The book thread

The Garp film is well worth seeing and must be the best film Robin Williams has made (not that there is much competition apart from The Fisher King and Good Morning Vietnam which are both quite good). It's a true original (if you discount the source book). I've not read the book. The sad bit is heart-breaking and made all the more so by starting off as macabre slapstick.

I'm currently re-reading the Flashman books for the umpteenth time and they continue to delight and impart as deep an understanding of Victorian history and attitudes as you could ever wish for. And bucketfuls of laughs.

Lee Child's Reacher series is consistently awesome for taut, brain-out, page-turning mayhem. Quite what they were thinking when they cast Tom Cruise in the film role eludes me. For the unknowing Reacher is a 6' 5" Sherlock/Arnie hybrid nomadic killing machine ex-US army MP who, through no doing of his own, seems to encounter various gangsters, bad guys, psychoes and conspiracists as he meanders through America. He reminds me of a modern Man With No Name as seen in Clint's spaghetti westerns. These books will not make you think or change your life but they are as entertaining as anything I have ever read. 61 Hours is particularly bonkers and brilliant with a truly ludicrous and apocalyptic finale. I recommend this book highly but they are all great. If you like that sort of thing. No jokes though. Not even the glimmer of one.

I saw Robin Williams many years ago do stand up in a small club in Los Angeles in aid of charity for a local school.

He was brilliant. A non stop subconcious verbal stream... At one stage he told an obscure joke about a Welshman, and I laughed loudly at the punch line. He stopped and said, "There must be an Englishman in the audience"...

An astute fella.

Like all truely great talents, there is nobody else quite like him!

PS. I'm reading 'A Tale Of Two Cities'...

Ive read all the Flashman series...unbeatable

I have a few of the Flashman series on audio and as you say Unbeatable

Happy Daze wrote:

I have a few of the Flashman series on audio and as you say Unbeatable

Where can you get the audio?

I do have A Royal Flash where Malcolm Macdowell plays Flashy brilliantly, as far as im aware it was the only Flashman film ever made?

punchdrunk wrote:

Happy Daze wrote:

I have a few of the Flashman series on audio and as you say Unbeatable

Where can you get the audio?

I do have A Royal Flash where Malcolm Macdowell plays Flashy brilliantly, as far as im aware it was the only Flashman film ever made?

You have a pm

Sad news today....

Iain Banks has announced that he has only a short time left to live.... Cancer, innit?

I propose that the book club that never was immediately puts down whatever it wasn't reading & picks up 'The Wasp Factory'.

An astonishing (& astonishingly perturbing) book.

I'm reading about the early years of AC/DC. Not a literary classic but interesting all the same.

ive just finished "from beatles to botham" by tim hudson.
very good read about bothams ex-manager

Ian Banks' "Wasp Factory" has been on my reading list for years. I must get around to it.

Apparently he is about to marry his long-standing partner. On the radio they said that his proposal was something to the effect that he wanted to make an honest widow of her.....

I have "The wasp Factory" for kindle so I will get around to reading it.

I am reading "Red notice" by Andy Mcnab it's not great tbh his Nick Stone series of books where much better.

I will add Wasp Factory to the wishlist.

I won't read it until I finish Pilgermann. I won't read anything until I finish Pilgermann. I expect I'll be saying the same things in 2017.

JonB wrote:

Sad news today....

Iain Banks has announced that he has only a short time left to live.... Cancer, innit?

I propose that the book club that never was immediately puts down whatever it wasn't reading & picks up 'The Wasp Factory'.

An astonishing (& astonishingly perturbing) book.

Ahem. Two of us (that's two thirds, I believe) have completed CHR.

Very sad news, as was the death this week of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar for best screenplay - very versatile writer). I've read the Wasp Factory, and a few of his others, including some of his Iain M Banks books - I think The Crow Road is probably my favourite. Perturbing indeed, but a great storyteller.

Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go". Is a powerful read! For me, the first book in a couple of years that I didn't want to put down....... another "perturbing" book!

I'm going to start on a non-fiction now to allow "Never Let Me Go" to be assimilated.

How's Pilgerman coming along?

Having watched a documentary about Alice Walker (amazing woman) the other night, I felt the need to re-read The Color Purple, which took me all of two days. Since I first read it about 25 years ago, it was almost as if I were reading it for the first time - and it's still brilliant.

As I'm going to Poland in the near future, I shall be Alan Furst's Spies of Warsaw shortly, as well as reading and then watching The Pianist. All part of getting my head into the right place

PS Can this thread go back in Half Time too, please? Took me bleddy ages to find it.

I'm half-way through Kerouac's 'On the Road'. It's an easy read and quite interesting but so far I haven't seen anything in it to make it the defining book of a generation.

Now back in half-time, as requested.

I'll wait until it's found again & then move it elsewhere.

Thanks, K'Nex  

I haven't read Kerouac (although I've got it somewhere), but I've always suspected its defining / shock value must have declined. A bit like The Wild One, which is pretty tame nowadays. Or, for my generation, The Young Ones - that was truly (w)revolutionary when it first went out, but not now.

I forgot to mention that for my daytime reading I'm now half way through Owen Jones' Chavs: the demonisation of the working class. Not only do I wish I'd read this sooner, but it's also confirmed that if I had three wishes one of them would be to be Owen Jones' mum. She must be so proud of him.

knecht wrote:

I'm half-way through Kerouac's 'On the Road'. It's an easy read and quite interesting but so far I haven't seen anything in it to make it the defining book of a generation.

It's the prose style that is free form and a stream of consciousness for the most part and the alleged 'fact' that he'd written it without any real editing in three weeks. When it was written, Kerouac was a bit of a rock star so that adds to it. I didn't really find much in it but I think it was a book of its time.

It's ok but I much prefer someone like Hunter S Thompson or Ken Kesey for that counter culture vibe.

I've not read anything for about six months - I just have no time. I read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy around the new year - it's brutal and epic and amazing. If you like Westerns and Biblical prose, you won't find anything better.

hairy j wrote:

knecht wrote:

I'm half-way through Kerouac's 'On the Road'. It's an easy read and quite interesting but so far I haven't seen anything in it to make it the defining book of a generation.

It's the prose style that is free form and a stream of consciousness for the most part and the alleged 'fact' that he'd written it without any real editing in three weeks. When it was written, Kerouac was a bit of a rock star so that adds to it. I didn't really find much in it but I think it was a book of its time.

It's ok but I much prefer someone like Hunter S Thompson or Ken Kesey for that counter culture vibe.

I've not read anything for about six months - I just have no time. I read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy around the new year - it's brutal and epic and amazing. If you like Westerns and Biblical prose, you won't find anything better.

I remember reading Blood Meridian many years ago and to this day it remains the only western book I have read not because it was poor, far from it, I endorse Hairy's view and decription...an excellent book. I will check it out again. I recall being shocked by the violence at the time. Think the book was loosely based on fact.

For those of us that are a little less cerebral, if you like the Reacher books (Lee Child) then Steven Hunter would float your boat. Started with Dirty White Boys and now own everything he's written. the Earl Swagger books are a particular highlight. Best pulp fiction that I've read in an awfully long time was 'The Winter Of Frankie Machine' by Don Winslow. Absolute quality page turner.

Steve