What are you reading?

[ChezGiven 0]

Transition by Iain Banks

[Guest alex]

The Imagination of the Heart by the brilliant Barry Gifford.

[SloopJohn 0]

Dostoevsky - The Idiot

 

A good read so far although It does occasionally sidetrack to fill in the gaps.

 

sidetrack to fill in the gaps?

[Tom 14013]

e.g he changes the narrative perspective.

 

So he'll go from 3rd person to direct narration to talk about the past exploits of certain characters. He does it in 'Notes from the Underground' too.

[SloopJohn 0]

he does it in nearly all his novels which is why i think his works have such fantastic psychological depth - in 3rd person we see the sole actions of the characters which expresses their inner world (the passage about the girl and the beaten donkey in The Idiot is a good example) but then in those furious moments of impassioned drama, which Dostoevsky is so fond of, by shifting the narrative to 1st person, he is able to totally immerse us in the 'moment' (the murder in Crime & Punishment comes to mind).

 

enough pseuding anyway

[Tom 14013]

I know what purpose it serves I just think a better writer would've avoided it.

 

[SloopJohn 0]

[Tom 14013]

Have you read 'Notes From The House of the Dead'?

 

That's my favourite from Dostoevsky.

 

It made bad days better in the sense it told me what a bad day really was.

[Park Life 71]

Brave new world/ 1984.

[donaldstott 0]

Steig Larsson - The Girl who kicked the hornets nest.

 

Third in an excellent trilogy, can't wait for his next work...

[wykikitoon 20758]

Feet in the Clouds: A Story of Fell Running & Obsession

 

Awesome

[LeazesMag 0]

Cold Kill - Stephen Leather

[Park Life 71]

What do people see in Murakami?

[The Fish 10972]

Neil Gaiman - American Gods

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

Blue Blood - Edward Conlan

[Guest alex]

What do people see in Murakami?

Ryu's alright like

[Ayatollah Hermione 14059]

Then We Came to The End - Joshua Ferris

 

Very good comedy debut by an American writer about the lives of a group of office workers as they cope with lay-offs, odd jobs and each other. It's very understated and a lot of the comedy comes from the little idiosyncracies that pop up in these relatively normal people. I got it for a quid in a charity shop so it's been a bargain really.

[Happy Face 29]

Books on maths, cookery and music have been nominated for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.

 

Alex's Adventures In Numberland, Alex Bellos's attempt to demystify maths, is one of 19 titles on the longlist.

 

It is joined by The Music Instinct, a study of the brain's response to Lady Gaga and Bach, and Catching Fire, which examines cooking's role in evolution.

 

The eventual winner receives £20,000 at a ceremony in July. The shortlist of six titles will be decided in mid-May.

 

BBC Radio 4's Today programme host Evan Davis, who is chairing the judging panel, praised the "unusual and eclectic" books on the longlist.

 

"It is particularly gratifying that our selection demonstrates the worldliness of good non-fiction writing, with books that take us from China and India, to Africa and the Arctic."

 

 

Full list of nominees

 

2010 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE LONGLIST

 

• The Music Instinct - Philip Ball

 

• Alex's Adventures in Numberland - Alex Bellos

 

• Whole Earth Discipline - Stewart Brand

 

• Making Haste from Babylon - Nick Bunker

 

• Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - William Dalrymple

 

• Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick

 

• Country Driving - Peter Hessler

 

• The Secret Lives of Buildings - Edward Hollis

 

• Blood Knots - Luke Jennings

 

• Family Britain 1951 - 1957 - David Kynaston

 

• On Roads - Joe Moran

 

• When Skateboards Will Be Free - Said Sayrafiezadeh

 

• Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to save Wall Street - Andrew Ross Sorkin

 

• Burying the Bones - Hilary Spurling

 

• The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Frances Stoner Saunders

 

• A Gambling Man - Jenny Uglow

 

• Dreams in a Time of War - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

 

• The Magnetic North - Sara Wheeler

 

• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham

 

Other works to be selected include Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, described by the Huffington Post as the "closest we'll ever get to being a fly on the wall during [the] financial crisis".

 

Sorkin had unprecedented access to senior Wall Street executives during the crisis, conducting over 500 hours of interviews covering everything from the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the bank bailout.

 

Frances Stonor Saunders is also nominated for The Woman Who Shot Mussolini, which details a failed assassination attempt on the former Italian leader by Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Violet Gibson, who believed she was acting on orders from God.

 

Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o is also noted for his memoir Dreams In A Time Of War, which recounts his experiences of growing up under British rule.

 

Judges also recognised Whole Earth Discipline, Stewart Brand's impassioned plea for the environmental movement to ditch 1960s idealism and embrace new ideas.

 

Last year's winner was Philip Hoare, who turned his lifelong fascination with whales into the acclaimed work Leviathan Or The Whale.

 

Alongside Davis, this year's judging panel includes executive editor of The Times Daniel Finkelstein, Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley, historian Stella Tillyard, and science journalist, author and broadcaster Roger Highfield.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/a...ure/8636011.stm

Edited April 22, 2010 by Happy Face

[Renton 22004]

I haven't read any of them. Who gets time to read any more anyway?

[Guest alex]

That Alex Bellos? Is he the bloke who wrote the book about Brazilian 'futebol'? Class book that.

[Meenzer 15731]

Then We Came to The End - Joshua Ferris

 

Very good comedy debut by an American writer about the lives of a group of office workers as they cope with lay-offs, odd jobs and each other. It's very understated and a lot of the comedy comes from the little idiosyncracies that pop up in these relatively normal people. I got it for a quid in a charity shop so it's been a bargain really.

 

Agree with the review, and that's how I got hold of the book too. Apparently anything that was featured on the Richard and Judy Book Club is fair game for easy charity shop pickings these days...

[SloopJohn 0]

Books on maths, cookery and music have been nominated for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.

 

Alex's Adventures In Numberland, Alex Bellos's attempt to demystify maths, is one of 19 titles on the longlist.

 

It is joined by The Music Instinct, a study of the brain's response to Lady Gaga and Bach, and Catching Fire, which examines cooking's role in evolution.

 

The eventual winner receives £20,000 at a ceremony in July. The shortlist of six titles will be decided in mid-May.

 

BBC Radio 4's Today programme host Evan Davis, who is chairing the judging panel, praised the "unusual and eclectic" books on the longlist.

 

"It is particularly gratifying that our selection demonstrates the worldliness of good non-fiction writing, with books that take us from China and India, to Africa and the Arctic."

 

 

Full list of nominees

 

2010 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE LONGLIST

 

• The Music Instinct - Philip Ball

 

• Alex's Adventures in Numberland - Alex Bellos

 

• Whole Earth Discipline - Stewart Brand

 

• Making Haste from Babylon - Nick Bunker

 

• Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - William Dalrymple

 

• Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick

 

• Country Driving - Peter Hessler

 

• The Secret Lives of Buildings - Edward Hollis

 

• Blood Knots - Luke Jennings

 

• Family Britain 1951 - 1957 - David Kynaston

 

• On Roads - Joe Moran

 

• When Skateboards Will Be Free - Said Sayrafiezadeh

 

• Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to save Wall Street - Andrew Ross Sorkin

 

• Burying the Bones - Hilary Spurling

 

• The Woman Who Shot Mussolini - Frances Stoner Saunders

 

• A Gambling Man - Jenny Uglow

 

• Dreams in a Time of War - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

 

• The Magnetic North - Sara Wheeler

 

• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham

 

Other works to be selected include Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, described by the Huffington Post as the "closest we'll ever get to being a fly on the wall during [the] financial crisis".

 

Sorkin had unprecedented access to senior Wall Street executives during the crisis, conducting over 500 hours of interviews covering everything from the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the bank bailout.

 

Frances Stonor Saunders is also nominated for The Woman Who Shot Mussolini, which details a failed assassination attempt on the former Italian leader by Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Violet Gibson, who believed she was acting on orders from God.

 

Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o is also noted for his memoir Dreams In A Time Of War, which recounts his experiences of growing up under British rule.

 

Judges also recognised Whole Earth Discipline, Stewart Brand's impassioned plea for the environmental movement to ditch 1960s idealism and embrace new ideas.

 

Last year's winner was Philip Hoare, who turned his lifelong fascination with whales into the acclaimed work Leviathan Or The Whale.

 

Alongside Davis, this year's judging panel includes executive editor of The Times Daniel Finkelstein, Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley, historian Stella Tillyard, and science journalist, author and broadcaster Roger Highfield.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/a...ure/8636011.stm

 

picked up a copy of this the other day after my friends dad recommended it to me as i really know nowt about the financial crisis, it's a hefty book though, it's not even 500 pages but it looks like 1000.

[SloopJohn 0]

Have you read 'Notes From The House of the Dead'?

 

That's my favourite from Dostoevsky.

 

It made bad days better in the sense it told me what a bad day really was.

 

no I've not! I've got to read it for my Masters next year though. Yeah, penal servitude in Siberia was brutal, utterly brutal, I'm quite amazed that anyone complains about anything nowadays knowing what people went through purely because they held revisionist beliefs.

 

you should read Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes - fantastic book on the evolution of Russian culture from the foundation of St. Petersburg to the Stalin era.

[Park Life 71]

Have you read 'Notes From The House of the Dead'?

 

That's my favourite from Dostoevsky.

 

It made bad days better in the sense it told me what a bad day really was.

 

no I've not! I've got to read it for my Masters next year though. Yeah, penal servitude in Siberia was brutal, utterly brutal, I'm quite amazed that anyone complains about anything nowadays knowing what people went through purely because they held revisionist beliefs.

 

you should read Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes - fantastic book on the evolution of Russian culture from the foundation of St. Petersburg to the Stalin era.

 

Have you got a sort of your top 20 fiction you'd like to post up here mate?

[Guest alex]

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike - Philip K. Dick. Just about two-thirds of the way through this. I've read a few of his non-sci-fi novels now and he really should be up there with the likes of Richard Yates and Sinclair Lewis as someone able to capture the darker side of the American dream. Top stuff.

[Park Life 71]

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike - Philip K. Dick. Just about two-thirds of the way through this. I've read a few of his non-sci-fi novels now and he really should be up there with the likes of Richard Yates and Sinclair Lewis as someone able to capture the darker side of the American dream. Top stuff.

 

Can't believe he was living on pet food.