Brian.

Taking on two huge History books at the same time wasn't the wisest move. I've put aside the book about the Jacobites and have stuck with Churchill by Andrew Roberts and I'm halfway through The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid.

If you click the year in the calendar it populates a drop down box which allows you to choose the year.

The IP address from your post resolves back to Italy.

Maybe an IP issue? I know sometimes when I browse websites at work it thinks I’m in the USA due to the network routing.

Although classic over the board chess is still where the biggest prestige is, online is chess is where it's at these days. I play 99% online and the resources available are almost endless. There are many GM's who stream online games on Twitch and YouTube and do educational videos. One thing that has definitely helped boost the game online is the faster forms of the game. Bullet (1 min), Blitz (3 min), and Rapid (10 min) games are hugely popular although I prefer the much slower Daily version where you have up to 24 hours to make each move. Most players play much faster than this but it does allow you to think things over without time pressure.

I was at a bit of a loss of where to put this topic as I'm not sure it really fits the description of a sport but here seemed the best fit. Anyone else play or have an interest in Chess? I find it pretty fascinating and follow the professional game in a very loose way. I do play but very badly. There has been a cheating scandal hitting a lot of the mainstream press recently which has brought unwanted attention to the game, a lot of the reporting has been pretty inaccurate as well.

I’ve seen a few bands over the last two weekends. Last week I went to my local venue to see Blaze Bayley who was supported by Absolva. Last night I went to Alexandra Palace to see Parkway Drive. Parkway didn’t disappoint with a performance packed with energy and crowd engagement.

It's a tricky one as you are kind of reliant on the description stating if it is unabridged or not. Most unabridged versions will say so but the same cannot be said of abridged versions of books. Sometimes it's in the description, sometimes not. The 'product details' section on a book's page usually states the 'print length' in pages which may give you a better indication if you compare it to the details of a print book you know to be unabridged. ISBN used to be the best well to tell but I never trust Amazon to have the correct ISBN for a book as they rely heavily on their own ASIN which is annoying.

I’m yet to read any of her work but reading the news reports today it’s clear to see how well respected she was and how this has come out of the blue.

The Amazon purchase price for audiobooks if you don't subscribe to Audible are always crazy. I subscribe on and off to Audible but would never pay the full, non-member price for any of their titles.

I treated myself to some throw away horror this monring by watching Wrong Turn from 2003 staring Eliza Dushku.

I've currently got two very volumous history books on the go, Churchill by Andrew Roberts, and The Jacobites by Jacqueline Riding. I think I will have to pick up some easy reading fiction book to go alongside these as I really need to concentrate with the history books. I also slowly re-reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky for the 3rd time but I am purposefully taking my time with it.

Catch up time. The Immortals by Arrigo Sacchi (3/5) I imagine I'm the only BCF member who would read this book as it's a pretty niche interest even amongst football fans. In this book Arrigo Sacchi looks into his 1989 AC Milan side and how they revolutionised football through tactical innovation. This book is mentioned a lot by football tactics commentators so I went into it with high expectations. The book and writing style is short, concise, and to the point. In fact it's too short and I really wanted more from it. I was hoping for some diagrams and intricate details on Sacchi would trigger the press and things to be aware of when using this tactic. That's not to say this is a bad book, far from it. I don't know if Sacchi wrote this book himself or used a ghost writer but it feels like his own work. Away from the book, one thing I've always really admired about Sacchi is that he wasn't precious about his tactics and would happily share them with other football coaches. He is one of the big reasons that managers like Klopp, Guardiola, Bielsa etc play they way they do. Death is Forever by John Gardner (3/5) The Cold War is over, Germany is reunited, and an old intelligence unit has fallen apart. The SIS and CIA don't know why this has happened so attempt to contact them. This fails when 2 members of the old unit are mysteriously killed. James Bond is tasked to work with American counterpart Easy St. John (yes really!) to find out what is going on. I said a few posts back that I was pretty much done with Gardner's Bond after a few very bad efforts from him. However, I only have 5 of his books to go before I've covered all of Gardner's Bond so I decided to press on. Fortunately this one is better than his last and returns to a more familiar setting for fans of Bond. The story is more streamlined than the last 2 or 3 books and it also benefits from having less characters. This isn't perfect though. In what I assume is an attempt to modernise Bond a little we have talks of AIDS which is awkwardly levered into the story. Gardner also has Bond trying to straddle the line of being both a ladies man and less of a misogynist than previous incarnations but he doesn't full it off in my opinion. Knife by Jo Nesbo (4/5) Book number 12 in the Harry Hole series. When I picked this up to read I though that I had read the previous book The Thirst at the end of 2021. It turns out that I had read it in July 2020 so certain things about what had happened previously had slipped my mind. As a result it took me a few chapters to settle in to the world of Harry Hole again. At 640 pages this is a long book so I had plenty of time to get reacquainted. In the whole I enjoyed this a lot but it's not quite up to the standard of the very best Harry Hole books. There are so many sub-plots and wrong turns that it feels a bit over the top at times. However, Nesbo just about gets away with this due to the intricacy and cleverness of the ending. You do have to suspend belief to go with it but if you are willing to take this leap it works. I was completely misdirected at several points despite being sure I knew what was going on. I do think that the book could have been well served to have been edited a bit tighter. We could have lost a few of the plot meanders without harming the book and Harry's growing alcohol issues did become tiresome by the end of the book. Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki (3/5) In recent years I have been growing more and more interested in the concepts of Minimalism and Simple Living. I wouldn't say I'm particularly swayed consumerism in general but I do feel like I have far too many things that I've accumulated over the years that just don't get used any more. I am also acutely aware that I always seem to be busy attending to the needs of my possessions. This book has been a big hit in Japan and Sasaki has become a minor celebrity as a result. I have read a few books about minimalism (but not Marie Kondo yet) but this one appealed to me as it came from someone living somewhere other than America. I think it's fair to say that Sasaki has taken Minimalism to the extreme. He owns very little and says that it only took him half an hour to move to a new apartment last time he had to move. This level of extreme Minimalism isn't for me. I enjoy some hobbies which require equipment and this left me wondering is Sasaki has any hobbies as he doesn't seem to. He also fawns over Apple products like a love sick teen which he would have been well advised to leave out of the book. In general I like Apple products and use a few myself but saying they are more minimalist than others is an inaccurate claim in my opinion. Despite these reservations there is a lot of value to be had in this book and I am glad I read it. Despite his own extreme approach to Minimalism he doesn't come across as preachy and anyone interested in the subject will take something from this book in my opinion. Under the Eagle by Simon Scarrow (2/5) This was a recent second hand book shop purchase which I took with me during my week long hike through Scotland. In Under the Eagle we follow a centurion called Marco and his reluctant new recruit Cato. Marco is an experienced soldier who has been promoted to centurion due his hard work. Cato has been pushed into the legion by the wishes of his father despite scholarly upbringing. I think it's not unfair to say that everyone has seen this relationship in books and movies before. The veteran is unconvinced that the new recruit will make it. The new recruit struggles early on but goes on to save the veteran's life and also teach him something. Along the way we come across someone who tries to bully the recruit and make his life difficult. All of that is in this book along with a plot to overthrown the Emperor which they both get tied up in. On the whole I thought this book was fine but nothing special. The thing that lets it down most in my opinion is the dialogue. I wasn't expecting Latin but at the same time I definitely wasn't expecting very typically English sounding terms and slang. At times it became so jarring that it took me out of the story all together. It's almost as if a modern military tale had been re-written in a Roman setting without changing the time appropriate dialogue. I also worked out who the conspirators were very quickly as little is done to misdirect the reader. I'll probably read the next book in the series at some point but I won't be rushing to do so. This book really highlights how important getting everything right in historical fiction is.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been up in Scotland hiking for the last week or so. All of this sounds really interesting, I had no idea it even existed.

Tell me more about these orienteering races. I did some as a schoolboy aorund muddy fields and woodland but the idea of doing it in a city environment sounds intriguing.

I've got a few books that I need to catch up with but I won't have time to do it until later next week at the earliest. I will post my thoughts on Crawdads though. I have tried to type up my thoughts a few times but it's always been a bit of a mess. I'm hoping I'll have more luck this time. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (4/5) I'll start off by saying that this isn't the kind of book I would have read had it not been for the positive reviews it's had from BCF members and someone I work with. I bought a copy a little while ago but the movie adaptation coming out spurred me into reading it as I want to see the film. Although I was aware of the mainly positive reviews, I went into the book knowing very little about it so as to not spoil it for myself. I think it is easier for me to write in general terms instead of specifics but I will have to stick some things into a spoiler box. I'll start with positives. Overall I found the book to be a very easy enjoyable read that I kept picking up whenever I had a spare 15 minutes. That hasn't always been the case in recent months. The characters are defined enough that they stand on their own as individual entities. There aren't a huge amount of different characters which probably helps in this respect but I felt it was worth mentioning. The environment and setting is really well described and essentially becomes a character in itself. There aren't too many, but now for the negatives. I felt that a few of the characters were pretty cliched and I've seen them many times before. I felt the ending was a little bit rushed and I would have changed one aspect of it which I will deal with in the spoilers box next. Essentially my rating comes down to how much I enjoyed reading the book and that's why it gets a 4/5 from me. It's the first book in a while I had raced through and not had to put my thought into when reading. It was a good 'escape from life' book for me.

Looking at my profile I can see that I joined in January 2010. I has no idea it had been so long ago. I had been a site admin for one of the biggest football forums on the web but sadly it had to close due to financial issues at the end of 2009. I don't recall how long that site had been going, but i'd definitely been a member for many many years. As it had closed I was looking for something to fill the void but none of the other football forums came even close to the cameraderie we had. At the time I had just started to move away from reading only non-fiction books and I wanted somewhere to read and discuss books. I checked out a few forums but this one had the friendliest atmosphere out of those I visited. Apart from the friendly nature, the one thing that I have always liked about the forum is the mixture of reading tastes. When I was searching for a forum it stood out that in many, unless you read the same kind of books as the other members, the interaction was very limited.

I've managed to do a lot of reading in the last two weeks so it's probably time for another update. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin (4/5) This one took a while for me to get going with for some reason but once I got settled with it I enjoyed it as much as the first book in the series. I'm always amazed at how complex the world Martin creates is and just how many characters he can squeeze into a book. I do think that if I hadn't seen the TV series I would struggle to keep track with who some of the more minor characters are in the book. I also find it interesting to see how there are subtle changes in areas when compared to the TV show. I can see why the TV scripts made these changes but I also think it's a shame not to stick closer to the source material. I will probably try and get to the next book in the series before the end of this year if I can. Concorde by Jonathan Glancey (2/5) I spotted this in a local bookshop and thought it would be good to know a bit more about one of the most iconic aircraft ever built. The book is marketed as a tale of the rise and fall of Concorde but it really misses the mark. It starts off in a promising manner with the history of supersonic flight including the many one-off aircraft that were built with this in mind. It also does an admirable job of covering the development of Concorde itself, but once the aircraft is up an flying it goes down hill rapidly. The author talks about how politics is involved in any new aircraft design which is very true. However, he then lays any negative political outcomes at the feet of only one political party despite the aircraft operating for 34 years. He talks a lot about Concorde being art and how modern air travel is terrible because poorer people can fly (I'm paraphrasing here but it's what he is getting at). When I finished the book I decided to look Glancey up and he is an architecture critic so the art aspect kind of makes sense but it gets tiresome. I would argue that art exists to look good where as Concorde was deigned the way it was for aerodynamic and functional reasons, not to look good. A large part of the book is taken up with Glancey discussing his experiences of travel on Concorde and how modern airliners are dull in comparison. He frames this as there being no glamour any more but misses the fact that Concorde was far too expensive for the majority of travelers to even consider. He also forgets that Concorde was very cramped to fly in and modern airliners are far more comfortable if you opt for anything above economy seating. I work in the aviation industry and he misses the point in a lot of the arguments he was trying to make. There is a reason that supersonic passenger flight doesn't happen today. It's too expensive and the demand just isnt there. At the moment at least. 2666 by Roberto Bolano (3/5) I've owned a copy of this book for a lot time having been intrigued by it's description in the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die publication. I have attempted to read it 3 or 4 times in the past but never managed to stick with it beyond the first 150 pages. I never put it aside because I didn't like it, I always put it back on the shelf because I didn't I had the stamina for almost 1000 pages. This year, having not set a reading target on Goodreads I've found myself able to read longer books over a long period of time without tiring of them. The book contains 5 sections which all revolve around a different story but all kind of linked back to a mysterious writer called Benno von Archchimboldi. The book was published after his death and Bolano wanted it published as 5 separate titles but his family felt that it would be better as an entire work in one book. I think they probably made the right decision but none of the individual stories jumped out at me as being great. The 4th section is all about the murders of women in Santa Teresa, Mexico. This is a replica of the same thing that happened in real life in Ciudad Juarez. This section of the book is the longest and makes pretty harrowing reading. Unfortunately it also gets fairly repetitve and a bit numbing as a result. I assumed the final section of the book would bring everything together but I didn't really feel as though it did. Throughout the book none of the characters are particularly developed and there isn't really a plot to speak of either. There is some really good prose in there but this felt a little bit too much like literature without substance for me. An admirable attempt which misses the mark more than anything else. I'm glad I read the book, and it had enough to keep me engaged for it's entire length, but it's not something I would recommend to others. Updates on Where the Crawdads Sing and Immortals will follow when I have a bit more time.

In the Harry Hole series of books by Jo Nesbo Harry is an alcoholic.

I finished The Immortals by Arrigo Sacchi and while it was a decent read I was left wanting more from a tactical standpoint. After that I decided to go back to a familiar character, Harry Hole, and start Knife, the 12th book in the series.

I'm finished with Where the Crawdads Sing. I really enjoyed it but I'm not sure if its a 4 or 5 star yet, I'll have to think a little longer about it. My next book will be something completely different, a football tactics book, The Immortals by Arrigo Sacchi.

I’m making quick progress with Where the Crawdads Sing and if it wasn’t for the Liverpool match later I would probably finish it by tonight. Hopefully I have a few quiet hours at work tomorrow to finish it.

Will do. It's a pretty huge book so I imagine it will take me some time to get through it but I should finish it before the end of the year.

I've picked my next bunch of books to read. Churchill by Andrew Roberts Death is Forever by John Gardner Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I have finished a few books over the last week or so. At the weekend I finished A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin which I enjoyed more than the previous book even if it did take me a while to get going with it. After that I read Concorde by Jonathan Glancey which I really didn't like very much. It's not terrible. It does contain some decent informtaion, but it's a mess and the author goes on rambling tangents far too often. Finally I finished 2666 by Roberto Bolano yesterday. I'm still trying to get my thoughts together on this book as I've not read anything quite like it before.