[Oldmanmatt]

Frankenstein
Absolute classic, well worth reading if you think you know the story but haven't read it. Very, very dark; I imagined it as readable as a dystopian nightmare of artificial intelligence.  The alpine landscapes are described beautifully. 

Frankenstein is an amazing book, and as you say we all think we know the story but we really don't. That she wrote it so young is something else. Has anyone read her novel The Last Man? I've never managed to find a copy.

It’s available on iBooks at 99p.

Unfortunately, like Frankenstein, it’s been on my “to read” list for too long.
I seem to keep getting hooked into one series after another.
Currently it Stephen Baxter’s Xelee arc, but I’ve been reading his stuff for months; after stumbling into the “Long Earth” collaboration he did with Pratchet. The Proxima series is excellent too.

[TobyD]

Frankenstein
Absolute classic, well worth reading if you think you know the story but haven't read it. Very, very dark; I imagined it as readable as a dystopian nightmare of artificial intelligence.  The alpine landscapes are described beautifully. 

Frankenstein is an amazing book, and as you say we all think we know the story but we really don't. That she wrote it so young is something else. Has anyone read her novel The Last Man? I've never managed to find a copy.

Perhaps not the best one at the moment as the last man involves a plague starting in warmer countries brought to Europe and everyone dies, against a backdrop of climate change breakdown.
Listened to a great podcast about Mary Shelley today. Her first date with PB Shelley was in her mother's graveyard. They had loads of children, all but one of whom died of malaria. After PB Shelley died, she kept his heart wrapped in a scarf in her desk drawer! I had thought Frankenstein was dark, but it's a flipping laugh a minute compared to her life.

[Muenchener]

I already mentioned my son is, or would be, starting French at school. We've now settled on a couple of volumes of Asterix in the original to get him started instead of La Peste.

[AndyR]

Just read Submission by Michel Houellebecq - thought it was good and entertainingly provocative - though I do like his writing style.

[Hoseyb]

 Been mainly troughing comics lately, but a few authors that stand out as I cast a glance at the ramshackle avalanche hazard that is my bookcase are:
Jasper Fforde - Pratchett is scope but still alive.
Harry Harrison - the stainless Steel rat series is from the late 60's but is still fresh and funny.
Leslie Charteris - collected the Saint series as a younger man, Those familiar with these books may have a larger window into my Psyche than I'd like..

[Falling Down]

Why we are living in J G Ballard’s world.

https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/04/why-we-are-living-jg-ballard-s-world

[TobyD]

Why we are living in J G Ballard’s world.

https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/04/why-we-are-living-jg-ballard-s-world

Yeah I read that. I love Ballard, but f*ck reading him at the moment, the drowned world or high rise would be way too close to the bone.

[Johnny Brown]

Millstone Grit - Glyn Hughes. This just might be the ur-text of modern Pennine psycho-geography. Name-checked by Benjamin Myers in Under The Rock, it's out of print but second hand copies are buttons. A really wonderful little book, a series of autobiographical vignettes arranged as a long walk with long profiles of aging neighbours and acquaintances, and passing the Moz test with flying colours as he trips through and across the moor-edge towns of Cheshire, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire. First published in 1975, it spans a critical era of change from the last mill-workers and family farmers to the modern dormitories for commuters.


The Black Swan and Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Read TBS a year or two back (bored in airport WHS obvs), picked up AF before xmas - was about halfway through when things kicked off and it suddenly became VERY relevant (I tend to read these sort of books in fits and starts). I'm sure many of you will already have read some but with his increasing prominence this might be useful to those who haven't.

He is a difficult character. I nearly gave up on TBS because of his huge bullying ego thrusting out from the pages, then slowly warmed up to him before going off him again by the end of AF. His background is in banking, current title is Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. Personality aside, the insights into systemic risk and risk management are profound, of very wide relevance and essential reading right now. In short, randomness is good in the short term but hides the catastrophic which in the long term is actually inevitable. Companies ultimately go bust, species ultimately go extinct.

The books lurch between excellent explanation and technical jargon, some of which - heuristic, stochastic, ergodic, fat-tailed - have wider usage, but others - convexity, skin-in-the-game, fragility etc - seem to be mostly from himself or are niche trading terms. It's rare to get through a sentence let alone a paragraph without these being thrown about, and he seems unable to talk in any other terms even in interview or when insulting people on twitter. This means it is probably wise to read TBS first even of AF is potentially more relevant right now.

The fund he advises is up something like 6000% right now, but he is not afraid to take his banking successes and apply them from everything to weightlifting to cooking. The books would benefit from editing but he thinks he is above them. But he is persistently right and has been one of the most insightful and prescient critics of the current crisis response - not just explaining what is wrong but also why. And it is not complicated, mostly acknowledging limitations - of statisticians, modelling, different fields of expertise, the economy vs society etc.

[Johnny Brown]

Decent brief intro to Taleb:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system

[cowboyhat]

too lazy to back read through pages of the thread:

What is 'the Moz test'?



google says its some SEO software tool jargon

[SA Chris]

Short Eared Owl?

[Johnny Brown]

What is 'the Moz test'?

My own invention - 'Says nothing to me about my life'

[cowboyhat]

i like it

but i'm not sure everything has to be relatable.

[andy popp]

I like to read about characters whose lives bear no resemblance to mine. Jesmyn Ward's novels say nothing to me about my life, but they're some of the best contemporary fiction I've read.

Where does the Moz come from, Morrissey?

[cowboyhat]

Yes, hang the dj etc

[andy popp]

Yes, hang the dj etc

Right! I try to think about Morrissey as little as possible.

[Johnny Brown]

Yeah, I suspect I'd enjoy fiction more if I was into fantasy and escapism, but I'm just not. I've stopped watching tv entirely because there seems to be little else. I suppose I'm more interested in digging into to my immediate reality which seems rich enough and far from over exposures in a literary sense. But I do keep thinking I should try harder with fiction.

[spidermonkey09]

Some people might find interested in Who Owns England?. Finished it the other day. Lots of research gone into it clearly and some amazing facts in there. Slips into polemic occasionally but on the whole it's a well reasoned argument. If you have particularly strong beliefs on the sanctity of private property (unlikely on the climbing forum) you might struggle but everyone else should find something to like. In paperback now too.

[Falling Down]

JB that Glyn Hughes book sounds ace.  I see his wife has lots of his books for sale directly for next to nothing so I might buy one.

I've been finding it difficult to find the time and concentration to read over the last couple of weeks.  At the end of each day I'm frazzled with work and seem to fall asleep instantly, then waking up still tired.  It was nice yesterday afternoon and I found some quiet time to read a small book of short stories Alan Warner and Brian Hammill called 'Good Listeners', their first publication from The Common Breath project.  Based in Scotland and really good and well, y'know, short.

I've joined a fortnightly online class on Nature Writing which is fun. Perhaps I'll one day find a place in that 3 for 2 bin that JB referred to earlier 

[Johnny Brown]

Given that most of the genre seems to consist of London based writer moves to the country and discovers nature, Person with actual outdoor experience moves to London could potentially be a hot new take!

You'll love Millstone Grit I'm sure. Great interview with him here: http://paulkingsnorth.net/2011/05/24/the-salmon-god/

[andy popp]

Given that most of the genre seems to consist of London based writer moves to the country and discovers nature, Person with actual outdoor experience moves to London could potentially be a hot new take!

I hadn't thought of that angle, but would love to hear about you end up writing Ben.

I've been pretty bad at focusing on work, I have lots of writing plans but have few of them at all, but have been reading a ton. I'm deep into Use Johnson's Anniversaries but still have a very long way to go. Will report more later.

[Nutty]

Given that most of the genre seems to consist of London based writer moves to the country and discovers nature, Person with actual outdoor experience moves to London could potentially be a hot new take!

Having moved from the Midlands to London for work (and now out of London again) my greatest nature hits from the capital were/are:

• The number of herons and wildfowl in Regent's Park
• Seeing bitterns at the wetland centre which was only a tube and a bus away
• The flocks of parakeets in Ealing and Hampstead Heath
• Grey wagtails around the water feature in our local park in Ealing
• The variety of wildfowl I could see on my commute by walking along the canal round little venice in winter including pochard and red-crested pochard
• The number of red kites you see over the M40 when driving out of London/back

[Cornish]

Some people might find interested in Who Owns England?. Finished it the other day. Lots of research gone into it clearly and some amazing facts in there. Slips into polemic occasionally but on the whole it's a well reasoned argument. If you have particularly strong beliefs on the sanctity of private property (unlikely on the climbing forum) you might struggle but everyone else should find something to like. In paperback now too.

The Plunder of the Commons compliments Who Owns England really well, more about who owns what and why they maybe shouldn't.. all that jazz

On a different note, Hurricane Season turned out to be a wild read, dark as hell. Written to express the mad social corrosion that exists in Mexico, with language and style suited to the subject. 

[Falling Down]

@JB Thanks for the interview link. I'll have a read of that later.  You're not the first to suggest that take.  I was on a Twitter thread a couple of years ago with a few relatively well known writers who were lamenting and to some degree self-flagellating the 'Londoner moves out to the country' genre when I piped up that I'd done the opposite and I got several replies saying 'I'd definitely read that' so maybe there is some mileage in exploring that theme.  As Nutty says there are more wild-spaces here than people would expect and my backyard permaculture project is proving to be a fascinating interior journey as much as the planting and gardening.

@Andy Thanks. I will do.  Lots of poetry over the last two or three years.  I have a very loud inner-critic that tells me everything is shit but I'm getting it under control.

@Cornish and Spidermonkey - Great suggestions. I'll shall explore.

[Johnny Brown]

Great! For content I suggest you might find an unexpected analogue of the power of the sea in surfing a sewer outflow - you could include a quick historical tangent on Sufers against Sewage, and the insidious ubiqiuity of e-coli and micro-plastics, before clipping on your chalk bag to trace the act of bouldering on that granite block in Shoreditch back through the situationists' derives, via an aside on parkour, to Paris '68. I started this post taking the piss but I want to read it now, it's practically writing itself!