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On The Road Bike by Ned Boulting ****

In spite of his prominence on TV, Ned Boulting still regards himself as a bit of an outsider in the cycling world. He probably is, given the history and traditions, but his (relatively recently acquired) love of the sport still shines through this book. Effectively, it's a series of essays, in each of which Boulting talks to people who have had a significant impact in the British sport, the aim of which is to identify/pinpoint what makes the sport tick - the soul of the sport as the front cover states. He openly limits himself to road cyclists (no BMX or mountain biking here), and he limits himself to the men, presumably through limitations of space.

 

Boulting writes in a very relaxed, easy flowing, manner. He wears his humour fairly lightly, mostly of the self-derogatory style, but it's not over-egged or forced down your throat. It could even be what he genuinely feels! He certainly doesn't make anybody else the butt of his humour, although he gets close with his old sparring partner Chris Boardman, but his respect for the man, and for others, oozes through the pages. But, then, these people have earned that respect - sychophantic is something that I don't think Boulting does.

 

As a result, I do think he get some way under the skin of cycling, and a few lids do get partially lifted. Whether he's completely successful at 'finding the soul' of the sport, I'm not so sure, not least the way he steps around one or two of the biggest issues (drugs?), but then his approach doesn't lend itself to that: whilst the chapters are intrinsically interesting, he never really tries to pull it all together and tell us what he makes of it all - they are just that, separate chapters. Maybe he's just leaving us to draw our own conclusions, and maybe dealing with some of those issues would get in the way of what he's trying to say, which is something to do with the passionate, even if sometimes slightly eccentric, determined, perhaps even bloody-minded, indvidualism of those concerned. Cycling, at least as a sport, certainly requires a certain type, something I have to admit at seeing pretty close to hand.

 

One conclusion I did draw is that he should have included both genders. Indeed, the fact that he didn't said something about cycling as a sport as it has been (but as, hopefully, it looks less and less). The fight that women are having to put up to gain equal recognition has never been more prominent, and the sport is (slowly) responding to it: La Course at the Tour de France, the women's Tour of Britain are all positive moves, even if there is still some way to go (why was there just a criterium for women at the the recent RideLondon weekend, but a full blooded road race for the men?). Boulting's book quite openly focused on the men, and it was thus only half the book it could have been. However, even half of Boulting is worth a full book from some others, and maybe that's where his third book could focus?!

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The Pursuit of Glory by Tim Blanning ******

 

The Pursuit of Glory is a big, very big, read. Not only is it over 620 closely printed pages long, but every page is absolutely stuffed full: this is not a book that can be easily skim read, or even lightly read. After two months (admittedly with some rests and a half dozen books in between times!) I've reached the end. But, and it's a big but, it has also been a massively rewarding read.

 

TPOG is part of Penguin's burgeoning History of Europe, covering the years 1648-1815, i.e. from the end of the Thirty Years War to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, for me perhaps the most interesting, and certainly one of the most complex and revolutionary (in more ways than one), periods of history. Interestingly, Blanning doesn't deal with the chronology until right at the end, in three relatively brief (but brilliantly clear and succinct) chapters. Instead, the first three-quarters of the book looks at the period thematically.

 

He starts with communications, the first chapter in a section entitled 'Life and Death'. For me, this is one of the best chapters of history I've ever read. It's absolutely fascinating, vividly portraying a world that is so far removed from our modern day perceptions, that it might as well be 2000 years ago rather than 2-300. Indeed, in transport terms, this period is probably more akin to then than it is to today. The importance of this topic, and the degree in which it changes (by the end, we're on the verge of the railway era), is underlined by the fact that it is only once having dealt with this topic that the author then proceeds on to what might instinctively have been the opening chapter of a thematic history: People, in which he looks at population, marriage and fertility, mortality (and the primacy of the Four Horsemen), medicine, migration etc. Dry this might sound (much of it is based on stats), but not in Professor Blanning's hands. I was gripped!

 

Later sections deal with Power (from absolutism to revolution), Religion and Culture (Religion and Churches, Court and Country, Palaces and Gardens, Culture of Feeling and Culture of Reason), and then the chronological section, War and Peace. Whilst they don't all quite reach the heights of that first, sparkling, chapter, Blanning consistently argues his cases coherently, clearly, and in a consistently interesting style. Once I started a chapter, it was hard to put down, and found there was a huge amount to absorb. Which is partly why it took so long: I simply couldn't absorb it all without breaks to allow time to consider before moving on. Even then, there was so much, I can see some rereadings necessary to take even half of the material on board!

 

Of course, it wasn't perfect. I'm not a good enough historian to know how 'good' the history is, but he does seem over-anxious to quote sources even with the blandest statements. The flipside though is that where there is some debate, for instance 'Was the Industrial Revolution actually a revolution or not?', Blanning is good at ensuring that the historiography is put to the reader so that, even though he offers his own viewpoint (yes, it was), there's enough for the reader to make up their own mind (how full it is, I don't know!).

 

Minor quibble though. Overall, this is a brilliant read, and goes instantly onto my all-time favourites list. It's going to have to be an absolutely outstanding book to beat this for my book of the year.

Edited by willoyd
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Ditto.  :)  We both enjoyed it.......it "enjoyed" is the right term.  :wacko:

 

I'd have liked to hear your groups opinions....lol

 

I'll let you know, but I'll wait until Will has read it, because I might accidentally reveal a few spoilers!

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I'll let you know, but I'll wait until Will has read it, because I might accidentally reveal a few spoilers!

I'd better get going then! Need to finish Offshore first, which shouldn't take too long - it's sinking in quite nicely.

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I'll let you know, but I'll wait until Will has read it, because I might accidentally reveal a few spoilers!

Finished book earlier this evening. Review follows: I've taken books out of order so I can get you going!

 

 

Great reviews willoyd :)

Thank you - hope they continue to live up to expectations.

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The Dinner by Herman Koch *

This isn't the sort of book I'd normally read - but it was chosen for our book group to read. The blurb provides an intriguing premise: the whole novel is set during one evening (with flashbacks), centred round a dinner where two related couples come together to discuss what to do about their teenage boys, who they have discovered have committed a brutal crime. The novel itself is built around the structure of the meal, with each chapter based on a different course.

Right from the word go, as an aperitif perhaps, I might as well make my position clear (I think the one star award above is a bit of a giveaway!): this is quite easily my most disliked book so far this year so far. Whereas it's going to take a pretty impressive book to beat The Pursuit of Glory to my Book of the Year, it's going to take something pretty extreme to oust this one from Duffer of the Year. It was aaaawwwwwwful!

For starters, the narrative is over-burdened with extraneous comment. Not only is Koch trying to examine all sorts of moral and human issues in how the parents deal with the situation, and why it occurred in the first place, but he's also trying to have a swipe at other aspects of middle-class society. In particular, the restaurant is not only outrageously expensive, but excruciatingly pretentious. I think he's trying to be funny, and it is mildly amusing to start with, but after a while the detail (the whole evening occupies 300-odd pages after all) just becomes unutterably tedious. The problem is that once Koch has set this particular ball rolling, he has to sustain it. (And I still can't fathom why, if they are wanting to discuss something so sensitive as their children committing a horrible crime, why they'd want to discuss it in such a public place, especially one where the waiters are so cloyingly attentive: bizarre).

Secondly (and we're only on the entree here), the book depends on a series of reveals, presumably designed to gradually apprise the reader of the 'real' situation. The problem is that too many of the reveals aren't that much of a twist - it's all fairly obvious - or relying on deus ex machina style plotting (not always completely believable either).

The biggest problem (the main course) though is that the 4 individuals at the centre are not just totally unlikeable (I've learned that I don't have to like any of the characters but can still enjoy/appreciate a book), but they are so unpleasant that I just don't care about any of them or what they do. That collective unpleasantness, and the reasons for each of them being so (in part relying on the juxtaposition of just too many unusual, even unreal, elements), is only gradually revealed, but by the end they are so far removed from the sort of people that one can relate to, that any thought of there being a moral dilemma, or any relevance of the events to any relevant, indeed credible, way of thinking, is completely destroyed. The storyline is so far removed from the bounds of reality, that it has no meaning. In particular, the cause of the narrator's own moral turpitude is so tenuous (does the cause even exist in the real world?) that Koch has to find an excuse to not give it a name.

After that little lot, there really isn't much room for dessert or coffee.

The Dinner is apparently a bit of a marmite novel: the spread of ratings on the Amazon reviews (and there are over 300 on the British site) certainly suggests that. That probably explains my antipathy to this book: I hate marmite! This qualifies easily for my all-time worst books list (if I had one!).

Edited by willoyd
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I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy The Dinner. It does seem to be a marmite book. I haven't read it myself so I couldn't comment either way (though I do think I should try one of Koch's books at some point). It seems here on BCF more people disliked it than liked it, if I remember it correctly. Great review, though :).

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I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy The Dinner. It does seem to be a marmite book. I haven't read it myself so I couldn't comment either way (though I do think I should try one of Koch's books at some point). It seems here on BCF more people disliked it than liked it, if I remember it correctly. Great review, though :).

I think it's good occasionally to read a book that you intensely dislike (not deliberately, but, particularly if you are part of a book group, it happens in due course); it helps you appreciate the books you enjoy all the more!  So I'm not overly sorry myself (but thank you!). Over the past couple of years membership, there have been one or two real stinkers for choices, but they've actually contributed massively to enjoyment. Whilst one or two have been pretty unanimously panned (two that jump to mind are James Herbert's Ash and, to a slightly lesser degree and surprisingly, Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts) others have provoked the full gamut of responses, and led to some great discussions. They've certainly been remembered, where others have faded into the background.  This might be one of them? Personally, I really can't see why it's been given 5 stars by some on Amazon; for me, it was unadulteratedly nasty, written from a sneering, superior viewpoint (which included the narrator himself). Several reviewers said that it was funny, in a very black way. I've obviously had a complete humour bypass then!

 

This got me thinking about what are the books I've disliked the most on reading.  After a quick trawl through my records, I think the following are my top 10 (in no particular order, they can stand together!):

 

The Dinner - Herman Koch

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Ash - James Herbert

Three To See The King - Magnus Mills

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pesel

Homecoming - Bernhard Schlink

Deception Point - Dan Brown (but any from the three or four of his I've tried would do)

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

 

These are just the fiction, bearing in mind that there are a few travel books that would get in an oveall top 10, and that there's obviously quite a lot of other books I would hate if I ever read them! I'm not saying they are all 'bad' books, merely that I hated them!  I think there's an important difference (particularly when considering the last three on the list).

Edited by willoyd
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:D  Great review, Willoyd.  Even though the very things you disliked about The Dinner are some of the things that I either enjoyed, or was quite tickled by.  Marmite, indeed.  :readingtwo:

But I love despicable characters that break barriers.....and that is how I, at least, saw it. 

 

Please don't read his other book Summer House With Swimming Pool!  It's more so........everything than The Dinner.    :giggle2:

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Thanks for the tip! I don't think there's much danger of me trying though!

 

You and me in a book group on this one: it would make a cracking session! Hope somebody in the group thinks along the same lines as you.

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I'm not surprised you didn't enjoy The Dinner at all.  In fact, I think I may have said as much to you somewhere - I don't know why but I just had a feeling you wouldn't like it.   I gave it 2* although I'm struggling to remember why it got that second star now!   The only saving grace was that (as you said above) some of our book group did enjoy it and we had a great discussion about the book - so I hope that happens for your group too.  :)

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LOL, ^^^^^ goes for me too, Willoyd.  :giggle2:

 

Some of the timeline back and forth took me back a bit, and I'm used to shifting timelines! :)

 

Meant to add.....please let us know some of the ideas your group comes up with! 

Edited by pontalba
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Hmmm, I must say I'm intrigued by The Dinner due to the many varied reviews and strong opinions. I might have a better chance of enjoying it than you, as I've quite liked the following of your 'Duffers' :D :

 

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pesel

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

 

I shall get to it eventually, when I've cleared my TBR pile down somewhat. :readingtwo:

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The Dinner by Herman Koch *

 

This isn't the sort of book I'd normally read - but it was chosen for our book group to read. The blurb provides an intriguing premise: the whole novel is set during one evening (with flashbacks), centred round a dinner where two related couples come together to discuss what to do about their teenage boys, who they have discovered have committed a brutal crime. The novel itself is built around the structure of the meal, with each chapter based on a different course.

 

Right from the word go, as an aperitif perhaps, I might as well make my position clear (I think the one star award above is a bit of a giveaway!): this is quite easily my most disliked book so far this year so far. Whereas it's going to take a pretty impressive book to beat The Pursuit of Glory to my Book of the Year, it's going to take something pretty extreme to oust this one from Duffer of the Year. It was aaaawwwwwwful!

 

For starters, the narrative is over-burdened with extraneous comment. Not only is Koch trying to examine all sorts of moral and human issues in how the parents deal with the situation, and why it occurred in the first place, but he's also trying to have a swipe at other aspects of middle-class society. In particular, the restaurant is not only outrageously expensive, but excruciatingly pretentious. I think he's trying to be funny, and it is mildly amusing to start with, but after a while the detail (the whole evening occupies 300-odd pages after all) just becomes unutterably tedious. The problem is that once Koch has set this particular ball rolling, he has to sustain it. (And I still can't fathom why, if they are wanting to discuss something so sensitive as their children committing a horrible crime, why they'd want to discuss it in such a public place, especially one where the waiters are so cloyingly attentive: bizarre).

 

Secondly (and we're only on the entree here), the book depends on a series of reveals, presumably designed to gradually apprise the reader of the 'real' situation. The problem is that too many of the reveals aren't that much of a twist - it's all fairly obvious - or relying on deus ex machina style plotting (not always completely believable either).

 

The biggest problem (the main course) though is that the 4 individuals at the centre are not just totally unlikeable (I've learned that I don't have to like any of the characters but can still enjoy/appreciate a book), but they are so unpleasant that I just don't care about any of them or what they do. That collective unpleasantness, and the reasons for each of them being so (in part relying on the juxtaposition of just too many unusual, even unreal, elements), is only gradually revealed, but by the end they are so far removed from the sort of people that one can relate to, that any thought of there being a moral dilemma, or any relevance of the events to any relevant, indeed credible, way of thinking, is completely destroyed. The storyline is so far removed from the bounds of reality, that it has no meaning. In particular, the cause of the narrator's own moral turpitude is so tenuous (does the cause even exist in the real world?) that Koch has to find an excuse to not give it a name.

 

After that little lot, there really isn't much room for dessert of coffee.

 

The Dinner is apparently a bit of a marmite novel: the spread of ratings on the Amazon reviews (and there are over 300 on the British site) certainly suggests that. That probably explains my antipathy to this book: I hate marmite! This qualifies easily for my all-time worst books list (if I had one!).

 

I was just reading bobblybear's reading log and she'd posted a review on The Slap which she disliked. And I wrote that sometimes it can be funny to read people's negative reviews on books. I don't mean to say I enjoy it when people are not enjoying their books, all I mean is that for some reason negative reviews make me laugh. I think I'm laughing with the reviewer, out of sheer frustration, not at them :) 

 

The Dinner really seems to be a marmite book. I started reading it a year ago I think and couldn't get into it. I found it tedious to read. But after reading quite a few mixed reviews on here, I want to give it another shot. I don't know if I'm a masochist  :hide:

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I'm not surprised you didn't enjoy The Dinner at all.  In fact, I think I may have said as much to you somewhere - I don't know why but I just had a feeling you wouldn't like it.   I gave it 2* although I'm struggling to remember why it got that second star now!   

 

My thoughts exactly. I hated The Dinner as well - although I didn't like to anything, I also guessed it wouldn't be willoyd's cup of tea!  :giggle2:

 

I did enjoy the review though, I do enjoy people's negative reviews. 

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Miss Jemima's Swiss Journal by Jemima Morrell ****
Having read Diccon Bewes's Slow Train to Switzerland, where he follows Jemima Morrell's journey through Switzerland on the very first continental Thomas Cooke tour, I was keen to read the original - enough of the book being quoted in STTS to whet my appetite. It's been out of print since publication in 1963 on the hundredth anniversary of the tour, but I managed to find a good copy through Abebooks at not too ridiculous a price.

It's a slim volume, no more than 120 pages or so, and it's not great feat of literature, being exactly what it says, the journal of a holiday trip to Switzerland (with a few days in France thrown in for good measure!). However, it is historically fascinating, especially if you know anything of the country, providing a lively insight into what life was like for the Victorian tourist (and indeed, for the Swiss population!). So many things we take for granted nowadays simply didn't exist, and the alternatives make for an 'interesting' journey, not least the almost total absence of the legendary modern day Swiss transport system (and a much less developed hotel structure). Thus, the journey from Chamonix to Martigny, now a doddle by train, was accomplished, via high Alpine passes, using a combination of mule and feet. Indeed, the fortitude of the travellers make the modern day tourist look a complete wimp: many days starting early (we're talking four or five in the morning) and finishing late in the evening, to be followed by another early start a few hours later, especially tough given the amount of physical exercise involved (visiting the Rigi, the party arrive in Vitznau in the evening after a long day, and seem to think nothing of setting off on the nine mile, several thousand feet climb to the summit hotel so they can see the sunrise next morning, 4am - no railway again!)

The landscape itself has changed considerably. It may seem immutable to us, but 150 years ago the glaciers, for instance, were far more dramatic, and some of Miss Jemima's experiences simply can't be repeated today. They also can't be repeated because the law simply wouldn't allow it today - her description of exploring the Mer de Glace at Chamonix is quite scary as she and her party wander around amongst the crevasses, and would drive any health and safety official straight to the nearest stiff tonic!

It's not the greatest piece of literature ever - that's not the point after all - but it nevertheless is well written (if a bit effusive, Victorian style) and has a freshness and immediacy that no carefully honed work could possibly hope to replicate. It certainly brings the whole expedition vividly to life in a very personal way. I am so glad to have had a chance to read it, and it will be a volume that I will certainly return to on my next visit to Switzerland to compare notes, if not before. In the meantime, I've since found out that Miss Jemima herself was buried in a nearby churchyard, only a mile or two from where I work, so I'm off to see if I can track her down.

Edited by willoyd
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Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald ****

Characteristically short and taut, this novel is centred on a small community of people living on a cluster of boats moored on the Thames in Chelsea in the early 60s - a setting totally familiar to Fitzgerald who was able to draw on her own experiences, having done exactly the same herself. The characters themselves reflect the fragility of such a lifestyle, barely moored to the real world, ranging through a separated (or is she?) mother and her two mudlarking truant daughters, a rather gentle male prostitute, an old seaman turned artist with a boat that's barely afloat, and a superficially successful businessman whose fascination with living on water threatens his marriage.

 

The book focuses mainly on Nenna, the first of these characters, but pulls all the others centrestage, as matters steadily but almost irrevocably come to a head - not so much the odd pigeon coming home to roost, but the whole flock. Yet, whilst there is an element of tragedy, there is also a strong streak of humour, often dark but on occasions almost laugh out loud, that means that the reader (or at least this one!) never quite takes things totally seriously, and almost revels in the personal mayhem and individual outcomes. In Fitzgerald's characteristic style, the brutally abrupt ending also leaves one wondering quite what actually happens in the end, and resting one's hopes on the silver linings that Fitzgerald leaves tantalisingly dangling.

 

Overseeing all of this are Nenna's two daughters. Some reviewers have found them almost too knowing, too adult, in their observation of the world around them, but I have to say they rang very true for me (as a primary teacher, I've certainly seen their type!). Knowing they may be (very knowing!), but there is still a naivety to them that marks their ages out, although I'm sure it was a deliberate move of the author to contrast their largely self-reliant competence (as demonstrated in the wonderful tile hunting episode) with the hopelessness of so many of the adults. Nenna might have been anxious to make sure they had adult company, but who was really looking after whom when they had it? I did sometimes wonder.

 

This is the third Penelope Fitzgerald book I've read. She only wrote nine novels, four of which were shortlisted for the Booker, and one of which won it, a mark of her talent. Perhaps not suprisingly, it's Offshore that was the winner. At the time it came somewhat out of left field, but it is certainly a cut above many other winners I've read. It's also a book that has grown on me, as did The Blue Flower. They are certainly both books that I want to revisit sooner rather than later.

Edited by willoyd
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The Fitzgerald sounds very interesting....I've added it to my ever burgeoning wish list on amazon.... :)

 

 

I've also added it to my wishlist - really intrigued by this!

This is one where I don't think you'll be disappointed. My book group read The Blue Flower last autumn and, whilst I loved it, the reaction overall was quite mixed. The member who had chosen it said that she'd done so because she'd really enjoyed reading Offshore and wanted to read more Fitzgerald. A few of us have gone away to read that, and the feedback has been almost unanimously positive. Fitzgerald's writing seems to be divided into two phases: her 'earlier' stuff (she didn't start writing until in her 60s), founded very firmly on her own personal experiences, and later, more historical, fiction. This is part of that first phase, The Blue Flower part of the second, and there looks to be a distinct difference between the two, although all her books are characterised by very lean prose. Whilst none of the three I've read have individually hit 6 stars, she's one of those authors where the cumulative work is for me greater than the whole, and she's rapidly turning into a favourite of mine.

 

I was fortunate enough to go to a talk about Fitzgerald by Hermione Lee on the publication of Lee's biography of her, and this proved to be one of those occasions where the background has added so much to my enjoyment of an author's writing. (I also bought the biography at the talk - and believe that it was the first one actually sold, some fortnight or so before the official publication date - Lee herself didn't realise that the book festival had actually managed to obtain copies until she came to the signing, it was so 'hot' off the press. It's on my shortlist to read this autumn: I'm a great fan of her - Lee - after reading her superb biography of Virginia Woolf and listened to/seen her talk on a variety of literary subjects).

 

Anyway, hope you enjoy it as much.

Edited by willoyd
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Oh dear, am I that predictable? :smile:

(No surprise then that I'm now enjoying Far From the Madding Crowd?!)

No, not really.  I mean, I know a few of the the types of books you're fond of (classics (so no, no surprise you enjoyed it), non-lightweight travel books etc) but not exactly what you like, but I was pretty certain The Dinner wouldn't be your cup of tea. :)

 

I've read two Hardys so far and I loved them both, so I'm looking forward to FFtMC.

 

I've added Offshore to my wish list too.  :)

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