What are you reading at the moment?

Botd-2.jpg

Seven books - seven days - day two. W.G Sebald - 'The Rings of Saturn.'

A beautiful and eclectic book - a journey on foot through Suffolk acts as a springboard for the - nameless - narrator - to muse on different times, people and places - the human condition - the frailty of memory and decay. It ends up in some very odd places - but is always engaging. Unique.

Cheers - I.

@Barry Giddens @Scotshave @patw
 
C4843523-AC7D-4895-81D2-13573D591D27.jpeg

For day two, The Pied Piper's Poison, by Christopher Wallace.

Think Ackroyd, but without the temporal ‘leakiness'. A prisoner of war camp during WW2, where inmates are dying of a strange disease. Then bring in an exploration of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn legend during the late Middle Ages and it makes for a good read. Wallace is an Edinburgh lad; and this is his debut.

@Barry Giddens, @Digimonkey, @patw
 
I finished "The Reckoning" by John Grisham over the weekend. It was a drag to finish, the worst novel I've read from JG, having said that, I'm not giving up on this author, I've read some really good novels by him in the past.

I'm starting "61 hours" by Lee Child but it's too soon to tell how good it's going to be, but I will say that sometimes I find LC's books are a little slow to grab me but worth the wait.
 
View attachment 46603

Seven books - seven days - day two. W.G Sebald - 'The Rings of Saturn.'

A beautiful and eclectic book - a journey on foot through Suffolk acts as a springboard for the - nameless - narrator - to muse on different times, people and places - the human condition - the frailty of memory and decay. It ends up in some very odd places - but is always engaging. Unique.

Cheers - I.

@Barry Giddens @Scotshave @patw

That looks excellent, Iain. Another one on the list! S.
 
Day Three... ‘Oedipus and Akhnaton' by Immanuel Velikovsky. An examination of the Oedipal Greek myth and proposals that its grounding took place during life events of the eighteenth dynasty pharaoh. Highly contentious and speculative in the extreme; but interesting if you have an interest in mythology and events during the Amarna period in Ancient Egypt.

DAB98519-957A-4743-A803-25F24401EB4A.jpeg

For @Digimonkey; @Barry Giddens @patw
 
Botd-3.jpg

Seven days - seven books - day 3 - 'Bee Quest' by Dave Goulson.

A delightful wee book - part natural history - part travelogue - the author is an acknowledged world expert on the subject - his enthusiasm for his discipline is infectious - a funny and engaging writer. Timely too - I think that it is better understood these days that if the bees go - we go.

Cheers - I.

@Scotshave @Barry Giddens @patw
 
Sorry chaps, I'm a bit snowed under at the mo. But some very interesting recommendations and yet more books added to The List. ‘The Rings of Saturn' is right up there amongst my favourite books of all time- it's the reason I travel up to Suffolk as often as I can.
I'll throw in a book that I first read when I was about 14 and have reread several times since. I bought my 14 year old nephew a copy recently and I think it may have infected him with the reading bug. Actually, Robert Macfarlane mentions it in one of his works, possibly ‘The Old Ways'. It's a classic British thriller with some Hampshire holloways thrown in.

8454833B-65D3-468D-8934-F59B1A75A8F9.jpeg
 
Botd-4.jpg

Day 4 - 'Hotel Scarface' by Roben Farzad.

An excellent piece of journalism - the hotel in the title was the Mutiny Club in Miami - the unofficial base for the serious coke dealers of the 70's and 80's - in origin virtually all anti-Castro Cuban exiles and veterans of the Bay of Pigs fiasco - who realised they weren't going home any time soon and transferred the skill set the CIA had helpfully provided them with to smuggling gigantic quantities of drugs. The amount of money they were making was truly jaw dropping - at one point Pablo Escobar was spending half a million dollars a year on elastic bands to bundle up his cash. Things start to go wrong in the mid-80's - law enforcement agencies finally get their act together - 'outsiders' try to get a bit of the pie and the violence becomes extreme - any of the original smugglers not dead or in jail were twisted after years of abusing their high purity product. Quality hedonism.

Cheers - I.

@Scotshave @Barry Giddens @patw
 
View attachment 46672

Day 4 - 'Hotel Scarface' by Roben Farzad.

An excellent piece of journalism - the hotel in the title was the Mutiny Club in Miami - the unofficial base for the serious coke dealers of the 70's and 80's - in origin virtually all anti-Castro Cuban exiles and veterans of the Bay of Pigs fiasco - who realised they weren't going home any time soon and transferred the skill set the CIA had helpfully provided them with to smuggling gigantic quantities of drugs. The amount of money they were making was truly jaw dropping - at one point Pablo Escobar was spending half a million dollars a year on elastic bands to bundle up his cash. Things start to go wrong in the mid-80's - law enforcement agencies finally get their act together - 'outsiders' try to get a bit of the pie and the violence becomes extreme - any of the original smugglers not dead or in jail were twisted after years of abusing their high purity product. Quality hedonism.

Cheers - I.

@Scotshave @Barry Giddens @patw

...this sounds great...enabled :)
 
CD340FCC-FBD9-48BD-A2BF-3DA0F21AB51F.jpeg

The adventures of Alex and his droogs probably don't need much in the way of summary. Burgess' concern with polyglot interests me, though. Being a linguist, he was concerned with the ephemerality of language; especially the transience of youth culture and chose to write in a form of language that could be ‘fixed'. Hence ‘Nadsat' (Russian for ‘teen'). It's argot, comprising a mixture of Russian influenced English, Cockney rhyming, made up words (some juvenile) and ‘polari'; the latter being phrases and words used by fringe groups; actors, circus performers and in gay subculture, for instance.

Despite this (and not having a Russian/English dictionary to hand), I find it quite easy to understand and is easily one of my desert island books.

It's also interesting to see that Alex' music of choice isn't contemporaneous pop music, but ‘...the old Ludwig Van...'

Highly recommended, if we haven't already read it...

@Digimonkey, @patw, @Barry Giddens
 
Last edited:
Botd-5.jpg

Day 5 - 'Dracula' - Bram Stoker.

I only read this for the first time a couple of years ago - it is superb - Stoker was a stage manager to trade - but turned out popular fiction to supplement his wages - his contemporaries included Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle, Wells and Kipling - easily read as a time piece - anxiety about the 'other' - specifically the wheels starting to come off the British empire big style - the threat of modernity - its notable that the not un-dead protagonists rely heavily - on the cutting edge technology of the day - the phonograph, photography, mass circulation newspapers, shorthand notation and regular rail services - they are the new - Dracula is the old - terrible things can happen when they are out of sync. Van Helsing is the pivot point - he tried to save victims with blood transfusions but also put garlic bulbs in their mouths. Nice. The main reason this book should be read - is that - for me - in places it is truly terrifying - the ship running aground in Whitby harbour - bringing Dracula to Britain - the dead captain lashed to the mast - the hold filled with coffins containing only Transylvanian soil - a black dog barely noticed - leaping ashore. Wolves with glowing eyes - great stuff. See what you think. Cheers - I.

Oh - @Scotshave - I'm partial to a bit of polari myself - I presume that you know your 'Julian and Sandy?' 'Nante riah - nante minces - nante lallies.'

@patw @Barry Giddens
 
Back
Top Bottom