Books - What are you reading?

Ben MacIntyre’s SAS Rogue Heroes..
brilliantly written and a great collection of personalities, starting in North Africa 1941

My stepdad was in 45 Commando and SBS, never spoke about the campaigns he was in, sworn to secrecy and took his story to his grave in 2012, also spent a lot of time in the desert..

/csb

I'm looking for reccomendations for fiction with feminist themes. It's for the person I'm seeing who doesn't really read very much, so nothing too intense or difficult to get through!

Just finished The city in the city by China Mieville, I`ve read his Bas lag series over the last year and got hooked, this was another cracker, bit tough to start but once i got into it there was no stopping me. Highly recommend this or any of his material.

• The Women Men Don't See by James Tiptree Jr.
  
• We Who Are About To... by Joanna Russ
  
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  
  

All very to fairly short. The first 2 are sci-fi. The most "difficult" one is probably the Russ novel, but it's not a hard read, exactly, just that the 2nd half is a relatively unusual concept for a novel.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood might be a good shout because it's been on the tellybox recently.

Thanks, those all seem like good suggestions! The Women Men Don't See sounds right up my street, although I think the sci-fi element might put the person I'm buying for off. I think I might go with The Handmaid's Tale, I've been meaning to read it for a while myself!

as well as the above, she could try - oranges are not the only fruit, by jeanette winterson

Also "The Power"

If you don't tell your lucky recipient that The Women Men Don't See is sci-fi, they won't realise it's sci-fi until the last few pages, and by then it will be too late :p

Ooh, there's also The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

The Color Purple was my first choice but the blurb makes it seem very intense!

The rest of his stuff is wank. Much to my disappointment after enjoying City.

Recently finished two very different but equally entertaining books.

White Tiger by Arvinda Adiga was fantastic, a worthy winner of the Booker Prize a few years ago. Disturbing and funny in equal measure and always fascinating.

Also just finished Things Can Only Get Better, a memoir of John O'Farrell's (HIGNFY/Spitting Image writer) time as a Labour activist between 1979 and 1997. I'm looking forward to getting the sequel now.

It's a very well-crafted story, and it's one of the most important classic feminist novels for good reason. But fuck me, yeah, it's grimdark, so you might be right to give it a miss if you don't want to upset them ;)

Also just finished Things Can Only Get Better, a memoir of John O'Farrell's (HIGNFY/Spitting Image writer) time as a Labour activist between 1979 and 1997. I'm looking forward to getting the sequel now.

Ooh, I might pick this up. I read The End Of The Party (about the Blair/Brown government's final election and eventual disintegration) by Andrew Rawnsley a few years back and it was such a page-turner.

I must read more of these political inside story books, I'm never disappointed.

(I also enjoyed White Tiger)

Tried “The Candidate” by Alex Nunns, in an attempt to understand Corbyn’s recent rise. Dull. As. Shit. It was as all we had a vote, they had a vote, their votes came in late, and a Guardian journalist wrote something . Say what now?!

Guns, Germs and Steal however, brilliant stuff.

just finished Nabokov's Lolita.

very funny. the darkest of satire.

blokey, no doubt.

Pale Fire next

and for lighter reading finally cracking through Max Leonards excellent Lanterne Rouge

You're welcome to come and grab it if you're in East London, or I could stick it in the post if you PM me.

I've bought The Third Policeman based on recommendations above.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/314682/#comment14011199

Also just finished Things Can Only Get Better, a memoir of John O'Farrell's (HIGNFY/Spitting Image writer) time as a Labour activist between 1979 and 1997. I'm looking forward to getting the sequel now.

Good shout. I really enjoyed it, sort of the Adrian Mole Diaries meets greenhell's posts.

I read To Kill The President by Sam Bourne (pseudonym of Jonathan Freeland who writes in the Guardian). Utter tosh, but entertaining. A macdonalds burger of a book.

I got the sequel at Christmas and finished it two days ago.

It was clearly written for the most part before the 2017 election, and the reaction to his views on Corbyn being challenged is great. I won't give any more than that away because this one is well worth reading too. A weird cycle in the book is that he's steadily becoming both more middle-class and smug, but also more self-aware.

I love that description by the way. Bang on.

Started reading that book about Donald Trump - I don't know if I'm just really sick of hearing about Trump or if it's just really boring.

First book of the year, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Really enjoyed it, ended up staying up far too late one night to finish it. I'm on a bit of a roll with her at the moment, loved My Cousin Rachel, something about how she describes her characters and their mental states.

Read Kraken. A shameless ripof Never where, but just better.

My best friend wrote a book. It's dystopian near future sci fi and it is great. I was involved in it pre-publishing and really enjoyed it.

It is out later this month and, if you want to, you can pre-order it:

The Amazon route - Amazon
The Waterstones route - Waterstones
The Independent route - Goldsboro Books

LFGSS guarantee: if you pre-order it and then don't like it, I'll refund you in an equivalent value of used inner tubes, frozen sausages and anti-theft paste.