Read Any Good Books Lately?

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

LOVED this - basically how a man psychologically damaged by losing his mother as a baby channeled that into a lifetime's academia which got him a Pulitzer prize but also got progressively more esoteric (he wrote a best-seller laying out case studies that had convinced him alien abduction claims were the real deal), until he was pretty much a fully fledged mystic. 

 

For all that his end was prosaic to say the least. Note to Americans prone to having deep wandering thoughts; when crossing a London road, remember Brits drive on the left!

 

[arghton 6,737]

Juice Leskinen's 2014 biography.

A very interesting personality, he was a singer-songwriter from the 70s to the early 2000s and is now called the father of Finnish rock and pop music. Like a ton of other musicians who gained fame suddenly he had problems with tobacco and alcohol: liver cirrhosis in 1989, diabetes, depression, kidney problems. He died in November 2006 at the age of 56 after refusing to go to his dialysis treatment. Picture from late 2006:

[Phantom 2,533]

Just started reading this.

 

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

Just finished reading Christopher Josiffe's excellent investigation into  Gef, a Manx speaking mongoose who apparently turned up at a remote Isle of Man farm in the mid 1930s.

 

[gcreptile 10,972]

On 26/05/2020 at 08:40, Bibliogryphon said:

I read a fair bit of Jean Plaidy when I was at school. Very easy to read and quite informative.

 

Mrs Herald is currently reading The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Is it better to read the first books of the trilogy first?

I bought The Mirror and the Light now, because of the universal critical acclaim. But now wonder if they need to be read in order.

[Bibliogryphon 9,581]

1 hour ago, gcreptile said:

Is it better to read the first books of the trilogy first?

I bought The Mirror and the Light now, because of the universal critical acclaim. But now wonder if they need to be read in order.

They form a complete story. I would suggest reading the other two first. Though the BBC adaptation is very good if you want to cheat.

[Toast 16,140]

3 hours ago, Bibliogryphon said:

They form a complete story. I would suggest reading the other two first. Though the BBC adaptation is very good if you want to cheat.

 

Or The Tudors if you want something a bit more, er, lively. 

[Bibliogryphon 9,581]

Just done a bit of Research I have been thinking about for a while. With the demise of Sir Terry Pratchett and Terrance Dicks I was trying to work out which living authors I have read most books by. 

 

A lot of these are genre writers and not many of them will bother us here in the near future.

 

1. Stephen Lawhead (28)

2. Justin Richards  (18)

3. Stephen R. Donaldson (15)

4. Roger Macbride Allen (12)

5. Stephen Cole (11)

6. David A McIntee (10)

=. Kate Orman (10)

=. Gareth Roberts (10)

9. Christopher Bulis (9)

=. Paul Cornell (9)

=. Steve Lyons (9)

=. John Peel (9)

13. Ben Aaronovitch (8)

=. Trevor Baxendale (8)

=. Paul Leonard (8)

=. Larry Niven (8)

=. Gary Russell (8)

[Great Uncle Bulgaria 1,283]

Currently reading 'Reilly - Ace of Spies' by Andrew Cook.

Bit stodgy in places, but does a good job of undermining the legend (as told by the lying, murdering, thieving subject himself).

[MariNisia 4,194]

53 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

Just done a bit of Research I have been thinking about for a while. With the demise of Sir Terry Pratchett and Terrance Dicks I was trying to work out which living authors I have read most books by. 

 

A lot of these are genre writers and not many of them will bother us here in the near future.

 

1. Stephen Lawhead (28)

 

Yes, I entirely agree with you, @Bibliogryphon.

I have a weakness for Stephen R. Lawhead.

When I was very young, I read The Empyrion Saga ("The Search for Fierra" and "The Siege of Dome"), who had a big impact on me.

We agree on something. 

[bennib1 22]

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

So, Evolving the Alien (2002) by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart is almost done - basically a biologist and mathematician set about speculating on all the ways life might exist in the galaxy and some of the ways astrobiology might have set off in the wrong direction and just kept going. 

 

Hard graft unless you're a proper scientist (which I'm definitely not), but worth the effort.

[Bibliogryphon 9,581]

On 23/06/2021 at 16:28, Bibliogryphon said:

Just done a bit of Research I have been thinking about for a while. With the demise of Sir Terry Pratchett and Terrance Dicks I was trying to work out which living authors I have read most books by. 

 

A lot of these are genre writers and not many of them will bother us here in the near future.

 

1. Stephen Lawhead (28)

2. Justin Richards  (18)

3. Stephen R. Donaldson (15)

4. Roger Macbride Allen (12)

5. Stephen Cole (11)

6. David A McIntee (10)

=. Kate Orman (10)

=. Gareth Roberts (10)

9. Christopher Bulis (9)

=. Paul Cornell (9)

=. Steve Lyons (9)

=. John Peel (9)

13. Ben Aaronovitch (8)

=. Trevor Baxendale (8)

=. Paul Leonard (8)

=. Larry Niven (8)

=. Gary Russell (8)

There is a name I omitted from this list. Just hadn't realised he had written so many Ben Elton should be on 9 I think.

[gcreptile 10,972]

I finished the Expanse series with the 9th and final book. Happy to get a good ending quality/logically wise. 6th season is also now out on Amazon Prime, might end the end-of-book depression. 

Last week, I read A Scanner Darkly, the druggie book by Philip K. Dick turned into a cult movie with Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. It's the 11th book of him I've finished. That makes him my number one. His books are short though. Stephen King is no. 1 in number of pages, and eventually, will be no. 1 in terms of whole books.

[gcreptile 10,972]

Reality is messing with my reading schedule. In Decembre, during a trip to Naples, I started Mary Beard's SPQR book. But before finishing it, I really got into the Witcher series and read the first 1,5 books. I had to interrupt the second book for Catherine Belton's "Putin's People". Very insightful, and if I had read it before the war, I would have been certain that Putin wants the whole Ukraine.

[time 8,599]

I've just finished Windswept & Interesting, Billy Connolly's autobiography. While a good read, not as funny as I expected, though I imagine if he were to read it audiobook-style, it would be! The last 6 books I've read have all been autobiography/memoirs, as is the one I'm currently on, and about 20 more in my "to read" pile, which is still growing and includes the one I bought today.

[Book 3,556]

I've felt the need to escape this world for a long time. The reality is hard to bear right now and is only getting worse. That's probably why I'm re-reading all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Just switch off and dive into another world. It may not always be easier and more peaceful, but there are morals and solutions. Seems like that's a better place to be right now.

[MrSpud42 30]

The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan. 

 

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

Winter is Coming (2015) Garry Kasparov's eerily prescient warning about the dangers posed by Vladimir Putin.

 

Kasparov is opinionated at times and has been at loggerheads with Putin for years, but he's spot on in his analysis.  His writing skills are not quite as unparalleled as his chess genius, however he gets his points across well.  I've got another of his books, Deep Thinking - Machine Intelligence and Human Creativity which I'm saving for a rainy day.

[Grim Up North 3,725]

9 minutes ago, DevonDeathTrip said:

Winter is Coming (2015) Garry Kasparov's eerily prescient warning about the dangers posed by Vladimir Putin.

 

Kasparov is opinionated at times and has been at loggerheads with Putin for years, but he's spot on in his analysis.  

 

His writing skills are not quite as unparalleled as his chess genius, however he gets his points across well.  I've got another of his books, Deep Thinking - Machine Intelligence and Human Creativity which I'm saving for a rainy day.

Thanks - going to Turkey for a weeks relax and sun shortly and need something more weighty intellectually to go with the Richard Osman fluff I already have.

[TQR 14,395]

To keep me company at work today (on my own cos Bank Holiday, it’s sunny and I’ve made some dreadful career decisions, but I digress) I’ve just listened to the audiobook of Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt, off the back of really enjoying the TV series.

 

Recognised the odd story that he’d masterfully adapted and weaved into the telly show. There’s a lot less attention paid to his life outside of work, a short afterword that touches on politicians’ complete disregard for the difficulty of the profession, it’s largely a read of his 6 years of diary entries. Intriguing, educational, dramatic, couple of sad ones, but almost all of them are laced brilliantly with humour. A handful of them had me absolutely howling.

 

I loved it, at least as much as the TV series. 5 and a half hours of joy.

[Death Impends 7,975]

Not much a reader but mostly inbetween jobs atm so using it to catch up on some stuff on my shelves. Got through Alex Trebek's autobiography, which was more or less a string of two-three page anecdotes and a good mix of amusing and sweet stories. Very poignant near the end when he talked about his looming death. Also really funny seeing the occasional curse word given how polished he was on TV

 

Will have to get to Ronnie Spector's next of course, which I see has a final edition released in a week's time.

[Great Uncle Bulgaria 1,283]

David Lodge - How far can you go. Starts off well with some shafts of humour but the characters are mostly one dimensional puppets and he keeps being sidetracked into writing a polemic against the catholic church. Overall not bad, but wouldn't recommend.

[Bibliogryphon 9,581]

20 minutes ago, Great Uncle Bulgaria said:

David Lodge - How far can you go. Starts off well with some shafts of humour but the characters are mostly one dimensional puppets and he keeps being sidetracked into writing a polemic against the catholic church. Overall not bad, but wouldn't recommend.

He is part of my theme team

[Great Uncle Bulgaria 1,283]

15 hours ago, Bibliogryphon said:

15 hours ago, Great Uncle Bulgaria said:

David Lodge - How far can you go. Starts off well with some shafts of humour but the characters are mostly one dimensional puppets and he keeps being sidetracked into writing a polemic against the catholic church. Overall not bad, but wouldn't recommend.

He is part of my theme team

I read the Caine mutiny about a week before Herman Wouk died. If I can pull off the same trick twice he should be dead round about Saturday teatime.