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Book thread: what are you reading?


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I've read most of the Sharpe books, not keen on the Vikings ones, really miss the Starbuck US Civil War stories, I thought they were excellent.

 

It was the Sharpe series that I started with, and agree the Starbuck series was great. I enjoyed the Grail Quest series too.

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just finished Waterloo by bernard Cornwell.

terrific at explaining how it happened He uses letters of participants to illustrate how it was.

I loved all his other books too.He uses historical situations which bring to life that particular time.

Edited by tomdooley
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just finished Waterloo by bernard Cornwell.

terrific at explaining how it happened He uses letters of participants to illustrate how it was.

I loved all his other books too.He uses historical situations which bring to life that particular time.

 

He normally makes the effort to visit the places he is writing about to try and get a feel for what it might have been like. While his books are not really challenging reads and never likely to achieve the more prestigious awards reserved for the more weird and wonderful authors out there, I think he writes a gripping story and develops interesting characters while at least following historical events reasonably accurately. 

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He normally makes the effort to visit the places he is writing about to try and get a feel for what it might have been like. While his books are not really challenging reads and never likely to achieve the more prestigious awards reserved for the more weird and wonderful authors out there, I think he writes a gripping story and develops interesting characters while at least following historical events reasonably accurately. 

Try Patrick Obriens jack Aubrey  novels of the 18th cent british navy. As good as jane Austin

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And, of course, George McDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' books. Well-researched and extensively footnoted and appendixed.

 

And he can write a battle scene better than just about anybody.

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • 3 weeks later...

Trepidation! After a lot of humming and hemming and hawing, I have decided to try Maeve Gilmore's conclusion to her husband's 'Gormenghast' trilogy. Well, it was interesting, and worth a re-read sometime soon. She's a good writer, albeit no Mervyn Peake, but she catches some of the feel of the original books to an extent. It won't ruin 'Gormenghast' for fans. I rather liked it.

 

Next up, George Clinton's biography 'Brothas be, yo like George, ain't that Funkin' kinda hard on you?' I'm a few chapters in, and it is interesting and very readable, despite the mess of a title.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • 4 weeks later...

Next up, George Clinton's biography 'Brothas be, yo like George, ain't that Funkin' kinda hard on you?' I'm a few chapters in, and it is interesting and very readable, despite the mess of a title.

Finished this - a very good read.

 

Now dipping into Victor Lewis-Smith's entertainingly poisonous compilation 'TV Reviews'. Included is this gag: "As part of the overall settlement, Paul McCartney bought Heather a plane. Although I think she still uses a razor for the other leg."  :biggrin: 

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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claire Tomalin    charles Dickens biography.She leaves no stone unturned terrific read.

I have also read her samuel Pepys,and her thomas Hardy.

Love Hardy,s books.

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I tend to spend much of my time writing novels rather than reading them but broke off recently for a while to read "Rugby Football: A United Game". It's a novel based around the idea what might have happened if the northern clubs had been in the majority in 1895. It should interest most people who have contributed above. No one yet however seems to have read my latest novel "Two Seasons" with its background of  "Work, Family, Old Friends and Rugby League". I would certainly be interested in some feedback.

www.geofflee.net for news of my novels, One Winter, One Spring, One Summer, One Autumn and Two Seasons. All are written against a strong Rugby League background, set in South Lancashire and inspired by the old saying about work: "They could write a book about this place. It would be a best seller".

 

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  • 1 month later...

Paul Brickhill - The Dambusters. I haven't read this in decades, but the author's pacey style and eye for humorous anecdotes and dialogue works as well as ever. He mixes the cold-blooded heroism with tales of the entertainingly disgraceful fun that young men with little life-expectancy got up to after a few drinks.

 

After the Ruhr dams, the interlinked story of 617 Squadron and Barnes Wallis continues, with the V1 rocket bases, the Tirpitz raid and other campaigns, where they continued to re-write the rules on accurate and effective bombing, leading up to the use of the 'Tall Boy' and 'Grand Slam' earthquake bomb.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • 4 weeks later...

Timur Vermes - Look who's back. The year is 2011, and Adolf Hitler wakes up in Berlin, smelling of petrol, no older than he was at the end of WWII. In the modern world, he is mistaken for a brilliant impersonator who never breaks character and is given a slot on a TV comedy show.

 

This is a pretty funny satire, told entirely from Hitler's viewpoint, and well worth a read.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am reading Catch 22 which I am really not getting in to.

 

It's not a book that I struggle to put down, but hopefully it will grow on me. 

 

I have other books waiting to be read but this was recommended to me so I will stick with it.

 

I am also reading a recent Wilbur Smith book on my Kindle which clearly wasn't written by him as the writing style is nothing like his previous books.

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I am reading Catch 22 which I am really not getting in to.

 

It's not a book that I struggle to put down, but hopefully it will grow on me. 

 

I have other books waiting to be read but this was recommended to me so I will stick with it.

 

I am also reading a recent Wilbur Smith book on my Kindle which clearly wasn't written by him as the writing style is nothing like his previous books.

Shouldn't that be Kick 22?

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the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck .Fascinating it's 1930s and the dust bowl migrants from Oklahoma having to camp in shanty towns and the locals of California not very welcoming treating them like dirt and these were American citizens not illegal Mexicans

 Soon we will be dancing the fandango
FROM 2004,TO DO WHAT THIS CLUB HAS DONE,IF THATS NOT GREATNESSTHEN i DONT KNOW WHAT IS.

JAMIE PEACOCK

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  • 2 weeks later...

After finally conceding to the fact that my legs and lungs no longer want to work efficiently enough for me to carry on playing the

sport of my choice I got into reading fiction again for the first time since school. I had been given a Kindle and discovered Flashman and read the whole series and a few more of GMF's books, so to find that there may be an unpublished novel of his is great news to me, thanks for the link CKN. I am looking forward to the day that it is published if it comes to that.

I have read a few similar to Flashman and find them to have copied GMF's style and content to the edge of legality and one writer even has the cheek to continually discredit his character while ripping off the content.

The Sharpe series is my read of the moment, excellent research and writing by Bernard Cornwell.

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After finally conceding to the fact that my legs and lungs no longer want to work efficiently enough for me to carry on playing the

sport of my choice I got into reading fiction again for the first time since school. I had been given a Kindle and discovered Flashman and read the whole series and a few more of GMF's books, so to find that there may be an unpublished novel of his is great news to me, thanks for the link CKN. I am looking forward to the day that it is published if it comes to that.

I have read a few similar to Flashman and find them to have copied GMF's style and content to the edge of legality and one writer even has the cheek to continually discredit his character while ripping off the content.

The Sharpe series is my read of the moment, excellent research and writing by Bernard Cornwell.

If you liked the Flashman books, then his other really recommended works are 'Quartered safe out here' and the three McAuslan books.

 

Just below that, I'd put 'Black Ajax' and possibly 'Mr American'.

 

Some of his other books are not so great. Some are actually bad. Buyer beware!

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I'm currently dipping in and out of a huge Stephen Leacock Kindle omnibus. He was a Canadian humorist in a similar style to Mark Twain or S.J.Perelman. It's good, but best to be read a few stories at a time.

 

In between sessions of Leacock, a bit of the Jeeves omnibus, 'Engel's England' (a travelogue by Matthew Engel, visiting all the English traditional counties) and I've just started a re-read of the Reginald Perrin books.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The new Stuart Maconie book The Pie at Night is, like Bill Bryson's work, full of odd facts.

 

Did you know that the Wimpy chain of burger bars was, at one time, owned by the British School of Motoring? Me neither...

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Did you know that the Wimpy chain of burger bars was, at one time, owned by the British School of Motoring? Me neither...

You're not confusing BSM with BSE are you?

                                                                     Hull FC....The Sons of God...
                                                                     (Well, we are about to be crucified on Good Friday)
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You're not confusing BSM with BSE are you?

:D 

 

He's a good read - a sort of British Bill Bryson.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • 2 weeks later...

Me neither. I enjoyed that review though.

This excerpt from Morrissey's book should be a front-runner for the TLS 'Bad Sex in Literature' award: “Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”

 

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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