What book are you reading atm??

The Helpful Engineer

Just finished Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. A good quick read that keeps you guessing, I really enjoyed it.

Heckler

quickbeam wrote: »

Richard Matheson is a great recommendation. Could I also suggest John Wyndham? The Day of the Triffids to start with but any of them really.

I am Legend is a fantastic little read. The flipping on its head of the hero is great and overlooked by the movie versions. Omega Man and I am Legend. Both ok on their own but missing the point of the original.

Ipso

Heckler wrote: »

I am Legend is a fantastic little read. The flipping on its head of the hero is great and overlooked by the movie versions. Omega Man and I am Legend. Both ok on their own but missing the point of the original.

That's a great book.
Thanks to the other posters recommendations of Childhoods End and The Dark Room. I loved 2001 and Rendezvous with Rama, and also enjoy dark, seedy crime novels (James Ellroy and David Peace would be my recommendations here).

Heckler

Ipso wrote: »

That's a great book.
Thanks to the other posters recommendations of Childhoods End and The Dark Room. I loved 2001 and Rendezvous with Rama, and also enjoy dark, seedy crime novels (James Ellroy and David Peace would be my recommendations here).

I've read a few Ellroy but found them relentlessly grim, his mothers outcome no doubt fuelling that.

Ipso

Heckler wrote: »

I've read a few Ellroy but found them relentlessly grim, his mothers outcome no doubt fuelling that.

David Peace makes him look like Tony Robbins, but yeah he seems to have some demons alright.
But I found the LA settings to give his stories a bit more "glamour" or polish.

Foweva Awone

Foweva Awone wrote: »

I've started Big Brother by Lionel Shriver, I just love her writing style.

Ugh. A good read, but a very lazy frustrating ending, similar to an unimaginative Junior Cert student ending a story with "... and then she woke up and realised it had all been a dream."

Would not recommend!

On to "The Cows" by Dawn Porter next.

*EDIT* About 5 pages into "The Cows", the word Queue was used instead of Cue. Another book in the NOPE pile!

eviltwin

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Also about to start Michelle Obama's autobiography on Audible, heard great things about it.

Nigel Fairservice

I just started Off the Map: Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places and What They Tell Us About the World by Alastair Bonnett.

Foweva Awone

Cats Eye (Margaret Atwood) is one I started reading approx 18 years ago, when I was in my teens.

I can never get into it, but I can never quite give up on it either, so every now and then I read a couple of pages or a couple of chapters. I mightn't pick it up again for months or even years.

So after all this time, I'm only about two thirds of the way through it. Picked up where I last left off again tonight.

I'm not usually like this with books, I'll usually either fly through them or else ruthlessly give up on them and dispose of them. This one is an exception!

TheRepentent

Deleted User wrote: »

Just started Shogun by James Clavell. Loving it so far, though only about 70 pages in.

Brilliant book. Read it every few years.


The rest of the series I didn't really like.

Graces7

re-re-re-reading John Grisham "The Last Juror" . Enjoying as always.

Danger781

My name is Rex. I'm a good boy.



Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Carry

A bit of a rant:

Reading atm Camilla Lackberg: The Girl in the Woods.

Usually Lackberg writes easy going Swedish crime novels with a good plot, an agreeable pace and a touch of chick lit that is just about tolerable. I like her older books which are well constructed, they are good bedtime Noir without giving nightmares.

Her latest is an example of over-ambitious writers who try to be "woke", political, personal, emotional and whatnot, without having the skills to actually understand a thing and put it into words. All that together drowns the quite interesting core story.
There are several threads that make no sense whatsoever in the story: refugees and Swedish prejudices, flashbacks to the 1600s in rural Sweden that don't even make mythical sense, teenage bullying that distracts from the actual story and an emphasis on the mundane private lives of the characters that doesn't make them more lively and colourful but immensely boring and two-dimensional.

I'm probably going to finish it, but I'll read only the paragraphs that actually have a bearing on the story as such. Or maybe I jump to the end just to get to know who the killer is.

580 pages - a good editor could have easily halved the lot!

Writers and editors out there: keep a story to the point, and publishers, don't think that the meandering of an established writer is worth publishing!

Rant over.

Cheshire Cat

I agree CL's earlier books were much better.
The flashbacks to the past in this book make sense (just about) in the very end. I finished the book, but would be wary of the next

Thargor

Danger781 wrote: »

My name is Rex. I'm a good boy.



Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Never heard of it and I love his stuff, ordered thanks.

(I love his stuff apart from that utterly pointless Lion and the Hyena crap he released recently I should say...)

Ariadne

batgoat wrote: »

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, it's Ted Bundy season so seems appropriate.

This is what I'm reading at the moment, very interesting to get the perspective of someone that knew him.

Foweva Awone wrote: »

Cats Eye (Margaret Atwood) is one I started reading approx 18 years ago, when I was in my teens.

I can never get into it, but I can never quite give up on it either, so every now and then I read a couple of pages or a couple of chapters. I mightn't pick it up again for months or even years.

So after all this time, I'm only about two thirds of the way through it. Picked up where I last left off again tonight.

I'm not usually like this with books, I'll usually either fly through them or else ruthlessly give up on them and dispose of them. This one is an exception!

Cat's Eye is one of my favourite books, I go back and read it every once in a while, I first read it in my teens too. See if you can stick it out because I think it's worth it

Danger781

Thargor wrote: »

Never heard of it and I love his stuff, ordered thanks.

(I love his stuff apart from that utterly pointless Lion and the Hyena crap he released recently I should say...)

That's funny, really well rated on GR:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36161270-the-hyena-and-the-hawk


Each to their own I suppose.. I haven't read it so can't comment.

gutenberg

Reading Jill Lepore's The Story of America: it's a collection of essays discussing various aspects of American history from the seventeenth century onwards, so not really a narrative history but rather a series of vignettes. Some of them are absolutely hilarious, such as her exploration of the presidential 'campaign biography', and the essay on Benjamin Franklin.

Someone gave me Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems for Christmas, after I left my old copy on a train, which I'd had since the Leaving Cert.

It's great, but still not as good as hearing her read her own work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQySAjflgnA

Foweva Awone

Just finished "The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy" (B.M. Carroll), have to say I really enjoyed it. A very satisfying read. Twisty without being ridiculous!

Danger781

Danger781 wrote: »

My name is Rex. I'm a good boy.

Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I really really enjoyed this one. Stayed awake last night to persevere through to the end despite how tired I was feeling. It's been many months since I last rated a book as five stars on Good Reads!

Foweva Awone

The Possible World by Liese O'Halloran Schwartz. I'm completely stuck into it; moreso than with any book I've read in a while. Would recommend.

Vodkat

Educated by Tara Westover
It's the memoir of a girl growing up in an extremist Mormon family full of conflict.

10/10, couldn't put it down

rushfan

Vodkat wrote:

Educated by Tara Westover It's the memoir of a girl growing up in an extremist Mormon family full of conflict.

Totally agree. Read it last year. Fantastic book.

bonzodog2

Camilla Lackberg - The Lost Boy (Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 7)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009BZ6CCA/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_7
Ive only read a short story of hers before but enjoyed it
Amazon sez "No. 1 international bestseller and Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg’s new psychological thriller – irresistible for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo."

puppieperson1

John Waters new book censored by Easons but it can be bought "give us back our old roads" - enlightening!! read it and then listen to Gemma & him on interview
https://youtu.be/yEnOwn4v2Yk

batgoat

puppieperson1 wrote: »

John Waters new book censored by Easons but it can be bought "give us back our old roads" - enlightening!! read it and then listen to Gemma & him on interview
https://youtu.be/yEnOwn4v2Yk

It's readily available in all book stores...

The Forward Book of Poetry 2019.

Theres à wonderfully cynical poem about Monica from Friends which had me laughing deliriously, and lots of other smashers. If you're going to buy any book of poetry this year, give it a shot.

Lots of upcoming talent included in it too, and I don't mean that in that 'they're a bit sh1te yet', they're already master poets, and it's 12 quid well spent.

#IReallydon'tWorkForThem

accensi0n

Where wizards stay up late.

The Princess Bride

The Heart's Invisible Furies.
I am going through a John Boyne phase at the moment, and he's just so very good.