Books

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ALF
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Re: Books

Post by ALF » Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:52 am

Just ordered it Skalps, sounds really good.

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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Wed Mar 22, 2017 8:04 am

ALF wrote:Just ordered it Skalps, sounds really good.
Awesome. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Re: Books

Post by Bodacious Benny » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:56 pm

Onto my fourth book of the year after reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, The Humans by Matt Haig and I am Zlatan.

Having not read for the best part of 10 years I'm looking to keep the momentum going. Quite enjoy an autobiography so was thinking of one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guy-Martin-My- ... 0753555034

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Autobi ... livan+book

Anyone read either of these? The Ronnie O'Sullivan one could be interesting with his battles against addiction and depression, Guy Martin just seems like an interesting guy (pardon the pun) going from the TV shows I've seen with him.
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Re: Books

Post by Colback's Orange Tufts » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:19 pm

On recommendation from the other half (and whilst watching the tv adaptation), I've started to Bosch series by Michael Connelly. Reminds me of Elmore Leonard, in that the stories and characters sound generic at first glance, but its very well written. Whereas Leonard focused on the (often petty) criminals, Bosch focuses on a detective. I like it so far.

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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:48 pm

Bodacious Benny wrote:Onto my fourth book of the year after reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, The Humans by Matt Haig and I am Zlatan.

Having not read for the best part of 10 years I'm looking to keep the momentum going. Quite enjoy an autobiography so was thinking of one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guy-Martin-My- ... 0753555034

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Autobi ... livan+book

Anyone read either of these? The Ronnie O'Sullivan one could be interesting with his battles against addiction and depression, Guy Martin just seems like an interesting guy (pardon the pun) going from the TV shows I've seen with him.
I'm sure someone on here, maybe AG, has mentioned reading the O'Sullivan <scratch>.

I just finished 'The Wild Places' by Robert Macfarlane. A guy searches Britain and Ireland for the places which haven't been touched by human advancement or have once been but are now reclaimed by the wild. Wasn't bad at all tbh. Nicely written and pretty inspiring.

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Re: Books

Post by asbo » Tue Apr 11, 2017 6:28 pm

It wasn't me. I'm a huge fan of O'Sullivan but can't read.

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Re: Books

Post by Toondes » Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:46 pm

Bodacious Benny wrote:Onto my fourth book of the year after reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, The Humans by Matt Haig and I am Zlatan.

Having not read for the best part of 10 years I'm looking to keep the momentum going. Quite enjoy an autobiography so was thinking of one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guy-Martin-My- ... 0753555034

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Autobi ... livan+book

Anyone read either of these? The Ronnie O'Sullivan one could be interesting with his battles against addiction and depression, Guy Martin just seems like an interesting guy (pardon the pun) going from the TV shows I've seen with him.
I've got the Guy Martin auto biography it's decent . Worth a read imo
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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Wed Apr 12, 2017 5:54 pm

Just read Crow by Ted Hughes for the first time. f***ing hell, talk about relentless despair and hopelessness. Don't think I'll ever read such a savagely miserable book ever again.

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Re: Books

Post by beardface » Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:29 pm

Bodacious Benny wrote:Onto my fourth book of the year after reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, The Humans by Matt Haig and I am Zlatan.

Having not read for the best part of 10 years I'm looking to keep the momentum going. Quite enjoy an autobiography so was thinking of one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guy-Martin-My- ... 0753555034

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Autobi ... livan+book

Anyone read either of these? The Ronnie O'Sullivan one could be interesting with his battles against addiction and depression, Guy Martin just seems like an interesting guy (pardon the pun) going from the TV shows I've seen with him.
I really enjoyed The Humans by Matt Haig <awe>

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Re: Books

Post by Blue & Maroon » Wed Apr 12, 2017 9:16 pm

Reading Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel at the moment. Read a lot of WW1 stuff and it's my 'favourite' period of history, Max Hastings 'Catastrophe' and Nick Lloyd's 'Hundred Days' are particular favourites but it's fascinating to see the tedium, excitement, life and death in the trenches and later in the world's first mechanised war first hand. Would thoroughly recommend.

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Re: Books

Post by ALF » Thu Jun 08, 2017 10:24 pm

skalpel wrote:
ALF wrote:Just ordered it Skalps, sounds really good.
Awesome. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Took me a while but finished Revolutionary Road yesterday. Absolutely brilliant read. Not hard at all to relate with the characters even though it's 60 years old.

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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Thu Jun 08, 2017 10:53 pm

ALF wrote:
skalpel wrote:
Awesome. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Took me a while but finished Revolutionary Road yesterday. Absolutely brilliant read. Not hard at all to relate with the characters even though it's 60 years old.
<applause> Totally agree. It makes you see yourself in the characters and then exposes them as narcissists who can't even kid themselves. Doesn't half shake you up a bit <laugh>.
SpoilerShow
The way Frank reacts to having to face his own bullshitting when John dishes out a planeload of truth bombs over dinner was absolutely perfect.

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Re: Books

Post by ALF » Thu Jun 08, 2017 11:17 pm

skalpel wrote:
ALF wrote:
Took me a while but finished Revolutionary Road yesterday. Absolutely brilliant read. Not hard at all to relate with the characters even though it's 60 years old.
<applause> Totally agree. It makes you see yourself in the characters and then exposes them as narcissists who can't even kid themselves. Doesn't half shake you up a bit <laugh>.
SpoilerShow
The way Frank reacts to having to face his own bullshitting when John dishes out a planeload of truth bombs over dinner was absolutely perfect.
SpoilerShow
I spent the first 2 thirds of the book relating to the characters and wanting to know what happened. Then that third part came along and the s*** really hit the fan. It's a relatively short book but by the end, the Laurel Players seemed a hell of a long way away.

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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Fri Jun 09, 2017 8:08 am

ALF wrote:
SpoilerShow
It's a relatively short book but by the end, the Laurel Players seemed a hell of a long way away.
Absolutely agree. That's exactly what gives the whole book that smothered, claustrophobic sort of atmosphere for me. It's tiny and vast at the same time, and things that are really close seem to be miles away.

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Re: Books

Post by Seagull » Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:33 pm

Anyone read Chernobyl Prayer? About as harrowing as you'd expect.
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Re: Books

Post by Acid Hippo » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:07 pm

After doing a frankly pitiful amount of reading over the last 4 (four!) years since graduating, I've finally got back into a decent reading routine. Averaging a book a week at the minute and currently half way through Flowers for Algernon which is pretty interesting so far.

Recommend me all of the books, people.
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Re: Books

Post by skalpel » Wed Aug 16, 2017 9:38 pm

Acid Hippo wrote:After doing a frankly pitiful amount of reading over the last 4 (four!) years since graduating, I've finally got back into a decent reading routine. Averaging a book a week at the minute and currently half way through Flowers for Algernon which is pretty interesting so far.

Recommend me all of the books, people.
Pretty sure its been years since you and I recommended books to each other, so I'll throw in a handful of my favourites from the last few years.

Poetry: Ted Hughes - Crow
Black as f***. Shockingly disturbing and depressing literature. Was actually slightly shaken on first read.

Novel: Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road
Young husband and wife stuck in stagnant bourgeois suburbia, reaching their 30s and hating each other as they give up their lives, hopes, aspirations to sink into an empty middle class torpor. Desperate stuff, and one of the most coldly honest exposures of human nature in 20thC lit, but the narrator enjoys a sadistic little smirk here and there while things fall apart.

Novel: Arthur Koestler - Darkness at Noon
The best novel about a totalitarian dystopia, set almost entirely in two rooms of a prison with few characters.

Novel: W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
Kind of ethereal feeling quasi-nonfiction fiction about a guy wandering around and thinking deeply about ostensibly meaningless, unrelated stuff.

Novella: Patrick Suskind - The Pigeon
Kafkaesque story about a guy whose life is ruined because he sees a pigeon.


Short Story: John Cheever - The Swimmer
Short Story: Ben Marcus - Cold Little Bird
Short Story: Ian McEwan - Conversation with a Cupboard Man


Other: Robert Macfarlane - The Wild Places
Non fic. Guy goes around the British Isles hiking, mountaineering, etc. to argue that there are plenty of truly wild places left and why they're awesome. Great prose.

Other: Jack London - People of the Abyss
Non fic. Well off American goes undercover as a tramp in early 20thC London, meets interesting people, finds out interesting s***, reports it as a narrative.

Other: Seneca - Letters (Stoic philosophy)
Other: Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Stoic philosophy)

Got anything to give back? <awe>

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Re: Books

Post by Acid Hippo » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:20 pm

skalpel wrote:
Acid Hippo wrote:After doing a frankly pitiful amount of reading over the last 4 (four!) years since graduating, I've finally got back into a decent reading routine. Averaging a book a week at the minute and currently half way through Flowers for Algernon which is pretty interesting so far.

Recommend me all of the books, people.
Pretty sure its been years since you and I recommended books to each other, so I'll throw in a handful of my favourites from the last few years.

Poetry: Ted Hughes - Crow
Black as f***. Shockingly disturbing and depressing literature. Was actually slightly shaken on first read.

Novel: Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road
Young husband and wife stuck in stagnant bourgeois suburbia, reaching their 30s and hating each other as they give up their lives, hopes, aspirations to sink into an empty middle class torpor. Desperate stuff, and one of the most coldly honest exposures of human nature in 20thC lit, but the narrator enjoys a sadistic little smirk here and there while things fall apart.

Novel: Arthur Koestler - Darkness at Noon
The best novel about a totalitarian dystopia, set almost entirely in two rooms of a prison with few characters.

Novel: W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
Kind of ethereal feeling quasi-nonfiction fiction about a guy wandering around and thinking deeply about ostensibly meaningless, unrelated stuff.

Novella: Patrick Suskind - The Pigeon
Kafkaesque story about a guy whose life is ruined because he sees a pigeon.


Short Story: John Cheever - The Swimmer
Short Story: Ben Marcus - Cold Little Bird
Short Story: Ian McEwan - Conversation with a Cupboard Man


Other: Robert Macfarlane - The Wild Places
Non fic. Guy goes around the British Isles hiking, mountaineering, etc. to argue that there are plenty of truly wild places left and why they're awesome. Great prose.

Other: Jack London - People of the Abyss
Non fic. Well off American goes undercover as a tramp in early 20thC London, meets interesting people, finds out interesting s***, reports it as a narrative.

Other: Seneca - Letters (Stoic philosophy)
Other: Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Stoic philosophy)

Got anything to give back? <awe>
Probably because it's been years since me and reading had a healthy relationship with one another <grim>

But I knew you'd come through for me <awe>. 100% reading The Pigeon. Your description is all I need.

I'm not sure what you may or may not have read to be honest seeing as your reading list is pretty extensive <scratch>.

Based off what I've been reading lately, I'd say pretty much anything by Raymond Carver, notably Cathedral or Elephant (Richard Yates was a big influence on Carver I believe) if you fancy short stories. Minimalist realism.

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory - Psychopathic teenager commits violent acts on small animals, with an almost Patrick Bateman-esque 'matter-of-fact' tone to his explanations and reasoning. Pretty short novel. Disturbing in places.

Like I said, currently reading Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Originally a short story which became a novel. Written in a series of diary entry style 'progress reports' by a man with an usually low IQ who partakes in an experiment to improve his intelligence and turn him into a genius. Explores concepts of morality and ethics, and the idea of 'intelligence'. Only half way through, but some pretty sad moments at times.

Haruki Murakami - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Chapters alternate between two different narratives, part sci-fi, part virtual fantasy. Typically Murakami style surrealism, where science fiction meets detective fiction, exploring ideas of identity and consciousness.

Also read everything by Philip K. Dick if you haven't already, notably Ubik, Man in the High Castle (TV show is s****), or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (different in most parts to the Blade Runner film. Same story, different pieces of art).

I doubt I have too much to suggest that you probably haven't read at this point <laugh>. Like I say, I've done a shameful amount of reading over the past couple of years <grim>. Just going off everything I've read more recently.
Last edited by Acid Hippo on Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Books

Post by Acid Hippo » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:29 pm

The Pigeon has been purchased.
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Re: Books

Post by biggeordiedave » Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:24 am

Acid Hippo wrote:The Pigeon has been purchased.
Don't let Tash anywhere near it <****>.
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