What Books Are People Reading Now ?

[Gladiator]

'A Box Of Alan Bennett' -The Clothes They Stood Up In

The Lady In The Van

Father! Father! Burning Bright

'Nostromo' - Joseph Conrad

[richardjm65]

You might remember that I posted with enthusiasm for Don Winslow's book "The Power of the Dog" - so much so that I immediately re-read it. The Don Winslow book that I've just finished was pretty impressive too - it's called "The Winter of Frankie Machine", ISBN 978-0-09-950945-5. This writer has really got my attention, and I must get hold of his other books.

I see that "Savages", (which is another of his books), has been released as a film in Thailand, and I note that he was one of the film's scriptwriters.

My next read will be "Small Town" by Lawrence Block. I'm told he's pretty good but for some reason I've never heard of him, despite the fact that he has at least a dozen books to his credit. Any of you guys read anything of his?

[BookMan]

You might remember that I posted with enthusiasm for Don Winslow's book "The Power of the Dog" - so much so that I immediately re-read it. The Don Winslow book that I've just finished was pretty impressive too - it's called "The Winter of Frankie Machine", ISBN 978-0-09-950945-5. This writer has really got my attention, and I must get hold of his other books.

I see that "Savages", (which is another of his books), has been released as a film in Thailand, and I note that he was one of the film's scriptwriters.

My next read will be "Small Town" by Lawrence Block. I'm told he's pretty good but for some reason I've never heard of him, despite the fact that he has at least a dozen books to his credit. Any of you guys read anything of his?

He has actually published over 50 books now. An ex GF of mine loves Lawrence Block and has at least 30 of his novels. I have read one of his scudder character novels and it was okay. They are an easy read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Block

Thanks for the heads up re: savages. Ill have a look at that movie.

[londoedan]

Just finished: The Art of Fielding: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/20/chad-harbach-heavy-hitter-leftfield

It was excellent and reminded me of John Irving at his best; anyone that enjoyed Prayer for Owen Meany or Garp will love this book.

Also read To the Lighthouse - which was fabulous and far easier to read than I expected.

Plus Death comes to Pemberley - which was only OK IMHO.

Also read a couple of John Le Carre books: A Murder of Quality from 1962 and Our Kind of Traitor (2010), I thought that the earlier book was far superior.

Having read TAOF I went out almost immediately and tried to get a copy of Moby Dick - had no luck and buying the classics, in Pattaya at least, appears to be a problem these days (several local bookshops had decent stocks of these less than a year ago).

[Ulysses G.]

Thank heavens I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road before i saw the movie. The movie really was quite good and quite true to the book, but the images from reading that book stayed with me for months afterwards. If i had seen the movie first I might have missed out on a masterpiece of writing.

In the past, I did not enjoy Cormac McCarthy's writing style, but I loved The Road and No Country for Old Men and I loved both movies. He has toned down the endless, flowery descriptions and IMO much improved his writing.

The Crossing? All the Pretty Horses?

I abandoned All the Pretty Horses after a few chapters because I felt it was too slow (and overly descriptive) and it really bothered me. I looked at a couple of his other older novels and got the same feeling. However, there is one that people who don't generally like him recommend consistently and if I can figure out which one it is - I've forgotten the title - , I want to give it a try. Maybe "The Crossing."?

After reading The Road and No Country for Old Men, I am a lot more willing to give his old stuff another try.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Ulysses G.

[David006]

....christ there is so much excellent literature out there eh guys??.... which when young is boring <deleted>..gonna get me an e book...... recommendations ?? Do they they have dictionaries/thesaurus inbuilt as my vocabulary is not what it should be when they quote/use Latin and French and lotsa big words et al.

Wish I could live so long to read it all...

The more you read it seems that there is so much more to read methinks....

Big fan of historical novels meself........

Just got a Kindle last month. Comes with dictionaries already in there, multiple languages. Battery life is amazing. Used it for 3 weeks offshore every evening & it's still over 1/4 full.

Some great recommendations one here - just downloading the Brentford trilogy!! I like historical novels too, never thought I would until I tried one, great stuff...

Have you read Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End..(14 century? England)...excellent

oh great replying to my own post dugh

Edited September 27, 2012 by David006

[David006]

....christ there is so much excellent literature out there eh guys??.... which when young is boring <deleted>..gonna get me an e book...... recommendations ?? Do they they have dictionaries/thesaurus inbuilt as my vocabulary is not what it should be when they quote/use Latin and French and lotsa big words et al.

Wish I could live so long to read it all...

The more you read it seems that there is so much more to read methinks....

Big fan of historical novels meself........

Just got a Kindle last month. Comes with dictionaries already in there, multiple languages. Battery life is amazing. Used it for 3 weeks offshore every evening & it's still over 1/4 full.

Some great recommendations one here - just downloading the Brentford trilogy!! I like historical novels too, never thought I would until I tried one, great stuff...

Have you read Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End..(14 century? England)...excellent

oh great replying to my own post dugh

just reading ....Nigger of the Narsisas, Animal Farm and now trying Quo Vardis ( heavy <deleted>),Typhoon,Old and and the Sea,Odessa,Canterbury tales.....fricking e readers ...lol

[DMC1]

Thank heavens I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road before i saw the movie. The movie really was quite good and quite true to the book, but the images from reading that book stayed with me for months afterwards. If i had seen the movie first I might have missed out on a masterpiece of writing.

In the past, I did not enjoy Cormac McCarthy's writing style, but I loved The Road and No Country for Old Men and I loved both movies. He has toned down the endless, flowery descriptions and IMO much improved his writing.

The Crossing? All the Pretty Horses?

I abandoned All the Pretty Horses after a few chapters because I felt it was too slow (and overly descriptive) and it really bothered me. I looked at a couple of his other older novels and got the same feeling. However, there is one that people who don't generally like him recommend consistently and if I can figure out which one it is - I've forgotten the title - , I want to give it a try. Maybe "The Crossing."?

After reading The Road and No Country for Old Men, I am a lot more willing to give his old stuff another try.

I am reading 'All the Pretty Horses' at the moment. I too nearly abandoned it early on. It has my interest now and I will persevere. I hate ditching books but have found myself doing so more recently.

[draggons]

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen. Easy reading on the way to work in the morning

[Ron19]

Have just finished " A Sparrow Falls " by Wilbur Smith. Good yarn and a final chapter that I didn't pick.

Have started on another Wilbur Smith in " Blue Horizon " and that is shaping up to be another good yarn.

[ThailandNeil]

Before i go to sleep.... brilliant book :-)

Sent from my GT-P3100 using Thaivisa Connect App

[BookMan]

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen. Easy reading on the way to work in the morning

HIassen can be a very funny writer.

[David006]

Just finished Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist..great stuff .....see some similarities to Les Miserables.....

Very depressing to read of the attitude of the upper classes/haves to the proles..methinks it still exists...sort of reminds me of the arrogance of some foreigners in Thailand...lol

Also.... Call of the Wild...what great doggy story!

[draggons]

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen. Easy reading on the way to work in the morning

HIassen can be a very funny writer.

Quite enjoyed it have to look for some more of his.

[BookMan]

Just finished Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist..great stuff .....see some similarities to Les Miserables.....

Very depressing to read of the attitude of the upper classes/haves to the proles..methinks it still exists...sort of reminds me of the arrogance of some foreigners in Thailand...lol

Also.... Call of the Wild...what great doggy story!

Try Great Expectations, if you are in the Dickens mood

[Ulysses G.]

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen. Easy reading on the way to work in the morning

HIassen can be a very funny writer.

Quite enjoyed it have to look for some more of his.

You probably know this, but Elmore Leonard is a lot like Hiaasen. I prefer Leonard, but I like them both.

[TPE]

Just released this ; Its free to Amazon readers :

Sorry just an E-book for now - but a decent read.

IT IS based on an actual case I completed a decade back when probably the first well known farang P.I. in LOS.

features a corrupt US Agent, Would-be Thai lady lawyer, Viet Vet bar owner with a penchant for photographing porn, and the usual lovestruck farang!

http://www.amazon.com/BANGKOK-BLACKMAIL-ebook/dp/B009I3RSKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1349566166&sr=1-1&keywords=bangkok+blackmail

[TommoPhysicist]

David Baldacci - The Innocent (Kindle version 90p cheaper than the paperback)

1356 - Bernard Cornwell (I can't believe the Kindle version is 50p more than the hardback)

Just downloaded these two ........ David Baldacci first I think.

Edited October 7, 2012 by TommoPhysicist

[uptheos]

The last book I read was The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini

One of those books where I couldn't put it down and would take every opportunity to read it when I could. I watched the movie afterwards and whilst the movie was good, it didn't do the book justice.

Try..... 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by the same author

[Gladiator]

'An Instance of the Fingerpost' by Iain Pears

If you enjoyed Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose' You should enjoy this historical novel

[WilliaminBKK]

Chris Stewart (from the band Genesis)

Driving over Lemons, a fun read about moving to Spain & life as an Expat.

[afm171]

In fiction, currently reading The Butterfly Trap, by Dennis Jon. Really pretty good for a 'bar book,' very similar in tone to a Paul Theroux travel book. http://www.bangkokbooks.com/php/product/product.php?product_id=000029

In non-fiction, reading The Vision of the Anointed, by Thomas Sowell. Brilliant dissection of well-intended policies gone wrong over the past 40 years.

[Morakot]

Speed Reading For Dummies by Richard Sutz with Peter Weverka

[Ulysses G.]

I am reading Swan Song by Robert McCammon for the entertainment value. It is a fantasy about a future America that has been devastated by nuclear weapons. Anyone who enjoyed The Stand by Stephen King will like this as they have many similarities. The real negative - that does not bother me much - is that it was written during the Cold War and the premise of the disaster is all based on a war with the Soviet Union. It is a fun read and well done. If you like this kind of novel and are not looking for anything heavy, I recommend it.

Edited October 11, 2012 by Ulysses G.

[richardjm65]

I'd have to try more books by Lawrence Block before adding him to my "must read" list. "Small Town" was readable but I could not see how most of the characters connected to the main story, nor was there much insight into the mind of the perp. I also could not figure out what the slightly kinky sexual awakening of one of the women had to do with anything. But there you go......

Then I picked Paul Theroux's "The Kingdom By The Sea" off my shelf and read it yet again. The back cover blurb says "Paul Theroux's round-Britain travelogue is funny, perceptive and 'best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure.....'

I've always liked him and I understand why many people find him a bit waspish and condescending, but I've lived outside the UK since 1972 and when you read the perceptions of an outsider like Theroux, if you're honest, you have to say "yes, that's how we really are - no doubt about it, a strange nation of people really". This was written 30 years ago during the summer of the Falklands war and the British mixture of derision, despair and jingoism comes across well. His descriptions of high unemployment towns and their hopeless residents are pretty accurate too. I could not help recalling the Pink Floyd line, "hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way...."

I wish I had not loaned out my Bill Bryson book about the UK, (never got it back), because it would have been fun to compare his comedic impressions with Paul Theroux's. I remember in Bill Bryson's opening chapter, his description of his first B&B landlady, the horrible Mrs Smegma. A laugh a minute from thereon.

[GarryP]

I'd have to try more books by Lawrence Block before adding him to my "must read" list. "Small Town" was readable but I could not see how most of the characters connected to the main story, nor was there much insight into the mind of the perp. I also could not figure out what the slightly kinky sexual awakening of one of the women had to do with anything. But there you go......

Then I picked Paul Theroux's "The Kingdom By The Sea" off my shelf and read it yet again. The back cover blurb says "Paul Theroux's round-Britain travelogue is funny, perceptive and 'best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure.....'

I've always liked him and I understand why many people find him a bit waspish and condescending, but I've lived outside the UK since 1972 and when you read the perceptions of an outsider like Theroux, if you're honest, you have to say "yes, that's how we really are - no doubt about it, a strange nation of people really". This was written 30 years ago during the summer of the Falklands war and the British mixture of derision, despair and jingoism comes across well. His descriptions of high unemployment towns and their hopeless residents are pretty accurate too. I could not help recalling the Pink Floyd line, "hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way...."

I wish I had not loaned out my Bill Bryson book about the UK, (never got it back), because it would have been fun to compare his comedic impressions with Paul Theroux's. I remember in Bill Bryson's opening chapter, his description of his first B&B landlady, the horrible Mrs Smegma. A laugh a minute from thereon.

I like both writers enourmously and have several of their books. I can't for the life of me remember where I put the one about Bryson's tour of England. I haven't tried any of Bryson's non-travel related books though. Stuff about Shakespeare and a history of everything.

[topt]

Just released this ; Its free to Amazon readers :

Sorry just an E-book for now - but a decent read.

IT IS based on an actual case I completed a decade back when probably the first well known farang P.I. in LOS.

features a corrupt US Agent, Would-be Thai lady lawyer, Viet Vet bar owner with a penchant for photographing porn, and the usual lovestruck farang!http://www.amazon.co...ngkok blackmail

Now showing as £2.53 on .co.uk site?

[CrankyCarrot]

I just read the ubiquitous Private Dancer, by Stephen Leather.

I feel dirty.

Mindless repetition, typos... main character is cripplingly stupid ...author uses "brought" when he means to say "bought" - twice.

Typo-wise it's nowhere near as bad as Leather's Bangkok Bob. Repetition-wise it's not as bad as Confessions, which he co-authored with that Olson guy spruiking an e-book a few posts back. In that respect, it's the pick of the litter (litter as in garbage).

Having read the other two books, I knew what I was in for. It's kind of a guilty pleasure to read Leather's Thai based stuff. Som nom na to me.

[DrTuner]

My take on Private Dancer is that it was boring and predictable. Might have worked if it was the first Thai-themed book I read, but it wasn't.

Reading Moore's Spirit House right now. I've missed the beginning of the Calvino series and am filling the gap. It's a bit of a draft compared to later books, but OK entertainment.

[StreetCowboy]

I liked Private Dancer, and also The English Passengers (I forget the author); I enjoy the opportunity to read the same story from different perspectives.

For the same reason, I quite enjoyed, in an unpleasant sort of way, Filth, by Irving Welsh....

SC