[Johnny Brown]

Seems like

Worth noting though, I've a good friend (and phd student in sociology) who grew up in a saami/laplander family with a semi-nomadic lifestyle (they still have plenty of rain-deers and quite a nomadic lifestyle), and she didn't much rate the stuff Chatwin wrote on saami nomads.

Not surprising - I've read similar on Songlines. Although for most the beef seems to stem from the big gap between the narrative and what actually happened. Chatwin himself referred to In Patagonia and Songlines as novels. That's not to say they don't contain a lot of truths, just that he didn't consider the reality of his travels exciting enough to carry the narrative. Prior to becoming a travel writer he spent years trying to write a book on nomads which was eventually abandoned as terminally dull; for Songlines he resurrected the most interesting material and spun a yarn around it with an Indiana Jones version of himself at the centre. I've always suspected the camp bookworm he meets deep in the outback to be the other half of his personality, included for karmic balance.

Shame the bio doesn't have much on his time in Oz, I'd have liked to hear a lot more about his friendship with Robyn Davidson too.

[cowboyhat]

I remember you've mentioned it before but anyway now I've bought Patagonia off ebay. I don't generally read non fiction but this discussion has piqued my nodes.

[cowboyhat]

posting is giving errors, apologies if repeats appear.

[SA Chris]

I keep getting that too

[andy popp]

Reactions to Ishiguro receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature?

[Rocksteady]

Reactions to Ishiguro receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Hadn't noticed this and my first reaction was to be quite surprised. His body of work is not that extensive and doesn't include any that I personally rate all that highly. Both 'The Remains of the Day' and 'Never Let Me Go' I thought were OK but nothing massively powerful. The sort of books where the films are actually a bit better than the book - which in my experience is very rare. The latter I actually felt was less thought-provoking than other, earlier sci-fi treatments of similar topics. I remember thinking 'An Artist of the Floating World' was good but it's a long time since I read it. Haven't read his other novels but am not massively inclined to do so. I just can't imagine his books being on a study list for a degree in Literature in the future - this would be my criteria for awarding someone such a prestigious prize. Although obviously it isn't the criteria they use.

Then I looked up the list of previous Nobel Laureates for Literature and haven't heard of lots of them. So his inclusion seems fair. There are some proper heavyweights on there too though.

[andy popp]

I was a little surprised, I'm not sure why but certainly not because he doesn't deserve it (some absolute duds have won it in the past). Remains of the Day, When We Were Orphans, and Never Let Me Go are all wonderful books that should stand the test of time. I found them very powerful but what is most interesting is that he seems to achieve that without any literary flourishes or fireworks. He appears to be doing nothing special but somehow at all he still works magic.

[moose]

I was a bit non-plussed by Never Let Me Go - I suspect because I had already read books with similar subject material - that, because they were by "sci fi authors" (M John Harrison etc), were ignored /  not known by the reviewers fawning over Ishiguros's "originality". 

Incidently, I had the same feelings about David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas - the reviews all said it was incredibly innovative but to me it felt a bit derivative - although it was admittedly far better written than it's "hard" sci-fi ancestors.  Another example of the same phenomeon was the critical acclaim for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" .  Praised to high heaven by mainstream critics who had evidently never seen any other Hong-Kong Wire-fu style films - and didn't realise that  Crouching Tiger was just a humourless homage, abeit beautifully rendered.

Anyway... to topic - I actually really like Ishiguro - by far my favourite is The Unconsoled - an eerie novel with shades of Kafka; although, Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans were very much enjoyed.  I suspect that the fact that I like him probably disqualifies him from Nobel Prize consideration though!

[DaveC]

The Nobel has declined to a state of irrelevance in recent years.  Winners have been largely uninspiring choices in recent times and last years was just plain stupid. This year sees a return to just uninspired again.


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[DaveC]

Just read The Invention of Nature, The Life and Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt  and it is a gem of a book.  Humboldt has been sadly neglected as a major historical figure and this book I think successfully shows him as the massively influential and original thinker that he was.  Thoroughly recommended

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[Brannock]

Just read The Invention of Nature, The Life and Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt

Read this earlier in the year, really enjoyed it.

Its been mentioned on here before, The Worst Journey In The World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, about Scott's Antarctic expedition, possibly the best piece of expedition literature.

[Will Hunt]

For fans of His Dark Materials:

Pullman is writing a new trilogy which sits alongside and connects with the original tale. The first book in this trilogy, La Belle Sauvage, is released...

TODAY!


 

[Muenchener]

Picked up Flood of Fire, the third volume of Amitav Ghosh's East India Company trilogy, for my Kalymnos holiday reading even though I found the second volume, River of Smoke, quite heavy going.

Unfortunately (?) Flood of Fire turns out to be so compelling that I'm halfway through and I haven't even made it off Kos yet.

[Falling Down]

I really enjoyed Ed Douglas' collection of essays "The Magician's Glass: Character and Fate: Eight Essays on Climbing and the Mountain Life" last week.  Lovely writing and thought provoking.  Good job Cofe and Jon on the editing and production. 

Charles Duhigg's 'The Power of Habit' was quite good.  A little bit self-helpy in places but that didn't distract overall.  It's an interesting look at habits, how they form and how they can change.  It might be of interest for climbers thinking about training, performance and eating/drinking habits.

Just started Steinbeck's East of Eden as W has just read it for her studies and she thought it was fantastic.

[Brannock]

News of a Kidnapping, Gabriel García Márquez, non fiction about Pablo Escobar campaign of kidnapping journalists. Written in a thriller type style, throwing the reader into it, the subtleties of Colombian politics aren't explained till half way through, which does leave the first half slightly confusing and some aspects of Colombian life aren't explained at all (what a "Santandarean" character is like). That said the character and experiences of the kidnapped and there guards is very well explored, powerfully written.

[SA Chris]

Just finished Feet in the Clouds by Richard Askwith, a history and stories about fell running, really enjoyed it.

Also halfway through Barbarian Days by William Finnegan, an excellent autobiography of his surfing life, and really enjoying it. Recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in surfing, brilliantly written.

[chris05]

Really enjoyed Jonathan Raban's Bad Land thanks to this thread and looking forward to some of his others. Currently finishing Emile Zola's Germinal which is a fantastic depiction of life as French miner in the 1860's.

Falling Down, I highly recommend all of Steinbeck's writing with East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath as my favourites.

[SA Chris]

Grapes of Wrath is just so depressing (guess it was the depression!).

[jwi]

We never fall twice down the same abyss. But we always fall in the same manner, with a mixture of the dread and the ridicule. And the will to not fall again is so strong that we brace ourselves and scream.

Eric Veuillard's L'ordre du jour (‘Agenda’), which one the Concourt-price for best novel this year, is a thin book that by dramatising the anschluss—the first stumbling steps of the third reich—shows how the “greatest catastrophies arrives in small steps.”

It is a fantastic novel. Well worth reading. Fierce on the German industry's support of Nazism. I suppose it will be translated soon, but I pity the translator.

[SA Chris]

Just finished Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. Possibly the best surfing autobio I've read, highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in surfing.

[moose]

If my own experience of Barbarian Days is any guide, I'd even recommend it to people without a passing interest in surfing (other than once watching Big Wednesday)!  Surfing is just the solvent for a beautifully told tale of how obsession evolves with age and exposure to different people and places. 

[SA Chris]

Yep, a rare combination of someone who is a good writer and has a great personal story to tell. The other end of the scale to Kelly Slater's Pipe Dreams..

[Falling Down]

Falling Down, I highly recommend all of Steinbeck's writing with East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath as my favourites.

East of Eden was fantastic.  One of the best novels I've read for a long time.  Epic on small scale.  Absolutely beautiful, scary and moving.  Highly recommended!!

Other things I've gone through recently.

Collusion: Luke Harding.  The Guardian's ex-Russia desk editor tells the Trump/Russia story.  When you read it all laid out it's gobsmacking and frightening.  Well written and pacy, I couldn't put it down.  Mandatory reading for anyone (everyone?) interested.

To Save Everything, Click Here: Evgeny Morozov.  A great critical essay calling out tech's "Solutionism" and the breathless evangelists of the valley.  Habrich, you might like this after reading The Circle.

A Short History of Myth: Karen Armstrong.  A scholarly yet very readable little book exploring our myths throughout the ages, our relationship to both mythos (transformational, sacred story) and logos (facts) and a reflection on the current secular age.

The Forge and the Crucible: Mircea Eliade. I loved this. Eliade was a Romanian 20th century historian, philosopher and prof. at the University of Chicago and wrote dozens of works on the history of religon. This one is about the origins of alchemy and particularly our relationship to matter and time.  "We trace the development of man as he learns to transmute nature, accelerate its processes, and thus control Time, and we are led to see the way in which the efforts of modern man to master Nature and Time, except for its secularization, are related to the work of the early alchemists." (frm. Kirkus Review). 

First Light: Various. A collection of specially commissioned essays on Alan Garner and his works compiled by crowdfunding publisher Unbound (me and Johnny Brown have our names in the back).  Magical stuff and delves deep into the history of Cheshire and the Western peak district.

These Darkening Days: Ben Myers.  Yorkshire noir... a follow up to Turning Blue.  Ben's a brilliant new writer.. Pig Iron, Beastings, The Gallows Pole and these two are fab.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks & The Final Dossier of Twin Peaks: Mark Frost.  Essential reading for TP devotees by Lynch's creative partner and director of the series.  The Secret History is presented as a dossier of files compiled by an unknown narrator (who is revealed at the end) delving back to the early exploration of the pacific Northwest and takes in Richard Nixon, project Blue Book and the American civil war alongside the backstory of many of the characters of Twin Peaks prior to the first series.   The Final Dossier is a coda to the recent TP: The Return presented again as a dossier of files prepared by Tammy Preston the FBI agent for Gordon Cole that ties up several of the threads unravelled during S3.  I'm a big fan so enjoyed these a lot.

[SA Chris]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rock-Jocks-Wall-Rats-Hang/dp/0671884662

Managed to eventually get hold of this and really enjoyed it. Some bits are a bit lightweight (especially the grey boxes explaining things to punters), but there are some passages which are fantastically written and worth reading "The Only Blasphemy" in full a few times.

[Falling Down]

Finished The Old Ways by Robert McFarlane last night.  I absolutely loved it.  Very beautiful and moving.  Anyone else read it?