General Reading / Book Thread for 2019

If you’ve not read it, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle sort of fulfils all those requirements

God, I wish I could read Normal People for the first time all over again.

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My wife’s read both Conversations With Friends and Normal People and she’s been genuinely upset after finishing them because they were all over too quickly. Her writing has quite the impact.

was £3.79 on kindle so just picked it up, along with another Duncan Sarkies (enjoyed Two Little Boys) and the Athletico Mince book. Doing excellent shopping.

None in stock at my local libraries atm but it’s on my list! Cheers Theo :blush:

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Read it in a couple of sittings and was one of those books I just couldn’t wait to pick up again but by the end I was kind of glad it was over because I was feeling a bit wrung out, emotionally.

I’m about 50 pages into this. Will reserve judgement for now obviously, but I don’t feel I’m quite as into it as I expected to be based on the reviews / premise etc.

it did feel a bit kink shamey in places. Attributing enjoying /desiring rough sex because you’re ‘damaged’ and hate yourself is, IMHO, such a pervasive and shitty stereotype

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i just don’t care about that kind of subject material, university/dinner party dramas and whatnot. tried a sample and got bored. don’t really like the literary fiction genre anyway tho so i probably brought my own built-in dislike to the table. might try it again in a couple of years, idk.

@xylo i got a place of greater safety on your recommendation from a while back, and i’m engrossed rn pal. gave up on high rise. the way it’s written is quite interesting, these little sketches of the characters at different moments and the wider historical context interspersed throughout. just got to the bit where robespierre as a lad is mugged off by king louis. oh boy louis, oh geez.

sometimes i think if the french revolution had never happened but someone wrote it as a story, people wouldn’t buy it. they’d say “there’s too much foreshadowing and dramatic irony, too many incredible speeches and flashy setpieces, none of that would happen irl. don’t even get me started on robespierre, he was such a compassionate guy at the start, no way he’d do a reign of terror. and that guy napoleon is just a deus ex machina to tie up the loose threads, what bollocks.”

it would be exactly the same as the GoT chat :sweat_smile:

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NSFW!!!
really good book though

Obviously I really want to know the synopsis for this book now…

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Hope you don’t mind me spoilering this it’s a little NSFW

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I’m rereading Europe In Autumn by Dave Hutchinson. It is SO GOOD. John Le Carré meets Philip K Dick in a fractured alternate Europe. Loving it.

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Breakfast of champions- very funny, very incisive

Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon

Don’t really read much philosophy but was intrigued to read this. It basically talks about the shattering influence of colonialism, and how it affects our understanding of the world as a whole. Actually quite accessible.

Had a few days off work last week so got around to finishing a few books

Bill Bryson- Notes From a Small Island
Found it very readable but it did seem to consist mainly of Bill B going around the pubs and whining about stuff (shopfronts mostly).

Andrew Blackwell- Visit Sunny Chernobyl
Started reading this last year before everyone and their dog became interested in the place. Quite a strange book being a mixture of comedy travelogue and environmental journalism. Really well written in places but some of the chapters dragged on a bit.

I quite enjoyed Normal People. However, the praise and well adulation it got is very offputting. I read a recent article claiming it wasn’t book of the year, but book of the decade. FFS

I thought it was a kind of grown up, intelligent book about life and relationships, with some good observations. In some ways Lullaby is quite a simple premise, nanny kills kids, but is written with a certain style and intelligence, this was similar.

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Do you know there’s a fourth (and last) one now? My plan is to reread all the first three and then hit the new(ish) one.

I looked this book up and it’s Hilary Mantel. I read Wolf Hall and while I generally enjoyed it I found the style a bit trying at times, particularly she had a habit of just using ‘he’ all over the place in situations involving multiple male characters so I kept having to read back to work out which ‘he’ she was ascribing a given thing to.

So I guess I’m asking how is this comparatively?

(Also I am now amazed to discover she’d done so much before Wolf Hall. At the time I just got the sense this was her first novel.)

I’ve mulled picking up Rotherweird before and never quite made it. Obviously it’s decent enough for you to want to read the next one, maybe that’ll push me over the edge