What book (s) are you reading now ?

Peter White who I think is one of the leaders Al Murray examines in Command.

He is, and Murray read ‘with the Jocks’ as background – I need to seek out a copy, White sounds an interesting fella.

BTW @nickc – thanks for ‘tsundoku’. I have one and I never knew. Gotta love an STW school day!

Another recommendation for those with an interest in WW2, is ‘Quartered safe out here’ by George McDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman books.  It’s a personal account of his service in the Burma campaign with the Border regiment, first as a Tom and later commissioning as a Lieutenant. It’s a really gripping account although his experience leaves him with a visceral hatred of the Japanese (common I think to many who fought in the far east) to the point of getting very angry in the epilogue about those who questioned the necessity of the nuclear attacks on Japan.  The moralities and rights and wrongs of that aside, it’s a superb insight into an infantryman’s lot in the far east in WW2.

‘Quartered safe out here’ by George McDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman books.

Absolutely brilliant. I remember watching him interviewed on the South Bank Show back in the day. His hatred of the Japanese was quite a thing.

Currently reading Russia by Anthony Beevor, quite a history.

Also re-reading The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams on the side.

‘With the Jocks’

This was one of the first WW books I read and I can certainly recommend it – what really came out from it for me was White’s thoughts that at any other time, he could have been friends with the people he was fighting against (as in he appreciated that the ‘normal’ soldier was only doing what they were told to do just as he was).

Just finished High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for a bit of retro. Light reading but its a rare case where I think the film is better than the book!

Talking of retro I have finally started the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson with Neuromancer. Considering its central themes of AI, big data, metaverse etc Its absolutely crazy to think it was written in 1984

On Tyranny and On Ukraine – Timothy Synder

Reading that now @nickc after reading an interview in the guardian I think. He’s not a man filled with self doubt is he, but very readable. Also have With the Jocks on the Kindle. Added those two other WW2 books – not heard of those before.

Also with my quest to investigate every sci-fi trope, I’m reading the 4 book “Old Mans War” series. Well written, rattles along and has some occasional proper science in it.

He is not @Al. you’re not wrong. I think you and I must have read the same Sat Guardian article. I think it’s an intriguing read nevertheless and his description of Putin’s unique take on fascism is very interesting and well observed.

I’d forgotten this thread was still going!
Just finished: Real Tigers (Slow Horses book 3), Mick Herron. Excellent, and felt like possibly the best of the three I’ve read so far, after a slightly week second one.
Now onto the Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy.

And just had a big ol’ delivery of secondhand books to add to the pile, including Welcome to Lagos, The Wife’s Tale, a Tchaikovsky sci-fi, and Ringworld for some old-school scifi. Bosh!

He is not @Al. you’re not wrong. I think you and I must have read the same Sat Guardian article. I think it’s an intriguing read nevertheless and his description of Putin’s unique take on fascism is very interesting and well observed.

Yep that’s what drew me in. Like you I’ve read a lot of military history and I was keen to get some new perspectives.

Just finished High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for a bit of retro. Light reading but its a rare case where I think the film is better than the book!

I missed this. I cannot let it pass. I LOVE that book. The film is pretty good but the book is so much better. I could read the section on him re-organising his record collection every day 🙂

‘Quartered safe out here’ by George McDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman books.

Can I also recommend his MacAuslan series, I think there are 3. Affectionate, funny and slightly biographical stories of a postwar Scottish regiment.

Just finished High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for a bit of retro. Light reading but its a rare case where I think the film is better than the book!

I missed this. I cannot let it pass. I LOVE that book. The film is pretty good but the book is so much better. I could read the section on him re-organising his record collection every day 🙂

Agreed. Some of Hornby’s stuff is very good, but I think you need to be a certain sort of person to pick up on the detail. 😀

Also with my quest to investigate every sci-fi trope, I’m reading the 4 book “Old Mans War” series. Well written, rattles along and has some occasional proper science in it.

Well written in a ‘rattle along so quickly that the reader doesn’t have time to question’ way. 😀 I read The Last Colony a few weeks ago. It was enjoyable in that US militaristic way, but absolute rubbish. Not as many ideas as in the first 2 books either.

Recently read:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Can anyone tell me what I missed? This is supposed to be a modern classic, and although it starts well, it disappears up itself for the last 300 pages. I was glad to finish it.

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn – thoroughly enjoyed this.

Warpaths by John Keegan. An account of his travels through North America with accounts of the various campaigns along the way. Interesting but 30 years old.

The Duel by Joseph Conrad. The longish short story that Ridley Scott’s The Duellists was closely based on. I enjoy a bit of Conrad. Claustrophobic, 19th century verbiage. 😀

The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Is that the murder set in the stuffy American university inhabited by wholly hateful characters? Yeah, I struggled with it after a while, it is about 150 pages too long for its own good.

Is that the murder set in the stuffy American university inhabited by wholly hateful characters? Yeah, I struggled with it after a while, it is about 150 pages too long for its own good.

That’s the one. I couldn’t get to grips with the insufferable characters, the narrator who did absolutely nothing with respect to the plot or 300 pages of heavy drinking, drug-taking angsty conversations.

Currently reading “The Nightmare Stacks”, book 7 of the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Pretty damn awesome series.

Having not touched Asimov probalby since my teens, I’m currently re-reading the Foundation series (I’m up to book 3 quite quickly, it’s not hard reading), and am intending to pick up the Robots books as well.

Recently finished the Avison Fluke novels from M.W. Craven, and books 2 and 3 of the DS Max Craigie books from Neil Lancaster – all police / crime novels, from 2 authors worth checking out if that’s your bag.

I’ve just finished the Earth Remembrance/Three Body Problem Trilogy by Liu Cixin. Absolutely rammed with ideas and really interesting to read SciFi from a Chinese perspective so lots more focus on collective endeavour than in western SciFi I think

Final book overplays the ending I think but well worth the investment

Reading the Burma Campaign by Frank Mclynn. Good insight into the bonkers politics of the higher command. Slim comes out with credit. Less so others….

Personal connection with “Quartered Safe Out Here” By George Macdonald Fraser – the book is dedicated to my great uncle who was killed in an attack on a Japanese strongpoint described in the book. I think south of Mandalay. Very personal to me – he’s buried in Rangoon (Yangon).

Just started Bringing Down Goliath, by Jo Maugham – interesting read so far, bit of a biography anda refreshingly accessible overview of the legal system and its relationship with government.

Talking of retro I have finally started the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson with Neuromancer. Considering its central themes of AI, big data, metaverse etc Its absolutely crazy to think it was written in 1984

I finally finished it last week, damn I wish I’d read them when they were new. Can’t say I really enjoyed the series, but had to keep reminding myself this was the book that spawned a lot of modern Sci-fi, and wasn’t re-working someone elses ideas. Going to try his other stuff, and see if I enjoy that any better.

Also just completed Hugh Howey’s Sand omnibus, which I enjoyed way more than I expected.
On the look out for something new… between Mick Herron books

Having not touched Asimov probalby since my teens, I’m currently re-reading the Foundation series (I’m up to book 3 quite quickly, it’s not hard reading), and am intending to pick up the Robots books as well.

I am vaguely temped after watching Foundation on Apple TV – can’t remember that much from the books.

My favourite Asimov was The End of Eternity –  I’d totally forgotten about it as I read it in early 80s but watching Dark reminded me!  I think it was a pre-prequel to the Foundation series

Mick Herron’s – Bad actors.

Very good.

The Quarry – Iain Banks.
I am a big Banks fan and have been putting off reading this for a long time,I thought it would be too sad.
I was right,it’s a tough read 😔

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Poverty-stricken farmers in the US mid-west getting forced off their land by mechanisation. Not as bleak as it sounds.

I read it a few years ago. Loved it. What an ending! I then read a lot more Steinbeck. East of Eden I enjoyed even more.

Currently reading and enjoying Small things like these by Claire Keegan. Very interesting.

Just finished Crime by Irvine Welsh, now on Bob Mortimer’s The Satsuma Complex. Very Bob Mortimer so far.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Poverty-stricken farmers in the US mid-west getting forced off their land by mechanisation. Not as bleak as it sounds.

I read it a few years ago. Loved it. What an ending!

Yes, the most perfect ending to a book, ever. Often you get to the end of a book and think ‘Is that it’? Or want it to carry on, but the closure on that final page is a thing of almost unique beauty.

But I dispute the claim ‘not as bleak as it sounds’ – it’s pretty bleak at times!

I usually find myself looking at Dorothea Lange photography whilst I am reading it as she beautifully captures the essence of the characters in the book (being similar people during the Great Depression years).

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh is much better than the film, IMO.
I suppose the Grapes of Wrath is pretty bleak, but he doesn’t dwell on their plight. Day to day life goes on…

Try ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’ by George Orwell, if you liked the Grapes of Wrath.
TBF, he could’ve written a Post-It and I would read it.

Bob Mortimer’s The Satsuma Complex. Very Bob Mortimer so far.

Very much this – really enjoyed it

Two at the moment, one is the second of Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London’ series – I’d read the first two ages ago, and enjoyed them, so I decided to start from the first one, and I’ve downloaded all of them up to book 8; I’ll get book 9, the latest, when I start 8.

The other is a book that belonged to my late partner, ‘McCarthy’s Bar’, by Pete McCarthy. It was her favourite book, she lived in Schull, near Cork, for around fifteen years, and loved it there, but she was forced to come back to England after her relationship broke up, and it was something of a lifeline to a happier time for her. Plus it’s very funny. It’s taken me two years and two months to bring myself to read it, having taken a bunch of books back to the charity shop where she got them from; I won’t be parting with this book though.

Talking of retro I have finally started the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson with Neuromancer. Considering its central themes of AI, big data, metaverse etc Its absolutely crazy to think it was written in 1984

I finally finished it last week, damn I wish I’d read them when they were new. Can’t say I really enjoyed the series, but had to keep reminding myself this was the book that spawned a lot of modern Sci-fi, and wasn’t re-working someone elses ideas. Going to try his other stuff, and see if I enjoy that any better.

Bill Gibson’s books always go in trilogies, despite everything he tries not to. As the series go on, the settings and the technologies involved become much more like what we see everyday, except when you look at the dates the books were written, he’s still anticipating things that hadn’t happened yet. I’ve read them all, as they were being published, which requires a lot of patience – he’s not a fast writer, in much the same way as how he talks; long pauses between sentences as he considers what he’s going to say next.

Met him twice, at the Brighton World Science Fiction Convention, in ‘85, the year after ‘Neuromancer’ was published, and at a signing organised by Toppings Books in Bath, when ‘The Periferal’ came out. Lovely bloke.

My favourite series is the ‘Blue Ant’, trilogy – ‘Pattern Recognition’, ‘Spook Country’ and ‘Zero History’, they’re much more noir-ish, he’s pretty much dropped any pretence at writing SF by this point, he can’t keep ahead of the technology.

Yes, the most perfect ending to a book, ever. Often you get to the end of a book and think ‘Is that it’? Or want it to carry on, but the closure on that final page is a thing of almost unique beauty.

Agree with this. There are some authors I love who just have the crappest endings to their books.

Also an Orwell fan and have read every novel but just haven’t ever got my hands in London and Paris yet, despite wanting to ever since learning about the Mass Observation studies of the late 30s.

Yes, the most perfect ending to a book, ever.

It’s very biblical. Purposefully so

Also an Orwell fan and have read every novel but just haven’t ever got my hands in London and Paris yet, despite wanting to ever since learning about the Mass Observation studies of the late 30s.

@reeksy If you haven’t already read it “Our Hidden Lives” by Simon Garfield is worth your time. He’s compiled entries from a number of MOP contributors into a sort of composite diary of the immediate post-war period. It’s fascinating stuff.

‘The looking glass war’.I,m going through a John Le Carre period.

Also an Orwell fan and have read every novel but just haven’t ever got my hands in London and Paris yet, despite wanting to ever since learning about the Mass Observation studies of the late 30s.

Down and out in Paris and London is excellent, so is The Road to Wigan Pier. However, they are now both considered to be partly works of fiction, or at least exaggeration.

I wanna be yours – John Cooper Clarke’s autobiography; accompanied by dipping into his poetry collections.
Black Gold by Jeremy Paxman; ‘the history of how coal made Britain’.

Next up – How Democracies Die and Empireland.

Update – now on page 750. France have just capitulated, Hitler wrongly assumes Great Britain will ask for peace but Churchill has just made his ‘Finest Hour’ speech. Anyone that is remotely interested in the World Wars should really read this absolutely fascinating book.

Have downloaded this on the back of your updates, ta. 🙂