What are you reading at the moment?

[BlueJazzer]

After a couple of books being suggested in the KFCgate and Pacific threads I thought I'd try this one. Dunno if it's been done recently?

 

I'm on When Giants Walked The Earth at the moment. Nothing to do with Gregans ass, it's a Led Zep biography, and quite an eye opener! How they didn't end up in jail or dead (apart from Bonzo of course, may he rest in peace, although if there is an afterlife I doubt he would be doing anything quietly), is a miracle.

 

 

[jsslatic]

I just finished Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, his debut novel. About a senior State security guy in the USSR in the early 1950s who, forced into exile, discovers the existence of a serial killer that Moscow refuse to acknowledge exists in a perfect communist society. He therefore goes about trying to find out who the killer is and track him down, whilst of course Moscow does everything in its power to stop him.

 

Good book, nice twist...will be reading the follow-up to it shortly.

[Zorrro]

Jurassic Park.

[Ackey]

I don't read much fiction... I always recommend anything and everything by Hunter S Thompson. Anything else is a bonus.

[Roger Ritchie]

I just finished Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, his debut novel. About a senior State security guy in the USSR in the early 1950s who, forced into exile, discovers the existence of a serial killer that Moscow refuse to acknowledge exists in a perfect communist society. He therefore goes about trying to find out who the killer is and track him down, whilst of course Moscow does everything in its power to stop him.

 

Good book, nice twist...will be reading the follow-up to it shortly.

 

 

I'm well into reading at the moment currently working my way through a list of 50 books every man should read apparently.

 

Child 44 was on that list and I loved it. When is the follow up due?

 

I've just finished Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham which is about a family and how they grow up over the generations, was a really good read. With nothing and everything happening at the same time.

 

Currently reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

[jsslatic]

I'm well into reading at the moment currently working my way through a list of 50 books every man should read apparently.

 

Child 44 was on that list and I loved it. When is the follow up due?

 

Already out - The Secret Speech

 

Not the best reviews though from customers. Largely either poor or disappointing in the wake of Child 44. Will probably give it a read anyway, with books or films I generally prefer to make my own mind up.

[Roger Ritchie]

Already out - The Secret Speech

 

Not the best reviews though from customers. Largely either poor or disappointing in the wake of Child 44. Will probably give it a read anyway, with books or films I generally prefer to make my own mind up.

 

 

If it is half as good as Child 44 it will be better than most of the tat about. I'll give it a go when I've got through my list.

[Matt]

I don't read much fiction... I always recommend anything and everything by Hunter S Thompson. Anything else is a bonus.

Nor do I, however my current interest in the Spanish Civil War has led me to borrow a couple of my Dad's Ernest Hemmingway books - he says they're quite violent, I'm gearing myself up to start For Whom The Bell Tolls.

[Roger Ritchie]

Nor do I, however my current interest in the Spanish Civil War has led me to borrow a couple of my Dad's Ernest Hemmingway books - he says they're quite violent, I'm gearing myself up to start For Whom The Bell Tolls.

 

 

I'm off to Hemmingway House and El Floridita in a month.

[martjs]

Nor do I, however my current interest in the Spanish Civil War has led me to borrow a couple of my Dad's Ernest Hemmingway books - he says they're quite violent, I'm gearing myself up to start For Whom The Bell Tolls.

 

I read a couple of Hemingway's books when we lived in France. They had a few at the local library. A Farewell To Arms was good.

 

Back to the OP, started to read Bright-Sided http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsided.htm

(How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America) by Barabara Ehrenreich but I have such a short attention span it's rare I finis....

 

 

 

 

[BlueJazzer]

Do u have a link to the list of the top 50?

[leeslover]

Euroby. I like to get all my collection and arrange them in a crescent open at my favourite page, then kneel down and go to town

Fair enough. I am reading a Bill Bryson one about him walking the Appalation Trail, can't remember the title but it's interesting enough to pass some time on the throne.

[Ackey]

Fair enough. I am reading a Bill Bryson one about him walking the Appalation Trail, can't remember the title but it's interesting enough to pass some time on the throne.

Great read that one. I just finished 'notes from a big country' and I'm going to Oxfam tomorrow in search of more Bryson books... I'm sure there's some I've not read yet.

[leeslover]

Great read that one. I just finished 'notes from a big country' and I'm going to Oxfam tomorrow in search of more Bryson books... I'm sure there's some I've not read yet.

Read that one a while back. Second hand books are definitely the way forward, I got back into reading loads when I moved to Balham and there was a bookshop outside the station, loads of 50p ones piled up outside and always something that took my fancy but that I never would have gone out of my way to get.

[Ackey]

Read that one a while back. Second hand books are definitely the way forward, I got back into reading loads when I moved to Balham and there was a bookshop outside the station, loads of 50p ones piled up outside and always something that took my fancy but that I never would have gone out of my way to get.

I got into second hand books when backpacking in a similar way. There was always a 'leave a book take a book' system at the hostels so you'd end up with books simply because they were the only other one in English. Read things I'd never have otherwise considered (including a Jeremy Clarkson book... there's always a downside!!)

[beag_teeets]

The Clarkson book reminds me of the worst book I have ever read - Jim Bowen's second autobiography. We were on holiday and there was a similar scheme where people had left books, I had finished everything I had taken with me and there were a few days left so I raided the left books. Jim's book "Right Place, Right Time" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jim-Bowen-Right-Pl...498&sr=8-10

 

I think I got through about 4 pages before losing the will to use my eyes again. He repeats the phrase "Right place, right time" about a million times in those first few pages alone, I just couldn't take it anymore. This was his second, repeat, second autobiography, his first must have been up there with the Bible in terms of sales to get his publisher to call him and say "We need more of the same Jim, can you get the manuscript here by Friday?"

[Roger Ritchie]

Fair enough. I am reading a Bill Bryson one about him walking the Appalation Trail, can't remember the title but it's interesting enough to pass some time on the throne.

 

Us purists prefer to call it Euroboy rather than using the text speaks Euroby which is commonly touted by the new breed of inexperienced inspectors of classic male literature.

[Roger Ritchie]

Do u have a link to the list of the top 50?

 

No but I have it written down. I'll type it up and post it on here. Might as well do something constructive whilst I'm getting paid.

 

You will probably have read a few of them before as they are fairly mainstream.

 

[Roger Ritchie]

1. American Psycho – Brett Easton Ellis

 

2. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan

 

3. Atomised – Michael Houellebecq

 

4. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

 

5. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

 

6. Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney

 

7. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene

 

8. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

 

9. Child 44 – Tom Rob Smith

 

10. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

 

11. A confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

 

12. The Damned United – David Peace

 

13. The Dice Man – Luke Rhinehart

 

14. Different Seasons – Stephen King

 

15. Everything Is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer

 

16. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemmingway

 

17. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk

 

18. Flesh and Blood – Michael Cunningham

 

19. Generation X – Douglas Coupland

 

20. God’s Own Country – Ross Raisin

 

21. The Gone Away World – Nick Harkaway

 

22. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon

 

23. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

 

24. A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

 

25. A Hero Of Our Time – Mikhail Lermontov

 

26. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

 

27. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

 

28. Kill Your Friends – John Niven

 

29. London Fields – Martin Amis

 

30. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy – JRR Tolkien

 

31. The Magus – John Fowles

 

32. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

 

33. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville

 

34. Number9Dream – David Mitchell

 

35. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

 

36. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

 

37. One Hundred Years Of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia

 

38. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth

 

39. The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli

 

40. The Rum Diary – Hunter S Thompson

 

41. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut

 

42. The Stranger – Albert Camus

 

43. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh

 

44. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera

 

45. Underworld – Don DeLillo

 

46. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

 

47. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami

 

48. The Winter Of Frankie Machine – Don Winslow

 

49. Women – Charles Bukowski

 

50. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon

 

[Ackey]

40. The Rum Diary – Hunter S Thompson

Great Book

 

Very, very dark though.

[BlueJazzer]

How can u not like Clarksons books?! If u ignore his opinions they're damn funny!

 

From the list, clockwork orange is great, tho I think I read the first 5 or 6 pages about 5 or 6 times before I could get my head round it!

Wasp factory and fight club both good reads too. Fight club only takes about an hour to get through.

[Zorrro]

I haven't read a single one of those books

[Matt]

I've read about 20 of those books. Ken Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest is standout. As is High Fidelity and Stephen Kings' Different Seasons - however I preferred his short story books like Skeleton Crew, and Night Shift than his novels. He could ramble a bit. I'll get around to Hemingway's A Call To Arms soon, I'm about 50 pages into For Whom The Bell Tolls now...

[rudemedic]

I've read 10 and some are considerably better than others (I didn't get the popularity of "on the road" for instance). The book I'm currently reading is called "Mind the Gap" and its about the class divide in Britain but I'll probably switch to one of the latest James Patterson over the weekend.

[Roger Ritchie]

Great Book

 

Very, very dark though.

 

I loved it, my favourite of HST's books I've read. Although all i could think of when I was reading it was: how fit must Chenault be.

 

It is being/has been made into a film set for release late September with Johnny Depp as the main man again. But you probably were already aware of that.

 

 

I've read 10 and some are considerably better than others (I didn't get the popularity of "on the road" for instance). The book I'm currently reading is called "Mind the Gap" and its about the class divide in Britain but I'll probably switch to one of the latest James Patterson over the weekend.

 

I found the Road pretty boring too. It is one of those cult classics that went best seller and everyone rams down your throat. That and the Wasp factory were the two that have disappointed me most so far. Moby Dick was pretty tough going too.