What are you reading tonight?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Started reading 'Fermat's Last Theorem' by Simon Singh.

Yes. Maths. But I love good mysteries like this.

Fermat's theorum crops up in book two of the Millenium trilogy you had started.

I've just finished the final one. Was good. Also read 'It wasn't me: Why everyone else is to blame and you're not' by Chris Addison, was lightly amusing rant-y style fayre. Pretty good. Also read Henry Cecil's A Brief to Counsel which was highly recommended and very good, informative and amusing, if a bit dated. All in one week. Productive.

Just started John Campbell's biography of Crayon's hero, FE Smith.

Good man. As you know, it's quite the tome, but it is worth it. I'll arrange for us to have a drink with John Campbell when you're finished!

[Annoyed Grunt]

Some of these books getting mentioned......far too high brow for me.

Got Rob Brydon's autobiography as a present.

[jimbo_bwfc]

Any Stephen King fans on here?

I'm not a big reader by any means but I've probably read over half of his novels and short stories.

[clapton is god]

Any Stephen King fans on here?

I'm not a big reader by any means but I've probably read over half of his novels and short stories.

Not read him for years - until recently.

Enjoyed The Dome and my daughter has just bought me his new one 11.22.63

[Prufrock]

Started reading 'Fermat's Last Theorem' by Simon Singh.

Yes. Maths. But I love good mysteries like this.

Fermat's theorum crops up in book two of the Millenium trilogy you had started.

I've just finished the final one. Was good. Also read 'It wasn't me: Why everyone else is to blame and you're not' by Chris Addison, was lightly amusing rant-y style fayre. Pretty good. Also read Henry Cecil's A Brief to Counsel which was highly recommended and very good, informative and amusing, if a bit dated. All in one week. Productive.

Just started John Campbell's biography of Crayon's hero, FE Smith.

Good man. As you know, it's quite the tome, but it is worth it. I'll arrange for us to have a drink with John Campbell when you're finished!

Not half, 839 pages of biography! It's hiooouge. Am about 100 through at the moment. I do enjoy biographies, and sail through them unless they are written in a style which manages to suck out all humour and imagination, which this certainly is not, so it should be fine! The drink sounds good. I need to get on and finish though, because the fat lad from the sky brought me but clothes and books, including:

Thinking, fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman. Came very highly recommended by The Week (in as much as they actually recommend anything). Tis about Psychology, but hopefully it will be more Freakonomics than some woolly cult-like psycho-babble.

Brian Clough- The Biography- Jonathan Wilson.

Conversations With Myself- A collection of Nelson Mandela's letters. Both of the above are shots in the dark by the girlf's mum, and she's done impressively well getting near my interests!

Speeches That Changed the World- collated by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Girlf got me that. Guess where she got the idea for that?!

All that with mocks around the corner! Busy busy.

[TANGODANCER]

Daughter bought me Edward Marston's The Railway Detective Omnibus. One on the "to read" section. One to chase down is P.D.James's Death comes to Pemberley, a continuation on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

[Il Pirate]

Bob Carlos Clarke biography. He once judged a photo comp & a photo of one of my lads, taken by a guy called Andrew Cooper, who's now a pro, came second. (his judgement was flawed)

[Lord Kangana]

He was the one who persuaded plain old Marc White to use his full name wasn't he?

Anyway, for the next few days I'll mostly be reading Max Hasting's new book All Hell Let Loose.

[clapton is god]

He was the one who persuaded plain old Marc White to use his full name wasn't he?

Anyway, for the next few days I'll mostly be reading Max Hasting's new book All Hell Let Loose.

In the queue to be read here. Had a bit of a skim read and looks excellent!

[Worthy4England]

Snuff.

The annual Discworld offering.

[clapton is god]

Peter Ackyoyd History of England - Foundation.

Just finished this. Excellent stuff that held my interest right through. Learned a lot. Mrs Clapton is reading it now.

[William the White]

Started reading 'Fermat's Last Theorem' by Simon Singh.

Yes. Maths. But I love good mysteries like this.

Fermat's theorum crops up in book two of the Millenium trilogy you had started.

I've just finished the final one. Was good. Also read 'It wasn't me: Why everyone else is to blame and you're not' by Chris Addison, was lightly amusing rant-y style fayre. Pretty good. Also read Henry Cecil's A Brief to Counsel which was highly recommended and very good, informative and amusing, if a bit dated. All in one week. Productive.

Just started John Campbell's biography of Crayon's hero, FE Smith.

Good man. As you know, it's quite the tome, but it is worth it. I'll arrange for us to have a drink with John Campbell when you're finished!

Not half, 839 pages of biography! It's hiooouge. Am about 100 through at the moment. I do enjoy biographies, and sail through them unless they are written in a style which manages to suck out all humour and imagination, which this certainly is not, so it should be fine! The drink sounds good. I need to get on and finish though, because the fat lad from the sky brought me but clothes and books, including:

Thinking, fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman. Came very highly recommended by The Week (in as much as they actually recommend anything). Tis about Psychology, but hopefully it will be more Freakonomics than some woolly cult-like psycho-babble.

Brian Clough- The Biography- Jonathan Wilson.

Conversations With Myself- A collection of Nelson Mandela's letters. Both of the above are shots in the dark by the girlf's mum, and she's done impressively well getting near my interests!

Speeches That Changed the World- collated by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Girlf got me that. Guess where she got the idea for that?!

All that with mocks around the corner! Busy busy.

I'm reading his 'Jerusalem' atm. Written very engagingly. As was 'Stalin: in the Court of the Red Tsar' which was pretty definitive in its expose of the monster that Stalin was.

I don't think he's a genuine historian - but he's very good at what he does.

[thebish]

I'm reading his 'Jerusalem' atm. Written very engagingly. As was 'Stalin: in the Court of the Red Tsar' which was pretty definitive in its expose of the monster that Stalin was.

I don't think he's a genuine historian - but he's very good at what he does.

a propos of not much - he's one of Dave Cameron's chummy chums...

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

not to as great an extent as Ferguson and Schama though.
writes better history than both of them as well

[Lord Kangana]

He was the one who persuaded plain old Marc White to use his full name wasn't he?

Anyway, for the next few days I'll mostly be reading Max Hasting's new book All Hell Let Loose.

In the queue to be read here. Had a bit of a skim read and looks excellent!

It is. True to form by Hastings.

[Dujon]

At the moment I am wading through a collection of English essays. It's a publication from a series of books issued as The 1938 Nelson Classics and titled A Hundred English Essays. The flyleaf has been signed by my late father with the date of 1942 - at which time he was serving in the Royal Engineers.

When I decided to delve into the book my feelings were that it would be a wonderful soporific and could well help my occasional insomnia. It has done the opposite. Some, I must admit, are a bit stodgy and convoluted but so far the majority have presented food for thought - regardless of the writer's point of view - in manner lucid.

For those who are interested, the essayists range from Francis Bacon to Sir Arthur Eddington with, amongst others, Ben Jonson, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, R.L.Stevenson, Max Beerbohm . . . sandwiched between.

I am ever so glad that I took the plunge.

[William the White]

I'm reading his 'Jerusalem' atm. Written very engagingly. As was 'Stalin: in the Court of the Red Tsar' which was pretty definitive in its expose of the monster that Stalin was.

I don't think he's a genuine historian - but he's very good at what he does.

a propos of not much - he's one of Dave Cameron's chummy chums...

Yeah the right is currently restaking its claim to ownership of history - even the ridiculous Starkey is treated as a serious historian.

The days of the great English Marxist historians who absolutely engaged me as an undergraduate (and post-graduate) - Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Isaac Deutscher and, especially, E P Thompson - now seem like a brief Golden Age.

Montefiore doesn't seem to do a massive amount in the way of original research, but he's great at synthesising the work of others, and is an excellent writer with a firm grasp of story telling. his ad hominem approach is inevitably shallow but - in the case of his Stalin biography - did an essential job that Deutscher, for instance, neglected.

[thebish]

I'm reading his 'Jerusalem' atm. Written very engagingly. As was 'Stalin: in the Court of the Red Tsar' which was pretty definitive in its expose of the monster that Stalin was.

I don't think he's a genuine historian - but he's very good at what he does.

a propos of not much - he's one of Dave Cameron's chummy chums...

Yeah the right is currently restaking its claim to ownership of history - even the ridiculous Starkey is treated as a serious historian.

The days of the great English Marxist historians who absolutely engaged me as an undergraduate (and post-graduate) - Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Isaac Deutscher and, especially, E P Thompson - now seem like a brief Golden Age.

Montefiore doesn't seem to do a massive amount in the way of original research, but he's great at synthesising the work of others, and is an excellent writer with a firm grasp of story telling. his ad hominem approach is inevitably shallow but - in the case of his Stalin biography - did an essential job that Deutscher, for instance, neglected.

The rather fabulous and quite irascible E P Thomson was a famous ex-alumni of my first University - Warwick - where he was so disgusted at the commercialization of further education that he left in a huff having published "Warwick University Limited"....

[Bijou Bob]

'In the Therapist's Chair' by Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Strange name aside, an interesting read so far if a little too Americanised. A review of her own psychodynamic therapy cases, it offers something revealing about the human psyche in addition to some thoughts on effective practice. 3 chapters in and I need chocolate. I'm not sure what that's telling me

[William the White]

The rather fabulous and quite irascible E P Thomson was a famous ex-alumni of my first University - Warwick - where he was so disgusted at the commercialization of further education that he left in a huff having published "Warwick University Limited"....

Alumnus of Corpus Christi, Cambridge... former lecturer at Warwick... 'In a huff' is not inaccurate but rather underplays his vitriolic assault on what he saw as the new universities' search for capitalist gold and their willingness to sell out academic values...

Great intellect, brilliant historian, committed political activist and outstanding polemicist... Died far too early...