[cheque]

I'm reading The Perfect Fool by Stewart Lee. I've had it for years and only recently started reading it. I wish I'd have started sooner as it's proving to be brilliant.

[jamiev]

China Mieville - the City & the City. Crime + kafkaeque fantasy. Constructed around a (deliberately obvious) plot device / twist but really excellently done.

The city& the city : Brilliant book - one of those my mind just drifts back to and finds a semi-conscious reference to every now and then. I

Ohhhhh yeah. I know Mr Meiville is more famous for the classic Perdido Street Station and The Scar, but The City And The City is right up there in brilliance. Thoroughly intriguing and gripping.

Keep meaning to read Perdido St Station.
Tried reading Kraken though...and very disappointed.

[Falling Down]

I'm reading The Perfect Fool by Stewart Lee. I've had it for years and only recently started reading it. I wish I'd have started sooner as it's proving to be brilliant.

Sounds good. Give us a proper write up when you're done.

[cofe]

Cyclist David Millar's autobiog next...

That's a good read.

Finished Millar's book. Loved it, best biog I've read in ages. Didn't realise just how much the guy had bottomed out. It's a great insight into professional cycling too.

[fatneck]

Just finished the latest Jo Nesbo book Phantom, bloody brilliant. Can highly recommend the rest of his Harry Hole books (The Redbreast, Nemesis, The Devil's Star, The Redeemer, The Snowman and The Leopard) if you like thrilling detective novels with a twist.

Having said that, his best book (IMHO) is Headhunters which I believe has been made into a film and is released in the UK shortly... Great characters, great plot and very unpredictable.

[Johnny Brown]

Read Electric Brae by Andrew Greig about a month back.



There aren't many decent novels based around the climbing scene, the only others I've come across are M John Harrison's Climbers, and Taking Leave by Roger Hubank. Electric Brae is in another league, one of the best novels I've read full stop. Not a hugely happy or heart-warming tale, but a remarkable book that will draw you into it with very real characters set firmly in the scottish landscape, and likely to resonate particularly with any middle-aged male climber...

[andy popp]

Sounds interesting (says middle aged male climber).

Recently finished Hans Fallada's excellent Alone in Berlin; publ.ished in 1847 a thinly fictionalized account of Otto and Elise Hampel, who for three years left anti-Nazi postcards around wartime Berlin. Terrifying, heartbreaking and ultimately supremely humane.

[Oldmanmatt]

Sounds interesting (says middle aged male climber).

Recently finished Hans Fallada's excellent Alone in Berlin; publ.ished in 1847 a thinly fictionalized account of Otto and Elise Hampel, who for three years left anti-Nazi postcards around wartime Berlin. Terrifying, heartbreaking and ultimately supremely humane.

An interesting piece of Prognostication...

[Johnny Brown]

Sounds interesting (says middle aged male climber).

I think you'd like it. Read it twice back to back, then trying to get the wife to read it just so I can discuss it with someone! Powerful stuff...

[andy popp]

Sounds interesting (says middle aged male climber).

Recently finished Hans Fallada's excellent Alone in Berlin; publ.ished in 1847 a thinly fictionalized account of Otto and Elise Hampel, who for three years left anti-Nazi postcards around wartime Berlin. Terrifying, heartbreaking and ultimately supremely humane.

An interesting piece of Prognostication...

OK, yes, 1947 - its Friday

[nik at work]

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.

That sounds properly brilliant, nice one FD have another wad. Shame I don't have a kindle...

I now have a kindle and finally got round to sticking this on it, then read it in two sittings (would have been one were it not for the interference of children). It's fairly simple and easy to read, the rowing version of Jerry's book? But that doesn't stop it being "absolutely gripping". I second FD's recommendation.

[Falling Down]

There's a great YouTube clip on his website of the final.

I've been tucking into Bring Up the Bodies, Hillary Mantel's sequel to Wolf Hall.  It's as good, if not better than I expected.

Also enjoyed Tinker Tailor which was a challenge to read, very dense prose.

Christopher Hitchen's collection of essays 'Arguably' is very entertaining and educational.

Black Cat Bone, a collection of poetry by John Burnside is also great if that kind of thing floats your boat.

[andybfreeman]

Just finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It was highly recommended and did not disappoint! A fantasical tale told from the persepctive of two protaganists using alternating chapters, spread over three sub-books but totally worth the effort. Fantastical but utterly engaging

[andy popp]

Just read some good history, Orlando Figes Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag which tells the story of a couple separated by war and exile for 15 years told via the 1500+ letters they exchanged, mostly secretly. A very moving, simple personal take on Stalin's Russia from a leading historian of the period (warning: I am an historian and borderline obsessed with letters so this book could have been designed to appeal to me)

Before that, having shunned F Scott Fitzgerald for the whole of my life I devoured both The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night in a sinlge week; brilliant writing, incredibly dark. What have been missing all these years.

[Stubbs]

Before that, having shunned F Scott Fitzgerald for the whole of my life I devoured both The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night in a sinlge week; brilliant writing, incredibly dark. What have been missing all these years.

Funnily enough I just finished Great Gatsby last night, not the usual sort of thing I pick up, but I was recommended it by a friend and thoroughly enjoyed it. Like you say incredible writing, great characterisation.  I found some Patrick Bateman in Gatsby and wonder if it was an inspiration.

[andy popp]

It is bleak isn't it?

[Stubbs]

It really is - if it didn't say it was written in the 20's at the front I think it could easily be a thinly veiled story about consumerist lifestyles today!

[andy popp]

It seemed really pessimistic about humans and their capacity for humanity, not what I was expecting at all. Tender is the Night is even more so.

Haven't read American Psycho but can imagine the comparison you're making.

[Fiend]

The Windup Girl - post-oil-crash cyberpunk in a very sweaty Bangkok. Full off relentless cyberpunk-esque names and stylings, but still rather good as the intrigue and confusion builds. Not quite finished but it's getting exciting.

[Johnny Brown]

Seem to remember a few folk bemoaning the escalating second-hand price of Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian a while back. Happily its back in print in the original rainbow hardback with slipcase at under £20 from Amazon. Essential.

This book (and the megalithic European) are absolute joys. I thought I was the only one who bought the originals. Just looking at them on the bookshelf gives me a golden glow.

Juat remembered Cope's accompanying TV programme made it onto youtube a while back, inevitably it ends up studying Julian as much as the stones, but is none the worse for it. Enjoy:

[fried]

Cheers, I'll watch that on the way to work on my ridiculously big new phone.

[Falling Down]

A drink before the war Dennis Lehane's noir novel, the first with the two characters that later feature in Gone Baby Gone. Not great.  Id guessed the twist/reveal in the first chapter so it ruined it for me.

The Hilliker Curse James Ellroy's biographical account of his mothers murder and subsequent relationships with women.  Very disappointing. I'm a big Ellroy fan but this was a real let down.  He's turning into his own caricature.

Once you break a knuckle A collection of short stories by D W Wilson set in a working class Canadian small town.  Very, for want of a better word, masculine in the Thom Jones (The Pugilist at Rest) and Don Bajema (Boy in the air, Reach) style.  What's unsaid speaks volumes.  Really good.

Bring up the Bodies Hillary Mantel's follow up to Wolf Hall charts Thomas Cromwell's increasing influence within the house Tudor against Henry's disintegrating relationship with and the execution of Anne Boleyn.  I don't do historical novels, but this, like Wolf Hall is a masterpiece.  Better than Wolf Hall if that's possible.  No need for me to review as there are plenty out there to read on the web.

Currently reading The Honorable Schoolboy thanks to the recommendations further up the thread and looking forward to M John Harrison's Empty Space being published next week.

[andy popp]

PROUST ALERT!

Finally launched into Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (often described as the English Proust: its incredibly long, full of posh people and nothing happens) and loving it. Don't think its ever going to have the depth of A La etc but its definitely funnier and often brilliant.

[moose]

Count me alerted! Perhaps you should have a special signal for these circumstances; maybe a big floodlight projecting a picture of a madellaine on the sky.

So, a 'new' Proust..... I'm not sure if I have the mental energy or time (I really should reread Lost Time first, to see how all the threads slotted together). Still, cheers for the heads-up, maybe an illness will leave me bed-bound for a few months....

[hongkongstuey]

Just finished The Art of Racing in the Rain, which i quite enjoyed - certainly one for any dog owners out there

Also recently read The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother which i imagine is food for thought for any parents out there

Now looking for something new to get stuck into to kill off time during the daily commute to the office