what book you reading at the moment? (incl poll)

[Carmona]

Making my way through Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Not usually a massive fan of historical fiction but this is good tbf.

Follows Thomas Cromwell through the Cardinal Wolsey/King Henry VIII times.

I love when you read about that time and you come to a line like, "They left London and headed to Putney" and you're like, Whaddya mean, Putney is IN London! Then there's the plague of 1527/8/9.... Central character loses wife and two daughters. Just like that. Very well written. I believe it won her the Booker or something.

EDIT: Fuck, just realised it's part of a trilogy.

 

[markyboy]

Making my way through Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Not usually a massive fan of historical fiction but this is good tbf.

Follows Thomas Cromwell through the Cardinal Wolsey/King Henry VIII times.

I love when you read about that time and you come to a line like, "They left London and headed to Putney" and you're like, Whaddya mean, Putney is IN London! Then there's the plague of 1527/8/9.... Central character loses wife and two daughters. Just like that. Very well written. I believe it won her the Booker or something.

EDIT: Fuck, just realised it's part of a trilogy.

And a long trilogy at that. Well worth the read. There’s a BBC version with Mark Rylance that’s brilliant as well. It’s a combination of Wolf Hall and Bringing up the bodies

 

[Carmona]

And a long trilogy at that. Well worth the read. There’s a BBC version with Mark Rylance that’s brilliant as well. It’s a combination of Wolf Hall and Bringing up the bodies

Tis a long 'un, Marky. Might read the second one on me hols.

 

[jeepers]

And a long trilogy at that. Well worth the read. There’s a BBC version with Mark Rylance that’s brilliant as well. It’s a combination of Wolf Hall and Bringing up the bodies

Fuck, he's unreal in it. The very definition of an understated performance. I haven't read the third one yet. There fierce long and I don't have the stickatitability these days. Like, I read War and Peace when I was 19, just for the enjoyment. I struggle to get through a tweet now.

 

[nr637]

I'm reading the Fatherland by Robert Harris in paperback.

I was recently given a present of a kindle with The Last Nazi
by Andrew Turpin as a starter download, I have resisted but have also started to use and read this book.

 

[BlackpoolTerrier]

Making my way through Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Not usually a massive fan of historical fiction but this is good tbf.

Follows Thomas Cromwell through the Cardinal Wolsey/King Henry VIII times.

I love when you read about that time and you come to a line like, "They left London and headed to Putney" and you're like, Whaddya mean, Putney is IN London! Then there's the plague of 1527/8/9.... Central character loses wife and two daughters. Just like that. Very well written. I believe it won her the Booker or something.

EDIT: Fuck, just realised it's part of a trilogy.

Yeah C., it's decent lightweight historical fiction - entertaining, engaging prose, characters well developed (albeit a touch one-dimensionally) and you look forward to picking it up again. A decent, Booker-level tome. Enjoy it lad.

I just finished "In the Shadow of my Brother" by Uwe Timm - a short memoir from a dude born in Hamburg in 1940. Relates the story of his brother, 16 years his senior, heading off to join the SS and to his particularly gruesome death on the Eastern front in late 1943. Very good on the subsequent decades-long disintegration of the family and on the collective German handling of the awkward truths and universal guilt post-1945.

Recommended.

Meanwhile, I found Toibin's "The Blackwater Lightship" down in the basement and reread it last night. Jaysus, it's fairly lightweight stuff - I can see now how he ended up with Mills & Boonesque "Brooklyn". Outside of one or two of his earlier publications, I reckon "The Master" stands head and shoulders above any of his other stuff.

I sometimes wonder if Joyce, Beckett, Wilde, Heaney, Flann O'Brien. Bowen, Yeats etc. etc. had not been Irish, would there ever have been a market at all for lads like Toibin. Being introduced as an "Irish Writer" surely opens a fair few doors in the anglophone world?

 

[Matlock]

"Sing backwards and weep" - Mark Lanegan.

Very well written, and an interesting insight into the 90s grunge scene, but Lanegan is the most petty dour man to ever exist. He seems to think that knowing he is an asshole makes it ok for him to be an asshole, and it really doesn't.

Also, despite his well documented self loathing on the issue, I was left thinking "would it have fucking killed you to answer the phone to Kurt?"

 

[dukeroyale]

getting back into reading, starting with the ones on the shelf that i started but never finished. i could have taken an easier option than “at swim, two birds” by flann o’brien. it’s fairly tough going.

 

[Browser Brody]

"Sing backwards and weep" - Mark Lanegan.

Very well written, and an interesting insight into the 90s grunge scene, but Lanegan is the most petty dour man to ever exist. He seems to think that knowing he is an asshole makes it ok for him to be an asshole, and it really doesn't.

Also, despite his well documented self loathing on the issue, I was left thinking "would it have fucking killed you to answer the phone to Kurt?"

You ever heard the album he did with members of Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains ?

Mad Season -Above.


Possibly my favourite album of all time.....

 

[Browser Brody]

Any other good music books or autobiographies on the go ?

Think the last one i read was “meet me in the bathroom”

About NYC around the turn of the year 2000 and the various bands , good read .

Ryan Adams comes out of it especially poorly , which is good.