Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?

[Fthree]

Started "1971 Never a Dull Moment" by David Hepworth.

1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178416206X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_vOiTybFEDM16D

how is this? I have the paperback preordered on amazon

 

[JamesMike]

I saw the TV series (spellbinding, what a superb cast, - a cast that includes Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, John Hurt, Patrick Stewart, - among many others - superlative script, stunning acting, awareness of historical context) and have read the books (by Robert Graves) and loved them both.

I have the DVD, I liked that much.

 

[yaxomoxay]

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

I couldn't stand it. I honestly don't understand why this book succeeded the way it did. I hated it.

As for me, I have finished Cal Newport's book ("Deep Work"), definitely a useful book for me. I disagree with some of Newport's proposition, but I am already implementing some of his suggestions.

I started this work related book (actually a textbook):

 

[0388631]

Me neither. But I found I liked it. Funny you bring that it up, because I began to play online chess against computers around the time you were heavily into chess books. Which was December, IIRC.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Me neither. But I found I liked it. Funny you bring that it up, because I began to play online chess against computers around the time you were heavily into chess books. Which was December, IIRC.

Yep, December is when I decided to go back to chess and prepare for tournaments. Not that I am great at it, but I just love it. It is definitely time consuming! Do you have a chess.com account? If so, please free to add me as a friend (same nickname I use here). If you enjoy chess, I strongly suggest that you also go on chesstempo.com and do all their free tactics and endgame practice exercises.

 

[whooleytoo]

Forgot all about this thread.. I've just gotten very much back into reading after a looong hiatus, so it's great to find good recommendations. I'm currently buying books off the shelf based on their covers (yeah, yeah, I know)

Recent reads:

Seven Eves: A film of this would have some spectacular visuals, and he has some great technical 'gadgets' featured. Enjoyable, though hard work at times (typical Neal Stephenson? ) 10% action, 90% lore and technical explanations. If someone wrote a fantasy novel the way sci-fi is written: "The hero's sword bounced off the villain's armour. A sword is a long sharp piece of metal for cutting or impaling adversaries. Armour is hardened, usually metallic protective wear to prevent this."
The Passage Trilogy: A 'realistic' character-driven vampire series. I loved it - though as always the first book is the best of the three.
Ready Player One: lighthearted, fun, bubble-gum, short, great for anyone who liked the '80s or gaming & movie trivia. Was described as The Matrix meets Willy Wonka, and that's actually not a bad description.
Anathema: Another Neal Stephenson. Again, a slow moving epic. Maths, science and philosophy. Was following it for a few hundred pages wondering where it was going, never would have guessed where it ended up. My brain hurts after the last hundred pages, had to read reviews to try to understand it. Meep.
Red Rising Trilogy: Very enjoyable, swords and spaceships and ambition, betrayal and revenge. Not really much else to say...
The Hand of Fatima: Bought this on holiday, was surprisingly good. An exhausting rags to riches to rags to riches to rags to riches roller-coaster. If I ever meet the (entirely fictional) protagonist, I'll slap him across the face for being such an idiot. And give him a hug.

Just started on Mage's Blood, the first book of the Moontide Quartet. Too early to comment on it..

 

[kirasmart]

''No One Wants You'' by Celine Roberts

 

[rhett7660]

Well, Animal Farm is rightly considered an absolute classic. A superb book.

Re Dune, I must say that while I thought the first book excellent, as the series progressed, I liked it less and less, and stopped reading after the fourth book.

Well I finished Animal Farm. There are defiantly some scenes that one will never forget. I was so hoping for an uprising within the Farm, but sadly that didn't happen and I know why it didn't. But man those pigs are something else and at the end they couldn't tell them apart.

Great read!!!!!

I don't know if anyone noticed, but today "War of The Worlds" for the Kindle is free. I picked it up as I have always wanted to read it.

 

[AVBeatMan]

how is this? I have the paperback preordered on amazon

Yes, it's quite good. The format is one month per chapter then at the end of the chapter there's a a "playlist" from that month. Like this;

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well I finished Animal Farm. There are defiantly some scenes that one will never forget. I was so hoping for an uprising within the Farm, but sadly that didn't happen and I know why it didn't. But man those pigs are something else and at the end they couldn't tell them apart.

Great read!!!!!

I don't know if anyone noticed, but today "War of The Worlds" for the Kindle is free. I picked it up as I have always wanted to read it.

Delighted that you enjoyed it; to my mind, it is an absolute classic when viewed as a work of literature and an interrogation of political philosophy.

 

[Khalanad75]

I've been reading a lot of graphic novels as of late. My local library has tons, and then just picked some up at the half price bookstore.

Guardians of the Galaxy
Fables
Dresden Files

are 3 that I have really liked lately.

 

[cdcastillo]

...Recent reads:

Seven Eves: A film of this would have some spectacular visuals, and he has some great technical 'gadgets' featured...

I'm not exactly sure a work of such expanse would translate well to the screen. I have, however, already thought who would play some of the characters:
- Mykelti Williamson: as Doc Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris
- The Dude: as Rufus MacQuarie
- Gwendolin Christie as Tekla Alekseyevna
- Carice Van Houten: as Aïda Ferrar
- Amy Adams as Dinah MacQuarie
- Seth Green: as Sean Probst
- Sarah Wayne Callies: as Julia Bliss Flaherty
- Grace Park: as Ivy Xiao
- Geoff Stults: as Cal Blankenship

...
The Hand of Fatima: If I ever meet the (entirely fictional) protagonist, I'll slap him across the face for being such an idiot. And give him a hug...

Exactly how I felt!!

 

[0388631]

I was going through my book deals earlier and came across a special for a novel by Martin Walker. His main series caught my eye as well as his focus on the Perigord region on France in his novels. A region that's synonymous with good food. It was natural of me to order all his books.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I was going through my book deals earlier and came across a special for a novel by Martin Walker. His main series caught my eye as well as his focus on Perigord region on France in his novels. A region that's synonymous with good food. It was natural of me to order all his books.

Do, please, let us know how you find them.

 

[Fthree]

Yes, it's quite good. The format is one month per chapter then at the end of the chapter there's a a "playlist" from that month. Like this;

Awesome! thanks!

 

[whooleytoo]

I'm not exactly sure a work of such expanse would translate well to the screen. I have, however, already thought who would play some of the characters:
- Mykelti Williamson: as Doc Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris
- The Dude: as Rufus MacQuarie
- Gwendolin Christie as Tekla Alekseyevna
- Carice Van Houten: as Aïda Ferrar
- Amy Adams as Dinah MacQuarie
- Seth Green: as Sean Probst
- Sarah Wayne Callies: as Julia Bliss Flaherty
- Grace Park: as Ivy Xiao
- Geoff Stults: as Cal Blankenship

Hah, some good calls there - your Julia Flaherty might be a bit young for an American president?

The rest is spoilered, just in case!

Spoiler

I agree it'd be a challenge to movie-tise. But it would have spectacular visuals throughout - the lunar fragments and the cloud ark in the first part, and the habitat ring, hangers, whips, the eye, turnpikes and cradle in the second.

And once you filter out the many, many pages of description which could be portrayed in a few seconds of video. The disconnect between the two parts might be quite jarring, as people don't like losing all their favourite characters, but I think it still works. There's still quite an opening for a sequel too, with the fate of the Mars expedition left unexplained.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I went looking for "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman last night, and found it, as expected, on my shelves. That may see me though the next few days.

 

[RootBeerMan]

Currently reading Harry Turtledove's "Fallout: The Hot War 2". Yet another great alternate history novel from the guy who does it best. Thoroughly enjoyable.

 

[jeremy h]

I went looking for "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman last night, and found it, as expected, on my shelves. That may see me though the next few days.

There's a new one on the way: The Book of Dust...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

There's a new one on the way: The Book of Dust...

I know. Looking forward to it.

That is why I thought it a good idea to reacquaint myself with this world.....before embarking on further adventures in it.

 

[pachyderm]

 

[Scepticalscribe]

And - pray - do tell us how you find it.

Personally, I thought the title story breathtaking - the kind of breathtaking that leaves you pacing, stunned at the power of what you have just read.

And, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, to my stupefied surprise, that was also the reaction that Vladimir Illich Ulyanov (known to history as Lenin) himself had experienced when reading this particular (long) short story.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Reading "Northern Lights" by Philip Pullman.

 

[LizKat]

An update on an earlier bit in this thread. After a recommendation from @Scepticalscribe, I was to get some of Pat Barker's Regeneration Triology novels off the travelling library bus here, but amazingly abnormal weather had precluded that arrangement. So I decided to "go postal" and ordered a hard copy in excellent condition that shipped from the UK. Conveniently it has arrived just a few days after my mailbox finally stuck its head back up out of the snowbanks. So I embark on reading Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road in that order beginning tonight.

Meanwhile I have made good on an idle threat to take a break and look into some of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries. I downloaded a few samples from iTunes, of course got hooked and so now a few of those will be what's on the travelling library bus for me on its April rounds, barring another snowstorm. Let the librarians wonder at my switchup from World War I novels to the adventures of a fictitious and politically incorrect black detective and World War II vet from Los Angeles.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

An update on an earlier bit in this thread. After a recommendation from @Scepticalscribe, I was to get some of Pat Barker's Regeneration Triology novels off the travelling library bus here, but amazingly abnormal weather had precluded that arrangement. So I decided to "go postal" and ordered a hard copy in excellent condition that shipped from the UK. Conveniently it has arrived just a few days after my mailbox finally stuck its head back up out of the snowbanks. So I embark on reading Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road in that order beginning tonight.

Meanwhile I have made good on an idle threat to take a break and look into some of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries. I downloaded a few samples from iTunes, of course got hooked and so now a few of those will be what's on the travelling library bus for me on its April rounds, barring another snowstorm. Let the librarians wonder at my switchup from World War I novels to the adventures of a fictitious and politically incorrect black detective and World War II vet from Los Angeles.

Fantastic - and I love the hardback version; this is a book that I have given as a gift so often that I keep having to re-order it for myself.

As you know, I think the entire trilogy is brilliant: Intelligent, articulate, aware, subtle, insightful - a stunning interrogation of a society at war, examining stuff such as social class, gender, culture, society - and especially that murky place where where social class and gender intersect - women, gay men, masculinity, shell-shock - what we would call nowadays PTSD - sexual repression, culture, the role of poetry in war, how you express dissent in war mobilised societies, among many other things, - it is wonderful. And knowing. And knowledgeable.

In my former incarnation as an academic, male colleagues - above all, those who specialised in the First World War - mentioned her work with reverence, tinged with an unarticulated surprise; of course, she got the facts right, but - much more telling - she got the tone right, they observed in awed - and almost envious - whispers. A tone - mostly male - that is rendered with an absolutely flawless fidelity in terms of class, gender and language.

(What was funny was what was unspoken: These males were mostly Oxbridge educated experts - Pat Barker was a working class woman from Durham with a left wing sensibility whose first oeuvre away from writing about the constrained and often suffocating lives of working class women - works for which she was respected, if not popular - was to write about shell shocked young officers in the First World War - and do it brilliantly).

In interviews, - given subsequently - Pat Barker has admitted immersing herself in writings, - diaries, letters - interviews - from that time with a view to getting the tone absolutely right. Her research is impeccable and her conclusions powerful.

@LizKat - I really hope you enjoy these books: Do let me know how you find them.