What book(s) are you reading at the moment?

[Professor Willow]

The Screwfix catalogue.

[limey123]

^ lol

[Orwell20]

Two books I am looking forward to this year - Hilary Mantell’s final volume of her Tudor trilogy and, in September, a new novel by Martin Amis. Apparently, Amis reckons it is his best work. It also has characters based on his friends, like Christopher Hitchens and Philip Larkin. Interesting.

[ghost.of.an.englishman]

^ I'm very much looking forward to the final volume in Hilary Mantell's trilogy too.

I can't imagine much worse than a fictionalised treatment of Amis and his mates however

Just started Witches: The History of a Persecution

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by ghost.of.an.englishman

^ I'm very much looking forward to the final volume in Hilary Mantell's trilogy too.

on[/I]

Just read the first reviews. They are incredibly positive - glowing, in fact.

[Moksha]

I am re-reading Aldous Huxley’s novels. Forgotten how brilliant and fascinating he is.

[Orwell20]

Has anyone started Hilary Mantel’s new book yet?

[Dougella]

"How Not To Be A Boy" by Robert Webb (from Mitchel and Webb) such a good book about his life.

[Kipper]

' Glam Rock And It's Legacy' by Simon Reynolds. A massive tome, but in the main an interesting history.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Jimmy77

Has anyone started Hilary Mantel’s new book yet?

Yeah, just bought it. And I even went into town to get it (didn’t order it on Amazon - I don’t want real bookshops to go out of business).

[Appear]

After a bit of a literary dry spell I started this last night:



I'd forgotten how much I like his punchy writing style. Just what I needed to get back in the saddle.

[kirbycrackle]

Tales of ordinary madness - Charles bukowski

The title seemed fitting...

[Mike.Kzov]

^ plodding my way through this. Her Cromwell's a canny bleeder.

[Mike.Kzov]

^ boo, read the Mantel trilogy instead

[Mike.Kzov]

^ If you're into Tudor based historical fiction I'd think you'd really like it, she's an amazing writer.

[Moksha]

^^ Sansom vs Mantell. It divides the room (assuming the room contains fans of Tudor-based fiction).

My mother is obsessed with Sansom. She is even saving the last book because she can’t bear to finish it (apprently, he is seriously ill and it will probably be his last). Mantell is the better writer imho - Sansom is a good storyteller, but Mantell is an artist.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Fungus

I will have to read Mantel now. I think the shardlake books are some of the best historical fiction I have read so would love to compare. I did not know he was ill and have just read up on his illness. Its a great shame. He must have had plans for shardlake to go on and serve Elizabeth when she eventually become queen.
.

Very sad. He seems a nice man as well. Apparently, he was viciously bullied at school and never really got over it. That is probably why his central character, Shardlake, stands up for the bullied and downtrodden.

[twosocks]

Finished the lottery by shirley jackson. It's literally only a couple of pages, would recommend. The destructors by graham greene is something i'll be reading within the next week, i'll admit it's due to the donnie darko reference. I'm not someone that wants to watch the world burn, but the whole destruction is a form of creation thing i'd like to read more about it. I've stopped reading cthulhu in case it invokes more plight on the planet. I'm finding short stories helpful, before wifi and smartphones i could sit down and read for hours, all day sometimes, it was how i spent a lot of my time but now i struggle to immerse myself in it without distraction. Hopefully reading multiple short stories will get my noggin from being less like doug from up.

[twosocks]

I've received graham greene 21 stories delivered by post today. Only 81p from abe books. They are cheap but do charge for postage

[A Whimsical Stranger]

I'm on a Pratchett binge atm, currently on Wyrd Sisters.

[twosocks]

^Oook

[kirbycrackle]

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic age by Peter green.

[twosocks]

I'm reading 3 books at the moment.
Dbt workbook a couple of chapters a week and going back over relevant sections i might want to take another look at.

The first of fearne cottons trilogy "happy" first thing in the morning.

I flick through cleo wades heart talks before i go to sleep.

Books, podcasts and a meditation app have given me a lot of comfort during this time. Has helped me reduce my screen time and get out of autopilot.
I'm not very new age but i do find self care important and these things contribute to that.

[Moksha]

C. S. Lewis: The Discarded Image and Perelandra. He wrote a really good sci fi trilogy, mostly forgotten now, sadly.

I'm also on an Anthony Burgess binge. I just love the way that man writes. He really has fun with language.

Next up, H G Wells War of the Worlds and then some non-fiction. I am trying to alternate between fiction and non-fiction atm. I might try some Dawkins, or maybe one of Carlo Rovelli's books. I'm also obsessed with Stephen Fry's audiobook recording of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Tonight, I might take a couple of codeine, to give me that nice, woozy feeling, then climb in a hot bath and listen to him reading. We ought to lock him in a room and order him to record all the classics onto CD. The only reader who can match him is Simon Callow.

[Kipper]

Reading ' At Last A Life And Beyond'', newish book by Paul David on coping with anxiety.

[Mike.Kzov]

^^ What Burgess have you been reading? I've only read A Clockwork Orange.

I'm finally reaching the end of The Mirror and the Light, I'm at around page 700. There's definitely a feeling of things about to kick off, and Cromwell's many enemies coalescing...

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Mike.Kzov

^^ What Burgess have you been reading? I've only read A Clockwork Orange.

I'm finally reaching the end of The Mirror and the Light, I'm at around page 700. There's definitely a feeling of things about to kick off, and Cromwell's many enemies coalescing...

Just ordered Nothing Like the Sun and am also reading the second Enderby. Burgess is an acquired taste, and can be hard going in places, mainly because plot and character are secondary concerns to him. Above all, he is obsessed with language. Hardly surprising that Joyce was his favourite author.

What do you think of The Mirror and the Light? I dipped into it a few weeks ago. Mantel writes like an angel - she really is an artist.

[Mike.Kzov]

^ Burgess was one of Joyce and Ulysses' great champions, I believe? Yes, that's true, and apparently Burgess wrote various translations, gave lectures on language.

I think it’s terrific, fingers crossed it’ll bag her the Booker prize hattrick. She certainly does, she’s a wonderful writer. There are so many passages of such grace and beauty in Mirror, she’s got an incredible facility with the English language.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Mike.Kzov

^ Burgess was one of Joyce and Ulysses' great champions, I believe? Yes, that's true, and apparently Burgess wrote various translations, gave lectures on language.

I think it’s terrific, fingers crossed it’ll bag her the Booker prize hattrick. She certainly does, she’s a wonderful writer. There are so many passages of such grace and beauty in Mirror, she’s got an incredible facility with the English language.

I have slogged my way through Ulysses and, though I found certain passages beautiful, I can’t see what the fuss is about. Of course, that says more about my limitations as a reader. Far more intelligent people than me hail it as a masterpiece (including Burgess, who described its language as "a miracle").

You can see the influence of Joyce everywhere in Burgess’s writing. Often, he literally re-writes scenes - and, to me, improves them. I get from Burgess what other people seem to get from Ulysses - an explosion of beautiful, strange, inventive language. No one else writes like him. The only novelist I can think of who has such fun with language is P G Wodehouse.

Maybe that's why I didn't get him to start with. I tried the first of the Enderby novels but couldn't understand what was going on. Nothing is made clear. When you read a novel by, say, Orwell or Dickens or Hemingway, you know where you are. The plot, characters, etc, are clearly set out. That's not the case with Burgess. For him, it's all about language.

[Orwell20]

J G Ballard's autobiography. It's interesting stuff. I have always been curious about Ballard and plan to read some of his novels and short stories. For those who don't know, his parents were British and his father ran a company based in China. When the Japanese invaded, in the 1930s, they were imprisoned, along with other Western civilians. At one point, he writes that the war showed him the reality of life, that what we take to be reality is just "stage scenery" that can be dismantled at any moment. But the most shocking moment is when he wanders into the Chinese countryside and stumbles on a group of Japanese soldiers casually torturing a Chinese civilian to death - horrible.