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What are you reading right now?

sideshowbob

sideshowbob

Champagne fascia aficionado
Well, not right at this moment, obviously, because right at this moment you're reading this thread.

Currently reading John Szwed's biography of Miles Davis, So What, which so far is more biography (and therefore already very well documented) than analysis, but I'm assured it gets quite interesting about the music later on. His earlier biography of Sun Ra, Space Is The Place, is excellent.

Meander away.

-- Ian
 
Philip Steadman's excellent (in the sense of absorbing and interesting, not necessarily accurate) "Vermeer's Camera"
Must go to the Library today to see if they have any new popular science books. It's been a while since I read anything in the genre. The last was the "Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe" by Martin Reese, which was very interesting (at least from an Islamic perspective ;) ).
 
Well, in the vein of the 'Listening to right now' thread:

was - 'All the Shah's men' by Stephen Kinzer. Well written history of the British & American coup that overthrew PMMossadegh in 1952, bringing the Shah to power through to the '70s and the Islamic revolution. Reads at times like fiction such that I had to keep reminding myself that this really happened. Provides a great deal of insight to the current situation in Iran and the Middle East.

is - 'Striptease' by Carl Hiaasen - a bit of amusing light reading for a few laughs. Always enjoy his books.

will be - ??? dunno - perhaps a trip to the bookshop for inspiration?

Stuart.
 
I am, unfortunetly, reading a load of complete drivel:
Clive Cussler's Atlantis Found
It is, without any doubt, the most badly written, poorly researched pile of dross I have ever read but I'm sure it will burn well.......
 
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Great reading, ten short stories covering different continents and times in history but all interlinked in some way. Highly recommended.

Steve
 
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And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina - Paul Blustein

Very readable and thorough account of an interesting and important bit of recent economic history. Not a predictable lefty screed, a lot more centrist and objective than the title might suggest, and therefore a enjoyable and provocative challenge to my own quite extreme economic views.

Blustein also works for the Centre for Global Development, founded by former World Bank economist William Easterly, who himself wrote a somewhat more technical but very digestible book on third world development called The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. Plenty of "surely no one thought that was a good idea?" tragi-comedy, and timely commentary on how piling on aid and debt forgiveness can make things worse.

And for African tragi-comedy in particular, I've just finished Robert Guest's The Shackled Continent, on how the continent has been wrecked by governments that are essentially cannibal. Guest is Africa correspondent for The Econimist and has travelled the country extensively, filling the book with anecdotes, local color and one-to-one conversations. It's often sad and ocassionally chilling (Zimbabwe etc), but crucially he also finds cause for optimism about Africa's future.
 
I'm also dipping in and out of Richard Overy's wonderful The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, a superbly insightful analysis and comparison of regimes' political infrastructure, economic policies, aesthetic sensibilities, attitudes to religion, ideology etc.

The two are remarably similar, but the book excels in teasing out all the subtle distinctions, and the fine contrast leaves a very clear view of just what the tyrants believed in and how they strove to achieve it.

For instance, both viewed free markets as a degenerate influence on society. The Nazis tolerated private enterprise only when it was subserviant to the will of the State and eventually slided into a command economy. The Communists started off with a command economy, but where only able to sustain the USSR with a massive black market and factory managers secretly buying and selling behind the backs of the official central plannners.

The Graun has a detailed review: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1268020,00.html
 
Darren

Iain writes some very twisted stuff, doesn't he!

If "Wasp Factory" is your first Banks novel, try one of his others. I particularly enjoyed "Espedair Street", the tale of a rock star who has fallen from grace and lives in a church in Glasgow.

"The Bridge" is another dark, twisted story. But my favourite is "The Business", see the website write up. It certainly fired my imagination, it is one of my all-time fave novels.
 
Just finished the Gwynne Dyer 'trilogy' of Ignorant Armies, War and Future Tense. Utterly fascinating, I just ate these books up.
Anyone who reads these will win a foreign policy argument with Mick Parry in 1 or 2 posts.

Anyone else read Gwynne Dyer?

For a change of pace will be starting Natsuo Kirino's 'Out' sometime this weekend. Apparenly a torrid tale of perversion and murder set in modern Japan.
 
how about that ian rankin from edinburge, the writer of the inspector Rebus novels... seems mr rankin used to write for a hifi magazine! wonder if he ever visits the flat earth.
 
Haruki Murukami....completely addictive and don't be scared of Ian Bank's sci-fi stuff, it's very good too.

Currently reading : The Motivated Min by Dr. Raj Persaud

(Me mum bought it for me to give me some ideas on what I want to do jobwise!!)

Also reading: Super-8 by Craig Smith

Alex you should try Super-8 it's hard to find but a very good book, a publishing friend put me onto it...it took me 2 weeks to realise it was her husband's book!!
Lovely guy, can hold plenty of beer.

J
 
currently open is 'Mongols', by Jeremiah Curtin, a c.1900 tome on Jinghis and his horde. they roamed and pillaged from china to india to the levant and poland. and met many muslim empires along the way, which half of the mongols became muslims themselves, hence the moghuls/mughals of india.

last read was a fresh breeze of a book, 'epitaph for a peach' by David Masumoto of california. a 3rd generation farmer lamenting the market/consumer pressure that forces him to abandon the fragrant, juicy and delicious sun crest variety for more durable(storage) supermarket varieties... and how he resists it.

next when i finish mongols, will be 'Swallows of Kabul', by Yasmina Khadra, who in fact is the name de plume of an algerian officer so he wouldn't have to pass the book by military censors!
 
'Killer Smile' by Lisa Scottoline. Rather good. The heroine is a lawyer, but it's not quite the usual Pigham, sorry Grisham, legal thriller, more a traditional detective story. The writer has her way with words and phrases and can put quite a lot of meaning into half a sentence. At times it booth fun and thrilling.

JohanR
 
I've forced myself to read "The Da Vinci code"...
Truly terrible writing. He makes Guy N. Smith look like Will Self.

The first time he used the phrase "gunned the car" it rankled. By the third time I wanted to scream. Still a hundered pages to go, so it could happen again.

The use of italics for dramatic effect when someone is thinking is also particularly annoying. It's as though he's thinking "this bit is really dramatic, shocking and /or a revelation, so I'd better point it out in case no one notices".

And don't even get me started on the dialogue.

Gary
 
I can't read one thing at once, currently on the go are...

Pocket Machievelli (sort of edited version of his major works with surviving letters and historical comment)

Herman Hesse - Steppenwolf (never read this before and keep meaning to)

David Brin - Earth (sci-fi fluff, but at least vaguely science based sci-fi fluff - good when tired)

D H Lawrence - Women in Love

Something called "Hookey Gear" by a post lock stock and.. "realistic dodgy geezer" type writer. Hmmm.

I'm a big Iain Banks fan - or was, I re-read the older ones. Both the latest sci-fi and "normal" novels were a bit disappointing. Can't blame him - both he and the publisher know that if he chucks one out each year it will be bought on past reputation. I keep doing it on the off chance.

I read one of the other books by the guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code - it was bloody awful! But at least it was so bad it was funny.
 
Originally posted by Mike Sae


For a change of pace will be starting Natsuo Kirino's 'Out' sometime this weekend. Apparenly a torrid tale of perversion and murder set in modern Japan.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...be interested to know what you think. I found it a bit dull and pedestrian -- but I didn't (couldn't *yawn*) finish it.

Best recent book is definitely "English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale. A cracking story and a trenchant indictment of 19th Century cultural imperialism. And very funny.

Originally posted by Jonathan Ribee


I read one of the other books by the guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code - it was bloody awful! But at least it was so bad it was funny.
That'll be "Angels and Demons" then, Jonathan?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
was: The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton - a beautifully written brutality of a novel.

is: Atonement by Ian McEwan - very very fine so far

will be: something lighter, maybe The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
 
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