Hopefully, if this is any good (and anyone is interested) they may sticky this to the top of the board? We'll see. I'll get going - The Courage To Act: Ben,S Bernakke - The Hidden Reality : Brian Greene - A World On Fire : Amanda Foreman
Am currently about 19 books into a 25 book series by Richard E Feist (very good books that can be read in different orders according to taste after first 4). Also 9 books into a Michael Connelly series of 20+ books about a detective called "Harry Bosh", don't normally do detective novels but these are good. I have since found out they are now a TV series but refuse to watch it as it always spoils the book when you see someone else's interpretation of it.
Just finished reading the Martian. (book the film is based on... Haven't seen the movie). It was OK. Interesting in parts, funny in others, but the author struck me as an arsewipe douchebag with his writing style at times.
There's a bit in the film where they allow the spaceship returning to earth to slingshot back out to Mars to go back to rescue the stranded astronaut. There's an overacted scene where some geek has supposedly worked all this out in a flash of genius, saving all the fuel and using the natural gravity of the solar system. As and when we get to Mars, this will be called The Aldrin Conveyor Belt - 'Dr Rendezvous' worked all this out decades ago and has been tirelessly lobbying successive governments to use it as a re-supply system from earth to the Red Planet. You see, the Gemini/Apollo crews were a lot. lot more than silk scarfs and tally ho.
That's what I'm hoping for some tips on. The last fiction I read was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Clare North. Really good.
Reading A Tale Of Two Cities for the first time, it's not bad so far. While reading I've had the best of times and the worst of times.
Reading, again, Bomber by Len Deighton. Although it is fiction it does bring home what Lancaster crews went through in WW2, and the damage they caused to German cities. His best book is still Winter about a German family from before WW1 to the end of WW2.
Read a reasonable amount of 'classic' fiction and some non-fiction. Have just read Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. A very interesting book on nuclear weapon history, accidents, problems etc during the cold war. Reading Encyclopedia of the Dead by Danilo Kis at the moment... best book I've read this year is probably The Joke by Milan Kundera. Incredible writer. Used to work at a bookstore (a charity store) during university. Love books.
FANTASTIC book. My dad was in Bomber Command, and he said it was terrifyingly accurate. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is ace too, especially for us old Airfix boys. Shout out for the German night -fighter crews (even though they killed my uncle two months before the end of the war. We rightly laud our fighter pilots as saviours, but the Krauts saw themselves as every bit of desperate defenders of their unarmed citizens. War is somehow fascinating, but nevertheless horrifying in its monstrosity.
I've downloaded all Dickens, Twain and Doteveovesky (sp) on my Kindle for free from Amazon - but I haven't charged it up for a year! Poseur warning - I read The Plague by Camus back in March. Incredible book. The guy writes with beautiful understatement. Oh, and Goerge Eliot - how anyone can rate that ****ing chick-lit prototype Austen higher than Eliot astounds me.
Anyone ever read Roger Jon Ellory, his books are all on different subjects, but all have a twist in the tale. Recently re-read Dracula by Bram Stoker in its original form. Still stands up as a creepy book, I imagine when it first was published it was considered terrifying. Also re-read 1984 surprising how it is still politically relevant in parts
