JUST READ
Eased into New Year with Greg Keen’s Soho Dead, my first – full – book of the year. Very much by-the-book PI yarn but a great way to ease yourself out of the post Xmas hangover and the awful 12 months that almost certainly await us.
Followed that up with Barry (son of Brian and no relation to Boris) Johnson’s uneven biog of Kenneth Horne, Round Mr. Horne. Takes forever to get going but makes you want to go and hear the radio shows again so I suppose it served its purpose.
CURRENTLY READING
William (brother of Hugh, father of Liam) McIvaney’s Laidlaw. Written in 70s Glasgow and widely credited with starting the Tartan Noir crime writing genre, this is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages. Bit dated and over-written in parts, but you can see at whose literary feet the likes of Ian Rankin and Malcolm McKay sat while honing their craft.
WILL READ NEXT
Time for another factual book so probably Barry Miles London Calling – still. only £2.84 on Amazon UK at time of writing
moseleymoles says
A bit of an overlap with the Blogger Takeover monthly thread, but I’m a sucker for Goodreads reading plans…so here goes. Net Galley has me reading Courttia Newman’s just published ambitious Afro-London epic A River Called Time. Expect review in due course.
Last year I did get a bit obsessed with hitting 100 books on the Goodreads Reading Challenge, and was accused by a friend of junking the stats in December by only reading short novels!
So this year’s resolution is to not worry about page length and focus on reading what I want to read…with a few priorities:
1. clear my physical reading shelf – so am reading vol 1 of iq84 by Murakami which is both quite long and has sat on the shelf. Eggars, Franzen, Ellroy, Banks and Bolano all have chunky parts of this and were perhaps avoided last year.
2. Finish the series I am part-way through: so Vols 11 and 12 of Dance To The Music of Time, the last volume of Ann Leckie’s ‘Imperial’ trilogy, the last vol of the Cormac McCarthy Border trilogy, last vol of the LA Quartet, The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu etc.
3. Finish rereading all my graphic novels – currently on The Dark Knight Returns – so then buying some more can be justified.
Gatz says
Like a lot of people I’ve been struggling with reading during the pandemic, but I’ve just finished a reread of Tom Baker’s marvelous autobiography Who On Earth is Tom Baker? Despite the cover non-Who fans will find plenty to enjoy, and he spends much longer describing his early life as an apprentice monk than he does on his Doctor Who years. His prose is bizarre and hilarious, though there is some anger and pain in there too. It’s one of my favourite autobiographies.
I’m a few pages into Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, inspired by the recent death of John le Carre of course. I’ve never read any le Carre, and this copy is a first edition that has been sitting on my shelves since I picked it up for pennies in a charity shop. On what I’ve read so far I can expect every character, however slight, to be carefully and expertly drawn.
And yesterday was a good day, as not only did I receive the Richard and Linda Thompson box-set but also Scarred for Life Volume 2: Television in the 1980s. Like the first 1970s volume it is a huge compendium of articles on TV shows, adverts, public information films and so on. I wrote a review of volume 1 in these pages at the time (link below) and will likely do the same for this one in due course.
Jaygee says
Damn! Looks like I’ve opened a real Pandora’s box here.
SFL looks like the sort of book I’d love to bits. Thanks so much for alerting me to its existence!
Vulpes Vulpes says
Oooh, goody. Volume 1 is on my shelf – Volume 2 is a deffo buy.
Twang says
Birthday listed.
Johnny99 says
Thanks for this – I bought the first one on your recommendation and have loved it. I didn’t know this had been published but have now ordered.
Arthur Cowslip says
I’m a slow reader and I find it hard to find time to read. Moseleymoles’ 2020 Goodreads target of 100 books is well beyond my resources! I set a Goodreads target of 20 books last year and missed it by one. So this year I’m not going to fuss about it and am just going to take the time to read what I want in my own time.
JUST READ
The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman.
I used to love his column in the Guardian, This Column Will Change Your Life, which was advice on life and happiness but done right, without the fluffiness and with a stoic, direct sensibility. Kind of an anti-self help column. This book is decent but I prefer the shorter columns. It felt like there was a lot of padding.
CURRENTLY READING
The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander.
Yes, it’s a children’s book series, based on Welsh mythology. But I’ve had them since I was about 12 and have been meaning to read them ever since! I’m about halfway through and enjoying it so far. They start off a bit twee (there is a fortune-telling pig and a comedy hairy caveman thing called Gurgi), but before you know it they get into blood sacrifices and all sorts of pagan stuff.
WILL READ NEXT
I have a biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams to tackle.
Also Raise High The Roofbeam Carpenters and Seymour An Introduction by JD Salinger. I like the rest of his stuff and Catcher In The Rye has been a long time favourite.
And just to add another category:
BEST BOOK I READ IN 2020
Not wanting to give the impression that all I read are children’s books… but Watership Down was absolutely terrific. A magnificent fable which has a lot of piercing truth about society, leadership, life and death. All the big topics expertly wrapped up in a great yarn of a story.
Vulpes Vulpes says
The Plague Dogs is pretty gripping too.
bobness says
Indeed so, and set in the Lake District.
Arthur Cowslip says
I’ve seen the film (cartoon….) and I absolutely love it. But I’ve heard the book is a bit preachy and has a different ending! I’ll probably give it a go though.
One of the reasons I put off reading Watership Down for so long is because I love the film (cartoon….) and thought the book might be too complicated and bloated in comparison. Not a bit of it! I still think the cartoon is a fabulous distillation of the some of the key elements of the book (and a marvellous soundtrack… I include Bright Eyes in that…), but the book has just so much loving care and depth it is definitely its own thing.
mikethep says
JUST READ
Breath by James Nestor. As someone whose lungs are basically fucked (medical term) I have a natural interest in breathing, so this book was right up my street. The author is an asthmatic, and spent 10 years researching ancient and modern techniques of breathing and how we can make life better for ourselves. It’s full of fascinating detail about, for instance, CO2, which I always thought was just a waste product that had to be got rid of, but is actually essential to the proper functioning of our entire bodies, not just our lungs, which is why slow, deep breaths and slow exhales can work wonders. I know there are a few others like me round here – I thoroughly recommend.
Also Jonathan Lethem’s The Arrest – the Arrest being the moment everything stopped working, no more computers, planes falling out of the sky etc etc, and how a bunch of agrarian hippies cope when a sleazy guy in a nuclear-powered Mad Max juggernaut turns up. I like a nice dystopia, me.
READING
I have three books on the go, one old school, one electronic and one audio.
Old school: The Sunken Land Begins to Rise by M John Harrison. This is a riot – another dystopia (and very possibly an allegory of modern Britain) that’s actually funny. No idea where it’s going, but I’m loving it.
Electronic: Scrublands by Chris Hammer. Aussie crime fiction is going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment, helped along by Jane Harper, and this is another drought-ridden desert murder mystery, that kicks off with a town priest turning a rifle on his congregation, which is a bit of a banger as openings go.
Audio: Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5’s Secret Nazi Hunter – an engrossing tale of a former bank clerk who spent WW2 tracking down Nazi sympathisers in Britain. School of Ben McIntyre.
WILL READ NEXT
On the TBR pile are Hilary Mantel’s Mantel Pieces, a collection of her reviews and essays; Don Winslow’s new one, Broken, and a book by John Baxter called A Year in Paris, right up my rue.
BEST BOOK I READ IN 2020 (adopts Guardian critic voice)
Anything I finished in 2020, I enjoyed. Life’s even more too short than usual to finish books I’m not getting on with these days. But the two that impressed me most were both by Eley Williams – Attrib. and Other Stories, and The Liar’s Dictionary. Both gave me that authentic frisson you get when you find yourself listening to a voice that’s like nothing you’ve read before. (Ed.: will that do?)
Dodger Lane says
A big fan of John Baxter. Assume you will have read A pound of paper about his adventures in the book trade. I suspect it may well have been hugely exaggerated, but great fun to read. His books about Paris are wonderful, not read A Year in Paris but We’ll always have Paris is worth keeping an eye out for.
mikethep says
Yes, great fun. I often think I’d like to be John Baxter, he’s carved out a nice niche for himself. He does walking tours in Paris too.
Dodger Lane says
Thanks for that – next time I’m in Paris.
Twang says
Top top, just ordered the Baxter for Mrs. T – birthday on Friday!
Carl says
I’m currently reading two books.
One is The Chinese Maze Murders by Robert van Gulik and the other is Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy.
I started reading A Perfect Spy just after Le Carré died. I started it many, many years ago but didn’t like it and so gave up. His death spurred me to pick it up again and I am still puzzling over what I didn’t like about it, now I’m 200 or so pages in.
However I realised I also had a book to read for my book group (which has an on-line meeting this evening) and the van Gulik book was due to be read. So I put A Perfect Spy aside and dived into the set book – which after initially disliking, found myself becoming engaged with the plot.
Once these two are out of the way it will be on to James Lee Burke’s A Private Cathedral. There will also be another (as yet unknown) title to read for my book group.
After that I intend to read Stuart Cosgrove’s Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul, David Walsh’s The Russian Affair (about the scandal behind the doping of athletes) and Joël Dicker’s The Baltimore Boys. Which is enough forward planning for the time being.
Much enjoyed in 2020 – Robert Forster’s Grant And I (which made be repeatedly ask myself “How did the Go-Betweens pass me by in the 80s?” and Scrublands by Chris Hammer.
I finally got around to Johnny Rogan’s Morrissey And Marr: The Severed Alliance and was somewhat disappointed by it.
Junior Wells says
@Carl what didn’t you like about the Rogan book
Carl says
Firstly, let me stress, I didn’t dislike Severed Alliance. It just didn’t engage me in the same way as other books of his I’ve read (Timeless Flight Revisted about The Byrds and No Surrender on Van Morrison).
I thought it was unbalanced in the histories of the Morrissey and Maher families – too much of the former but about right for the latter.
With the other two books I felt Rogan got inside the, for want of a better phrase, artistic processes (and with Van especially that must be difficult) whereas with The Smiths it felt like an observer looking in. Which obviously he is, but the outcome here is different.
Nor did I feel that Severed Alliance conveyed the excitement that people must feel when they have created something musically great on one hand while not relating the turmoil behind the conflicts that lead to break ups.
In Timeless Flight, with the regular departures of band members I felt Rogan got to the heart of the disputes, especially with respect to David Crosby and Gram Parsons and their relationships with Roger McGuinn, whereas with Severed Alliance it seemed the break up was just something that happened.
Junior Wells says
Cheers
SteveT says
@Jaygee ” the awful 12 months that almost certainly awaits us’? Remind me not to invite you round to mine for a dinner party. Jeez be more upbeat man – don’t let the bastards grind you down.
As it happens I am reading and enjoying Mark Lanegan’s Sing backwards and weep. He writes very well.
Next up will either be The Vinyl detective or Jonathan Coe’s Middle England.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Just read – a couple of Tim Weaver’s ‘David Raker – Missing Persons’ books. Oh dear, no more of that drivel will be read, thank you. Nasty torture porn shite.
Currently (re)reading – ‘Three Men In A Boat’ by Jerome K. Jerome. Jolly mild amusement (faint praise) with a few little sparks of humourously delivered insight. Read it first when I was about 11, and picked up an old Penguin copy for tuppence in a chazza last year. Worth a read, but the second time through reminds one very robustly of the book’s profoundly 19th century context. I also have a copy of ‘Three Men on the Bummel’ (oh, please) lined up for consumption at some point, but I think I may delay that particular gratification a tad longer.
Next in line: Stuart Macbride’s ‘Birthdays for the Dead’, as recommended to me in these very pages. I recently read the last-but-one Rebus, and I’ve got the new one here ready to go as well, but I thought a change of scenery might be conducive in these times of humungous print consumption. I don’t do Kindles. I like to live dangerously, and reading in the bath is a great personal pleasure, unspoilt by the fear that a soapy slip (give us a break, Moose) might cost considerably more than the price of a half-battered paperback or discounted dodger hardback which will shortly be sent to the chazzacycling.
Twang says
Three Men is an absolute gem. I love it.
SteveT says
Me too – havent read it for a while so am wondering if its magic has lessened with age.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Only a little. In this age of attention deficit disorder (a.k.a. age of inescapable lowest-common-denominator shouty shite on the telly) one has to grant it a little allowance to compensate for the often lengthy asides, but it’s till a right hoot.
bang em in bingham says
reading…A Field of Tents and Waving Colours 2019: Neville Cardus and next up…Shake Rattle And Rain: Popular Music Making In Manchester 1955 -1995
by CP Lee
Gary says
Recently finished
As mentioned in Blogger Takeover LXX1, I recently read 2020’s Pulitzer Prize winner ‘The Nickel Boys’ by Colson Whitehead. A studious and polite young black kid hitches a lift to college for his first day there, but it turns out the driver has stolen the car. The kid, Elwood, gets sent to the Nickel reformatory school, where abuse, savage beatings and even killings are commonplace. I thought it was very readable, but not the masterpiece some reviews led me to expect.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/05/the-nickel-boys-by-colson-whitehead-review
Just started reading
‘Mr Wilder and Me’ by Jonathan Coe. I’m not a great fan of Coe. His ideas and politics generally interest me a lot more than his charcters or plots. I thought ‘What A Carve Up!’ was a genuine masterpiece, but nothing else I’ve read has come close. I’d say ‘The Rain Before It Falls’ is my second-favourite. A friend who is a fan keeps nagging me to read ‘Expo 58’, but he also nagged me to read ‘Number 11’ which I thought had one of the worst endings I’ve ever come across in a novel. Too early to give my opinion, but so far I’d describe ‘Mr Wilder and Me’ as “pleasant”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/26/mr-wilder-me-by-jonathan-coe-review-satisfyingly-sweeping
Will read next
On a friend’s recommendation I bought a copy of ‘Deaf Sentence’ by David Lodge from Amazon, on account of I’m going deaf. Said friend reckons I’ll relate to the main character as, like me, he apparently pretends he hears what people say and nods in non-committal acknowledgement. Unfortunately the print of the edition is so small I’m not sure I’ll be able to read it!
(BTW, on the subject of deafness, I recently watched The Sound of Metal starring Riz Ahmed as a drummer who loses his hearing – good film, even though I thought the protagonist was a bit of a whinger).
Best book I read in 2020
Easy: 2008 Booker Prize winner ‘The White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga. I don’t know why this book completely passed me by until last year. A while before I’d borrowed from a friend another book set in India, Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram, and found it too long, boring, self indulgent and self mythologising. So I when I saw The White Tiger on the same friend’s bookshelf I wasn’t particularly tempted. But I had nothing else to read, so I took it and am very glad I did. Its portrayal of India’s slums is very different to Shantaram’s: irreverent and darkly humourous. I see a film version is about to be released. I’m very sceptical that the filmakers will do it justice.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/05/the-white-tiger-review-balzac-worthy-satire-of-submission-and-power
Gatz says
I’ve spent the last quarter of a century hoping Coe will write anything as funny, angry and beautifully constructed as What a Carve Up, but no luck. It seems he rates several other novels of his higher, but he is just as wrong as when he tweeted last week that the TV adaptation of Black Narcissus is in some ways superior to the Powell and Pressburger film.
Dodger Lane says
I’ve enjoyed both of Coe’s last two books – Wilder & Me is slight, but pleasant and kind of hit the spot. I thought Middle England was good, he was getting a little too preachy about Brexit/Blair/Iraq for my taste but this was done with a lighter touch, and it worked for me. Agree about No 11, the ending was ludicrous, but do give The House of Sleep a try.
Gary says
I’ve read both ‘The House of Sleep’ and ‘Middle England’. I preferred the former. (I don’t much care for any of the Ben Trotter trilogy. I found the characters in them so unremarkable that I couldn’t remember who was who half the time.) I agree completely with Gatz, above, I’d like to see Coe write something else as great as ‘What A Carve Up!’ again.
One book I keep meaning to get hold of is his biography of B.S. Johnson. ‘House Mother Normal’ is one of my favourite books and what little I know about Johnson’s life sounds worthy of examination.
duco01 says
B.S. Johnson’s famous ‘book in a box’, “The Unfortunates”, is a brilliant concept and one of my favourite novels ever. Read it all costs!
Gary says
Another I must get hold of.
moseleymoles says
BS Johnson thread! Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry is one of my favourite novels. Not got a copy of the Unfortunates and will put it on my reward list for when the to-read shelf is cleared..
Gary says
And add ‘House Mother Normal’ if you’ve not read it. Very entertaining, ’tis. Each chapter looks at the same evening in an old people’s home as seen through the eyes of the different elderly patients, requiring the reader to flip back and forth between chapters to follow any conversations.
bobness says
Just finished – Lancaster by Leo McKinstry.
Reading – In a House of Lies, Ian Rankin (Love the Rebus series)
Next up – 2020 Motocourse, that Richard Osman one, and the new Tim Harford. And Chastise, by Max Hastings. And a few others. It’s just finding the time.
rotherhithe hack says
Trying to whittle down a pile of 30+ books on Kindle or picked up in a large scale exchange.
Just before new year finished ‘The Shot’ by Philip Kerr, entertaining political thriller published 20 years ago about a plot to assassinate President Kennedy BEFORE his inauguration.
Since then I’ve gone through ‘Property’ by Lionel Shriver, a couple of novellas and several short stories loosely based on how property affects relationships between people. A mixed bag, but the opening novella, ‘The Standing Chandelier’, is excellent. A couple of months back I really enjoyed her ‘The Motion of the Body Through Space’.
Just begun ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ by PG Wodehouse, part of a compendium I’ve been dipping into. Amusing but let’s see how it progresses.
Best of 2020 – ‘Machines Like Me’ by Ian McEwan, an intelligent and rattling good story that combines a counter-factual take on the 1980s with speculation on the development of robots that look and learn to behave like people.
Dodger Lane says
Over the last year, I have been finding it harder to sit down and read for any length of time. When this unpleasantness started, no problem. Great, sit out in the garden, read, be back at work in a few months. Now, not so bloody easy.
Anyway, just read.
City of Lies by Ramita Navai. It’s sort of an oral history of Tehran under the Islamic republic, although it later turns out that some of the stories are a composite of experiences. Some are truly shocking, above all those detailing the sexual hypocrisy of the regime. It’s a lovely book because she clearly loves the city, and the last story of the lady who returns to Tehran because she finds living in London too expensive and drab sums up what the book is about.
About to dip back into some Le Carre with The Spy who comes in from the cold. I’ve read again Tinker Tailor and Smiley’s People, and yes, what a great writer. I never warmed to him as a person but his widely acknowledged masterpieces are great and worth re-reading.
Will read next – not a clue at the moment. It will have to be something light and frothy, too bloody bleak out there.
Best of 2020.
The Craig Brown book about The Beatles was great fun.
House of Glass by Hadley Freeman – memoir of writer’s family, part holocaust, how memories of appalling experiences are suppressed and how to go and live a life. Very well done.
The Lost and the Damned by Olivier Norek. He’s one of the Spiral scriptwriters and the first 30 or so pages are pretty horrific/very Spiral. One of the best thrillers/crime novels I’ve read recently. Will appeal to anyone who loves Spiral.
Mike_H says
I’ve been reading Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series of mostly Russia-set detective novels over recent months and I finished the last one (so far) “The Siberian Dilemma” over the New Year weekend, immediately followed by a standalone title of his “The Girl From Venice” which is set in and around Venice in the final days of the German occupation. I shall be reading a lot more of him, I think. I’ve just started reading “The Offing” by Benjamin Myers, which has been sitting unread on my Kindle for months.
mikethep says
I read The Girl from Venice a while back. Excellent set-up, but I found it dragged a bit, tbh.
Mike_H says
The ending was a bit unsatisfactory, I thought. It just sort of petered out.
He’s very good on characterization, context and describing locations, but his plotting can sometimes be a bit weak.
Carolina says
Just Read (well, heard) – Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham
Currently hearing – Black Moon by Winston Graham
Plan to hear next – Four Swans by Winston Graham
Anyone detect a theme?! I plan to spend the next few months continuing to immerse myself in Cornish coasts and mining country, romance, smuggling and family discord during the 18th century. Provides much-needed escapism from life at the moment.
Black Type says
‘S’not right, ‘s’not proper.
Carolina says
And surprisingly topical. In Book 2 Ross gets put on trial for inciting a riot! (He gets off due to a very lenient jury).
John Walters says
On the last lap of the long edition (1500 pages) of “Tune In” by Mark Lewisohn and loving every minute detail about The Beatles early days. Hoping for volume 2 maybe sometime this year.
Best of 2020 for me was “The Mirror and the Light”. I will miss Thomas Cromwell and Hilary Mantel’s delicious prose.
Next from the pile …. either the latest Rebus or the autobiography of John Cooper Clarke.
duco01 says
Have nearly finished the novella “Passing” (1929) by Nelly Larsen, a writer of the Harlem Renaissance.
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in early 20th century African-American literature.
Boneshaker says
JUST READ – Craig Brown’s 1,2,3,4 The Beatles in Time was hugely enjoyable, his puncturing of Yoko Ono’s self-important 60s pseudery being especially amusing.
CURRENTLY READING – James Rebanks’s English Pastoral is a beautifully written book about hill farming in the Lake District, and follow-up to the hugely successful A Shepherd’s Life. Ecologically aware with spare and lovely prose, it’s a compelling read.
READING NEXT – Just about to start Barack Obama’s A Promised Land. It still beggars belief that the country that elected Obama on a wave of optimism is the same one that just 8 years later voted in the Orange Cnut.
Dodger Lane says
James Rebanks’s books give me hope for the future in his clarity of thought and love/care for the countryside. Do get yourself a copy of The illustrated Herdwick Shepherd, a companion volume to The Shepherd’s Life with added stories and some lovely photography.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Can only add to the praise for Rebanks timeless prose. I bought my wife the earlier Shepherd’s Life book and we were both charmed and delighted with it, so last Christmas brought her both English Pastoral – which she loves to bits – and the Illustrated book, which is magnificent. We also invested in his Calendar for 2021! All of his books are total keepers. No way are they off to anyone else once we’ve read them – they have permanent shelf space guaranteed and allocated. His written work is wonderful, marvellous writing, imbued with wisdom and love.
Billybob Dylan says
My wife bought me the big Ready Steady Go! coffee table book for Christmas. I’ve barely scratched the surface.
mikethep says
A squirt of Pledge will sort that out.
Moose the Mooche says
And then a spot of vigorous buffing!
Billybob Dylan says
I tried that but I ended up with chafed thighs.
hubert rawlinson says
Of course one could always try a French polish.
Rigid Digit says
Similar to a copule of others here, I was knocking books off inside a fortnight at the start of this “fun”.
Can’t seem to find the time or he inclination to read much now.
Just finished David Hepworth’s latest (took about a month) – like most Hepworth tomes, I don’t necessarily agree with the conceit but he makes a strong case for his beliefs. One or two nuggets of trivia gleaned
Next Up – Craig Brown: One On One. Recommended in these here pages. Note to self: make more time to read …
Just Ordered – Andrew Marr: The Elizabethans; Craig Brown: 1 2 3 4
(Nick Lowe biog also ordered on paperback – due sometime in March)
Billybob Dylan says
Will Birch’s Nick Lowe bio is very good.
Tony Japanese says
Just Read:
I always try and have book on the go. I’ve recently finished reading Simon Heffer’s Victorian/Edwardian history, THE AGE OF DECANDANCE. Before that I read ONE TWO THREE FOUR – THE BEATLES IN TIME, LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER and WOLF HALL.
Currently Reading;
THE QUARRYMEN by Hunter Davies. I try and intersperse ‘heavy’ books with lighter reads if I can. I’m also dipping in and out of the last few years of FORWARD POETRY PRIZE books.
Will read next:
God knows. It’s a choice between A PROMISED LAND, BRING UP THE BODIES, or perhaps BLEAK HOUSE.
moseleymoles says
If you’ve read Wolf Hall then Bring Up The Bodies is an absolute must. The Mirror and the Light is perhaps more of a commitment but BUTB is a perfect sequel.
Tony Japanese says
I’ll get to both Bring Up The Bodies and The Mirror and the Light at some point. I have them sitting on my bookshelf, courtesy of my father-in-law.
simon22367 says
Just Read:
John Cooper Clarke – I Wanna Be Yours. Hard not to read this in the signature JCC brogue. A great read. A lot of the book’s about his addictions, but he doesn’t play the tragic woe-is-me card, it’s told pretty matter of factly. Prompted me to spend far too much time on youtube listening to him.
Mark Oliver Everett – Things the Grandchildren Should Know. Second time around for this one. Depressing and uplifting at the same time.
Currently Reading:
Finished JCC last night, so nothing currently on the go.
Will Read Next:
Amy Sanderson – Sovereign Blades: The Complete Fantasy Trilogy
No idea what it will be like, but I need some escapism after two biographies. Then again, that copy of Hallo Sausages: The Lyrics of Ian Dury has been sitting on the shelf for a while.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Should one neck a couple of bombers and stay up for 36 hours in order to read the JCC from start to finish in one go or is it ok to put the book down from time to time in order to sleep, eat and go to the toilet, I wonder, maybe it would be best to just power through the thing in a single sitting rather than take it on in chunks and risk losing the flow of the narrative, do you think you lose anything from taking a break every now and then or would you recommend a straight-through approach perhaps; does he go on a lot about the prodigious quantities of amphetamines he must have consumed over the years or does his matter of fact telling in some way skate over the seriousness of how he mistreated his metabolism to the extent that he now regrets having been such a mental speed freak; I remember that when I saw him perform I could barely keep up with the wordplay and found myself guffawing a good thirty seconds after each gag while my brain attempted to process the last few sentences that had been delivered at a breathless pace; it was exhausting!
slotbadger says
I got the audiobook and while its brilliant, I find JCC’s elasticated monotone is best enjoyed in short doses.
Twang says
Great thread!
LAST – What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe, praised by @gary above. I ideally like JC but I couldn’t get in with this. I think it’s because it’s very clever in terms of tricksy writing and plotting and when I hit the sack I can only manage 3 pages of a book before I peg out. Gave up 2/3rds of the way through. I’ll try again on holiday when I can spend more time with it.
CURRENT – Don Winslow – The Cartel. I’ve read a number of his and the two predecessors to this one which I have really been looking forward to.
NEXT -The Uncrowned Queen – a biog history of Margaret Beaufort, who I find fascinating. Who, you may ask? Founded the Tudors and won the Wars of the Roses. She was a dude.
THEN – Humans – A brief history of how we f*cked it up by Tom Phillips. Christmas present from brother in-law. Looks good for my current mood.
John Walters says
Holidays…….
Yes…….
I think I remember them.
Vulpes Vulpes says
I think that Margaret Beaufort is a distant and possibly wrong-side-of-the-blanket relative of the current louche spendthrift who occupies my local aristocratic pile.
Who wrote the book? I may follow up, if only to be better able to mock and embarrass his snivelling representatives whenever they trouble the village with plans to build countless pretend-old houses in the fields behind Foxy Towers.
Twang says
It’s by Nicola Tallis. Proper historian. Mind you MB was technically wrong side of the blanket, springing from John Of Gaunt’s tireless shaggery, though he did eventually marry the lady in question and when MB’s son became Henry VII no one mentioned it any more!
aging hippy says
Just finished:
The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton having also recently read his The Devil And The Dark Water. Turton does like a dense plot that keeps you guessing throughout.
Unquiet Spirits – A Sherlock Holmes Mystery by Ronnie Macbird. It’s about ghosts, murder and whisky. What’s not to like?
Favorites from 2020:
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
I’m currently reading The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman which is the sixth book in her Invisible Library series.
Full disclosure. Many of the books I’ve “read” this year have actually been on Audible where a good narrator is essential.To that end Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers Of London series read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith are terrific. I have actually read most of them as well.
Locust says
JUST READ: Jeff Tweedy – How To Write One Song (short, charming and sometimes funny book of tips for future songwriters to get started. Not something I plan to do – I read it as a Jeff Tweedy completist – but some of his exercises have similarities to the exercises I’ve developed over the years to get rid of writers block, so I’m certain that they work!)
CURRENTLY READING:
On my commute: Julia Child – My Life In France (enthusiastic autobiography about obsessive cooking, eating and “cookery-bookery” and the love of all things French)
During lunch: The Obama autobiography (interesting but goes on a bit…)
Bathroom book: currently none, as I just finished the Tweedy one and is waiting to replace it with…
WILL READ NEXT:
…the latest by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which I’m planning to buy tomorrow. Almost finished my commute book, which will then be replaced by The Binding by Bridget Collins (Christmas gift).
Other books lined up for reading this year includes Robert MacFarlane’s Underland, the latest by Elisabeth Åsbrink (another Christmas gift), and more novels by Carol Shields, to name a few.
BEST BOOK(S) I READ IN 2020:
I just happen to have made a list…
1. Sebastian Barry – Days Without End (brilliant – gripping, gorgeously written, funny, grim, heartbreaking and uplifting; I haven’t cried this much over a book in years – but please don’t let that put you off!)
2. Kazuo Ishiguro – The Remains Of The Day (speaking of crying…that ending!)
3. Gun-Britt Sundström – Skrivliv (well I’m not leaving it off my list just because you lot can’t read it! 🙂 This is the hilarious diaries of the Swedish author Sundström through university studies, working as a journalist and writing novels, plus (mis-)managing her love life. Absolutely brilliant!)
4. José Saramago – Blindness (if you’re going to read one pandemic-themed novel, this is the one!)
5. Annie Ernaux – The Years (autobiographical in three different perspectives; the author’s, a generation’s, and a nation’s experiences, told in short scenes, snippets of dialogues, listing things, reflections; through the years of a [generation’s] life. Fascinating and original)
6. Carol Shields – The Stone Diaries (An ordinary yet extraordinary woman’s life from birth to death told by many voices, and through their stories as well as her own – why haven’t I heard of this author before 2020? Larry’s Party – at number 8 on my list – is another brilliant telling of a life in an equally original way…I’m going to buy all of her other novels this year)
Carl says
I have had Days Without End on the bookshelf for a couple of year now. Maybe I should move it up the order in my list of Books I Will Read this year.
duco01 says
Re: Days Without End.
It’s a good’un, all right.
Vulpes Vulpes says
In the in tray.
ganglesprocket says
I am just popping in to say that I just read a preview copy of Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan. Her first book, The Panopticon, was completely brilliant.
Luckenbooth is an out and out masterpiece. As demented as as memorable as Angela Carter, but better. It’s officially out next week and I can’t recommend it enough. If I read a better novel this year I will be delighted indeed, because I doubt I will.
Marwood says
I have found reading a real comfort during the past few months. Plus, as I have been working from home I’ve had moe opportunities to read during the day (no commute, grabbing a fw minutes with the kindle during the day, not being so shatteringly tired in the evenings…
Just read – Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin
In this book, there is a worldwide craze for the Kentuckis which are remote controlled plush toys that have cameras for eyes. But there is a strange relationship between toy and owner, because the owner isn’t the one in control of it. Instead, another person has paid to take control of a random Kentucki. Over a series of short chapters, the book investigates themes such as social media, loneliness, empathy, how technology can bring people closer together and further apart. One of those books that hangs around in your head for a while.
Reading
I’ve nearly finished Breakers by Doug Johnstone. Tyler is a young lad coerced by his older step brother into a string of burglaries. During one of these, things get violently out of hand but it’s not until the next day that they discover that they broke into the home of a local gangster. This is a pacy crime drama, with a Tyler a winning protagonist, struggling to look after his younger sister and their drug addicted mother whilst also keeping ahead of the police, the local gang and his step brother, the most unpredictably dangerous character of the lot.
To read
Next up? Not sure – I have around 50 unread books on the Kindle (just can’t resist a daily deal and there is usually a couple of goodies in the monthly bargains). I quite fancy Altered Carbon or maybe Stuart Turton’s Devil and the Deep Water (which I’ve read good things about).
Favourites
As for my favourite book of last year I really enjoyed Dead Man’s Walk, the prequel to Lonesome Dove, Also enjoyed Leviathan Wakes, which is the first of The Expanse books. Both of these were fat, juicy books, filled with memorable characters, exciting set pieces and a rea sense of location. I do like to lose myself in a nice big book – as comforting as a deep bath. A shout out for Tender is the Flesh – an unsettling tale set in a world where animal meat has become poisonous but human hunger continues to demand meat. Oh, and Lean on Pete which was gorgeous.
Jaygee says
You sound exactly like me! I’m beginning to regret starting this thread as I’ve already spent about £30 in the last 48 hours.
As someone – can’t remember who – once said. Booklovers are optimists who don’t buy books to read, but hope they’re renting the time required to read them.
Well it was something like that any way
Freddy Steady says
About to tackle Six Four, a Japanese police/crime novel by Hideo Yokohama. Gets good reviews, rated by David Peace…any of our dear readers know it?
davebigpicture says
I read it. Quite good, a lot of police procedure IIRC and unfamiliar Japanese jargon about Prefectures etc.
Jaygee says
I read it a while back. Can’t have been that impressed as I had to check on the Kindle to find out that I had bought and finished it. There are some great Japanese crime books out there though – unfortunately the one I remember as being the best was bought as a dead-tree version and I will have to trawl through my entire Amazon history to remember the name.
Another excellent crime book was Death List – Chinese author – again will have to run through my Amazon history for details }
Watch this space as both were very, very good.
Mike_H says
I can detect a Kurt Vonnegut re-binge coming my way soon.
Read just about everything available of his back in the ’70s.
retropath2 says
Aaah, reading! Love it and yet so rarely get round. I traditionally spend my Xmas cheque from Pa-in-law on books but decided against this year, as I stil have several from previous years to get around to. How and when do you guys find the time to read? Serious question, do you set aside time and banish all other contacts or what? I’m usually too knackered by the time I get to bed and I have to get up pronto most mornings.