well worth a read. The average infantryman seemed focussed mainly on his section and probably knew very little of what was going on beyond battalion level. The ending of the war due to the dropping of the two atomic bombs was a (welcome) shock to them as they expected to have to fight the Japanese on their home islands.
As the world seems to be going to shit, a friend recommended the "Dungeon Crawler Carl" series as a little light relief. I suspect I will end up getting the first of the series this weekend.
I'm currently switching between two books. Trying to read Catch 22 but finding it hard going. Finding it much easier to read One Man And His Bike by Mike Carter which was a gift from my parents and i wasn't expecting much of but it's very easy to read and makes me want to pack up and go explore.
I tried starting Catch 22 just after I had Covid years ago, brain struggled with it. Might have a look later in the year.
Currently got Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography on the go, fascinating look at geopolitics and how the geography of the world controls certain ideas world leaders might have. Nearly finished this, previous to that I read Liam Byrne's Inequality of Wealth, interesting read.
Next up will be Bob Mortimers latest as I need a bit of light relief after those last 2.
Stuff I've read recently or have on the go
- Christian Wolmar - The subterranean railway. A history of the London underground that's much more interesting and readable than you'd expect. His book 'British Rail' is the same.
- Simon Jenkins - a short history of London. Dipping in and out of this but a flying overview of London's history.
- Bob Mortimer - Satuma complex. Really don't think this is very good, but anything in Bob's voice is massively entertaining.
We've got kindles and signed up to the BookBub email that tells gives you a list of e books for 99p each week so buying lots of stuff at low risk these days.
Bob Mortimer - Satuma complex. Really don't think this is very good, but anything in Bob's voice is massively entertaining.
I love Bob Mortimer but not in print.
https://james1940.substack.com/p/first-light-remembering-a-few-of
That is a superb account of how "First Light" came to be published.
There is a bit of randomness about how some WW2 memoirs end up getting published. One of the best biographies of the Pacific war from a front line marine's point of view - "With The Old Breed : At Peleliu and Okinawa" - was originally just written just for the author's family. Some real gritty passages. American marine prisoners mutilated by the Japs but also things like the author seeing a marine extracting gold teeth from the mouth of a severly injured but still living japanese. Eventually another marine put him out his misery. Another marine collecting hands rather than the more common gold teeth.
I guess brutal close quarter combat where no quarter was given brutalises many people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Old_Breed
@StuE thanks for posting that link to the QSOH dramatisation. I listened to it today and thought it was very well done.
Chasing Shadows by Greg Skomal was outstanding - if you have any interest in sharks, I highly recommend it. Followed that with Younghusband by Patrick French, a biography of "the last great imperial adventurer",which was really good, much of what he thought and did was pretty despicable by modern standards, but he proved himself to be a man with an unusually open mind for the time. I mean - did he actually diddle his sister? Who knows....
I bought Quartered Safe Out Here and First Light based on the love for them on here - next, I'm finishing off The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark, a lengthy but fascinating and in-depth look at the causes of the first world war.
I bought a Kobo Clara BW last week, fired it up today for the first time - very pleased so far, seems quicker than my Kindle Paperwhite and the controls are more intuitive and streamlined. Bought a couple of 99p books plus the wonderful-sounding Antarctica by Gabrielle Walker, it also allows me to borrow e-books from the library (once I've paid my outstanding fines...) and best of all it takes me out of that hateful Amazon shitosphere, super-pleased with that - keep you posted... 🙂
The Name Of The Rose, having been meaning to read it for years.
'Heresy in many cases is wed to the revolt against overlords, and this is why the heretic begins by preaching Madonna Poverty [cf MAGA?] and then falls prey to all the temptations of power, war, violence'
Working my way through a cheesy Clive Cussler adventure novel. Quite nice to be reading a book where the evil villain attempting to destroy the planet actually gets a deserved, painful, and ironic death at the hands of Dirk Pitt. Unlike the real world where they get promoted to the top of the US government.
Just finished Panzers of Prokhorovka by Ben Wheatley - proves by engineering workshop tank returns that the Germans didn't lose that many tanks on the day of the big fight 12th July - they did still lose though (even though the soviets lost lots of AFVs). Most of the German tanks were lost in the Soviet offensives after Kursk during August and September 1943.
The Howdens trade book at the minute...
Empireland: How Imperialism has shaped Modern Britain, Sathnam Sanghera - Very readable and nuanced reflection on stuff that gets social media warriors yelling into the void.
Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard - the book behind Tarrantino's Jackie Brown.
Read this years ago but didnt want to dig out my tatty copy to give for mates kids birthday, given the current state of the U.S/Europe/Russia/China relations I guess Huxley foresaw what was the obvious outcome
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
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Sounds like a sequel to Neville Shute's 'On the Beach', if that were possible (trying to remember the end of that one....)
I just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Seal Of The Worm, and with it the entire 10-book fantasy series it's part of. Quite an up-and-down series, there's a couple of books that I just basically didn't enjoy much and a couple that I absolutely love, it basically has 2 parallel plots- the "olde worlde magick" plot and the "supercharged industrial revolution/industrialised war" plot and basically I enjoyed the latter much more but I think Tchaikovsky enjoyed the former more.
Last novel is an odd thing at times, it felt very rushed at times, and almost like notes for a novel, lots of very short, disjointed chapters, sometimes I outright felt I'd missed a bit and went back to check but nope, it's just how it's written. Not at all convinced the timeline works, at some point there's about 5 connected character arcs/plots and I'm pretty sure some progress by days and others progress by weeks and then they just reunite. Very odd, especially since the middle is such an overstuffed armchair of a thing, this is epic fantasy that's very comfortable being fat and slow most of the time and then this one isn't. It's like his publisher went "You've got one book to finish it all, we're not releasing another". Or actually, it reminds me of Wheel Of Time, how Robert Jordan realised he was going to die before he could finish it so he made notes and sketched out the arc and wrote some key scenes then someone else finished the job. Except that Adrian Tchaikovsky is not dead of course and is still writing.
But still, there's something a bit special about the ending of a really fat series like this and I was really pretty emotional about the wrapping up of it all, the deaths and epilogues and more hopeful future.
Poor ol Totho though. I really enjoy when someone subverts the obvious plots and cliches but it'd be a hard thing, to be the character that the subversion lands on!
Interested in reading that Shadows of the Apt sequence as I've heard it recommended as a series that really holds together, something almost no multi-volume fantasy series do. I think AT writing like the rent is due must be significant - The only one I've read that truly succeeds (Malazan) was also written with furious industry, just makes the narrative very tight.
The blacktongue thief by Christopher Buehlman is really good, finished that this week. I maybe overrate him a bit, as he wrote a book called Between two fires that is basically Dark Souls, the novel, but I think he's one of the best writers atm in fantasy / horror. The book itself is kind of straightforward but he's got a very skilled, understated prose style, just elevates everything about it.
Stuck at home after knee replacement a fortnight ago so maybe 25% up on normal. Next to the bed are "Sahibs" by Richard Holmes, a row of CJ Sansom "Shardlake" novels with three on the go (paperbacks for the bath, hardbacks for bed. Miguel Indurain biog by Fotheringham, "Heavy Weather sailing" by K Adlard Coles , everyone of Nevil Shutes books in a pile, some re-read for the hundredth time and some awaiting that, "Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia", John Cleare and "The Hard Year, Joe Brown. In the summer house where I retreat to there is "Tommy " by Richard Holmes, "The British Sporting Gun and Rifle , by Donald Dallas, "Classic Rock" original and new version and "Hard Rock". Nevil Shutes might move there as I read one in a few hours and I like a change.
Just finished Place of the Tides my James Rebanks. Really good that was. A lovely book.
Have now started To Kill a Mockingbird. Enjoying it so far.
The Fraud by Paul Holden. McSweeney and his chums ****ing the country over.
The Fraud by Paul Holden. McSweeney and his chums ****ing the country over.
Fiction or non-fiction? Not sure from your summary.
I've been gradually working my way through the C J Samsom "Shardlake series. I'm now towards the end of the final book "Tomland".
I've enjoyed them although I feel they are a bit too dragged out and could be a bit more condensed. I've found them quite educational. Although fictional they are based, on a large extent, on real events and real people.
Yeah, Tombland is a bit of a slog. Carefully researched as always, but [kind of spoiler alert] the murder mystery is all but abandoned in the second half of the book for a sympathetic story telling of life in a workers' uprising camp. Which is very well meaning, but a bit of a change, especially since there is an essay at the back covering this.
Currently reading Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
I was a bit dubious about starting it, in case it was all a bit 'David T. does gruesome aliens' (again), but it's turning into a very decent first contact novel.
I finished Shroud last week - as above, plus a future human society that, depressingly, I feel is much more likely than, say, the more utopian, neo-liberal Culture-type vision of Iain Banks.
I recently finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘Shadows of the Apt’ series, all ten books, which have kept me quietly engaged for some time, and I’m now re-reading Neil Stephenson’s ‘Termination Shock’, and after that, I’ve got Clair North’s new book, a bit of a change from what she’s written previously, about Greek legends, before that a variety of different stories, and before that, writing as Kate Griffin a series of Urban Magic stories, this one’s a space opera type of thing!
Just started "Rubicon" by Tom Holland, it will be interesting to see where it all went wrong for the empire,and whether any parallels could be drawn for Trump's America.
I just wrapped up Adrian Tchaikovsky's Doors of Eden. It's very good; the third of his I've read (Children of Time and Children of whatsit being the others), and where it takes you, from the quite sensible, almost dull, beginning, is quite compelling.
But I don't think he knew how to finish it; the final third is quite drawn out, he has about 6 attempts at writing an ending, and then it's left open-ended. And in a way it's not dissimilar to the other two I've read in that. Still, it's very good; less serious than Alistair Reynolds, more serious and deeper than The Collapsing Empire, and if not as entertaining as the Ministry of Time, still gripping.
Now back to trying to get through The Naked and The Dead, which is a slog
Antarctica by Gabrielle Walker was brilliant - I grabbed it because she was fantastic on the Empire podcast's episode sbout Shakeleton and the Endurance, and the book built on that in a hundred different ways. Really easy to read but also quite (to me!) technical, she does the history stuff and the science stuff brilliantly and a warm and wonderful humour. Great book. 🙂
I devoured Quartered Safe Out Here - a great book, I loved the Cumbrian dialogue and that dude really knows how to portrait a character in words. Thank you for all the recommendations on here - First Light is also at home on the TBR pile. 🙂
Currently reading The Devil's Teeth, by Susan Casey, about the great whites of the Farallon islands - it's pretty good, with the sort of bouncy, preppy feel I've found quite often in books written by people with a background in outdoorsy journalism.
Love the Kobo - there is probably an element of "I've just bought it therefore it must be REALLY good", but the controls are much more intuitive and better thought-out than my Kindle Paperwhite (no clicking to bring up a laggy menu then driving a slider to change backlight here - just slide the lefthand side of the screen whilst you're reading, up for brighter, down for darker), you can pinch-scroll into images and it seems much quicker too (the only exception in Antarctica was turning from the last page of one chapter to the first page of the next, where there was an unexpected Kindle-like lag). Lots of 99p books, looking forward to getting hooked up to Birmingham Library for their e-lends and best of all, not a penny to Bezos. 🙂
I’m reading Atomic Habits right now. Really liking it so far.
Love the Kobo - there is probably an element of "I've just bought it therefore it must be REALLY good", but the controls are much more intuitive and better thought-out than my Kindle Paperwhite
Tbh, I don't think I could design a worse interface than my Kindle's if I tried.
Just read Enshitification and Polar Wars, the latter after listening to The Rest Is Politics podcast interview with the author.
Enshitification was a well researched, well written book (discussed elsewhere on STW) but Polar Wars was a bit disappointing. Good subject matter and quite well researched but (a) would benefit from a better editor (prose is all over the place IMO) and (b) missed a huge chunk of the subject as it didn't cover Canada or Russia in any great depth (Russia is sorta understandable due to lack of access but not researching/discussing Canada is kinda inexcusable)
Just finished A Year At The Circus by Jon Sopel,Trumps first term. The mad dysfunctional emporers house of lies
Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. There should be some sort of warning on emotional rollercoasters like these, "Don't let Beagy read the ending while on the bus home", would work.
Fabulous wee book though. Worth checking out if you haven't already.
I've now started Bernard Cornwell's latest 'Sharpe' novel. Old Sharpie giving the French a good kicking should cheer me up no end.
Finished Caledonian road by Andrew O'Hagan. 640 pages, took him ten years to write (he took a break to write Mayflies). Privilege, politics, corruption, organised crime and families are linked in a complex web that is brought crashing down. Very different to his other books (that I've read), it highlights our rotten society and the hubris that'll (maybe) be it's downfall. Loved it.
Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. There should be some sort of warning on emotional rollercoasters like these, "Don't let Beagy read the ending while on the bus home", would work.
I've read this maybe 5 or 6 times, every time I think "don't finish this in a public place" and every time I do, I'm on a bus, or a train, or in the office.
Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. There should be some sort of warning on emotional rollercoasters like these, "Don't let Beagy read the ending while on the bus home", would work.
I've read this maybe 5 or 6 times, every time I think "don't finish this in a public place" and every time I do, I'm on a bus, or a train, or in the office.
This shows that I have absolutely no empathy at all. I finished it and thought no more about it. (Although, maybe it needs a separate thread - I watched Boys From The Blackstuff last week and found some of that difficult to deal with.)
So still on a fantasy run, I'm about a quarter into the second book of KJ Parker's Two Of Swords. A fairly odd thing, not a huge amount has actually happened and all of the big "world events" stuff that fantasy's usually obsesssed with has happened offscreen while we were following around 2 different character pairs getting lost. The pacing is slow or maybe you could say erratic, like, the book starts with a huge introduction to two young characters going off to war and then they just... go away. One has returned as a main character, the other just as a bit part and it's all a bit weird. It was released as serialised novellas and now it's repackaged as a single gigantic "novel" but in 3 volumes rather than as a collection or as 3 novels, which just feels a little bit art project. I guess it's why it feels a little disjointed.
But it's beautifully written, this is another author I think could write an engaging shopping list.
(Also Telamon is wonderful, basically Fantasy Fleabag. In a genre with way too many thieves/assassins she's a standout. There's a huge section of this book which is basically just Tel and Oida Hang Out and I wish it'd never ended)
Strange thing, KJ Parker is Tom Holt. And I bloody hated Tom Holt. But I love KJ Parker.
This one
I'm only in the first 50 pages or so, but it's basically a potted history of the semi-permanent snow patches on the Scottish hills and the people who've dligently documented their survival (or otherwise) over the last few decades, mixed in with historical references to extensive snow cover throughout the years in past centuries. Dr Adam Watson is included in the list of people who have been involved with making it a popular scientific endeavour.
Theres a photo in the middle of the book of one of the coires on Braeraich, taken in the cold and snowy winter of 1951, when they reckon there was up to 70ft of snow depth in places. You dont see that nowadays.
Love the Kobo - there is probably an element of "I've just bought it therefore it must be REALLY good", but the controls are much more intuitive and better thought-out than my Kindle Paperwhite
Tbh, I don't think I could design a worse interface than my Kindle's if I tried.
A Kobo Clara colour arrived this morning from amazon as I’ve never used nor even held/seen an e-ink reader so thought I’d treat myself as I spend most of my life sat on my arse reading on my iPad/iphone/real books etc but………… it’s going back to Amazon tomorrow.
Doesn’t work with the “borrowbook” system Dumfries & Galloway library service use as the Kobo only works with “overdrive/libby” apps for borrowed books, I could download a book to my iMac then connect and drag/drop into the Kobo but that’s an utter faff. the overall interaction and controls were absolutely rubbish and the delay in their use was laughable.
The e-ink screen that everyone says is amazing?, personally i thought it was guff.
Its only saving grace was the weight (lack-off)
Guess I’ll stick to reading on my 11” iPad/iPhone, but an iPad mini for reading ?……….that'd be a better size/weight and you can pick up a mini for the same price as a Kobo Clara.
Reading this at the moment- tis’ good and a page turner
Never entirely sure how to reply to "I think that thing you love is shit" responses... 🙂 Mine's black and white, I didn't see the need for colour as I'm only ever going to use it for reading, I don't know if there's much of a difference between the two devices? And its compatability with the various library systems is definitely out there, which is why I knew it's compatible with our local one. The e-ink screen uses the same tech as Kindle, it's as good as there currently is on the market and in my opinion is massively easier on the eye to read from than the screen of a device. I spent a lot of time trying to see if there's a way to transfer my Kindle books to it, decided not to bother in the end - I still have the Kindle if I want to read one of them.
I'm sorry you didn't like yours but, for me, coming from Kindleland, my Kobo is a noticeable step forward. 🙂
Louis Theroux's "Theroux the Keyhole: The diaries of a Grounded Documentary maker" at the moment
And "Iran: A modern History" by Abbas Amanat just 'cos I really don't know much at all about Iran!