Jump to content

Recommended Posts

I really enjoyed The Secret History so would recommend a read - it's a bit slow to get going but worth persevering. I just finished Johnny Come Home by Jake Arnott which was ace. Am about to start Istanbul Memories Of A City by Orhan Pamuk. Will let you know!

Ah shambles, I also recently purchased Pamuk's Istanbul book, but the others in the pile have been read first (books on Cuba, as we were going), so yet to start.


Keef, Kevin is dark indeed, and puts a whole new perspective on parenting, for the non parent.


Louisiana

Back to the dickens / eastenders / illustrations - am quite a fan of george cruikshank, who did the illustrations for oliver twist, which were generally said to have done more for making the story a success than the writing.


If anyone is after a blend of Dickens / Hardy and Milan Kundera, I'd recommend some Ford Madox Ford - accepted as the first author to 'start in the middle and move backwards and forwards' and the inventor of the 'impressionist' style.


His novels are mainly set during WW1 and have a very victorian feel to them, but written in a modern way. Parade's end which is pretty collosal, but for a lighter read, go for 'The Good Soldier' - definitely one of my favourtie books! His main issue was trying to get rid of the rigid victorian formulas discussed a bit further up on the thread.


Am pretty sure i have copies of both if anyone is interested.

I agree Secret History and We need to talk about Kevin are both great.

I just read Stef Penny- The tenderness of Wolves which was fantastic.


And if you like Iain M Banks sci fi, which I do....then you HAVE to try 'Perdido St Station' and 'The Scar' by China Mieville.

Rocking good Sci Fi.

We have a book club going in ED. Not terribly formal or intellectual. We tend to drink a lot of wine and discuss who would best play the parts if they made a film of the book. But good books we have read recently include:


Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenberger

Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Go Between by LP Hartley

We haven't actually been there with ours yet, but def could be a potential venue for a future meeting. Generally end up in someone's house or garden in the summer or the Bishop!


Yes Time traveller was excellent. really different and read yesterday in the Standard that they are indeed making a film of it so we were ahead of the game in our book club!

Have you seen this. Its a website that coordinates - "bookcrossing" (n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.) East Dulwich is registered as a bookcrossing zone but it seems there's only one book on the loose at the moment. Maybe we should take up the practice (especailly with those doubles we end up with)

Hi B-Nan,

I mentioned BookCrossing earlier up the thread. I've been doing it for a few years. I left a book on the round bench outside the hairdresser's in D Village and saw someone eyeing it, but it has never been officially 'found'. It's really good when someone finds a book you've left and logs in to tell you. Nero

I think any one of our cafes would be good. Try a place where not too many people are there. Brits feel awkward if they see a book with a 'pick me up!' sticker on it and other people are perhaps watching them. If it is a nice day, a bench in Peckham Rye Park or Dulwich Park would be good. Register on Bookcrossing.com. Nero

Agree with praise of the Time Travellers Wife...read that for the third time recently and you just keep finding out more and more.


Mr Lush....I think I know your identity!! The Tolstoy gave it away. Am waiting to read Steve's book and the "can he hold his head up" comment meant is it any good. Unbiased critique please!!!:))

  • 3 weeks later...

capt_birdseye Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I can currently be seen on the train to London

> Bridge reading a copy of The Kite Runner. It's

> very enjoyable (the book, not the train).



Just finished The Kite Runner. What a powerful read, I was sobbing. Very good book.(tu)

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • Hello! I would be keen to hear from parents of secondary-school age in state schools of the cost of school trips overseas. Particularly interested in Kingsdale and Charter but all examples welcome. many thanks!
    • Or the government have it wrong. Certainly picking a fight with farmers, the very definition of working people, is probably not going to end well. The problem here is that Labour hung their hat on not taxing "working people" which was clearly the output of some awful focus group and clearly not the term they wanted to use. They failed to properly qualify what a working person is and it is now coming back to haunt them because the very definition of a working person is anyone who is, well, working and that covers a whole gamut of people and salaries. Don't pick a fight with farmers if you have stated you aren't going after working people because public opinion will be against you. Farmers are the backbone of any country and work so hard and yes, there are some that are incredibly well off but the majority are not and farming is a trade that gets handed down through the generations. And farmers will make their case very public in ways other groups won't.   Labour's communication has been awful but they got a free pass before the election because everyone was so focused on how awful the Tories were. But now they are in power and they are tripping themselves up because in leadership you need more than soundbites.   The "Son of a Toolmaker" is the type of thing that haunts politicians until the end of their career. Clearly someone decided to detach Keir from his grammar school, university (including Oxford), legal career, knight of the realm background. His face when everyone laughed when he mentioned it during one of the pre-election debates was a picture. He is the son of a toolmaker but you look a bit silly when people then say yes but your dad ran a tool-making company...   Coming into power on a ticket of "look how they have been behaving" and then behaving in many ways the Tories were has been a disaster for politicians of all parties. The clothing funding and access to no.10 was just a nightmare for them and in these days where today's newspaper is no longer tomorrow's chip paper the comments made about Trump (which I am sure most people can agree with) are just embarrassing.   Winter Fuel Tax has been a disaster. Yes, there are many pensioners who don't need it but those aren't going to be the ones talking to the media about how awful the winter is going to be and people only remember those shouting the loudest.   The budget was an interesting one. I was watching Theo Pathitis on TV and he had swung from the Tories to Labour ahead of the election and was talking about the impact of the Employer NI and you could tell that he was very carefully choosing his words as he knew how hard this was going to be on business and what the implications are but clearly didn't want to be left with egg on his face as he was telling everyone to vote Labour ahead of the election.   Labour were, understandably, happy to right the massive wave of Tory discontent and pre-election all of the world's ills were down to the Tories. The first speech Starmer gave after winning spoke nothing about the previous government but everything about global challenges that were going to make it tough. The challenge for Labour is they convinced people that every problem was down to the Tories and that removing them would solve everything but things are not as straight forward as that. I senses things changing when they announced the 22bn blackhole and many people said...but 9bn of that are based on decisions you made in relation to public sector pay rises. Labour are finding out, to their cost, that being in opposition is easy. Being in power is not.          
    • Adsl over copper is not obsolete, these are lines that are fed on exchange only and are still being installed now and will be for foreseeable, they are being changed to sotap which is basically no dial tone and will be voice over internet 
    • Russia is the aggressor.they did have a second rate army most of it gone.why is putin so deluded .in that Russia can use chinese  Iranian  north Korean missiles drones to attack unkraine civilians city's energy facilties.they have escalated the war  by using north Korean soldiers in combat.but putting saids you are not allowed to fight back using other country's weapons in Russia long range missiles.unkraine have proved they are no push over.give them all the long range missiles they want to hit in side Russia hard .
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...