What book are you currently reading?

[Hairy-Joe]

Just started into "The tears of the Rajas' by Ferdinand Mount.

It's a bit early to form an opinion. I'm on page 2 so far........

[6456739]

Newstalk had a piece about the closure of Chapters bookshop in Dublin this evening and several people in the Vox Pop said that they couldn't see the point of books...I could feel the brain cells dying.

I can see their point. If you've not a lot of space and/or move a lot it can be better to have ebooks over paper ones. That is of course assuming that the comment was directed at the latter and not the whole concept of books as a whole.

[Del.Monte]

I can see their point. If you've not a lot of space and/or move a lot it can be better to have ebooks over paper ones. That is of course assuming that the comment was directed at the latter and not the whole concept of books as a whole.

I understood it from several of those who spoke that they couldn't see the point of books - full stop! Sure how could there be a point in something longer than a Snapchat message.

[Cyclepath]

[Cyclepath]

I've just started 'Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism' by Yanis Varoufakis.

I try to make every second book a 'worthy' book because I read so much thriller/espionage stuff.

[Seanybiker]

Ive a few of country singers books I need to read. Not sure who Ill start with, probably Billy Joe Shaver - Honky Tonk Hero as theres only about 70 pages to read ,ease meself into reading humor.


Amazon are looking for over 100 quid for the hardcover of it for some reason. I got it a few months back for around 25 including post.

[Mr Daniel F. O'Leary]

"The Pope's Children" by David McWilliams.

It's about Ireland's economic boom during the Celtic Tiger and how people born in Ireland soon after the Pope's visit in 1979 came of age and entered the workforce.

It was written in 2005, so it is definitely a bit dated at this point and Ireland is a more cynical country now after 2008, but it's still an interesting read.

[Mr Daniel F. O'Leary]

Just finished reading "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh.

It's set in 1930s England, where after the protagonist is betrayed by his wife, he joins a group of people on an expedition to Brazil.

I thought it was good and it was the first fiction book I've read in a while.

An Another note, I've acquired A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

[isha]

Just finished reading "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh.

It's set in 1930s England, where after the protagonist is betrayed by his wife, he joins a group of people on an expedition to Brazil.

I thought it was good and it was the first fiction book I've read in a while.

An Another note, I've acquired A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Loved Handful of Dust, and Hundred Years of Solitude. Have not read Dorian Gray.

Recently finished Underland by Robert MacFarlane. It was so good I bought and sent copies to all my children and a few friends - something I have rarely done. His prose is as rangy, muscular, visceral, earthy and athletic as the subject matter (and the author!). It is a brilliant book. From neolithic burials to chasing black matter particles deep under the sea to slithering through claustrophobic slots in the Parisian underworld, it is all utterly fascinating. And it also paints lovely pictures of various humans he meets along the way - all doing weird, unusual and eccentric things while being endearing examples of the species. It is melancholic and yet uplifting at the same time. One of the best books I have ever read.

[isha]

Currently I'm reading Fateless by Imre Kertész and to be honest it's affecting my sleep.

I have read a good few other books by camp survivors eg If This Is A Man by Primo Levi and Man's Search For Meaning by Frankl. But this one is somehow really illustrating the automatic trust and almost innocent confidence ordinary respectable people had that things probably would not get too bad. People who had good jobs, regular local workers, people who were well known, people who lived very embedded natural lives in the wider communities, seemed to presume that in spite of the odd new regulations re ethnic/ religious groups that ultimately it would pass over and resolve itself somehow.

They stepped into cattle cars with their luggage and good clothes on, thinking Lookit a few months in a labour camp is manageable, it will pass soon and we can come home and resume our regular lives.

The ones among them who spoke of looming unimaginable evil may have seemed like unhinged conspiracy lunatics to their neighbours, because it appears in this book to have been literally inconceivable to most that the horror that awaited them could be meted out by ordinary human beings who looked like them, lived like them, even knew them.

And yet that is exactly what happened. So many ordinary people became monsters and committed the most evil acts. It built up slowly, tiny bit by tiny bit, over about a decade, almost unnoticed at first, a bit of hate speech here, a new law there, the acceptability of contempt in polite company, the dehumanising, people under new regulations and requiring papers quietly acquiescing because they just could not find it in their imaginations to conjure up what was about to happen.

To be honest it makes me worried for the times we are living through.

[Del.Monte]

Can't read stuff like that at all, it's bad enough knowing that it happened.

[Del.Monte]

Just read "There's A Hair In My Dirt" by Gary Larson. I managed the entire story in the time it took me to bake a batch of shortbread and take it out of the oven! That's about the most my concentration span for reading can take these days. As for the book, it has its highs but is poor fare compared the various Far Side volumes.

[Del.Monte]

Just finished this unusual book - the 1940s story of a House Sparrow that was rescued by a good samaritan after falling from its nest. The baby bird was tiny, naked and eyes not yet open i.e. it was tiny and should not have survived. However, the bird always accepted the lady that rescued him as his mother (!) and lived with her for over twelve years - including through the Blitz. A modest enough volume for even me to manage but it still took the guts of a fortnight of dipping into to get through it.

[Mr Daniel F. O'Leary]

I'm reading Warhol by Blake Gopnik atm.

Like the title suggests, it's a biography of Andy Warhol and you learn about his personal life, his various different projects ranging from his Art Exhibitions to
managing The Velvet Underground and all the people who he hung out with.

Interesting book and I'm getting near the end of it. It can be a bit tedious at times, as there are instances of 2-3 chapters covering a single year (if it is an eventful/important year for Warhol) and single chapters covering multiple years, but it is a great insight to his life, which is more interesting than his Art, imo.

[Hairy-Joe]

Just got "What If 2" by Randall Munroe. It's very interesting as it deals with serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical situations & questions. It's bloody hilarious in parts too.

[JayZeus]

The wealth of nations - Adam Smith.

Half way through it. Not an easy read, but fascinating at the same time.

[Mr Daniel F. O'Leary]

I've finished reading "The Best Catholics in the World: The Irish, the Church and the end of a Special Relationship" by Derek Scally.

The book is written by an Irishman who has lived in Germany for the last 20 years and is about how Ireland has dealt with it's unsavoury past regarding Catholicism (or rather, how it hasn't).

He talks to many different people throughout the book, from abuse survivors, Catholic Clergy, journalists and college professers to Irish people who still practise Catholicism, along with others as well.

Very interesting book on Catholicism in Ireland and it's history and it got me thinking a lot about how we view our past as a country.

Highly recommended by me, but I understand most here probably wouldn't be interested, judging by the comments under the poll about going to mass.

[Del.Monte]

Picked this up recently and it's a very interesting read for anybody who has worked in the book trade or has any dealing with booksellers. Written in a diary style it recounts the day-to-day life of an accidental bookseller - his staff, customers etc. The author now runs the biggest secondhand book shop in Scotland and despite his somewhat grumpy attitude to customers, and staff, actually wouldn't swap what his doing for anything else. I'm a third of the way through and enjoying it as I recognise a lot of characters having done two stints in the book trade at Eason's and Ottakars.

[678904673]

The Crusades by Thomas Ashbridge. A very readable and balanced history of the Crusades. As its only a one volume account it doesn't go into as much detail as I'd like. But that's understandable as there is a lot to cover. But if you're looking for a good overview of what was for much of the time a very sorry saga, I'd highly recommend it

[quodec]

Happened to briefly see a BBC News piece on the 2023 Booker prize this evening and liked the sound of Irish author Paul Lynch's dystopian book Prophet Song. So, I decided to buy it for my Kindle and guess what, an hour later, hadn't he gone and won the Booker with the book. Amazed at the coincidence and hope to get reading it shortly.

[Del.Monte]

Happened to briefly see a BBC News piece on the 2023 Booker prize this evening and liked the sound of Irish author Paul Lynch's dystopian book Prophet Song. So, I decided to buy it for my Kindle and guess what, an hour later, hadn't he gone and won the Booker with the book. Amazed at the coincidence and hope to get reading it shortly.

Sounds interesting and I'm buying a copy today - very topical.

Here's what somebody else thought about it.

"From its gerund-heavy, aimlessly sprawling sentences to its vaguely rendered dystopian setting, everything about #ProphetSong frustrated me. This is not my first encounter with punctuation-less dialogue or run-on grammar, but compounded with its disorienting sense of space and overly personified descriptions, I’m just exhausted. This book reads like how I image watching a film with every 5th frame removed would feel. Unwieldy."

[quodec]

I deliberately avoided reviews of Lynch’s book, as, I find, if you were to ponder on every review of any book that initially too your fancy, that you’d never buy a book at all.

[quodec]

So, just finished the Booker prize-winning book 'Prophet Song' last night. I like Dystopian literature as a rule and the blurb suggested this book would be right up my street, especially as it was set in Dublin/Ireland. But, not unlike Cormac McCarty's The Road, Prophet Song's narrative was one of unrelenting bleakness as a mother and her children struggle with authoritarian rule and civil war. I considered abandoning the read in the early stages but I have to say, the more I persevered, the more I submerged into Lynch's quasi-surreal world, which definitely drew 'inspiration' from current refugee crises in eastern Europe, and even Gaza. It's a tough, even torturous read, page after page of text with no breaks for paragraphs or dialogue, but, you know, after a while, I found I learned to scan it and progress without too much difficulty.
Not for everyone but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end.

[JayZeus]

Not a Booker prize winner, but an insightful and instructive book about firewood. A gift from my late father, his last material gift given 6 years ago, just a few weeks before he lost his battle with that pervasive and ruthless bastard of a disease.

Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way by Lars Mytting.

I’ve only now been able to pick it up and enjoy the read without sadness and a great sense of loss dominating my thoughts.

If you even like the idea of sitting beside a roaring fire made of wood that’s cut, split and stacked by the labour of someone who likes what they’re doing, you’ll likely enjoy this book.