OT: What book are you reading at the moment?

For shame.

horace wrote:what degree of nob/twitness does Taips aspire to?

He is a stalker and a half, desperate for attention.

PlanetPakistan wrote:

horace wrote:what degree of nob/twitness does Taips aspire to?

He is a stalker and a half, desperate for attention.

Ah the irony.

Any mystery /thrillers to recommend? In easy reading mode only these days.

Just finished "Saints of the Shadow Bible", Rankin's most recent. Good, but not his best, for reasons I won't bore you with here.

AG: Try Ian Rankin, if you don't know him. To start, I'd recommend maybe "Dead Souls". Or "Set in Darkness". Or "Let It Bleed".

They're not "easy reading", but gripping, well-woven and -told. As long as it's not too complex, isn't that what you really want?

I had read one book of Ian Rankin once. Can't remember the name right now. I had liked it enough to finish it, though perhaps a little depressing with all the alcoholic dependency stuff of the main character.

Thank you for the ones you have mentioned. I will get them from the library.

Two detective books set in Thailand written by an English guy - whose name eludes me

Bankock Eight and Bankock Tattoo....good fun reads with much wry musing about east west cultural issues

PeterCS wrote:Just finished "Saints of the Shadow Bible", Rankin's most recent. Good, but not his best, for reasons I won't bore you with here.

AG: Try Ian Rankin, if you don't know him.  To start, I'd recommend maybe "Dead Souls". Or "Set in Darkness". Or "Let It Bleed".

They're not "easy reading", but gripping, well-woven and -told. As long as it's not too complex, isn't that what you really want?

Quite like Rankin. Heard him speaking on Literary Lunches last week and he said he never knows who the perpetrator of the crime is until he's halfway through the novel.

Matthew Reilly's latest. Set just before Elizabethan times. Saccharine pap and more Mickey Spillane than Umberto Eco. But a passable, easy read.

qmy...have you read the Prague Cemetery?...great book

I've just finished 'The Death of Lucy Kyte' which features a real life murder 'The Red Barn Murder' which occurred in Suffolk in the 19th century and the writer uses historical fiction author Josephine Tey as the narrative voice. Well written, would suit someone who enjoys the crime and mystery genre.

horace wrote:qmy...have you read the Prague Cemetery?...great book

Not yet. Anything even remotely anti-catholic I devour and he's a personal favourite. Was somewhat turned off by the reviews. Not the poncy, philosophical to and fro, but he seemed to have gone all Dan Brown.

Was planning to burn through a mountain of gift certificates soon and it was on the list though.

Red wrote:

PeterCS wrote:Just finished "Saints of the Shadow Bible", Rankin's most recent. Good, but not his best, for reasons I won't bore you with here.

AG: Try Ian Rankin, if you don't know him.  To start, I'd recommend maybe "Dead Souls". Or "Set in Darkness". Or "Let It Bleed".

They're not "easy reading", but gripping, well-woven and -told. As long as it's not too complex, isn't that what you really want?

Quite like Rankin. Heard him speaking on Literary Lunches last week and he said he never knows who the perpetrator of the crime is until he's halfway through the novel.

Not sure how true that is.

PeterCS wrote:Just finished "Saints of the Shadow Bible", Rankin's most recent. Good, but not his best, for reasons I won't bore you with here.

AG: Try Ian Rankin, if you don't know him.  To start, I'd recommend maybe "Dead Souls". Or "Set in Darkness". Or "Let It Bleed".

They're not "easy reading", but gripping, well-woven and -told. As long as it's not too complex, isn't that what you really want?

Unfortunately Rankin seems to be trying to combine two series into one. I feel this is to the detriment of the Malcolm Fox character.

Bradman wrote:

horace wrote:qmy...have you read the Prague Cemetery?...great book

Not yet.  Anything even remotely anti-catholic I devour and he's a personal favourite.  Was somewhat turned off by the reviews.  Not the poncy, philosophical to and fro, but he seemed to have gone all Dan Brown.

Was planning to burn through a mountain of gift certificates soon and it was on the list though.

nah not Dan Browny...tho he does love to poke conspiracy theorists...the central figure is a bit like an extreme evil Gump...there at particular moments of history...

I am not reading any of the books of the OT at the moment. I suppose if I was, it would be Daniel. Love the bit about the exploding dragon.

I'm reading Bradman's War by Malcolm Knox, that h was good enough to recommend and send to me.  

skully wrote:I'm reading Bradman's War by Malcolm Knox, that h was good enough to recommend and send to me.  

I bought it for someone else as a present. Will read it sometime though. They have it on special atm.

A nice easy read. Knox puts his words together well.

Anthony_Gonzales wrote:I had read one book of Ian Rankin once. Can't remember the name right now. I had liked it enough to finish it, though perhaps a little depressing with all the alcoholic dependency stuff of the main character.

Thank you for the ones you have mentioned. I will get them from the library.

You would probably be better off with Reginald Hill.

taipan wrote:

Anthony_Gonzales wrote:I had read one book of Ian Rankin once. Can't remember the name right now. I had liked it enough to finish it, though perhaps a little depressing with all the alcoholic dependency stuff of the main character.

Thank you for the ones you have mentioned. I will get them from the library.

You would probably be better off with Reginald Hill.

Whose novels were of course adapted into the Dalziel and Pascoe series.

Colin Dexter inspired the Morse series and might be worth a look too if you like the British crime genre or Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Elizabeth George, Deborah Crombie, Mo Hayder (set around Somerset) et al.

Red wrote:

taipan wrote:

Anthony_Gonzales wrote:I had read one book of Ian Rankin once. Can't remember the name right now. I had liked it enough to finish it, though perhaps a little depressing with all the alcoholic dependency stuff of the main character.

Thank you for the ones you have mentioned. I will get them from the library.

You would probably be better off with Reginald Hill.

Whose novels were of course adapted into the Dalziel and Pascoe series.

Colin Dexter inspired the Morse series and might be worth a look too if you like the British crime genre or Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Elizabeth George, Deborah Crombie, Mo Hayder (set around Somerset) et al.

And the series suffered as Ellie was written out and there wasn't much Wield. Elizabeth George can get a bit long winded. Quinton Jardine is an easy read and Stuart MacBride is different. If you want to go a bit darker Val McDermid's Hill and Jordan series is good. Busy working my way through Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks at the moment. Easy read.

I like this Norwegian author - Jo Nesbo. Would recommend his book Nemesis.

Also, I'm sure everyone would have seen Godfather movie. I read the book after having seen the movie multiple times and really liked the book and his writing style, how he portrays his characters, the dialogues. Have read most of Mario Puzo's books. The Last Don is another good one.

I will look into Reginald Hill. Thank you.

Two Scottish writers on cricket!

I've recently been reading not just one book, but a few books and articles by two writers - with great enjoyment, ye ken.

Because of its many facets - richness of strategy as well as quickly-shifting eventfulness, etc. - cricket is (still today) a sport which invites great writing.

But a lot of what is churned out (and was churned out in previous years) does not quite match up to that challenge, for one reason or another.

With cricket writing (as with cricket), I don't take the view that everything from the last century is out-of-date, invalid, superseded by a great new world - any more than with the opposing view, that it has to be "classic golden age" to be of any great worth. Th names change, the game too. But it really all depends on the quality, and resonance, of the piece of writing. (It might however be harder in the contemporary, ultraspeed-technology world to maintain a sort of unhurried "whole-picture" calm - or quiet confidence in prose.)

I've looked through and read quite a lot of cricket literature - and here are two authors I've found I particularly like:

Ian Peebles, and RC Robertson-Glasgow.

Both display a generous spirit and a command of light-touch, urbane humour - which certainly helps. But both also demonstrate an unfussy, unaffected sweep in their style, and a maybe unfashionable command of both sentence rhythm and fair, balanced judgment.

Both were first-class cricketers, before turning to journalism. Peebles was indeed a bright young prospect at the top level, even bamboozling Bradman with his legbreak/googly variations until nerves, selectorial whims and then his shoulder intervened.

Peebles - a student at Aubrey Faulkner's School of Cricket - covers most of the 20th century in his first-hand or directly communicated experience of international cricket. "Crusoe" - as keen a spectator, as fair a judge, perhaps even more droll in style - sadly did not live as long. (I'd recommend the anthology "Crusoe on Cricket" to anyone.)

Here are a couple of samples from Peebles' autobiography, published under a typically pithy title: "Spinner's Yarn" (1978). If you're still reading, I hope you like them.

1
"Faulkner was bowling at Trumper once when Warwick Armstrong, the non-striker, knowing of his surprise fast ball. said, 'Give him a yorker - he doesn't like 'em.' Faulkner obliged, and with a sharp chopping stroke Trumper hit the ball to the square leg boundary. Aubrey looked at Warwick's face but was unenlightened. A little later he tried again, a second and third time, and met with exactly the same result in each case. At this Warwick grinned unashamedly, and Faulkner knew this was no fluke - in modern idiom, he had been conned." (p34)

2
"To make a visit 'down under' was then a major undertaking, involving a sea trip of 13,000 miles, which took six weeks by mail steamer. Once there, a cricketer was faced with a daunting programme. To cross the country meant travelling on three different railway systems, owing to the varying State gauges, and took a week all told. For the team, hospitality would be warm and plentiful, accommodation variable, and the cricket the toughest and most competitive in the world. Success would be universally acclaimed, but failure was always possible and, to anyone who had progressed this far, dismal." (p39)

Niv.