What are you reading tonight?

[Gooner Girl]

Jack Sheffields latest book, very enjoyable.

who??

Ahhh, you wouldn't like it, has no gore, crime or murder in it!

Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

very much not!! I very much enjoyed that other teacher who did summat similar - he was on the radio - was it in the Dales?? he did speaker tours and all sorts... what was his name??

Grevase Phinn.

Ok hun, i'll buy you the first in the series for your birthday!

[TANGODANCER]

Jack Sheffields latest book, very enjoyable.

who??

Ahhh, you wouldn't like it, has no gore, crime or murder in it!

Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

Sounds like Heartbeat with a teacher instead of a constable.

[thebish]

Jack Sheffields latest book, very enjoyable.

who??

Ahhh, you wouldn't like it, has no gore, crime or murder in it!

Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

very much not!! I very much enjoyed that other teacher who did summat similar - he was on the radio - was it in the Dales?? he did speaker tours and all sorts... what was his name??

Grevase Phinn.

Ok hun, i'll buy you the first in the series for your birthday!

that's the fellah!! so - is he as good as Finn?

[Bruce Rioja]

Ahhh, you wouldn't like it, has no gore, crime or murder in it!
Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

Really? A certain Mr Sutcliffe dominated the Yorkshire, and indeed the national news around that period. Should you ever be tempted to read Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son, then I implore you not to.

[Gooner Girl]

Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

very much not!! I very much enjoyed that other teacher who did summat similar - he was on the radio - was it in the Dales?? he did speaker tours and all sorts... what was his name??

Grevase Phinn.

Ok hun, i'll buy you the first in the series for your birthday!

that's the fellah!! so - is he as good as Finn?

Yeah, i'd say he's as good as PHINN. Fairly similar style of writing and subject matter but its quite nice in that as Jack Sheffield writes about the village and its inhabitants where the school is based you get to know the characters more over the series then you do in the Phinn books. Plus, i really enjoy the references to what was going on at the time in the UK. Am looking forward to when he hits academic year 84/85 - when i started school and started remembering things

[thebish]

Its a series of books set in Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's about a primary school headmaster at a village school and tells the tale of his life and the lives of the inhabitants of the village, its gentle reading interspersed with lots of references about what was going on that year - what songs were on the radio, what the news was, etc etc. I liked it anyway! No doubt you'll scoff!

very much not!! I very much enjoyed that other teacher who did summat similar - he was on the radio - was it in the Dales?? he did speaker tours and all sorts... what was his name??

Grevase Phinn.

Ok hun, i'll buy you the first in the series for your birthday!

that's the fellah!! so - is he as good as Finn?

Yeah, i'd say he's as good as PHINN.

careful hun - else I'll point out that you called him Grevase...

[Gooner Girl]

Yeah, i'd say he's as good as PHINN.

careful hun - else I'll point out that you called him Grevase...

You know that was a typo! Humph!

[William the White]

Just finished A. D. Miller's Snowdrops.

A genre - crime thriller - I rarely read. But very glad I read this one. Set in Russia sometime about now, when the line between entrepreneur and gangster is blurred, and when the ice melts in the streets the corpses hidden for a winter in the ice appear - like snowdrops...

An English banker, back home, after more than four years in the 'Wild East' of Moscow talks to his fiancee, offering a lengthy confession, that he must give before he allows her to marry him... Or... maybe decide to leave...

So well crafted, as, little by little, we are led slowly to the nasty place we vaguely sense at the beginning that gets clearer and clearer as this story unfolds horribly... would you marry this person after this truth has been told...

Moral culpability, acquiescence to corruption, sex and love at a price, and... (I can't tell any more)... other than an intelligent page-turner with depth and feeling and questioning... take to beach if you like Le Carre...

Am managing to keep to a book read every month new year's res...

[Dujon]

Just finished A. D. Miller's Snowdrops.

A genre - crime thriller - I rarely read. But very glad I read this one. Set in Russia sometime about now, when the line between entrepreneur and gangster is blurred, and when the ice melts in the streets the corpses hidden for a winter in the ice appear - like snowdrops...

I hear echoes of Gorky Park and Red Square (Martin Cruz Smith), William. Is it different enough to consider reading?

[William the White]

Just finished A. D. Miller's Snowdrops.

A genre - crime thriller - I rarely read. But very glad I read this one. Set in Russia sometime about now, when the line between entrepreneur and gangster is blurred, and when the ice melts in the streets the corpses hidden for a winter in the ice appear - like snowdrops...

I hear echoes of Gorky Park and Red Square (Martin Cruz Smith), William. Is it different enough to consider reading?

In my view we most often like those in the genre we enjoy and are suspicious of those elsewhere... We don't really look for 'difference'... The surprise for me was that I enjoyed something outside my usual preference... Nice surprise... Try this, I think you'll like and let us know...

[William the White]

Today I started The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt... Onto p58 and know I will finish it... Bizarre but intriguing... 19th century USA and two brothers, professional killers, whose surname is 'Sisters', one a murderous psychopath and the other, our narrator, who views the world, and his brother, with the perception of a killer just a little slow in the mental department, are on their way halfway across a continent to murder someone on behalf of the mysterious 'Commodore'...

The chapters 2 or 3 pages long... We've had the murder of five gold prospectors, the meeting with a mysterious witch and a grizzly bear blinding a fat horse so far... and terrible toothache and the discovery of local anaesthetic...

You can't accuse it of being short on plot...

[Montreal Wanderer]

Today I started The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt... Onto p58 and know I will finish it... Bizarre but intriguing... 19th century USA and two brothers, professional killers, whose surname is 'Sisters', one a murderous psychopath and the other, our narrator, who views the world, and his brother, with the perception of a killer just a little slow in the mental department, are on their way halfway across a continent to murder someone on behalf of the mysterious 'Commodore'...

The chapters 2 or 3 pages long... We've had the murder of five gold prospectors, the meeting with a mysterious witch and a grizzly bear blinding a fat horse so far... and terrible toothache and the discovery of local anaesthetic...

You can't accuse it of being short on plot...

Though I should support Canadian authors, William, I can't say the plot would normally appeal to me. Let us know if you do finish it. If it still has your vote, I;ll try it.

[Dujon]

I have been reading a few essays penned by William Hazlitt. In the main his writings are quite enjoyable and, given that most were written in the early 1800s, educational. By that I mean little things, such as when he mentions in My First Acquaintance with Poets that he accompanied his father's guest, on foot, for six miles when the guest left his host and then turned and wended his way home and, again, his description of his walk across the moors to arrive at a destination about midnight to then knock up a landlord and being served a sumptuous meal of bacon rashers and eggs. I suspect that it would be unusual to find such hospitality these days. Then again, in this age, I suppose it wouldn't be very often that a (sober) weary walker would turn up at the witching hour to rouse a landlord.

[thebish]

Issue 119 of Granta magazine that dropped through my door - "Britain"

largely because my photo (for which they paid me £200) -is printed on page 42 next to a piece by Robert McFarlane called "SILT"

[bobo the clown]

Issue 119 of Granta magazine that dropped through my door - "Britain"

largely because my photo (for which they paid me £200) -is printed on page 42 next to a piece by Robert McFarlane called "SILT"

I trust that's spelt correctly ?!?!?!

[thebish]

Issue 119 of Granta magazine that dropped through my door - "Britain"

largely because my photo (for which they paid me £200) -is printed on page 42 next to a piece by Robert McFarlane called "SILT"

I trust that's spelt correctly ?!?!?!

You trust that what is spelt correctly?

[bobo the clown]

Issue 119 of Granta magazine that dropped through my door - "Britain"

largely because my photo (for which they paid me £200) -is printed on page 42 next to a piece by Robert McFarlane called "SILT"

I trust that's spelt correctly ?!?!?!

You trust that what is spelt correctly?

"SILT".


Just wondered if it was an anagram.

[thebish]

Issue 119 of Granta magazine that dropped through my door - "Britain"

largely because my photo (for which they paid me £200) -is printed on page 42 next to a piece by Robert McFarlane called "SILT"

I trust that's spelt correctly ?!?!?!

You trust that what is spelt correctly?

"SILT".


Just wondered if it was an anagram.

ahhh - I see! no - SILT it is... any of the kind of photographic work you have in mind I do under an entirely different name..

[Prufrock]

Well, I finished Madame Bovary- Recommend
I then read, on PB's recommendation, 'The Ascent of Money' by Niall Ferguson. Also recommend. Money stuff written in a way financial dunces like me can almost understand!- Recommend.
I'm now on 'Indecent Exposure' after you lot raved so much about it. Bout 50 in. Raised a smile a few times, but nothing uproarious just yet. Will keep you posted.
After that, have got that 1599 Bill was on about.
Busy busy.

[William the White]

Finished The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt. This book is mad (this is not a criticism).

We have a tale of a psychopathic killer and his rather slow witted and slightly more humane brother (also a killer and probably also a psychopath, but with lovable tendencies) and the narrator of the story, on a trail of carnage, after a man, then after gold, in late 19th century far West, USA.

Dozens are killed. Much agony and mutilation to man and animal is dished out. And all proves futile, without reward or reason. All are damaged. Many destroyed.

It is also a comic novel... Truly...

A very weird read.

Booker shortlist last year. No chapter more than 5 pages. Written, as it were, by a seven year old with a gun and a bad boy as his big brother...