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What are you reading right now?

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Interesting, but bloomin' hard work. One (this one anyway) is amazed by the amount of detail on the Hapsburg Empire and its complicated functioning the author is able to dig out, which is apparently necessary to understand the train wreck that took place between 1618 and 1648
 
I have just had a gallop through several several things about finance and economics:

Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed - a salutary survey of the roots of the great depression. Many facepalm moments in accompaniment to the current rolling credit and sovereign debt crises. Long but excellent.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0434015415/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey. Interesting take on the current series of crises from a Neo-Marxist perspective (stay with me here!). Good on fleshing out interconnections between things, less convincing on solutions.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846683084/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

For some relief from all that: 'Mad World' by Paula Byrne a partial biography of Evelyn Waugh mainly about his relationship with the aristocratic Lygon family and their various shenanigans. Very engaging if you have any interest in Waugh or indeed the inter-war years. Contains unrestrained Catholicism and homosexuality.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007243766/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
 
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Currently: 'Fear and Loathing in America' vol 2 of Hunter S Thompson's letters.

Just about to start 'Vanished Kingdoms' by Norman Davies.
 
''The search for the Diceman'' Luke Rhinehart.

A sequal to 'The Diceman'. Cult psycho/sexual/comedic novel of the sixties.

Must be read by all.
 
Christopher Hitchens' autobiog. It was my sunbathing book last summer and I dug it out again after reading some of his obits.
 
The Brave Japanese by Kenneth Harrison. A story of his experiences as a Japanese POW.
I have known two former Japanese POW's and both were scarred by their respective experiences. One was a work colleague many years ago and the other was my headmaster at junior school. The headmaster had a morbid fascniation with instruments of torture, which I even found strange at the time. When my Dad explained what had happenned to him I then begun to understand. All at a much later date.
 
Faithful Place – Tana French. Her third novel, this time it's crime in the mother of all dysfunctional Irish families. Really, really good! Possibly even better than the first one, In The Woods, and clearly better than The Likeness with it's impossible plot.

JohanR
 
Pete the Feet said:
The Brave Japanese by Kenneth Harrison. A story of his experiences as a Japanese POW.
I have known two former Japanese POW's and both were scarred by their respective experiences. One was a work colleague many years ago and the other was my headmaster at junior school. The headmaster had a morbid fascniation with instruments of torture, which I even found strange at the time. When my Dad explained what had happenned to him I then begun to understand. All at a much later date.
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To be fair to the Japs, I think most headmasters are like that anyway.
 
TheDecameron said:
I read that bollocks - along with Borroughs- when I was a student. Foul swill it was.
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No, that would have been 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. 'Fear and Loathing in America' wasn't published until 2000. There's a hilarious letter Thompson wrote to Anthony Burgess, when Burgess was supposed to be writing for Rolling Stone, but had disappeared somewhere in Italy. `
 
A bit of trash type alt history, if you can remember some of the names then it may well jog memories of cold war fear roaming the globe at the time. A free download via Infinity Plus all a bit Lovecraftish.
 
I'm just about finished with Dicken's "The Pickwick Papers". I have awful memories of slogging through Dickens at school, but I've really enjoyed Pickwick. The humourous language reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse. Maybe it was the teaching, or maybe I've grown up, but for anyone who has either not tried Dickens Pickwick is highly recommended.
 
I'm not a fan of F&L either, it's just a series of mildly amusing magazine pieces strung together. Still, there y'go. I have Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on the go now. It's OK. I haven't yet grabbed the "incisive take on the racial tension simmering beneath the surface of his stories set in the Southern States" that all the critics bash on about. So far I've got an elderly loaded geezer who's about to die, a daughter and her husband who want the brass to themselves, and an alcoholic son trying to sort out his sexuality who is first in line but couldnt give a toss provided there is plenty to drink and he won't be there when he's fat, old, married to someone he dislikes and dying of cancer. To be honest I'm looking forward to the whole thing ending, and significantly it hasn't made it out of the car since I went away before Christmas. Post accident I struggle to read fine print and stuff like this just bores me, it's not worth the effort.
 
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