Books - What are you reading?

As I'm moving house in a couple of months I've started clearing out my bookcase. Clearing out in this case means I've started reading all the books I've bought, been gifted, ammased in the past ten years working in a bookshop and never read. Read in the last three weeks:
-Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers
-Calico Joe by John Grisham
-The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
-The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne
-Six Graves to Munich by Mario Puzo
-The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernest Guevara
-Pnin by Nabokov

Quite an enjoyable undertaking, and it means fewer books to pack and move because I forward all of them to people interested. Win win win situation.

Reading a book and sharing it is always the "winiest" situation you can do ;).

I'm currently reading "Il ragazzo selvatico - Quaderno di montagna" by Paolo Cognetti, and Oh god it's lovely, especially for all of you folks who are in love with micro-adventures, bivy in the mountains and so on.
It's quite nicely written too. 9/10 would recommend !

[ Cannot find any english version of the book, but in French it's "Le garçon sauvage" (the wild boy) and you can read The Eight Mountains before]

Sounds great - reminds me of the Periodic Table and ' bear meat' maybe ? No english translation though ?

I'm not a big fan of the Culture series either. It's all a bit too nerdy for me, aliens with funny names and laser guns and stuff don't do it for me res1lly. Although they're definitely more interesting than most sci fi in that vein.
I'm about halfway through Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I've never read a book which uses the word "cunt" quite so much. Pretty wild considering it was published in the 30s.

Finished reading these recently that I've really enjoyed:

Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
Reading with Patrick - Michelle Kuo
Sour Heart - Jenny Zhang
A Man in Love - KO Knausgard
A Perfect Spy - JlC

I'm still struggling with 12 rules for life by Jordan Peterson but find it really hard going. I'm also having to spread out the Karl Ove Knausgard books as I find I need something a little easier as a kind of breather. I really enjoyed A Perfect Spy and glad I persisted with it.

I have a Knausgard sitting there with less than a chapter read. I can't even force myself to read it, without finding reasons to do other things.

Also, #wudrep for just writing the titles and authors, and not posting a photo of the books.

I quite like space operas with aliens with funny names and laser guns and stuff, it just seemed to take itself a bit too seriously but without the believability of something like Larry Niven

I think the believability is what I liked about the culture books. It's way out there, but i had a sense of it being pretty much how a post-resource space faring society might be. A lot of authors can't break free of contemporary context in the way Banks can.

The two Amor Towles books are worth reading (they're unconnected, A Gentleman In Moscow was rated higher by people I know.)

Our next book club book is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by JlC.

Used to enjoy Iain Banks, then read his book on whisky, and he came across as such a self-satisfied twat that I haven't wanted to pick up one of his books since.

I would say it's worth persisting with I got through decent chunks on holidays, I found it a little harder to consume on commutes etc

I'm about half way through Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey and wanted to post here to recommend it. I first read a version when I was a teenager and enjoyed it despite struggling with the language. Revisiting it through Wilson's version has been amazing. It's worth it for the brilliantly insightful introduction alone, which includes an argument for using the most straight forward current language , rather than an olde worlde English that bears no relation to the original Greek. It's so bloody readable. She also gives some interesting female perspective on this most masculine of epic tales. If you only ever read one version of it, this should be it.

I find him really hit and miss. The Wasp Factory and The Bridge are two of my favourite books. I thought Complicity and Song of Stone were absolute shite though. Actually, any reccomendations for non shit stuff he's done would be good! Bearing in mind I'm not into the space opera stuff.

The crow road is a great non scifi

As is Dead Air, the steep approach to garbadale and stonemouth

I need a good whodunnit book any recommendations

The Business is a decent enough fiction.

Whit tumbles along quite nicely too.

Transition is a decent enough (science) fiction.

Currently reading Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, hadn’t realised it’s completely written in Edinburgh slang, even the narrative..

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_Scottish_slang_and_jargon

Just finished Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Quite enjoyed it, but I'm going through a bit of a phase of reading semi autobiographical novels by shitty men at the minute.

About half way through the last book of the Southern Reach trilogy. What’s with the preoccupation with characters skin colour? Maybe it’s just me, but he seems to constantly refer to it, seemingly for no reason.

I gave up after the second book - just could not get in to it, I tried really hard.

Remember Max Leonard? Book launch 14 June at Stanfords in Covent Garden. More bike adventures in the Alps.

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Just finished Greybeard by Brian Aldiss, need on @AlexD's recommendation. Definitely an interesting premise and I enjoyed parts of it but I didn't love it. I think I found the overly English writing style a bit annoying. Phrases like "jolly close" etc. Probably just a product of it's time.
I also finished Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell recently which I was pretty in to. I read it immediately after Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, it was interesting to see two very different perspectives of poverty in Paris in the early 20th century. Orwell is a lot more reserved.
I also finished The Stranger by Camus the other day. I've not ready any Camus before but have ordered a copy of The Plague off the back of how much I enjoyed The Stranger. It's interesting to see the similarities to Sartre despite their apparent rivalry.

just finished the city and the city after the recommendation on here - thought it was great.
Where next from him - perdido street station?

Also reading the getting of wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson and a book of Richard Ford short stories - A Multitude of Sins - this is OK, but not as rich as James Salter, whom i prefer in every way.

Anyone got any reccomendations for novels by LGBTQ+ authors or with LGBTQ+ themes?

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  
• Maurice by EM Forster
  
• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
  
• I've Got A Time Bomb by Sibyl Lamb (sort of like a trans/lesbian/dystopian version of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas)
  
• Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack (alternate timeline dystopia set in an America where society has completely broken down)