What have you read recently?

Dan

Currently on this this:
Christopher Clarey
The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer. Decent biography of arguably the greatest ever.

gcw

Stephen King - Holly

Given to me as a gift for Xmas. I am obliged to read his books as I have read all previous ones bar two, however I knew going in that this character is his worst ever so I didn’t have high hopes.

It turned out to be ok, quite a grisly tale done in the usual King style. However the book should have been called ‘Covid’ as I’m pretty sure it was referenced on every page. It became quite tiring …we get it mate, you hate anti vaxxers.

There was also the obligatory Trump bashing that has been in his last few books. Again very tiring.

Not as good as Billy Summers but way better than Fairy Tale that’s for sure. That was my 25th for the year which I’m happy with as there were many weeks I wasn’t reading

@Homegrove you read this one?

Homegrove

gcw yeah, I thought it was excellent. But then apart from the dungeon-bit that went for way too long in Fairy Tale I didn’t have particular problems with that one either.

The only modern King-book I’ve really struggled with was Sleeping Beauties, his collaboration with his son Owen King.

Homegrove

I reread Dune, and the read Dune Messiah for the first time in preparation for Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2. Messiah was a sort of an epilogue to the story of Paul Artreides, set 12 years after Dune. You can see how it influenced George RR Martin with the Game of Thrones-books. It was 300 pages of people scheming and plotting against each other with no action, and exactly one worm.

Wally

Homegrove It was bobbins. Can only imagine there’s going to be massive changes to make it coherant for the movie. I’ve heard Children of Dune is better but I dunno if I can be arsed reading it.

Homegrove

Blake Crouch - Dark Matter. It’s been made for Apple TV+, premiering in May, and starring Joel Edgerton with Jennifer Connelly. A multiverse scifi, with a lot of WTF moments, and will probably make a very entertaining TV show, because it was plotted very well. But the writing was pretty bad. I’d compare it to DaVinci-code in terms of the language. That was the book I was most reminded of when reading this.

C_J

Homegrove i like Blake Crouch and I really enjoyed Dark Matter. And yeah, it’s a bit like Dan Brown / Da Vinci code in the sense that it’s pure entertainment without any real emotional core.

Wally

Homegrove All his books are so obviously written to be turned into tv shows. Did kind of enjoy this one but yeah…. the writing is shocking in places.

Smallman1

Am reading Champion Thinking by Simon Mundie.

Mainly because I was his best man.

Homegrove

C_J my problem was mainly with the language. The dialogue was just shit. The TV show will probably be great. It’s good TV language, not for novels.

C_J

I just finished Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. Probably not his best and takes a while to get going but worth it when it does.

4.5 / 5

Also finally got round to Infinte Ground by Martin MacInnes - super weird

2 / 5

Wally

Been reading James Clavell - Tai Pan (pt 2 of the Asian saga after Shogun) for about 3 months now. It’s literally 6 books combined into one monster book. Epic doesn’t do it justice. Not as good as Shogun so far but still excellent.

Still, when you consider that after 40 ish years old, you’ve only got about 4 or 5 hundred books left before you pop your cloggs, should you really be nuking a noticeably large amount of that for one book.

JonQPublik

Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Entertaining.

This is the first book I’ve completed reading since February of last year. My reading mojo declined heavily. 🙁

C_J

Jo Nesbø - Killing Moon

The usual lengthy, hard-boiled Harry Hole caper: drugs, sex, murder, booze, regret.

Quite good, though, when it gets going. 👌

vinnyt77

C_J I started reading the HH series, but never got beyond the third or fourth. Found them pretty samey…

Currently reading Candy - Luke Davies. Harrowing. 👍

Amps

JonQPublik I loved Shades of Grey, and like you want that sequel

Jon, have you gotten into Red Side Story yet?

JonQPublik

Amps I haven’t. I still need to buy it too. 🙄

Amps

JonQPublik It’s defo worth it, but be warned, I think it’s the last in the series, rather than the trilogy we were promised.

bosstrabs

Skagboys by Irvine Welsh.

First half excellent and the Sick Boy/Maria story is the darkest thing I’ve read in a long time.

Second half shite.

JonQPublik

Amps I just discovered I have to wait until May 7 for RSS 🙄

Hursty

Operation Chastise (The Dam Busters)

Incredible war time story, Barnes Wallis was some inventor

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