Question What are you reading?

[Tangled up in Blue]

Annie Ernaux's The Years.The French winner of the Nobel prize for Literature (first time the award's ever gone to a woman) clearly tends to divide opinion among her French readers (my wife's not a fan for example).

Thought this was a series of sociological snapshots throughout her long life (she's currently 82) rather than a novel as such.Interesting if you've been following France since WW2 (not otherwise I imagine).

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

CJ Box, Badlands. Modern detective/crime/western fiction set in Montana and North Dakota present day. Very good, not super hero stuff nor as far fetched as Lee Child, Reacher books but easy reading and well plotted.

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

The Burning Blue by James Holland . 9/10
Story of university student who flew with part time squadron pre war and then got signed up into RAF . Certainly very unglamorous and dark side of daily life facing death several times a day for month after month.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just finishedThe Way Back .Remarque's excellent sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front.Struck by the contrast between this,written by an enlisted man and the classics of UK WW1 literature writen by Graves ,Sasssoon etc ie Officers.Seems llike you have to go to song eg Oh what a Lovely War to find out what the British enlisted men thought of the War.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finished Jonathan Coe's Bournville:A Novel on Seven occasions yesterday.It's a very funny and moving account of post WW2 England.I was sorry to learn that JC's own mother (who features as a central character in the story) died during lockdown.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Alan Bennett's LRB Diary for 2023.Could well be his last I suppose.Hope not.

 

[blues exile]

Finally received my prize from 'The Guardian', Inside Qatar by John McManus. Promises to be a pretty harrowing read.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Lionel Shriver's Abominations.Frankly I'm rather conflicted about LS.I've thoroughly enjoyed the 3 novels of hers which I've read.Not her appearences on the box in the last few years on Newsnight,QT etc.These pieces from the Spectator ,Harper's etc.are full of the same right wing guff ,which isn't evident in her novels.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Finally received my prize from 'The Guardian', Inside Qatar by John McManus. Promises to be a pretty harrowing read.

Thanks for the tip.Just put it on order.Should make a good antidote to the WC.

 

[Fairport]

At the moment am reading a Christmas present book titled "British Footballs Greatest Grounds" It's a really good read and covers 100 grounds from lowly non league up to Premier League.

 

[The Big Dady]

At the moment am reading a Christmas present book titled "British Footballs Greatest Grounds" It's a really good read and covers 100 grounds from lowly non league up to Premier League.

What's it say about Roots Hall?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

John McManus's Inside Qatar:Hidden Stories from one of the Richest Nations on Earth.First off a big thank you to Blues Exile for mentioning this.

Second ,I'm glad I read it after the WC and not before.

Third, I take my hat off (metaphorically speaking), to anyone who managed to boycott the TV coverage of the WC.I couldn't.

Spome of the stories about the treatment of migrant workers mentioned here are genuinely harrowing.

Quite obviously the WC should never have been held in Qatar.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just finished Granta 139.Best of Young American Novelists.I suppose I liked a couple of the extracts and I used to subscribe to Granta.

 

[Jacob Sladder]

Cheney - A fascinating biography of the most powerful Vice President the US ever saw.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Paul Auster's Bloodbath Nation.A short but important contribution to the guns debate in the USA .

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Don Patterson's Toy Fights : A Boyhood.

Rather glad that (unlike the author) I wasn't born or grew up in Dundee but WOS.

 

[Rob Noxious]

I recently finished this book about football in the old Soviet bloc and the former Yugoslavia. I suspect it won't be of universal interest but Jonathan Wilson has compiled a well-researched personal commentary on the foibles and corrupt practices of football in these nation states from last century and into the early years of this one. It makes Sepp Blatter and his former associates seem like paragons of virtue by comparison. Nothing about Albania, sadly, but the chapter on its near neighbours in the former Yugoslavia with its ethnic and political tensions was particularly interesting.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Don Stone:The Holcaust An Unfinished History.

This is an important book ,IMO.Certainly not always an easy read though.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Reading Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. It's no Tess (No book is) but still top drawer and at times like an 19th century episode of Jeremy Kyle.

 

[Floval Flyer]