Books - What are you reading?

25 Best Movies of 2018 includes Paddington 2? Erm..

I found that in a second hand shop the other day. Had to google first to make sure it was indeed the book that Billy Connolly recommended.

This Is Going To Hurt is quite funny but it's also just a collection of medical anecdotes which the author dubiously claims as his own. The unfunny, and tragic, bits are more interesting and there are quite a few of those. Not sure, overall, it's a book to cheer anyone up.

This Is Going to Hurt

That's got good reviews and I almost grabbed the audiobook but there's too much cycling stuff to read first.

H E Bates, specifically the Darling Buds series of books. Warm, funny, and makes you wish you lived in simpler times.

I haven't read it in a while but remember it being a laugh! Might not be so funny with so many overtly entitled, bumbling sociopaths running things at the minute.

Kind of low-key absurdist stuff is usually my first port of call for cheering up duties.

Magnus Mills - Restrain of beasts / Scheme for full employment

Andrey Kurkov - death and the penguin

About a 3rd of the way through The City & The City by China Miéville at the minute. Not sure how I feel about it so far. Seen a few comparisons between him, Kafka and Orwell but can't see them myself. It's sort of reading like a dodgy crime novel with a hint of weird sci-fi to it.
Will stick with it because a few people who I consider to have good taste have reccomended his stuff and I'm intrigued as to where the weirdness is going!

Starting The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan by Rick Perlstein this weekend.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20694952-the-invisible-bridge

On my list of things to read, having read both Before the Storm and Nixonland. Perlstein is great.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the read, heard a lot of good things about Perlstein's work.

Rereading John Connelly's Charlie Parker series before the new one next month. Epic.

The Humans by Matt Haig. Everyone seems to love this and a few people have recommended it to me but I found it hard work.

It was as if the author had decided on the message he wanted to get across and then bent any old plot to fit into it with the story being a secondary consideration.

Do these get better as the series goes on? I remember reading the first one and thinking it was overly long (I can't remember exactly how, the story seemed almost finished and then they headed off to the swamp for another 100 pages or something). Wondering if the second is worth trying.

Just finished 21 lessons for the 21st century. Interesting albeit a bit scary.

Now going to read Sapiens.

Killing Rage by Eamon Collins. Queasily depressing - worth reading.

They get better and better , and more Supernaturally as opposed to just crime novels.
Really worth giving another go. The first one is a difficult read. For many reasons.

Just started The Wall by John Lanchester. Seems promisingly bleak so far.

I'd be interested in what you think of it! Sounds like a decent premise but have read plenty of stuff that sounds similarish but was very poorly executed or read like teen fiction.

Just got back from holiday and managed to read a decent amount. The Drowned World by JG Ballard and Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal were the highlights. I'd never heard of Hrabal until recently but can't get enough of him now!

I know exactly what you mean. I have enjoyed books like Wool, but I sometimes wonder who they’re aimed at.

The Wall feels a little more evolved so far, but I’m barely a chapter in!

I really like haruki murakami, can anyone recommend some similar authors please?
I particularly like the dream-like reality (that's how it seems to me anyway) in his stories.

I quite enjoyed Katzuo Ishiguro's 'The Unconsoled'. A weird dream like state throughout, but much less lush than Murakami. Quite bleak in parts.

Oh, that’s great. And very hypnagogic.

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