What are you reading tonight?

jimbo · Post by **jimbo** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:01 pm

'Penguins Stopped Play' for me at the moment. Second time round for me on it. A funny, entertaining story of the guy who created 'Have I Got News For You' and 'They Think It's All Over' and his efforts to start up a casual cricket team. Recommended especially as a holiday read.

Take it that Cormac McCarthy one is worth a look?

Puskas · Post by **Puskas** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:14 pm

jimbo wrote:'Penguins Stopped Play' for me at the moment. Second time round for me on it. A funny, entertaining story of the guy who created 'Have I Got News For You' and 'They Think It's All Over' and his efforts to start up a casual cricket team. Recommended especially as a holiday read.

Take it that Cormac McCarthy one is worth a look?

That's good.

It spawned some imitators, too. I read one called "Batting on the Bosphorus" about a bloke who goes looking for cricket matches round Eastern Europe. Nothing like as good - for a start, he tries too hard to be "wacky". Never a good idea.

I've just started Jose Saramago's "Blindness". Because I've been meaning to read it for ages. And there's a film of it coming out in a few weeks time...

millsie1 · Post by **millsie1** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:33 pm

Dog the bounty hunter. What a great guy.

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:20 pm

Puskas wrote:
jimbo wrote:'Penguins Stopped Play' for me at the moment. Second time round for me on it. A funny, entertaining story of the guy who created 'Have I Got News For You' and 'They Think It's All Over' and his efforts to start up a casual cricket team. Recommended especially as a holiday read.

Take it that Cormac McCarthy one is worth a look?
That's good.

It spawned some imitators, too. I read one called "Batting on the Bosphorus" about a bloke who goes looking for cricket matches round Eastern Europe. Nothing like as good - for a start, he tries too hard to be "wacky". Never a good idea.

I've just started Jose Saramago's "Blindness". Because I've been meaning to read it for ages. And there's a film of it coming out in a few weeks time...

Started more than one saramago. didn't get past page 20. Let me know how it goes.

Puskas · Post by **Puskas** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:39 pm

William the White wrote:
Puskas wrote:
jimbo wrote:'Penguins Stopped Play' for me at the moment. Second time round for me on it. A funny, entertaining story of the guy who created 'Have I Got News For You' and 'They Think It's All Over' and his efforts to start up a casual cricket team. Recommended especially as a holiday read.

Take it that Cormac McCarthy one is worth a look?
That's good.

It spawned some imitators, too. I read one called "Batting on the Bosphorus" about a bloke who goes looking for cricket matches round Eastern Europe. Nothing like as good - for a start, he tries too hard to be "wacky". Never a good idea.

I've just started Jose Saramago's "Blindness". Because I've been meaning to read it for ages. And there's a film of it coming out in a few weeks time...
Started more than one saramago. didn't get past page 20. Let me know how it goes.

Well, I thought Blindness was great. I presume you didn't get far because you didn't like his style? I think the effort it takes is well-worth making.
I read his "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" a couple of years ago. Superb book. Like Blindness, its complete lack of speech-marks is initially highly confusing. Combine this with the narrator throwing in his own thoughts and comments, and it requires a lot of work just to figure out what's happening. Blindness adds to this by not having any characters with names ("The blind do not need names") - it's all "The doctor's wife" or "The first blind man". What makes him worthwhile (other than his great writing...) is his humanity. Adversity is faced. People try to cope, with varying degrees of success.
I'd recommend him. Definitely.

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:41 pm

Dear Sirs,

I have a dilema.

If you're listening to a book being read to you on CD, does it go in here or does it go in the 'What Are You Listening To?' thread?

Anyhow, I'm currently listening to The Ghost by Robert Harris. Written with fantastic attention to detail, I'm still only on CD 1 (of 5) and it's shaping up to be a belter.

hisroyalgingerness · Post by **hisroyalgingerness** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:51 pm

I'd say so Bruce. I often listen to the Doctor Who audio books on't train

But at the mo, I'm on Moonraker

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 3:43 pm

Bruce Rioja wrote:Dear Sirs,

I have a dilema.

If you're listening to a book being read to you on CD, does it go in here or does it go in the 'What Are You Listening To?' thread?

Anyhow, I'm currently listening to The Ghost by Robert Harris. Written with fantastic attention to detail, I'm still only on CD 1 (of 5) and it's shaping up to be a belter.

Not too far back in this thread Bruce, I posted I was reading "The Ghost". I'm a great Harris fan, particularly "Enigma" which I've read twic and seen the film twice also. Let's know what you think of The Ghost.

Lord Kangana · Post by **Lord Kangana** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 12:08 am

Giving "Berlin" by Antony Beevor another go. Better second time round, still not Stalingrad (he made a rod for his own back there

)

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 12:27 am

hisroyalgingerness wrote:I'd say so Bruce. I often listen to the Doctor Who audio books on't train

But at the mo, I'm on Moonraker

Isn't that the kind of thing you do in secret, locked in the toilet, never, ever telling anybody?

Prufrock · Post by **Prufrock** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:05 pm

Just had an epic Amazon session, well pleased with what i got. For 35quid:

The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko

The Outsider - Albert Camus (this and Dorian Gray are two of my fav books I don't own...yet

)

The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx

De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Other Writings - Oscar Wilde

The Road - Cormac MacCarthy

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

Blind Faith - Ben Elton

Neither Here Nor There- Bill Bryson

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

The Picture of Dorian Gray

12 bookies, 35quid, i can't wait for them to arrive.

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:13 pm

Oh, I've got loads of copies of various novels by some Columbian dude. I'm having fun just tearing the pages out as soon as I've read them.

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:18 pm

Bruce Rioja wrote:Oh, I've got loads of copies of various novels by some Columbian dude. I'm having fun just tearing the pages out as soon as I've read them.

as an ironic comment on the transient nature of fame, i presume? brilliant!

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:22 pm

Prufrock wrote:Just had an epic Amazon session, well pleased with what i got. For 35quid:

The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko

The Outsider - Albert Camus (this and Dorian Gray are two of my fav books I don't own...yet )

The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx

De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Other Writings - Oscar Wilde

The Road - Cormac MacCarthy

Thus Spoke Zarathustra - NietzscheThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

Blind Faith - Ben Elton

Neither Here Nor There- Bill Bryson

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

The Picture of Dorian Gray

12 bookies, 35quid, i can't wait for them to arrive.

but for the absence of sartre looks like you raided a little bookshop on the left bank circa 1955. excellent choices...

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:04 pm

Pruf - A Year In The Merde by Stephen Clarke might make rather apt light reading for you just now.

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:31 pm

Pablo Neruda/Selected Poems and Rudyard Kipling Selected Verse are staring accusingly at me over the top of my monitor. How about if I'm honest and say I'm in need of a no-brain dose of fiction right now?

Lord Kangana · Post by **Lord Kangana** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:05 pm

To keep up with my current reading theme, I've borrowed a book called "The Siege" by Helen Dunmore. Its a story about a family during the siege of Leningrad. All 900 days of it.

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:42 pm

TANGODANCER wrote:Pablo Neruda/Selected Poems and Rudyard Kipling Selected Verse are staring accusingly at me over the top of my monitor. How about if I'm honest and say I'm in need of a no-brain dose of fiction right now?

Oh, man, you are in for a treat if you've never read Neruda before... Everyone of these is a gem... But... especially... 'I'm Explaining a Few Things'... Portrait in the Rock... Heights of Machu Picchu... They came fro the Islands... The People... and Tonight i can Write...

One of the most life-affirming poets in the history of humanity...

And, what breaks me up, in part, and inspires hope also, is that his funeral, as he died of cancer as Pinochet staged his coup, became the first demonstration against that cruel and filthy regime... Yes, brain - but all soul as well...

[You may have guessed I teach a course that includes both Neruda's Selected AND 'No One Writes to the Colonel'... ]

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:48 pm

William the White wrote:
TANGODANCER wrote:Pablo Neruda/Selected Poems and Rudyard Kipling Selected Verse are staring accusingly at me over the top of my monitor. How about if I'm honest and say I'm in need of a no-brain dose of fiction right now?
Oh, man, you are in for a treat if you've never read Neruda before... Everyone of these is a gem... But... especially... 'I'm Explaining a Few Things'... Portrait in the Rock... Heights of Machu Picchu... They came fro the Islands... The People... and Tonight i can Write...
One of the most life-affirming poets in the history of humanity...

And, what breaks me up, in part, and inspires hope also, is that his funeral, as he died of cancer as Pinochet staged his coup, became the first demonstration against that cruel and filthy regime... Yes, brain - but all soul as well...

[You may have guessed I teach a course that includes both Neruda's Selected AND 'No One Writes to the Colonel'... ]

Read them all several times and even recorded myself reading "Tonight I can write" in Spanish as an excercise. My teacher was a Chilean and had some first hand experience of the crap that went on. He put me on to Neruda.

William the White · Post by **William the White** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:04 am

TANGODANCER wrote:
William the White wrote:
TANGODANCER wrote:Pablo Neruda/Selected Poems and Rudyard Kipling Selected Verse are staring accusingly at me over the top of my monitor. How about if I'm honest and say I'm in need of a no-brain dose of fiction right now?
Oh, man, you are in for a treat if you've never read Neruda before... Everyone of these is a gem... But... especially... 'I'm Explaining a Few Things'... Portrait in the Rock... Heights of Machu Picchu... They came fro the Islands... The People... and Tonight i can Write...
One of the most life-affirming poets in the history of humanity...

And, what breaks me up, in part, and inspires hope also, is that his funeral, as he died of cancer as Pinochet staged his coup, became the first demonstration against that cruel and filthy regime... Yes, brain - but all soul as well...

[You may have guessed I teach a course that includes both Neruda's Selected AND 'No One Writes to the Colonel'... ]
Read them all several times and even recorded myself reading "Tonight I can write" in Spanish as an excercise. My teacher was a Chilean and had some first hand experience of the crap that went on. He put me on to Neruda.

My first spanish teacher was Chilean also... Do you think we have the same father... i mean, both grew up in Halliwell... played on holy harbour... Read Spanish poets and playwrights... Post on TW... You didn't grow up in an orphanage by any chance, did you? with a special facility for mathematics?

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