What are you reading at the moment?

Absolutely love the film, thought best to try the book. 4 chapters in and really enjoying the character development....

View attachment 91185
Funnily enough I read this a couple of weeks ago for the first time. I really enjoyed it - it benefits from a cracking story sufficiently based in truth to be creditible and immediately engaging. There were multiple plots to assassinate De Gaulle over his position on Algerian independence. The writing style isn't great - 'what I did on my holidays' - but it doesn't matter as the plot carries all before it with irresistible force. I was completely on the side of the Jackal. I watched the film after I had read the book - it's good, Edward Fox was perfect, but the book is better for me. There are plot differences between the two, which I'm not going to point out. If you enjoyed Jackal - I'd recommend Hunting Eichmann by Neil Bascomb - similar sort of vein but entirely true. The embryonic Mossad and Shin Bet set about to abduct the fugitive Nazi in South America. Which they did of course, they put him on trial in Israel. The story is compelling and told in detail - the 'trade-craft' elements I found fascinating. A wonderfully colourful set of characters as you might imagine. My favourite being Shallom Danny the forger. The way they worked out how to get him back from Buenos Aires to Israel - what they were attempting was completely illegal - is an object lesson in chutzpah. Perhaps the most interesting section is when they have to delay moving Eichmann and the team babysat their prisoner for a couple of weeks - this began to fuck them up badly - most were either Holocaust survivors themselves or their families had been wiped out - and being stuck in a room with one of the principal archictects of the mass-murder really begins to get to them. Especially as they have difficulty reconciling the compliant and passive old man with the monster of his repute. I'd recommend it highly. Gripping. - I.
 
Last edited:
This Woman by Howard Sounes

I really enjoyed this book. It's a true story, about the most hated woman in Britain, Myra Hindley and her alleged relationship with a prison officer and attempted escape from prison.

I didn't know much about the Moors Murders (I wasn't born then), but I had heard of Hindley and Ian Brady, so I knew what they did. It was brave of the author to write a book like this, but he has done a superb job and deserves credit for doing so. This book wouldn't be for everyone, but I am interested in True Crime, so I enjoyed this. I recommend it to other True Crime readers.
 
The Krays - The Final Word by James Morton

Although this book is very heavy-going and packed full of facts and figures, I enjoyed it. The book does contain a fair few inaccuracies, but generally it was a very good read. I learned quite a few things about the Krays that I didn't know before. The writing style gave me a headache, though.

Anyone who is interested in the Krays and has read books about them before should read this. I completely recommend it.
 
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I've been trying to read this, but it's a bit of a struggle. I know that it's a very old book, but I just can't get to grips with the writing style and the "old-fashioned" language. I think that I will soon give up on this book completely and chuck it in my recycling bin. I've tried my hardest, but I just don't think it's for me.
 
At least take it to a charity shop or your local library. Binning books is tantamount to burning them. I know what you mean though. I tried to read Paradise Lost by Milton because he was a local resident hundreds of years ago. It is widely said to be one of the finest pieces of literature but I have to be honest I found it fairly impenetrable. I may be a cunning linguist but I am no scholar!
 
  • Like
Reactions: FJY
I found it fairly impenetrable.
I have the same relationship with Moby Dick - what a load of dreary self-obsessed over-laboured pish. One of the best opening lines ever, granted but it is steeply downhill from there. Strange how opinions vary though - I found Frankenstein vivid and anything but old-fashioned - like Dracula - the very epitome of modernity. My partner used to be a school librarian many years ago and she used to have a 'charter' she used to engage readers - one tenet of which was that everyone has the right not to finish a book if they don't want to. I'd have to agree though, I could never bin a book. Like theft from multi-storey carparks - wrong on every level. :) - I.
 
At least take it to a charity shop or your local library. Binning books is tantamount to burning them. I know what you mean though. I tried to read Paradise Lost by Milton because he was a local resident hundreds of years ago. It is widely said to be one of the finest pieces of literature but I have to be honest I found it fairly impenetrable. I may be a cunning linguist but I am no scholar!
It was merely a figure of speech when I said that I would "bin it". I would never just throw a book in the bin. I never have and I never would. All I meant to say was that I would get rid of it somehow. It just came out a bit wrong.

Charity shop it is, then.
 
I have the same relationship with Moby Dick - what a load of dreary self-obsessed over-laboured pish. One of the best opening lines ever, granted but it is steeply downhill from there. Strange how opinions vary though - I found Frankenstein vivid and anything but old-fashioned - like Dracula - the very epitome of modernity. My partner used to be a school librarian many years ago and she used to have a 'charter' she used to engage readers - one tenet of which was that everyone has the right not to finish a book if they don't want to. I'd have to agree though, I could never bin a book. Like theft from multi-storey carparks - wrong on every level. :) - I.
I have tried to read Dracula as well, but I couldn't get into that, either. I attempted to read Moby Dick many years ago, and that also ended in failure. I was also forced to read stuff like Lord Of The Flies and Charles Dickens when I was at school, which I absolutely hated.

I guess that the "classics" are just not for me.
 
Back
Top Bottom