Good reads

[Stones of granite]

You guys have made more interesting suggestions than I have time to follow up on. Yet another first world problem....

[paddy no 11]

Requiem for a dream - Hubert Selby jnr. Very well written, having seen the film more than once some of the impact of the book was lost on me 4/5

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Sam McAughtry Touch and Go. Another one that I've had in a box in the roof space for 20-odd years and have been waiting for the time to get into. I can remember buying the book in the Bookshop at Queen's a couple of days after listening to McAughtry talk about his days growing up in Tiger's Bay. He had such an easy and self-deprecating way about him and this comes across in his writing.

The novel is set in Belfast immediately after the Second World War and focuses on some of society's pond life. Lots of drunks, whores and other dodgy types all combining to give a few laughs here and there and a tense finish that marches inexorably towards the hangman's noose. I loved it, but it might be a bit too Belfast for someone who doesn't quite get the place.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Paul O'Connell The Battle. This is a remarkably honest book by a remarkably honest man.

Anyone picking up The Battle looking for an insider blow-by-blow account of Munster and Ireland's great victories and harrowing defeats would be better off buying the DVDs or spending a day or so on YouTube, because this is not what Paulie gives us. What he does give is that rarer and infinitely more valuable insight into the mind of a man who doubted his own talent at almost every turn, while the rest of us could only watch on in blessed wonder from the stands.

Alan English may have added a little polish but this is a superb and privileged insight into the mind of a good man, a great athlete and one who encapsulates the indomitable spirit of family, club, province and country.

[rowan]

You guys have made more interesting suggestions than I have time to follow up on. Yet another first world problem....

Yes, I also enjoy reading the Sarge's reviews, even though I'm unable to get my hands on such books where I am - plus the fact I'm on a reading hiatus at present anyway, having failed to find a novel that interested me over the past few years.

[Donny osmond]

Just finished Ian McGeechans book "The Lions. When the going gets tough." Which is really just an instruction manual on how to run a successful lions tour. Its strange as its not particularly well written but still engrossing. I suspect its one for rugby/lions fans and almost no one else.

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[rowan]

RIP

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” —-Ursula K. Le Guin.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Le Guin's life and passing would have passed me by had it not been for a short piece on R4 on the way in to work this morning and this post by Rowan. I have never read any of her work and it is highly unlikely that I ever will. The fantasy-fiction genre does not appeal to me; throw in the anarchism, Taoism and Jungism that apparently form the foundations for her works and I can hardly imagine a less palatable cocktail.

It is a little sad that Rowan has chosen that quote as her testament. Despite 80 years of trying to overthrow the power of capitalism through her art, she appears to have changed the square root of feck-all.

[Stones of granite]

Le Guin's life and passing would have passed me by had it not been for a short piece on R4 on the way in to work this morning and this post by Rowan. I have never read any of her work and it is highly unlikely that I ever will. The fantasy-fiction genre does not appeal to me; throw in the anarchism, Taoism and Jungism that apparently form the foundations for her works and I can hardly imagine a less palatable cocktail.

It is a little sad that Rowan has chosen that quote as her testament. Despite 80 years of trying to overthrow the power of capitalism through her art, she appears to have changed the square root of feck-all.

I feel for her. I personally have been trying to overthrow the power of the RFU in world rugby through the medium of freestyle dance, and have been equally unsuccessful.

[rowan]

Le Guin's life and passing would have passed me by had it not been for a short piece on R4 on the way in to work this morning and this post by Rowan. I have never read any of her work and it is highly unlikely that I ever will. The fantasy-fiction genre does not appeal to me; throw in the anarchism, Taoism and Jungism that apparently form the foundations for her works and I can hardly imagine a less palatable cocktail.

It is a little sad that Rowan has chosen that quote as her testament. Despite 80 years of trying to overthrow the power of capitalism through her art, she appears to have changed the square root of feck-all.

I feel for her. I personally have been trying to overthrow the power of the RFU in world rugby through the medium of freestyle dance, and have been equally unsuccessful.

I haven't read much of her work either; just a few short stories which were certainly readable and thought-provoking, though not sufficiently to inspire me to tackle any of her novels. It's a little sad the Sarge has chosen to belittle the quote which is being circulated by her fans as her testament.

[Stones of granite]

Le Guin's life and passing would have passed me by had it not been for a short piece on R4 on the way in to work this morning and this post by Rowan. I have never read any of her work and it is highly unlikely that I ever will. The fantasy-fiction genre does not appeal to me; throw in the anarchism, Taoism and Jungism that apparently form the foundations for her works and I can hardly imagine a less palatable cocktail.

It is a little sad that Rowan has chosen that quote as her testament. Despite 80 years of trying to overthrow the power of capitalism through her art, she appears to have changed the square root of feck-all.

I feel for her. I personally have been trying to overthrow the power of the RFU in world rugby through the medium of freestyle dance, and have been equally unsuccessful.

I haven't read much of her work either; just a few short stories which were certainly readable and thought-provoking, though not sufficiently to inspire me to tackle any of her novels. It's a little sad the Sarge has chosen to belittle the quote which is being circulated by her fans as her testament.

You just mean you, don't you.

[rowan]

If you want to exploit this internationally-renowned writer's death to try and instigate yet another argument over absolutely nothing, that, also, is very sad. I'll leave you to it.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

I would rather suggest that she has achieved a degree of renown within what would appear to be a geographically narrow (American) and niche (Science fiction) following. No one is attempting to generate argument over the woman's death; stating a factual assessment of her impact on capitalism and pointing out that the quote does not offer the most compelling testament to her contribution to the oeuvre does not, in my view, amount to instigating an argument.

If anything responsibility for instigation, were an argument to ensue, would more appropriately rest with the individual who raised the death of an aged and obscure author of niche fiction and then attempted to pin a political statement on the tail of it.

[rowan]

This was my personal favorite:

All of the adult citizens of Omelas know of the child, and the state of his existence; many of them have gone to view him. His misery yields their happiness and the happiness of the entire city. Some of the adults understand this connection, some don’t—but all of them know about it and feel no guilt about making this child miserable so that they need not be. Initially, when the people of Omelas are brought to view the child, they want to help them. Many of them are children themselves when they view him for the first time. However, they know that if they help him, Omelas would be destroyed and the happiness of its people would be forfeited.

http://www.supersummary.com/the-ones-wh ... s/summary/

[OptimisticJock]

Never heard of her.


Started Task Force Helmand on night shift at the weekend, sarge.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

So in the space of a couple of months you will have read Doug's entire body of published work without ever having read a syllable of Ursula K le Guin's latest Locus winner?

How can you live with yourself!?

[OptimisticJock]

It's a constant struggle.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Gerard Reve The Evenings. This is a post-war Dutch masterpiece, but it took them 70 years to get around to bashing out an English translation and frankly we haven't missed much. The Observer, FT and Irish Times all had it as their book of the year in 2016, with the Economist describing it as 'diabolically funny.' It was diabolically something, but funny it most certainly wasn't; shyte springs to mind. The story of a feckless 22-year old living at home with his parents and his hanging around with a gaggle of tedious wankers has been likened to Catcher in the Rye and On The Road. I've read Catcher and it too, was shyte - so I suspect I'll give On the Road a wide berth.

Don't be tempted to go anywhere near this one.

[rowan]

Maybe I should order it or something. I thoroughly enjoyed both Catcher in the Rye and On the Road. Both fairly light reading and replete with subtle humour, revolving around the anti-hero central character. The former just seems to be about the youthful narrator's bewilderment at the superficiality of the society he lives in, while On the Road was a cult novel depicting the sudden freedom of Americans in the post war era, when even working class Americans were suddenly able to own an automobile. Certainly not the most profound books ever written but two of the more enjoyable reads I've come across in my time.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

My dislike for these books has a great deal to do with the repellent protagonists. I can see why Holden Caulfield might appeal to a young adult audience struggling with its own transition to the responsibilities of adulthood, but having read Catcher as the adult father of two teenage sons, all I could see in him was behaviour that I would have thrashed out of my own child - or would have resulted in him being flung out on his arse as soon as I was legally able. There was not a single redeeming quality to the character that gave me any satisfaction in reading the book. I admit I was too old to read it for the first time, but even digging back into my own childhood memory, Caulfield struck me as the kind of boy I would never have tired of punching at school.

Reve's Fritz van Egters was no less repellent for being 22 years old. I could recognise in him some of the infantile obsessions with the macabre that are present in most teenage boys, but which tend to be overcome with puberty and normal social interaction. I despised the character's casual cruelty. I cannot see how, even had I read The Evenings as a 22 year old, there would have been anything in it with which I might have found some shred of empathy. With my own feckless 22-year old living at home I can recognise much of van Egter's behaviour, but that made me loath it all the more. I read the book hoping that some of the promised comedy would come with the next turning of the page; it never did.

I have questioned whether it is the repugnance of the lead characters that is the sole reason for my disliking these books, but John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius J Reilly was about as repulsive as could be written, yet I found Confederacy of Dunces hilarious.

[rowan]

My dislike for these books has a great deal to do with the repellent protagonists. I can see why Holden Caulfield might appeal to a young adult audience struggling with its own transition to the responsibilities of adulthood, but having read Catcher as the adult father of two teenage sons, all I could see in him was behaviour that I would have thrashed out of my own child - or would have resulted in him being flung out on his arse as soon as I was legally able. There was not a single redeeming quality to the character that gave me any satisfaction in reading the book. I admit I was too old to read it for the first time, but even digging back into my own childhood memory, Caulfield struck me as the kind of boy I would never have tired of punching at school.

Mostly agree with that, though I enjoyed it regardless. Caulfield was a miserable wretch of the spoilt brat variety and no doubt contributed to the generations of self-absorbed, resentful teenaged brats that have followed. But I still admire him for drawing attention to the superficiality of post-War American society, which I witnessed first-hand during my university years.

[Donny osmond]

Abandoned Matthew Syed's Black Box Thinking half way thru. His writing style drives me crackers, far too polemic, dogmatic, frankly arrogant. Considering he claims to derive his conclusions from hard data, his refusal to use data consistently is bewildering at best, dishonest at worst.
All of which is a real pity as he has important and valuable messages to deliver, but for me they get lost in the churn of his presentation.


Also just finished How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb. Good book altho didnt live up to its hype. Chucklesome in parts, sad in parts, very reminiscent of teenage boyhood. He's had a tough paper round, yet has a relaxed and engaging way of writing, but I got the feeling that the message he thought he was presenting wasn't really presented as well as he thought it was, or as well as the hype suggested. Still, a decent read, worth a trip to the library, but perhaps not worth shelling out for the hardback.

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[rowan]

Perhaps it's just my imagination, but there seems to be a lot more completely over-hyped duds around than there used to be. Has anyone here read 'The Secret Life of Bees?' It was compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, won some obscure award and even inspired a movie, apparently, but it was perhaps the biggest dud of all the duds that I read in the past few years before taking a hiatus from reading fiction for the first time in more than 3 decades. A colleague of my who ran a secondhand bookshop in Istanbul for many years read it too and came to the same conclusions.

[OptimisticJock]

I know I could trawl back through the thread but I'm not going to let old habits die, I'd like the bond to lead me by the hand recommend a book on WWI.

Please.

Thank you.

I sought permission from the Plt Sgt and then the CSM before approaching you.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Depends what you’re after, Baz. Best single volume history for the general reader would, in my view, be John Keegan’s. If you want a history of the British experience you can’t go wrong with Tommy by Richard Holmes. Best history of any single day remains Middlebrooke’s The First Day of the Somme. If it’s 1918 you’re looking to understand, then read Middlebrooke’s The Kaiser’s Battle and then Gary Sheffield’s Forgotten Victory - and Peter Hart’s 1918 should round things off and set up Margaret McMillan’s The Peacemakers to cover Versailles and set up the Second World War.