Good reads

Donny osmond · Post by **Donny osmond** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 8:43 am

Just finished reading Schindler's List. Just wow. Reads like a horror novel, but it actually happened, something you need to keep reminding yourself.

Has made me determined to a. never again draw spurious and frankly pathetic comparisons between people I disagree with and the nazis (I don't particularly remember doing that anyway tbh, but certainly wont be now) and b. not let anyone else away with drawing these comparisons either.

Seems like a small step to take, but it feels like the worlds sinking into hysterical reactions to problems that either dont exist or at least not nearly to the extentexisting that hysteria victims say they do. Witness the march of nationalism and the far right across the world. Standing up against that should be everyone's first priority.

Sorry, end rant. Its a great book, go read it.

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:17 pm

Bit of a mad old time at work and the Masters is taking up much of my reading time so I've had to cut back, but have enjoyed a couple of pretty different reads over the last few weeks.

John Bradshaw's In Defence of Dogs takes a reasoned tilt against the accepted premise that dogs are pack animals that must be dominated and argues that evolution has selected out those wolf-like characteristics and that today's domestic dog does not need a thrashing to keep it in its place. He talks a great deal of sense and those who are thinking of bringing a dog into their homes really should read this before they follow convention and ruin what should be a truly rewarding relationship with an animal. Those who've got a dog already have probably fecked things up, but no harm in reading this to see where they went wrong.

Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. This is only the 2nd Dickens I have read and feck me but it was good. I saw the very end of the old black and white filum some years ago so I knew that the story was going to end up with some one getting his napp knocked off, but that didn't spoil the reading of what Dickens said was his best story. I was quite surprised by how visceral his narrative was at times - he pulled no punches for his Victorian readers - and the resonances with some of IS' latter-day excesses was stark. The prose isn't always the easiest, but a brilliant, brilliant read.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Wed Nov 23, 2016 3:53 pm

Just done my latest book shopping and came away with Lawrence Durrel's The Alexandria Quartet (fiction), Maxim Gorky's The Mother (biographical fiction), Edward Said's Out of Place (autobiography), John Norwich's The Middle Sea (History) & Nissen and Heine's From Mesopotamia to Iraq (History). Still not quite finished the last of my previous batch, Tolstoy's The Cossacks & Hadji Murat, which isn't bad but nothing too amazing. The Chomsky before that was like the last few Chomsky's I've read, verbatim at times, so I gave the old geezer a miss this time.

I've heard A Tale of Two Cities described as a 'poor attempt at an historical novel,' but I agree it was a great book and one of my personal favorites. I remember trying to read Dickens as a kid and failing, then trying again in my youth and absolutely devouring everything he had written. David Copperfield is still my favorite novel ever, while Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities wouldn't be very far behind. Also enjoined Hard Times, Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby, in particular.

Re Schindler's List, just how close to non-fiction the story was remains questionable. This from the Guardian some years ago (also published in the NY Times and elsewhere):

As a Nazi party member credited with saving more than 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler was nothing if not a complex personality. But newly unearthed evidence suggests that he may have been far more complicated - and rather less heroic - than the character immortalised in the Steven Spielberg movie Schindler's List.

According to a new biography of the German industrialist, there was no Schindler's list, the legendary document containing names of Jewish employees at his Polish factory who were designated as "essential workers" and thus spared from the concentration camps.

In fact, Schindler was in jail at the time, and others compiled the lists, according to David Crowe, a North Carolina history professor affiliated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/ ... rmany.film

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 9:02 pm

Never heard of any of these. Anyone got an insight to offer? https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ?CMP=fb_gu

Vengeful Glutton · Post by **Vengeful Glutton** » Tue Nov 29, 2016 10:59 pm

Great reads.

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:09 am

Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery. I usually prefer to keep my history and fiction separate (Notable exception being William Boyd's Any Human Heart), but Eco's The Prague Cemetery weaves together his complete mastery of the mystery thriller with the generation of one of history's most catastrophic documentary hoaxes. Pretty good stuff and highly recommended.

Numbers · Post by **Numbers** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:36 pm

The Hundred Year-old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared - very entertaining.

Also Jonas Jonasson's second novel The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden - also entertaining.

Just started Alan Partridge - Nomad - So far so good.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:19 pm

Allahallah!

To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been suspended from the curriculum in some Virginia schools, after a parent complained about the use of racial slurs.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/ ... SApp_Other

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 8:54 pm

Sebastian Barry's Day's Without End. I am a huge fan of Barry's poetic prose and there is plenty to like in Day's Without End, but it is quite a departure from his previous works and frankly the storyline - think Brokeback Mountain meets Cold Mountain meets The Crying Game - felt too strained to be remotely credible.

Edit - but it still won the Costa!

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Tue Dec 27, 2016 8:55 am

Graham Greene's The Honorary Consul. One of Greene's later novels (Published in 1973) and there is an edginess about it that does not always come through in his earlier work. I really enjoyed it and can see why Greene would consider it among his favourites.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:09 pm

Approaching the end of Gorky's 'The Mother' now. All about the pioneers of the revolutionary movement, the obvious hardships they faced and the sacrifices they made. It's an interesting insight but not the most entertaining Gorky novel I've read.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:23 pm

rowan wrote:Approaching the end of Gorky's 'The Mother' now. All about the pioneers of the revolutionary movement, the obvious hardships they faced and the sacrifices they made. It's an interesting insight but not the most entertaining Gorky novel I've read.

Interestingly I've just come across this article, which rate's 'The Mother' as Gorky's most famous novel. I have also read the third, 'My Childhood,' and rated that much more entertaining personally. I haven't read 'Children of the Sun.'

https://rbth.com/arts/literature/2016/0 ... ter_563917

Mikey Brown · Post by **Mikey Brown** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 11:09 pm

This probably seems weird but I read this thread largely for Serge and co's reviews, despite the fact I can rarely manage to keep my attention on a book the entire way through.

Got on The Narrow Road to the North on holiday and it really seems pretty fantastic, not the sort of story I thought I'd be remotely gripped by. It would be futile me trying to elaborate on it any further.

There's my expert book review. You're welcome, folks.

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 5:42 am

Mikey Brown wrote:Got on The Narrow Road to the North on holiday and it really seems pretty fantastic, not the sort of story I thought I'd be remotely gripped by. It would be futile me trying to elaborate on it any further.

There's my expert book review. You're welcome, folks.

Brilliant book, MB. And all the more poignant as Flanagan's father was a prisoner of the Japanese and I think died only months before the book was published.

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 5:51 am

Barry Unsworth's The Songs of the Kings. Unsworth is one of those lesser-known authors whose work always caught the eye of the Booker judges. Rightly so as they are wonderfully gripping historical novels and beautifully written. I would rate The Songs of the Kings, among his later novels, as the best of those I have read. It is set in the encampment of the Greek army before Troy and, despite my interest in mythology stretching no farther than a childhood delight in Ray Harryhausen's films, I was completely gripped through every page.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 10:11 am

Am about 100 pages into Edward Said's Out of Place (autobiography), and although it is interesting I think the emphasis appears to be more on the writing style than the actual events themselves, as though the author's main objective were to impress the reader rather than inform or entertain. But that's just my view, and there's still a long way to go.

Meanwhile, some of these look interesting: https://arablit.org/2016/12/27/forthcoming-2017/

Big D · Post by **Big D** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 11:39 am

Donny osmond wrote:Just finished reading Schindler's List. Just wow. Reads like a horror novel, but it actually happened, something you need to keep reminding yourself.

I felt the same walking around Auschwitz and Birkenau a few years ago.

Donny osmond · Post by **Donny osmond** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 9:52 pm

Just finished East Of Eden (by John Steinbeck for the Mike Browns out there). Having read Grapes Of Wrath years ago and really struggling to finish it, I can suddenly see what all the fuss is about with Steinbeck. Amazing prose, really draws you in, and a story line that resonates more and more the older I and my kids get.

Great book.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 10:06 pm

Donny osmond wrote:Just finished East Of Eden (by John Steinbeck for the Mike Browns out there). Having read Grapes Of Wrath years ago and really struggling to finish it, I can suddenly see what all the fuss is about with Steinbeck. Amazing prose, really draws you in, and a story line that resonates more and more the older I and my kids get.

Great book.

One of my all-time favourites. There's a really old film version with James Dean too.

Mikey Brown · Post by **Mikey Brown** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:44 pm

Donny osmond wrote:Just finished East Of Eden (by John Steinbeck for the Mike Browns out there). Having read Grapes Of Wrath years ago and really struggling to finish it, I can suddenly see what all the fuss is about with Steinbeck. Amazing prose, really draws you in, and a story line that resonates more and more the older I and my kids get.

Great book.

Prose is a fancy word for words, right?

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 5:44 am

Mikey Brown wrote:
Prose is a fancy word for words, right?

And prosertutes.

SerjeantWildgoose · Post by **SerjeantWildgoose** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 5:46 am

rowan wrote:
Donny osmond wrote:Just finished East Of Eden (by John Steinbeck for the Mike Browns out there). Having read Grapes Of Wrath years ago and really struggling to finish it, I can suddenly see what all the fuss is about with Steinbeck. Amazing prose, really draws you in, and a story line that resonates more and more the older I and my kids get.

Great book.
One of my all-time favourites. There's a really old film version with James Dean too.

'twas on RTE over Christmas. I made the Mrs turn it off so that when I retire I can read the book without any spoilers.

rowan · Post by **rowan** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:53 am

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:
rowan wrote:
Donny osmond wrote:Just finished East Of Eden (by John Steinbeck for the Mike Browns out there). Having read Grapes Of Wrath years ago and really struggling to finish it, I can suddenly see what all the fuss is about with Steinbeck. Amazing prose, really draws you in, and a story line that resonates more and more the older I and my kids get.

Great book.
One of my all-time favourites. There's a really old film version with James Dean too.
'twas on RTE over Christmas. I made the Mrs turn it off so that when I retire I can read the book without any spoilers.

Henry Fonda starred in an equally vintage adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, as you probably all know, while John Malkovich plays Lennie Small quite brilliantly in a more recent (90s?) film version of 'Of Mice & Men.' Any other Steinbeck movies

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:05 pm

Cannery Row - early 80's starring Nick Nolte - not seen it probably 5hit

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:08 pm

La Perla (The Pearl) - 40's Mexican/American film. Needless to say not seen it but I did like the book.

RugbyRebels

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