What are you reading tonight?

[thebish]

Holidays a-comin', which means more WtW-style fervent bookshop raids, and a return to the library. Libraries gave us power.

Among the captures, three sports books. One which I'll probably have finished by the time the plane takes off: The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes, chief sportswriter of The Times. A funny old mix, its short chapters flick between theses on sport's importance or otherwise, interesting explanations of how sportswriting works and a look back over his own career. If that sounds horrifically self-mythologising, it's not, even if Barnes regularly crops up in Pseuds' Corner – often unfairly, the underlying ethos surely being it's impossible to like sport and be even halfway intelligent. For all that, it's a bit of a mishmash, and I wouldn't unreservedly recommend it, but it's worth a read considering you can get it on Amazon for a penny plus postage.

Going in the flight bag will be Barney Ronay's The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football. Have heard good things about this, and Barney normally makes me chuckle. Will let you know how it goes.

And finally, some required reading which I should've got round to long ago – the excellent Jonathan Wilson's award-winning Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics. If you don't read Wilson, you should, whether it's in The Guardian, FourFourTwo (he's penned a cover feature on playmakers for the new issue out next month) or wherethehellever. Information and entertainment: not a bad combo.

sounds like a bit of a busman's holiday!

[William the White]

I finished Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies about 6 months after starting it. In the end I was taken by the story - of opium production in the Raj and British profiteering from it; the arbitray power of Empire; the clashes of culture - and love, cruelty and human solidarity and vileness... The first of a projected trilogy and I will keep faith with it until the second at least...

Then went onto Ackroyd's Shakespeare: the Biography. This is an engaging read, if not particularly profound. the known 'facts' of Shakesoeare's life are sparse, scattered and often disputed... This is a 'conservative' reading of the man and his works, offering a Shakespeare utterly conventional, middle of the road, not aiming to offer any 'message' with his work, simply to entertain his audience and make money. And a genius. I stuck with it... And, sort of, enjoyed...

Am now about to start Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Pulitzer winner Annie Dillard, pressed upon me by friend and co-writer with fervent rave...

Will report...

[thebish]

Annie Dillard...

hmmmm..... never read any of her work - but if I had a pound for every time I have head her quoted by vicars n'such - I'd be a rich man!! and it is ALWAYS this quote....

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

[William the White]

Annie Dillard...

hmmmm..... never read any of her work - but if I had a pound for every time I have head her quoted by vicars n'such - I'd be a rich man!! and it is ALWAYS this quote....

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

Sorry if I'm being slow, but what interests these clergymen in that quotation - I've not come across it yet in the rather breathless "I am nearly overwhelmed by the extraordinary experience of engaging with the natural world, like i just nearly dropped some acid and can see the brown and muddy-oozed creek clearly teeming and the slugs devouring the frogs and daffodils are so yellow, aren't they, that I wonder about the creation of the soul..." (This is not a quotation, perhaps an unfair parody of the hipsy, dipsy stuff, whose profundity is slipping by me...)

I fear I may soon be disappointing a friend who obviously feels I need this stuff in my life... He's underlined and bracketed sections of it...

[thebish]

Annie Dillard...

hmmmm..... never read any of her work - but if I had a pound for every time I have head her quoted by vicars n'such - I'd be a rich man!! and it is ALWAYS this quote....

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

Sorry if I'm being slow, but what interests these clergymen in that quotation - I've not come across it yet in the rather breathless "I am nearly overwhelmed by the extraordinary experience of engaging with the natural world, like i just nearly dropped some acid and can see the brown and muddy-oozed creek clearly teeming and the slugs devouring the frogs and daffodils are so yellow, aren't they, that I wonder about the creation of the soul..." (This is not a quotation, perhaps an unfair parody of the hipsy, dipsy stuff, whose profundity is slipping by me...)

I fear I may soon be disappointing a friend who obviously feels I need this stuff in my life... He's underlined and bracketed sections of it...

it is most often used by vicars n'such ranting about the church having become a sedate cozy club...

like I said - I have never read any of her stuff - but have looked her up because of the number of times I have see this quoted - and not read many favourable reviews - so not pursued it - and so was a little surprised to see her on your list...

[CAPSLOCK]

I finished Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies about 6 months after starting it. In the end I was taken by the story - of opium production in the Raj and British profiteering from it; the arbitray power of Empire; the clashes of culture - and love, cruelty and human solidarity and vileness... The first of a projected trilogy and I will keep faith with it until the second at least...

Then went onto Ackroyd's Shakespeare: the Biography. This is an engaging read, if not particularly profound. the known 'facts' of Shakesoeare's life are sparse, scattered and often disputed... This is a 'conservative' reading of the man and his works, offering a Shakespeare utterly conventional, middle of the road, not aiming to offer any 'message' with his work, simply to entertain his audience and make money. And a genius. I stuck with it... And, sort of, enjoyed...

Am now about to start Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Pulitzer winner Annie Dillard, pressed upon me by friend and co-writer with fervent rave...

Will report...

Well, of course..........

[lilly2285]

Hi am Lilly,
Am not going to read any books to night. I want to sleep for the night and dreaming with my hero.
_________________________________________________________________________________

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[thebish]

On the strength of seeing him interviewed about it I will be adding Dom Joly's "The Dark Tourist" to my list... He claims it isn't just ghoulishness...

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. Dom's upbringing was interspersed with terrifying days and nights spent hunkered in the family basement under Syrian rocket attack or coming across a pile of severed heads from a sectarian execution in the pine forests near his home.
These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern day travel industry and a taste for the darkest of places. And in this brilliantly odd and hilariously told travel memoir, Dom Joly sets out on a quest to visit those destinations from which the average tourist would, and should, run a mile. The more insalubrious the place, the more interesting is the journey and so we follow Dom as he skis in Iran on segregated slopes, picnics in the Syrian Desert with a trigger-happy government minder and fires rocket propelled grenades at live cows in Cambodia (he missed on purpose, he just couldn't do it).
Funny and frightening in equal measure, this is a uniquely bizarre and compelling travelogue from one of the most fearless and innovative comedians around.

[William the White]

Couldn't get beyond page 23 of the Annie Dillard... have, however, just managed to complete the 710 pages and 3 lines of Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole. This was a Booker shortlist in 2008 and has been on the Shelf of Shame ever since, partly because the sheer size of the book is intimidating. But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November so now is the time to pick up the heavy books (there are two more glowering at me from the centre of the shelf)...

By an Oz writer (first novel) it deals with fathers and sons, human beings as angels and repellant sadists, crime, violence, sex, drugs and painful and arbitrary deaths.

It is very, very funny in parts - like laugh out loud in public funny - and is at times moving and occasionally - in its faux-philosophy meanderings - it tests the patience. But it's really difficult to write a funny but intelligent book - so big recommend for that.

Do any of our Oz posters know the novel, and how it was received down there?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November

Sounds serious? I hope it isn't.

[Bruce Rioja]

But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November

Sounds serious? I hope it isn't.

It won't be.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November

Sounds serious? I hope it isn't.

It won't be.

Well I don't think it's great form to speculate on that sort of thing without knowing the facts...

Get well soon, William.

[Bruce Rioja]

But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November

Sounds serious? I hope it isn't.

It won't be.

Well I don't think it's great form to speculate on that sort of thing without knowing the facts...

Get well soon, William.

Indeed - it was more a public-sector-worker-off-for-months-with-ingrowing-toenail type o' jibe than anything personal. I do of course wish William a speedy and a full recovery from whatever ails him.

[Verbal]

Holidays a-comin', which means more WtW-style fervent bookshop raids, and a return to the library. Libraries gave us power.

Among the captures, three sports books. One which I'll probably have finished by the time the plane takes off: The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes, chief sportswriter of The Times. A funny old mix, its short chapters flick between theses on sport's importance or otherwise, interesting explanations of how sportswriting works and a look back over his own career. If that sounds horrifically self-mythologising, it's not, even if Barnes regularly crops up in Pseuds' Corner – often unfairly, the underlying ethos surely being it's impossible to like sport and be even halfway intelligent. For all that, it's a bit of a mishmash, and I wouldn't unreservedly recommend it, but it's worth a read considering you can get it on Amazon for a penny plus postage.

Going in the flight bag will be Barney Ronay's The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football. Have heard good things about this, and Barney normally makes me chuckle. Will let you know how it goes.

And finally, some required reading which I should've got round to long ago – the excellent Jonathan Wilson's award-winning Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics. If you don't read Wilson, you should, whether it's in The Guardian, FourFourTwo (he's penned a cover feature on playmakers for the new issue out next month) or wherethehellever. Information and entertainment: not a bad combo.

In a similar vein, I've got hold of a copy of Kevin Bray's How to Score. Quite illuminating.

[TANGODANCER]

Jut read Luis Miguel Rocha's "The Holy Assasin" . A novel, based on intruige, deception and a whole lot of dark doings based around the Vatican and the deaths of two popes. Politics, suppression of fact and the involvement of multi-national money shenanigins and government bodies including America And the C.I.A. made for interesting reading. Although set much later, the underlying theme was the appearances of the Virgin Mary to the three Portuguese village children in Fatima in 1912.

[thebish]

In a similar vein, I've got hold of a copy of Kevin Bray's How to Score. Quite illuminating.

does it involve Old Spice and a pimped-up Quattro?

[William the White]

But, hey, I've been ill, and been told i can't return to work until mid November

Sounds serious? I hope it isn't.

It won't be.

Well I don't think it's great form to speculate on that sort of thing without knowing the facts...

Get well soon, William.

Indeed - it was more a public-sector-worker-off-for-months-with-ingrowing-toenail type o' jibe than anything personal. I do of course wish William a speedy and a full recovery from whatever ails him.

Thank you, Bruce. No need to overdo it with the speedy, though. And may I take this opportunity to thank you, and all other tax payers, particularly in the private sector, very much for your continuing contribution to my well being as I inch slowly towards health, novel by novel.

[Bruce Rioja]

Thank you, Bruce. No need to overdo it with the speedy, though. And may I take this opportunity to thank you, and all other tax payers, particularly in the private sector, very much for your continuing contribution to my well being as I inch slowly towards health, novel by novel.

It was the sardines what did it.

[hisroyalgingerness]

Back on the Ian Fleming - Dr No

[Dujon]

. . . Although set much later, the underlying theme was the appearances of the Virgin Mary to the three Portuguese village children in Fatima in 1912.

An intriguing and unexplained phenomenon, TANGO. It seems that according to contemporary reports some 70,000 people turned up to watch the promised final appearance of this apparition on 13th October 1917, although only the children claimed to see the Virgin Mary.

Sorry, I'm trawling through my lesser read books at the moment and this particular event is described within it.