[SA Chris]

Isn't that a veneral disease?

(the old ones are best, i should know).

[saintlade]

 

Currently battling through Don Quixote which is pretty amusing so far but long winded to say the least! I'd love to see a series of film adaptions, it's all a bit Pythonesque.

Yeah it's a bit long winded la, part 2 loses it's way a little and it all gets a bit morose. Apparently numerous directors have attempted to adapt it but it seems to be cursed, there's a documentary about one such attempt I recall, think Jonny Depp was on board to play Don but the entire set was washed away in a biblical flood.

[saintlade]

Found myself starting to return to a few books of late with rereadings of Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Just started a Confederacy of Dunces again and am most enjoying it.

[Jaspersharpe]

Yeah it's a bit long winded la, part 2 loses it's way a little and it all gets a bit morose. Apparently numerous directors have attempted to adapt it but it seems to be cursed, there's a documentary about one such attempt I recall, think Jonny Depp was on board to play Don but the entire set was washed away in a biblical flood.

Famously so:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/feb/04/miguelcervantes

Which spawned:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308514/

And it seems TG is going to have another go bless 'im!:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may/18/ewan-mcgregor-don-quixote

[casa]

Just finished these:
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun -  Really beautiful book.
Dairy of a Madman & other shorts by Gogol - again can highly recommend this.

[Eddies]

[Jaspersharpe]

Watch out you'll offend Fiend.

Reefer Madness by Schlosser is also well worth reading.

[Fiend]

Thanks for thinking of me Jasper you CUNT.

I'm 140 pages into China Meiville's The City And The City and finding it very good and engrossing so far.

[Falling Down]

It's a really good book. FD seal of approval...

[Fultonius]

Thanks for thinking of me Jasper you CUNT.

I'm 140 pages into China Meiville's The City And The City and finding it very good and engrossing so far.

Can I borrow that when you're done? I'll send you a list of stuff I've got fi you want a swap. 

[magpie]

I've just finished Bad Science (which is awesome and everyone should read) and the first two books in the Millenium Trilogy; The Girl with the dragon tattoo and The girl who played with fire.  Now I am reading 59 Seconds.

[hongkongstuey]

currently 2/3 of the way through Let My People Go Surfing and expect the final third won't take too much longer to dispose of - well worth reading:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-People-Surfing-Education-Businessman/dp/0143037838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282639224&sr=8-1

[SA Chris]

I've just finished Bad Science (which is awesome and everyone should read) and the first two books in the Millenium Trilogy; The Girl with the dragon tattoo and The girl who played with fire.  Now I am reading 59 Seconds.

Just finished Dragon Tat too. Thought it was OK, but not up to the hype. also some grammar "quirks", which I guess are a result of the translation.

[MattW]

I agree, good but not amazing. Struggled to keep any interest through the first few chapters then it improved a lot, but again trailed off towards the end. Not sure if I can be bothered making the effort with the other two.

[magpie]

There would never have been such hype about them had he not died, they're alright books but not ground breaking or half as amazing as they were made out to be, and I found a lot of the names a pain to remember or pronounce and some of the writing odd, which is no doubt due to the translations, but still a bit of a pain.  I haven't started the third one yet, although someone said yesterday it was the best out of the three so probably worth a shot at some point.

[butters]

There would never have been such hype about them had he not died, they're alright books but not ground breaking or half as amazing as they were made out to be, and I found a lot of the names a pain to remember or pronounce and some of the writing odd, which is no doubt due to the translations, but still a bit of a pain.

Having just blitzed Dragon Tattoo in something like 24 hours I can't deny any of the above - if I get a chance to borrow the other two books in the series then I will but they aren't going to be appearing on my "must buy" list any time soon.

[Jaspersharpe]

Wasn't sure where to put this but as it's from a book it can go here. Great piece about the River Forth by Irvine Welsh:

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/travel/the-black-river/

[Charles]

Not sure if this is the most recent thread on good books but this is what the search turfed up.

Anyway, just finished You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers, which was excellent. Great humanist story in the fashion of Jonathan Safran Foer.

Speaking of which, he has just brought out a new book (which I have got and is next on my list) called Tree of Codes. It looks amazing.

[grumpycrumpy]

The Conspiracy Theory thread on here has got me to re-reading 'Them ' by Jon Ronson ...... Absolute class ......

[Johnny Brown]

Just finished Taking Leave by Roger Hubank. Excellent.  a must if you know The Peak well, very few books are as deeply seated in the landscape as this.

[SA Chris]

Just finished this



Enjoyed it, convoluted story and well written.

[Falling Down]

Stuff wot I 'ave read recently.

Matterhorn - Karl Malantes A big f*ck off dense novel about Vietnam that took the author thirty years to write.  In close focus rather than expansive, it covers a small, relatively inconsequential part of the war about Bravo Company's attempts to take and retake a series of nondescript hills in Vietnam.  It's all about the characters and the visceral horrors of war and is clearly semi-autobiographical in the main character Melas.  Very good, tough going at times but very good.

Assault on Lake Casitas by Brad Alan Lewis - Only available on Kindle (cheap) or second hand (ridiculously expensive) this is Lewis' account of walking away from the official US Olympic camp to train with his mate and then go on to win Gold at the 1984 Olympics on home soil in the double scull rowing event. For a book on rowing it's absolutely gripping and for anyone interested in training and sports psychology it should be required reading. Superb.

Born to Run - Chris McDougall - An account of McDougalls efforts to run with the Tarahumara, a tribe of Mexican Indians living in remote canyons and reputed to be the worlds best ultra runners.  Part travelogue, part cultural history and part sports biog this is a great book and well worth reading even if you're not interested in running. Great, really great.

Perpetual Euphoria: On the duty to be happy - Pascal Bruckner He's French, he's a philosopher and he's exploring what it means to be happy and the idea of happiness as a right.  Interesting, challenging and difficult. The conclusions are revealing and somewhat comforting.  Not everyone's cup of tea but perhaps should be.

[andy popp]

Well done, Ben - was thinking only the other day that it was a shame this thread had died a death. I've been on a reading binge for the last year and half or something; I'll try and come up with my recent top five. Its going to be full of boring 'classics' probably.

Don't know any of those titles, alsways good to have new suggestions.

[Falling Down]

I can't recommend strongly enough Bird and Sherwin's American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer -

I got this for my birthday on your recomendation and it's been sat on the shelf bearing down on me since. It's a biggie!

A few years back I read The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes which again was a real page turner (and won the Pullitzer).

[Dolly]

Completely agree re Born to Run FD.
Finished it last night and its great. I Marked quite afew bits that id like to reread.
Have you read What I Think about when I think about Running ?