What are you reading tonight?

[thebish]

If I were to write my memoirs, my personal politics wouldn't come in to them. Recollecting how they thought/think politically is one thing, using your book to ram home your opinion is quite another. Struggle away.

nay bother - we think differently - having read cider with roadies and pies & prejudice and Adventures on the high Teas - I just didn't read the politics as in anyway "ramming" - just a clear association with time and place - recollecting...

perhaps you could quote a passage or refer me to a page where you think it's particularly bad?

As I recall, I did reach a particular point at which I thought 'sod this'. If I remember I'll dig it out and find it.

cheers!

perhaps part of it is that I would probably be more likely to agree with his analysis (such as it is) and perhaps his experience would chime with mine more than it does yours - so that i notice it much less than you did.

maybe i'd be that same as you if i stumbled across a similar book which praised Thatcher regularly for the great job she was doing and set that alongside the north and the music scene that I also remember... (though I can't think of such a book...)

[bobo the clown]

If I were to write my memoirs, my personal politics wouldn't come in to them. Recollecting how they thought/think politically is one thing, using your book to ram home your opinion is quite another. Struggle away.

nay bother - we think differently - having read cider with roadies and pies & prejudice and Adventures on the high Teas - I just didn't read the politics as in anyway "ramming" - just a clear association with time and place - recollecting...

perhaps you could quote a passage or refer me to a page where you think it's particularly bad?

It is though ... Bruce is correct. The links were very simplistic, and sledge-hammer like.

I just managed to not let it irritate me. It easily could have done.

For an example, the period he was teaching in Skemersdale stays in my mind, though I'm bggrd if I'm re-reading it to locate the specifics.

In his 'High Teas' the Buxton bit also stands out in the same genre.


That all said & done I like the guy, just doesn't need to lay-on the professional northerner bit as much as he does.

Mark Radcliffe's biog was vg too.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I just remember it as being all a bit tongue in cheek, like he was deliberately targeting a southern audience with a bit of wink wink northern humour.
Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick too...

[thebish]

I just remember it as being all a bit tongue in cheek, like he was deliberately targeting a southern audience with a bit of wink wink northern humour.
Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick too...

I think that's how i read it... i didn't realise it was meant to be taken so seriously!

[Bruce Rioja]

Mark Radcliffe's biog was vg too.

Narr then, he has a couple. I've read Showbusiness: The Diary Of A Rock 'N' Roll Nobody, which had me in tears of laughter. That said, I still wonder how it must read to someone that's never played in a shit fledgling band and isn't from Bolton.

[William the White]

I started Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie today. IF I manage yo complete it I will, at last, have read all six of the Booker 2011 shortlist.

Only taken me two years...

And - have finished it... I have a few niggles about it but can really recommend - an adventure tale from 19th Century Britain - and the world - a hunt for a (possibly) mythical dragon for a London menagerie, hunting whales on the high seas, shipwreck and a coming of age story with a tragic twist.

Page-turning story telling, language that is vivid without being self-conscious, gripping, exciting, sad and moving.

Fine book.

I now turn to the unread of last year's Booker shortlist (that is 5 out of the 6!)... And Jamrach's Menagerie leaves the Shelf of Shame...

[William the White]

Today I started The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. The writer was born in Malaysia, studied at London University, practised law in Penang, is author of two award winning novels of historical fiction and currently lives in Cape Town.

Another case of 'The Empire Writes Back... '

He writes in English with poetic assurance - I'm only 20 pages in but I know this for sure.

[TANGODANCER]

Just finished Robert Goddard's Name to a Face. Read three chapters before I realised I'd read it back a year or two. Didn't matter, I just carried on and read it again. Top stuff.

[William the White]

Today I started The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. The writer was born in Malaysia, studied at London University, practised law in Penang, is author of two award winning novels of historical fiction and currently lives in Cape Town.

Another case of 'The Empire Writes Back... '

He writes in English with poetic assurance - I'm only 20 pages in but I know this for sure.

This book has many virtues - not least of which is prose that often feels like poetry in its precision and imagery. It has an aching heart at its centre and a convincing reason for the narrator to write the words we are reading - she has a mind-destroying condition. In a little while, a few months, her memory will be lost entirely. So she must write what she knows, what she went through, in the hope that it will make sense to her in the future and to others now.

The story deals with the art of the Japanese garden, the fate of the Malay people in the Japanese occupation, the horrors of slave labour, the comforts of love, the disasters of loss.

I sometimes felt it was over-plotted, the next bit of the story landed with a clunk that i didn't buy into...

But at its best it flies...

[thebish]

[Harry Genshaw]

Just finished 'Hammered', Mark Wards autobiography. I mainly remembered him as an arrogant git that played in Leigh RMIs successful side of the late 90s. Not a bad read but it pretty much confirmed my original view about him. One or two interesting bits in there particularly how bad a manager Mike Walker was at Everton and him mocking Paul Ince for trying to portray himself as a hard man during his career, when Alvin Martin had made him cry at West Ham after once giving him a half time kicking.

[Bruce Rioja]

What's his version of events re - getting busted and serving time? Presumably he feels he was wronged etc. etc.

[Harry Genshaw]

What's his version of events re - getting busted and serving time? Presumably he feels he was wronged etc. etc.

A bit of both really. Initially it's I did wrong I served my time etc but the last couple of chapters is "I didn't grass" and then bemoaning how long his sentence was compared to paedos etc. That's in between him rather obviously touting for a job in football. As I say, not a bad read but he's not a bloke I warmed to at all

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Money-Mavericks ... 0273772503" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just finished this. If you are, for whatever reason, interested in hedge funds, it's a great read and simplifies an area which lots of people have an interest in making sound more complicated than it really is.

[clapton is god]

Back when Reeder was working I had the Dilbert daily cartoon as one of my must reads. I have just discovered that every last Dilbert is available on-line all the way back to the very first strip in 1989. I'm making my way through them a month at a time. They are genius! Interesting to see how the characters have morphed over the years too - all except Dogbert.

http://www.dilbert.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bwfcdan94]

A clockwork orange, creepy stuff!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

A clockwork orange, creepy stuff!

Let me get this right, you are reading Clockwork Orange, not watching it?

[Prufrock]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/23909521" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's the worst article ever. Mainly due to Prof Chris Anderson. What the figgerty frick can he ever be a Prof of?!

[Bruce Rioja]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/23909521

That's the worst article ever. Mainly due to Prof Chris Anderson. What the figgerty frick can he ever be a Prof of?!

Oh, Prufrock. I'd tried to blank this from my mind. I started to read it at lunchtime and found that it was actually beginning to make me feel angry towards the 4ucknugget whose piece it is. What a load of condescending, ill-thought out bollocks.

[Prufrock]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/23909521

That's the worst article ever. Mainly due to Prof Chris Anderson. What the figgerty frick can he ever be a Prof of?!

Oh, Prufrock. I'd tried to blank this from my mind. I started to read it at lunchtime and found that it was actually beginning to make me feel angry towards the 4ucknugget whose piece it is. What a load of condescending, ill-thought out bollocks.

It's pish isn't it?!

'It's hard to overpay for a terrific defender'. On that limited logic, it's hard to overpay for a terrific anyone you daft bastard, as they're terrific.

When talking about 'over-priced' English players, we have the illuminating point that English players, on average don't cost noticeably more. And? We aren't talking about Jamie Vermigglio trading Chorley for Chester are we? We're talking about why Andy Carroll costs £35m, and Christian Benteke £7m.