This Week I are mostly reading (contd)

Esterhase

I haven't had nearly enough time for reading over the last few weeks.

Finished Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki, which was like a breath of fresh spring air after reading Woman in White. Quick and simple, twas a lovely wee read.

My goal of getting through a few short books ended straight away after I picked up Wilbur Smith's River God. Fabulous book; the only real problem I have with it is the main character being a bit up himself at times. It was completely absorbing otherwise. I read Warlock when it first came out (10-15 years ago, I feel ancient now) so that's due a re-read now that I have some more background on the story.

For the moment I'm giving fiction a break and reading The Riddle of the Labyrinth, which is about the decoding of Linear B. Fascinating if you're into that kind of thing.

Fathom

Dune. Frank Herbert.

Swiper the fox

SarahBM wrote: »

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is on hold because I have to read Bridget Jones for book club. Can't say I was enjoying it though. Only read 20 pages of Bridget Jones and I was laughing out loud. ðŸ˜

I started Harry August last night, read about 50 pages and I found it very hard to put down, I think I am going to absolutely love it.
I got it from the library as her new book sounds fascinating but I wanted to read this first.

Any other Ishiguro fans here? I love all of his books but I'm a ambivalent about the new one from what I've heard, I'd be interested to know if anyone has read itand what they think.

Callan57

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I started Harry August last night, read about 50 pages and I found it very hard to put down, I think I am going to absolutely love it.
I got it from the library as her new book sounds fascinating but I wanted to read this first.

Any other Ishiguro fans here? I love all of his books but I'm a ambivalent about the new one from what I've heard, I'd be interested to know if anyone has read itand what they think.

Haven't read the new one yet but it's on my list - I've loved all Ishiguro books but Remains of the Day is up there as one of my all-time favourite books.

crustybla

Finished Jesus Land by Julia Sheeres. It's a biopic about her life growing up in a religious household, her parents adopt two black boys but they're not the most caring parents, putting religion first. Really enjoyed it. Now I'm on Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Enjoying it so far.

Callan57

Finished the absolutely brilliant Sea of Poppies.

Now for something light Two More Pints by Roddy Doyle should do the job

Birneybau

Finished 'The Shining' the other day, thought feck it, straight into 'Doctor Sleep'.

crustybla

Wasn't sure what to expect from Dr Sleep but really enjoyed it.

Callan57

Going to start Dominion by C J Sansom tomorrow

eire4

Finished a re read of Morgan Llwelyn's Bard this weekend. Very enjoyable.

Aenaes

I finished The Three Musketeers. I enjoyed it, found it funny at times. It was a children's edition so I'm not sure if it was an abridged/edited version..

Then I went on and read Going Solo by Roald Dahl. His adult memoirs from working in Africa to serving in the RAF during the Second World War. Easily readable and funny as always.

Currently reading A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene. It's set in a leproserie in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The Turning
Short story collection by Tim Winton. I loved every single story in this collection and could easily have read full novel sized versions of each story. They're all set in the same town and are loosely connected, some more than others. I've loved everything I've read from Tim Winton. Hard to get your hands on a lot of it in the shops though outside 3 or 4 books.

Fidge13

Finished my first reading of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larsson) the other day. Thought it was very well plotted, maybe lost a little in translation though.

Now, i'm nearing the end of a little Stephen King book called The Rage - written as Richard Bachman. It's very good.

Been turning a few pages of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit recently too - but it's a very old style of English and it's taking me a while to get my ear in tune with it.

Jijsaw

Fidge13 wrote: »

Now, i'm nearing the end of a little Stephen King book called The Rage - written as Richard Bachman. It's very good.

I've been looking for Rage for ages! Where did you get it?

I'm currently reading The Godfather, despite loving it- I'm too tired in the evenings to read more than 30 pages and seeing as it is almost 600 pages- I'll be reading for quite a long time.

Kalimah

Callan57 wrote: »

Going to start Dominion by C J Sansom tomorrow

Read that recently. Really enjoyed it.

Fathom

Girl with Dragon Tattoo.

Dibble

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.

FaulknersFav

Americana by Don DeLillo.

FaulknersFav

And Darkness Visible by William Styron, which is incredible so far.

Birneybau

Still reading 'Doctor Sleep'.

Wish he hadn't wrote it to be honest, in no way reflects how good the original was.

ivytwine

Birneybau wrote: »

Still reading 'Doctor Sleep'.

Wish he hadn't wrote it to be honest, in no way reflects how good the original was.

I read it as completely separate from the Shining, and I think that's the only way to read it and enjoy it. It's no near that book of course but it's not bad.

Reading "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall" and snorting away to myself in public. I love Spike Milligan's absurdist humour and when he told the RAF recruiter that he'd been on the top deck of a bus before I nearly lost my life.

I also have "Alan Turing: The Enigma" on the go but I'm tired and little hungover today so I'll be taking a break. I don't get ANY of the maths but he was a very interesting character, so enjoying it despite my feeble brain.

Finally when I finish Spike I'm going to launch Reaper Man on the Kindle, it seems to be the most fitting Discworld book to pay tribute to STP. There will be tears

SarahBM

Lads, I am only about half way through the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I swear, its the most boring and confusing book ever. Can't understand the hype. Its been a struggle but I will finish it this weekend.
Bridget Jones is just a pain. I don't like her and therefore I don't want to pick it up and read it. But again I will probably try to read it, just to see.
I hate the thought of not finishing a book.

Swiper the fox

I'm a bit more than half way through Harry August and I absolutely love it, confusing I can understand but how can you possibly call it boring????

Aenaes

I finished A Burnt-Out Case. It was quite slow and dealt alot with human emotions/interactions and enjoyable, typical of a Greene novel seemingly.

Now I'm currently reading Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes. It's 2011, Adolf Hitler wakes up on a piece of waste ground in Berlin and proceeds to wander around the city. Some very funny bits.

SarahBM

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I'm a bit more than half way through Harry August and I absolutely love it, confusing I can understand but how can you possibly call it boring????

I don't know, it's just like I don't care. Not a likable character really, I can't really put my finger on it.

groovie

Birneybau wrote: »

Still reading 'Doctor Sleep'.

Wish he hadn't wrote it to be honest, in no way reflects how good the original was.

I quite liked this, I was a big king reader back in the day (80's) and enjoyed this revisit to the life of Danny Torrance. I don't know why you would compare this to the original as that was written over 30 years ago, King writes differently now, in my opinion.
I'm nearly finished The Buried Giant, enjoying it.

GLaDOS

Finished up Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch last night. I did enjoy it, but found myself struggling a bit towards the end. Nowhere near as good as The Secret History imo.

FaulknersFav

Finished Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron yesterday.

Really was moved by it, spent the rest of the day thinking of passages from it, and today it's still there.

eire4

Finished a re read of Morgan Llwelyn's Grania. A great read about the remarkable 16th century heroine Grainne Ni Mhaille on Ireland's west coast.

Callan57

Finished Dominion by C J Sansom last night, a really gripping read.

I read Sea of Poppies a few weeks ago and today I'm going to being the second book River of Smoke - looking forward to lunchtime to start it.

groovie

I have started H is for Hawk, I was looking for something 'Arthurian' to follow The Buried Giant, but remembered reading something about this one, so I thought that I'd give it a try. So far so good.

giggii

Finished "Elizabeth is Missing" and "A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing" in the last while, two excellent books that I thoroughly enjoyed, but the heavy nature of both has me reaching for something a bit lighter now!! Now [EMAIL="I@m"]I'm[/EMAIL] reading Randall Munroe's "What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" which I'm really liking so far! It's by the guy that creates the xkcdweb comics, and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in the pop culture side of science! It's giving some very good pub discussion topics at any rate!! :P

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I'm reading something called The Age of Magic by Ben Okri. It's the biggest load of nonsense. It's supposed to be about a film crew travelling through Europe making a documentary about Arcadia, or something like that but it just reads like some sort of spiritual mumbo jumbo self help deep and meaningful hippy bull. I'm half way through it and I genuinely think the author was off his face on something when he wrote it and it's just some steam of consciousness rubbish he managed to pass off as a book.

ivytwine

The fact that I can't understand half of "Alan Turing: The Enigma" is starting to get on my wick. Not sure if I'll finish it now...

SarahBM

Just finished the first fifteen lives of Harry August. Well the first 3/4 was like wading through mud, but the last hundred pages or so we're good, until the last chapter. Talk about your anticlimax. Sigh.
Not sure if I will continue with Bridget Jones.

Swiper the fox

SarahBM wrote: »

Just finished the first fifteen lives of Harry August. Well the first 3/4 was like wading through mud, but the last hundred pages or so we're good, until the last chapter. Talk about your anticlimax. Sigh.
Not sure if I will continue with Bridget Jones.

Ah Jesus, you're after spoiling that for me now:P
I'll finish it tonight, I love it all to be honest, time travel type thingies must be my thing because I loved the recent Ben Elton book also although that really dipped towards the end.
The reason I started on Harry August was because I saw Claire North's new book in the bookshop and it sounded fascinating, thought I'd read this one first.

SarahBM

Swiper the fox wrote: »

Ah Jesus, you're after spoiling that for me now:P
I'll finish it tonight, I love it all to be honest, time travel type thingies must be my thing because I loved the recent Ben Elton book also although that really dipped towards the end.
The reason I started on Harry August was because I saw Claire North's new book in the bookshop and it sounded fascinating, thought I'd read this one first.

Sorry, didn't mean to spoil it. You might like the ending but I didn't. I liked the sound of that Ben Elton book too. Might give it a go at some stage, but need to make a dent in my to read pile first

Birneybau

groovie wrote: »

I quite liked this, I was a big king reader back in the day (80's) and enjoyed this revisit to the life of Danny Torrance. I don't know why you would compare this to the original as that was written over 30 years ago, King writes differently now, in my opinion.
I'm nearly finished The Buried Giant, enjoying it.

I compared it to the original as it was a sequel?

Anyway, it was alright.

groovie

Birneybau wrote: »

I compared it to the original as it was a sequel?

Anyway, it was alright.

'Twas. Have you read The Dead Zone? Quite the page turner.

Birneybau

groovie wrote: »

'Twas. Have you read The Dead Zone? Quite the page turner.

Not yet, on the list, 49 strong at the moment *groan* : D

Birneybau

Onto 'The Sandman' by Lars Keplar, very intriguing so far.

Captain Hman

Re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the 5th time, this harry potter seems like it never ends, although its a great book it could of been trimmed down a bit

Fidge13

Jijsaw wrote: »

I've been looking for Rage for ages! Where did you get it?

I'm currently reading The Godfather, despite loving it- I'm too tired in the evenings to read more than 30 pages and seeing as it is almost 600 pages- I'll be reading for quite a long time.

I got Rage on ebook format. REally enjoyed it, and the next of those Bachman books called "The Long Walk".

Jijsaw

Currently reading a collection of eastern European fairy-tales in French that were published in the 1960's, some of the tales are so racist- really horrible drawings and descriptions in them.

Swiper the fox

I finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August a few nights ago, I really loved it and the end was not as disappointing for me as Sarahbm had flagged, brilliant concept for a book and so well executed that I couldn't really pick out any of the holes of which there must have been hundreds with a concept as convoluted as that.
I just bought her new book "Touch" this morning and I look forward to getting stuck into that now.

Aenaes

Swiper the fox wrote: »

the end was not as disappointing for me as Sarahbm had flagged

I think she's just terribly fussy :pac:

I finished Look Who's Back. It's funny and almost believable, if that makes any sense.

I've started The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. I'm struggling to get into it which is disappointing because I thought I would love it.

SarahBM

Aenaes wrote: »

I think she's just terribly fussy :pac:

I finished Look Who's Back. It's funny and almost believable, if that makes any sense.

I've started The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. I'm struggling to get into it which is disappointing because I thought I would love it.

I am fussy, and why not!

I loved the film The Last of the Mohicans so I read the book a few years ago. Its a struggle, but looking forward to seeing what you think.

FaulknersFav

Just about to start Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Looking forward to it as the reviews are so strong. First book I've read by the author.

Birneybau

FaulknersFav wrote: »

Just about to start Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Looking forward to it as the reviews are so strong. First book I've read by the author.

It's very good but very long. He's a great writer.

FaulknersFav

Birneybau wrote: »

It's very good but very long. He's a great writer.

Great to hear, I'll report back my thoughts