The GF book thread

[Paul]

The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow. A crime thing set around a group of surfers in California. A good read, like all his stuff.

[Captain]

Originally Posted by Captain I'm almost through The Magus by John Fowles. Very good so far, hopefully the ending is not a disappointment.

It wasn't. Recommended.

[WaltonRed]

Football Dynamo by Marc Bennetts about Russian football and Russian life.

Class book for anyone who likes footie and small satirical dose of life in modern Russia.

[RedKnight]

I've just bought Treasure Island, avast Jim lad! Arrrr!

[Karl]

I've found I still have to keep up my leisure reading, or all the uni reading will destroy me. Anyway, I've read a few since my last post, although I may be repeating here:

Pole to Pole - Michael Palin, as always, funny, interesting and really makes me envious.

Children of the Mind - Orson Scott Card, the fourth in the Ender Saga and the most enjoyable for me since the first.

Market Forces - Richard Morgan, it's not Kovacs but I thought it was damned good. Another great, messed up central character with a host of others to support, I can see this being made into a film, certainly more so than any of his others.

Tokyo Zombie - Yusaku Hanakuma, the strangest graphic novel I've read. It's about two guys who practive Jiu Jitsu in a post-zombie Tokyo. It's similar in parts to Romero's Land of the Dead but is wonderfully odd and funny.

The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy, I found this the easiest of the books of his I've read, I probably should have started with this rather than Amercian Tabloid and then The Cold Six Thousand. I can see why people rave over it and it's changed my opinion on the film, which I originally thought very good. I have White Jazz to read from this series and also have L.A. Noir (the complete Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy to read); do I need to read The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential before White Jazz? I know thats the order they were released in but does it matter?

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Karl do I need to read The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential before White Jazz? I know thats the order they were released in but does it matter?

Not as far as I recall, no.

[l19red]

Originally Posted by Soleilrouge The sound and the fury - William Faulkner Read it or die ignorant

only if you can guarantee that its better than that steaming turd of a book As I Lay Dying. That stream of conciousness style just leaves me cold im afraid, Faulkner and Joyce are two of my least favourite authors.

[l19red]

Some books I've enjoyed recently are Fidel Castro - My Life, a really fascinating read about a man i knew very little about before this book other than he's been in charge for 50 odd years and they beat the US at the bay of pigs.

The Enemy Within by Seamus Milne which is the story of how the secret services on the direct instructions of the tories infiltrated the NUM at the very top level during the miners strike and stiched up Arthur Scargill and the NUM. I've always been sceptical about politicians in general and tories in particular but to read the evidence of the measures they went to to beat the miners is scary. The book doesnt address more recent political issues, but you cant help but reflect that the modern parallel is the use of the secret service information to justify the need to go to war in iraq; just how much of that evidence was gathered an presented in order to justify the required political outcome?
Although its about Arthur and the miners strike, this is not a book for hardline left wingers, its a book for anyone interested in UK politics and the way our political system works.

And lastly I'd recommend one called I fought the law by Dan Kieran. A much more light hearted book that starts out to highlight some of the absurdities of some of the laws currently on the statute, but moves on to address much wider issues of the erosion of personnal liberties in Britain.