What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (4 Viewers)

[Lili Marlene]

It was fine. Not as good as the hype would make it out to be. It was like a grown-up version of The Hardy Boys. It was a grand holidays book but I won't be rushing to read it again.

If you read just one book from that that lot, read The Vorrh. It's terrific.

Would you still recommend this? I've been ignoring it for a year and a half now, I think it's time i stepped up!

 

[pavlos]

Really enjoyed this. Some interesting characters* in the transhumanist movement!

* numpties

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience by Christophe Jaffrelot

Interesting but a bit of a slog, way too much detail for my needs - too many characters, too many political parties with similar names and initialisms, too many Islamist groups with similar names and initialisms, too many name changes. All I can say about Pakistan after it is that it seems a bit of a dysfunctional mess.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Would you still recommend this? I've been ignoring it for a year and a half now, I think it's time i stepped up!

I only finished the second book in the series last night and it was a bit of a letdown so not sure if I’d recommend investing your time in it now. The ideas in the first book feel underused now and a bit weak in retrospect.

I’m still going to read the third book but I’m not chomping at the bit for it, that’s for certain.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt

Lucy Minor is the resident odd duck in the hamlet of Bury. He is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for begetting brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux. While tending to his new post as undermajordomo, he soon discovers the place harbours many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder.

Undermajordomo Minor is an ink-black comedy of manners, an adventure, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.

Enjoyable enough, very easy to read but kinda forgettable with a bad ending.

 

[IFF]

Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt



Enjoyable enough, very easy to read but kinda forgettable with a bad ending.

I remember bits of it but not a great much

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I saw a review of his latest one the other day and thought I'd like to read it but now I've changed my mind. I'm also doubting if I enjoyed The Sisters Brothers as much as I think I did.

 

[Repelies]

A must read.

 

[ilovehoovering]

His Bloody Project - definitely worth the 99p on Kindle but it won't linger long in the memory.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Another Booker nominee

Everything Under | The Man Booker Prizes

I wanted to like this but the storyline is too busy and convoluted, there's too much self-conscious "beautiful" writing, too many allusions to mythology/fairy and folk tales for no decent reason (a similar problem as writing in MacFarlish*), it all felt like a book written with a checklist of current topics specifically chosen to appeal to the Booker Prize, and maybe it was. It's her first novel so maybe she's still working this stuff out and in 20 years we'll look at it as a step towards something great but right now it's a bit contrived and phony.












*Macfarlish: the process of praising other authors to make your own book better by association.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson. Thoroughly believable sci fi about the effects of abrupt climate change on the earth. Pretty terrifying.

Broken River by J Robert Lennon. Very creepy, slow burn mystery about a family that moves into a murder house. The teen daughter ill-advisedly begins poking around the unsolved case with some suitably horrible consequences. Great handling of suspense and plotting.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Masterful eh?

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Masterful eh?

Changed to "great". Happy?

 

[Lili Marlene]

I guess. Can you add something about the "weighty, knotty" plot and use the word "thrumming" a few times?

 

[David Kronenbourg]

I guess. Can you add something about the "weighty, knotty" plot and use the word "thrumming" a few times?

I’ll try fit in “scabrous”, “jaundiced” and “hurtling toward its grim conclusion” and describe the heroine as “plucky, precocious and likable”

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

The Cretan Teat by Brian Aldiss

Not an essential Aldiss book unless you want to read them all like I do, but enjoyable enough all the same. Its about a man and the consequences of his quest to obtain an icon of the baby jesus being breastfed by his granny and at the same time it's a bawdy sex comedy about the elderly author of the man with the icon.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. Amazing

 

[Lili Marlene]

give more details. Who is Denis Johnson? Why did you read it? What is your PIN number?

 

[David Kronenbourg]

give more details. Who is Denis Johnson? Why did you read it? What is your PIN number?

American novelist. He died last year. He wrote books primarily about people living on the fringes of society. This one is a novella recounting the life of a migrant worker from his youth during the Depression to his death in the early 60s. It’s very good. But his best book is Jesus Son.

 

[dunderhead]

my absolute darling by gabriel tallent.

pretty bleak read but enjoyed it, mostly.