Moderators: Bearbonesnorm, Taylor, Chew
Duly purchasedDave Barter wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 1:42 pm Just finished “The complete guide to everything” by Hannah Fry
A beautifully written accessible science book from which I learnt so much. Look in a mirror and try to watch your eyes move from left to right and back again quickly. Then read this book to find out why it can’t be done
Recently read some of the Earthsea books, she was an amazing writer. Currently wading through Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle.
Me, sir, me. PM on the way.
Enjoy her slots on Lauren Laverne's 6Music show, so that sounds good.Dave Barter wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 1:42 pm Just finished “The complete guide to everything” by Hannah Fry
The first book of the Baroque cycle is one of two books I've given up on in my lifetime, though Cryptonomicon took a second attempt. I'd bought the trilogy on sale and ended up giving the books away mostly unread. I just remember endless exposition and random changes of direction. I recall reading that the one of the inspirations for the Cycle was Victor Hugo so it's not surprising that Les Miserables was the other book I started and never finished. I just re-read Diamond Age after avoiding his works for 18 years and it hammered home that he has excellent ideas and is good at starting a story off and then at half way through his books he seems to lose track of the story and just starts writing a different novel.
Back in the day when I used to be sent to the US a lot for work, they released two of the three "books" that make up Quicksilver as trade paperbacks. Turns out there was a falling out with the publisher or something and they never release the rest; I couldn't be arsed to buy the big Quicksilver after that when I'd already read 2/3 of it. Finally decided it was time. I read Diamond Age in the mid-nineties, haven't read it since, but I have read Snow Crash more than twice; my home brewery is called Black Sun for a reason...PaulB2 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 6:38 pm The first book of the Baroque cycle is one of two books I've given up on in my lifetime, though Cryptonomicon took a second attempt. I'd bought the trilogy on sale and ended up giving the books away mostly unread. I just remember endless exposition and random changes of direction. I recall reading that the one of the inspirations for the Cycle was Victor Hugo so it's not surprising that Les Miserables was the other book I started and never finished. I just re-read Diamond Age after avoiding his works for 18 years and it hammered home that he has excellent ideas and is good at starting a story off and then at half way through his books he seems to lose track of the story and just starts writing a different novel.
My Granny used to have afternoon tea with Bank's Mum. The closest I've ever come to literary genius...
Finished this last night
excellent read. He does Labour the point a little but it’s very interesting … be nice he’d gone places other than the M4 corridor( ignoring his trip to Hebden Bridge) 
Superb. Very similar to Neil DeGrasse-Tyson’s “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry “ even both using the billiard ball analogy for the Earth’s smoothness 
I picked out Eight Feet in the Andes, mainly because a friend put me on the spot and asked me to recommend a specific book, and that's what I came out with. Written in 1982 or 3, she's nearly 50, and it's the diary of her journey with her daughter, then 9 (at the start), and a mule, 1,300 miles through the high Peruvian Andes from the Ecuadorian border to Cuzco, roughly following the route of the Spanish conquest of 1533.Hope you're recovered from the Covid! Interesting to read your post, I have just picked up a copy of The Road after a year of procrastination! Really enjoyed Dervla's Full Tilt and also thought that Deep Country was one of the best "Nature writing" books ever.thenorthwind wrote: ↑Sun Oct 23, 2022 3:44 pm A couple of lengthy train journeys and covid (almost certainly a result of one massively over-crowded train) has given me a bit more time to read recently.
I read a book called Greenland: The end of the world by a Slovenian guy called Damjan Koncnik, though ghost-written/translated by an American, about trekking in Greenland. I found it in a charity shop, clearly a small-run amateur production, and thought I might have chanced upon a hidden gem. I hadn't. I feel bad trashing it, but it read like an over-exciting gushing school report of a field trip. The overblown sub-title should have been a giveaway. I hesistate to criticise it for not being "adventurous" enough for fear or implying that travel writing has to invlove great danger, or hardhip, or extremes of something, to be worthwhile... but there comes a point where you're just reading about someone's holiday. Ah well, it was worth a shot.
Unusually for me, I read some fiction. Cormac McCarthy's The Road seems to be one of those "modern classics" that everyone's read (or at least seen the film) and spotting a copy on a stall outside someone's house for 50p when I was low on reading material, I thought it was becoming rather obvious if I avoided it any longer, and I've often been curious about it. I'm probably not really in a position to criticise, not being a particularly regular reader of fiction, but I have to say, I felt rather short-changed. The description is very, as I'm sure the less-imaginative reviews say, haunting - so much so that I had to stop reading it in bed because it wasn't helping me get to sleep - but somehow it felt a bit one-dimensional and almost predictable. Perhaps the lack of a more satisfying ending bothered me too, and perhaps that's my fault.
After Dervla Murphy's death brought her into the news, I thought it was a good time to go back and read some of her books, which I've had since I read them obsessively in my early teens. That was 20 years ago
In many ways, her writing is as I remember it. It's diary format and fairly literal description of events, with bits of history and analysis of the people and culture, doesn't mark it out as breaking the mould of creative writing, but it's so well written that it doesn't need to. The content is enough. And I certainly couldn't accuse them of not being adventurous enough. What I would consider a major crisis on a trip, necessitating a few days recovery somewhere with modern comforts, they consider part of the normal course of daily life on the "road" (actual roads not featuring heavily).
One feature of her writing I didn't notice when I first read her - and I don't know if this is the difference in western attitudes in the last 20 years, or between me being in my early teens and early thirties - is her often frank, and certainly non-PC, by today's standards, assessment of both groups of people (nations, races, regions) and individuals. Despite clearly enagaging (or at least attemping to) and empathising with all the people she meets, and regularly decrying both historical empricism and modern "development", she often describes people as "wretched", "moronic", of "low IQ" and any number of other less than diplomatic terms.
I don't mean this as a criticism really, and I don't feel it detracts for here writing - quite the opposite - and I trust her judge of character, but it is noticeable today. One thing that did get up my nose, was one or two homophobic comments. I don't remember the exact context, but homosexual was definitely used as a prejorative term in describing a culture. They were throwaway comments, and I would be surpised if she harboured genuinely homophobic views, but it was disconcerting to read all the same.
This aside, I would again urge people to read her.
Most recently I finished Neil Ansell's Deep Country. I'm not sure how well-known he or this book is - I hadn't come across him til I read the book I mentioned up-thread, but he seems to have presented some BBC documentaries, so it might just be my ignorance of TV - so I might be late to the party, but I found it an utterly beguiling description of a way of life, if temporary, and nature-writing of a depth I've not found before, without a hint of the self-indulgence you might expect. It also has some extra relevance here, being set I'm sure not a million miles from the Towers.
I'm getting towards the end of Storm in a Teacup so if anyone wants it next, now's a good time to stick your hand up.
On that note, while I'm loathe to let go of Deep Country, I'd love other people to read it, so if anyone wants to I'd be happy to make this the next circulating BB book as long as it comes back to me in the end. Form an orderly queue...
Great minds! Thanks - covid still throwing some surprises my way, but I did read quite a bit of another new book last night when it kept me awake til half 2. Hope you get more out of The Road than I did.
Tolstoy Bronte and Thomas Hardy were all standard "A" level English set work books when I was at school, found them all a slog and i love reading!godivatrailrider wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 11:09 am Me, my sisters and my mum have finally started a family Book Club having realised non have us have read many books on any "100 Best Books" rr "100 Books to read before I die" type lists...
My sister chose the first one ... something nice and easy .... Anna Karenina .
It's a heck of a book, physically. I'm about 550/800 pages in and now find it's dragging ... none of it is an 'easy read' I don't think the family will finish it tbh ... I don't think anyone else is passed page 100.
I like the Levin/Kitty story, but find the whole Anna/Vronsky/Karenin a bit of a slog.
I will finish it but War & Peace will drop down the list !
Wait till she gets to Moby Dick
I really think a heavily abridged version would be the best thing to do rather than forcing your way through page after page of completely unnecessary padding. There genuinely are big sections that add nothing at all (imho) to the actual story.
Is this worse than Anna Karenina? Is it just a hard read?
