The GF book thread

[bossy]

If you have a kindle with kindle unlimited and enjoy police procedurals, a surprisingly enjoyable read is the Detective Sergeant Cross series by Tim Sullivan. Cross is on the autistic spectrum and so has a highly methodical approach towards investigating. Sounds a bit meh but I took a chance as they’re free, and they’re good.

[CapeRed]

Just finished Shoe Dog the story of Nike. Very enjoyable read.

[Elite]

Breaking Bones by Robert White. Gritty story about a small crime gang in Preston in the 80's. It's very, very good. Definitely going to read more of the authors stuff.

[Bruce Spanner]

'This Other Eden' By Paul Harding.

 

Beautiful and very, very sad.

[CapeRed]

1312 Among the Ultras - James Montague

a lot of stuff in this book that, as a football fan, i knew nothing about. Very interesting.

[SasaS]

Listened to an audio book of  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel which several people mentioned on here, pretty good 7/10 - literary ambitious post-apocalypse eerily reminiscent of Covid epidemic (it's from 2014). It has probably ruined the TV adaptation for me now.

Also finally listened to the daddy of them all (I guess) The Day of the Triffids 8/10. It is a bit like with  Alien, the film, in the sense it has been copied so much you can no longer fully appreciate and enjoy it's ingenuity.

OK, Alien was also just the The Thing (the original) in space and the serious version of Dark Star, but still, highly influential.

I will stop now.

[polymerpunkah]

I read "Day of the Triffids" for the first time a few months ago.

 

I thought it was great; as you say, you can see how influential it was for so many books/movies. 

 

At this point, it's all been done before, it's just a question of how well any particular work executes/adapts the blueprint. It's good to have read one of the originals.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

 

Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis

 

In a word, disappointing.  The blurb and all the notes on the cover would make you think it was a comprehensive programme of well-reasoned and evidenced social and economic innovations for building a better world.

 

It isn't.

 

Instead, it's a poor attempt at sci-fi, with a load of semi-formed political and economic ideas stuffed into it.  It doesn't work as a political treatise, because none of the ideas are supported by facts or properly challenged. It doesn't work as a novel, because the characters are just shallow archetypes to hang those ideas on and there's no plot or character development to speak of.

 

Just don't bother with this book.

 

He should have listened to Ron.

[Elite]

City of Dreams by Don Winslow is absolutely fantastic. I listened the audiobook and the narrator has that Ray Liotta Goodfellas vibe. One of my favourite ever books this one.

 

@NoelM knocking it out of the park with his last few suggestions.

[NoelM]

3 hours ago, Elite said:

City of Dreams by Don Winslow is absolutely fantastic. I listened the audiobook and the narrator has that Ray Liotta Goodfellas vibe. One of my favourite ever books this one.

 

@NoelM knocking it out of the park with his last few suggestions.

Austin Butler has bought the rights to the film version and he is going to play Danny. Not sure how I feel about that, I think he's too "pretty"?

https://www.thewrap.com/austin-butler-city-on-fire-don-winslow-elvis/

 

[Elite]

13 minutes ago, NoelM said:

Austin Butler has bought the rights to the film version and he is going to play Danny. Not sure how I feel about that, I think he's too "pretty"?

https://www.thewrap.com/austin-butler-city-on-fire-don-winslow-elvis/

 

He's a good actor but would be more suited to playing Liam. Hopefully they do a good job with the adaption. The story is that good and the dialogue is already written, so it'd be difficult to fuck it up.

[TheBitch]

Felt obliged to read this latest offering from my grandad who once he’d handed it over to me told me he struggled getting through it. Cheers for that, Tom. 
 

Took me a while to really get going because I was reading on my dinner at work and there’s always lots of distractions but once I managed to blank them out I cracked on and it’s a superb read, describing the fallout from WW2, the rise of communism in the east at the time, the politics involved as well as describing the godawful battles involved. 
It’s not a period of time I’m knowledgable about at all, but it’s really fascinating. 
 

4.5 howitzers out of 5.0

[polymerpunkah]

Abbas Amanat - Iran A Modern History

 

Comprehensive history of Iran from 1500 on.

 

Well-written, informative, balanced.

 

A good place to start.

[NoelM]

Two Southern crime novels finished, first Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor, a good debut novel about a feud between two families. I love this genre but can never get used to the gun culture. Second, Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke, it's again a good crime story set just after Trump wins the election in 2016 in Texas. Deals with lots of racial issues, the Aryan brotherhood etc.

[CapeRed]

Has anybody read The Ink Black Heart ? Is it worth a look?

[Pidge]

 

Kurt Vonnegut

[TheBitch]

On 09/08/2023 at 09:46, CapeRed said:

Has anybody read The Ink Black Heart ? Is it worth a look?

Bit of a pain in the arse with the layout of the online comments within the game, I was going back and to between the pages reading different conversations, but it’s a decent enough read. 

[CapeRed]

3 hours ago, TheBitch said:

Bit of a pain in the arse with the layout of the online comments within the game, I was going back and to between the pages reading different conversations, but it’s a decent enough read. 

Good stuff, thanks for that.

[Paul]

Been much slower on reading this year, but since I last posted in here I’ve read:

 

Apothecary by Peter Corden.

 

It’s one of the First Contact series which is an anthology of novels all about first contact with alien races. This one is set in, from memory, mediaeval times. It’s entertaining and worth a read.
 

Perfect Sound Whatever by James Acaster.
 

This is about his recovery from depression by addictively buying and consuming every album released in 2016. If you like music, it’s great. 
 

Killing Moon by Jo Nesbo

 

It’s the latest in Harry Hole books. Enough said if you’ve read the others. It’s an easy and enjoyable read.
 

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay.
 

It’s a heist novel set in an Edwardian house. Really pacy & well written; would make a great film.

 

All The Sinners Bleed by SA Cosby

 

The black sheriff of a small town accidentally discovers a serial killer and has to catch him while contending with  racist attitudes of some of the townsfolk. Superb. Highly  recommended.
 

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten.
 

It starts off as a kind of tech thriller and turns into a conspiracy book. It becomes a little leaden towards the end but it’s still pretty entertaining.
 

I’m now on the second  of Paul O’Grady’s autobiographies. I read the first one ages ago and loved it, but I hadn’t realised that he’d written more until I saw them in a display in Waterstones in Birkenhead recently. This is better than the last one: really funny, and great if you are from round here. 

[Captain Willard]

I’ve reread the Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s very good but almost a piss take of his writing style at times. I’m a big fan but like Hemingway it’s an easy style to parody. 

[NoelM]

Thanks to a recommendation from @EliteI restarted the Charlie Parker series, this time with The White Road and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely continue the series now.

I also just re-read Deliverance, having first read it years ago. It's still brilliant, especially the evocative descriptions of nature and the river. I need to watch the film again now too.

Next up is the new Stephen King, Holly.

[Paul]

Just finished the fourth and final (?) volume of Paul O’Grady’s autobiography. Like the three previous ones, it’s brilliant and hilarious and leaves you wishing you’d known him in real life. Such a shame that he didn’t publish any more before he died. This takes his life up to Blankety Blank and was published in 2015. I wonder if there are notes that will be published posthumously. 
 

Now got the new book in the Millennium saga about Lisbeth Salander, which I’ve just started, plus the new Stephen King, Holly. 

[polymerpunkah]

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

 

James McPherson

 

I've read quite a few books on the US Civil War and this is one of the best: it manages to distill the story down to a manageable length without losing the immensity of the subject.

 

If you're intersted in the Civil War, this would be a great first book to read.

 

From the NYT Book Review:

 

Quote

The book is opened with equal, though less obtrusive, skill. This is not only an account of the Civil War, it is a volume in the Oxford History of the United States, and so it begins with a masterly description of the republic at midcentury - a divided society, certainly, and a violent one, but not one in which so appalling a phenomenon as civil war is likely. So it must have seemed to most Americans at the time. Slowly, slowly the remote possibility became horrible actuality; and Mr. McPherson sees to it that it steals up on his readers in the same way. This is historical writing of the highest order, conveying perhaps the most important lesson of all: that we are not always masters of our fate, even when we most need to be.

 

It's a very good book.

[Mudface]

30 minutes ago, polymerpunkah said:

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

 

James McPherson

 

I've read quite a few books on the US Civil War and this is one of the best: it manages to distill the story down to a manageable length without losing the immensity of the subject.

 

If you're intersted in the Civil War, this would be a great first book to read.

 

From the NYT Book Review:

 

 

It's a very good book.

 

Thanks, I'll look out for that. It's always fascinated me, and on a more jocular level, I was always hoping there would be the much-promised Flashman novel on it. I don't think Fraser was too enamoured with the subject though...

 

I've just started reading through the Dark Tower series. Man, the first book is thin gruel. The second's a lot more interesting so far, but still- is this really worth persevering with?

 

I read a whole bunch of King short stories over the summer holidays and recently. Not all of them should have been published, but there are so many gems it more than makes up for the duffers. I think Four Past Midnight was the last collection I read of his before this binge, quite some time ago. Pretty shit. 

 

Nightmares and Dreamscapes- 6/10. Meh, a fair few decent stories, but nothing outstanding.

 

Everything's Eventual- 7/10. More like it, 1408 being the obvious stand out, although the film did it far more justice than it deserves. There's some very decent stories as well though.

 

Just After Sunset- 8.5/10. Really enjoyed this. Willa and N. are superb and most of the rest are cracking reads. Even the goofy, obviously early yarn is pretty good.

 

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams- 5/10. No.

 

Full Dark, No Stars- 8/10. 1922's great, and only the third story doesn't hit the mark. Cracking novella collection.

 

Put too much into that, but I really need to know about the Dark Tower...

[Edward.]

50 minutes ago, Mudface said:

 

Thanks, I'll look out for that. It's always fascinated me, and on a more jocular level, I was always hoping there would be the much-promised Flashman novel on it. I don't think Fraser was too enamoured with the subject though...

 

I've just started reading through the Dark Tower series. Man, the first book is thin gruel. The second's a lot more interesting so far, but still- is this really worth persevering with?

 

I read a whole bunch of King short stories over the summer holidays and recently. Not all of them should have been published, but there are so many gems it more than makes up for the duffers. I think Four Past Midnight was the last collection I read of his before this binge, quite some time ago. Pretty shit. 

 

Nightmares and Dreamscapes- 6/10. Meh, a fair few decent stories, but nothing outstanding.

 

Everything's Eventual- 7/10. More like it, 1408 being the obvious stand out, although the film did it far more justice than it deserves. There's some very decent stories as well though.

 

Just After Sunset- 8.5/10. Really enjoyed this. Willa and N. are superb and most of the rest are cracking reads. Even the goofy, obviously early yarn is pretty good.

 

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams- 5/10. No.

 

Full Dark, No Stars- 8/10. 1922's great, and only the third story doesn't hit the mark. Cracking novella collection.

 

Put too much into that, but I really need to know about the Dark Tower...

The Drawing of the Three I feel is the best book in the series but I enjoyed them all apart from Song of Susannah.