Recommend some books
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Christopher
Über Member
the Discovery of France - can't remember the author but it is a fascinating account of how France was made into a single country rather than a number of loosely affiliated regions all speaking different languages...
and The White War - a horrifying account of Italy's aggression in WWI when they attempted to 'liberate' Trentino and Trieste for the flimsiest of reasons and paid a heavy price (nearly lost their war after Caporetto as well)..
and The White War - a horrifying account of Italy's aggression in WWI when they attempted to 'liberate' Trentino and Trieste for the flimsiest of reasons and paid a heavy price (nearly lost their war after Caporetto as well)..
asterix
Comrade Member
- Location
- Limoges or York
Yes the 'Discovery of France' is an excellent book - not about cycling but the author is a cyclist. Given my poor grasp of French, I especially like the idea that most of France didn't speak French until relatively recently. It also explains why my neighbours French is not like school French especially when speaking to other locals.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie, also Cider With Roadies
Showbusiness by Mark Radcliffe
Showbusiness by Mark Radcliffe
longers
Legendary Member
Thought of one I really enjoyed a while back - The Orchid Thief.
cookiemonster
Squire
- Location
- Hong Kong
Working through this one just now -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Engineering...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307647591&sr=1-1
Fascinating stuff
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Engineering...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307647591&sr=1-1
Fascinating stuff
swee'pea99
Squire
Don't read much non-fiction, but I loved all Spike Milligan's war reminiscences (Adolf Hitler, my part in his downfall etc). Alan Clarke's diaries are also great, if you like that sort of thing. Also Alan Bennet's, again if you like etc.
Mad Doug Biker
Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
- Location
- Craggy Island
My all time favourite book is
'The Worst Journey In The World'
by Cherry Apsley Garrard, 1922.
Described by Conde Nast Traveller as
'A Masterpiece'
it is the favourite travel book of Paul Theroux amongst many others, and is voted as being one of the best travel books of all time, so clearly I have taste!
Cherry was one of the youngest people on Scott's last Antarctic voyage and was one of the people who then had to go out and find them when they were coming back from the pole.
It is a full account from before they left Cardiff on the Terra Nova (NOT the Discovery!) in 1910 right through to the end in 1913, written with the hindsight of 10 years.
The book's title actually refers to a journey Cherry, Wilson and Bowers did the winter before to collect Emperor Penguin eggs at Cape Crozier as it was thought that in the early stages, the penguin developed in a different way from other species, but nobody could prove it without eggs collected at the right stage.
They got to Cape Crozier, and collected only a handful of eggs due to the horrific weather and ended up breaking all but one because of the conditions they were in. After collecting the eggs, their tent blew away in hurricane force winds, but fortunately it was later found a few hundred feet away as, due to its design, it had flown right up, and then closed on itself, causing it to loose lift. Nothing short of a small miracle in a hurricane, given that it could easily have blown away never to be seen again.
Realising they were in dire straights, they didn't hang about long and started on their journey back, encountering temperatures as low as -77 as they did so.
When Cherry took the sole surviving egg and the remains of the others to the Natural History Museum in 1913, he was treated with indifference, and he learned later that the theory he had gone on such a hideous journey for had already been proved wrong anyway!
Cherry was severely criticised when he got back by people who had all the hindsight in the world, because he hadn't pushed himself hard enough to find Scott's party in the abysmal weather, but, of course, there was no means of communication, so nobody could have known what was happening, least of all Cherry. What could he have done, pushed on and died himself?
My favourite lines from the book sum it all up beautifully
'POLAR EXPLORATION is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. It is the only form of adventure in which you put on your clothes at Michaelmas and keep them on until Christmas, and, save for a layer of the natural grease of the body, find them as clean as though they were new. It is more lonely than London, more secluded than any monastery, and the post comes but once a year. As men will compare hardships of France, Palestine or Mesopotamia, so it would be interesting to contrast the rival claims of the Antarctic as a medium of discomfort. A member of Campbell's party tells me that the trenches of Ypres were a comparative picnic. But until someone can eveolve a standard of endurance I am unable to see how it can be done. Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor Penguin.'
Need I say any more?
A really crap book then?? BOOM BOOM!!
I am about to read that, so thanks!
Talking of Autobiographies, one of my real favourites is David Attenborough's 'Life On Air', I found it fascinating and, I now know the answer to a 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?' type question:
What trade did David Attenborough work in before joining the BBC?
I have been in the Dolomites and have seen the tunnels they fought in - You know that there were points where they were in pitch darkness and the only way of identifying if you had come across the enemy was to touch the bits on the shoulders of their uniform and quickly kill them before they killed you. Truly horrific.
As an aside, I found plenty of bits of shrapnel, shell and bullet casings, the magazine for a gun and barbed wire half sticking out the ground up there. Who knows what else is up there waiting to be found?
'The Worst Journey In The World'
by Cherry Apsley Garrard, 1922.
Described by Conde Nast Traveller as
'A Masterpiece'
it is the favourite travel book of Paul Theroux amongst many others, and is voted as being one of the best travel books of all time, so clearly I have taste!
Cherry was one of the youngest people on Scott's last Antarctic voyage and was one of the people who then had to go out and find them when they were coming back from the pole.
It is a full account from before they left Cardiff on the Terra Nova (NOT the Discovery!) in 1910 right through to the end in 1913, written with the hindsight of 10 years.
The book's title actually refers to a journey Cherry, Wilson and Bowers did the winter before to collect Emperor Penguin eggs at Cape Crozier as it was thought that in the early stages, the penguin developed in a different way from other species, but nobody could prove it without eggs collected at the right stage.
They got to Cape Crozier, and collected only a handful of eggs due to the horrific weather and ended up breaking all but one because of the conditions they were in. After collecting the eggs, their tent blew away in hurricane force winds, but fortunately it was later found a few hundred feet away as, due to its design, it had flown right up, and then closed on itself, causing it to loose lift. Nothing short of a small miracle in a hurricane, given that it could easily have blown away never to be seen again.
Realising they were in dire straights, they didn't hang about long and started on their journey back, encountering temperatures as low as -77 as they did so.
When Cherry took the sole surviving egg and the remains of the others to the Natural History Museum in 1913, he was treated with indifference, and he learned later that the theory he had gone on such a hideous journey for had already been proved wrong anyway!
Cherry was severely criticised when he got back by people who had all the hindsight in the world, because he hadn't pushed himself hard enough to find Scott's party in the abysmal weather, but, of course, there was no means of communication, so nobody could have known what was happening, least of all Cherry. What could he have done, pushed on and died himself?
My favourite lines from the book sum it all up beautifully
'POLAR EXPLORATION is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. It is the only form of adventure in which you put on your clothes at Michaelmas and keep them on until Christmas, and, save for a layer of the natural grease of the body, find them as clean as though they were new. It is more lonely than London, more secluded than any monastery, and the post comes but once a year. As men will compare hardships of France, Palestine or Mesopotamia, so it would be interesting to contrast the rival claims of the Antarctic as a medium of discomfort. A member of Campbell's party tells me that the trenches of Ypres were a comparative picnic. But until someone can eveolve a standard of endurance I am unable to see how it can be done. Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor Penguin.'
Need I say any more?
A really crap book then?? BOOM BOOM!!
I am about to read that, so thanks!
Talking of Autobiographies, one of my real favourites is David Attenborough's 'Life On Air', I found it fascinating and, I now know the answer to a 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?' type question:
What trade did David Attenborough work in before joining the BBC?
I have been in the Dolomites and have seen the tunnels they fought in - You know that there were points where they were in pitch darkness and the only way of identifying if you had come across the enemy was to touch the bits on the shoulders of their uniform and quickly kill them before they killed you. Truly horrific.
As an aside, I found plenty of bits of shrapnel, shell and bullet casings, the magazine for a gun and barbed wire half sticking out the ground up there. Who knows what else is up there waiting to be found?
al-fresco
Growing older but not up...
- Location
- Shropshire
+1 for this - just finished it - absolutely cracking read.
Wow, my thread is still going! That you for all the suggestions - I'm going to go through and make a list.
In return, here are some books I've enjoyed:
Murray Walker's autobiography (assuming you have some interest in F1/motorsport in general...)
"In the Heart of the Sea" - about a whaling ship that was sunk by a whale and the terrible journey that the survivours made...
"Findings" by Kathleen somebody - beautiful pieces of nature writing.
In return, here are some books I've enjoyed:
Murray Walker's autobiography (assuming you have some interest in F1/motorsport in general...)
"In the Heart of the Sea" - about a whaling ship that was sunk by a whale and the terrible journey that the survivours made...
"Findings" by Kathleen somebody - beautiful pieces of nature writing.
RedRider
Pulling through
- Location
- Location Embrocation
Yeah, great read... it tells a story Herman Melville knew well and helped inspire his Moby Dick. I'm a sucker for sea-faring tales, 'Left For Dead: the untold story of the 1979 Fastnet Race' is gripping too.
'A Season With Verona' by Tim Park is good. Looks at Italian and football cultures from the perspectives of those involved with Hellas Verona (kinda like an Italian Millwall FC) during a Serie A season. The page-turning drama is whether or not the club avoids relegation so if you don't want to know the result look away from Google now.
Cletus Van Damme
Previously known as Cheesney Hawks
- Location
- Out in the sticks...
I have just read a couple of memoirs by Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors and Dry. They are both extremley funny and very, very well written. Some of the graphic descriptions of gay sex made me wince a little bit, but then again I guess everybody has bad sexual experiences whether straight or gay and I guess that they should in one's memoir. Very highly recommended books.
Running With Scissors
Dry
Running With Scissors
Dry
Durian
Über Member
- Location
- Chiang Mai. Thailand.
I've recently finished reading a book about Marco Pantani and as mentioned by someone previously it is indeed a grim read, for me it was also a fascinating read and definitely fell in to the category of a book I couldn't put down. 'The Death of Marco Pantani' by Matt Rendell.
swee'pea99
Squire
The reappearance of this thread prompts me to mention that I'm now mid-way through The Border Trilogy, which is fast reinforcing my conviction that Cormac McCarthy is the best writer in the language, bar none.
