The SMB Book thread

Harry Angstrom said:
Bought from amazon for buttons on your recommendation. Looks interesting.
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I don't think you will be disappointed. It was originally recommended to me by 2 people who have pretty solid credentials on the subject: one a middle east security expert for the Swiss embassy in Jordan, and the other a journalist who has spent time reporting in Iraq and Lebanon.
 


Monty Pigeon said:
Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett 10/10
Evocative portrayal of a bookseller in Clerkenwell just after WWI.

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A View of the Harbour is wonderful.
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Just read Anna of 5 Towns, thought it was excellent. Have The Card but will look for this as well.
TartanMackem said:
I don't think you will be disappointed. It was originally recommended to me by 2 people who have pretty solid credentials on the subject: one a middle east security expert for the Swiss embassy in Jordan, and the other a journalist who has spent time reporting in Iraq and Lebanon.
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Don't worry, if it's shite I'll bin it soon enough!
 
TartanMackem said:
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Robert Fisk - 10/10

This might be the best book I've read, but it took me about 3 months to finish as it is a gruelling 1,300 pages long (with relatively small print). Robert Fisk has basically lived most of his life in Beirut using it as a hub to travel throughout the middle east since the 70's as a correspondent for The Times and subsequently the Independent. He's interviewed osama bin Laden twice and pretty much been to every "hot spot" in the ME during all the major conflicts since the 70's. The book is extremely well written and intertwines history with his own personal experiences - and the US, the UK and Israel do not come out of it very well. It paints a pretty grim picture of the absolute clusterfuck the major powers have made of the ME in the century since the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, and in the 14 years since he published this book, things have only gotten worse (and entirely as he expected).

I had to take breaks trhoughout and switch to other books for a couple of reasons, not just the overall length: 1) the chapters themselves are huge, at least for an average-slow reader like me and I hate commiting to a chapter unless I think I have a good chance of finishing it that day. Some of them took a good couple of hours to get through. 2) it's brutal and depressing. The shit human beings do to other human beings never ceases to astound and utterly disgust me, and Fisk rightly covers it all as a point of principle - we should see the pictures, hear the stories, read the awful details as ultimately we vote for the people who contribute to all this shit happening. But then sometimes you need to take a step away and have a breather before you lose all hope for humanity.

I've read a lot on the Middle East, but this is definitely the best and I would recommend it as a starting point for anyone wanting to know why the whole region is such a mess.

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Hmmm. It’s on the list as of now. Does the Iran/BP/U.K. Gov scandal get a mention?
 
TartanMackem said:
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Robert Fisk - 10/10

This might be the best book I've read, but it took me about 3 months to finish as it is a gruelling 1,300 pages long (with relatively small print). Robert Fisk has basically lived most of his life in Beirut using it as a hub to travel throughout the middle east since the 70's as a correspondent for The Times and subsequently the Independent. He's interviewed osama bin Laden twice and pretty much been to every "hot spot" in the ME during all the major conflicts since the 70's. The book is extremely well written and intertwines history with his own personal experiences - and the US, the UK and Israel do not come out of it very well. It paints a pretty grim picture of the absolute clusterfuck the major powers have made of the ME in the century since the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, and in the 14 years since he published this book, things have only gotten worse (and entirely as he expected).

I had to take breaks trhoughout and switch to other books for a couple of reasons, not just the overall length: 1) the chapters themselves are huge, at least for an average-slow reader like me and I hate commiting to a chapter unless I think I have a good chance of finishing it that day. Some of them took a good couple of hours to get through. 2) it's brutal and depressing. The shit human beings do to other human beings never ceases to astound and utterly disgust me, and Fisk rightly covers it all as a point of principle - we should see the pictures, hear the stories, read the awful details as ultimately we vote for the people who contribute to all this shit happening. But then sometimes you need to take a step away and have a breather before you lose all hope for humanity.

I've read a lot on the Middle East, but this is definitely the best and I would recommend it as a starting point for anyone wanting to know why the whole region is such a mess.

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Only £1.99 on the Kindle:cool:
 
TartanMackem said:
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Robert Fisk - 10/10

This might be the best book I've read, but it took me about 3 months to finish as it is a gruelling 1,300 pages long (with relatively small print). Robert Fisk has basically lived most of his life in Beirut using it as a hub to travel throughout the middle east since the 70's as a correspondent for The Times and subsequently the Independent. He's interviewed osama bin Laden twice and pretty much been to every "hot spot" in the ME during all the major conflicts since the 70's. The book is extremely well written and intertwines history with his own personal experiences - and the US, the UK and Israel do not come out of it very well. It paints a pretty grim picture of the absolute clusterfuck the major powers have made of the ME in the century since the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, and in the 14 years since he published this book, things have only gotten worse (and entirely as he expected).

I had to take breaks trhoughout and switch to other books for a couple of reasons, not just the overall length: 1) the chapters themselves are huge, at least for an average-slow reader like me and I hate commiting to a chapter unless I think I have a good chance of finishing it that day. Some of them took a good couple of hours to get through. 2) it's brutal and depressing. The shit human beings do to other human beings never ceases to astound and utterly disgust me, and Fisk rightly covers it all as a point of principle - we should see the pictures, hear the stories, read the awful details as ultimately we vote for the people who contribute to all this shit happening. But then sometimes you need to take a step away and have a breather before you lose all hope for humanity.

I've read a lot on the Middle East, but this is definitely the best and I would recommend it as a starting point for anyone wanting to know why the whole region is such a mess.

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Whenever I've been in Beirut, something Robert Fisk once said about it plays on repeat in my head: "The moment you take this city for granted, it'll kill you."

I don't agree with elements of his world view, but he's undoubtedly one of our best reporters.
 
riffraff said:
Hmmm. It’s on the list as of now. Does the Iran/BP/U.K. Gov scandal get a mention?
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Overthrowing Mossadegh because he nationalised the oil? Yea, that’s there.

There’s a book I’ve had a while specifically on that which is meant to be excellent - All the Shah’s Men.
Fosters Mackem said:
Only £1.99 on the Kindle:cool:
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I actually bought it on kindle as well because the book is so thick I was getting cramp in my hands holding the damn thing.
 
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Londonstani - Guatam Malkani 5/10
Subject to a bidding war in 2006 where the debut author was offered a rumoured £600k advance, Londonstani is a tale of one boy's attempt to fit in with the South Asian subculture in Hounslow.
At first the language used is off putting, almost text speak in places, but after a while you accept it. The style and subject matter of this book paper over a lot of cracks. I didn't learn anything I knew about the subculture and whilst there was a lot of detail, it seemed to be at the expense of story.
Every character was a stereotype, the overbearing Indian mother only bothered about reputation, the wide boys in their heavily modified BMWs etc. Taking the time to list every single type of Boss aftershave available meant the author didn't have the space to develop the characters or the plot which was wafer thin. I didn't care what happened to the characters which is just as well as some of the main ones seemed to phase out about two thirds of the way in.
The nagging doubt I had all the way through was that it was written by someone who only knew the sub culture superficially and wrote about what he thought it was like. This then appealed to middle class white publishers who also didn't understand but it fitted their notion of what growing up as a Sikh, Hindu or Mulsim in Hounslow would be like.
At first I put the clumsiness down to the fact that the narrator, Jas, was trying to fit in so maybe it was deliberate but the further I got, I realised this wasn't the case. It was like a Bullingdon Boy writing about growing up in Southwick.
Some of the plot shifts were fanciful to say the least and whilst the ending maybe had the desired effect, I'm not sure it was necessary (and I suspect it is changing in the film version judging by something I've just read.)
Ultimately disappointing and a case of hype over substance.

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The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage 10/10
Stoner meets Cormac McCarthy. Two brothers run a ranch in the 1920s, one gets married, the other isn't happy about it. Sibling rivalry, repressed homosexuality, and revenge. Like Stoner, its a forgotten classic, only recently being rediscovered. It's currently being made into a film by Jane Campion.

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Monty Pigeon said:
The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage 10/10
Stoner meets Cormac McCarthy. Two brothers run a ranch in the 1920s, one gets married, the other isn't happy about it. Sibling rivalry, repressed homosexuality, and revenge. Like Stoner, its a forgotten classic, only recently being rediscovered. It's currently being made into a film by Jane Campion.

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I picked that up at a charity shop. It was very good.
 
Monty Pigeon said:
The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage 10/10
Stoner meets Cormac McCarthy. Two brothers run a ranch in the 1920s, one gets married, the other isn't happy about it. Sibling rivalry, repressed homosexuality, and revenge. Like Stoner, its a forgotten classic, only recently being rediscovered. It's currently being made into a film by Jane Campion.

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You're pretty generous with your marking, Monty. That's 4 of the last 5 managed 10/10. ;)

I've been reading The Restless Generation : How Rock Music Changed the Face of 1950s Britain by Pete Frame (yes, that Pete Frame, of Rock Family Trees fame). The reviews suggested this would bring back fond memories for people of a certain age. Although that would be before my time it looked like it would still be an interesting trawl through through the beginnings of popular rock music in Britain against the social milieu of the time. Unfortunately, it doesn't really achieve anything like this. It goes into the coffee bar 'scene' in London in what verges on excruciating detail so there are reams of names, most of whom are long forgotten and probably with good reason (knowing the name of someone who was in Lonnie Donegan's backing band for 2 weeks doesn't really add much to the story when that was their sole contribution and there were a lot of such people). At times it feels like old blokes 'who were there' reminiscing in a pub. There are endless forgotten groups from London given copious amounts of space while anything that happened outside London is generally dismissed as being 'provincial copycats'. I don't doubt that London was the hub of the action but even the author dismisses a lot of the London groups as playing the same songs and doing it badly.

You don't really get that much of a feel for what the 50s were generally like aside from the authors personal asides. He also has a peculiar dislike for Lonnie Donegan which, although it might well be merited, gets a bit tiresome. One of the SMBs favourite London pubs, The Princess Louise, gets a mention as the venue of one of the first skiffle clubs but overall my interest increasingly waned as another chapter went into detail about the 44 Skiffle and Folksong Group or Rory Blackwell & the Blackjacks. Disappointing. 5/10
 
Stoner - John Williams - 8/10

not really sure why i liked this book, but i was hooked and read it over two nights. spent the whole day at work in the middle dying to get home to finish it. very sad, frustrating, romantic, and humbling. a class little novel. think it was published in the 60's but hadn't sold any copies till 2010ish and is now a cult classic by the sounds of it.

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - 8/10

can be hard work at times, a bit farcical but very funny and wordy. the main character is fantastic but i don't think you are supposed to like him. Author died before it was published. another cult classic
 
zwartekat said:
You should throw the odd turkey into your reviews. It can be just as interesting hearing about a dud or a difference of opinion.
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I tend to be careful about what I commit to read in the first place. Plenty of classics and well-reviewed contemporary books. The only book I've hated this year was Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James, which I'm sure I mentioned on this thread. Tedious cod-African mythology
 
tunstallhill said:
Stoner - John Williams - 8/10

not really sure why i liked this book, but i was hooked and read it over two nights. spent the whole day at work in the middle dying to get home to finish it. very sad, frustrating, romantic, and humbling. a class little novel. think it was published in the 60's but hadn't sold any copies till 2010ish and is now a cult classic by the sounds of it.

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - 8/10

can be hard work at times, a bit farcical but very funny and wordy. the main character is fantastic but i don't think you are supposed to like him. Author died before it was published. another cult classic
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See my review today of The Power of the Dog. It's billed as the 'next Stoner' - another American book that flopped in the 60s but is now regarded as a classic.

I like Confederacy of Dunces except for the ending. For the larger than life main character it needs a larger than life pay-off.
 
Monty Pigeon said:
See my review today of The Power of the Dog. It's billed as the 'new Stoner' - another American book that flopped in the 60s but is now regarded as a classic.

I like Confederacy of Dunces except for the ending. For the larger than life main character it needs a larger than life pay-off.
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don't you think he was leaving it for a second book, Ignatious in 60's Grenwich Village ? his take on the beat generation would have been outrageous. thats how i thought he left it, at a kind of half-way point in the story
 
tunstallhill said:
don't you think he was leaving it for a second book, Ignatious in 60's Grenwich Village ? his take on the beat generation would have been outrageous. thats how i thought he left it, at a kind of half-way point in the story
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May well be. I have Butterfly in the Typewriter by Cory MacLauchlin, which is a kind of 'making of' for A Confederacy of Dunces. Must get around to reading it.
 

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