Philip Kerr sets some of his novels in and around Berlin and feature a Berlin based Private Eye..Usually set in the 1950s/60s and usually pretty good reads.
Just read ‘The Seventh Son’ by Sebastian Faulks, easier to read than some of his stuff but none the worse for that. Poses some very interesting questions about evolution.
Been a few times Love it but it’s massive so you need to plan well and be prepared to travel a bit I think. Was discussing it with @askewshair yesterday funnily enough reminiscing about the visit there where we ended up playing some game we’d never heard of, for money, pissed in the back room of a kebab shop with some Turks at 4am…and still waking the young uns up with a beer early next morning! Not the same morning we went shooting automatic rifles in an East Berlin underground bunker, but the same trip. It’s got the potential for a mad trip that’s for sure!
Vicky Foster - It happened like this. Hull's Vicky Foster writes about the impact on her and her children of being in abusive relationships, the connections between the murder of her abusive partner, the attempted murder of the 63 year old Hull prostitute dumped in a skip and the released Hull murderer of her partner then attacking a terrorist at Fishmongers Hall with a Narwhal Tusk and the contrast of her struggle to bring up her children and the murderer receiving a bravery award from the Queen. Diana Johnson MP comes out of it well, Karl Turner MP doesn't. Found it interesting, why do good women stay with abusive ****ers? Found out the Hull murderer has written a book himself. Steve Gallant - The Road to London Bridge. Feel like I'd be switching sides to even read that one.
Very interesting I’ve met her. Nice lass. Her kids are messed up poor buggers I also know a bit abut why he went like he did Barry.
Vicky is a nice lass, didn't know her story though. Barrie, like many tw@ts, was abusive and violent whilst hiding behind the respectable facade of a professional job.
Summer is drifting by and I am in the mood for reading now. Just finished one of the classics: The Count of Monte Cristo. Absolutely riveting book along the theme of vengeance and does it bring you comfort. I had read The Three Musketeers which was entertaining but basically full of cardboard cutout characters conforming to chivalrous activities...so The Count was a very pleasant surprise ..much greater character depth and grappling with many of life's moral compass themes. Whopper of a book and very long.
Over the past few years I have been catching up on classics I have either never read, or had to read as a schoolboy and considered doing so a tortuous distraction from important things like girls, baseball, girls, football, and girls. I am now adding Count of Monte Cristo to my list.
The Wager by David Grann is superb. - takes you into unfamiliar and interesting historical territory about the naval wars with Spain and keeps up a decent pace. Taught me a lot about the navy and how crap it must have been in those days. Covers murder, shipwreck, mutiny and more. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the film of his book Killers of the Flower Moon it made me buy that book too. The Wager is also being made into a film and I can’t wait.
I sometimes do this and find HMV on Whitefriargate decent for reasonably priced modern classics I've never read, last one I picked up there was Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
I got a copy of this book from Steve Gallant's Uncle John ...I read it.. Absorbing, but hard read...Recounting a story of wrong turns and decisions that led him to be involved in the murder of the bloke outside of the Dolphin pub on Greenwich Ave in Bilton Grange. But then his personal journey from uneducated toe-rag to good guy who saw the light and became determined to use his experiences to do something good and positive in society. Overall a 7.5 out of 10 book.
I interviewed a young graduate today, and in the middle of a very good interview mentioned that he’d read Atomic Habits, which I’ve seen but haven’t read. Apart from hiring him I’m going to go and read it!
Just finished 'Kammy' by Chris Kamara. Decent and interesting story about Kamara's upbringing in Middlesboro where his family was one of if not the only 'coloured' family where he lived and the problems that brought, and his career in football on and off the pitch plus his work on television. Personally, on reading it, I didn't see the problems his family encountered to be much different than the problems any average working class family had during their upbringings in similar towns/cities in that era. But it was character building.Chris showed promise as a footballer as a lad but his father wanted him to join the navy, which he did, against his wishes, and was stationed in Portsmouth, where his footballing talent was spotted by Pompey when Kamara played for the navy against a Pompey eleven in an annual pre season friendly. The football club eventually offered him a contract and paid £200 to buy him out of his navy contract, he claims the £200 was a major outlay for Portsmouth at the time. His footballing career took him to Swindon, Brentford, Leeds, where he made his debut against Hull City in a 4-3 Leeds victory ( Vinnie Jones scored that worldie against us), Boro, Stoke, Sheffield United, Bradford City and finally Luton. He was well thought of at all his clubs did well in his football career. On retirement he managed to break into the world of broadcasting and secured a job on Soccer AM which led to a higher profile job with Sky. He excelled in this world and this led to appearances and presenting roles on virtually every day time television show you can name, from Cash in the Attic to Ninja Warrior UK. A big part of the book is taken over when he was diagnosed with aparaxia, a rare brain condition that affects speech and his battle to hide it, accept it and eventually overcome it whilst appearing on the telly. Likeable bloke and his story bounces along with his big personality coming out in the pages. Chris Kamara has done well for himself and for a lad from the back streets of working class Middlesboro, which where very similar to Hull at that time, you have to admire what he has achieved in life. He was awarded the MBE in 2023 for his services to football, charity and anti-racism.
I've read all the Bernie Gunther books in the series - like them a lot. The series hops between the 1920s at the start of his career in the police after WW1 service, to the 1960s, the end of his career and supposed death as the author died. It covers his time in Berlin during the Weimar republic, fighting on the Eastern Front for the Nazis and then rejoining the police at the end of the war and the years after when Berlin was divided, then retirement to France. The books are not in chronological order.
Lucky Johnny by Johnny Sherwood. This may have been reviewed on here before and if so I apolgise if it has. I recognised the title when I picked it out at the library and that was maybe because of a review on Not 606. Johnny Sherwood was one of eleven children and played professional football for Islington Corininthians, Middlesboro, Reading, Aldershot and Palace. He went on a World tour with the Isllington club in 1938 and played over 90 games on the tour scoring almost a goal a game, so he was some player and a player well known. He was on the brink of an England career when WW2 broke out which curtailed his football career. By 1942 he was a soldier surrendering to the Japanesse at the seige of Singapore. Taken prisoner he was sent to a POW camp deep in the jungle where he was starved, beaten and forced to work on the nortorious Burma Railway on the River Kwai. He survived the war and was rescued by the Americans from a POW in Japan after the Japs surrendered following the dropping of the atom bomb, which Johnny actually saw. Many years after his death his grandson discovered an old manuscript hidden in the attic of his mothers house. It was Johnnys owns account of his wartime experiences, a story too horrific to reveal in full to his loved ones. Written by the man himself the text is a bit 1940's Boy's Own and he explains at the end of the book that far from exaggerating the horrors he has erred on the side of moderation. That aside it is a fasinating true story of very brave and honourable man and testimony to the thousands of young men who lost their lives so cruelly at the hands of the Japanessse in WW2. We should never forget their sacrifice.
Just finished The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C Morais Fiction about an Indian family arriving in rural France and setting up an Indian opposite a posh French restaurant, and the eldest son moving to Paris to be a chef. You might have seen the film with Helen Mirren. I really enjoyed it. Might make you hungry reading it though the amount of food descriptions, but a cracking read I thought
