Just finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Really enjoyed it – I started The System of the World a few years ago and didn’t get on with it at all, but I was pleasantly surprised by how readable this was. Funny too. Debating whether to try Quicksilver now, may make more sense starting at no. 1 in the trilogy.

Also been re-reading The Shining after my eldest started his Stephen King phase recently. Forgot how much back story didn’t make it into the film, in many ways I think the film is better.

About halfway through Al Robertson’s Waking Hell, the followup to Crashing Heaven which I really liked. It’s pretty terrible. In fact it’s kind of Peter F Hamilton After He Got Uneditable terrible. It’s pretty hard to believe it’s the same author, even recurring characters are written so differently. I’ll finish it but I’m kind of glad the next part in the series seems like it might just never come out.

SO because of that I’m also reading Regeneration by Pat Barker, a novel based on Siegfriend Sassoon and Wilfred Owen’s time at Craiglockhart war hospital. Always a bit squicky, this sort of fictionalised history, and I can’t really equate the Sassoon in the novel with the absolute ball of rage that he clearly was at the time, but that aside it’s really good, and is telling a horrible history in an accessible way.

I live near where Pat Barker grew up.My mate lives on the same street(Union Street,M,bro.

@johnners thanks I haven’t heard of that but will check it out.
I have a 90s academic book about it MOP somewhere.

Just finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Really enjoyed it – ……………… Debating whether to try Quicksilver now, may make more sense starting at no. 1 in the trilogy.

I really enjoyed Cryptonomicon so bought Quicksilver soon after. I’d never accuse Stephenson of being a bad writer but he desperately needs a good editor, especially in Quicksilver. The book is full of really lovely but extremely long scene-setting descriptions, where Stephenson almost revels in how clever he is in bringing London back to life. I stopped reading it after enduring a long section – I’m thinking 17 pages long, but it was a while ago – describing a carriage journey through London.

Where nothing happened.

I got through it with very little patience left, only to have the main character describe the long journey, in length, to another character. I think I was several hundred pages in and nothing of note had happened except somebody had exploded, which was barely mentioned in among the florid scenery descriptions. I haven’t read anything by NS since.

https://flic.kr/p/2gvHwuK

The Thomas Hardy approach to creative writing. I remember doing lit at school and a entire double lesson passing while a field and a tree were meticulously described 😉

Coincidentally @northwind, I was looking at my copy The Reality Dysfunction when I read your post. Started in on hols 15 years ago, never finished it. It’s now been further relegated in the reading order.

@IdleJohn I think I did the same thing with Quicksilver as well.

I took a step back into time when I found my old Nook eReader thing and realised I had “Executive Orders” by Tom Clancy started on it. It’s an interesting read when looking at it with today’s eyes and you can see a lot of thing in there that today’s neo-liberal conservatives would approve of.

It is by no means a good book, but the use of a pandemic and the reaction of what is effectively an authoritarian president to it is interesting to read about following Covid.

The Thomas Hardy approach to creative writing.

Thing is, I love Thomas Hardy’s writing. I think I’ve read everything he wrote. One short story described the breakdown of a marriage while the couple stayed in a seaside B&B which was one of the most perfect bits of writing I’ve ever read, while simultaneously being complete free of any events at all. 😀

I was looking at my copy The Reality Dysfunction when I read your post.

I’ve just been reading this trilogy. I’m into The Naked God. I pretty much don’t care about any of the characters at this point. And I’m confused as to what’s happening and where. There’s so many sub plots. The only reason I’m going to finish is so I don’t wonder if it finished strong!

@pondo

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

I hope you enjoy it as much as I am doing! Currently, Hitler and Ribentropp are trying to nurture relationships with Russia, Italy and Japan, promising them all the spoils of what they assume is to be a soon-to-be-broken British Empire, whilst at the same time secretly plotting to invade Russia.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I am doing! Currently, Hitler and Ribentropp are trying to nurture relationships with Russia, Italy and Japan, promising them all the spoils of what they assume is to be a soon-to-be-broken British Empire, whilst at the same time secretly plotting to invade Russia.

Careful with the spoilers. 😀

Careful with the spoilers.

🤣🤣🤣

Just starting Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and the rise of right-wing extremism.

Was intrigued and downloaded this an an audiobook. It’s a bit slow in parts but very useful and if you’re at all interetsed in far right groups in the US, this should be on your reading list. It does fill in the gaps in your knowledge about groups like the 3%’ers and Proud Boys

Spaceships Over Glasgow – Stuart Braithwaite.
I generally prefer their instrumental stuff so we’ll see how this goes.

Update: I’m now on the final straight with ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ (at a massive 1,200 blind-point pages long). The final unsuccessful German push in the Ardennes has just failed and what is left of his armies (now containing many kids as young as 15 and old men of up to 60) is imploding.

As light relief, I’ve just bought East of Eden by John Steinbeck as my next read.

I found “My Shit Life So Far” by Frankie Boyle in a charity shop and have just finished it. Damn funny.
William Faulkner’s “As I Lie Dying” is next. I like to shift genres 🙂

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, all about the world of fungi, it’s fascinating stuff.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

I was a bit dubious as it won the Pulitzer Prize and things that win awards aren’t usually books that I get on with fro some reason.

It was a slow start for the first couple of chapters but once you get in to it it’s a bloody good read.

I found “My Shit Life So Far” by Frankie Boyle in a charity shop and have just finished it. Damn funny.

Always remember a man on a train snorting with surpressed laughter most of the way from Birmingham to London, and when I caught a glimpse of the cover, it was that. Great book. 🙂

Not got far but still dipping in and out of RAFO The Third Reich – it’s a fascinating read, if not the cheeriest of subjects! Also re-reading Shogun for the umpteenth time – that book is enduringly fascinating for me. 🙂

Just finished The Great North Road after reading a recommendation on the sci-fi thread. Thoroughly enjoyable read. Back to working my way through James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels now

Fed up with Game of Thrones (last book). To be honest I hope this is never finished… It’s gone totally lame.

Anyway,interim book being read.

Just finished.

And this, in-between GoT.

Suspended Animation: An Unauthorised History of Herald & Britains Plastic Figurines

And…

https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/the-shipwrecked-men/book/

Third in the Murderbot series, which is great if you like your robots sarcastic (I do).

About 100 pages into East of Eden and really enjoying it – I know (although I hope not) that I’m going to be upset as I’m getting kinda invested with some of the main protagonists.

Fantastic book, wish I could read it again for the first time. Sam Hamilton is a beautifully written character.

“As I Lie Dying” is next.

Couldn’t work out what the fudge was going on, so have abandoned it for now. Two pieces of trash on the go – my mum gave me “Sniper Number One” by Sgt, Dan something or other, about the Iraq war. Godawful writing, but once I got going finding it interesting. It’s my wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night reading.
Also some thriller thing I bought off Amazon (I’ve looked through the online list of what’s on my Kindle and I have no idea what it’s called!. It’s passing the time) 🙂

Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker for me, given to me by some family member. It’s… good? Sort of 20 years from now vision of the future, where people still live very recognisable lives being authors or insurance administrators and live in terraced houses in London, but the NHS has been sold and the environment is down the pan. And there’s a cat.

About half way through 1923, Ned Boultings new book.

Really good so far

The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet

Part travelogue, part investigation into Trumpland, it starts with a autobiography of Harry Belafonte, about his work as part of the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s and ends with a similar portrait of Lee Hayes The book is mostly interviews and portraits of the various fringe folks that inhabit or grift from the right in America, (the Trumpists, the gun rights, the evangelicals)  and documents his attempts to understand  the journey and role of Ashli Babbett (to whom he’s broadly sympathetic). why they reject science are largely undemocratic and why some of them really do think that democrats are baby eating Satan worshippers, and goes on to speak to some folks trying to escape from it, or force their lives onto a different path, the subplot to it all is Jeff’s own failing health and he intersperses and reflects the America he finds with his own fragility. The Undertow refers to the fact that he’s broadly recording what he thinks is the opening slow gradual separation of the US into civil war

It’s a beautifully written book, perhaps even a future classic.

Found it, my current is called “Just Fall” by Nina Sadowsky. Not that I recommend it or anything. 🙂

Two more finished:

Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman. A kind of poinient comedy. I thought at the start it was trying too hard to be funny, but turns out to be a thoughtful and very readable book.

Extremely Loud Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reminded me immediately of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, but with a lot more going on. Lots of dealing with grief and trauma, but not heavy or depressing. Definitely a worthwhile read.

Over my holidays I finished
Great Hatred: The Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP. An interesting read about a little known act on one of the major figures of WW1 and the ramifications elsewhere. An acquaintance is a relative of one of the assassins and introduced me to the book. Strangely I was then at home without a book on the go so picked up and re-read The Patient Assassin. Similar story, establishment figure getting whacked. Both quite good reads.

Manifesto by Vince Dale.

A good dose of optimism and all that’s wrong for this world with the current “capitalist” system.

Can’t remember who recommended the “Laundry Files” by Charles Stross. Both my better half and I are four books in and really enjoying them. Quite dark in places, not sure how it gets to 12 books!

It also segued into listening to the excellent ‘The Lovecraft files’ on BBC Sounds on a recent trip to Scotland.  Recommended if you like the HP Lovecraft world. Shame they didn’t do a fourth series…

In what seems like a concerted effort to depress myself:

Mobilizing Hate, Martin Davidson How the Nazis turned a normally functioning state into a Holocaust enabling nightmare.

Big Caesars and Little Caesars, Ferdinand Mount: exploration of how both proper demagogues and semi-demagogues, gain, hold onto and lose power. It’s worth it alone for the chapters he eviscerates Johnson

Currently on The Decade in Tory, Russell Jones: some of you will no doubt be familiar with his weekly twitter threads “The Week In Tory” this is the same only in long form, a depressing run through of all the ways the Tories have **** this country since they got elected in 2010. Read only with access to strong drink

Just finished The Rider by Tim Karabbe. Found it in a second hand book shop on holiday. Can’t believe I’d never heard of it before – it’s a description of a low level fictional road race set in the 70s from a rider’s perspective. Bit weird but certainly worth a read

The Eight Mountains

Just finished The Rider by Tim Karabbe. Found it in a second hand book shop on holiday. Can’t believe I’d never heard of it before – it’s a description of a low level fictional road race set in the 70s from a rider’s perspective. Bit weird but certainly worth a read

Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Great book that one Winston.

just read Guy Martins autobio,  adds another dimension to  my understanding of rider’s approach to goin crazy fast, and the hurdles to overcome on the way to bein as fast as you can be.

Did seem like he got the short straw too often

I can totally understand why he’d want to be lone in his camper the week of the TT, physical support is great but I feel Id want to get the headspace if I was  to race like that