Question What are you reading?

[Tangled up in Blue]

Thoroughly enjoyed Lia Ypi's Free:Coming of Age at the end of History.an excellent memior of growing up in communist Albania.Good throughout but particularly so on the events of 1990 and the civil war there in 1997.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Thoroughly enjoyed Lia Ypi's Free:Coming of Age at the end of History.an excellent memior of growing up in communist Albania.Good throughout but particularly so on the events of 1990 and the civil war there in 1997.

And many thanks for passing it on - got a couple on the go at the moment, i.e. Phil Burdett's 'Maledictus' and a collection of short stories and articles by Ray Canham titled 'Even Unicorns Die', so will read it after I've completed them. ?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

And many thanks for passing it on - got a couple on the go at the moment, i.e. Phil Burdett's 'Maledictus' and a collection of short stories and articles by Ray Canham titled 'Even Unicorns Die', so will read it after I've completed them. ?

Have to say I started this but put it down after 55 pages or so .Wasn't too impressed but I'll probably go back to it at some point.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Have to say I started this but put it down after 55 pages or so .Wasn't too impressed but I'll probably go back to it at some point.

It's certainly different.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

It's certainly different.

Yeah so is Ulysses.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Yeah so is Ulysses.

Ha - he's a big fan.

 

[Rob Noxious]

‘Even Unicorns Die’, by Ray Canham. This is a well-written collection of short stories and articles compiled and completed by Ray during the lockdown of 2020 “as an economy-priced diversion for everyone stuck at home.”

There are some very moving stories here, especially those associated with a boy nick-named ‘Biscuit’. I particularly liked how Ray linked a character from ‘The Biscuit Gang’ into a subsequent story, ‘Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’ and how within ‘The Biscuit Gang’, Ray was able to explore a tragic event from different characters’ perspectives which then provided a much more complex picture than we might have first inferred.

Ray has a skill in being able to convey to the reader the essential nature of his characters’ individual characteristics without having to give lengthy descriptions and I can see ‘The Biscuit Gang’ and ‘Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’ being brought to the stage or screen as a play if they were conjoined for this purpose.

The first story, ‘Sorry Alice’, is actually Ray’s first ever story that he’d “committed to paper.” It’s a story that suggests young Alice’s low self-esteem whilst hinting at another side to her character amidst some unfortunate happenings to her classmate and her teacher. The unresolved mystery of this opening story is wonderfully resolved in the final one, the chillingly dark ‘The Club’.

Ray’s other short stories in this collection, ‘Brenda And The Devil’ and ‘Dr Chuckles’, are also both enjoyable, with a humorous exchange between the two characters named in the former and a mysterious tale imbued with pathos in the latter.

Ray also reflects on various subjects in the course of this book: - the personal association with wartime in the death of a young uncle at sea during the Second World War and the ongoing concern for young people living under the potential spectre of another war during the current instability of international politics (‘War Children’); the challenges of parenthood in ‘Raising Boys’, via an amusing list of rules following a request for Ray’s advice by a pregnant friend; the fine (or not so fine) minutiae of the work endured by hotel cleaners in ‘Hospitality’; the anthropomorphising of pets into ‘fur babies’ (‘Pets’); the fictitious guests of an English south coast hotel, including “widows of Rogers and Dereks who ‘did something in the city’ and retired to the coast before death cheated them of the opportunity to live in the past” (‘Brexit Towers’); a lament for ‘The Decline And Fall Of Social Housing’ in the UK and the political drive behind it from 2010 to 2014; the people who we no longer see and how their memories stay with us (‘Ripples’); a journey to and from the last meeting with a dying relative in ‘All These Useless Words’; an alphabetical list not for nursery walls in ‘A.B.C.’ and an apparently semi-fictitious ‘Isolation Diary.’

Ray draws on his previous experience as a journalist (from writing for ‘Pull The Trigger’) in a previously unpublished article titled ‘The Politics Of Folk’, which provides some interesting musical history from when “folk songs were used to spread messages of injustice and hope”, and also in an amusing review of an album ‘Anarchy & Love’ in ‘Adrian Nation’. That journalistic eye is also present in Ray’s early morning observations when walking from Glasgow to Paisley (‘Glimpses Of Paisley’).

Ray’s humanity shines through in this collection amidst all the ‘unfluffy’ aspects of life and death we experience in our time here. The book’s title, ‘Even Unicorns Die’, hints that it’s not all magical wonderment and joy herein. It’s a treasure - not only for its reality, but for that very humanity that abounds here.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Ha - he's a big fan.

Can't say I'm too suprised.Spotting the style source wasn't very difficult.(which is why I said I might go back to it at some point).

 

[MK Shrimper]

Started "Far from the madding crowd" another bout of Victorian Wessex Farming misery from Hardy.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Started "Far from the madding crowd" another bout of Victorian Wessex Farming misery from Hardy.

Ha! Remember reading this as an "O" level set text back in the day( about the same time as the original FFTMC film came out Gabreil Oak rules.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Alan Bennett's House Arrest :Pandemic Diaries.National treasure is an overused term these days but that'a exactly what AB is. I'm reminded though of going to a talk at the NFT back in the day given by Graham Greene.GG was asked by a member of the audience why his books kept on getting shorter and shorter."Ah, that's because I keep on getting older and older"he replied.Sadly, that's also true now of AB.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just finished Private Eye's 60 Yearbook: 6 decades of jokes and journalism.Thanks Ray.Must remember to cancel my subscription (not).

 

[Dave Smiths Love Child]

Just coming to the end of the Shardlake books 6 in total written by CJ Sansom,

If you like a murder in Henry VIII and Elizabeth reign this is a series for you, going to miss them when finished, kept me going at night and holiday

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Good Pop Bad Pop: An Inventory by Jarvis Cocker.

This is a wonderful read.Interestingly ,the only examples of God Pop groups that he cites are the Beatles & The Velvet Underground.Don't think anyone could argue with that.Oherwise the book deals with stuff that he found in his loft and growing up in Sheffield (mostly) in pre-Pulp days.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finally finished Catherine Belton's Putin's People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West.Over-long & predictable.I look foward to reading a book on Putin's demise soon.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

‘Even Unicorns Die’, by Ray Canham. This is a well-written collection of short stories and articles compiled and completed by Ray during the lockdown of 2020 “as an economy-priced diversion for everyone stuck at home.”

There are some very moving stories here, especially those associated with a boy nick-named ‘Biscuit’. I particularly liked how Ray linked a character from ‘The Biscuit Gang’ into a subsequent story, ‘Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’ and how within ‘The Biscuit Gang’, Ray was able to explore a tragic event from different characters’ perspectives which then provided a much more complex picture than we might have first inferred.

Ray has a skill in being able to convey to the reader the essential nature of his characters’ individual characteristics without having to give lengthy descriptions and I can see ‘The Biscuit Gang’ and ‘Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’ being brought to the stage or screen as a play if they were conjoined for this purpose.

The first story, ‘Sorry Alice’, is actually Ray’s first ever story that he’d “committed to paper.” It’s a story that suggests young Alice’s low self-esteem whilst hinting at another side to her character amidst some unfortunate happenings to her classmate and her teacher. The unresolved mystery of this opening story is wonderfully resolved in the final one, the chillingly dark ‘The Club’.

Ray’s other short stories in this collection, ‘Brenda And The Devil’ and ‘Dr Chuckles’, are also both enjoyable, with a humorous exchange between the two characters named in the former and a mysterious tale imbued with pathos in the latter.

Ray also reflects on various subjects in the course of this book: - the personal association with wartime in the death of a young uncle at sea during the Second World War and the ongoing concern for young people living under the potential spectre of another war during the current instability of international politics (‘War Children’); the challenges of parenthood in ‘Raising Boys’, via an amusing list of rules following a request for Ray’s advice by a pregnant friend; the fine (or not so fine) minutiae of the work endured by hotel cleaners in ‘Hospitality’; the anthropomorphising of pets into ‘fur babies’ (‘Pets’); the fictitious guests of an English south coast hotel, including “widows of Rogers and Dereks who ‘did something in the city’ and retired to the coast before death cheated them of the opportunity to live in the past” (‘Brexit Towers’); a lament for ‘The Decline And Fall Of Social Housing’ in the UK and the political drive behind it from 2010 to 2014; the people who we no longer see and how their memories stay with us (‘Ripples’); a journey to and from the last meeting with a dying relative in ‘All These Useless Words’; an alphabetical list not for nursery walls in ‘A.B.C.’ and an apparently semi-fictitious ‘Isolation Diary.’

Ray draws on his previous experience as a journalist (from writing for ‘Pull The Trigger’) in a previously unpublished article titled ‘The Politics Of Folk’, which provides some interesting musical history from when “folk songs were used to spread messages of injustice and hope”, and also in an amusing review of an album ‘Anarchy & Love’ in ‘Adrian Nation’. That journalistic eye is also present in Ray’s early morning observations when walking from Glasgow to Paisley (‘Glimpses Of Paisley’).

Ray’s humanity shines through in this collection amidst all the ‘unfluffy’ aspects of life and death we experience in our time here. The book’s title, ‘Even Unicorns Die’, hints that it’s not all magical wonderment and joy herein. It’s a treasure - not only for its reality, but for that very humanity that abounds here.

Took a chance on this based on yor review.Quite liked The Biscuitt Gang and a couple of the other stories.

 

[Rob Noxious]

Took a chance on this based on yor review.Quite liked The Biscuitt Gang and a couple of the other stories.

I think that could work as a radio play with the correlating 'Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I think that could work as a radio play with the correlating 'Wednesday Night At The Starlight Social Club’.

As you said in your review .There's a clear link between the two stories.

 

[Userorange]

Noddy at the Seaside. I assumed it was about Slade’s gig at the Kursaal in 1974. No, it was about a little chap with a pointed hat who went off to the seaside with his friend Big-Ears. They had lots of fun - quite the adventure.

Not a bad read and very realistic characters.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Noddy at the Seaside. I assumed it was about Slade’s gig at the Kursaal in 1974. No, it was about a little chap with a pointed hat who went off to the seaside with his friend Big-Ears. They had lots of fun - quite the adventure.

Not a bad read and very realistic characters.

Many thanks for the tip.Since it's our 4 year old grandson's 5th birthday soon I thought I'd order this for him.Make a change from The Hungry Caterpiller et al (which we still have hanging about the house).Hope I enjoy it too (since I normally get delegated to read anything in English)!