[Duma]

Yes, worth reading despite all that - though I remember thinking the yeti bit didn't sit well with the rest of the book when I read it.

Never mind, I've still got my claim to fame re a real escape story - Paul Brickhill was my grandad's cousin.

SA chris - had heard of it, but not read - will give it a look, cheers.

[Houdini]

the coma by alex garland : style above substance

I think this is the best Garland I've read.  But then, I can spell neoplasm. 

[Dr T]

the coma by alex garland : style above substance

I think this is the best Garland I've read.  But then, I can spell neoplasm. 

I'll add my weight to this one, got for my birthday a while back and pretty much read it in one sitting, awesome... great woodcut prints too...

[SA Chris]

read Psycho-Vertical while I was on holiday. Thoroughly good in an old fashonied mountaineering tales of derring do kind of way.

[Falling Down]

Hot on the heels of Against The Day, there's a new Pynchon novel out this September. A detective noir novel set in the 60's..   

We waited 9 years for Mason and Dixon and another decade for Against The Day and then just two for this one.  I read a blog where someone had heard that Pynchon had been working on several larger novels simultaneously since Vineland which would explain this sudden burst of productivity in the late years of his life.

[hongkongstuey]

probably comes up somewhere among the 17 pages already but couldn't be arsed to search

have just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy (the bloke who wrote No Country for Old Men) and thoroughly recommend it. Not the most cheerful read ever but superbly written.

[Monolith]

I'm reading this:



I like this book.

Going to take a look at this cheers.

[Bobling]

Just finished the Junior Officers Reading Club by Patrick Hennesy.  Dunno if it has come up here before but bloody good.

[Fiend]

Recently read:

Alastair Reynolds - House Of Suns - yet another masterpiece from the new saviour of science fiction. Compared to, say, his grittier and more subtle Century Rain, this demonstrates a breadth of talent with a wildly flamboyant yarn that makes Iain M Banks' concepts look mundane. Great stuff.

Celia Friedman - Coldfire Trilogy - magical fantasy with some pretty neat ideas but conveyed in a fairly girly questathon tale. The background makes this stand out a bit but I think it could have gone further with it's world-building.

Currently reading:

KJ Parker - Devices And Desires (Engineer Trilogy) - good down-to-earth fantasy. No dragons, daemons nor magic, just a lot of punchy medieval style politics, violence, intrigue and human fuck-ups. Quite cynical and dry and a good read.

[andy popp]

A particularly strong recommendation for The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better by Wilkinson and Pickett. The book is a forensic examination of why living in a more unequal society is bad for everyone, including the rich. Near essential reading for anyone interested in what direction society should head in the C21st?

[Mr Cat]

currently reading -

'Yorkshire Dialect' by 'Eckers Like

[TobyD]

The Drowned World J G Ballard
classic scifi. bleak, atmospheric, but with plenty of action. Recommended.
On Chesil Beach Ian Mackewan
initially promising, degenerating to utter twaddle. inadvertently amusing.

[Drew]

Other thing from that part of the world I read last year and enjoyed was The Long Walk, Amazing true story: Pole escapes from POW camp in Siberia, walks through Siberia, round lake Baikal, across Mongolian desert, Tibetan plateau, over Himalayas, to British controlled India!

That's nothing. German POW spends a few years living in, and mining from, a lead mine (couple of doses of lead poisoning) in Russia, within spitting distance of the Bering Straight. Escapes, and over the course of the next THREE YEARS walks all the way to either the Caspian, or Black Sea. The book is ghost written by Josef M. Bauer, called As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, and is brilliant. Oh, and it's all true!

[slackline]

Other thing from that part of the world I read last year and enjoyed was The Long Walk, Amazing true story: Pole escapes from POW camp in Siberia, walks through Siberia, round lake Baikal, across Mongolian desert, Tibetan plateau, over Himalayas, to British controlled India!

Did this really happen?  There's conflicting evidence.

[Jaspersharpe]

Go back a page slackers. 

[andy popp]

I can't recommend strongly enough Bird and Sherwin's American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - a superb portrait of a brilliant, complex man (Oppenheimer of course being 'father of the Atom bomb'). Who would have thought the biography of a theoretical phsyicist could be such a page turner.

[Eddies]

I finished 'Under the wire' by William Ash t'other week, offten took myself to bed early to get get into his world of escapology!
Started 'Domain' by James Herbert straight after and im finding that equally exciting...graphic stuff!

[Joepicalli]

Actually in the same vein as Andy's Oppenheimer biog is "Ove Arup: Master Builder of the 20th Century". He was the structural engineer who's work allowed for some of the greatest buildings of the C20th and an amazing man. You can't quite believe your engrossed in the life of a structural engineer.

[Monolith]

I'm psyched to read about the great man. Arup Associates are awesome.

[Houdini]

Currently stuck into



Which is great.

Previous to that, I failed once again to get more than 100 pages into Will Self's The Book of Dave.  Before that,  The Kite Runner, which was a real let-down.

[Houdini]

Anyone read Roberto Bolaño's 2666 yet?  On to it as soon as I finish the biography above.

http://roberto-bolano.com/?p=3

[Plattsy]

Recent highlights include...

Longitude by Dava Sobel. Great little biography of John Harrison the obsessive and brilliant inventor of the longtitude chromometer.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. Adventure, murder mystery based around the trapping industry in late 1800s Canada. Enjoyed this book as I found setting and time very interesting. Easy reading.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Marakami. A very weird and surreall story about the hunt for a fabled sheep in rural Japan. Can't work out if I liked this one or not. Just odd really.

Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Half way through the second  book and I'm completely hooked. If you like fantasy this is a must.

[Falling Down]

Anyone read Roberto Bolaño's 2666 yet?  On to it as soon as I finish the biography above.

http://roberto-bolano.com/?p=3

Yeah. Read it earlier this year and thought it justified the reviews and accolades.  It reads and works on many levels but is relatively easy to read.  Highly recommended.

I just finished Thomas Pynchons Inherent Vice a couple weeks back and there's a short review and some thoughts on my blog.

Andy thanks for reminding me about the Spirit Level. That's going on the Christmas list.

[nik at work]

Previous to that, I failed once again to get more than 100 pages into Will Self's The Book of Dave. 

Agreed, awful unreadable nonsense.

Have also tried to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell recently with much the same result...

[Plattsy]

Have also tried to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell recently with much the same result...

Could've been brilliant but waffled and dragged and ultimately disappointed me.