What are you reading tonight?

[LeverEnd]

A Wanted man, latest in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Great character, edecnt story, easy reading. Just finished Life of Pi which I thought was excellent. Had it on my shelf for 10 years and had never got round to it.

[William the White]

Today I finished Jan Morris's Last Letters from Hav which i last read - I think - in 1987 (the cover dedication shows my wife gave it to me for Christmas 1986).

175 pages and it still took me over three weeks to finish! i really am not reading enough.

This is a very fine book - a novel by a very good travel writer. And draws on her experiences as a travel writer.

Hav is a fictional city-state, on a fictional peninsular somewhere in the Eastern meditarranean. Now down at heel, it once rivalled Venice, and has a past of conquest by foreign powers - Arab, Turkish, Western European. The premise is that Morris is writing a monthly 'Letter from Hav' for an American magazine. The novel becomes a meditation on European and Eastern histories in a place where they have at different times asserted mastery.

This makes it sound over cerebral - it is, in fact, beautifully written. Shortlisted for the Booker, 1986. If I was looking for classy holiday reading and was thinking of going to the med - somewhere like Capri for instance - I would take this along. I

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Today I finished Jan Morris's Last Letters from Hav which i last read - I think - in 1987 (the cover dedication shows my wife gave it to me for Christmas 1986).

175 pages and it still took me over three weeks to finish! i really am not reading enough.

This is a very fine book - a novel by a very good travel writer. And draws on her experiences as a travel writer.

Hav is a fictional city-state, on a fictional peninsular somewhere in the Eastern meditarranean. Now down at heel, it once rivalled Venice, and has a past of conquest by foreign powers - Arab, Turkish, Western European. The premise is that Morris is writing a monthly 'Letter from Hav' for an American magazine. The novel becomes a meditation on European and Eastern histories in a place where they have at different times asserted mastery.

This makes it sound over cerebral - it is, in fact, beautifully written. Shortlisted for the Booker, 1986. If I was looking for classy holiday reading and was thinking of going to the med - somewhere like Capri for instance - I would take this along. I

Thanks, Will. I have ordered a few things on Amazon to be posted to the office, so if they haven't arrived by tomorrow, I will try and source this on my day off on Wednesday before flying Thursday morning.

(Did I post a reading request on here or have you just guessed that I was looking?!)

[William the White]

Today I finished Jan Morris's Last Letters from Hav which i last read - I think - in 1987 (the cover dedication shows my wife gave it to me for Christmas 1986).

175 pages and it still took me over three weeks to finish! i really am not reading enough.

This is a very fine book - a novel by a very good travel writer. And draws on her experiences as a travel writer.

Hav is a fictional city-state, on a fictional peninsular somewhere in the Eastern meditarranean. Now down at heel, it once rivalled Venice, and has a past of conquest by foreign powers - Arab, Turkish, Western European. The premise is that Morris is writing a monthly 'Letter from Hav' for an American magazine. The novel becomes a meditation on European and Eastern histories in a place where they have at different times asserted mastery.

This makes it sound over cerebral - it is, in fact, beautifully written. Shortlisted for the Booker, 1986. If I was looking for classy holiday reading and was thinking of going to the med - somewhere like Capri for instance - I would take this along. I

Thanks, Will. I have ordered a few things on Amazon to be posted to the office, so if they haven't arrived by tomorrow, I will try and source this on my day off on Wednesday before flying Thursday morning.

(Did I post a reading request on here or have you just guessed that I was looking?!)

No - I thought it might appeal to you - particularly given where you are going. It deals with art, culture, ideas, ways of living, and is set in a mythical area of the Mediterranean I wish had existed! I love the way she places the history of a continent so disputed militarily, spiritually and ideologically within the comfortable genre of an imaginary travel book. And I like the sense of darkness the novel develops as it goes on.

[TANGODANCER]

Just finished The Deveil's Beat. by Robert Edric.. Small town setting, much as To Kill a Mocking Bird, and a story that shows the duplicity, hypocrisy and evil that exists in people. Really well written. A novel I can recommend.

[TANGODANCER]

Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon. Excellent read on a sensibly possible source for the Arthurian legends. All possibles, not even a probable claimed, but a story based on actual historic manuscripts, Welsh history and poetry. Well written story that holds the interest all the way through. A must for Bobo. Even a Welsh pronunciation guide.

[LeverEnd]

Started on Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom today. It will be filmed soon with Idris Elba playing him. Tough role but he's a great actor.

[bobo the clown]

Started on Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom today. It will be filmed soon with Idris Elba playing him. Tough role but he's a great actor.

They'd better get on with it !!

[Prufrock]

Tonight I finished re-reading 'Democracy in America' by Alexis De Toqueville. I first read it when I was at Uni, but my view on life has changed so much since then that I thought I'd have another go. It really is a brilliant book, and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in political philosophy. Written after the American and French revolutions it is a study of America's new democracy, a comparison with the aristocracies and fledgling, violently-born democracies of Europe and also sounds warning calls about the danger equality can pose to liberty. He doesn't criticise equality, but one of the main themes is that equality and liberty don't always go hand in hand, and that we should be wary of allowing individualism to die out in the face of the 'tyranny of the majority'. His view seems to be that democracy and capitalism are bed-fellows, and raises concerns about centralised 'statist' power whilst still backing it as the best way. I think it would appeal to both 'sides' as it were. Crayons and Bill both both get something from it.

Then, on the train home I read Charlotte's Web that I'd picked up last week for a couple of quid. It's a book I never read as a kid, but which seems to always appear in any list where the interviewee names his or her favourite childhood books. What a beautiful story! I know it's a kids' book but it made me so sad, and then so happy! Simple things sometimes!

Now, it's finally time for The Great Gatsby. I normally avoid stuff when it's 'in fashion', preferring to read/watch a few months later when the fuss has died down and the book or film in question doesn't have unrealistically high expectations set; however, I love Hemingway and (slightly anomalous in this list) Steinbeck, and really enjoyed the Dos Passos book I read last year, so I have to like this, surely?! I think I've said it before but if I could pick one period of history in which to live, Paris between 1890 and 1930 would be it!

[thebish]

cool staircase

[Prufrock]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

[bobo the clown]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

I think you'll find that's "Filth of Nations" by Smith Adams.

[Bruce Rioja]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

[Bruce Rioja]

Anyway, this evening I've bought Danny Baker's autobiography - Going To Sea In A Sieve. Proper looking forward to getting stuck into it.

[Prufrock]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

No ire! Just every other book there might be described as 'classic fiction', and then there's a book on political philosophy! Just seems a bit incongruous.

Unless of course Bobo is right, but I did a Google, and I think he might be fibbing

[Bruce Rioja]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

No ire! Just every other book there might be described as 'classic fiction', and then there's a book on political philosophy! Just seems a bit incongruous.

Unless of course Bobo is right, but I did a Google, and I think he might be fibbing

Ah. Actually thought that might be why. Just wondered if you had a problem with The Wealth of Nations per se.

[William the White]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

No ire! Just every other book there might be described as 'classic fiction', and then there's a book on political philosophy! Just seems a bit incongruous.

Unless of course Bobo is right, but I did a Google, and I think he might be fibbing

Capitalist economics...

[Prufrock]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

No ire! Just every other book there might be described as 'classic fiction', and then there's a book on political philosophy! Just seems a bit incongruous.

Unless of course Bobo is right, but I did a Google, and I think he might be fibbing

Ah. Actually thought that might be why. Just wondered if you had a problem with The Wealth of Nations per se.

Nope, not read it. I intend to one day though.

Which brings me onto something else... I got a late birthday present from the girlf yesterday, a Kindle! I wasn't sure if I wanted one, prefer books in the hand and all that, but I've been really impressed so far. She pre-loaded onto it a few Shakespeares, a collection of Christopher Marlowe, the Game of Thrones set, and Fab's book!

I finished the Great Gatsby on the train there. I really enjoyed it, difficult to see him as anyone other than Leo now, which is a shame, I think. Going to see the film this week, but just knowing he has been cast altered my reading of it. Loved it nevertheless, really tightly written, and some fantastic bits of prose.

Read Fab's book on the train. Worth a couple of hours. Weird thinking back to when it happened, and some insightful passages about a few of our previous managers!

Thinking about what to stick on the Kindle now, I've got a list of about 100 books I really want to read; I think I'll get all the old copyright expired stuff on there, seems pointless to pay seven eight quid when I can get it for free. The rest I don't know if I'll get on there or in hard copy.

[Prufrock]

Adam Smith jars a little in that list!

Not sure I get your ire here, Prufrock. Care to expand?

No ire! Just every other book there might be described as 'classic fiction', and then there's a book on political philosophy! Just seems a bit incongruous.

Unless of course Bobo is right, but I did a Google, and I think he might be fibbing

Capitalist economics...

Economic philosophy might have been better. Still, at a time when it was by no means obvious that Capitalism would be the pretty universal model, in some form, is part of it not political too? I don't know, having not read it, but I always just assumed it fit into the sort of 'a study on a small, new, topic written with an eye on how it might affect all aspects of life. 'Political' is probably lazy though.

[TANGODANCER]

Just been handed the new hardback version of Dan Brown's Inferno by my daughter as a Father's Day present. Currently reading Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict.. Love this guy for novel reading.