The "I am currently reading" thread

[Rockers rule]

1 hour ago, Bargepole23 said:

The library is always my first choice for books (I see your tight Scotsman and raise you a tight Yorkshireman ). Also have charity shop oddities, Oxfam at Broomhill is good for that. Also like a second hand bookshop for the same reasons, Porter books on Sharrowvale and the one at Shalesmoor. Failing that, Abe books, which is an online marketplace for loads of second hand book sellers.

 

Currently reading Jeff Gulvin's Swann and Harrison series, Special Branch and FBI antiterrorist thrillers. Easy entertaining reading.

I'll take your tight Yorkshireman & give him an accent that'll confuse every one.

Mind you my accent went years ago (But the Scottishness still in the Blood).

Car boots have always been my fav hunting grounds for books but I cannae see us Carbooting any time soon.

I've another Clive Cussler book to read but I promised myself I wasnt going to read any more because they all got a little to same d same.

(Same stories just set in different lands)

One of my Fav books (& films come to that) is Raise the Titanic so when I Spotted The Titanic Secret also by C.C in my local Charity shop I have made an exception. I've nearly finished the book on 'songs and verse of the proabition movement'. I dont do poetry but the potted history included in the book leading up to and beyond proabition is interesting.

 

Keep safe & keep reading (even if its a Clive Cussler)

(no offence Clive - RIP) 

[Rockers rule]

On 02/05/2020 at 09:05, Rockers rule said:

I'll take your tight Yorkshireman & give him an accent that'll confuse every one.

Mind you my accent went years ago (But the Scottishness still in the Blood).

Car boots have always been my fav hunting grounds for books but I cannae see us Carbooting any time soon.

I've another Clive Cussler book to read but I promised myself I wasnt going to read any more because they all got a little to same d same.

(Same stories just set in different lands)

One of my Fav books (& films come to that) is Raise the Titanic so when I Spotted The Titanic Secret also by C.C in my local Charity shop I have made an exception. I've nearly finished the book on 'songs and verse of the proabition movement'. I dont do poetry but the potted history included in the book leading up to and beyond proabition is interesting.

 

Keep safe & keep reading (even if its a Clive Cussler)

(no offence Clive - RIP) 

Finished the Poetry / Proabition book (took a bit of doing) and plowed straight into the Clive Cussler.

Read it in two sittings, wasn't too bad and gave an insight (sequel) into the earlier 'Raise the Titanic' book although the story line wasn't actually that good. The book is accredited to Clive Cussler and Jack Du  Brul.

I'm not sure what part Du Brul took in writing the book but I didn't find it that different to many of the other books by Clive Cussler.

I surpose I'm going to find my copy of raise the Titanic now for a re read.

Just starting 'Jarhead' now by Anthony Swofford.

 

Keep safe & keep reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Baron99]

Just finished, 'The Volunteer' a true story of Polish resistance fighter, Witold Pilecki. 

 

Incredibly, Pilecki's mission was to find out what was going on in a German internment camp & reporting to the resistance by getting himself arrested & imprisoned.  That camp was Auschwitz. 

 

During his time in Auschwitz, Pilecki managed to smuggle out details of mass extermination & other atrocities & that life for those imprisoned was so bad that they called for the camp to be destroyed on a number of occasions by allied aerial bombing, even though they knew many inmates could be killed in the attacks.  These requests were passed to the authorities in both London & Washington on a number of occasions but ignored. 

 

Miraculously, Witold Pilecki, escaped from Auschwitz & survived WWII but I'll not ruin for you, this wasn't the end of his story & his fight for Polish freedom continued. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Baron99

[Rockers rule]

I'm still on with Jarhead (inbetween Garage, House etc etc) but have just purchased 

'The great North Road' by Chris 'Wolfie' Cooper.

From the same guy's who brought you the excellent  'After the Battle' series of magazines 

this is one book for the petrol heads out there.

Following the Great North Road (officially classified as the A1 in 1922) from it's very early days the book 

diverts through towns and villages and down lanes that were once part of the Great North Road.

216 pages crammed full (500) of photos, maps and drawings 

I've to read the actual book yet but the then and now pictures are excellent.

Paid a bit more than I usualy do for a book  but got it for a reasonable price off Ebay (new)

So there you are any petrol head's out there or just  want to follow 400 miles of the A1 without paying for the petrol this 

is the book for you.

Nice pictures of cars and lorrys from the past along with how things look now.

I've been putting off buying this for a while but glad its now part of my collection.

 

Rock on.

 

 

[taxman]

I've finished all the one on my "to read" pile so have had to go back and revisit one of my old Iain M. Banks sci-fi novels, Surface Detail.

 

I love the writing even when the story might not be the strongest. Will move onto his last sci-fi The Hydrogen Sonata next.

[wearysmith]

Just finished 'Platform Seven' by Louise Doughty (her 9th novel).

Another one picked up at last year's Off The Shelf festival.

 

Told from the perspective of the ghost of a woman who met her death on Platform 7 in Peterborough train station. It's not a clean read. Deals with some awful aspects of the human condition. I couldn't put it down. Enjoyable is not the right word, but it's a compelling read. In that context, I enjoyed it.

[metalman]

Recently read:

 

John Rhode - The Motor Rally Mystery. Another good Rhode detective story from the 1930s which would horrify modern day motoring organisations!

John Rhode - Death at Breakfast. Another good one with an ingenious murder method. Recently reprinted so more available than most of his.

John Scalzi - Agent to the Stars. His first book, in which a Hollywood agent is put in charge of PR for aliens who look like globs of snot. Even more so than his other books, a fast paced amusing romp.

T P Fielden - The Riviera Express

T P Fielden - Resort to Murder. First two of a series featuring  reporter sleuth Judy Dimont in late 1950s Torquay. OK but a bit verbose overall.

Agatha Christie - Mrs McGinty's Dead. Poirot unravels a case from almost nothing. One of her better ones.

Anna Kavan - A Bright Green Field. Hallucinatory, strange, surreal short stories by the author of the cult post-apocalypse novel Ice.

Anthony Abbot - The Murder of the Night Club Lady. One of his breathless Thatcher Colt detective stories from the 1930s. I like these, just wish they were more readily available.

 

Just started: John Rhode - The Hanging Woman.

[Rockers rule]

 

Get the Bunting out I've finally finished 'Jarhead' for a little book sure took me some time and it wasn't because it was hard reading I've just been busy with Bikes, Cars, Garage, House etc etc. I do know I'm going to have to watch the film again now.

The book itself isn't as good as what I can remember of the film and reminds me a lot of 'Catcher in the Rye'.

Typical rights of passage our American Cousins seem to delight in. 

[Rockers rule]

'The Great North Road - Now and Then'

 

Factual book by Chris 'Wolfie' Cooper.

 

interspersed with maps and 100's of photos of the Great North Road along its 400 mile journey from London all the way up to Edinburgh.

Not to be confused with the modern A1 although the A1 as we know it now is derived mostly from the original  Great North Road but has nothing in relevance to the Great North Road that wound its way up the country through Towns that have been bypassed or duel carriage'd over the years.

The Author takes us through those villages and routes that still have sections of the old road and gives you a feast for your eyes with photos that are as near as dam it to pictures and sketches from many years ago revealing just how some places have changed or changed very little as it may be from the time of Toll roads and coaching stages pre motor vehicles.

I did find some of the writers descriptions of where the road had altered away from the present day A1 and the early maps in the book a little hard to follow at times and had to resort to my own modern Road Atlas and even Google Maps to understand some of it but all in all an Excellent book definitely one for the Coffee table.  

Not specifically for the petrol heads out there but having done quite a bit of recovery work over the years on the A1  found it very interesting.

lots of nice pic's of all types of vehicles from Trams, early (Dennis) buss's, single cab buss's, lorry's, and cars some of which I've owned or driven over the years . Nice pic of a Trojan bubble car making it's way through traffic in Newcastle and having a strange thing for 3 wheelers liked the nice pic of one of the big Scammell 3 wheel articulated wagons similar to one of the many that flew around Sheffield years ago.

 

Keep safe 

 

Read well.

 

 

[taxman]

I've just ordered The Mirror and the Light, the final installment of Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy. To get me in the mood and up to speed on the characters I'm binge re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies.