The SMB Book thread



The Secret History by Donna Tartt 8/10

Not sure it lives up to the hype - I know a couple of people who rate this as their favourite book of all time. My opinion is the same as for Tartt's The Goldfinch, which I read a couple of years ago - if it was halved in length, it would be a significantly better book. Also, like The Goldfinch, it occasionally tips into soap opera-ish melodrama.

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Too Beautiful for You by Rod Liddle . Very funny in parts but not as good as his other one .
Can anyone recommend a book about the French Resistance ? Something like Secret Army perhaps .
 
DisillusionedOldGit said:
Too Beautiful for You by Rod Liddle . Very funny in parts but not as good as his other one .
Can anyone recommend a book about the French Resistance ? Something like Secret Army perhaps .
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Rod Liddle?!?! :evil: Didn't realise that **** wrote books ffs :lol:
Er, anyway, I did french a-level and we studied a book called Au Bon Buerre or something about the resistance.
 
In Search of Robert Millar - Richard Moore - 8/10

excellent book detailing his life growing up, his cycling career and what happened to him (well kindof) when he just upped and vanished

the Vuelta story will make you want to punch a spaniard or 10
 
Scotty said:
In Search of Robert Millar - Richard Moore - 8/10

excellent book detailing his life growing up, his cycling career and what happened to him (well kindof) when he just upped and vanished

the Vuelta story will make you want to punch a spaniard or 10
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I'm intrigued. Last year a stage of the Vuelta started literally a 3-minute walk from where I live, and will again this year. For the past couple of months I've had pro teams, in training, cycle past me while I'm out walking (I saw Nairo Quintana a couple of weeks ago).

80% of me wants to love cycling come what may, but 20% keeps reminding me of the other side of the sport.
 
Monty Pigeon said:
I'm intrigued. Last year a stage of the Vuelta started literally a 3-minute walk from where I live, and will again this year. For the past couple of months I've had pro teams, in training, cycle past me while I'm out walking (I saw Nairo Quintana a couple of weeks ago).

80% of me wants to love cycling come what may, but 20% keeps reminding me of the other side of the sport.
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google the 1985 Vuelta - basically him vs every spaniard, spanish team or spanish speaking rider in the race

backhanders, more backhanders, dodgy timechecks, a case of a level crossing barrier coming down with no train appearing, etc, etc
 
Monty Pigeon said:
Austerlitz by WG Sebald 10/10
Impossible to classify: fiction, memoir, autobiography, biography, architecture, history, travelogue. The first 50 pages are a discussion of fortifications in Europe - providing the book's own defences. If you don't get through that, you miss out on the story, of a man uncovering his own history. Amazing book, enhanced by the use of found photographs.

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A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar 4/10
Acclaimed book by one of Brazil's most renowned novelists - who infamously quit writing to become a farmer. Portuguese-language 'serious' writers love their stylistic tricks, and in this case it is for every chapter to consist of just one, long, sentence. I was into it initially, but then it got bogged down in interminable philosophising. If I'd read it after a book by, say, Albert Camus, maybe I'd have been more in the mood. But after Sebald, it just seemed pretentious and lightweight. The best thing going for it is that it's very short.

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I read Austerlitz around the time it came out and I was massively disappointed. I've just re-read it and wish I hadn't. 4/10

I've also been reading Chris Mullin's diaries which are surprisingly entertaining and, at times, quite prescient in a way you wouldn't expect. 7/10

Although it's not anything more than populist, I really enjoyed The Help by Kathryn Stockett. You can tell she came from Southern US herself. 7/10.
 
Dictator by Robert Harris
A bit tough to get into (probably due to my lack of knowledge of the Roman Republic and Empire) but once it got going I found it fascinating.
So much so I've spent a fair amount of time subsequently on wiki looking into the first and second triumvirate and trying to work out if Cicero and the boys could've held the Republic together or if it was doomed.

If anyone knows of a good book from around that period I'd gladly check it out. Fiction or non fiction.
 
moo said:
Dictator by Robert Harris
A bit tough to get into (probably due to my lack of knowledge of the Roman Republic and Empire) but once it got going I found it fascinating.
So much so I've spent a fair amount of time subsequently on wiki looking into the first and second triumvirate and trying to work out if Cicero and the boys could've held the Republic together or if it was doomed.

If anyone knows of a good book from around that period I'd gladly check it out. Fiction or non fiction.
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I enjoyed the conn iggulden ones about Caesar (cannot remember the titles sorry) not sure how historically accurate they are but they were quite entertaining
 
150 pages in to the Jeremy Paxman autobiography and finding it a good read - I do like the fellow and miss his withering looks of distane as yet another politician fails to answer his question on Newsnight.

After that on my reading pile to look forward too :

Chris Salewicz - Dead Gods. The 27 Club
Laura Thompson - A Different Class of Murder - The Story of Lord Lucan.
Mick Houghton - Becoming Elektra. The True Story Jac Holzman's Visionary Record Label.

All Xmas gifts still waiting to be read.
 
Been a while since I posted on this thread so I'm sure I missed a couple books I've read and already forgotten, but three recent ones were:

The Almost Nearly Perfect People (Michael Booth). An Englishman residing in Denmark takes you through a brief tour through all five Nordic countries, trying to bust the idea that they're some sort of wonderful utopia. While he does make some points that resonate, his overarching disagreement with many of them - especially the Danes - is that they're not English. There's a lot of interesting Scandinavian history, though, so I still give it a 6.5/10.

Reykjavik Nights (Arnaldur Indridason). Arnuldur writes crime fiction set in Iceland. This is crime fiction set in Iceland, and it stars his detective (Erlandur) as a young man. It's fine enough but Erlandur lacks the aged cynicism and bitterness that he has in the books featuring him as an older man, which takes away from the whole experience. The book provides a very insightful lookback to Iceland in the 1970s, long before Glitnir, Kaupthing, and Icesave became household names and is perhaps worth reading for that reason. Not his best. 6/10.

The Man in The Empty Suit (Sean Ferrell). A man builds a time travel machine that allows him to attend his own birthday party in post-apocalyptic Manhattan in 2071, at which he tends to drink himself stupid with the younger and older versions of himself and nobody else. Then there's a murder - of the man who is the age he should be next year. The book explores inner demons, the mechanics of time travel and sci-fi narratives in general, mostly ably in all cases. One character drags it down a little bit, but the first half especially is fantastic. 8.5/10.
 
Monty Pigeon said:
I know I enjoyed it at the time, but to be honest I can't remember a great deal about it.

The Carpenter's Pencil by Manuel Rivas 5/10
Set during the Spanish Civil War, I was expecting great things of this translated novel. The first couple of chapters were a bit jarring, both setting up framing stories for the real story. And I certainly could have done without the magic realist aspects.
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On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan 10/10
A very quick read, but one of those books that stays with you after you finish it. Basically the story of a wedding night that goes badly wrong. But also an evocation of an England long gone. Thoroughly recommend it.
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Just ordered Chesil Beach, probably better than my wedding night .
 

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