Books...

[Davo]

Old Soldiers Never Die by Frank Richards

I read this on the back of listening to a great podcast about WW1 called The Old Front Line where he recommended this book as a memoir of someone who wasn’t an officer like Sassoon or Graves.

It is quite a story and an eye opening insight into what life on the front line was like. The author is on the Western Front from the very beginning of 1914 to Armistice in 1918 and has what can only be described as a charmed existence. Death is all around him, almost all of his friends die and at virtually every turn people are killed right next to him. It very much brings home how random death would actually be in combat.

Possibly a bit niche unless you have an interest in WW1 and it’s not a great work of literature but it really is a great and brutal memoir and I would highly recommend it.

Cheers Dave

 

[creamtime]

Butter Asako Yuzuki; I thought this was an interesting and in my experience unique read. It revolves around a journalist investigating a female serial killer who is in a high security prison after being found guilty of murdering a series of men whom she was dating, immediately after cooking them an elaborate meal. It is perhaps rather over long, and comes across as a little clumsy in some places but overall, I found it pretty enjoyable and worth reading. It occurred to me that the flaws may be in translation, and the Japanese original maybe superior. I have been told in the past that Murakami's novels lose a significant amount in translation and the Japanese is richer, and makes more sense in some of them.

 

[sherlock]

Butter Asako Yuzuki; I thought this was an interesting and in my experience unique read. It revolves around a journalist investigating a female serial killer who is in a high security prison after being found guilty of murdering a series of men whom she was dating, immediately after cooking them an elaborate meal. It is perhaps rather over long, and comes across as a little clumsy in some places but overall, I found it pretty enjoyable and worth reading. It occurred to me that the flaws may be in translation, and the Japanese original maybe superior. I have been told in the past that Murakami's novels lose a significant amount in translation and the Japanese is richer, and makes more sense in some of them.

I read this earlier on recommendation from a friend and thought it was quite wonderful. I struggled with the first couple of chapters until I got used to the similarities between two characters names but then became completely absorbed without really noticing.
So many different layers from the shadow of sexual violence (male and female), familial responsibility, the Japanese middle aged mens obsession with schoolgirls and above all the desperate,crushing loneliness of life in a teeming city.
As a bonus, the descriptions of the food (even as a veggie) had my mouth watering.
My book of the year.

 

[Davo]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a general history of the Russian revolution please?

I have done a bit of googling but wouldn’t minds some advice

Thanks Dave

 

[Wellsy]

There are lots worth reading but I honestly think Trotsky's is definitely worth it. Not because it's the definitive truth but because it really gives you an insight into the Bolsheviks and their decision making. He's also a good writer, and he lays it all out well

Beevor is usually seen as the modern non-academic (i.e it is written for general consumption, he absolutely is an academic) standard

 

[Davo]

Hi Wellsy

Thanks for the recommendations, much appreciated. I shall definitely check out the Antony Beevor book. I really just want a general overview of the period for my own understanding. For some reason it’s a bit of modern history I know very little about

Cheers Dave

 

[T Loughlin]

A standard reader for an undergraduate course would be James White's 'Russian Revolution: A Short History". Quite old now but very functional and concise, with a good balance between depth and breadth.

Orlando Figes' 'A People's Tragedy' is rather more tome-like and covers a broader date range from 1891, looking at the revolution in the context of system collapse in Tsarist Russia. Don't be put off by the size: it's such a compelling and flowing style, it's hard to put down and the pages fly by. I don't think it's been bettered yet.

Simon Sebag Montefiore's 'Young Stalin' is another highly recommended read: it doesn't deal with the revolutions directly, but the focus on the world of conspiracy and subversion in Tsarist Russia and the exploration of Stalin's career up the revolution is riveting.

As Wellsy says, Trotsky's 'Lessons of October' gives a sense of the zeitgeist, as long as you know it was written as part of a literary war with Stalin in the 1920s so isn't without an axe to grind! John Reed's 'Ten Days that Shook the World' is a similarly pro-Bolshevik but very insightful book on the fervour of 1917 from an American communist journalist who witnessed these great events.

For a view from outside of the Petrograd/ Moscow metropole, reading about Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno in Arshinov's 'History of the Makhnovist Movement' or Skirde's 'Anarchy's Cossack' is also interesting, you can probably find copies of these online somewhere.

There are loads more but these should keep you going for while..!

 

[spidermonkey09]

Amusingly, Orlando Figes once got in trouble for leaving negative Amazon reviews on his competitors work and favourable ones on his own. People's Tragedy is very good though!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/23/historian-orlando-figes-amazon-reviews-rivals

 

[creamtime]

Butter Asako Yuzuki; I thought this was an interesting and in my experience unique read. It revolves around a journalist investigating a female serial killer who is in a high security prison after being found guilty of murdering a series of men whom she was dating, immediately after cooking them an elaborate meal. It is perhaps rather over long, and comes across as a little clumsy in some places but overall, I found it pretty enjoyable and worth reading. It occurred to me that the flaws may be in translation, and the Japanese original maybe superior. I have been told in the past that Murakami's novels lose a significant amount in translation and the Japanese is richer, and makes more sense in some of them.

I read this earlier on recommendation from a friend and thought it was quite wonderful. I struggled with the first couple of chapters until I got used to the similarities between two characters names but then became completely absorbed without really noticing.
So many different layers from the shadow of sexual violence (male and female), familial responsibility, the Japanese middle aged mens obsession with schoolgirls and above all the desperate,crushing loneliness of life in a teeming city.
As a bonus, the descriptions of the food (even as a veggie) had my mouth watering.
My book of the year.

Also Waterstone's book of the year, incidentally. I found your impression of the food descriptions interesting; there's no doubt most, or all of it sounds delicious, but (I found) with a strong undercurrent of nauseous-ness. I thought one of the most striking features of the writing was that it is attractive and repellent on equal measure.

 

[sherlock]

I was probably even hungrier than usual when reading the food descriptions!
One that really stood out was the turkey stuffed with sticky rice preparation which literally had me drooling.
Certainly agree with the juxtaposition of attraction/repulsion being a major strength in her writing.

 

[Will Hunt]

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.
This was extraordinary. It is many things. An electric romance, the most brutal documentary of the dehumanising effects of war and nationalism, a tragedy within a tragedy within a tragedy. If he hasn't read it already it is probably the ultimate book for spidermonkey09. The story is of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian army colonel and surgeon - the commanding officer of a group of POWs sentenced to work on the Burmese railway. Harrowing, yet so well-written, and with such complex and intriguing characters that it makes for compulsive reading.

James is also very very good.

 

[creamtime]

The Romantic by William Boyd.
I was initially unconvinced by this, and didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I have most of the other books he's written; but having just finished it, I've completely changed my mind: I think it's a great novel and every bit as good as anything else Boyd has done. I found it involving and ultimately moving, I liked the inclusion of historical characters like Byron and Shelley, and the book being written as a history despite being fictional.

 

[Will Hunt]

I read this earlier this year and enjoyed it, but came to it too soon after Any Human Heart which was ploughing a similar furrow.

 

[thunderbeest]

Is there any book about Nostradamus?

 

[Wellsy]

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.
This was extraordinary. It is many things. An electric romance, the most brutal documentary of the dehumanising effects of war and nationalism, a tragedy within a tragedy within a tragedy. If he hasn't read it already it is probably the ultimate book for spidermonkey09. The story is of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian army colonel and surgeon - the commanding officer of a group of POWs sentenced to work on the Burmese railway. Harrowing, yet so well-written, and with such complex and intriguing characters that it makes for compulsive reading.

James is also very very good.

Put this on my Christmas lift

 

[Alan]

Is there any book about Nostradamus?

Nostradamus, The Man Behind the Prophecies was good but I haven't read it in 15+ years.

 

[lagerstarfish]

Is there any book about Nostradamus?

BBC News at Six - although, this is just a summary of his output

 

[Davo]

Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillan

Read this on the back of a recommendation from here. Really interesting, well written and thought provoking account of a pivotal period in history. I think you would need a basic interest and knowledge of the period to enjoy it, so possibly a bit niche. Despite its length and density of text I found it very easy to read and she brings all of the key people involved (Lloyd George, Wilson and Clemenceau) to life. Despite knowing the bare bones of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations I learnt a lot more and she does give her opinions which I enjoyed and she summarizes very well how much hung in the balance, the possibilities and also the limitations that the peacemakers faced.
Would highly recommend this one
Dave

 

[Wellsy]

Anyone seen this Neil Gaiman stuff? He's one of my favourite authors but Jesus I don't know that I'd ever be able to look at his stuff ever again now

 

[seankenny]

One of my favourite authors is VS Naipaul, and my favourite Naipaul work is his 1961 masterpiece A House for Mr Biswas. Set in Naipaul's homeland of Trinidad, the novel encompases the whole of Mohan Biswas' life, from his inauspicious birth to a poor rural family, descended from indentured labourers, to his eventual life as a newspaper reporter in Port of Spain. Mr Biswas accidentally marries into the appalling Tulsi family; on my first attempt at the novel I found this section unbelievable - people do not get married accidentally, right? But a few years later, and with more experience of South Asian families, I saw it as the true, funny and tragic piece of writing that it is. This for me is part of Naipul's genius. He takes the form of the 19th century novel, written in English, published in Britain, and focusses it on people who, in my view, were not quite fully real to most British people previously. It's a radical act of empathy.

But Naipual was a monster. He treated his wife Pat appallingly, but he treated his mistress Margaret even worse. Naipaul told his biographer:
“I was very violent with her for two days with my hand; my hand began to hurt. . . . She didn’t mind it at all. She thought of it in terms of my passion for her. Her face was bad. She couldn’t appear really in public. My hand was swollen. I was utterly helpless. I have enormous sympathy for people who do strange things out of passion.” He practically destroyed Pat, and then when she died, he abandoned Margaret and married a third woman.

Does the second paragraph invalidate the first? Not for me, no. Does the fact that Sir Vidia spent a quarter of a century abusing his wife and mistress alter how I feel about the story of Mr Biswas? I mean, it just doesn't. I know Naipual was a brute, a bully, a man who betrayed his friends, who held racist views, who was abhorent. But I also know he wrote books that are beautiful and important. That's just how things are sometimes.