The Anarchy by William Dalrymple.

The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott from the Star Wars: High Republic series.

I’m rereading the Joe Abercrombie books

I started his latest trilogy but realised I couldn’t remember loads so started again from the beginning

So very good, up to Red Country now, but blimey they’re a bit nihilistic

The Bloody Nine is the best antihero ever!

The Bloody Nine is the best antihero ever!

Prince Jorg from Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy gives him a run for his money but The Bloody Nine’s a wrong ‘un for sure!

The Host – Stephanie Meyer.

Operation Chastise – Max Hastings

The Calligrapher – Edward Docx

Goodnight Mister Tom – Michelle Magorian

All for the first time.

Update

The Host Got bored but will finish it.

Operation Chastise Excellent. Want to know more.

The Calligrapher Gorgeous, and surprising.

Goodnight Mister Tom  Reading it with my kids (9 and 11). Gripped.

The latest Expanse novel (Leviathan Falls) soon to be followed by the latest silly JD Kirk murder mystery (Colder than the grave).

Re-reading Dune and loving it so far. Recently finished City of Mirrors (by Justin Cronin) and gutted that I don’t have any more to read!

I’ve just started to re-read The Great Book Of Amber, all of Roger Zelazny’s Amber series, plus the continuation books published later in one big volume. I think it’s about ten books in all. Which, size-wise would fill about the same amount of shelf-space as an average trilogy these days! My original paperbacks are each only about 15mm thick, maybe 20mm, and that was a complete novel back in the 70’s. I’ve just looked it up, there are ten books in all, totalling 1264 pages, so each volume is only 126 pages long! A modestly sized novel these days is often three or four times that!

I absolutely love his writing, he literally paints pictures with words, and he creates wonderful characters and settings for them. It’s such a shame that the only film, (that I know of), that was based on one of his books was such a dreadful travesty of what he’d written that he demanded that every reference to him and his original book were removed from all promotional material. The film is ‘Damnation Alley’, and it really is shockingly awful.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A nice, cheerful tale for the festive season!

Finished Hamnet which is brilliant and now reading The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn. A book I think a lot of people one here would like and relate to. I need to read her first book now The Salt Path. I felt at first I was reading them in the wrong order but now I’m not so sure, I think I may get more out of the first book with the context given by the second.

I’ve been woking my way through Ross Greenwood’s DI Barton books
The Snow Killer, The Soul Killer and The Ice Killer

It’s defo in the pulp fiction camp, but quite engaging.
Makes a change that the lead detective isn’t dysfunctional.

Since I’ve last posted, I read:

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart which I thought was fantastic

Started Heart of Darkness by Conrad which I thought was awful so gave up. I may have another go.

J by Howard Jacobson….it’s very complicated throughout. I thought that it was very good, if somewhat hard work to start with. Didn’t really enjoy it from the halfway point though. 6/10 I’d say.

Currently on Disgrace by J M Coetzee….read the first half yesterday and it’s been great so far.

To carry on with the SA modern literature theme I’ve just picked up The Promise by Damon Galgut to read next. It was this years Booker Prize winner.

Broken Heart by Tim Weaver. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of his books so when I spotted it for £1.30 in a local second hand shop I couldn’t pass it by.

I last posted on here quite some while ago so I’ve been through several books.

I’m now at an age wgere I don’t always finish books – it used to be that when I started a book, I’d read to the end but that’s no longer the case. The last one that was put down was Joe Abercrombie’s “A little hatred”. It was well writtena dn I’ve enjoyed all of his books. but I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. I switched over to Victoria Wood’s biography by Jasper Rees which was a good read, and at the moment am RIPPING through “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars”, a sci-fi novel by Christopher Paolini who wrote the Eragon books. Excllent reading, and some nice innovations

So, I finished Disgrace by JM Coetzee…..absolutely fantastic, right up there with the best books that I’ve ever read.

Also just finished The Promise by Damon Galgut, worked really well reading it after Disgrace as they’re post examining Post Apartheid South Africa. It was another fantastic book. Slightly harder work than Disgrace I thought, mainly due to the style of writing, very good though.

I’ve just ordered another JM Coetzee book so may give that ago this week.

I put down Catch 22. I may have another go, ditto 100 days in solitude. The latter was good but needs a lot of commitment from the reader to do it justice so hopefully try again when I have a larger block of time. really enjoyed Brighton Rock recently and picked up some short stories for fun such as Treasure Island. Now reading The wind in the willows which I want to read to my grandson who is still a bit young.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A nice, cheerful tale for the festive season!

But very readable. I enjoyed this along with “Post Office” by Charles Bukowski.

Catch 22 seems really marmite. I absolutely loved it, but nearly everyone else that I’ve spoken to gave up! The none linear narrative does make it fairly frustrating when you’re reading it across a week or so I can’t remember where in the story you’re supposed to be!

Given that he died recently I’m re-reading my signed first edition of Antony Sher’s “Year of the King”.

I don’t have many regrets in life, but not finding the time to see his Lear in Stratford a few years ago is a biggy.

chuckling my way through the Disc World collection by Mr Pratchett 🙂

Currently up to Eric

Currently reading Lost Baggage, the sequel to His Favourite Hole which featured contributions from this very forum

just finished Joe Abercrombie Sharp ends, the bloody nine makes an appearance and is a bloody as ever.. Also did the latest Skippy book (Craig Alanson: Fallout bk13) , 22.5hr of Audio book in a blink, cause I love them, Ch6 had me crying.. reparative or not, I enjoy them.
Onto Leviathan Falls, the expanse novel like fat-boy-fat, Mr May’s narration just make the experience lovely (Amos’s ‘change’, was a great ending to the last book).

Three crackers by authors I really enjoy, the next series of random books are going to suck, in comparison

So, I finished Disgrace by JM Coetzee…..absolutely fantastic, right up there with the best books that I’ve ever read.

It is tremendous and utterly brutal. What other one have you ordered? Age of Iron and Waiting for the Barbarians are good too.

Currently reading Sharpe’ Fortress, really good read TBH, almost don’t want it to end.

It is tremendous and utterly brutal. What other one have you ordered? Age of Iron and Waiting for the Barbarians are good too.

Life and Times of Michael K. Someone else has recommended Waiting for the Barbarians so I might order that too 👍

I need to read her first book now The Salt Path.

Really enjoyed that.

On recommendation by a colleague, I’m reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It’s a love story of sorts, set in a dystopian future.

According to the blurb in the book, it is credited as the inspiration for 1984. It was written in 1921, and banned in Russia. I couldn’t finish 1984, I found it quite boring, but I’m really enjoying this.

I found a copy of We Need to Talk About Kevin the other day, wouldn’t describe it as a good read so far but it has a lot of interesting bits that really make you think. I find myself turning pages without much engagement and then suddenly there is a bit where I stop reading and spend a while thinking about what I’ve just read.

I suppose it’s similar in a way to how I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance decades ago.

Spontaneous purchase today – The light division in the peninsular war 1811-1814 – real sharpe……

Still working through Lotharingia by Simon Winder. Very enjoyable writing style and so rich in little anecdotes about historical Europe that I can pick up and put down without worrying about following the thread, it’s enough just to dip in and out whenever I have the time.

chuckling my way through the Disc World collection by Mr Pratchett

Might dig out Hogfather, ’tis the season after all

Currently churning my way through JG Ballard – Cocaine Nights however I can’t decide if I’m enjoying it or if its a bit of a chore.

I am in the middle of the latest version The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties by Robert Conquest.

Truly frightening

Just read Trainspotting….seen the film a fair few times and remember studying bits of the book for A Level English. It was on the top of one of my boxes of books that are currently in storage, I think that my sister got it for me as a Christmas present about 10 years ago. I guess that I don’t need to do a review….flippin awesome though!

Is stuff like Porno and Skagboys worth a read?

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, and David Wengrow.

It’s about why we still cast our ancestors as either primitive and childlike or war-like and brutal, It’s using actual archeological evidence (as oppose to made up stories) and having a new look at things like the move to agriculture, the changes that new technologies actually had, and why European societies in the 18thC needed to create theories about them as a reaction to indigenous critique of “civilisation”

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. A nice, cheerful tale for the festive season!

That’s a lighthearted sunny romp compared to Cancer Ward!

In preparation for reading Crossroads after Christmas, I’m filling in my Jonathan Franzen gap by reading Purity. Can’t decide how I feel about JF. The Corrections was one of my favourite contemporary novels ever but I was so underwhelmed by Freedom. Purity is… okay so far.

Almost finished Brothers in Arms by James Holland. A very detailed description of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry campaign from D Day to the end of the war – France, Belgium, Germany. Very good indeed. It has been described as a British version of Band of Brothers, and I think that is a pretty good comment, and has both positive and negative aspects…

Is stuff like Porno and Skagboys worth a read?

I thought Porno was a bit crap, it’s nothing like as good as Trainspotting.

House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.

Quite surreal and a bit whimsical would be my description.

Almost finished Brothers in Arms by James Holland. ………… It has been described as a British version of Band of Brothers, and I think that is a pretty good comment, and has both positive and negative aspects…

Yeah, Holland does his thing very well, and comparing him to Stephen Ambrose feels about right. Detailed, but not so much that it affects how readable it is, and keeps the book moving along at a decent pace. There will obviously be stuff omitted.

I’m currently reading Adrian Goldsworhy’s Phillip and Alexander. Sometimes it feels like it needs a bit of the above. 😀

* Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson – near future climate change thriller, typical Stephenson – a bit long and loose but some good ideas. light years better than SevenEves

* As I walked out one midsummers morning – by Laurie Lee. Account of his walk through spain the in 1930’s on the cusp of the civil war. Brilliant, brillaint writer and recommended.

* Spain by Jan Morris. Another amazing travelogue by one the best travel writers out there.