The GF book thread

[Ian Sea]

Montanari is very good, one of my favourite authors. The Byrne and Balzano series is excellent and I've really enjoyed his stand alone books as well.

[Duff Man]

The Picture Of Dorian Gray - fantastic yet plausible characters, and some thought provoking stuff on aestheticism and morality, all wrapped up in a ripping gothic yarn. Good stuff.

[The Flâneur]

Just finished a couple of Murakami: Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood. Both beautifully written, engaging texts.

 

I much prefer the former though, it's all magic realism, suburban alienation and a bit of WWII shenanigans.

[greenoak]

Just getting into Stuart Neville books. The twelve about an IRA killer being haunted over his past killings. Amazing.

 

So I have just got Collusion. A thriller about duty and revenge.

 

A great new author to me.

[Sugar Ape]

Just finished Johannes Cabal The Necromancer Johannes Cabal the Necromancer: Amazon.co.uk: Jonathan L. Howard: Books which is a very good, easy read. Basically Cabal has sold his soul to the devil and wants it back. Satan, because he is bored, offers Cabal a wager; get 100 people to sign their souls over to him in a year and he can have his own back. Satan gives him the use of a diabolical carnival to help him win the bet.

 

Quite a clever book, with some excellent wordplay. Recommended. 8/10.

 

In the middle of reading The man in the high castle by Philip K.Dick which is very good so far. Going to read either Anno Dracula by Kim Newman or Rivers of London next.

 

The Jack Kerley Carson Ryder series is decent. Set in Alabama, Ryder is a detective who has a brother who is a convicted serial killer. First in series The Hundredth Man: Amazon.co.uk: J. A. Kerley: Books

 

The State of Africa is a good, if sobering, book. Charts the post-colonial history of Africa. Not wrote in a stuffy scholarly fashion either, very gripping. The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence: Amazon.co.uk: Martin Meredith: 9780743232227: Books

 

Also recommend :

 

The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices - including a demonic, gun-toting tomcat - he immediately begins to create havoc.

 

Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves ...

 

Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev in May 1891. The Master and Margarita, a fantasy novel about the devil and his henchmen set in modern Moscow, is generally considered his masterpiece. Fame, at home and abroad, was not to come until a quarter of a century after his death at Moscow in 1940.

The Master And Margarita (Penguin Classics): Amazon.co.uk: Mikhail Bulgakov, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear: 9780140455465: Books

 

Don't normally like British crime novels, but this one is genuinely unsettling. The BBC made a shit adaption of it, also:

Messiah: Amazon.co.uk: Boris Starling: Books

 

The Devil in the white city by Erik Larson. Chronicles Chicago circa 1893 when Chicago was hosting the world fair. The previous world fair in Paris had seen the construction of the Eiffel tower, and Chicago wanted something to top it. The man who designed what was to beat the Eiffel tower was named George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. So, you can probably guess what he built.

 

At the same time the world fair was going on, H.H. Holmes one of the first serial killers in America was operating in Chicago. The books skips between the world fair and Holmes, and is excellent. Very good book for anyone interested in architecture as well.

The Devil In The White City: Amazon.co.uk: Erik Larson: Books

[polymerpunkah]

I'm reading Shelby Foote's "Civil War".

 

Three volume opus on the US Civil War, concentrating on the battles.

 

Written by a southerner, with a southern view-point. Not biased, but a much more sympathetic approach to the southerners, though not to their cause.

[Anny Road]

Finished The Passage last week and Fly boys last night both excellent reads.

Can't wait for The 12 to come out and those Japs were cunts.

Great recommendation chaps thanks.

[silverlining]

Halfway through "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick DeWitt.

 

It's brilliant. A dark, violent, often very funny western about two killer-for-hire brothers traipsing across California. Cormac McCarthy crossed with The Coen Brothers.

 

Also really enjoyed "All Quiet ON The Orient Express" by Magnus Mills. Not quite as good as the splendid "The Restraint Of Beasts" but not much is.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I'm on book 7 of the Malazan series after being recommended them by someone on here, it's been an excellent series of books so far.

[Sut]

Just finished Johannes Cabal The Necromancer Johannes Cabal the Necromancer: Amazon.co.uk: Jonathan L. Howard: Books which is a very good, easy read. Basically Cabal has sold his soul to the devil and wants it back. Satan, because he is bored, offers Cabal a wager; get 100 people to sign their souls over to him in a year and he can have his own back. Satan gives him the use of a diabolical carnival to help him win the bet.

 

Quite a clever book, with some excellent wordplay. Recommended. 8/10.

 

In the middle of reading The man in the high castle by Philip K.Dick which is very good so far. Going to read either Anno Dracula by Kim Newman or Rivers of London next.

 

The Jack Kerley Carson Ryder series is decent. Set in Alabama, Ryder is a detective who has a brother who is a convicted serial killer. First in series The Hundredth Man: Amazon.co.uk: J. A. Kerley: Books

 

The State of Africa is a good, if sobering, book. Charts the post-colonial history of Africa. Not wrote in a stuffy scholarly fashion either, very gripping. The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence: Amazon.co.uk: Martin Meredith: 9780743232227: Books

 

Also recommend :

 

 

The Master And Margarita (Penguin Classics): Amazon.co.uk: Mikhail Bulgakov, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear: 9780140455465: Books

 

Don't normally like British crime novels, but this one is genuinely unsettling. The BBC made a shit adaption of it, also:

Messiah: Amazon.co.uk: Boris Starling: Books

 

The Devil in the white city by Erik Larson. Chronicles Chicago circa 1893 when Chicago was hosting the world fair. The previous world fair in Paris had seen the construction of the Eiffel tower, and Chicago wanted something to top it. The man who designed what was to beat the Eiffel tower was named George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. So, you can probably guess what he built.

 

At the same time the world fair was going on, H.H. Holmes one of the first serial killers in America was operating in Chicago. The books skips between the world fair and Holmes, and is excellent. Very good book for anyone interested in architecture as well.

The Devil In The White City: Amazon.co.uk: Erik Larson: Books

 

I've got that Joahannes Cabal on my shelf waiting to be read. Definitely read Anno Dracula - it's excellent. Newman's Moriarty: the Hound of the D'urbervilles is great as well.

[Paul]

I finished Stephen King's latest, 11/22/63, last week. Like many of his more epic novels, it starts brilliantly, has a bit of duller section, goes ace again and then has a disappointing ending. It still pisses on most other authors from a great height though.

 

I'm currently reading something called Swan Song which a post-apocalyptic/The Stand-type thing. It's very good so far.

[El Rojo]

I've read a few Neil Cross books lately - Burial and Always The Sun. I'm currently finishing Captured. As literary page turners go, his work has few equals and creates tension like no other.

 

A simple, understated line towards the end of Always The Sun shocked me like nothing I've read before.

 

He's a fantastic writer.

[VladimirIlyich]

I've read a few Neil Cross books lately - Burial and Always The Sun. I'm currently finishing Captured. As literary page turners go, his work has few equals and creates tension like no other.

 

A simple, understated line towards the end of Always The Sun shocked me like nothing I've read before.

 

He's a fantastic writer.

 

Is he a crime writer?

[TheBitch]

Bollocks. 52 pages?

 

I just started reading again. Homicide, 1984 and Animal Farm, done in a couple of weeks. Not sure what next.

[piscinin]

Bollocks. 52 pages?

 

I just started reading again. Homicide, 1984 and Animal Farm, done in a couple of weeks. Not sure what next.

 

Brave New World.

[TheBitch]

 

Brave New World.

 

I like the sound of this.

[silverlining]

Is he a crime writer?

 

Neil Cross could loosely be described as that, I suppose, but he writes all sorts really. I think his first novels were crime/ thriller. He's also scripted Spooks and Luther for TV.

 

In fact, one of his best books is one of his earliest, from about 2003: "Holloway Falls".

 

It's very, very good and a cut way above most British thrillers. Pretty strange and horrible in places, and if I remember correctly the main character is a rather dubious hero, in that he's fucking mental.

[silverlining]

Brave New World.

 

Brave New World is chock full of great and interesting ideas, but it's not very well written and the main character is totally unbelievable and unspeakably dull.

[brucespanner]

Brave New World is chock full of great and interesting ideas, but it's not very well written and the main character is totally unbelievable and unspeakably dull.

 

Completely agree.

 

As a work of literature is unspeakably bad, much like the rest of Huxley's writing, but as a book of ideas and premonition it's up there with the best 'Dystopian nightmare' type books.

 

I'd kill for some Soma to get me through today!

[silverlining]

Completely agree.

 

As a work of literature is unspeakably bad, much like the rest of Huxley's writing, but as a book of ideas and premonition it's up there with the best 'Dystopian nightmare' type books.

 

I'd kill for some Soma to get me through today!

 

I tried to read "Antic Hay" recently and my brain tried to escape from my head via my ears taking my optic nerves with it.

[MikeC]

Bollocks. 52 pages?

 

I just started reading again. Homicide, 1984 and Animal Farm, done in a couple of weeks. Not sure what next.

 

If you liked Homicide, give The Corner a go. Another Baltimore tour de force.

[MikeC]

Am just finishing Ian M. Banks first one, Consider Phlebas. I found it a bit meh, anyone read any of the others and do they get any better?

[brucespanner]

Am just finishing Ian M. Banks first one, Consider Phlebas. I found it a bit meh, anyone read any of the others and do they get any better?

 

Ditch the 'M' Banks and just read his other books, except 'Dead Air' which is fucking rubbish, nothing to it whatsoever.

[silverlining]

Am just finishing Ian M. Banks first one, Consider Phlebas. I found it a bit meh, anyone read any of the others and do they get any better?

 

His non sci-fi stuff is very good, especially The Wasp Factory and Complicity.

 

As for the sci-fi, I really enjoyed The Algebraist and Matter.

[El Rojo]

Is he a crime writer?

 

In a way, but without the dry alcoholic, divorced private investigator cliches.

 

Burial is about a horrible secret from somebody's past catching up on them.

 

Always The Sun sees a father trying to take matters into his own hands when his son is being bullied at school.

 

Both situations get worse very quickly. Bleak, gripping stuff and excellently written.