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  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    My last three books follow a theme:

    Triumphs and Turbulence - Chris Boardman
    Riding through the dark - David Millar
    The World of Cycling according to G - Geraint Thomas

    All good in their own way, David Millar's was the best if a little self-indulgent maybe at times.

    Just finished G so not sure whether to continue on a cycling theme with My Time (Wiggo) or move to The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson?

    I enjoyed reading the Millar book, but found Wiggo's a bit vanilla tbh.
  • vimfuego
    vimfuego Posts: 1,783
    Been reading this - found it really interesting (but then I did do a bit of Political Geography at Uni) - gives a quick overview of why geography (and today's world map and territorial borders) impacts on certain countries outlook and strategy. Pretty easy reading and effortlessly sheds some light on things like why Putin was so obsessed with taking Crimea (& why the West let him), or why China sees the Spratly Islands as important enough to reclaim land from the sea to build air bases on them. Nice if you don't really pay close attention to the news or don't want massive amounts of detail or political diatribe with your fact finding.

    9781783962433.jpg
    CS7
    Surrey Hills
    What's a Zwift?
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,570
    I received that book from Santa ^^
  • meursault
    meursault Posts: 1,433
    narbs wrote:
    As he died this week it seems like a suitable time to re-read John Berger's Ways of Seeing.

    Waysofseeingcvr.jpg

    I have an interest in photography, and this is essential reading for that. Superb.
    Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

    Voltaire
  • keef66 wrote:
    My last three books follow a theme:

    Triumphs and Turbulence - Chris Boardman
    Riding through the dark - David Millar
    The World of Cycling according to G - Geraint Thomas

    All good in their own way, David Millar's was the best if a little self-indulgent maybe at times.

    Just finished G so not sure whether to continue on a cycling theme with My Time (Wiggo) or move to The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson?

    I enjoyed reading the Millar book, but found Wiggo's a bit vanilla tbh.

    Yeah, just finished Wiggo's book and it was a bit 'meh' :roll:

    Will maybe move away from the cycling related books for a bit, 4 in a month is overkill.
  • diamonddog
    diamonddog Posts: 3,426
    Life - Keith Richards
  • seanoconn
    seanoconn Posts: 11,400
    Girl on the train. Worth a read. Watched the film straight after and really shouldn't have bothered.
    Pinno, מלך אידיוט וחרא מכונאי
  • type:epyt
    type:epyt Posts: 766
    A distinct lack of female authors so far ... The book on existentialism and a film aside ... Why so?
    Life is unfair, kill yourself or get over it.
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    type:epyt wrote:
    A distinct lack of female authors so far ... The book on existentialism and a film aside ... Why so?
    Just re read Fortunes Favorites by Coleen McCullough great series about the end of the Roman Republic.
  • crispybug2
    crispybug2 Posts: 2,915
    Just read the Johnny Marr autobiography, am a massive fan of Johnny F*cking Marr so I was bound to be kindly disposed towards the book but even so it was a bit meh!!
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    Was given this. Got through about 30 pages before giving up.

    2039091.jpg

    Absolute sh1te. As bad as I imagine Dan Brown books to be.
  • Flâneur
    Flâneur Posts: 3,081
    Just finished
    The World of Cycling According to G ( G Thomas). Found it a pleasant read but hard to get into due to the nature of the writing (like reading bullet points)
    a Forgotten Realms book - The Halfling’s Gem by R A Salvatore. Simple, light , no thought required read for my like of Fantasy and Science Fiction

    Currently going back to some uni reading with
    The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme
    Stevo 666 wrote: Come on you Scousers! 20/12/2014
    Crudder
    CX
    Toy
  • meursault
    meursault Posts: 1,433
    type:epyt wrote:
    A distinct lack of female authors so far ... The book on existentialism and a film aside ... Why so?

    18803640.jpg

    This is the best book by a female author that I read recently, cracking read.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18803640-h-is-for-hawk
    Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

    Voltaire
  • FishFish
    FishFish Posts: 2,152
    Never having read of even heard of her I read two of Mo Hayders books - latterly Skin. Clever, complex and very good.

    Just picked up IQ84 translation - appropriate title , big book but I've read all of Murukami's novels. Acquired taste though.
    ...take your pickelf on your holibobs.... :D

    jeez :roll:
  • meursault
    meursault Posts: 1,433
    FishFish wrote:
    Never having read of even heard of her I read two of Mo Hayders books - latterly Skin. Clever, complex and very good.

    Just picked up IQ84 translation - appropriate title , big book but I've read all of Murukami's novels. Acquired taste though.

    Agreed, I loved his short story collection, something about an Elephant? But find the fantasy things a bit too much for my taste.
    Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

    Voltaire
  • Just re-read both of these due to being incapacitated and not being a TV type watcher

    Freedom Fighters, Wales's Forgotten War by John Humphries

    The Fall of Yugoslavia by Misha Glenny

    There is a bit of a pattern going on here I think.
  • vimfuego
    vimfuego Posts: 1,783
    type:epyt wrote:
    A distinct lack of female authors so far ... The book on existentialism and a film aside ... Why so?

    Edmund: A Butler's Tale, by Gertrude Perkins

    oh no hang on.....
    CS7
    Surrey Hills
    What's a Zwift?
  • FishFish
    FishFish Posts: 2,152
    meursault wrote:
    FishFish wrote:
    Just picked up IQ84 translation - appropriate title , big book but I've read all of Murukami's novels. Acquired taste though.

    Agreed, I loved his short story collection, something about an Elephant? But find the fantasy things a bit too much for my taste.

    I didn't realise it was fantasy though. I thought that sort of stuff just happened in Japan. :D
    ...take your pickelf on your holibobs.... :D

    jeez :roll:
  • Tashman
    Tashman Posts: 3,400
    An interesting book by JJ Abrams - 2 stories intertwined in 1 book

    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17860739-s
  • diamonddog wrote:
    Life - Keith Richards
    Terrific book.

    Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Bit grim.
    Ecrasez l’infame
  • ed%20yong%20multitudes.jpg

    A fascinating read about microbiomes, and their influence(s) on human development, in tandem with genomics.
    Well worth a read if your 'stance' leans towards the scientific rather than religious.
    You're the light wiping out my batteries; You're the cream in my airport coffee's.
  • Mort - Terry Pratchett. I never read any of his books in my youth, even though my friends were raving about them. Picked in up in the library when i was there with my kids. Going to have to read all of his discworld series now.
  • crispybug2
    crispybug2 Posts: 2,915
    Crisis by Frank Gardner

    I do like a well researched thriller in the Frederick Forsyth mould and this is a great example, a good potboiler that moves along at a cracking pace, I highly recommend it.
  • FishFish
    FishFish Posts: 2,152
    Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama. A long and intelligent police drama truthfully described as ...' the Japanese Crime Phenomenon'.

    Obviously best read in Japanese but the English version is cheaper.
    ...take your pickelf on your holibobs.... :D

    jeez :roll:
  • FishFish
    FishFish Posts: 2,152
    ...oh yes and the end of the world running club which I got from the library. I would have enjoyed sticking an hedgehog up my bum more than reading this book.
    ...take your pickelf on your holibobs.... :D

    jeez :roll:
  • narbs
    narbs Posts: 593
    Managed to get a Kindle version of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism which is next on the list.

    Fascinating In Our Time last week about her - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2ljg.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,570
    vimfuego wrote:
    Been reading this - found it really interesting (but then I did do a bit of Political Geography at Uni) - gives a quick overview of why geography (and today's world map and territorial borders) impacts on certain countries outlook and strategy. Pretty easy reading and effortlessly sheds some light on things like why Putin was so obsessed with taking Crimea (& why the West let him), or why China sees the Spratly Islands as important enough to reclaim land from the sea to build air bases on them. Nice if you don't really pay close attention to the news or don't want massive amounts of detail or political diatribe with your fact finding.

    9781783962433.jpg

    Half way through this.

    I appreciate there's a caveat at the start of the book (words to the effect of "geography is not the most important factor, but the most overlooked"), but I do think it overplays it somewhat; and sometimes what the writer considers geography is fairly loose. A few weird choices of words to describe certain things too.

    It is a useful reminder though.
  • mrb123
    mrb123 Posts: 4,612
    Stasiland by Anna Funder. Human stories from behind the Berlin Wall. Combines the accounts of ex-Stasi men and some of their victims. Recommended.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,570
    MrB123 wrote:
    Stasiland by Anna Funder. Human stories from behind the Berlin Wall. Combines the accounts of ex-Stasi men and some of their victims. Recommended.

    Yes it's very good.
  • M&M27
    M&M27 Posts: 7
    I just finished Hillbilly Elegy a few days ago. Such a good memoir about a man who really made something of his life!
    I listened to it on Audible while I was working and was completely enraptured for 10 hours straight. :D