What are you reading

[mistyoptic]

Just finished Dark Matter by Greg Iles.

An interesting take on the near-apocalypse genre

 

[Reynard]

An interesting little tome from 1956 by Harold Pratley titled "Scale Model Cars"

 

[Hover Fly]

even AI hated reading LOTF

 

[dicko]

Fredrick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal wow this is very good story much better than the film but that was years ago when I saw that.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Fredrick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal wow this is very good story much better than the film but that was years ago when I saw that.

A good book in its time.

Still a good underlying story from what I remember, but I did try a re-read some while back and quickly aborted as the language used by FF is so very dated.

Prose has moved on quite a bit in the last 50 years or so. I find that the best writers use a snappier, sharper style which feels much more relatable.

And beyond that background world events, politics, social norms, etc, obviously strike more of a chord than faraway in time events.

To be fair, many readers do like novels with a retro-feel. So, each to their own.

 

[Animo]

Fredrick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal wow this is very good story much better than the film but that was years ago when I saw that.

One of my absolute favourites when I was young.

 

[Webbo2]

Just finished this I think it’s the third time I’ve read it

 

[Webbo2]

Now reading this.

 

[Mark Grant]

Not started this yet but a couple of weeks ago we were at a National Trust property, I was perusing their second hand book shop and came across this. The Lisbon Maru is the ship my uncle (Dad's younger brother) was on when he died / was killed in 1942.
According to the book it ' was the most costly American on British 'Friendly fire' incident of the Second World War.
When we were kids we knew that Uncle Eddie was killed in the war, but were never told the details until one of my siblings researched it.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Saturday 20th

Early Father’s Day present, from daughter

 

[All uphill]

I'm re-reading two books written about contemporary thinking on free will (Determined by Robert Sapolsky) and the founding of the science of astro-biology by Sara Imari Walker.

Both challenge my comfortable assumptions, and neither is too technical.

 

[bluenotebob]

Some recent reads:

Geraldine Brooks/People of the Book (2008)

Recommended by @Poacher upthread. I loved it – a cracking read. Well-written and absorbing.

I have another of her titles – March – lined up to read in the coming weeks and a copy of Year of Wonders is also (hopefully) winging its way here through the postal system.


Anna Burns/Milkman (2018)

One of the Irish authors suggested upthread by @All uphill .

Not an easy read (because of the style and subject matter) but definitely worthwhile. A book that I’ll re-read in front of the wood-burner in the wintertime.


I also romped through Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky (2019) recently – everything she writes (with the possible exception of Transcription) is gold dust and to be treasured.

I read Michael Connelly’s Desert Star (2022) yesterday. Entertaining but much too short.

I’ve bought quite a lot of books of the last few weeks, hoping to have a good pile to choose from in the autumn and winter. If this heatwave persists (and it’s been unseasonably hot here since late May), then I’ll need to top the pile up soon as it’s starting to diminish far too quickly.

 

[swee'pea99]

Not started this yet but a couple of weeks ago we were at a National Trust property, I was perusing their second hand book shop and came across this. The Lisbon Maru is the ship my uncle (Dad's younger brother) was on when he died / was killed in 1942.
According to the book it ' was the most costly American on British 'Friendly fire' incident of the Second World War.
When we were kids we knew that Uncle Eddie was killed in the war, but were never told the details until one of my siblings researched it.

View attachment 811675

I had never heard of it until I heard a song by a bloke called Tom Hickox at a festival and looked it up. Good song IMHO.

 

[Drago]

Something or other supposedly written by Frederick Forsyth, but I suspect somekne found some fag packet scrawling after hed died and made up the rest.

Almost done, then its The Right Kind of Crazy by Adam Steltzner.

 

[Mark Grant]

I had never heard of it until I heard a song by a bloke called Tom Hickox at a festival and looked it up. Good song IMHO.

Thanks for that, I'd never heard the song.