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A jolly good read?

Hereford Wolf said:
If you like history, then The History Of England by Peter Ackroyd (5 Volumes) is a great and interesting read.
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Someone you all know is currently reading his. I don't think David has put it down much this morning.
 
Erebus: The Story Of A Ship-Michael Palin
Really enjoyed this, the story of HMS Erebus (and to a lesser extent HMS Terror) from its launch, through its exploration of the Antarctic and its demise trying to find The Northwest Passage in the 19th century, mostly under sail. Tales of daring do, bravery and obsession. Well told by Palin imo
 
sycophantia said:
Couple of books I've read recently that surprised me, The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix is a strange tale of a guy that decides to commit suicide on his 100th birthday and leaves his suicide note as a story of his life in which he commited a number of murders......strangely compelling.
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Read this based on your recommendation not long ago. Quite enjoyed it in the most part.

Currently reading David Copperfield. Have read a number of Dickens short stories and they've been great.
However read Great Expectations and found it to be the dullest of borefests.
DC is long winded, but at least I am still interested - 200 pages into this 700 page book. It'll be the 4th book over 700 pages I will have read since lockdown commenced.

Gonna persist, as it will make me decide whether I ever read another book by Dickens or not.
 
Great Expectations is absolutely dire. It's biggest fault though is that it wasn't written as a novel, but as a serialisation. It would be the equivalent of stapling together a few Eastenders episodes then releasing it as a blockbuster. It would be the most tedious shite.
Not gonna knock A Christmas Carol though.
 
Brought myself the Gary Numan autobiography, turned up a couple of days ago wife stole it, haven't seen it since 😲
 
A short history of tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lwychka, easy read, it's about two sisters trying to stop their widowed father marrying a Russian gold digger so she can get a visa, and then bring her husband and family to the uk while she's trying to put him in a care home,book gets its title from the book the old man is trying to write as he was a tractor engineer in the Ukraine, funny and a bit sad with it.
The follow up two caravans was OK as well, couple of minor characters from the first book were the main ones in this as they've moved to become fruit pickets
 
After reading Bird Box earlier in the year I have finally gotten around to reading another Josh Malerman novel, Inspection. It is just as good (if not better) than Bird Box. It took me the first chapter or so to get my head around it then I couldn't put it down. There must be something about the way he writes as I think I read Bird Box in 3 days and I finished Inspection in about 5 days (it usually takes me a couple of weeks to finish a novel).

I have the eAudiobook of Malorie (the sequel to Bird Box) downloaded to my phone from the library so will start on that on my walks to and from work although I am a bit apprehensive due to how much I loved Bird Box - I don't want the sequel to be a disappointment!
 
tidied up the bookshelves again with stuff i have read this year. i seem to be filling the shelf I store read books quicker! I've finished at least 8 books since the end of this list already. I know, i read too many JtR/true crime books...

Contents (with some comments) were as follows:
P Cornwell - Ripper, the secret life of walter sickert
The secret footballer - how to win
Timur Vermes - look who's back - recommended by someone o here. very funny hitler story.
Robert Cowley - what if? - reimagining of significant historical events but with different outcomes
Naoki Higashida - the reason i jump - written by a severely autistic child, giving a first person perspective of autism
Dean koontz - the city
Robert Kolker - Lost Girls - series of murders labelled the long island serial killer
Michael Braddick - gods fury englands fire - no, not about brexit, but the english civil war (wait a minute!)
Joseph Heller - catch 22 - it's so-so. not sure why it is so hyped?
Lorraine Harrison - a potted history of vegetables - gardening!
Douglas Hofstadter - Godel Escher Bach an eternal golden braid - huge tome on consciousness. I was partway through this when lockdown 1 started. a very intense book.
Nick Hornby- Juliet naked - Hornbys novels have all been pretty good tbh. read a few. Need to read high fidelity.
Neil R bell - Capturing Jack the ripper
Timothy Leary - a design for dying - he's as mad as you expect him to be.
Oliver Sacks - migraine - sacks writes so well about medical issues affecting self perception and the brain. Love the majority of his books.
Stephen King - doctor sleep - good sequel to the shining. very engaging.
Erving Goffman - asylums - old school classic study on social environments
John J Eddelston - jack the ripper encyclopedia
Jostein Gaarder the world according to anna - Gaarders later work has started introducing some darker aspects, which is good, as some earlier novels seemed merely variations on a theme.
William Shatner - Leonard - more about shatner than nimoy sadly.
Robert Littel -The company - pretty good fast paced CIA novel. another big book.
Richard Wallace - jack the ripper light hearted friend - insane attempt to put forward charles dodgson, aka lewis carroll forward as JtR. ridiculous!
Roald Dahl - charlie and the chocolate factory & charlie and the great glass elevator - had never read them (i think). great glass elevator is actually quite dark in places, and reading it was quite surprising!
Julian Baggini/Jeremy Stangnom - do you think you think what you think? - excellent book about logic and thought processes/rational and irrational thinking etc.
Edwin T woodhall - jack the ripper or when london walked in terror
Caleb carr - Killing time - enjoyed the alienist many years ago. this, not so much...
Gordon Honeycombe - the murders of the black museum - UK crime anthology
Howard Pyle - the adventures of robin hood
Adam Wood - Swanson the life and times of a victorian dtective - another huge book, but this was amazing
Tom Stoppard - rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead - my favourite film of all time!
Robert Harris - archangel - excellent cold war style novel. really well done.
Roger Pol-droit - 101 experiments in the philosophy of everyday life - fascinating thought provoking little book. doubt I'll actually do them all, but some of the experiments are really worth doing.
Gail Honeyman - Elinor oliphant is completely fine - recommended by a friend. exceptionally funny in places, very relateable. loved the whole thing apart from the very end, but that's me being greedy an wanting more.
Sun Tzu - the art of war - Nuno's bible? classic ancient eastern text.
Paul Sussman - the final testimony of raphael ignatius phoenix - also recommended here.
Stephen Pile - the not terribly good book of heroic failures - loved stephen piles books as a kid. love the ironies included in the book.
Jean Overton Fuller - sickert and the ripper crimes
Iain Banks - complicity - a quite nuts multi character/perspective book covering a journalist/serial killer. very fast paced, and graphic in places.
Charles Dickens - david copperfield - far far far better than great expectations!
Leonard Matters - the mystery of jack the ripper
Michael Moore - downsize this
Chuck Palahniuk - survivor - final words of the last member of a cult left alive. like other palahniuk novels, this is a bit out there.
Richard Dawkins - the magic of reality - dawkins is brilliant, although he draws his claws firmly in during this book.
Stewart Evans/Keith Skinner - the ultimate jack the ripper source book
 
I know some of you love your true crime on here. Not a book, but the FBI have a website where you can read all the old case files and original police reports for famous cases including Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde, JFK, etc.

www.fbi.gov

Famous Cases & Criminals | Federal Bureau of Investigation

Listed below, grouped according to our top investigative priorities and related categories, are our famous and most significant cases over the past century.
www.fbi.gov www.fbi.gov
 
I love anything by J.K.Rowling, and so I'm enjoying The Ickabog at the minute. The illustrations by children around the world make this book even more enjoyable.
 
I'm half way through 'On The Road' Jack Kerouac, been meaning to read it for ages but finding it a bit hard going tbh. Just seems to be a collection of hedonistic episodes with no real flow or objective in mind, none of the characters are likeable at all, quite the opposite.
Maybe I just don't 'get' the whole, beat/ hippie/ new age traveller lifestyle......too 'square' aye I?
 
Just started a History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H Wilson. The empire barely features in British schooling of history as there is barely any British involvement so I wanted to find out about it. I had Wilson’s other book on the Thirty Years War which is superb and this appears to be similar. Immense detail and scholarship but actually very readable.
 
sycophantia said:
I'm half way through 'On The Road' Jack Kerouac, been meaning to read it for ages but finding it a bit hard going tbh. Just seems to be a collection of hedonistic episodes with no real flow or objective in mind, none of the characters are likeable at all, quite the opposite.
Maybe I just don't 'get' the whole, beat/ hippie/ new age traveller lifestyle......too 'square' aye I?
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I tried reading that a while back and gave up on it. It just seemed a bit pretentious and dull and all the characters were annoying.
 
I quite enjoyed it, seemed very much of its time though. Easy and quick to read too.
 
And what do you do? - Norman Baker

Great examination of the monarchy which ends up calling for them to be heavily streamlined rather than binned.

Excellent on Royal finances and how they're an awful lot less 'constitutional' than other monarchies.
 
I'm not normally one to re-read books (the only series I've ever re-read was Enders Game), but I've been really itching to revisit Wool lately (aka, The Silo Series). Anyone read it? It was one of the first big successes from Amazon self-publishing iirc, was quite popular on release back when.
 
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