What is East Dulwich reading today?

[Brendan]

Let?s not get too highbrow here. I?m reading a comic. Frank Miller?s Sin City vol. 5 which is one of the stories out of the film, the one involving Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba.

Well that and a book on Thomas Steer the engineer who built Liverpool?s first dock but that?s for work so it doesn?t really count.

[giggirl]

Today I'm reading American Vogue and planning all the things I would buy if only I was thin

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I confess to reading "The Tiptoe Boys" by Ken Follett when I couldn't sleep last night.

[Jah Lush]

I've started reading Joe Keenan's Blue Heaven. Very funny, got me laughing out loud.

[Brendan]

I laughed out loud on the train this morning reading Dance of the Voodoo Handbag by Robert Rankin (my all time favourite author). I think this lady thought I was laughing at her as she gave me a dirty look. Not the good sort either.

Couldn?t help it when in a half asleep kind of daze the dialogue;

?Have you been drinking??

?No of course not!?

?Well you should. I do.?

Made its way into my consciousness. (It needs to be in context to be really funny but I?m not typing out 2 pages here)

[capt_birdseye]

I'm reading Imperium by Robert Harris, a dramatisation of the political life of Cicero. It was made all the more poignant for me this morning as I was reading it on the train whilst stood opposite the actor who played the part of Brutus in the recent TV series "Rome" (don't know his name, sorry Brutus, et tu Birdseye etc).

[david_carnell]

Capt_birdseye, I always assumed you were a fella but have noticed a young lady reading this on my train for the last couple of days. Could it be you per chance or are the commuters of Peckham Rye station obsessed with the re-telling of the classics?

[capt_birdseye]

She's not me. I'm a rugged old seaman who gets on at ED. "Obsessed" may be pushing it a bit, but it's a good and fun easy read, better than other Robert Harris books I've read before (Archangel and Fatherland, both of which had good build ups but crappy endings).

[mockney piers]

Blimey, page 15?!

Anyway, reading World War Z that I picked up at Euston on the way to Ireland.

Not quite sure why I picked it up, but so glad I did. So far removed from what you might expect about a book covering the apocalyptic events of the zombie Virus and mankind's 10 year struggle for survival. It's presented as a series of interviews by a journalist with surviviors the world over a decade after the end of the zombie war (please don't laugh).

It's in turns witty, dark, clever, human and so so insightful regards today's society and just how specialised it is and how unprepared it is to cope with any form of societal collapse. Think of it as a parable regards oil/climate change/the next pandemic if you will.

Well worth a read even if you've never read a horror/sci-fi novel in your life.

[Strawbs]

Im reading two books at the moment.. I always used to hear people say you could read two books at one but I didnt believe it but weeehay look at me since joining book club Im now reading two! My non book club book is Nineteen Minutes and my book club books is (which Ive only just started literally this morning) The Gathering

[david_carnell]

Catch-22 - based on MP deciding he'd like to be Yossarian and me realising I never finished it the first time I read it (or tried to).

So far, so good.

Just before that I read the 4th novel by Charles Cumming - a young Scottish writer of spy/espionage thrillers. His first three were great and this proved even better. His depictions of foreign lands are second-to-none imo. You might like his third book MP - it's set in Madrid for the most part.

Anyway, if you like Le Carre and all that stuff rather than Clancy et al give him a try. Start with Spy By Nature and finish up with Typhoon (which is the one I've just finished). I can lend people any of them except the first one which I've lost if they're interested.

[VeryBerryCherry]

I have a book in every room and in every handbag.

Right now I am in the living room and reading, "Who's afraid of Feminism" Feminist essays edited by Ann Oakley and Juliet Mitchell.

I think I need to lighten up and move to another room...

[mockney piers]

I'd be glad to give it a go D_C.

Le Carre is hit and miss for me, well since the end of the cold war at any rate, Smiley books and A Perfect Spy are as good as it gets however.

Clancy's been miss and miss for me for a long time, in fact won't go near one of his ever again. I think he's found his niche 'writing' computer game political backdrops which seem to inevitably start with "A Rogue ex-Soviet Republic....blah yadda ping"

[Guest]

Mrs Craddock by W Somerset Maugham. Interesting insight into life for a certain class of people, who he believed soon disappeared, at the end of the 19C, yet in some ways feels surprisingly modern to me. WSM vg for turn-of-the-century period detail.

[Marmora Man]

Re reading Birdsong - it remains as good as the first time I read it. Strong, erotic scenes are counterpoised with stark realities of trench life and death in WW1.

[Ant]

Starting on Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth again. Read it many years ago when I was, I think, too young to appreciate it properly. Can't remember a thing about it. I'm sure lots of it went over my head back then. Am expecting to enjoy it much more this time round. So far, so good.

[TillieTrotter]

I did just that at the beginning of the year MM. What a fantastic book, remains one of my all time favourites.

[macroban]

Ordnance Survey map, one inch, 1925 edition, sheet 124, "Guildford and Horsham"

The damage we have wrought is staggering.

[indiepanda]

I always have a book on the go (if there's any spaces left in any of the bookclubs in ED please let me know :-).

Currently I am reading Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka. In the last week I've read Sepulcure by Kate Mosse, Wish You Were Here by Mike Gayle and The Woman in the Fifth by Douglas Kennedy which were all pretty good, though in different ways.

Generally I read a mix of modern fiction, chick lit, crime, travel, occasional bio and the odd psychology / management type book.

Hard to pick a favourite writer, there's lots I will automatically buy everything they write, which does create one or two storage issues... If it weren't for the occasionl charity shop purge I would have a job to get through the front door.

[PeckhamRose]

This is indeed an interesting thread and just as I like to get music recommendations from a music forum I subscribe to, I shall start reading books recommended by the good folks on here.

I have a pile I need to get through including the 25th anniversary edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but currently on the go am reading a book of articles published by the British Humanist Association on the politics and philosophy of death, called Thinking About Death (which I do, a lot).

I'm a happy person honest!

[Asset]

I've started Zen and the Art... several times but never managed to finish it, and that's unusual for me. Not sure what it says about the book, or me.

I need a book to take away this week, was thinking of The Book Thief, anyone read that?

[shygirl]

A very odd and disturbing book - Johnny's Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

[luke dogwalker]

The Woods by Harlen Coben

[BJL]

I've been trying to get through Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds Of British Cinema by Matthew Sweet. I - like others, perhaps - was expecting a UK version of Kenneth Anger's two Hollywood Babylon books but it's somewhat less racy.

The recent Radio 4 dramatisation made me pull (Kathrine) Kressmann Taylor's novella Address Unknown it off the shelves to re-read. Chilling and thoroughly recommended.

[TillieTrotter]

Ive got a copy Asset, will dig it out for you.