Listening to Endzone by Delillo atm and it might well be the funniest thing I've ever heard (audiobook).
Books The BOOK thread
- Thread starter Livvie
- Start date
Yeah he was on Marc Maron's podcast this week and he sounded like a loon. The prose is hilariously terrible.
Anyone know a good non-fiction spy book?
'By Way of Deception' about the Mossad, written by a former agent.
Anyone here read Reservoir 13 yet, by Jon Mcgregor?
Looks interesting, thanks.
Just finished a book called "A Mans World." It's about Emile Griffith a word champion boxer in the 60s and 70s who led a double life. It's a very good book. Chap overcame so much adversity in such a gentlemanly way.
A Daphne du Maurier collection, featuring Don't Look Now - a rare instance of the film being far better than the book.
Tried to buy Mamet’s new novel at my local Waterstones. Buggers did not have it.
David Mamet?
Yup. First novel in years.
Mamet was on WTF with Marc Maron the other day. He's interesting and a bit of a tool.
Geez I made the same post about Sean Penn a few days ago.
I read My Cousin Rachel a while back and waiting on a copy of Rebecca now. I really liked My Cousin Rachel.
I still haven't read her most famous books because, alas, I am a lazy twit.
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl might be the most anodyne and banal music memoir ever written. It's a shame because I love Sleater-Kinney and don't mind Portlandia and find Carrie Brownstein generally charming.
Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd. A truly unsettling novel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawksmoor_(novel)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawksmoor_(novel)
Currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. So far it's a very interesting read.
Been meaning to read it. My brother's reading it now so will pick it up from him once he's finished.
I just finished reading Prisoners of Geography - thought it was an interesting read though not particularly insightful. Are there any similar books anyone would recommend here on geopolitics?
Never read anything by Danny Dorling yet myself but he might be of interest to you.
The new Jo Nesbø book "Macbeth" is quality.
Actually everything by Jo Nesbø is quality.
Actually everything by Jo Nesbø is quality.
Great minds. A friend of mine just gave me Prisoner of Geography which I am going to read after I finish sapiens. Really interesting reads.
You might try something by Robert Kaplan. I don’t agree with his approach to everything but he’s a good writer with some provocative views, he’s usually interesting.
I just finished this 3 days back. It's a brilliant book.
I'm now reading Leadership by Sir Alex Ferguson
I just finished this 3 days back. It's a brilliant book.
I'm now reading Leadership by Sir Alex Ferguson
How far in are you?
Still pretty early into it, I’m at the chapter on Teamwork and Captains.
Hope you enjoy it, I find that his ghostwriter probably had to keep reminding him to relate things to the business world when Ferguson just wanted to make it about football, some of the metaphors he used literally appear out of nowhere
The part about captains is wonderful, and theres is absolutely no way if he was still in charge that Valencia would be his full time captain.
Just finished Darwin: A Life in Poems. Some excellent poems in it and some enlightening stuff too.Queen Victoria uses chloroform when she has one of her children and Darwin comments that this shows that now no one can justify suffering pain. It gives an insight into a different worldview, not entirely disappeared, I suspect.
Tragic too. One of his friends, a bishop I think, loses four children to cholera (?) in a single month. It comes around the same time he buries one of his own very young children. He buries her under a tree by their garden wall and Ruth Padel, the author and a relative of Darwin's, compares the scratch marks made by the windblown branches on the wall to those a child might have made.
Moving also is the poem about his and his wife Emma's relationship with God. At one point, reluctant to confront him directly, she writes him a letter to express her fears that he is moving away from faith. On the envelope, which she finds after his death, he had written " know that I have read and cried over this many times".
Tragic too. One of his friends, a bishop I think, loses four children to cholera (?) in a single month. It comes around the same time he buries one of his own very young children. He buries her under a tree by their garden wall and Ruth Padel, the author and a relative of Darwin's, compares the scratch marks made by the windblown branches on the wall to those a child might have made.
Moving also is the poem about his and his wife Emma's relationship with God. At one point, reluctant to confront him directly, she writes him a letter to express her fears that he is moving away from faith. On the envelope, which she finds after his death, he had written " know that I have read and cried over this many times".
Last edited:
Finished my PKDickathon.
Didnt really care for A Scanner Darkly that much @Nickosaur - or at least it was by a distance my least favourite of the 6 I have read in the last couple of months. There is a chance a bit of Dick fatigue had set in by that point, but I dont think that was it - after all, it is quite different to the others. On the contrary, I think if it had been another weird story set on Mars I would have been fine with it. If I had read Scanner Darkly in isolation maybe I would have enjoyed it more.
Hard to rank them. But Martian Time Slip, Flow My Tears, UBIK and Peter Eldrich were all excellent. Thought Do Androids Dream was slightly weaker than all of them, and Scanner Darkly was some way down from that.
Didnt really care for A Scanner Darkly that much @Nickosaur - or at least it was by a distance my least favourite of the 6 I have read in the last couple of months. There is a chance a bit of Dick fatigue had set in by that point, but I dont think that was it - after all, it is quite different to the others. On the contrary, I think if it had been another weird story set on Mars I would have been fine with it. If I had read Scanner Darkly in isolation maybe I would have enjoyed it more.
Hard to rank them. But Martian Time Slip, Flow My Tears, UBIK and Peter Eldrich were all excellent. Thought Do Androids Dream was slightly weaker than all of them, and Scanner Darkly was some way down from that.
Happens to the best of us, Ad.
I enjoyed it. I'm going to read the Prisoners of Geography next before I try Homo Deus.I just finished this 3 days back. It's a brilliant book.
I'm now reading Leadership by Sir Alex Ferguson
Just started the latest Irvine Welsh novel, Dead Men's Trousers, brilliant so far, loving it. Think he said recently there will no more movies based on these books so just need to enjoy the written word. Excellent so far anyway.
Fair enough on A Scanner Darkly. But overall you've enjoyed PKD's stuff?
"Dick fatigue"
Anyone read Island by Aldous Huxley?
Adored Brave New World but struggling to get into this one (although only 80 pages in)
Adored Brave New World but struggling to get into this one (although only 80 pages in)
I have really opened myself up to Dick these last few months and it has been an enormously rewarding experience. So much so that I have no idea how I got by without Dick in my life until this point. You know youre onto a winner when all you can think about all day is an early night so you can snuggle down in bed with a bit of Dick. As my wife will tell you, Im usually not that interested and will sit up half the night playing PS4.Fair enough on A Scanner Darkly. But overall you've enjoyed PKD's stuff?
"Dick fatigue"
After the amount of Dick Ive had in the last few months ive been feeling... how to put it? A bit intellectually bruised, I guess you could say. You know how exhausting and intense Dick can be. A great and wondrous thing, to be sure, but sometimes you just need a break. Im reading Homo Deus at the moment. But Ill be back on the Dick soon enough. Still want to read The Man In The High Castle. Any other recommendations very welcome.
Also need to get back to Electric Dreams, havent started series 2. That might be a nice way to ease back into it, so to speak.
About to start Conn iggulden's latest series, this time about the Spartans. If the Caesar and Genghis Khan series are anything to go by I'm in for a treat! Favourite author by a mile
Philip Roth is dead, the two books of his I’ve read were both excellent.
Probably one of the best prose writers of the past century. Man knew how to write a memorable phrase.