Reply With QuoteI've just started reading, 'Gone Fishing', by Mortimer & Whitehouse. Quite entertaining as was the TV series.
Assassination of HH taken by Qatar Wol.
The statue gets a mention in the book. At least I think they might be referring to that statue. There was mention of the plate having mention of the Czech assassins, so perhaps it may be a different one.
I've just started reading, 'Gone Fishing', by Mortimer & Whitehouse. Quite entertaining as was the TV series.
Now on the shelf, proudly rubbing shoulders with ‘On the Road to Wigan Pier’, ‘How Green Was My Valley’ and ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’.Originally Posted by Passenger
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Agent Running in the Field
John LeCarre
I was really keen to read this book, having enjoyed many previously written by the author. His style has changed, and in this book at least I didn't feel wound in by his usual tension. It was enjoyable, if slightly lacking imho. Not one to keep.
Rather then let books gather dust on my bookshelf I give them away free of charge once read. If you would like to be the next person to read this book then leave a note of interest in the thread, then PM me your details so that I can put the book in the post to you. UK only please due to postage costs.
Next on the reading list is:
The Secret Barrister - Stories of the Law and How it is Broken
Anon
Yes please.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Consider it yours. With any luck it will be in the post this week.
Currently going through a Steinbeck phase .
Travels With Charley is a tour around the USA with his dog and an early campervan.
It couldn’t be more different than his usual writing style but it is an enjoyable read.
You are a star. Thank you.
That's a lovely read.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Yep, a great read. In a similar vein there is Russian Journal, where Steinbeck travelled around the USSR with Robert Capa, so alongside Steinbeck's prose there are great pictures from one of the founders of the Magnum Photo Agency.
Just finished The Man In The High Castle, which is an interesting book with some fascinating themes and ideas, but as the case often is with Philip K. Dick I thought the dialogue and characters were a bit stiff and mechanical. A fairly quick read though, so it's easy to recommend.
Last edited by JimSclavunos; 1st November 2020 at 16:41.
I’ll take up your recommendation on Steinbeck’s Russian Journal. Travels with Charley is one of the books I love to return to.
Brilliant, thanks
I’ve just ordered it
Yes, I think that's the one. The monument has six names on it, from memory, including Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš.
Yes that sounds like the one. Very interesting. Very courageous individuals.
I quite enjoyed this, in fact I've never read a JLC book that I didn't like, but like you I won't be going back to it in the wy that I do with the Smileys
The Secret Barrister - Stories of the Law and How it is Broken
Anon
It's not that it's a bad book, it's that I can't deal with the tale it tells of our failing justice system. Apparently the Observer reviewed the book as "terrifying...hilarious...eye-opening". So far I have seen the former and the latter, but the hilarity must come later, so at page 138 I am throwing in the towel. Going by this book, a decent justice system is reserved for our friendly and well-funded Russian oligarchs. As a victim the rest of us are getting a shoddy deal despite the best efforts of those trying to hold it all together.
Rather then let books gather dust on my bookshelf I give them away free of charge once read. If you would like to be the next person to read this book then leave a note of interest in the thread, then PM me your details so that I can put the book in the post to you. UK only please due to postage costs.
Next on the reading list is:
Sold on a Monday
Kristina McMorris
My Name Is Selma - Selma van de Perre
The memoirs of a Dutch Jew who evaded the Nazis and worked in the resistance. Eventually captured, she contrived to conceal her identity and survive Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Not bad given that three quarters of Jews in the Netherlands were murdered, the highest proportion in any European country. (Personal note: having done all that, she went on to teach my wife maths at a school in Hammersmith).
It's an interesting narrative that deals with day to day life under occupation and the grey area surrounding collaboration, coercion and survival.
I read it, like you I found it equally informative and horrifying at the same time, but rarely enjoyable. I also found it read like a polemic at times, although I agree that what he wrote needed to be written.
Secret Barrister! Jaw dropping and scary AF!
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Watching War films with my Dad - Al Murray. Bloody funny. If you like his pod cast, We have ways of making you talk, you’ll love this!
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Sold on a Monday
Kristina McMorris
I rarely read a book by a female author as they are written from a female perspective and generally with women in mind. The cover and the book's description pulled me in though. This book has everything, extreme poverty, hunger, misery, young love, unrequited love, gangsters, beating, prohibition, speakeasys, asparagus spanking, multiple redemption. Parts of it could have been penned by the Bronte's. With intrigue and drama, twists and turns, the unexpected that couldn't have been dreamt of in your wildest dreams, this book would still appeal to a woman much more than a man in my humble opinion. The next person to read it will be my other half, but then it will become available.
Rather then let books gather dust on my bookshelf I give them away free of charge once read. If you would like to be the next person to read this book after Ms Templogin, leave a note of interest in the thread, then PM me your details so that I can put the book in the post to you. UK only please due to postage costs. If you want it for the asparagus spanking you will be disappointed as I made that bit up.
Next on the reading list is:
Unfolding Travels - World Travels on a Folding Bike
Gianni Filippini
I can only ever see asparagus spanking working with the green variety...
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
I feel a le Carré retrospective in the air. A Small Town in Germany has particular personal resonance of a time and a place, so I'll start there. Thank you, DC.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
To my shame, I've never read a Le Carre´, so I think I should. Start in the expected places? TTSS?
I'd start with The Spy Who Came In from the Cold personally. Short and perhaps his best. Written before, like many commercially successful authors, editors backed away and the novels grew fat.
A different type of mole features in Marc Hamer's "How To Catch A Mole". The book bears the unfortunate subtitle "And find yourself in nature" which I can only assume was the publisher's idea. There is a lot about moles in this book. But it is not about moles. Written by an author who was too physically large for the mine work in the North (a human mole?) and took to roaming England and Wales instead. A tramp, as it was called then, or homeless as we say now.
He writes very well. You'll get an idea if you will like this book from this extract, perhaps?
PaulGoodbyes are sad. There is no avoiding sadness in life, although it seems that happiness is easier to avoid. I have in my time deliberately tried to die, but I am still here, and life has always won on its own terms, so I stopped trying to make the choice for myself.
It seemed that it was not my decision to make, and I began allowing life to happen. It feels much better that way. I learned it from the birds, who just flew and nested and ate and made new birds, and the hedgehogs, who just shuffled and ate and made new hedgehogs, and they all died and went back to mud in their own good time.
Having worked all my life, created a family, discovered a home, I feel as secure as a working-class man ever feels, and I feel a sense of equality again with the crow and the toad and the hawthorn, with the rain and wind. I am them and they are me.
I lost my self-importance early on and do not want to differentiate myself from the world around me. I am just another animal, another tree, another wild flower in the meadow among billions of others, each unique in their own way, each just like the others in other ways, each one just another expression of nature trying to survive.
There is something deeply magnificent in being just ordinary.
Ah, the JK Rowling/Stephen King effect. Thanks for the advice!
Appreciated
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
That recommendation sounds good, thanks TT.
It's a pretty good place to start. Then try the Karla trilogy - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People - and The Perfect Spy. I thing those four books are his best.
Sounds just up my street. Once I have waded my way through Alan Turing: The Enigma I shall look out for this one.
Busy working my way through the Le Carre books. Coincidentally was only 2 books in when I heard of his death. Really enjoying them so far to my surprise (my usual fare is hard SciFi and American Crime).
I found his depiction of Hong Kong and Asia in general as particularly interesting. Such a different time and attitude back then.
For some reason I can’t get the image of gents with bad hair, thick glasses and dodgy sweat stained suits out of my mind after reading.
Forever and a Day, a Bond novel written by Anthony Horowitz. I give it a readable 3.5 out of 5. If anyone would like to read it after me, PM me and I'll post it to you next week.
If you're a fan of fast-paced, gritty pulp fiction, you were born to read Charlie Huston's Hank Thompson Trilogy:
A good read if you're planning on visiting in the future. Say 2025.
I'm currently working my way through a pile of boot sale books I bought in those far off halcyon days when such things were possible.
At the moment I am reading "For Kicks", a Dick Francis book that has taken me into the background of horse racing which I have found very interesting. I will look out for more of his books in a similar vein.
I understand HM the Queen is a fan too.
Cheers,
Neil.
I have encountered every single emotion whilst reading this. A modern classic I think
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Just read Ollie Ollerton's autobiography... fascinating life. After what this guy has gone through, not sure how he's still here. Brilliant read!
very interesting
I read the Tim Burgess lyric run through book over the last few days. Really good.
Need something good to go at next on the music theme.
Why the Germans do it better by John Kampfner (English btw...)
Interesting
Oh, oh, watch out for certain elements
Talking of Germans, I just started reading "Hitler's Jet Plane: The ME 262 Story"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitlers-Jet...s=books&sr=1-5
It might sound like a rather dry technical book, but so far it reads more like a thriller!
Having just waded through Antony Beevor's book on the Spanish Civil War (detailed but dry), I'm really enjoying the difference in style.
M
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
How did you get on with it - I loved it but it didn't have the ending I particularly wanted?
Can I interest you in a couple of copies of the Moultoneer together with, hot off the presses, the 2021 Moulton Bicycle Club calendar (I believe March includes one topless daguerreotype of Alex Moulton on a vibrant pink Stowaway)?
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Unfolding Travels - World Travels on a Folding Bike
Gianni Filippini
Gianni rides a Brompton in various places in the world. An interesting and inspiring read with some really good illustrations drawn by the author.
Rather then let books gather dust on my bookshelf I give them away free of charge once read. If you would like to be the next person to read this book just leave a note of interest in the thread, then PM me your details so that I can put the book in the post to you. UK only please due to postage costs.
Next on the reading list is:
I don't really know as I have a fair few unread, and reading on the internet seems to be swallowing a fair amount of my time, topped up with reading the fortnightly Private Eye.
Shuggie Bain
Just about to start The Accidental President.
About the first 4 months in office for Harry Truman. Been on the stack for a while and finally finished Remain in Love by Chris Frantz (Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club). A very good read over January.
I would like to read Gianni's book if no one else has expressed an interest. Will happily pay postage or make a charitable donation in exchange. PM sent
It’s yours Pretzel. Just PM me with your address.
I am reading Orwell's 1984 again, but fittingly, the kindle version I got appears to be missing some content, and some words have been changed so it doesn't make sense in parts.
Just starting ''The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'',
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
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