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What are you reading right now?

mjw said:
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. I’m finding le Carré much easier and more enjoyable to read second time around.
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Have you listened to the radio adaptations with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and Brian Cox as Lemas in ...Cold? Fantastic, IMO. Must get round to reading the actual books one day.

I recently finished a very long stint of studying, and had long been planning lots of books I’d be able to dive into once I’d finished. Yet I find myself almost unable to concentrate in the right way for reading now. Judging by things I’ve seen others saying on the net, it’s a common feeling lately.

Though I’ve just started this, partly in an attempt to bridge the gap between academic stuff and popular stuff:

galileo-s-error-final-cover_orig.jpg


Basically an accessibly written defence of a view that consciousness is a feature of all physical matter - which sounds bonkers, but is actually a quite serious and increasingly respectable position. Curious to see how it’s supported.
 
herb said:
Yes Panpsychism is fascinating, challenging and growing in popularity.
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Yeah, it also seems to draw in a few general worries I had in an armchair sort of way - scientism vs subjective experience, what used to be called qualia, and so on.

Sounds fun.
 
Dave***t said:
Have you listened to the radio adaptations with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley
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I have indeed. He’s such a genius and can inject that lugubrious, care-worm tone to his voice.
I started reading these on release but ran out of steam after Tinker, Tailor. Doing much better now and looking forward to getting my teeth into the post-Smiley stuff.
 
On the Road Jack Kerouac.

"... the only people for me are the mad ones... who... burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." ✨
 
I am currently reading:

'The German Genius' by Peter Watson. (The term 'German' is used very broadly, to include what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire). A fascinating study of the evolution of German thought from Kant to more or less the present, and its influence on German and world history and culture.

'The Greville Memoirs' by Charles Greville. Now up to 1839; the monarchy has been tainted by the affair of Flora Hastings; the administration of Lord Melbourne is on its last legs, and Chartism is on the rise.

'Underland' by Robert Macfarlane, in which the author goes underground. Not for the first time, I am struck by how little I would like to go exploring in caves, though I enjoy reading about it.

'A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783' by Paul Langford, from which the following seems apposite for our times: 'Educated incredulity at the credulousness of the uneducated was marked'.
 
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, second in the Hyperion Cantos. I somehow missed these in the 80's/90's but I found them now. Plenty has been said and awards given but it is always good to read first and then read reviews later which is what I have mostly done.

He is a bit pain obsessed but it is a very well told and more literary style of SciFi space opera. Some great concepts and flowery prose which is not usually my style but as I am two books if I guess I like it now.

Recommended
 
Just started The Secret Pilgrim in my le Carré chronology - The Night Manager comes next.
 
KrisW said:
The Mirror and the Light - Hilary Mantel. Started it in March, nearly at the end now (no spoilers, please! ;) ) - I'm enjoying it very much, although hardback is probably not the most comfortable format for reading an 800-page novel in bed.

Before that, an anthology of all of the Sherlock Holmes stories that I'd got on the Kindle for a fiver.
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Just finished it. I re-read the other two first. I enjoyed it, but maybe a little less than when I first read the other two. I found Cromwell less sympathetic, and knowing how the book ends (sort of) adds a tension that, over 800+ pages, I found got a bit much. I do think she's a great writer, though. I felt that I was in the company of an intelligent mind, and the research and hard work required to produce it are impressive.

I was going to wait for the paperback, but found the current version at a good price. After having held it my hand (I was surprised that the hardback's not that difficult to hold), I can't see how a 800+ page paperback will stay in one piece. It'll have to be very well bound. Maybe two volumes would be a better idea.

Reading all three together, and since 2016, I was struck by how Brexity everything is. Henry VIII makes a good Boris, Cromwell a reasonable Cummings, Norfolk could be JRM, plus all the hangers on. The originals in the book are considerably more competent and appealing than the current shower, though !
 
I just finished reading Robert Silverberg's 'Shadrach in the furnace' (worryingly based on the virus wars). Now, I'm making a start on Terry Pratchett's discworld series, starting with the first one ‘The colour of magic.’ I was given a bunch of the books years ago and they have sat on the shelf ever since. I don’t know how I am going to get on with them, but I have the first 14 books before I have to start buying the missing ones!
 
cutting42 said:
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, second in the Hyperion Cantos. I somehow missed these in the 80's/90's but I found them now. Plenty has been said and awards given but it is always good to read first and then read reviews later which is what I have mostly done.

He is a bit pain obsessed but it is a very well told and more literary style of SciFi space opera. Some great concepts and flowery prose which is not usually my style but as I am two books if I guess I like it now.

Recommended
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I read The Hyperion Cantos about 30 years ago. Now reading 'Hyperion' again and really enjoying it. Thoroughly recommended.
 
I'm a pleb, I mostly read cold war espionage/Tinker Tailor kind of stuff. Not the cheesy, James Bond type of thing where it's spills and thrills on every page, I love the slow paced stuff where the most interesting thing that happens in the whole chapter is someone knocking over an empty milk bottle in an alley whilst following someone.

Len Deighton, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and obviously JLC etc.
 
wylton said:
Now, I'm making a start on Terry Pratchett's discworld series, starting with the first one ‘The colour of magic.’ I was given a bunch of the books years ago and they have sat on the shelf ever since. I don’t know how I am going to get on with them, but I have the first 14 books before I have to start buying the missing ones!
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Persevere with the first handful. Order of publication was pretty much the order of writing, and you can see Pratchett developing his skills and finding his feet in the first few books.

The first two, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are, in retrospect, the weakest of the series (they feel like a parody of some long-forgotten pulp swords and sorcery novel), but things do improve afterwards, with more attention to character and story.

Stick with them at least until the end of the fourth book (Mort); if you get as far as book number eight, Guards Guards!, and you’re still cold, then I would give up, because by then the Pratchett style and worldview is almost fully formed. Almost all of the subsequent twenty books borrow settings, recurring gags, cast or incidental characters from this initial sequence, with only the last eleven venturing outside that frame.

Technically, five of the last eleven books are “young adult”, but that really doesn’t mean much in the context of Terry Pratchett: the other books were always more “grown-up” than “adult”.

Here’s the definitive reading order, without having to click through stupid slideshows, advertising or blowhard literary critiques: https://www.discworldemporium.com/content/6-discworld-reading-order
 
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