OT: What book are you reading at the moment?

Winkle Spinner wrote:Franz Kafka, the trial. I've only just started, any good?

I saw an old friend the other day and it turns out the last three books we'd read were exactly the same, despite having no communication on the matter. How serendipitous is that?

Janet and John?

on the german theme I am working up for another read of "the death of my brother Abel" by the improbably named Gregor von Rezzori

Winkle Spinner wrote:Franz Kafka, the trial. I've only just started, any good?

I saw an old friend the other day and it turns out the last three books we'd read were exactly the same, despite having no communication on the matter. How serendipitous is that?

Very dry satire.

I hope you are using a recent translation.

The Muirs' was shiite squared.

They didn't even get the title right. It should be something like "The Case against Joseph K" (or The Lawsuit). In other words, it's not a question of court proceedings, it's a malicious whispering conspiracy (or possibly a case of anxiety-ridden paranoia coming to life - like "The Third Policeman"). After the title, the Muirs' version gets worse.

I'm enjoying The Flashman Papers now. Took a while to get into it, especially when he was in Afganistan but am now half way through the second one. A good-bad character

Good series, ain't it.

So far, yes

Wait til he plays cricket

Do you think I'll be able to understand it

My holiday reading was Emily Barr: Plan B and Vince Cable: The Storm.

A lovely couple!

I recently finished reading 'Under Two Dictators: A Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler' by Margarete Buber-Neumann. I loved it so much it was hard to choose what to read next but I've gone with 'Balkan Ghosts' by Robert Kaplan. I'm about 60 pages in and so far so good, with a decent bit of background to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassination which hasn't really been covered in other books I've read.

US Hustler June 2010 Edition.

Lot of reading there, Skulls. Takes at least 3 months to get through it properly unless the pages get stuck together, that is.

Indeed AD. I like the way Flynt pushes the boundaries.

Do I have to have 'Hustler' appearing in my thread?

Men

It wasn't me, Sasha. *puts hands up innocently and assuagingly*

Just those silly gentleman-squire Ralph types! :O

taipan wrote:

Jontyh wrote:Just finished Exit Music by Ian Rankin and was slightly gutted as that's all of the Rebus novels knocked off.

Yeah, and where does he go to now with Rebus retired?

Just read Doors Open and The Complaints. The former a heist and the latter a police procedural. Both decent reads and the cop one no worse for not having Rebus in it..

Re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. All the 4 books in the trilogy.

OK, a friend of mine is insisting I read the new Dan Brown book. How is it and is there any deviation from the set storyline of the rest of his books?

doremi wrote:Re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. All the 4 books in the trilogy.

OK, a friend of mine is insisting I read the new Dan Brown book. How is it and is there any deviation from the set storyline of the rest of his books?

Reading Vol de nuit . . . in a volume with Courrier Sud . . .

Reading Roy Jenkins' biography of Churchill

Jontyh wrote:

taipan wrote:

Jontyh wrote:Just finished Exit Music by Ian Rankin and was slightly gutted as that's all of the Rebus novels knocked off.

Yeah, and where does he go to now with Rebus retired?

Just read Doors Open and The Complaints. The former a heist and the latter a police procedural. Both decent reads and the cop one no worse for not having Rebus in it..

The latter several times better than the former. Doors Open is a bit of a parody of itself (or by Rankin of Rankin), and gives the impression of having been pumped out at some speed (plot/plausibility doesn't hang together well, for a start), whereas the second is vintage Rankin.

As for your other comment, Fox is VERY like a Rebus with 10-20 years shaved off!

Basil wrote:Reading Roy Jenkins' biography of Churchill

The audiobook with John Sessions is excellent too. Just finishing off Michael Curtis' Verdict on Vichy - a devastating indictment of the 'banality of evil'.

I've just started 'Bad Faith: A Story of Family and Fatherland' by Carmen Calill. I've also just added Verdict on Vichy to my goodreads 'to read' list. Thanks AD.

Also, Michael Burleigh's 'Moral Combat: A History of World War II' arrived by mail yesterday (finally) so that's my next book.

PeterCS wrote:

Jontyh wrote:

taipan wrote:

Jontyh wrote:Just finished Exit Music by Ian Rankin and was slightly gutted as that's all of the Rebus novels knocked off.

Yeah, and where does he go to now with Rebus retired?

Just read Doors Open and The Complaints. The former a heist and the latter a police procedural. Both decent reads and the cop one no worse for not having Rebus in it..

The latter several times better than the former. Doors Open is a bit of a parody of itself (or by Rankin of Rankin), and gives the impression of having been pumped out at some speed (plot/plausibility doesn't hang together well, for a start), whereas the second is vintage Rankin.

As for your other comment, Fox is VERY like a Rebus with 10-20 years shaved off!

DO gives the impression of having started off as a short story or novella and being fleshed out, but I can't see why you'd say it's a parody unless you mean with its unlikely plot.
Fox might share Rebus' tenacity and perspicacity but I didn't think his character otherwise similar. His relationship with Jamie was one departure from the Rebus mould..

The highly implausible plot (see above) - in both the grand design and the development of the tale, also the nudge-nudge style, generic Rankin rather than gripping.

Fox also has a similar slightly jaded approach ("world-weariness"), along with an amiable difficulty with the authorities including problems in communicating easily with others, the element of being a social misfit. ...

Don't get me wrong, I thought The Complaints was a great book.

But then I like Rebus.