Andy's 2006 Blook bog

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, here goes.

I'm not really sure it'll count as a blog, as such, just notes on what I'm reading, and when I'm reading it.

2006 started with me in the middle of two books.

Well, I was right near the end of John Lanchester's Fragrant Harbour. It's a book I've fallen in love with. One of those big epic books, spanning decades, with different intertwined lives (except not that epic in length).

I loved Lanchester's first book, The Debt To Pleasure, but was very disappointed by his second, Mr Phillips. I wouldn't even have bought this had I not found it in the second hand stacks under Waterloo Bridge.

It's not, exacly, a return to form. It's a very different book to the previous two - more of a traditional novel. It's about Hong Kong "Heung Gong, Fragrant Harbour. Chinese Joke." Says one character. Not a subject that ever particularly interested me before, but he brings it to life, across the last 60 years.

Anyway, I finished this whilst on a rattly and tedious train from Nottingham back south and had that "why couldn't it go on longer" feeling, and then moved on to the other book I'm in the middle of for the rest of that boring ride...

[Freewheeling Andy]

Second book of the moment (and now the only book I'm reading) is Martha Gellhorn's "Travels with myself and another: 5 Journeys from hell" and is beautifully written, and utterly engrossing. It's very funny. You don't feel too sympathetic for her, either, because she doesn't play it that way. A very good thing, too. Travel books which have a "woe is me" element are annoying. Here she knows she's getting herself in a mess, and happily admits her flaws and faults.

Her opinions are sometimes wrong, and the language definitely comes from an earlier era. Particularly with the section I'm on at the moment where she's travelling in Africa, in the 1960s (in Cameroon right now). Although even with this she admits her ignorance - a joy I've only ever found one other travel writer admitting, Eric Newby in his wonderful and deranged A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush (more Newby to come before long on this blog, I suspect).

Anyway, I shall go home, and if I don't spend all evening eating I'll no doubt meander through some more of Martha's book.

[Michelle]

Well, here goes.

I'm not really sure it'll count as a blog, as such, just notes on what I'm reading, and when I'm reading it.



Which is fine. I just think it's interesting to look back over your year.. plus it'll help you with the 2006 Book Club Awards! :D

Btw, was 'Blook bog' deliberate?! :mrgreen:

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, here goes.

I'm not really sure it'll count as a blog, as such, just notes on what I'm reading, and when I'm reading it.



Which is fine. I just think it's interesting to look back over your year.. plus it'll help you with the 2006 Book Club Awards! :D

Btw, was 'Blook bog' deliberate?! :mrgreen:

Definitely dlebirate

I was realise I was doing this Blog thing basically in the "current reading" section, and thought I'd isolate it.

Although I'm not sure anyone will be that interested in my readings, but it'll be good for me to think about the books I'm reading a bit more.

[Angel]

Andy wrote

'Blook bog'

I'd have claimed it were the red wine or still recovering from New Year. LOL!!

[Angel]

2nd book sounds that it is quite good though - it's great to find a book that really makes you laugh :D

[Freewheeling Andy]

I suppose, being a blog, I should update this when I can, rather than when I'm just finishing/starting a book. Give a sort of running commentary on observations.

Actually, most of my reading since the last entry has been in Alan Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food (starting with the entry about Saanen cheese, the world's oldest cheese - sometimes up to 200 years old) and then some of the cheese entries in McGee's encylopedia of food.

The Martha Gellhorn remains fascinating and horrible in equal measure - although the journeys are never complete horrors as she always seems to meet nice people. But her views on Africa from the mid 20th century, when travelling through countries which were still part of empire, are sometimes shockingly outdated, and sometimes remarkably prescient and cogent. The most shocking thing is the way she talks of the blacks doing this, and the blacks doing that, and the whites behaving differently. She's generally nicer about the Africans than the French, but the turn of phrase seems startling to the modern ear.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Hmm. Well I read almost nothing yesterday. I tried, but was slightly drunk on the bus home from beer, wine, curry and champagne, and wasn't really concentrating too well.

[Angel]

Ooh Andy - that sounds like fun. I love a nice curry, wine for me and Bangla beer for my husband.............luverly

[Freewheeling Andy]

It was excellent. A friend was over from Switzerland, and we went for a couple of beers; then for a curry (I'm now completely convinced by the theory that you should drink gewurztraminer wine with a curry, after the second success in a fortnight); then to watch the skaters at Somerset House whilst drinking a glass of champagne. All on her expense account. :mrgreen:

I don't think much reading will be added to the reading blog today/tomorrow, as I've suddenly had some urgent work come in, and I've spent the last four hours at the climbing wall being inept and falling off and clumsy and am now completely shattered and still have to cycle home from the office.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I've read almost nothing today, apart from random on-line stuff that doesn't really count (although there's a nice Charlie Kennedy/George Bush alcoholics trying to run countries comparison somewhere).

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, another day when I've read nothing. But then, I've been doing stuff, so I have an excuse. Had a hangover and tidied the flat in the morning. Went to watch a miserable defeat (how often does that happen?) in the afternoon, and I've just rolled home from eating couscous and then watching King Kong (which is a particularly silly film).

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've had a slack few days (too much work and booze), but what I've read of the Gellhorn remains excellent. She's utterly eviscerating the chaos in Cameroon, and now she's arrived in Fort Lamy in Chad where her hatred for the place is almost comical. It sounds grim.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finally got to the end of "Travels". It really is an excellent book, but as with so many non-fiction books the lack of narrative flow means what I end up taking much longer over reading it. There's a load of insight about travelling in it, though. Insight about Africa, and about Soviet Russia, too. But the views at the end of how some travel journeys seem utterly tedious to her (I'm very sympathetic to her views on cuise ships and Vienna and Venice), and that the real horror trips have boredom at their heart.

Now I need to decide what's next from the pile. It all looks a bit serious.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Ah. I've just started Babylon by Victor Pelevin. So far, about 20 or 25 pages in, I'm utterly beguiled by it. It's brilliant. Utterly brilliant. If it continues to be as good then I'll be all over every part of the internet telling the world how astonishingly brilliant Victor Pelevin is.

Huge big-ups to whoever recommended it. I'm happy as happy can be.

It's so fun, so cynical, so entertaining. The various bits of blurb are really unhelpful "A psychedelic Nabokov..."; "A Zen Buddhist Will Self..."; "The 21st Century's Bulgakov relishing the chaos and absurdity of modern russia..."; "often compared to Philip K Dick..."

So there you go. He's like 4 completely different authors, only different and more modern. Helpful, eh?

What do I care. So far it's just wonderful.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm still loving Babylon, but I'm more convinced than ever that it wouldn't be for everyone. Quite a lot of the weirdness seems to be drugs fuelled with a fantastic mad trip on agaric mushrooms described as a way of triggering creative processes; and so on.

The book is an excellent satire on advertising, and in particular advertising in post-Soviet Russia where there are no products to advertise against. It's generally very marvellous, to my tastes.

[Freewheeling Andy]

The more I read, the more brilliant it is. Currently in the middle of an essay written by Che Guevara through the medium of a Ouija board on the subject of a zen understanding of how the viewer of a television stops really being a subject in the subject-object dualism and instead becomes a virtual subject who is being zapped by the television itself.

Utterly deranged and utterly brilliant. The world is going to have to work hard to come up with better stuff for me this year.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished Babylon on the plane yesterday. It's completely and utterly bonkers. More bonkers than I could have conceivably imagined even though it was pretty bonkers all the way through. Um... don't know what to say about it, really, because any book where you discover the entire Russian government is computer generated as a method of marketing, and they all got erased, is just start raving bonkers.

I think the phrase "The hell of the eternal football championship" is the one that will live with me longest.

I'm starting on some cosmology now, instead - How The Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin.

[Freewheeling Andy]

And I was hoping this would be less bonkers, but instead of the anal-wow consumption factor and the world being run by the godess Ishtar, instead I get transfinite maths (infinity + infinity = infinity). Argh!

[Maureen]

transfinite maths (infinity + infinity = infinity). Argh!

My style exactly!!!

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, back to this - I've finished reading How The Universe Got Its Spots. A great read, covering some really hard physics - but starting from close to scratch so you get the history of physics thought along with tricky maths and then to the concept of the strange topologies of space. But being written as a series of letters it touches repeatedly on the personal and the personal life. Some of the Amazon reviews thought this was a bad thing - but I think it lightened the impact of the tricky physics. Others thought it was meaningless to have the personal in there because of the way the personal life seemed to have no direct relation to the physics.

I actually think this is good, because it leaves two parallel threads telling two important stories. The first about cosmology and topology. The second saying that even the hardcore scientist is not some mysterious freak living a soulless life, but actually lives a (fairly) normal life doing normal things, and no matter how much people often want to describe the glorious confluences between peoples' lives and research, the reality is that it doesn't actually work that way, any more than me going out on a date or going to the pub has any major impact on my work.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've started Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Soccer War. He's a legendary Polish foreign correspondent, and he covered all of the massive changes of the 60s. This is a shortish book, and covers his time observing something silly like 30 revolutions over 10 or 15 years. So far, so good. He sees loads and writes in a lovely, light, interesting style.

[Freewheeling Andy]

The Kapuscinski is just brilliant. Wonderful, brilliant, astonsihing, insightful and shocking reportage. I've just finished the piece where he's in Congo when the President is killed and everyone goes on a rampage killing all the whites in the city, then they escape by pure chance, end up in Burundi and put in prison as suspected allies of the Congolese (who were going to kill them), and again escape by pure chance the day they were going to be shot. Gobsmacked.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Since I last wrote on this I have at least read The Age Of Kali, by William Dalrymple. It's a lovely book of essays about his 10 years in India from 1990 to 2000 (give or take). Sometimes there's perhaps too much obsession about details of temples, and or architecture (which I've spotted in his writing before, and which probably ties to the person he's most closely following in terms of obsessions, Robert Byron), but when he gets the human stories, or the big political stories, his writing is fantastic.

I'm now reading Jared Diamond's Collapse, which is quite dark, really. It's an assessment of how a variety of different societies and civilisations have collapsed, whether it's due to environmental change, or due to trading failures, or whatever. fascinating and dark. So far I've only read the chapters on Montana and Easter Island, and started on the one on Pitcairn and Henderson.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Oof! Finally finished Collapse. Heavy, heavy going when I've not had that much time. And excellent book, enlightening. But dark and full of info and 550 pages of highly packed words. I'll do a review in a bit, I think.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've started on John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces which seems to have acquired serious cult status in a lot of places. It's quite odd to start with, but I'm beginning to get it now.

[wiccibat]

The title sounds intriguing

[Anonymous]

Andy,

While browsing eBay this evening I spotted something that may interest you. You can view it here (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yashar-Kemal-The-Sea-Crossed-Fisherman-PB-NEW_W0QQitemZ8820116124QQcategoryZ101032QQrdZ1QQcm dZViewItem).

It's a copy of The Sea-Crossed Fisherman by Yaşar Kemal. It's an even better copy than the one I've got - condition and cover.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Thanks for the pointer, Stewart. Unfortunately, at the moment I've forbidden myself from buying new books because I'm getting through current ones too slowly.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I was a bit underwhelmed by Confederacy of Dunces. I'll do a review later, but suffice to say that although it's fun, I struggle to see quite how it became such a legendary cult book.

I'm now reading Black Swan Green which is wonderful, although completely different to Cloud Atlas, and far, far less showy.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Just finished Black Swan Green.

Magnificent. Beautiful. Wonderfull. I now concur with the general mood that David Mitchell is probably the greatest British author writing at the moment (or is the British author producing the greatest writing, perhaps).

So deep, so much big theme being covered, yet with such a light touch.

Gobsmacked, I'd say.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Just started on Perfume by Patrick Suskind. So far it reads incredibly easily, but I suspect it will be thoroughly nasty.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I was right. How beautifully dark and vicious. Nice writing, tight, concise, full of ideas, and completely soulless and violent. It leaves me feeling I've read a truly good book.

[Kell]

This sounds a bit interesting - perhaps one for me to try...

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'll do a review later

[Kell]

Excellent - I'll look forward to it. :)

[Freewheeling Andy]

Hmm. I have a feeling I must have read something in the two weeks before I went on holiday, but can't remember what it was...

Ah.

Yes.

Got it.

Holiday's in Hell by PJ O'Rourke, a slightly sneering, excellent fun bit of travelog from the time he was Rolling Stone's foreign correspondent. It's all a bit out of date, having been written in the 80s, but it's amazing how many of his spots are still unsafe (or perhaps it's amazing how many places have recovered). Entertaining and light.

Then, on the holiday: Andrey Kurkov's two Penguin novels, which are spectacularly easy, and utterly bizarre. I did really enjoy them, though. They aren't the most serious books I've ever read. They belong in the tradition of the more bizarre Russian/soviet novels, but also in the tradition of the thriller.

Then it was Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, which was excellent, a great book, although it's also fairly obviously a first novel in comparison to the other books of his I've read. It's a bit more obviously showy and flash, and borrows more obviously from other sources, and feels a bit like someone desperate to make themselves heard. But, for all that, it remains a wonderful book and closer to Cloud Atlas than Black Swan Green is. It's all very big themed stuff, starting small scale, but with terrorists and art thieves and ghosts, and heading towards a dystopian very-near-future.

Now I'm reading Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. Much easier to read than My Name Is Red was, but with probably the same bad translation. It feels clunkier than it should for such a spectacularly highly rated author. Set in modern eastern Turkey, it seems to cover the battles between secularism and traditional Islam in a border city cut off by snow. I'm enjoying it, but it's taking a bit of an effort to read.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm struggling badly with Snow, despite it getting good reviews from reliable people. It's not bad, but it's just not what I can focus on at the moment.

I've just read, over the last 24 hours, a book called Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich, which is a really to easy read true life story of a bunch of geeks who found a cool way of winning at blackjack, made loads of cash, and ended up in a lot of trouble as a result.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, the battle with Snow continues. I'm slowly becoming convinced that it is, actually, utter rubbish despite all the plaudits.And it has the other massive flaw of being about a poet, and I just can't deal with books about writers.

I did, though, also just read Vikas Swarup's Q&A, which is fun and simple and rather wonderful, and interesting structure, but one with some meaning, that allows that book to slowly fill up the life of the main character, Ram Mohammed Thomas.

He's a contestant on what is effectively Millionaire, wins, and is arrested; and how he knows the answers to the questions brings individual tales that fill out his life story. Sometimes the writing was simplistic, maybe too much so, but after Snow that was actually rather delightful.

[Kell]

Ah, i should have read this thread before your Olympian one! The general consensus at the Posh Club, when we read it, was mostly positive - the majority rather liked it, some more than others, a couple weren't so chuffed with it, but you can't please all the people all the time.:dunno:

Personally, I rather liked how it told you a section of the story, then told youwhat the question was, making you party to the answer before kowing the question yourself. It was very nicely done. I've heard tell it's being made into a film - I look forward to seeing how it's handled.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'll write a review-let in a bit, although I guess I've already covered most of it. I like the fragmentary story telling style. The only things I was slightly unhappy with were the sometimes simplistic prose - although as a conceit for an 18 year old narrator that's no problem; it'll be a problem if the style continues in Swarup's next book; and the fact that most of the chapters have a basically happy, lucky ending, although again as the point of the story is of coincidence and good luck, it's a bit of a nonsensical complaint - it's just that when it all comes out in the wash that it makes sense. Before that it's a little irritating. Oh, and a final thing, the last chapter round up happy-ever-after ending kind of annoys me; I think I'd have liked it left more vague.

[Kell]

Yes, the ending caused a lot of debate with the Posh Club too - sounds like we had some similar thoughts on it.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Was there a general concensus that the last chapter was just a bit too glib, or was it just you against a tide of other people happy with the happinness?

[Kell]

It was pretty much split 50/50 if memory serves. I felt it was a bit "nice" myself, but at the same time, there were aspects of it that felt almost "right" too. Mostly, though, there were one or two things I maybe would have tweaked about the ending if I were given free reign over the narrative... & a couple of things I might have changed completely too.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I've finally finished Snow. Good grief. It's a book that should have fascinated me. The subject matter itself is great. But they style of the book is horrible, the way the author imposes himself more and more into the book, but does it in such a clunky way. The long, tedious, moping descriptions of emotions, of the tender, oh so tender and delicate and fragile emotions. Please. ****ing please. Gah! And, instead of being a fun tale of a revolution or coup, it's all about a bloody poet. And the bloody poet has poems "come to him" yet we never get to see them. It's all created by deus ex machina, but with no explanation, and no point. It's meaningless. Bleh! And the bloody hyperemotional poet/main protagonist annoys me so much, with a page of "oh, how miserable he felt when he saw in her eyes that she didn't truly love him but wanted instead to show him compassion" followed by him doing something on impulse with no explanation. Book moved on by "He suddenly saw a man and felt he had to follow him".

Aaaaaaargh!

Thank god its over.

I'm reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace now. Thank god for fluffy books.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Yes Man was a fun little book. Not exactly deep, or serious, and maybe neither as profound, nor as adventurous and insane, as it might have been. But fun to read and a little enlightening none-the-less.

Man has dull life, meets man on bus telling him to say yes more, which he does. Fairly interesting things happen.

I've now started on Ismael Kadare's The Successor. I love Kadare's books, but the most recent I read - Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, didn't really strike home. Be interesting to see whether this is a continuation of the downturn.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Thinking back on Yes Man, I think it actually perhaps gains by being less dramatic. In my mind I was expected wild, exciting things to happen to Danny, and it to turn out more like a novel; but perhaps the fact that most of the things are fairly low key (buy a car, get a girlfriend, reply to some e-mails, go to bars) actually make the book better, more enlightening.

I've just finished The Successor. It's definitely a step up from Spring Flowers... but is still not great. I found it frustrating because it was written in a similar allegorical style to The Pyramid, and didn't seem to be a full novel, with full plot, and seemed more constructed as little fragments, more like an idea for a book. The idea is fascinating, as a psychological whodunnit set in communist Albania, trying to work out who is responsible for the murder of the designated succesor to a character who is clearly Enver Hoxha. I guess it was a worthwhile read, but I just thought it should have been better.

I'm now properly starting on Due Preparations For The Plague by Janette Turner Hospital.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished Due Preparations For The Plague, which I really enjoyed. A genuinely interesting thriller, playing with the voices used. Incredibly dark, very big themes, very nicely written, like Hospital's other book I've read, Oyster.

The big qualms with it for me were the predicting of the known future, having a book set pre-9/11 written post 9/11, when the book covers the subjects of terror and of Iraq.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Now starting on Mitchell's Number9Dream

[Freewheeling Andy]

Ah. It was marvellous. What is real, what is dream, what is written, what is in Eiji Miyake's head? Is it SF? No. Is it cyberpunk? No, not really. I guess, like Murukami, it's cyberpunk set in normal urban Japan. But it's not Murukami, it's most definitely Mitchell, with it's multiple voices, it's playing with stories, it's fragmentation leading to a whole. I guess a more linear story than Ghostwritten or Cloud Atlas, but certainly not conventional like Black Swan Green. Ace, anyway.

Now to Dance, Dance, Dance.

[Freewheeling Andy]

OK. Let's just continue this on into the new year, eh, rather than split it aritficially at Jan 1st.

So, on the Christmas hols I read

Dance, Dance, Dance by Murukami which was brilliant, and probably my favourite of his other than Wild-Sheep Chase. Complex and lovely and weird and cut between mundane and fantastical. Ah, yes.

And then Disgrace by JM Coetzee which was equally wonderful in a very different way, all about race and fear and love in modern South Africa, and how people deal with what goes on.

And then Field Study by Rachel Seiffert, a bunch of short stories by an old school-friend who was nominated for the Booker a couple of years ago. Great stories, some of them, others perhaps a little bland. Generally ones about normal people living normal lives. Others, and possibly the best ones, about the fractures in modern Germany.

And I've just started Eric Newby's A Traveller's Life, which is so far rather fun but not much to do with travel in the first few pages.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I really should catch up.

I finished A Traveller's Life, which at times was excellent but was slightly unfulfilling as a book. Newby writes lovelily and had done more cool stuff in his lifetime than anyone rightly should. But the book is sort of a mix between autobiog and travel writing, except that it leaves out all the stuff he's written proper books on, so it skims over the best parts of his life. Probably the best chunks of the book are his wartime experiences.

Now I'm on to The Bookseller of Kabul.

[Amanda1]

Well, I've finally finished Snow. Good grief. It's a book that should have fascinated me. The subject matter itself is great. But they style of the book is horrible, the way the author imposes himself more and more into the book, but does it in such a clunky way. The long, tedious, moping descriptions of emotions, of the tender, oh so tender and delicate and fragile emotions. Please. ****ing please. Gah! And, instead of being a fun tale of a revolution or coup, it's all about a bloody poet. And the bloody poet has poems "come to him" yet we never get to see them. It's all created by deus ex machina, but with no explanation, and no point. It's meaningless. Bleh! And the bloody hyperemotional poet/main protagonist annoys me so much, with a page of "oh, how miserable he felt when he saw in her eyes that she didn't truly love him but wanted instead to show him compassion" followed by him doing something on impulse with no explanation. Book moved on by "He suddenly saw a man and felt he had to follow him".

Aaaaaaargh!

Thank god its over.

I'm reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace now. Thank god for fluffy books.

I read My Name is Red and felt exactly the same way, maybe it's list in translaton but I have no desire to read anything more by him. Life is too short

[Freewheeling Andy]

To be honest, Amanda, I felt exactly, exactly the same after reading My Name Is Red.

Unfortunately someone had bought me a copy of Snow, then a couple of people said how much they liked it. Then I thought it was a modern novel, so going to be different. And it had been sitting on the shelf for a year and a half making me feel guilty and I had a holiday in Turkey coming up. So circumstances forced me to pick it up and see.

The trouble is that anything you hated in My Name Is Red is still here. Possibly even worse.

[Amanda1]

How does he get such good reviews? I thought it was me not being high brow enough but I find him totally souless

[Freewheeling Andy]

Grr! I just lost my post.

Anyway, I was saying that there are people whose opinions are usually completely reliable who love Pamuk; and ones whose opinions are usually completely reliable who hate him like I do.

I think it's really a matter of taste. Of whether you like Thomas Mann, almost. That deep introspective "poor frail emotional me" stuff. I'm sure some people find it to be a fascinating insight.

Me, I think it's tedious ****.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished The Bookseller of Kabul the other day. Pretty good, with some interesting insight, but perhaps I was expecting more from it. There just didn't seem as much, well, action as I'd have hoped. And I think most of what you're told about the lives of women in Afghanistan are things you probably already really knew anyway.

I've now started on Adam Zamoyski's monstrous 600 page history of Napoleon's 1812 march on Moscow. So far it's an absolutely stonkingly brilliant bit of historical writing, telling you about political intrigues between the various emperors, kings, dukes, marshals, counts, princes and everything else, and making it interesting and exciting and wanting to turn to the next page. It's a hell of a mucked up era, late-Napoleonic Europe.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, 1812 continues to be great. It's proper romping history. Full of grand-sweep stuff, full of failures due to backstabbing, to vanity, to ego, to stupidity, to cynicism. I love this kind of history. I want history full of generals who screw up because they're only interested in their troops parading in straight lines and not really caring about how to fight wars, about armies that take ages to move because the commander has too many carts full of his various wigs and costumes and scents and jewellery.

[Freewheeling Andy]

1812 is finished. And it continued to be as good as when I started it. A really good bit of history, with a really nice narrative way of writing, so you want to know what happened next. And what happened next was almpst always deeply incompetent and unpleasant, and Napoleon's failure turns out to have been almost entirely hubris, and the Russians' success had nothing to do with their generals who were venal and incompetent on the whole.

[Freewheeling Andy]

And today I started on Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians. You can tell I'm down in the amongst the last dregs of the TBR pile, of things that are thoroughly worthy and thoroughly uninspiring. And it gets worse from here on in, but I'm trying to see how many I get through before succumbing to the lure of Waterstone's and fainlly buying some BS Johnson.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, un-grabbed by Strachey and distracted by Namibia guidebooks, I succumbed to advice and the lure of Waterstones yesterday, and came home, rather scarily, with War&Peace and All Quiet on the Western Front.

What the advice was, and what makes me very happy, is that Craig Murray's book is out in paperback. The first three chapters are lovely writing and the subject matter is great. Expect me to go on and on and on and on about this book. He was the UK ambassador in Uzbekistan during the "War on Terror" phase when the government and US were turning all kinds of blind eyes to Uzbek abuses. He's also a thoroughly engaging interesting man who enjoys the sauce and the women, so it's a mix of politics and gossip.

It's a book designed for me.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Just finished Murder in Samarkand. A fantastic book, certainly my favourite bit of modern political writing. Not exactly rigorous, but about as entertaining as a book about our government supporting a country which boils people to death can be. Torture, generally, being a rather un-entertaining subject matter.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've finished on Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians.

It's odd, I started finding it so dry, and really dull because I had no idea really who the people were. Also, it's odd because it's famous as a fairly vicious evisceration of reputations and it felt very mild. Yet the book grew on me as it went on and was actually quite fun reading as biography. But to the modern eye it really was just normal biography whereas I guess Strachey was writing in an era when hagiography was normal and the famous weren't to be criticised. Anyway, it's pretty good stuff but doesn't live up to the billing. Most interesting was the last piece on General Gordon, just because of the modern resonances of someone claiming to be the Mahdi and leading a huge army; of western fear and the running the neo-imperial campaigns against him because of fears of how it would ruin the middle east, but doing it in a bit of a half-baked way. Oh, and also of Darfur being a complete violent mess, even back then.

[Freewheeling Andy]

And now, lucky me, I have Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace sitting next to me. I am scared.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, a month and a half on, and I'm half way through. It's worth it, though. Properly good book. Some times I'm a bit bothered by the "suddenly, he changed his entire world view" stuff, and the "She was the most radiant, beautiful girl, and everyone who saw her melted" stuff. It seems very shallow and almost Danielle Steele-like in its bad-romance stuff. But the family politics, the proper politics, and the battle and war stuff more than make up for any romantic deficit.

[Freewheeling Andy]

War and Peace was actually pretty damned great. It romped along nicely, only annoying me when interrupted by too much analysis of history. Although that's part of the key to the book.

My thoughts are mostly on the Tolstoy thread, but I'm very very happy to have read it at last.

I'm now on to All Quiet On The Western Front, which is much much shorter, and very readable, although has the same dark and graphic and unpleasant battle scenes.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm quickly through All Quiet On The Western Front. It's interesting alongside War and Peace, because both describe the horrors of possibly the two nastiest wars ever fought; but the contrasts are stark in the simplicity of All Quiet, and in the fact that it's all from the point of view of the infantryman, rather than from aristocracy.

Anyway, it's really easy to read despite being very, very grim in places, and an incredibly strong anti-war novel. I really can't think of any obvious criticism. Excellent stuff.

I'm now reading the much easier still "Millions of Women Are Waiting To Meet You", which is an internet dating memoir thing, and is disturbingly, worryingly familiar, and my girlfriend asked me whether I was the author when she read it.

[Polka Dot Rock]

..."Millions of Women Are Waiting To Meet You", which is an internet dating memoir thing, and is disturbingly, worryingly familiar, and my girlfriend asked me whether I was the author when she read it.

:lol: Oh dear! Now that is worrying comment!

Last month, The Guardian had this as it's Paperback Choice of the week. He reviewer said he found it a bit disturbing in parts (I forget why) but that he really enjoyed it. Funnily enough, he could relate to it too!

[Freewheeling Andy]

I bumped into it ina bookshop at bought it for the girlfriend as we'd met on the on-line dating thing. It's just so very, very, very disturbingly familiar. And funny. So far, I'd recommend it to anyone who's ever tried internet dating.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You. A really enjoyable book; not particularly highbrow but very enlightening. The author is a bit sleazy, but that's part of the fun - you go through his occasionally sordid romantic past in parallel with his internet dating experiences.

I think it would probably be a reasonable book for most girls to read to get a bit of an insight into the male brain (in the way that perhaps High Fidelity once was, too). And it has a world of sensible pointers for anyone about to embark on internet dating, even though that's not really what it's trying to do. And it still could almost all have been written by me, as it's all set around where I work, and the author has so many of my tendencies (particularly terrible commitment-phobia).

I have no idea what I'm reading next.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've started on a book called Raven's Exile which is a description of a season on the Green River by the wife of a ranger, the couple spending their summers repeatedly running the river in Desolation Canyon. It should be fascinating, given that I've just come back from a week rafting a (different) section of the Green River.

But 25 pages in and I'm about to abandon it; it's my least favourite kind of travel writing, the stuff that uses 25 adjectives when one will do, that fills the pages with the most tediously flowery writing, and it feels like this is being done because, well, there's no content. There's been a little description of geology and, well, that's it so far. Lots of words about fluttering, flowing, shimmering , whispering rivers, and all that ********, but nothing actually worth reading. I may give her 120 more pages, but she's driving me mad - not only the writing style, but the author yammering on about sprituality in ravens or the search for the inner soul in desolate landscapes or some such drivel.

Argh!

[Janet]

But 25 pages in and I'm about to abandon it; it's my least favourite kind of travel writing, the stuff that uses 25 adjectives when one will do, that fills the pages with the most tediously flowery writing, and it feels like this is being done because, well, there's no content. There's been a little description of geology and, well, that's it so far. Lots of words about fluttering, flowing, shimmering , whispering rivers, and all that ********, but nothing actually worth reading. I may give her 120 more pages, but she's driving me mad - not only the writing style, but the author yammering on about sprituality in ravens or the search for the inner soul in desolate landscapes or some such drivel.

Argh!
Oh, it's so annoying when that happens - why do people do that - do they think it makes them clever?!

[wrathofkublakhan]

<snip>

Lots of words about fluttering, flowing, shimmering , whispering rivers, and all that ********, but nothing actually worth reading. I may give her 120 more pages, but she's driving me mad - not only the writing style, but the author yammering on about spirituality in ravens or the search for the inner soul in desolate landscapes or some such drivel.

Argh!</snip>

I'm a-guessing your response is more entertaining than the book, it's hilarious!
Ha-ha-ha ... drivel indeed, well said Andy!

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I feel no shame in having abandoned it and hidden it at the back of the bookshelves. I'll feel no guilt about not reading it.

I've now started on the fascinating "Unspeak" by Steven Poole, about the use of heavily loaded language to spin what people are saying without explicitly spinning.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished Unspeak. The premise was solid, and the writing OK, but it was somehow a bit underwhelming. Oddly, one of the most underwhelming aspects was the way it focussed on US and UK governments, and took a very traditional lefty approach, so although early on it mentions Friends of the Earth, most of the time the criticism is of Freedom and War on Terror and Bogus Asylum Seekers. All, admittedly, horrible abuses of language. But the one-sidedness of it got frustrating and some of the time it felt a bit like reading a Ben Elton monologue from the 80s.

There was enough that was enlightening, though, to make it worth reading.

I'm now reading something called "The Cyclist - A Novel" (which should please various people on the board), which I picked up for $2 in Newhaven, Ct when I had nothing to read a couple of weeks ago.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Right. The Cyclist was probably worth $2, in hardback. The conceit - a narrator who is a potential terrorist in the Middle East who was a food and cycling obsessive, and who plans to deliver his bomb as part of a bike race, is the kind of thing I should love.

But the prose is insanely annoying - lots of playful but pointless alliteration; lots of utterly pointless rhyming, things just thrown in for no reason. Like adding chalk and sawdust to season. (yet, really, that bad). And the structure, too, floating back and forwards, no narrative flow, incredibly short chapters, again, without any point. Gah. Grr!

So now I'm on the funny and simple Air Mail by Terry Ravenscroft.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished AirMail. Deeply light and trivial, but rather entertaining (in an utterly puerile way) none the less.

About to start on Gordon Ramsay's autobiog thingy Humble Pie.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Humble Pie was quite enlightening about kitchen stuff and had good narrative - very good for celeb biog, but there were quite a few annoying things. A lot of the book is self-defense against claims made in the press in the past. And there's a bit too much focus on individual events that were on TV programs but aren't actually important - they feel tagged on by some ghostwriter or editor who thought that celeb-biog purchasers only really cared about what some TV idiot said to another TV idiot.

The editors are also to blame for the two biggest annoyances. Clearly someone was leading Ramsay through the writing, at best: so there were loads of rhetorical questions included in the writing "What are the things that annoys me most in the kitchen? Dirty fingernails, and pointless rhetorical questions, I think." And there's gratuitous use of swearing - which again celeb-biog readers may expect to, you know, make it f***ing authentic. But really, once something is written down you don't need to superfluous expletives. They were just distracting.

[Freewheeling Andy]

And now I'm some way into the so far completely and utterly genius "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth, which is almost infinitely better than its awful title.

[Polka Dot Rock]

Hey Andy! :) I hope you don't mind, but I've just finished reading a book that I thought you might be interested in: The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (trans. Daniel Hahn). There's more info about it on Arcadia (http://www.arcadiabooks.co.uk/bookinfo.php?id=173)'s website. From reading your blog, it seemed like it could be up your literary street, lol.

How's the Roth continuing to shape up?

[Freewheeling Andy]

Ooh! That looks interesting. I'm still fighting to reduce my TBR pile of the books that have been there for ever, so trying not to buy anything new for a while (The Roth is a failure on that front). But it looks like a facsinating book (one warning is that I'm not always convinced by novels that shift in and out of reality and dreams, unless it's done very well).

The Roth remains fantastic and I'm spending my time sitting at work reading it rather than working. Lots of very deliberate playing with history to provide parallels with modern America, but despite it being fairly obvious, it's not done in a clunky and annoying way.

[Polka Dot Rock]

(one warning is that I'm not always convinced by novels that shift in and out of reality and dreams, unless it's done very well).

I know what you mean - those scenes are, however, written well. They're also very short (as the whole novel is, thinking about it). There's a twist to those dreams but that might spoil a minor narrative point so I won't say what it is :)

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished The Plot Against America which was good fun, and rewarding. It was interesting to see that all US history post about 1950 was the same, and to see that Roth implies that the tracvk of history will come back on course, whatever the short term vagaries.

Next up is probably Halldor Laxness and Independent People, unless I get into Waterstones first and buy the new JG Ballard and Irvine Welsh books.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I held off the Laxness which looked a bit scary, and have nearly finished reading Jeffrey Taylor's Lost Kingdoms of Africa, which is a travelog of his journey across the Sahel from N'Djamena to Dakar (so far we're just over the border into Mali). It's interesting, and examines the places where the slave and salt-trader kingdoms that built up over vast areas of Sahara (but with tiny populations) were. And what's in their place.

The key problem with the book is that the places just seem to unpleasant, too nasty, edgy, violent, ripped with poverty. Even though he perpetually encounters very friendly people who help him negotiate the mess (whilst repeatedly being told he needs help as a post-Sept 11 American in an Islamic world, despite not having any problems), there doesn't seem to be any genuine affection for or excitement about the countries he's travelling in. Which is fair enough as they seem grim, crowded, poor and miserable. But means the book loses some of the engagement that the best travel writing has.

As I left the book in the office yesterday, I started on "The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs" by Irvine Welsh yesterday, which seems fun and vicious and silly, in a typically Irvine Welsh way.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Just back from the Hols, and finished Lost Kingdoms comments above; and read Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs which was OK, but didn't really have enough bedroom secrets, or master chefs, and was a bit like a generic Welsh book - nastiness and coincidence and drugs and violence - and didn't say a lot to me other than being a fairly energetic read. Then it was Kingdom Come by JG Ballard, who I love, but who again seems to be treading water here. You kind of know that the book is going to be in a similar vein to SuperCannes or Cocaine Nights, both of which were probably better; interesting, as always, though to read of the collapse of society where there's too much disconnect from reality. Finally there was Dawkins The God Delusion, which was a cracking good read for what it was, and made lots of thoroughly good points nice and clearly. Review up in the reviews section. Lots of good thought provoking stuff.

Now onto re-reading Cloud Atlas.

[Maureen]

Now onto re-reading Cloud Atlas.

Oh Andy, did you forget the plot then? :tong:

[Freewheeling Andy]

Plot? Is there one? I just want to remind myself for this month's discussion.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Cloud Atlas as glorious as I remembered. Still the best book written this century that I've read.

Now onto Malcolm X's Autobiog. Had one "Why are you reading that? You're not black," so far. Expecting more.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished Malcolm X. Well written, fascinating narrative, great social history. Best Autobiog I've read in a very long time, even if the politics are wrong.

Now starting The Life Of Pi.

[Kenny_Shovel]

Next up is probably Halldor Laxness and Independent People

A word of warning about Laxness, I've read a few of his books and they're hard going at times, with events and characters appearing as if from nowhere out of his prose. A lot of this appears to make more sence if you have a bit of a grounding in Icelandic folklaw, so I decided to wait untill I'd got through a few Norse Legend's before attempting 'Independant People'.

[Maureen]

Now starting The Life Of Pi.

Enjoyed that, so I'll be interested in what you think of it.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I decided to pass Laxness by for the time being. It was intimidating and I decided to stick with easy stuff instead, Kenny.

Slow start on the Life of Pi, Maureen. I keep getting distracted.

[Adam]

I have never read the book, but I have heard good things.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished Life Of Pi. What an odd little book. Very good and frustrating in equal measure. There were lots of things that irritated; and even the central theme stuff about religion had me wanting to kick things, particularly with the ending section. But, on the other hand, the central part of the book with Pi and Richard Parker, was really, really excellent.

Now starting Atonement.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Atonement is a shocker. Almost everything I hate in a book in one place. And, as always, because it's a book about authors and writing, it's loved by book reviewers and Booker types, despite being a desperate failure of imagination on the part of the writer, and despite Booker judges being all authors and therefore, really, the only people who "get" it. Utter pish.

Read Cormac McCarthy's wonderful, bleak, dark, bleak, upbeat, wonderful, bleak post-apocalyptic "The Road" afterwards, and it's a maginificent change. Sparse, clear language rather than pointless dense prose. A plot, a drive, stuff happening, real people, proper emotions, not fluff and guff.

I loved it.

Now read the new Murukami, After Dark

[Kell]

Atonement is a shocker. Almost everything I hate in a book in one place. And, as always, because it's a book about authors and writing, it's loved by book reviewers and Booker types, despite being a desperate failure of imagination on the part of the writer, and despite Booker judges being all authors and therefore, really, the only people who "get" it. Utter pish.
I am SO glad I didn't bother with it then! It really didn't fancy it anyway, but you've confirmed that I most likely wouldn't enjoy it. Thanks, Andy! :mrgreen:

[Freewheeling Andy]

Remember that I'm in a minority of one, Kell.

Also, the sections during the war are both really very good. Although that turns out to be all the more infuriating when we get to the twist at the end.

[Janet]

Remember that I'm in a minority of one, Kell.
Two, Andy.

I read this book several years ago because a friend gave it to me telling me it was "a fantastic book" but I really couldn't see what the fuss was about and I can't even remember what happened now - that's how much of an impression it made on me!

I remember thinking the ending was a big let-down - a bit of a cop-out if my memory serves me right - but I can't exactly remember why now!

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm really enjoying After Dark. After hearing very bad things about Kafka on the Shore, I'm glad I skipped it and got onto this instead. It's strangely compelling, although I remain unsure quite what's going on yet. As usual it has the mix of mundane Tokyo and the slight paranormal/surreal. But sometimes Murukami feels like he's trying too hard to be Murukami, and here, instead, it all seems to feel natural.

[angerball]

Atonement is a shocker. Almost everything I hate in a book in one place. And, as always, because it's a book about authors and writing, it's loved by book reviewers and Booker types, despite being a desperate failure of imagination on the part of the writer, and despite Booker judges being all authors and therefore, really, the only people who "get" it. Utter pish.

Read Cormac McCarthy's wonderful, bleak, dark, bleak, upbeat, wonderful, bleak post-apocalyptic "The Road" afterwards, and it's a maginificent change. Sparse, clear language rather than pointless dense prose. A plot, a drive, stuff happening, real people, proper emotions, not fluff and guff.

:lol: Wow - you really didn't like it, did you? :lol: I have to say, I really loved it - thought it was great.

I borrowed McCarthy's The Road a few days ago. I have a few books to read beforehand, but I hope to get around to it soon. :D

[Kenny_Shovel]

But sometimes Murukami feels like he's trying too hard to be Murukami
I know what you mean. I like Murukami, but he does tend to overshadow other writers from post-war Japan, which I'm not sure is all that healthy. I'd personally say that Mishima, Endo, Oe and Kawabata were all at least as good in thier time. I'm sure there are even more that could be added to that list.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finished After Dark, which I enjoyed a lot. As I said earlier, I like Murukami; all the more so when, like this, he's not pushing it too far. It's quite engaging despite very little appearing to happen, and is remarkably warm for Murukami. All set in a single night with the interweaving parts of peoples' lives. Here, too, it feels like the surreal/fantasy elements actually play an important role rather than just being put there pointlessly.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Now reading The Inheritance of Loss

[SteffieB]

Finished Malcolm X. Well written, fascinating narrative, great social history. Best Autobiog I've read in a very long time, even if the politics are wrong.

Wondering what you meant about the politics? It's been a LONG time since I read anything about Malcolm X..but I know he was an inspiring voice for me. ;)

[Freewheeling Andy]

Wondering what you meant about the politics? It's been a LONG time since I read anything about Malcolm X..but I know he was an inspiring voice for me. ;)

Reading the autobiography is inspiring. But I also feel that Malcolm was very wrong in a lot of his separationist ideas. Early on he appears to be positively anti-white, and whilst this softens out dramatically by the end of the book, his view remains something closer to "Equal but different", rather than merely "equal", and that's the kind of attitude that led to, for example, the creation of the South African "homelands" like Bophuthatswana and so on. It still gives a lever to the racists, and is also wrong. And Malcolm's drive to have Black America exist as something close to a separate nation/state, is on very very dangerous ground.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished Inheritance of Loss. What an annoying book. Why do I keep finding such highly acclaimed books and discovering they're rubbish. For the first 80% nothing happens yet everyone behaves as pathetic Indian stereotypes with no substance at all. So no plot, and no plausible characters with any depth. Just bad Indian-ness. I know Booker judges love India, as it's a weird magical place but still has enough links to the UK that they can understand it. But please, just because there's a book about families and India, with a bit of independence/separatist violence thrown in, it does not make it Midnight's Children.

Bleck.

No reading a history of the Thames

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I'm still reading Jonathon Schneer's The Thames, which is an interesting history, but which seems a bit too London-centric, and perhaps just a little shallow in places and too deep in others. (Like a river?). I also started, over Christmas, JG Farrell's excellent The Singapore Grip, which is a very, very readable novel about the breakdown of Imperial rule in Malaya during the course of the end of 1941 and the advance of the Japanese. At least, that's what the first half is.

[Freewheeling Andy]

****** hell, The Singapore Grip is fantastic. It's quite a bit "War And Peace in Singapore" but one which finishes with the fall of Moscow. It's huge, it's got great plot, good characters, real characters, it's so symbolic of the failure and collapse at the end of empire, of the decadence and cluelessness and arrogance.

Oddly, I started off confusing JG's Ballard and Farrell, all the more because of Empire of the Sun and Ballard's view of the fall of Shanghai. Because if you pushed Singapore Grip to the future, it could be a Ballard story, of people carrying on half normally in a totally collapsed society some of the time going mad, and the rest of the time behaving as if nothing had changed. I might expand on this elsewhere. Fascinating stuff.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've now finished Jonathon Schneer's The Thames (which I interrupted with Singapore Grip). It's, in a number of ways, a fascinating social history of the river. But in some respects a frustrating book. It's well written, and enlightening. But like lots of social history, it's picking too big a subject and has to make do with a load of snapshots. There were pretty much redundant chapters on art and poetry relating to the river, the focus was almost exclusively on London, and so on. And, at the end, the "getting up to date" section felt like the author just felt obliged to comment on recent redevelopment, but wasn't really interested, like those celeb autobiographies where the celeb has to talk about the stuff that's been on TV because that's all that the majority of readers know or care about.

That said, I've learned an awful lot about the river, and about some of the interesting stories surrounding it, like the Nore mutiny, like the machinations between GLC and Thatcher government over redevelopment, like how the ice-fairs came to be and won't ever happen again even with a long very cold spell.

-

Now I'm probably going to read Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Into The Wild was OK. A fairly interesting read about a kid who decided to live independently and test himself against the elements in Alaska and eventually dying as a result. But it just wasn't that well written (I tried watching the film on the plane last night and was even more underwhelmed). OK, easy enough, interesting. But not great.

Now I'm reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, and it's fascinating and wonderful and full of interesting stuff about how history progresses, and what drives societies to succeed. and become dominant. It is, though, a little repetetive. The basic thesis "Societies that develop agriculture first, tend to develop writing, domesticated animals and centralised government first because they tend to have higher population densities; and all of these add to the "advantage", which is why Eurasians, who first developed agriculture and where it disseminated fastest, became the effectively dominant societies".

And, really, there you are. The book could be written in a paragraph. Admittedly, you wouldn't get so many fantastic facts and stuff, and it's well worth reading for that, but it feels just a bit repetetive. Four or five chapters to go.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I finally finished Guns, Germs and Steel. There's nothing much more to add about it than I wrote above. Fascinating and enlightening, but maybe just a little too narrow. The later stuff on how China and Africa, in particular, ended up as they have is truly excellent, though, and allows a very different perspective on racial divisions and so on.

Now on to (the hopefully less chewy) Mister Pip.

[Kylie]

Thanks for your views, Andy. I have this one on my wish list, along with Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I really enjoyed Collapse. It's a fantastic and sometimes very scary book. Again, sometimes I think Diamond repeats the key points too often but you learn so much that it's well worth the occasional rehash to keep you focussed.

[angerball]

I've yet to read Guns, Germs and Steel, or Collapse, though I own both. I did enjoy The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee; have you read that one?

[Freewheeling Andy]

I never read The Third Chimpanzee.

I've just finished Mister Pip which I really enjoyed. I don't think at any time he specifically says Bougainville is the location, which is odd. But it obviously is Bougainville, both from the civil war and mining and papuan references, and (on checking an atlas) the town names.

It's much darker than I expected. I did like the multiple-levels-of-pip theme; there's Pip, and Mr Watts as Pip, and Mathilda as Pip. I like the slightly fictionalised self that Mr Watts presented and the way you're left wondering if the same was true of Matilda (although it probably wasn't).

I've never really been partial to the "I must write my story" style of writing, and this is another book which references books and writing lots, but somehow it wasn't as frustrating as that usually is.

I've now started reading a history of St Pancras Station by Simon Bradley.

[Janet]

I've just finished Mister Pip which I really enjoyed. I don't think at any time he specifically says Bougainville is the location, which is odd. But it obviously is Bougainville, both from the civil war and mining and papuan references, and (on checking an atlas) the town names.

It's mentioned on page 12. :)

Bouganville is one of the most fertile places on earth.

[Freewheeling Andy]

oops

[Freewheeling Andy]

I had read in review that it was Bougainville, and I guess early on it wasn't registering that the name wasn't prominent. My bad.

[Janet]

Not bad! :) It's only a fleeting reference to it, and I only remembered it because it made me think of my parents Bougainvillea plant!

[Freewheeling Andy]

Bum. It just ate my post!

Anyway, as I was saying, to myself mostly, I finished St Pancras. Fascinating and well written and I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting. Architectural history isn't really my thing, but there was enough of the social history tied to both the railways and the gothic revival to make it an excellent little book.

[Freewheeling Andy]

And then I read Richard Powers' The Echo Maker, which I don't really know what to make of. The blathering about the Cranes and the eco-******** were a bit tiresome. The long-winded pieces showing off how much the author knew of neuroscience and psychology were a bit pointless. But on the other hand, the descriptions and feeling of psychological disconnect are fabulous, and the plotline about the note, the whodunnit element, is interesting with lots of possible people who may have been bringing someone back; and lots of possible people they may have been bringing back; all good right up to the pay-off which was frustrating because it just wasn't flagged up.

Still, I think a worthwhile, if not brilliant, book.

It may be one of those I change my mind on as time goes by, though. I may love it in a month or hate it in 2.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've finished reading my very dry history of Persia and the Persians. All Achaemenids and Sassanians, Ctesiphon and Xerxes. Interesting stuff, but a badly written book.

Now, finally, I'm reading The Kite Runner. It's pretty good, so far.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished The Kite Runner. Good book, but perhaps not as great as is sometimes suggested. Just started, god help me, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. I'll see you in six months.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, it was only 2 months to read Vineland. A fantastic book, I think, but hard work. So much going on in it, in some twilight between real and fantastical, with madness abounding in a post-hippy-60s insane California populated by ghosts and the mad employees of Nixon. Wonderful but madly complex.

Then I read The Business by Iain Banks, which took all of about 2 days and is a great fun tale of a modern global version of the East India Company, running large chunks of the world. Hugely fun.

And I've started on The Human Stain by Philip Roth, which seems like a more sordidly fun version of Coetzee's Disgrace so far.

[Kylie]

Well, it was only 2 months to read Vineland. A fantastic book, I think, but hard work. So much going on in it, in some twilight between real and fantastical, with madness abounding in a post-hippy-60s insane California populated by ghosts and the mad employees of Nixon. Wonderful but madly complex.

Sounds very interesting. If I've never read Pynchon before, would you recommend this as a good starting point, or should I try something else first? It sounds a bit daunting.

[NiceguyEddie]

Then I read The Business by Iain Banks, which took all of about 2 days and is a great fun tale of a modern global version of the East India Company, running large chunks of the world. Hugely fun.

And I've started on The Human Stain by Philip Roth, which seems like a more sordidly fun version of Coetzee's Disgrace so far.

Both good books. The Human Stain is the one that will linger longest in the memory though.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Sounds very interesting. If I've never read Pynchon before, would you recommend this as a good starting point, or should I try something else first? It sounds a bit daunting.

Others have said that Vineland is about as easy as Pynchon gets. I, though, preferred Mason and Dixon, which would probably be in my top 20 novels. They're both pretty daunting (as, apparently, are all his books). But they're sufficiently wonderful that it's well worth the effort. I'm surprised there's no Pynchon thread on BCF, actually. Perhaps I should rectify that.

[Kylie]

Yes, I did a search for Pynchon to see what other people thought, but it just returned a whole lot of posts by you! :mrgreen:

Thanks for the tip. I will give it a bit of thought.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I got distracted from The Human Stain for holiday related reasons, and have read Ryszard Kapuscinski's Imperium in the mean time.

It's an astonishingly good book. The insight of one of the great foreign correspondents of the 20th century on the Soviet Union, and in particular his travels in the country during the course of its disintegration from '89 to '92.

One of the best books of reportage that I've ever read. He's a man who's been there and seen it, all over the world, and he brings home quite what the horrors of the Soviet Union were, and how they hit individuals, and how the country was falling apart finally unable to control its constituent parts.

Genuinely brilliant.

[kb.marsh]

I'm a historian and have studied the Cold War at university, and that sounds like a really good read. I'll have to keep my eyes open for it

[Freewheeling Andy]

The Human Stain took me much longer than it should, and I kept getting distracted.

Now, going through the nested novels, I've started Haldor Laxness's Independent People properly this time, and suddenly it's much easier to read having got through the first couple of pages and into the swing of his writing style. I reckon it could end up being nearly as good a book as it's purported to be.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, a month later I've finished Independet People. It's a good book, but there were times when I completely lost connection with the characters, and sometimes the writing style got a bit wearing with Laxness's tendency to drift off from plot and talk about "this is what farmers do", and so on. It's a narrative tool, I understand that, but it just grated with me.

Also, the last section just had me almost completely lose interest. The focus on how modern life ruined everything until Bjartur meandered off back to a more traditional croft, just didn't seem to belong.

Now I'm reading Gillian Tendall's "The House By The Thames". Down to four unread books on the shelf, and getting more and more into the turgid and difficult. But satisfyingly close to clearing the backlog.

[Roland Butter]

Now I'm reading Gillian Tendall's "The House By The Thames".

Good book, that one - Bankside is an area I know well, but even so this book really gave me a new slant on the area. Enjoy.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm quite familiar with Bankside - I lived by the Imperial War Museum and later Elephant&Castle for about 10 years, and spent a lot of time meandering around the south bank. Thanks, by the way, for your comment. I was expecting to be a bit intimidated (of that's the word) by the book, as I've begun to find the histories that I've been reading have taken me a long, long time. Just a little "I enjoyed this" from a normal person makes it seem like I'm going to struggle less. So far that's been true, too. It's a pretty easy read and generally fascinating stuff.

[Roland Butter]

I'm quite familiar with Bankside - I lived by the Imperial War Museum and later Elephant&Castle for about 10 years

That almost makes you a South Londoner.

Commiserations.

[Freewheeling Andy]

I then moved to Battersea and am now in Wandsworth. Apart from a few years around University I've spent all my life living in either Oxford or South London. It's very civilised in the south.

[Freewheeling Andy]

So, in the meantime, I got a little bored by "House by the Thames", there was something about the writing that began to really frustrate me - I think it's partly the smallness of the subject, which is something I generally have difficulty with; and partly it's the heavy personalising, talking of distant characters in friendly terms. I have a problem when biography does that, too. So I read an insane book called "Round Africa with my Bicycle" by Riaan Manser, who, well, decided to cycle along the coast of Africa from Cape Town to Cape Town. It's terribly written and great fun. Really poor writing, but the subject matter is sufficiently interesting that you don't care. Because there's so many different Africas - and so much violence and corruption, and so many bad roads, and so many civil wars, that no matter how badly you write you probably can't make it too boring, going through that many countries.

Finished House by the Thames after that, but was still in Road Book mood and read the rather wonderful Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson. It's got most of what I want from travel writing. Somewhere slightly unfamiliar, a writer who's familiar with the region but not blase; and who has affection for it without being positively besotted and unable to see the bad side. It has lots of humour, and a nice mix of history information, anecdotal stuff about the people he meets, and stuff about the travel itself as he hitch-hikes from the southermost tip of Japan to the northermost.

Still in a Japanese theme, I've just started Murukami's memoir "What I talk about when I talk about running". I'm 2 pages in and have no thoughts on it yet.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, the Murukami wasn't very Murukami-like. It was lightly interesting, although I think I'd have loved it if I was a runner.

I basically still don't have many thoughts on it.

Now I'm on Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, which is the most important book I've read this year, and possibly the best. After a couple of chapters, anyway.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Finished Bad Science. I was right about it.

Now reading Three Men on the Bummel, which is Jerome K Jerome's sequel to Three Men In A Boat.