Making sense of the Troubles. David McKittrick and David McVea. No nonsense account of the troubles. Very well written and straight down the middle... Excellent so far and challenged a lot of my beliefs
Only just started so can't comment, other than being a fan of the man and his music.
Claim to fame, bumped into him in Cafe Nero, Highgate. We nodded at each other, me in awe, him in..............
Found it a compelling read, albeit not a very rounded portrait of the man. Typical Rogan in that he seems to have gone out of his way to find people that Davies has left holding a grudge. Bit of a whingefest in parts. Best read alongside a more sympathetic and balanced bio imo. Still, nice to hear from Rasa Davies for once.
Just finished rereading Libra by Dan DeLillo. It's a beautiful work of historical fiction about the Kennedy assassination. I do have a lot of interest in the JFK assassination, but not usually huge on historical fiction, but the book stands up on all fronts. It focuses on Lee Oswald and the events in his life, as well as some members of the CIA plotting to shoot the president. Highly recommend.
I liked Libra a lot - been a while since I read any DeLillo, must give him another try soon.
Highlights from the last 3 or 4 months:
Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky: Best sci-fi I've read for years. Up there with the best of Iain M Banks. Have recommended it to a number of friends, all of whom have also been blown away by it.
Blood and Beauty - Sarah Dunant. Superbly written historical fiction set amongst the Borgias. Anyone who likes Wolf Hall etc will be in to this.
Charles Dickens - Claire Tomlin. Excellent modern biog. A bit shaky in some of the literary criticism but really gets over the extraordinary energy and compassion of the man as well as the paradoxical darkness of his treatment of his wife.
Notes from and Exhibition - Patrick Gale. Can't believer it's taken me so long to discover Gale. The second of his I've read and they've both been brilliant. Great plot, brilliant writing, subtle characterisation.
Oliver Cromwell - C.H. Firth. The classic "warts and all" biog of Ollie. Written over 100 years ago but still in print despite dozens of more recent studies. Very readable narrative biog. and rightly regarded as a classic.
Tuf Voyaging - George RR Martin - cracking sci-fi from the fat bloke himself. Interesting and very funny
The Golem and the Djinni - unusual but engrossing fantasy novel set in early 20th century New York. Literary historical fantasy - is that a genre?
White Boy Shuffle - Paul Beatty - very funny novel by the last Booker prize winner. The humour disguises some pretty sharp jabs at white American perspectives of black people.
Superforecasting - Tetlock & Gardner - eye opening account of how some people are able to predict economic and political events much, much better than others and how they do it. Derives from a CIA funded study of forecasting where they tried to understand how the intelligence on Iraq WMDs was so spectacularly wrong. Has made me re-evaluate how I think about things in my work and in my politics.
Honourable mentions: Ice Cream War (Boyd); Instance of the Fingerpost (Pears), great book but a bit long. ; book with long title on Brexit campaigns (Shipman); couple of Le Carre novels, always quality; Peckerwood (Ayres); Galveston (Pizzalotto); Amy & Isabelle (Strout).
The Great British Dream Factory - Dominic Sandbrook.
Superb book, basically a history of British culture - film, music, tv, theatre, books etc. Totally enthralling.
Picked this up on your recommendation, slow start but halfway through and thoroughly entertaining. Reading history you've experienced now being recounted through the filter of time and new insights is compelling.
The Great British Dream Factory - Dominic Sandbrook.
Superb book, basically a history of British culture - film, music, tv, theatre, books etc. Totally enthralling.
Picked this up on your recommendation, slow start but halfway through and thoroughly entertaining. Reading history you've experienced now being recounted through the filter of time and new insights is compelling.
Erin Kelly - He Said/She Said. Not my usual fodder but it was cheap and cheerful on Amazon Kindle. Thriller about an eclipse chasing couple who are involved in an assault on woman at eclipse festival and the story twists and turns quite nicely. Now reading Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of flags.
Keep returning to Robert Anton Wilson. One of my favourite authors and co-author of the Illuminatus trilogy. If you are "Reality curious" any of his Cosmic Trilogy books are well worth a read.
Absoloutely love this thread for the diverse opinions and suggestions on books I'd never noramally consider or even know about.
Ayoade on Ayode. Richard Ayoade's flight of fantasy about film making. Indescribable really. It's him, interviewing himself in a surreal world occasionally touched by reality.
This novella is set in London in 1945 in a genteel but shabby boarding house for young ladies and follows their lives and love affairs. Muriel Spark has an economical, blunt and amusing style and I found this an evocative and entertaining read, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as ‘The Ballad of Peckham Rye’.
On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
This novella is set in London in 1945 in a genteel but shabby boarding house for young ladies and follows their lives and love affairs. Muriel Spark has an economical, blunt and amusing style and I found this an evocative and entertaining read, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as ‘The Ballad of Peckham Rye’.
On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
Sounds interesting enough. Have you read any Sarah Waters? Fingersmith sounds like it might be up your street. Very well written.
The Fourth Protocol - Frederick Forsythe. First novel of his I have read, good plot and well written, enjoyed it a lot. Full of fantastical anti-Labour Party stuff, but then he can afford to be a Tory. Still a good read though.
His earlier books are really good. Day of the Jackel and Odessa File spring to mind. It's been years mind since I read them.
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
I have to say I thought it was superb, I loved the period feel and the dialogue in particular.
Also liked his earlier work Red Plenty set in Kruschev era Soviet Union.
On a fiction-fest. Only time I really get time to read is on a break. Just finished To Kill the President. Not sure Sam Bourne needed much of an imagination for this one, but entertaining nonetheless. Reads like a docu-drama of Trump and his presidency. Can only hope the ending is similar in real life!!
Now on Testament by David Gibbins. It's one of a series, featuring Jack Howard a sort of underwater Indiana Jones. Always a fast-paced story/read and really enjoyable.
This novella is set in London in 1945 in a genteel but shabby boarding house for young ladies and follows their lives and love affairs. Muriel Spark has an economical, blunt and amusing style and I found this an evocative and entertaining read, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as ‘The Ballad of Peckham Rye’.
On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
Sounds interesting enough. Have you read any Sarah Waters? Fingersmith sounds like it might be up your street. Very well written.
Yes, I read Fingersmith when it came out and really enjoyed it. I see it was loosely - very loosely - adapted recently in the South Korean lesbian film, The Handmaiden. I've not read any of Sarah Walters' other stuff, though
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
I have to say I thought it was superb, I loved the period feel and the dialogue in particular.
Also liked his earlier work Red Plenty set in Kruschev era Soviet Union.
My wife takes a similar view - she thought it was great.
Iron Gustav - Hans Fallada. One of my favourite novels is Alone in Berlin (a story of the ineffectual internal German resistance to the Nazis during the war) so I thought I'd try another Fallada. The novel has an interesting history of its own. Fallada was commissioned to write it so that it could be turned into a film. Goebbels got hold of the script and forced changes on it. It's a solid story of a German family led by Iron Gustav, an unbending patriarch and Prussian patriot determined to keep running horse drawn cabs even when everyone else has switched to cars. The family lose their business during the first world war and struggle through the 1920s in different ways. Good story, but too long (600 pages or so) and shows the deficiencies of a novel written for adoption.
The Pursuit of Power, Europe 1815-1914 - Richard Evans. Solid narrative history, part of the Penguin History of Europe. Perfectly decent and comprehensive but not a patch on its brilliant predecessor (Pursuit of Glory, Tim Blanning). Evans decision to take a particular theme (e.g. nationalism or feminism) and then devote a couple of pages in turn to each major and mid-size European nation probably seemed like a good way or organising a huge amount of material but feels clunky to the reader.
Currently near the end of Autumn Bridge by Takashi Matsuoka, the follow up to his Cloud of Sparrow. Anyone who liked the James Clavell's Shogun will enjoy these too (in my view they are a bit better than Shogun). They are set largely in the mid 19th century as Japan is forced to open up to the world and to modernise. Inevitably there is conflict between the modernisers and the traditionalists.
'The Blade Artist' .. Irvine Welsh .. not good .. repetitive, ridiculous and riddled with gratuitous almost cartoonish violence .. Welsh has written some thought provoking and amusing stuff .. he now needs a new schtick
This novella is set in London in 1945 in a genteel but shabby boarding house for young ladies and follows their lives and love affairs. Muriel Spark has an economical, blunt and amusing style and I found this an evocative and entertaining read, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as ‘The Ballad of Peckham Rye’.
On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
Sounds interesting enough. Have you read any Sarah Waters? Fingersmith sounds like it might be up your street. Very well written.
Yes, I read Fingersmith when it came out and really enjoyed it. I see it was loosely - very loosely - adapted recently in the South Korean lesbian film, The Handmaiden. I've not read any of Sarah Walters' other stuff, though
Just finished American Gods. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman but this didn't quite grab me the same way his other comics and books have. However, when I'm finished with Warehouse 13 I'm sure I'll have a butcher's at the TV series.
I'm now re-reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks. It's nearly twenty years since I first read it and I'm pleased to say I've forgotten everything so it's like a new book.
The Fourth Protocol - Frederick Forsythe. First novel of his I have read, good plot and well written, enjoyed it a lot. Full of fantastical anti-Labour Party stuff, but then he can afford to be a Tory. Still a good read though.
His earlier books are really good. Day of the Jackel and Odessa File spring to mind. It's been years mind since I read them.
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
I have to say I thought it was superb, I loved the period feel and the dialogue in particular.
Also liked his earlier work Red Plenty set in Kruschev era Soviet Union.
Comments
Typical Rogan in that he seems to have gone out of his way to find people that Davies has left holding a grudge. Bit of a whingefest in parts.
Best read alongside a more sympathetic and balanced bio imo.
Still, nice to hear from Rasa Davies for once.
Very bought provoking.
Interesting little read, mainly about the smaller lines around the county, and why they went wrong.
Absoloutely love this thread for the diverse opinions and suggestions on books I'd never noramally consider or even know about.
This novella is set in London in 1945 in a genteel but shabby boarding house for young ladies and follows their lives and love affairs. Muriel Spark has an economical, blunt and amusing style and I found this an evocative and entertaining read, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as ‘The Ballad of Peckham Rye’.
On Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Billed as “the best 18th century novel since the 18th century”, the story is set in New York in 1746, when that town’s population was about 7,000, compared to the 700,000 living in London (then the largest city in Europe). It concerns the adventures of a charming but mysterious young guy who comes to redeem a bill of exchange for the enormous sum of £1,000 but who feeds suspicion by refusing to say where he comes from or what he intends to do with the money. The novel is cleverly written in an archaic style and also has a sense of the historical period. I thought it was a decent read but didn’t buy into the critical acclaim it has received from most critics.
Could easily be me:(
Also liked his earlier work Red Plenty set in Kruschev era Soviet Union.
Now on Testament by David Gibbins. It's one of a series, featuring Jack Howard a sort of underwater Indiana Jones. Always a fast-paced story/read and really enjoyable.
The Pursuit of Power, Europe 1815-1914 - Richard Evans. Solid narrative history, part of the Penguin History of Europe. Perfectly decent and comprehensive but not a patch on its brilliant predecessor (Pursuit of Glory, Tim Blanning). Evans decision to take a particular theme (e.g. nationalism or feminism) and then devote a couple of pages in turn to each major and mid-size European nation probably seemed like a good way or organising a huge amount of material but feels clunky to the reader.
Currently near the end of Autumn Bridge by Takashi Matsuoka, the follow up to his Cloud of Sparrow. Anyone who liked the James Clavell's Shogun will enjoy these too (in my view they are a bit better than Shogun). They are set largely in the mid 19th century as Japan is forced to open up to the world and to modernise. Inevitably there is conflict between the modernisers and the traditionalists.
I'm now re-reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks. It's nearly twenty years since I first read it and I'm pleased to say I've forgotten everything so it's like a new book.