Books - What are you reading?

Rendezvous with Rama is a classic. I enjoyed some of his short story collections too.

Am ploughing through Game of Thrones, on the last one now.

Am happy to post any of these to people, free of charge, will take books in exchange.

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To the lighthouse is unreadable though, I wouldn't bother with that

I just felt it continued a story that had already been concluded and was more of a vehicle for his political views.

Riddley Walker is one of my all-time favourites <3

I'm not reading anything particularly exciting atm. I just finished Guidebook for an Armchair Pilgrimage, wot i had high hopes for but ultimately didn't enjoy as much as i thought i would. Just a bit too dreamy for me.

I did join the End of the World Reading Club recently which is a bit expensive but the glee of having what is basically a small monthly advent calendar for grownups is huge. Last month's book was the (excellent) Under The Blue, which is great if you're anxious about climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence all at once 👍

For anyone into financial chicanery/the weird venture capital firehouse sprayed at weird or fraudulent businesses in the last decade, I'm currently 2/3rds of the way through Money Men by Dan McCrum and highly recommend it.

It's all about Wirecard's multi-billion dollar fraud. It's written like a thriller so a very easy read even for someone (me) who only dimly understands financial instruments.

Riddley Walker is one of my all-time favourites <3

"Walker is my name and I'm the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever they've took me and walking them now on this paper the same."

Can quote that from memory (although I doubt I got the bad spelling right), the book makes such an impression. Pilgermann, also by him, is deeply weird and good.

I’m looking for some dark crime comedy books if anyone has any recommendations

I love Riddley walker. Saw Russell Hoban do a talk with Will Self shortly before he died and he was one funny bastard.

2001 the novel is the book of the film, not a Clarke original. The film was based on a Clarke short story called "The Sentinel", but that only dealt with the discovery of the alien artefact on the moon. I read the book Clarke wrote about the film and it was clear that most of the film was Kubrick's ideas, not Clarke's. Clarke just turned the result back into a book. His touch but not really his work.

The sequels are terrible.

Of his own work, "Childhood's End" is worth a read. I enjoyed "Rendezvous with Rama" well enough, although I thought it ran out of ideas. Mostly I preferred his short stories, which had more humanity to them. "The 9 Billion Names of God" is a classic, even if it is a bit of a shaggy dog story. "Tales from the White Hart" is explicitly humorous and not at all bad.

If you want more of the same but a little more modern, Greg Bear probably has the best claim to being his successor. Same huge scale, a bit more humanity (and more sex). I don't know who has written in Clarke's style more recently; I stopped reading that kind of SF.

Under The Blue

Just read it. Did enjoy. Thought there would be more deus exing the machina, but happy enough there wasn't.

Reading a bit of Paolo Bacigalupi at the moment.

I listened to the audiobook which included an introduction by Clarke. According to that the novel and screenplay were written simultaneously by him and Kubrick. Apparently the novel only exists because Clarke hated writing screenplays and needed the novel to help flesh out the story.
I'll have a look in to Greg Bear, thanks!

'The Beast' made a strong impression on me when I read it.

It was intense. Worth reading for sure.

They are all with Oxfam now. Picked up an Irvine Welsh and Alice Munro selected short stories while I was there.

Beast, Paul Kingsnorth.

I know Kingsnorth has some pretty dubious politics, but this was a present from a few years back and I thought fuck it, it’s quite short it won’t take up much space in the suitcase when I go on holiday.

Could have been good: showed early promise, tied itself up in knots and then ended on a damp squib. Ended up coming across as try hard rather than something with an interesting formal approach. Extra marks for fitting nicely into the hand luggage.

Some books going for the cost of postage. I have the third in the Ancillary series and that would be going too, once I find the bugger.

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Just finished reading Transition by Iain Banks. The plot was slightly sloppy and it's one of the horniest books I've read in a while. But, it had some really great ideas and was obviously written to be the first in a series (a lot of time was spent on worldbuilding). Such a shame his untimely death denied us another set of books like the Culture series.

for my Xmas stocking

https://www.isolapress.com/

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Also this from isola press

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Just started the latest instalment of the slow horses series. Can’t believe it’s nearly over.

Not for everyone but Blinkist doing 75% off for life for black friday, never used it but for the price of one book am willing to take a punt
https://www.blinkist.com/nc/coupons/keeplearning_bf_eb_75_em?

Are there any subscription type services where you pay £X per month year and can download books for the kindle?

The obvious is Kindle unlimited. Obviously it's Amazon and personally I didn't find the selection worth it when I looked at it.