What book are you reading atm?? CHAPTER TWO

Starting "The myth of normal" looking forward to it as I really liked "In the realm of hungry ghosts" by Gabor Mate. My night time reading is Miriam Margolyes autobiography, it has **** reviews but just need chewing gum for the brain at bedtime. As a side note, I didn't get the hype with "The body keeps the score".

The Man in the Big House by folklorist Eddie Lenihan. A collection of folklore stories from an old resident of County Clare whom Eddie visited in a psychiatric hospital in the early 80's.

Sounds very interesting, let us know your thoughts,

I have loads of literary books to read , but I do love history so starting Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor. Its about the British rule in India and how they caused excess deaths of100 to 165 million people in 40 years

Murder Most Local: Historic Murders of West Cork by Peter O'Shea

There's some great little stories on weird supernatural occurrences such as fairy abductions and piseógs. Some of the other stories ramble on for too long though, especially the one where he's explaining in detail how an old wheat chaff separator works, I got bored and moved to the next story.

Just finished Trevor Horn : Adventures in Modern Recording: From ABC to ZTT. I admire Trevor Horn and the book is interesting in telling his beginnings and then the major songs he's played on / produced over the years however his story telling is a combination of "This one time in Band Camp" coupled with the Fast Show Character who's catchphrase was "Which was nice".

7/10

Just finished The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I feel like I've been reading it for months. It's ok but way too long. Also in what world do 20 year olds talk like that and drink like that. Glad it's over finally.

Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber: The Extraordinary Life of Rose Dugdale by Sean O'Driscoll.

Fascinating read but I must admit that I had never heard of her as I would be very interested in the IRA of the War of Independence and the Civil War. It was my first time reading anything about the modern IRA.

The Glass Bees by Ernst Junger

Good so far.

Beware - This one gave me nightmares after reading 😱

‘Winterwood’ was the one of his that shook me a bit. Loved ‘Emerald Germs of Ireland’ and ‘The Dead School’.

Ended up getting 2 copies of ‘The Big Yahroo’, the sequel to ‘The Butcher Boy’, at Christmas but haven’t gotten around to reading either of them, yet.

I’d recommend Nemesis which is about the battle for Japan in WW2. Its excellent and imho one of his best. His book on the Korean War is also a great read.

Starting the Master and Commander series, apparently theres about 20 books to it but Ill give the first 3 a go and see, must say Im tearing through the first one anyway.

I’ve got 2 handy books on the go at the moment. Treasure Island by Robert Louis stevenson and strumpet city by James plunkett. I’m enjoying them both.

I'd been dying to read these for years and finally bought the first two in the series. The first one was great. The second one was possibly the worst book I've ever read, it was truly awful in parts. It's put me off reading any more even though they are loved by lots of people. Be interested to see what you think of the second one.

Sorry, hadn't meant to put you off. You may like it, I'd be interested to hear as I'd like to give them another go.

If you like naval history then I can recommend a couple of books -

• Trafalgar - Roy Adkins - all about the famous battle and events surrounding it
• Jack Tar by Roy and Leslie Adkins - fascinating review of what life was like for sailors in Nelson's navy
• Castles Of Steel - Robert K Massie - a naval history of the first world war and one of my favorite all time books. Its about 800 pages and riveting. Holds a special place in my memory as it was what I read when sitting in the labor ward waiting for my wife to hurry up and give birth to our first child 19 years ago 😁

The Bounty Trilogy (Nordhoff and Hall) is also a really good naval read but its not quite fully factual. It is in three parts, the first deals with the Mutiny on the Bounty and the subsequent life of the mutineers on Tahiti and their capture; the second part deals with the 4,000 mile journey Captain Bligh and his men took in a little boat back to safety after they were cast adrift by the mutineers (a journey not many people seem to be aware of); and the final part deals with the life of the last of mutineers and the Tahitians they took to Pitcairn Island with them. The first two books are based on contemporaneous diaries and accounts so are accurate to some degree; the last book is almost completely fiction with known events woven in. It is a great read and again is 600 pages plus long.

It takes place on land!? And its a tribute to Jane Austen, hmmm.

Yep they pretty much dock and attend a number of social engagements in England lol. Which is fine with me because I like social novels but unusual for an action and adventure series.

Jack Aubrey's initials JA were also meant as a coded tribute to Jane Austen (really).

They expected Ireland to share absolutely everything with them and be 100% transparent and didn't return the favour.

And Away... by Bob Mortimer

Love him whenever he is on Would I Lie To You? and have heard so many good things about this book, that I decided to give it a go. However, I found it very uninteresting and reinforces my belief that autobiographies are not for me, having previously read Sarah Millican's autobiography.

World War Z: Max Brooks.

Really fun so far. Written as a series short of post event interviews with various players in the war. Looks at the good and bad ways people react to pandemics.

Nothing like the shtty movie of the same name.