What are you reading tonight?

[TANGODANCER]

^^

Excellent stuff Will. Well done.

[EverSoYouri]

You'll be shocked to hear Thornleigh moved on a bit from that. We even did projects on Judaism and Hinduism!

That'll be after it went comprehensive and let girls roam the corridors freely, as if they had a right to be there, I guess.

Hell in a handcart.

Love the definition of "moved on" btw.

Girls roaming the corridor freely? ***perspiration drips from the brow of this ex-Bolton School boy...

[EverSoYouri]

I've taken advantage of that offer a few times Will, but stopped as I wasn't getting through them.
I just ordered Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, only her 3rd novel 22 years after her brilliant debut The Secret History. She had a bit of '2nd album syndrome' with The Little Friend, although it was good it just didn't match up for me. This one has just won the Pullitzer and I'm looking forward to it very much.

Yeah, many critics gobsmacked she didn't even make the Booker longlist... I don't know her work, but will take this as good coin and pursue...

And yes, I find the offer irresistible, but not even ONCE have i managed to read all of them before the next Booker announcement... But, hey, you get six books for the price of two... And pay only in shamefaced guilt for the unread... It's not a totally bad deal, even if your inadequacy as a reader and decent human being is exposed...

I'm sure my unread book list is way down the list of evidence there!
Read The Secret History, long time since I read it but it was a great read. Like a modern day Crime and Punishment.

3/4 way through The Goldfinch . I'm enjoying it, but finding it easy to dip in and out of, rather than gripping. Think a lot of successful American novelists believe they have to write long in order to write good. Slogged through Don Delillo's Underworld last year. Some marvellous sections but, on the whole, ponderous.

[EverSoYouri]

Today I finished reading Victor Serge's Unforgiving Years for the second time.

I first read it five or six years ago on a Portuguese beach and thought it was brilliant.

I underestimated it.

It is a demanding, poetic, fearsome, hallucinatory, gigantic work.

Its story - though narrative is not its method - is of the defection of a Soviet agent in the 1930s and his quest for a place of hiding.

But its real story is of the craziness and horror of 20th century war, the failure of revolution, the victory of tyrannies of right and left, and the struggle to maintain humanity within such madness, violence and social disaster.

There are four lengthy chapters - in Paris, just before the outbreak of war, where the secret agent makes his break. In Leningrad, in 1944, besieged for almost two years, facing starvation with a helpless courage. In Berlin in the last weeks of the war. And in Mexico in 1946, where the relentless pursuit of the agent continues.

Serge had lived in all of these places and only a year after completing this died, in Mexico City. It took 25 years for this book to be published (in French) and was translated into English and published in New York only in 2008.

It is magnificent! Genius.

Other readers views:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/780 ... Years?ac=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

About 1990 I was commissioned by channel 4 to write a TV documentary on Victor Serge. It ended up not getting made (sad, but not uncommon in TV world then). In the course of the research I met the main translator of Victor Serge into English - an American academic living in Connecticut. We got on very well, and we've stayed in touch ever since.

Three days ago I received an email from him - hundreds of pages of Serge's notebooks have been discovered - covering the last years of his life in Mexico - and this academic is translating them. And he's asked me if I would help to edit his translation, to take it from first draft to publication.

My answer was along the lines of 'do Popes shit in the woods?'.

I'm so pleased, thrilled really.

It's worth shitting a Pope to get this chance. (Although the late Baron Bannside might disagree!)

[William the White]

I of course ordered the Booker shortlist from the annual Book People offer of all 6 in hardback for £30.00.

One year I'll read all six before the next one comes out. Managed just four this year. And this excludes the winner, The Luminaries, which weighs in at just over a kilo and is intimidating! (My wife has read it and says it's good)...

The shortlist arrived today. No room for them on the shelves of shame unless I find a new home for all the travel guides (inc four on Barcelona!).

[Prufrock]

Mine arrived the other day ! Not started yet.

[Bruce Rioja]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

[William the White]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

[Bruce Rioja]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

Bruce feeling no hey-look-at-me-aren't-I-erudite compunction whatsoever.

[William the White]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

Bruce feeling no hey-look-at-me-aren't-I-erudite compunction whatsoever.

I acknowledge the justice of the reprimand... And your courage in reading such a tale of woe...

[thebish]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

Bruce feeling no hey-look-at-me-aren't-I-erudite compunction whatsoever.

and quite right too! read whatever the feck you find interesting and enjoyable. Even if it were a "comic novel" - there'd be absolutely nowt wrong and nowt to look down on about that...

[bobo the clown]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

Bruce feeling no hey-look-at-me-aren't-I-erudite compunction whatsoever.

and quite right too! read whatever the feck you find interesting and enjoyable. Even if it were a "comic novel" - there'd be absolutely nowt wrong and nowt to look down on about that...

Bollox. You should be ashamed of yourself man.

What self respecting citizen wouldn't wish to buy a pile if books drawn up by a bunch of experts which then sit on your shelf for12 months largely unopened let alone read, only moving to make room for next years pile ?

[William the White]

Meanwhile, away from Pseuds Corner

I've just taken delivery of Bruce Robinson's Lever End recommended 'The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman'. A book that promises the story of a dysfunctional family, about a boy and his grandpa, life and death, sex and hate, dog's meat and cancer, about pornography, enemas, Morse codes, puberty, secrets, God and loathing. It also purports to be about love.

I'm looking forward to reading it

Hey ho... Bruce reading another comic novel...

Bruce feeling no hey-look-at-me-aren't-I-erudite compunction whatsoever.

and quite right too! read whatever the feck you find interesting and enjoyable. Even if it were a "comic novel" - there'd be absolutely nowt wrong and nowt to look down on about that...

Bollox. You should be ashamed of yourself man.

What self respecting citizen wouldn't wish to buy a pile if books drawn up by a bunch of experts which then sit on your shelf for12 months largely unopened let alone read, only moving to make room for next years pile ?

So, bobo, what are you reading at the mo?

[TANGODANCER]

Got Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness from the library, only to realise, a couple of chapters in, that I've already read it. Shame, I really like Connelly.

[clapton is god]

Got Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness from the library, only to realise, a couple of chapters in, that I've already read it. Shame, I really like Connelly.

New one due out end of October, and Lee Childs 'Personal' now out. Its very good, one of the best in my opinion. Reacher in Paris and London.

[TANGODANCER]

Got Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness from the library, only to realise, a couple of chapters in, that I've already read it. Shame, I really like Connelly.

New one due out end of October, and Lee Childs 'Personal' now out. Its very good, one of the best in my opinion. Reacher in Paris and London.

Cheers Clapton. I knew about the Lee Child and it's on the list. I'll look out for the Connelly.

[thebish]

I saw Lee Childs interviewed on the telly this morning hile I was doing my elliptical trainer machine exercise...

on the issue of a dwarf playing Jack Reacher - he said - there aren't any actors who are huge (his word) - none of them would match his idea of the sheer size Jack Reacher - none of them - so he was content that they pick someone like Tom Cruise who (Childs' words) "could do the internals".

[boltonboris]

I thought he played him very well tbh honest

[thebish]

I thought he played him very well tbh honest

don't let Tango hear you say that!

[LeverEnd]

I thought he played him very well tbh honest

He played an action hero well enough, but a lot of people wanted to see Reacher brought to life on the screen and he was nothing like. I guess the internals Child mentioned had something to do with $$$$.
I just finished Personal, the latest and it was entertaining enough, but far from his best.

You've reminded me about Connelly there Tango, excellent crime writer. I'm going to get the next Bosch novel from my Dad (I'm about 5-6 in), and also the latest Jo Nesbo, Police, which I kindly bought for myse... my Dad.