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Waiting on monkeenutz to come along and tell us we're all cretins because we're not reading ancient Sanskrit scripts. 🙂
Galactic patrol by E E "Doc" Smith for the umpteenth time. 😳 Its a simple but riproaring yarn
American Tabloid by James Elroy...superb.
Just finished Defense of the Realm about the history of MI5, quite interesting but heavy going in places
On a Wing and a Prayer: Biography of Steve Coppell by Stuart Roach.
A truly top man by the sounds of it. And I haven't even got to the Reading years yet.
The Damned United by David Peace - so far much better than the film of the same name.
just about to start 'The man who cycled the world' (Mark Beaumont)
just finished 'The Escape Artist' quite a good book bit short though
[i]just finished 'The Escape Artist' quite a good book bit short though [/i]
did you want more details about his wife's chemo or something?
gervaise phinn - head over heals in teh dales, very very very funny
AndyP - Member
Why would you reply with something like that ????? 😕
sorry just found it brief !
[i]AndyP - Member
Why would you reply with something like that ?????
[/i]
because I found it a bizarre statement.
sorry didnt think the book was all about his wifes illness ?
[i]Old Mendip[/i] by Robin Atthill. My preferred folk-cure for the pain of exile.
im after a good horror please?
try Under the dome, the new one by Stephen King.
currently:
The Uplift War - David Brin
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner
Broken Rails - Christian Wolmar
Tiziano Terzani- A fortune teller told me.
An account of a year avoiding air travel by a journalist who covered many epochal events of the 20th C. His translator in Cambodia was a focal character in the film "The killing fields". The book is beautifully written, very readable and strangely mind altering if you are open to that sort of thing.
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Bike
Interesting spelling and grammar to start a thread about books with there 😉
Regardless, I'm in the middle of Stand on Zanzibar at the moment. I found the first part of the book quite dull, but now I'm getting deeper in the interest is starting to show. I haven't really seen the brilliance that got it destined for the SF Masterworks series, and earned it so many high praises, yet though.
I think I need to give Blood Meridian another try soon. I started on it a while ago but ran out of steam around half way through, For some reason it didn't grab me at that time, although most of McCarthy's other stuff I've read has been brilliant.
Chris Hoys' Autobiography.
Just got to the bit where he had 15 pastries for breakfast.
[i]Bike[/i]
I re-read old copies... endlessly.
Blood Meridian's problem is the long sentences that start and keep going and going and when you expect a comma or something to punctuate the unremmitting biblical prophecy spake truely by the Judge you find nothing but ands and ands and then you think it is all over and a new paragraph shall arise surely and lo no paragraph is born and again the ands and ands go on and on and then a scalp is hoist aloft and it is truely a scalp that which a man has bequeathed off from his skull that which did think of nothing but hot sun and thirst and explosive destruction created by man from matches on a barren lump of rock on this earth and man's demonic ingenuity before of which it was taken from that dome.
Amongst other things I'm part way through Paris - Roubaix : A Journey Through Hell.
Probably one of the best cycling books I've ever read.
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sodafarls - MemberBlood Meridian's problem is the long sentences that start and keep going and going and when you expect a comma or something ...
Takes a while to tune in but what's not to like?
[i]"It was a lone tree burning on the desert. A heraldic tree that the passing storm had left afire. The solitary pilgrim drawn up before it had traveled far to be here and he knelt in the hot sand and held his numbed hands out while all about in that circle attended companies of lesser auxiliaries routed forth into the inordinate day, small owls that crouched silently and stood from foot to foot and tarantulas and solpugas and vinegarroons and the vicious mygale spiders and beaded lizards with mouths black as a chowdog's, deadly to man, and the little desert basilisks that jet blood from their eyes and the small sandvipers like seemly gods, silent and the same, in Jeda, in Babylon. A constellation of ignited eyes that edged the ring of light all bound in a precarious truce before this torch whose brightness had set back the stars in their sockets."[/i]
Cycling weekly :O)
Swallows and Amazons.
Never read it before.
It's good. 😀
Rusty - Swallows and Amazons are ace as is the rest of Ransome's books!
Certainly put me in the mood to read it again - that said I believe Titty has become politically incorrect as has Roger the dog.........
Books I'm reading in various states of completion....
The first dragon tattoo book thing, it's not as good as people are making out but I'll keep reading it to make sure
Catch 22 - (forth time)
Cryptonomicon - Second time, it's a great book.
On my ipod I'm reading moby dick and the twelveth night, (the latter nly because she's the man was on tv the other night and it arose my interest despite reading it a long time ago.
I have nothing lined up once I've finished these and need to sort out some new books.
tankslapper - Great isn't it? You mean Roger the ship's boy?
Definitely not allowed these days!
Love old fashioned kid's books: Used to read Jennings, Bunter, Biggles, Famous Five, Ian Serraillier (The Silver Sword, There's no Escape) and Anne Holm (I am David) all the time as a small kid.
Also re read Erskine Childers' 'Riddle of the Sands' recently for the first time in 30 years, along with H Rider Haggard's 'King Solomons' Mines.'
Second childhood? Bring it on.
Collins Mandarin Phrasebook and Dictionary
and
The Acid House
Also reading 20 000 leagues under the sea on iphone. Its good, and i reccomend reading the invisible man or war of the worlds which are also on there...
Agreewith Rusty Spanner, Sillver sword. Famous five books are just good books for kids (uncles might quite enjoy them too!
I have just finished Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton, rather long but difficult to put down. On the Origin of Species, by some old dude (a 1930's re-print I found in a second hand book shop), also the greatest show on earth by Richard Dawkins and just to keep me confused at bedtime I am re-reading the Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen. Which is a bit difficult to get into but once going is a bloomin good read and makes one realise how ballsy late 19th century explorers were.
Your Heart is Mine - Dean Koontz
Uses of Heritage
The Heritage Reader
Understanding Heritage in Practice
All ripping reads 😕
Chi Runnng - Danny Dryer .....interesting stuff about running more efficient ....if a little bit 'hippyish'.
Ring of Fire - non-fiction about MotoGP, Rossi et al (and Hailwood) written by a sports writer from The Times.
Really good read.
'Generation A' by Douglas Coupland, and some rather less page-turning doorstops for a course at work.
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, should be required reading. Favourite quote, "Gillian McKeith, or to give her full medical title, Gillian McKeith.."
Just finished Feet in the Clouds, a surprisingly readable book about fell running, and before that American Gods by Neil Gaiman. All highly recommended.
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[i]The Girl Who Played With Fire[/i] here. Finished the first one last week.
Just bought The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes and The Assault on Liberty by Dominic Raab. Looking forward to reading both of them.
Professional by Robert B Parker - latest in the Spencer series - brilliant crime books with very short chapters.
Mostly [i]looking at[/i] Exposures - retrospective of photos by Jane Bown - portraitist photographer for The Observer for a looooooong time - good but not half as good as seeing her original prints on exhibition at the NPG last week...