UPDATE: Reviews section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
Just recently finished London Falling- also by Raddon Keefe. It's about how a young lad comes to 'fall out' of the 5th floor balcony of a Thames-side flat in central London. The actual central story's a bit thin, so it's padded out with side quests into London gangsters and Russian oligarchs, entertaining enough.
I think both Louis Theroux and Adam Buxton have interviewed the author and discussed this book. I have it on my audiobook list. Sounds worth a read.
Just finished Anthony Beevors Berlin - chaotic downfall of the Nazi state in 1945. Well written and doesn't duck some of the "reap the whirlwind" issues from the Soviets.
And i am halfway through Michael Livinston's Two Hundred years war. His thinking is we've ignored that the hundred years war kicked off earlier and finished later than we have traditionally recognised. You could argue it all started in 1066 - William King of England and Duke of Normandy...that was never going to work. Not quite the flowing style of Beevors writing but well put together nevertheless. Some remarkable first hand accounts from 800 years ago.
Little Blue Dot :How the Global Positioning System Shaped the Modern World
people on here might like it, i'm enjoying it
Chuck Palahniuk's latest, "Shock Induction". Almost back to his brilliant and crazy best after a few duds.
Julian Rathbone's 'The Last English King' which I'm enjoying as much as I did 20 years ago.
Fifty Miles Wide - Julian Sayarer
A beautifully-written, very thoughtful but deeply sobering account of the author's cycles around Israel and Palestine. Beautiful, honest, poignant.
Came on here looking for inspiration, found it, thanks. I rode N to S of Israel 12 years ago and found it quite an experience. Would like to go back for some reasons, wouldn't for others. Been reading some different books recently trying to get back into the habit as much as anything. Haven't read a good bike touring travel book in a while so I've grabbed a copy.
Per Pettersen - It's Fine By Me . A good read, picked up on a whim before a holiday in Norway. Was a good pick.
David Gutterson - East of the Mountains - a phone box find. Didn't get into it to start with but it got better further on. Glad I stuck with it, well written too.
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner. Another phone box find. Only 1/3 in but it's excellent.
Along similar lines of 'books I've heard of found in phone box box dumps', I picked up a copy of Life of Pi last year. Recommended, one of my favourites of recent years (years which admittedly are majority cycling/travel/exploration/mountaineering books, or more 'big ideas' type that were mostly filler round an idea worth about one of the 8 chapters).
Never believe a newspaper review of an SF book. This sounded good but is unreadably dull, pretentious bollocks. Just given up halfway through, now starting David Roberts 'Into the Great Emptiness' to take the taste away.
Just listened to Miles Jupp reading his own novel, History. Unsurprisingly he writes really jolly nicely. It’s set in the late 90s and is about a history teacher in his late thirties working at a pretentious private school. He’s called Clive Hapgood and he’s quite hapless. I shan’t ruin the story in case anyone wants to read it, but the ending is rather fabulous.
Weimar - Life on the edge of catastrophe. Katja Hoyer
Regime Change - inside the imperial presidency of donald trump. Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan
Probaly been mentioned before but just finished The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer. Very good.
"The Diary of a Nobody" by George and Weedon Grossmith.
and
Fundamentals of Creature Design.
PS
Still not finished Dracula.
Shakespeare: the man who pays the rent - Judi Dench - Don't know Shakespeare that well so this goes on a bit about plays I don't know, but still quite the journey. Her memory for Shskespeare is insanely good, she sounds like a very genuine, very fun person to know, and there are some laugh-out-loud bit, which I wasn't expecting! 🙂
Meantime - Frankie Boyle - Interesting read! Funny as you might expect, sometimes a bit relentless in the dark observations but jogs along and has an unexpectedly touching and sensitively-written turn part way through.
The Future Of Dinosaurs - Dave Hone - Great if you like dinosaurs, which I do! 🙂
The Cruel Sea - Nicholas Monserrat - A reread, hadn't read it for years but an absolute belter, much better than I remembered.
Black Holes - Brian Cox - I failed on this, started to run out of ability to comprehend early on, struggled on but had to give up at work holes. 🙁 Some pleasing analogies. 🙂
The Surgeon Of Crowthorne - Simon Winchester - No idea how I came across this (I think it must have been a late-night Kobo recommendation and purchase) but quite an interesting read about how the Oxford English Dictionary was originally put together and the unusual story behind one of the contributors. I liked that a lot.
Currently reading Joshua Slocum's autobiography of his round the world sail and a Guy Martin's for some light reading.
Just finished Bomber Command by Max Hastings and now on his Vietnam, both very interesting.
Just finished The Cone-Gatherers By Robin Jenkins, quite a short book set in Scotland during the second world war. It highlights the ridiculousness of the class system, it's a good page turner. Now reading James by Percival Everett.
Weimar - Life on the edge of catastrophe. Katja Hoyer
I've read "blood and iron" from Katja Hoyer after listening to her on the The Rest is History podcast last year. Very much enjoyed that, so shall put that ^^^ book on my list as well.
After a deep dive down a YouTube rabbit hole, I read "A game of birds and wolves" by Simon Parkin. I've read countless books on the battle of the Atlantic, but didn't know too much about WATU set up at Western approaches. Again a really good read.
Currently reading This Way Up by the Map Men from YouTube. It's nicely informative and amusing.
Have just finished Foundation and Foundation and Empire. They were bought for me as a present and I was really looking forward to then, given my liking for sci-fi and their classic status. They were incredibly, incredibly, average
Currently reading This Way Up by the Map Men from YouTube. It's nicely informative and amusing.
I expected nothing from that and really enjoyed it. 🙂
Have just finished Foundation and Foundation and Empire. They were bought for me as a present and I was really looking forward to then, given my liking for sci-fi and their classic status. They were incredibly, incredibly, average
A lot of 'Golden Age' SF hasn't aged well, particularly Asimov. But if you've never read them, try Philip K. Dick's Second Variety (1952) or A Martian Odyssey (1949).
I recently put Reeksy2 onto 20,000 leagues, War of the Worlds, Do androids dream... and I, Robot. He's absolutely loved them all... can't get his head around the 19th century books, in particular, being so good 🤣
Just finished The Cone-Gatherers By Robin Jenkins,
Blimey - there is a blast from the past. That was one of my GCSE English set books in 1986 and I've literally never seen it or heard of anyone else reading it since......quite weird in a good way if I remember
A lot of 'Golden Age' SF hasn't aged well, particularly Asimov.
It wasn't so much the 'ageing badly' stuff, like the lack of female characters (and when they are there, they still do all the cooking...), everyone smoking, the tech predictions being awry etc, it was really clunky writing, clunky pacing, clunky plot and clunky dialogue. It was like reading a straight-to-the Sci-Fi-channel film.
Conversely, I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea earlier in the year, which is even older and has 'aged' even worse, but it was still a decent read when you factored that in.
A lot of 'Golden Age' SF hasn't aged well, particularly Asimov.
I'm quite conflicted about a lot of it, because the ideas are fantastic - stuff like the Forever War, a book I remember (but now can't find) that predates the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by a couple of decades where the protagonist has a whole life then wakes up to find it starting again, a lot of Heinlein's stuff and so on.
But much of it's just badly written, huge amounts of clunky dialogue, stuff that isn't gripping and the like. Things like Sixth Column or The Puppet Masters obviously show their age with the racism and lack of female writing; but stuff like The Number of the Beast, for example, is a great idea stuck inside 400 pages of just tedium
the tech predictions being awry etc
I re-read Gibson's Virtual Light a while back, it's essentially a novel about town planning, there's a plot point around the fact that a car has a fax machine in it...
I think some of the problems with the "golden era" Sci-Fi is that much of it was cranked out in hours/days to fill the pages of cheap magazines.
Indeedy I only recently (a few years ago) read the Gibson stuff and was very disappointed by it. I ended reading it just so I knew I had, no enjoyment. As for the 50's sci-fi, I love lots of it, but read it in my youth (no internet or much TV back then) and I'd accept it hasn't aged well, especially as the idea's have been recycled and presented to you elsewhere
PS: Reading/listening to Jobless re-incarnation, it a better read (& worse in places) than you'd expect.
Slow Horses because I,m slow to catch up.On the plus side it's an excellent read.
Got a recommendation from a friend about "The Sun Eater" series by Christopher Rucchio. It reminds me a bit of the "Iron Gold" series (big space, sci-fi, epic) and it not terrible so far. Apparently seven books in the series and I am barely into the first, so it should keep me out of trouble for a while.
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe hot on the heels of London Falling.
Mixing it up with the DS Cross mysteries
‘The Electric Michelangelo’, by Sarah Hall. Opening on the windswept front of Morecambe Bay, on the remote north-west coast of England, The Electric Michelangelo is a novel of love, loss and the art of tattooing.
Revisiting books I haven't read since 1992, the Julien May Saga Of The Exile books. I order them second hand and they are the same covers from when I first read them.
I am currently reading Robin Hobb's Liveships trilogy, following the Assasin's trilogy.
They are big books with small type. Many words.
Also very good.
Revisiting books I haven't read since 1992, the Julien May Saga Of The Exile books. I order them second hand and they are the same covers from when I first read them.
Me too. I'm about to start (ahem) Priest-Kings of Gor...
Having finished 'Into the Great Emptiness' which was very good.
https://geographical.co.uk/book-reviews/into-the-great-emptiness-david-roberts-review
Just finished A Practical Guide to Conquering The World by KJ Parker, which I really enjoyed. The weird thing is, every single KJ Parker book is the same. They're all pretty much in the same fantasy world, they all feature a self deprecating main character who sort of fumbles and guesses their way through a series of terrible events and somehow comes out ahead, and they're all full of little things like "OBVIOUSLY the desert horsemen of <random nation> are the greatest basketweavers in the world" even though he's never even mentioned them before and suddenly that becomes the literal one possible thing that could save the day, or quotes from his hundred made up philosophers and opera writers and religions which are always mysteriously perfect for this exact situation and which the protagonist somehow memorises.
Literally all the same but it's always good fun
