Question What are you reading?

[Dick Bate's Protege]

American Tabloid - James Ellroy.

So good, I'm going to read everything he's ever done.

 

[Bluesmanager]

Tried the new Dan Brown novel.

Got about 20 or so chapters in. Nothing was happening, or if stuff was happening I didn't understand a word of it. Gave it to my mum to try and understand.

Retreated to Percy Jackson and Skulduggery Pleasant. Much easier (and better).

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finished Martin Amis's Money yesterday.Hugely enjoyable read and a cautionary tale for the present.

 

[The Big Shrimp]

Just started Bill Oddies autobiography. His mum spent most of his childhood in the local mental hospital after attcking Oddie's father with crockery. Most of it was broken over his head, as he came in to find red & white broken plates! Can't have been fun as a 6 or 7 year old seeing your mum being bundled into a black maria!! This might be a good read!

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Three quarters of the way through the final volume of Millennium, which I picked up at Heathrow, on the way back from the USA. Prior to that I read Jo Nesbo's first novel (in French)............'The Batman'. Set in Australia, this Norwegian author introduces his enigmatic police hero, Harry Hole. Although a bit of a struggle in French I enjoyed it and there was some good descriptive writing about Sydney. I then read his second book 'The Cockroaches', also in French and this time set in Thailand. This I found far more difficult to get into and in the end was quite disappointed. Interesting to note that my wife also read it, with rather more alacrity than myself, and was of the same opinion. Perhaps I now understand why British publishers started with a translation of his third novel, which I believe, is set in his own country.
Probably next on the list is Henning Mankell's 'Italian Shoes', which I picked up at the same time as Millenium III............has anyone read it?

 

[The_Beard]

On holiday, I've bee reading Soccernomics, which is a US copy of "Why England Lose... etc". Awesome. Just awesome. Read Moneyball about 6 months ago and for anybody interested in sports and sport theory they are musts. The stuff on penalties and the prediction about England's World Cup are amazing.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

On holiday, I've bee reading Soccernomics, which is a US copy of "Why England Lose... etc". Awesome. Just awesome. Read Moneyball about 6 months ago and for anybody interested in sports and sport theory they are musts. The stuff on penalties and the prediction about England's World Cup are amazing.

Yeah,great book.

 

[Napster]

American Tabloid - James Ellroy.

So good, I'm going to read everything he's ever done.

Do! read the LA quartet first - cracking writing.

 

[Boreham Shrimper]

Rather pretentiously, I'm reading "Der Vorleser" by Bernhard Schlink. It was made into a film a few years ago, "The Reader" with Kate Winslett and Ralph Fiennes.

 

[Usual_Suspect]

Richard Hammonds second book - not a touch on the first

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Rather pretentiously, I'm reading "Der Vorleser" by Bernhard Schlink. It was made into a film a few years ago, "The Reader" with Kate Winslett and Ralph Fiennes.

You're reading it in the original German? I'm impressed.
Much as I enjoyed the novel(in translation)I felt the film would have been much improved if it'd been done in German.

 

[The_Beard]

Do! read the LA quartet first - cracking writing.

Tried to get these before I went off on holibobs. Neither Waterstones in the high street of the library had any of them. Picked up David Pace's 1974 instead, not got round to it yet though.

 

[dloman]

Finished Martin Amis's Money yesterday.Hugely enjoyable read and a cautionary tale for the present.

Excellent book, though have tried other Amis's books and none are a patch on Money.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Excellent book, though have tried other Amis's books and none are a patch on Money.

Yeah ,I'm not a great fan.The only others I've read are London Fields,Times Arrow and Experience.As you say Money is far superior to any of these.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Tried to get these before I went off on holibobs. Neither Waterstones in the high street of the library had any of them. Picked up David Pace's 1974 instead, not got round to it yet though.

Everything that Peace has written is brillant IMO including 1974.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Everything that Peace has written is brillant IMO including 1974.

Hated Tokyo Year Zero. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Christ, get another style.

 

[Napster]

just dumped the life of pi- boring, pretentious, twaddle

 

[Boreham Shrimper]

You're reading it in the original German? I'm impressed.
Much as I enjoyed the novel(in translation)I felt the film would have been much improved if it'd been done in German.

Yep. My grandmother is Austrian and I studied German for A Level so this was as much as anything else an exercise to prove to myself that I can still understand it! I'm yet to see the film but will allow myself to do so once I've finished the book.

The trouble with reading in foreign languages I find is that you really have to make sure that you're awake otherwise you end up not really taking it all in and having to re-read stuff you'd already gone over!

 

[Rob Noxious]

I recently finished 'Illicit Learning Curves' by Keith Warren. And this is what I think about it ...

This is a brave novel. Keith Warren tackles a taboo subject - a love affair between a teacher and pupil - with Hardyesque aplomb. Dr. Mike Chadwick is in mid-life crisis mode and has been the object of Ellie Fortune's fantasies for some years before she seeks his counsel about domestic difficulties involving her lecherous step-father. She keeps a diary about her fantasies which is used against her in Court after she is raped. Warren writes well - with insight and sensitivity - and I particularly liked his development of the disparate central characters before their convergence in a conventionally illicit relationship. This provides a solid foundation from which the story springs and the ensuing Courtroom drama is tense and unpredictable. I also liked the change in settings as the relationship unfolds - from the enclosed rural community where Mike and Ellie's school is situated, to the wild abandon of their beach-side location and then the rugged, romantic but foreboding hills above it. This is reminiscent of Thomas Hardy's use of the Wessex countryside (eg Egdon Heath in 'The Return Of The Native') as an all-pervasive and powerful backdrop to the moods and behaviours of his key protagonists.

This is an excellent as well as a brave debut. Warren holds a mirror up to religious hypocrisy, small-minded bigotry and the ensuing struggles that face people who defy conventional society's strictures. It will not be to everyone's taste, but it is refreshing to read a novel where the author has the 'cojones' to cajole his readership into thinking about how things are for his characters, rather than how they should be. I look forward to reading more of Keith Warren's work in the future.

 

[MK Shrimper]

just dumped the life of pi- boring, pretentious, twaddle

I quite enjoyed it. All makes perfect sense at the end mate.