Book thread: what are you reading?

[marklaspalmas]

On 07/07/2021 at 16:01, marklaspalmas said:

Currently re-reading the Aubrey Maturin series.

It's ace.

Hi THG. Just started Fortunes of War, I think we're neck-and-neck.......

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, marklaspalmas said:

Hi THG. Just started Fortunes of War, I think we're neck-and-neck.......

Yep, I'm about 60 pages into it at the moment, Maturin is currently trying to stop the boys on La Fleche from playing with his specimens. If I remember rightly they were playing tug of war with a seal skin!

I took a break from the series to read Rob Burrow's autobiography and no doubt you'll overtake me very soon because I'm not a fast reader and I only read for about an hour a day anyway. Tell you what though, taking a break from the series really made me realise how much I am loving these books because I was so keen to get back to it after a 2 week break.

[marklaspalmas]

21 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Yep, I'm about 60 pages into it at the moment, Maturin is currently trying to stop the boys on La Fleche from playing with his specimens. If I remember rightly they were playing tug of war with a seal skin!

I took a break from the series to read Rob Burrow's autobiography and no doubt you'll overtake me very soon because I'm not a fast reader and I only read for about an hour a day anyway. Tell you what though, taking a break from the series really made me realise how much I am loving these books because I was so keen to get back to it after a 2 week break.

Great stuff mate! I think I read that very scene last night. I'm not voracious reader and I'm mixing up the O'Brians with some Magnus Mills and a bit of RL.

I am getting so much more out of this series the second time round. I love home much language we have in daily English today that comes from nautical terms. I don't mind admitting I get lost with some of the tehnical vocab, especially in battle scenes, but what an incredible body of work. Fascinating reading.

I have his biography of Picasso too which I will read some day.

[gingerjon]

Thanks to Audible, I have now 'read' Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.

I hadn't realised quite how 'progressive' the novel would seem - albeit with a fair bit of casual orientalism/racism for a key aspect of the story - and also just how funny it would be in parts. The censorious Miss Clack ("that rampant spinster") is a particular highlight. It takes about 14 hours to get through the audio and it fairly flies by. Not sure I'd be able to 'read' it properly but that says more about me than it.

[Gerrumonside ref]

Got a couple of books on the go:

The Thursday Murder Club 2 - Richard Osman 

How to be a rock star - Shaun Ryder

 

[Futtocks]

A.G.MacDonell - England, their England. An affectionately satirical overview of English people of the 1920s, ostensibly observed by a naive young Scotsman. Gently funny and very well-written.

[Route66]

11.22.63 by Stephen King, reading this after 4321 by Paul Auster both books make you think about what ifs and life changing moments 

[The Future is League]

I have just finished reading The Excursion Train by Edward Marston. 

An easy and enjoyable read

[DavidM]

4 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

I have just finished reading The Excursion Train by Edward Marston. 

An easy and enjoyable read

The railway detective , I’m on to book 18.

[Futtocks]

Jonathan Meades - Pedro and Ricky come again. A compilation of various articles, essays etc. Enjoyable stuff, if Meades is your kind of thing.

[Leeds Wire]

Agent Sonya by Ben MacIntyre, who writes historical fiction based on true events. 

I'm only about 1/3 of the way through but it's fascinating. I had no idea about the purge of communists by China in the far east prior to China actually becoming Communist. It's an astonishing story as Agent Sonya ends up selling UK nuclear secrets to the Russians whilst living an apparently idyllic life in the English countryside.

Mind-blowing. 

If you've not read it, Operation Mincemeat by the same author is the most brilliantly crackers story of the Normandy Landings. 

Agent Sonya (penguin.co.uk)

Edited November 26, 2021 by Leeds Wire

[CornwallRL]

Re reading a book that chronicles the rise of Lenin, & it is appropriate to the UK today, in that the growing authoritarianism, of the political system, is the surest ally of the revolutionary forces.

 

Go BoJo

[The Future is League]

Just finished reading The Railway viaduct another book in The Railway Detective series by Edward Marston and another excellent read

[Gerrumonside ref]

Hood and Bismarck (2001) by David Mearns and Rob White.

An old hardback based on the expedition to find and film the wreck of HMS Hood which was quickly sunk by the Bismarck in the Battle of Denmark Strait in 1941.

Channel 4 took part in the expedition which hoped to definitively answer questions around the rapid demise of the mighty Hood when only three sailors out of a crew of nearly 1400 survived the sinking.

Although I’ve read perhaps more detailed accounts of the battle and the aftermath, the underwater photos are fascinating and poignant at the same time.

[Oxford]

Just to keep a theme going

The Urban Sketching Handbook 101 Sketching Tips: Tricks, Techniques, and Handy Hacks for Sketching on the Go (8) (Urban Sketching Handbooks)

[Irish Saint]

Descent Into Silence - ,David Hinchcliffe

True story of a  (forgotten) mining disaster in the village of Crawthorne. Two of the dead being 8 years old. Other families being evicted after the tragedy.

[CornwallRL]

1 hour ago, Irish Saint said:

Descent Into Silence - ,David Hinchcliffe

True story of a  (forgotten) mining disaster in the village of Crawthorne. Two of the dead being 8 years old. Other families being evicted after the tragedy.

Reminds me of Aberfan, only 2?

Edited December 18, 2021 by CornwallRL

[CornwallRL]

1 hour ago, Irish Saint said:

Descent Into Silence - ,David Hinchcliffe

True story of a  (forgotten) mining disaster in the village of Crawthorne. Two of the dead being 8 years old. Other families being evicted after the tragedy.

Nothing on Wikipedia, when did this supposed to happen?

Crawthorne just seems to be a nice quiet village.

Are you selling houses around there?

Edited December 18, 2021 by CornwallRL

[The Hallucinating Goose]

9 hours ago, Irish Saint said:

Descent Into Silence - ,David Hinchcliffe

True story of a  (forgotten) mining disaster in the village of Crawthorne. Two of the dead being 8 years old. Other families being evicted after the tragedy.

Is that the Norcroft Colliery disaster in 1821? 

[jacksy]

It Never Snows In September.

The German View of Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem.

[Irish Saint]

Apologies i typed Crawthorne instead of Cawthorne

No-one gave a second’s thought to the victims of a mining disaster near the small Yorkshire village of Cawthorne in 1821, even though two were children of just eight-years-old. Former MP David Hinchliffe’s exploration of his family history inadvertently led to the discovery of his collier ancestors’ involvement in the barely recorded and long-forgotten pit tragedy, which occurred amidst of the turbulence of the industrial revolution.The exploration of these two intertwined strands – and a passionate interest in local history in Yorkshire – has enabled him finally to reveal the full details of a melancholy event which devastated the families of the ten who were killed - but caused barely a ripple further afield. Using contemporary reports to help piece the jigsaw together, historical context and detailed genealogical research into the backgrounds of those involved, this account offers a fascinating insight into the lives of working class families across the period, when children as young as five were forced to work underground in order to supplement the household income. The research also illustrates how the split between the businessmen operating local pits, and landowners like the Spencer-Stanhopes of Cawthorne's Cannon Hall, led to an apparent disregard for the safety and wellbeing of the local workforce. The unforgiving inhumanity of the time is underlined by the way the local ‘Overseers of the Poor’ endeavoured to eject two of the victims’ families from the area when they had fallen on hard times after the disaster. And, most ironically of all, how the lauded death of Sir Walter Spencer- Stanhope is recorded in the parish register directly opposite that of the young and until now unheralded John Hinchliffe.

[Futtocks]

2 hours ago, jacksy said:

It Never Snows In September.

The German View of Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem.

German views of the World Wars are often interesting (unless they are by resentful political fanatics, of course).

I have Luftwaffe fighter ace Adolf Galland's book The First and the Last, which covers his time from the Condor Legion in Spain, to when his squadron was hiding out, surrounded by allied air power and destroying their Messerschmidt jet fighters so the technology wouldn't fall into the hands of the enemy. In between, fascinating stories, and some extremely critical insight into why he thought things went wrong for the Axis powers, both tactically and politically.

[jacksy]

INSIS is analysis of how the Germans responded to and defeated the airborne operation for the bridges 

The allied side has been told many times. This book accounts for how very adept the Germans were at conjuring up ad hoc units into a coherent defence.

Edited December 19, 2021 by jacksy

[Phil]

“My life so far” Frankie Boyle’s autobiography, I know he’s not everybody’s cup of tea but it’s pretty funny imo and as you expect the humour is basically sexual and scatological, often combined

[marklaspalmas]

On 15/10/2021 at 10:16, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Yep, I'm about 60 pages into it at the moment, Maturin is currently trying to stop the boys on La Fleche from playing with his specimens. If I remember rightly they were playing tug of war with a seal skin!

I took a break from the series to read Rob Burrow's autobiography and no doubt you'll overtake me very soon because I'm not a fast reader and I only read for about an hour a day anyway. Tell you what though, taking a break from the series really made me realise how much I am loving these books because I was so keen to get back to it after a 2 week break.

Update for me.

Just finished book 7, The Surgeon's Mate. How the characters have developed so far has been fascinating. Slowly, book by book, Maturin is taking more centre stage.

As I'm alternating with other stuff, it'll be the New Year before I start The Ionian Mission.

I was recently given this as a present, and it's superb:

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by marklaspalmas
typo