Books

Nearco

About to start Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis.

Just finished The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks. Very good Sci-Fi book although not in the same class as his "culture" novels.

EZee

Just finished the Raw Shark Text...

its a cross between matrix, jaws, memento, and the davinchi code

stephen halls debut novel...

very very good...

also recenty finished rant by palahunic... his best book in years i thought and im looking forward to the 2 follow ups

Dave_B

Anyone read Peter Kay's autobiography?

I'm reading it for a second time now, there's some real LOL moments in it.

A very enjoyable read in my opinion.

uae

Finished the Harry Potter book. Not bad, reasonable ending, if a bit cheesy.

Bury Red

Read Acid Row by Minette Walters on the plane to India yesterday after the wife recommended it despite having previously dismissed her as a bit of a chick writer due to the heavily feminist slant of her televised work in The Sculptress, The Ice House etc.

Not a heavy duty read but a very well paced thriller that really cuts into the dark underbelly of England. It deals with a 24 hour period on a Hampshire sink estate where local gossip has convinced people that 2 peadophiles have been rehoused in the middle of their estate at the same time as a young local girl has gone missing. Should certainly be read by the "cut off their bollocks, hanging's too good for them, name and shame" Daily Mail reading numpties that surface on here every time a serious crime is given tabloid coverage.

Had read The Devil's Feather previously and found that to be a pretty good pacy thriller as well.

midfieldred

How many Sherlock books written by authors other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle anyway? I've just read another Sherlock Holmes book "A Slight Trick of The Mind" by Mitch Cullins, a shite book, totally disappointed.

sev_franklin

Reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind. Haven't seen the movie.

Lunar Park someone mentioned, was just ok. Not Ellis' best work.

nabyllon

you should watch the movie. i enjoyed it alot. although i don't get how you can get people's 'smell'.

currently reading The Sacred Cut by David Hewson. It's like the da vinci code but the overall theme/story line is a bit different. enjoying it so far.

Hammer Michael

Got three to take on holiday with me on Thursday:

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Cell - Stephen King
The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy (started this a few times but never had the time to finish it)

BRobson

I'm looking for a contemporary book to read, as I go on my holiday tomorrow (Lanzarotti), can any one recommend one?

I like fantasy books but I've read too many recently.

Contemporary books I would recommend for others are:
Irvine Welsh- Trainspotting and Glue
Chuck Palahniuk-Choke
Willy Russell -Wrong boy

Stemmy

is it?....fecks sake was debating with myself whether to get that an all but couldn't sigure if it was an actual fictional story or just some shark facts.

Might give that a read next

Im currently reading the Bourne betrayal, not a bad read so far but i preferred the earlier books

Livvie

I just finished Tony Hawks Around Ireland with a Fridge. I enjoyed it - but I'm not totally convinced that he didn't use a lot of poetic licence. If I knew that everything he claims to have happened did happen, I'd rate it much higher - as a read it was great, but I'm not a great fan of Tony Hawks and I think he exaggerated a lot. I'd like to be wrong.

Ruben

I`ve started the third book in Patrick O`Brians "Aubrey and Maturin" series. The first two were excellent and this book, "H.M.S. Surprise" is great as well.

BRobson

I'm near the end of Whitesides book. I think it's been a good read so far. Such a shame about his testimonial.

Count Duckula

The best epic fantasy novels I've ever read (and I say that having read Tolkien) have been Steven Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen series.

They are superb. The opening book is well worth a read to get you hooked - Gardens of the Moon.

RapidRed

I've finally started to find time to read again after almost a two year break during which all I read was studies/work related.

Anyways here are a few books I read in the past two months.

1) The End of Faith : Sam Harris.

For me it was stating the obvious most of the times, as I agree with all his views. So after a while it became a bit tedious, since what it was doing, was trying to convince me, in a million different ways, of something that I am already convinced of.


2) Guns, Germs and Steel: Jared Diamond

A long read, but very interesting. It seems speculative at times and many of the examples that he points to as "facts" to prove his theories are disputed but critics. In fact I am just over halfway through this book, so I'll update once I finish.

3) The Afghan: Frederick Forsyth

One of my favourite authors since childhood. The master of writing thrillers, his books are real page turners and more often than not, have an excellent plot and closely related to some war or political conflict. This one is inspired by 9/11 bombings.

So, is it good? Is it fuck.

If you have'nt read any Forsyth, you might find it a bit interesting. But if you are a Forsyth fan like myself and have read his previous works particularly "The Fist of God", then don't bother reading The Afghan.

Please retire, Fred... before its too late.

Plechazunga

That started well, but just ended up making the same claim over and over again

I fecking believe you, Jared you cnut... at least, for the moment I do... so shut the feck up

books

RapidRed

Its exactly the same with The End of Faith.

I doubt it will do any good. Those who are not overly religious will obviously agree with him.

Those who are overly religious are too spasticated to bother with logic and reason no matter how you spin it.

Count Duckula

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins is a pretty good read.

If you're an atheist, anyway.

Plechazunga

Yeah, I'm guessing you weren't his target audience

As I mentioned on a CE forum thread, i went to hear the philosopher John Gray speak the other day, and he described the new wave of sort of proselytising atheists - Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet - as "a late-flowering Christian apocalyptic sect." His point was that the desire to convert the world, the conviction that if only everyone stopped believing false things everything would be alright, is entirely within the Christian tradition. Even though he is himself an atheist.

Dunno if he was right, but it was funny

RapidRed

But that sort of beats the whole purpose, does'nt it?

I mean, the aim should be to convince people to stop believing in myths and fantasy, irrespective of what Christianity or any other religion says.

Plechazunga

You reckon? I'm an atheist, and agreed with almost all of it, and I thought it was shit... really fucking shit

For a start, it's totally politically naive. On the very first page he nonchalently claims that without religion, there'd be no Northern Ireland conflict, no Arab-Israeli conflict, and no Balkan wars. As the physicist Wolfgang Pauli used to say, that's "not even false", it's just a fatuous, sixth-form argument

He repeatedly shows that he's unable to distinguish between Republicanism, Nationalism and Catholicism, and between Unionism, Loyalism and Protestantism.

From a personal point of view, I find his views on Jewishness borderline offensive... he clearly hasn't understood that being Jewish is a matter of not just religion but ethnicity - so saying the world would be a better place if there weren't any Jews is a bit different from saying the same about Christians. He reluctantly admits that there are atheist Jews, like his mate Robert Winston, but assumes that Winston considers himself Jewish as a matter of vague tribal loyalty - not wanting to let everyone down - rather than considering that there might be non-religious aspects of Jewish culture that are rich or worth keeping

He breezily suggests that Amish kids should be separated from their parents at birth to avoid indoctrination into what he sees as a primitive religious cluture... hang on there Prof, is that worth thinking about a bit more? For instance, is it not conceivably just a little on the fecking fascist side?

He deals with Anselm's ontological argument - which is flawed, yes, but needs some quite tricky logic to show it's flawed, by literally saying, "I'm going to answer this playground argument with another: na na na na na, I'm not listening" or some such embarrassing guff.

He quotes about 2 sides of crap gags lifted off the internet

And finally, there's the unbelievably crass, offensive and embarrassing "Burka of Ignorance" metaphor at the end, in which Ignorance is envisaged, bizarrely, as a vast burka reaching to the skies...

Aside from that, it's brilliant

Count Duckula

I never said I agreed with it, or his motives. I said it was a good read. Perhaps I should have labelled it "interesting", instead -- it would have been more apt.

You seemed to enjoy it, even if it was only so you could have a pop at it afterwards.

I don't really find Dawkins that amazing, like a lot of people do. They see him as a "champion of the atheist cause", but he just seems petty and bloody-minded to me. He did a documentary on Channel Four not long ago where he interviewed a selection of religious leaders, and each interview essentially boiled down to him saying "why do you believe in God, when he obviously doesn't exist?", the interviewee trying to respond, and then Dawkins retaliating, with a smug, self-righteous smile, "well, you're wrong."

No real debate or argument. Just a sanctimonious Oxford don with an inflated sense of his own importance in the world.

I also found "The Dawkins Delusion" an interesting read, too.
And for historical postery, "Mein Kampf" is actually worth a look.

Plechazunga

Yes, I did rather enjoy hating it

i met Dawkins, a couple of years ago, and he was very pleasant... quite surprising really, not waspish at all, more your typical bumbling, bemused academic type... he basically had no idea what the feck was going on, which endeared him to me. But I reckon he's probably gone a bit native due to decades of vicious shit thrown at him by religious types.

I found a lot of Mein Kampf quite dull... "the banality of evil" I suppose covers it... monomaniacal writing does tend to bang on

Plechazunga

I think he thinks the idea that you can in some way redeem the world by stopping people believing things you don't like, is itself a myth/fantasy... and one that comes right out the Judeo-Christian tradition

Count Duckula

But can, when coupled with the beautiful gift of hindsight, be extremely fascinating to indulge in.

Plechazunga

I guess, if that's your bag... I found it a bit on the depressing side

RapidRed

Mein Kampf was tedious, repetitive and fucking boring. I only picked it up purely out of curiosity. I don't think I even got halfway through.

Plechazunga

Agreed, RR.

One other thing about The God Delusion... I just moved house, and all my books were in storage for about 2 months... the only book to be damaged in the move was The God Delusion, which took a total battering to the extent of being bent in half till it's nearly split (it's a hardback)...proof of course that God exists

Unfortunately, the only other thing to get damaged was an old painting of Georgie Best from the sixties, that used to belong to my old man... proof that God is a Scouser

Count Duckula

I agree it's only famous because of who wrote it. On it's merits as a book it falls down horribly. I enjoyed it purely because of the author, and some of the insights into his mind.

I doubt I'd enjoy similarly lengthy and unspectacular philosophical pieces by men and women who didn't then go on to becoming dictators.

RapidRed