Inspired by the top five films thread I thought about starting one for books but thought it would be better to run something current.
I'm an avid fiction reader, especially so in spring/summer. I'm currently reading Stephen King's latest novel 'Under the dome'. I've read most of his early stuff but felt he lost his way after 'Needful Things' in the 90s. I'm only 70 pages into this 800 page tome but it feels like a return to form so far.
What about you?
|
|
I don't read a lot but just finished Tony Benn's memoir More Time for Politics. Not the kind of book I'd normally choose but it was a good read.
Last edited by: smokie on Tue 3 Aug 10 at 23:59
|
|
Trust there was plenty about "the white heat of technology" eg Drax power station
|
I've got 2 books on the go at the moment;
Vibration Analysis for Electronic Equipment by Steinberg, and,
The Multibody Systems Approach to Vehicle Dynamics by Blundell and Harty
So far, I like them both, lots of new ideas and info.
Are there any books about politicians that are worth reading? For example, I imagine the subject matter of "Like the Roman" might be interesting, but, is it sufficiently critical?
|
Just finished the third in the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz, apparently there will be one more.
|
|
"Curves Cause Trouble" by Hank Janson.
|
Stalker by Chris Walker.
Pat
|
Downstairs: Hilaire Belloc, by A.N. Wilson.
Upstairs: Sea Guide to Pembrokeshire, published by Imray
Work: Prosperity without growth, by Prof Tim Jackson
and Garage: Handbook of the Series II LandRover.
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Wed 4 Aug 10 at 08:27
|
>> "Curves Cause Trouble" by Hank Janson.
>>
I assumed it was motoring book until I started reading it!
|
|
Middlemarch by George Eliot.
|
Currently reading 'Aphrodites Children ' by Leslie Tate.....not finished it yet .
Not my usual sort of book at all . I like biographies ( show business or theatre in particular ) history either factual or novel and war books, particularly if it involves flying.
Aphrodites Children is a story of a young man in the sixties and his first experiences away from home at university and joining a commune . I bought it because Les was a classmate of mine in Grammar School in the 60's who went onto become a lecturer and poet and this is his first novel.
Last edited by: retpocileh on Wed 4 Aug 10 at 08:57
|
The Time Traveller's Wife.
|
The autobigraphy of Robin Olds, one of the greatest fighter pilots and leaders that ever lived.
|
Daniel Stein by Ljudmila Ulitzkaja. It's a biography about a polish jew who escaped death in WW2 and emigrated to Israel only to discover he wasn't considered jewish enough to be granted Israeli citizenship.
Not normally my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination but bought for me by my wife. Very readable and moving.
|
|
Just waiting for Big Bad Dave's contribution.....
|
...Just waiting for Big Bad Dave's contribution...
...Just waiting for Big Bad Dave's X-rated contribution...
|
|
He cant, he loaned it to me.
|
Don't read fiction much now.
Just halfway through 'The Aspinall Era '.
Biography of Sir John Audley Frederick Aspinall. Chief Mechanical engineer and later general manager of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Co. A brilliant and likable man,
Got ' Sir Henry Fowler, A versatile life ' lined up next. Both books in my collection and read before, but not for some years.
Ted
|
Not currently reading anything but am on holiday next week when I will have the following to sustain me:
Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy
The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars by Patrick Hennessey
The Dirt - Motley Crue: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
One Day by David Nicholls
His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pulman
|
Peugeot 306 - 1993 to 2002 (K to 02 registration) Petrol & Diesel. Authors: Mark Coombs and Steve Rendle. Published by Haynes 2005.
And,
for the third time, 1984 by George Orwell.
|
>>The Dirt - Motley Crue: Confession of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
Just ordered Apathy for the Devil By Nick Kent, well known NME journalist in the 70's
|
...By Nick Kent, well known NME journalist in the 70's...
Ah, NME hacks of the 70s.
Hardly worth a separate thread, but here are a few more, just from memory:
Charles Shaar Murray, Julie Birchill, Roy Carr, and two called Tyler, one was Tony, and Mick Farren.
|
|
julie birchall? words can not discribe the uselessness of that tart.
|
|
Greatly enjoying Jenny Uglow's book on the 18th century enlightenment 'The Lunar Men', the mainly middle class philosophers, scientists, engineers and industrialists to whom we (and the rest of the world) owe everything, almost.
|
...this...
Surprised that post has taken so long to appear - I thought it would be among the first half dozen.
|
>> ...this...
>>
>> Surprised that post has taken so long to appear - I thought it would be
>> among the first half dozen.
>>
>>
>> >>>>>>>>>>>i was so engrossed in toenails i missed it
|
My old Motoring Which magazines..... obviously.
Amazed how many folks go on holiday to read!
|
>>..this..>>
Just logged on to post that very comment...:-(
|
*Tiny voice*
Harry Potter
*Tiny Voice*
|
I rarely read fiction, much preferring biographies and books about things that have actually happened but I'm just coming to the end of The Rainmaker by John Grisham and I have to say that it is superb. It is such a cliche to say that one simply can't put a book down, but in this case it's true. Whenever I have had to stop reading it, I've looked forward to the next time I can pick it up.
Next, I got a book about the Fairey Swordfish to keep me amused, then I might have a crack at William Hague's biography of Pitt the Younger. Either that, or Danny Wallace's new one, 'Awkward Situations For Men'.
Incidentally, Mrs Badwolf thinks that it's most odd that I read whilst, erm, enthroned but I maintain that it's perfectly normal - any thoughts?
|
...it's most odd that I read whilst, erm, enthroned but I maintain that it's perfectly normal...
I once worked in an office in which the national dailies were shared by about 20 staff.
One male staff member was in the habit of taking the Daily Mail to the smallest room mid-morning.
A female member of staff objected most strongly - she was not keen on picking up the paper once she knew where it had been.
|
>> A female member of staff objected most strongly - she was not keen on picking
>> up the paper once she knew where it had been.
Well, as long as he'd only read it, and not used it to clean and polish, what was her problem? :-)
|
...what was her problem?...
Well, that's what we thought, but a woman with her dander up (if that's possible) can be quite intimidating - as I'm sure you know.
Quite fit she was, too.
|
>> Incidentally, Mrs Badwolf thinks that it's most odd that I read whilst, erm, enthroned but
>> I maintain that it's perfectly normal - any thoughts?
I have a wicker basket in one loo for the periodicals, motoring mags and alike, and the other loo has a full blown bookshelf, containing several books at the moment (the edwardian a-z of london - and the london gazetteer)
Currently I have three books on the go
1/ the girl who played with fire, Stieg Larsson
(and as I am away from home at the moment and cant remember the titles)
a factual book about cold war spies, and a book about Buccaneer operations from aircraft carriers.
|
|
Dunkirk - The Men They Left Behind - Sean Longden. Good read - interesting read, well researched an unusual but an optimisitc view of WW1 in the first chapter - learnt a hell of a lot from it.
|
At my lunchtime work break Eric Newby's 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'...for the 99th time!
Bedtime...3 books on the go are 'Seeing Things' Oliver Postgate, 'Worst Journey in the World' Apsley Cherry-Gerrard & 'Venice' by Jan Morris.
|
|
I seem to be reading fewer books these books these days. Not entirely sure why. Used to read a lot. Might be connected to my recent need for reading glasses. A great pleasure was reading in bed but having more than once woken up with one arm of my Sainsburys + 1s embedded painfully up my nose it sort of lost much of its appeal.
Last edited by: Humph D'bout on Wed 4 Aug 10 at 22:45
|
|
Hindu Kush is a particularly good read, I was talking about it the other day as we drove past the Penygwryd Hotel where Newby stayed when "training" for the Kush in Snowdonia...
|
"for the third time, 1984 by George Orwell."
Cracking read. Must admit that I prefer Animal Farm by a small margin.
|
must be going through a melancholy phase! - i`ve just started re-reading the childhood classics that we did in school! - Online.
Two reasons really, firstly i`ve seen the films over and over, but i`ve only ever read the books once, and as a kid i didn`t take them in properly or read them with the respect they deservered.
I`ve just finished The Time Machine by HG Wells and enjoyed it! just started Robinson Crusoe, upto chapter six, and am finding it a bit long-winded and hard going! Cant wait till he finally gets shipwrecked on the island!
|
>> i`ve just started re-reading the childhood classics>>
I have read the Arthur Ransome Swallows & Amazons books perhaps 4 times since I was 11 or so, i.e over 30 + years, 'bout time for another foray.
Many people only know the first book, Swallows & Amazons, and perhaps only from the film, though there are some really cracking stories in there.
|
>>Dunkirk - The Men They Left Behind - Sean Longden. Good read<<
Good man, I've just ordered it for my Brother, I call im The War Correspondent :)
|
>>>I have read the Arthur Ransome Swallows & Amazons books perhaps 4 times.
Swallows & Amazons was the first real book I read as a 6yr old kid. As someone who was already knocking about in rowing/sailing boats on the river I was captivated. Shortly after it was made into a TV series shown in 1963 (B&W, not the later 1974 colour film)... had to go next door each week to watch it as we didn't have a TV at the time.
Read most of the other books but they were of variable quality. Very much liked *We didn't mean to go to sea* which I read a couple of years later.
|
Alan Clark, The Biography: Ion Trewin.
Seven Men of Gascony: R F Delderfield.
>"for the third time, 1984 by George Orwell."
Cracking read. Must admit that I prefer Animal Farm by a small margin. <
I'd highly recommend 'Coming Up For Air', 'A Clergyman's Daughter' or 'Keep The Aspidistra Flying' as well.
|
A man after my own heart , Fen. I read all the Ransome books when at primary school, the library was just round the corner...Rattle knows it.
I must have been 7 or 8 when I discovered them. My teacher used to tell the others in the class how good they were, but I don't recall any other kids being interested.
Gave me an enduring love of the Lakes and led me to reading many books about thec History and Topography of the area. The stories Ransome set in the Broads gave me a similar intetrest.
I re-read Swallowdale a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the trip back in time.
Any others like to reaveal their chidhood reading ?
Ted
|
|
Mainly Enid Blyton and Malcolm Saville - until I discovered war autobiographies kickstarted by the Colditz series on BBC1.
|
Pug - Malcolm Saville was my favourite also when a kid - A great childrens writer who fired my imagination.
I was always in the local library and would read anything and everything that took my fancy as I grew up.
I devoured books and as I got into the sixth form I even dated one of the younger lady librarians who helped me to borrow the ' manuals' and the mucky books like Lady Chatterley which were kept behind closed and locked library doors ...
|
|
Saville had the skill to locate his stories in real places, a couple of years ago I took a bike trip around the Long Mynd in Shropshire - memorable places.
|
"I'd highly recommend 'Coming Up For Air', 'A Clergyman's Daughter' or 'Keep The Aspidistra Flying' as well"
I wasn't that taken with Coming up for Air. I read Down and Out in Paris & London and The Road to Wigan Pier - one was autobiographical about his time as a tramp and the other more of an essay on society in the interwar years.
|
My childhood reading was The Famous Five and The Secret Seven, but if I could get my hands on a map of an atlas, I could take myself anywhere in the world.
I spent so many school lessons in Austria, Constantinople and Scappa Flow............in my dreams:)
Pat
|
" Victory" in the "Kidd" series, by Julian Stockwin. (I've read 'em all)
"61 hours" in the "Reacher" series by Lee Child. (ditto.)
|
One inch Ordnance Surveys are my fave, Pat. I buy one of the area each time we go somewhere new. I have a large boxful now. I've also got some Barts from nearly 100 years ago with the old rail companies shown.
I have an interesting set of Old O/S maps of my area, dated 1890 to 1910. They are 15 inches to the mile. Incredibly fascinating to see what was there before the places you now know !
I'll EMail you later...not forgot.
Ted
|
|
I bought a 1960 OS map of the south. not a motorway in sight.
|
Finshed with biZarre then Dave?
|
What are you reading NOW - smokie
