[Archived] Holiday Reading

[Radagast]

I still haven't finished the sodding Dark Tower because they refuse to release the last volume in paperback until the end of the month. I'm quite disappointed with the way its turning out anyway - after the fantastic first three volumes and the enjoyable-but-frustrating fourth, the fifth and sixth steer off in a completely different, unsatisfying (for me at least) direction. I think it was halfway through Wolves of the Calla that I realised it was just going to keep going the same way and that King had totally lost sight of the shore. His little valentine to himself in the sixth book is just preposterous. Here's hoping it ends well, anyway.

After that I'm not sure what to read next - possibilties include returning to Card's Seventh Son series, George RR Martin's Game of Thrones or maybe seeing what all the fuss is about with these so-called Dark Materials...

[Rovermatt]

As I said above, Northern Lights (the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy) is tremendous. The sequels are good and not so good respectively.

[blue phil]

Characters are a bit thin and some stilted conversations happen but, all in all, they are good holiday reads. I'd probably recommmend reading Shogun first however (which is set the longest time ago) and Tai-Pan (which is the best of his that I have read).

If you're going to read Shogun on holiday I suggest you take a gap year off ...if I remember it was over 1000 pages long Tremendous book though ; so good I read it twice . Better than Tai Pan I reckon . King Rat is good one of his also - better size for the suitcase .

[Cheeky Sidders]

I was given a battered copy of Shogun a few years ago by a family friend who was moving house and wanting to downsize and he reckoned I'd like it. So far it has sat on the shelf gathering dust despite encouragement from my brother (whose taste in literature is distinctly questionable) but having seen the positive notices above I might give it a whirl soon. I have so far been put off by flashbacks to the bloody awful Richard Chamberlain mini-series of the mid 80s based on the book. Tell me it's better than that.

In the meantime Iain Banks' Complicity is rattling along nicely.

Radagast, give yourself a treat and try IMPERIAL GOVERNOR by George Shipway. Far better than that Dark Tower stuff and it's the sort of book you'll read twice.

Edited July 28, 2006 by Cheeky Sidders

[RoyRover]

I finished Frederick Forsyth's 'Fist Of God' last week and it was excellent. I'm now reading 'Great Expectations' by Dickens and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. You have to stick with it for the first couple of chapters, with the old English writing, but once you get past that, it's a great story. The movie follows the book quite closely and even though it didn't get great reviews, I really like the movie.

[colin]

Also like The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nightime by Mark Haddon. It's written from the pov of a child with aspergers and is quite thought provoking

Glad some one else like this one too. I think I put a recommendation some pages back.

[American]

Been reading the Bourne trilogy by Robert Ludlum. The Bourne Identity starts in similar fashion to the film, but drifts gradually until it is unrecognisable. The Bourne Soupremacy so far is vastly different. They are ok reads if you can stand the daft dialogue and can put your brain in 'lo-tech past mode'.

I'm a big fan of the Bourne trilogy, love the way it blends real life and fiction.

Starting to read How Soccer (Football) explains the world not too far in. So far finding it interesting, but not detailed enough.

Finally read the DaVinci Code - interesting story, but not all that well written. Spent too much time on the explanations and it was pretty easy to figure out where he was going next.

[FourLaneBlue]

If you're going to read Shogun on holiday I suggest you take a gap year off ...if I remember it was over 1000 pages long Tremendous book though ; so good I read it twice . Better than Tai Pan I reckon . King Rat is good one of his also - better size for the suitcase .

It is a pretty easy read though despite the length. As I said, I preferred Tai-Pan but that may have been due to having actually been in Hong Kong when I read it which meant I could actually see some of the locations he described. Mind you, they had obviously been transformed in the 160 or so years since the time in which the book was set.

Also read recently 'The Beautiful and Damned' by F. Scott Fitzgerald which I liked but certainly not his best. Maybe a bit literary for a holiday read however...

As well as that there was 'A Star Called Henry' as I continued reading Roddy Doyle, it is probably the worst of his books that I have read but even so that makes it only average compared to other writers. The character of Henry Smart is, however, a joke and some of his escapes from the Brits are detached from reality. A disappointment from a great novelist. If you haven't read any of his work I'd suggest 'Paddy Clarke hahaha', a moving tale and a great read, not to mention being a thoroughly deserved winner of the Booker Prize.

Edited July 29, 2006 by FourLaneBlue

[Radagast]

I'm very sad to have learned of the death of David Gemmell yesterday. He wasn't without criticism as a storyteller, but I found his stories to be compelling and often very moving. His novel Dark Moon is effectively what started me actually reading books again when I sort of accidentally read the first chapter in a friend's house a couple of years ago. Very sad.

[FourLaneBlue]

Just to stop this topic all too hurriedly departing once again, I'll also recommend 'The Year of the death of Ricardo Reis' by Nobel Prize winning Portugese writer Jose Saramango. An excellent, erudite read that I probably didn't even fully understand because of my lack of knowledge of Portugese history (it is set in the mid-thirties).

[arealbrfcfan]

Flann O'Brien is brilliant. He is funny, he is wise, he sees things that you and I see, but don't really think about. Worth a read.

I'll probably get scolded for this, but if Terry Pratchett had an Irish grandfather it would have been Flann

Hi Colin, how are things?

I'm on the same wavelength as you with the Terry Pratchett thing, I can definatly see what you mean...total Surrealism.

Have you ever read any of the other books by him like ;The Dalkey Archive or Best of Myles? also great reading. Cant help that think maybe The Dalkey Archive was a early blueprint for Third Policeman.

[arealbrfcfan]

Can anyone recommend a fairly short read (say 100-200 pages long) i'm going to France in a few weeks and its only for 4 days. So i'm looking for something like a modern classic. Any recommendations?

[Radagast]

Can anyone recommend a fairly short read (say 100-200 pages long) i'm going to France in a few weeks and its only for 4 days. So i'm looking for something like a modern classic. Any recommendations?

Animal Farm?

Not too modern, but a quick read.

[Tango]

Can anyone recommend a fairly short read (say 100-200 pages long) i'm going to France in a few weeks and its only for 4 days. So i'm looking for something like a modern classic. Any recommendations?

I'd reccommend Blackbox by Nick Walker as an excellent book that you can blitz through in a few days. Has a style similar to that of 24, if you like that sort of thing.

[arealbrfcfan]

Animal Farm?

Not too modern, but a quick read.

Thanks! i checked it out and i've decided to go for 'Nineteen eighty-four' by the same author, sounds like a good read.

Edited August 2, 2006 by starscascade

[Flopsy]

Thanks! i checked it out and i've decided to go for 'Nineteen eighty-four' by the same author, sounds like a good read.

SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD READ!?!?!?!?!?!

Give your self a hard slap for that one philistine .

Its a masterpiece and worringly close to reality.

[blue phil]

Close to reality , Flops ? In what respect ? You always seem to defend the status quo ......(not the group though ...hopefully !)

[colin]

Hi Colin, how are things?

I'm on the same wavelength as you with the Terry Pratchett thing, I can definatly see what you mean...total Surrealism.

Have you ever read any of the other books by him like ;The Dalkey Archive or Best of Myles? also great reading. Cant help that think maybe The Dalkey Archive was a early blueprint for Third Policeman.

I'm doing well, hope you are too. I think I've read most of Flan O'Brian's books, it's a while since, so I probably need to go and enjoy them again.

For a good entertaining read for a few hours you could do worse than "Penguins Stopped Play" by Harry Thompson. It's an account of a "village" cricket team (who all just happen to be based in central London so they only play away games) embark on a trip around the world to play a game in every continent in a matter of a couple of weeks.

I'm not particularly interested in cricket, but I found it entertaining and funny. Particularly good is the continual slagging-off he gives to British Airways and the little cameo role played by Ian Hislop.

Ignore the Postscript & Afterword if you want to remain happy

[Cheeky Sidders]

Complicity by Iain Banks - sex, drugs, computer games, sex, journalism, friendship, kinky sex and murders (lots of them). Absolutely bloody great and one of the most entertaining reads I've had in a while. In the past I have found Banks novels either superb (Wasp Factory, Crow Road and Whit) or rather disappointing (Walking On Glass and A Song Of Stone) but Complicity is definitely one of the best of his that I have read. A very modest 310 pages and thoroughly recommended.

The Shark Mutiny by Patrick Robinson - should be renamed The @#/? Mutiny. Not my normal cup of tea but it's amazing what lengths you are driven to while camping in Cumbria in the rain. Quite probably the most badly written novel I have ever had the misfortune to begin reading. I say begin reading rather than read as it was abandoned after less than 30 pages. The thought of reading the remaining 466 pages was just too much for mortal flesh to consider.

[Radagast]

Talking of abandoning novels early on - aren't Louise Welsh's stories meant to be pretty highly regarded? 20-30 pages of painfully stilted dialogue and smug oh-so-clever narration into The Cutting Room and I had to bail out for the sake of my sanity.

Edited August 2, 2006 by Radagast

[Debs]

This Summer I've read:

Non-Fiction:

Margrave of the Marshes - John Peel autobiography finished by his wife when he died. I absolutely loved it, but guess most John Peel fans will have read it by now. I'm a bit behind the times.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote. About aftermath of the murder of an all American family in the small town USA in the late 50's. Focuses on the two murderers and was really controversial at the time it was written and is viewed to have changed the way that non-fiction is written. Nothing at all like the film Capote which is based on it being written.

Fiction:

The Blood Meridian - Cormac McArthur. Gruesome unromantic tale of cowboys, Indians and scalping expeditions set in Texas and Mexico in the 1840's. I love Cormac McArthur's Wild West stories.

Gentlemen and Players - Joanne Harris. Really easy reading book about the revenge against a minor public school. With a twist.

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. Can't really say what it's about without spoiling the book. It's really unusual and I would really recommend it. Everyone I have passed it on to has found it really interesting too.

The Sleeping Voice - Dulce Chacon. A book about the Spanish Civil war from the point of view of a group of women prisoners. I re-read For Whom the Bell Tolls last year and this is a really good contrast to the Hemmingway's machismo.

[eddiecolne]

Just read two Robert Rankin novels in Turkey. The bloke is bonkers, but if you want a laugh and a light read, he's your man. " The Brighronomican" was the better of the two, but I'm sure lots of Rovers fans would enjoy "Knees up mother Earth". The latter is a story about the authors favorite town (Brentford) winning the F.A. cup, the last time being 1928 MMmm, seem to remember a certain team in blue & white halves did that. But, one of the best sections of the book is when Brentford are drawn against Burnley Rankin must have actually done some research here, as he talks about : Burnley fans wanting to beat away fans to death, the sounds of breaking glass and shops being looted after burnley were defeated, and "As we drove away, there was a red glow in the sky where Burnley used to be". If I didn't know better, I'd suspect the guy of being a Rover's fan.

[colin]

I don't usually read anything passed to me by my mum (her tastes being slightly high-brow and and arty farty) but I must recommend The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It is one of the most affecting books I've ever read; beautifully written and a bona fide page-turner.

Well, as you do, you take a recommendation for a book from a fellow poster on a Blackburn Rovers' supporters web site, and you go and read it.

Fabulous book. Thanks Rovermatt.

Also belated thanks to Bryan for (I think) "The Butterfly & The Diving Bell."

Equally thought-provoking.

Keep 'em coming

[tucker]

England's Dreaming by Jon Savage is an excellent book

[colin]

Well just to keep this up

Have a read of Max Anderson's "Digger." (ISBN0-330-49201-2)

It's about his obsession with digging for treasure which eventually leads him to a year digging for gold in Western Australia. A cracking read and probably more so for the Aussies on here for a bit of history.