Kitchen Confidential - Probably the best memoir I've read. Funny, depressing, honest, raw. Bourdain writes from the heart.

The Nowhere Men - Follows the forgotten men of football, the scouts. Intimate view of their work, the world they inhabit and their success and failures. Also highlights how much they get fucked over.

Chasing the Scream - Global tale of the war on drugs. Bleak beyond words at multiple points but a pignant insight into how fucked the whole thing truly is.

Two Jonathan Franzen novels are next up.

Finished a bunch of things recently, including the second book in Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun and Samanta Schweblin’s delirious and thoroughly excellent Fever Dream. But right now I’m reading Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan. I compared it recently to a friend as the literary equivalent of Christmas cake; it’s dense and rich so you only want to consume it a little at a time. It’s going to take a good while to get through the whole saga.

Up next: Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

What did you read before The Da Vinci Code?

Halfway through Blood Meridian. A bit in the previous chapter or so almost made me physically sick.

A mate of mine had highly recommend Da Vinci Code. I read it. It was a pile of shit. Never listened to him again.

Just given up on Steve Martin Born Standing Up.
A good start but just shy of halfway through and he has met his wife and is at the point where we all knew him. Not a lot left to say after that but I did genuinely enjoy reading about the early part of his life and how he broke through.

Up next...
Gary Younge Another Day in the Death if America
Yes the Guardian writer. He explores the stories behind the 10 deaths of young people killed by guns in a given day in America.

David Runciman How Democracy Ends.
A what is next after this system we have.

Dee Brown The American West
I have started this and it is fascinating but the writing style is heavy. An exploration into how western america was formed, the struggles, the advancements.
I'm not far into this but it has really helped me to better understand the American psyche. It isnt written that way as such but we are all products of our society which is a product of history. It is good to read about that era of American history without it being about the politics of the time.

Spinning Silver.

Novik is good.

I prefer Uprooted so far but I'm not too far in yet.

hylian_elf wrote:

A mate of mine had highly recommend Da Vinci Code. I read it. It was a pile of shit. Never listened to him again.

Foucault's Pendulum instead.

Finally got myself a library card today. For some reason going to the library and asking for one seemed like too much effort in my head. It doesn't even cost anything.

Brings my back to when I was a kid and had read everything at some point in the bus that would come by weekly. I loved going to the library.

It's not the biggest library I've seen, but I found out they have graphic novels so I picked the first two Sandman. Didn't see the third one.

Also picked up the Handmaid's Tale. Will see how that goes.

Best thing, mine is just part of the whole OC library group, so I can put books on hold and have them sent over to my branch.

poprock wrote:

Interlibrary loans are a global thing, no? You can order in any book from anywhere in the world – you just might have to wait a while.

My wife works in Edinburgh University interlibrary loans.

HIGH-FIVE!

Fallout : A year of political mayhem by Tim Shipman.

An entertaining , informative and thought provoking account of the shitstorm that was the era around the 2017 General Election.

Lots of splendid quotes to colour the narrative that is a good vehicle for remembering all the nonsense that happened as well as providing some insight as to the reasoning behind some of the apparant mad decisions. 

Has a good summary at the end that draws some conclusions and leaves some open questions; in particular, for me, in what shape the Labour Party really is with respect to how well they did in the GE and how much of their performance was due to happenstance and not a function of their performance and their creation of new voters.

I'm still reticent about Corbyn, but I'm perhaps with him more than I was before I read this.  As rational as I try to be about his (and McDonald's) relationship with the IRA, I have to confess to having an emotional blind spot about it too which poisons my attitude to them even though I am in agreement with their argument about addressing the cause of terrorism - something the West still hasn't learned anything about.

But I also have some feeling for a handful of the Brexiteers who really did try at the start and then realised what a enormous task it was. I always wondered what David Davis actually did in that era but he seemed to work hard - and when he became enlightened to the difficulties was accused as going native by the madmen.

Some key decisions were taken far too early with no understanding of the complexities and consequences implied by them; particularly the ECJ topic.

Thoughtful stuff then whilst being entertaining. Easy to read too - it only took me so long to read this because it was so bloody hot in Crete.

Recommended.

I'll definitely be looking at the prequel which covers the EU ref.

We do. It’s called Bamf Snip Pow or something like that.

The Parade by Dave Eggers is the best book I’ve read this year and I’ve read at least, um, 8 other books so far.  Srsly, it’s quality and probably his best fiction work.