Books - What are you reading?

Never heard of either of them will do some research

Winslow's Power of The Dog trilogy is a dark dirty thriller about drug cartels and cops on the Mexican border.

Compelling memorable and at times darkly hilarious

Jo Wambaugh writes dark gritty characters challenging the cops-are-good view prevelent in his era. Creating nuanced semi-corrupt law men

The Onion Field, his best sellar, the Choirboys, my favorite

I’m interested to read this. Although they don’t seem very funny

I thought the first two were great (although I'm not sure if I remember much hilarity) but the third didn't need to be written and was more interested in political commentary than plot.

I'd say stuff like Savages and Death and Life of Bobby Z were a bit lighter with more humour.

Death and Life of Bobby Z

Agree. Bobby Z was quite funny

Glow by Ned Beauman

Jonathan Coe, "What a Carve Up"?

This sounds perfect.

Charlie Stross's Laundry Files series ticks those boxes with added Lovecraftian horror. I think it's been floundering under franchise overload for the last few books, but that still leaves a lot of good holiday reading time.

yeah the first 5 or 6 are great, then it badly runs out of steam. The Bond pastiche one is hilarious

Thanks I’ll check those out too. Some great recommendations peeps.

Or any of the better Pratchett's? Ticks most of those boxes.

Well, you'll find each of those boxes ticked somewhere in his work, but rarely all in the same place, which if you haven't already read all the books makes it a bit pot-luck. You might pick Night Watch out of the lucky bag, or you might get the one where Michael Crawford's career was the running (and often only) gag, or the one where he thought using vampires to satirise political correctness was hilarious.

What a carve up! Is fantastic

If you want something funny/tom Sharpe/spy stuff

Try the Mordecai trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli

I read his Galapagos recently (prompted by Backlisted podcast) might be a great holiday read!

Just finished The Journal of a Disappointed Man, B. E. Cummings (W. N. P. Barbellion), Under Milk Wood (yes, that one) and started Thinking Fast and Slow

Am reading Under Milk Wood at the moment

Enjoying it so far

Saw a performance of under milk wood in Swansea a good few years back. The characters are generally Swansea archetypes, so there was little acting, they just let it roll naturally

I'm seeing a performance of it next week so figured I'd read it ahead of that

Oh yeah, that's a great one!

Game of Thrones. I'm halfway through the first one, kind of soapy but a decent read - worth continuing with the series?

I found them to be pretty good reads, and read them all back to back! This was then the last one was just released though, so been a looong time.

Thought the TV show was pretty average to poor personally, so make of that what you will.

If you do enjoy them, I'd recommend the Witcher book. Suitably hammy, but really enjoyed reading them.

The first one is excellent. After that, bit by bit I got more frustrated with them as no plot point ever seemed to be resolved, more and more random characters got introduced and the whole thing just kind of fizzled out

I think I was always thinking everything would get tied up nicely in the last two books that have never come out 😂

I genuinely regret the hours I wasted reading that shite