Whatcha reading?

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:42pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:27pm
Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:18pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 4:56pm
Silent Majority wrote:
29 May 2019, 4:44pm
I find Fry maybe 70% overrated but both are vsry funny.
His novel Making History is kinda fun. It's about killing Hitler and insufferable history grad students (but I repeat myself).
I like all of his novels, but I suppose that must be another difference between NA and UK, it seems like people over there don't really like him anymore but he's pretty popular here with anglophiles.
I've also read The Liar and The Hippopotamus, tho I don't recall much of them. I find his writing tends to be a bit too precious for my tastes, like he's writing for his writing group, trying to impress them.

(Tangentially related, if you've never read Hugh Laurie's novel, The Gun Seller, it's a massively entertaining comedic thriller. Laurie is one of those assholes who is good at everything, including being a genial prick.)
Oh yeah we've talked about the Gun Seller many times. Still awaiting his follow-up, Paper Soldiers, which apparently has been completed for over a decade but is unreleased.
We've talked about it before? Well, I hope I've been consistent in my affection for it. I'd be all over a sequel.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Kory »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:45pm
Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:42pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:27pm
Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:18pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 4:56pm


His novel Making History is kinda fun. It's about killing Hitler and insufferable history grad students (but I repeat myself).
I like all of his novels, but I suppose that must be another difference between NA and UK, it seems like people over there don't really like him anymore but he's pretty popular here with anglophiles.
I've also read The Liar and The Hippopotamus, tho I don't recall much of them. I find his writing tends to be a bit too precious for my tastes, like he's writing for his writing group, trying to impress them.

(Tangentially related, if you've never read Hugh Laurie's novel, The Gun Seller, it's a massively entertaining comedic thriller. Laurie is one of those assholes who is good at everything, including being a genial prick.)
Oh yeah we've talked about the Gun Seller many times. Still awaiting his follow-up, Paper Soldiers, which apparently has been completed for over a decade but is unreleased.
We've talked about it before? Well, I hope I've been consistent in my affection for it. I'd be all over a sequel.
Yeah we discussed it way back when House was still on the air and made a lot of connections between the protagonists. Here's some "info" on the follow-up, though it looks like my info that it was finished was from an disreputable source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Soldier
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 7:00pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:45pm
Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:42pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:27pm
Kory wrote:
29 May 2019, 6:18pm


I like all of his novels, but I suppose that must be another difference between NA and UK, it seems like people over there don't really like him anymore but he's pretty popular here with anglophiles.
I've also read The Liar and The Hippopotamus, tho I don't recall much of them. I find his writing tends to be a bit too precious for my tastes, like he's writing for his writing group, trying to impress them.

(Tangentially related, if you've never read Hugh Laurie's novel, The Gun Seller, it's a massively entertaining comedic thriller. Laurie is one of those assholes who is good at everything, including being a genial prick.)
Oh yeah we've talked about the Gun Seller many times. Still awaiting his follow-up, Paper Soldiers, which apparently has been completed for over a decade but is unreleased.
We've talked about it before? Well, I hope I've been consistent in my affection for it. I'd be all over a sequel.
Yeah we discussed it way back when House was still on the air and made a lot of connections between the protagonists. Here's some "info" on the follow-up, though it looks like my info that it was finished was from an disreputable source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Soldier
"The Paper Soldier is late. Very late. Very very late."
Heh heh.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

29) Stalin Ate My Homework - Alexei Sayle. Kindle. Following hot on the heels of the Blackadder book, where Sayle was a lone voice furious to be surrounded by all those posh college boys. This is a memoir of his childhood, which is usually the part of an autobiography I've got the least patience for. The writer tends to find their childhood innocence and misunderstanding impossibly cute and touching whereas I tend to find every childhood basically the same. Sayle's is different, being brought up by orthodox members of the Communist party in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. He also writes with a minimum of nostalgia and sentimentality. Good read with maybe four laughs. Despite only really finding him funny in the context of the Young Ones, I'm looking forward to getting to the follow up about his time in comedy: Thatcher Ate My Trousers.
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BitterTom
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
02 Jun 2019, 6:54am
29) Stalin Ate My Homework - Alexei Sayle. Kindle. Following hot on the heels of the Blackadder book, where Sayle was a lone voice furious to be surrounded by all those posh college boys. This is a memoir of his childhood, which is usually the part of an autobiography I've got the least patience for. The writer tends to find their childhood innocence and misunderstanding impossibly cute and touching whereas I tend to find every childhood basically the same. Sayle's is different, being brought up by orthodox members of the Communist party in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. He also writes with a minimum of nostalgia and sentimentality. Good read with maybe four laughs. Despite only really finding him funny in the context of the Young Ones, I'm looking forward to getting to the follow up about his time in comedy: Thatcher Ate My Trousers.
Very funny man, especially in the Young Ones like you mentioned. Want to read this desperately.

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

BitterTom wrote:
02 Jun 2019, 4:40pm
Silent Majority wrote:
02 Jun 2019, 6:54am
29) Stalin Ate My Homework - Alexei Sayle. Kindle. Following hot on the heels of the Blackadder book, where Sayle was a lone voice furious to be surrounded by all those posh college boys. This is a memoir of his childhood, which is usually the part of an autobiography I've got the least patience for. The writer tends to find their childhood innocence and misunderstanding impossibly cute and touching whereas I tend to find every childhood basically the same. Sayle's is different, being brought up by orthodox members of the Communist party in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. He also writes with a minimum of nostalgia and sentimentality. Good read with maybe four laughs. Despite only really finding him funny in the context of the Young Ones, I'm looking forward to getting to the follow up about his time in comedy: Thatcher Ate My Trousers.
Very funny man, especially in the Young Ones like you mentioned. Want to read this desperately.
Do you have a reader that can take mobi?
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


www.pexlives.libsyn.com/

BitterTom
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by BitterTom »

Silent Majority wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 2:13am
BitterTom wrote:
02 Jun 2019, 4:40pm
Silent Majority wrote:
02 Jun 2019, 6:54am
29) Stalin Ate My Homework - Alexei Sayle. Kindle. Following hot on the heels of the Blackadder book, where Sayle was a lone voice furious to be surrounded by all those posh college boys. This is a memoir of his childhood, which is usually the part of an autobiography I've got the least patience for. The writer tends to find their childhood innocence and misunderstanding impossibly cute and touching whereas I tend to find every childhood basically the same. Sayle's is different, being brought up by orthodox members of the Communist party in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. He also writes with a minimum of nostalgia and sentimentality. Good read with maybe four laughs. Despite only really finding him funny in the context of the Young Ones, I'm looking forward to getting to the follow up about his time in comedy: Thatcher Ate My Trousers.
Very funny man, especially in the Young Ones like you mentioned. Want to read this desperately.
Do you have a reader that can take mobi?
Not any more sadly. Going to get a copy off Amazon when I'm paid. Certainly got good reviews.

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

30) Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon: Larry Tye. Audiobook. RFK gets a lot of props in the same way a band who never recorded an album does: it's all about the might've been. The majority of his life he lived as an arsehole, in his lasy few years before an assassin's bullet, he brought a centre left aggression to the mainstream that's quite appealing.
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BitterTom
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Took the Rik Mayall sort of autobiography Bigger Than Hitler - Better Than Christ on holiday with me and digging into it. It's written in the style of the obnoxious, self obsessed arsehole characters he plays. If you're not familiar with them, it's pretty much unreadable. It's a bit of a difficult read, some bits hilarious, other times it feels repetitive, and the novelty of him writing about his life in this style wears thin by page 10.

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Silent Majority wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 4:34pm
30) Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon: Larry Tye. Audiobook. RFK gets a lot of props in the same way a band who never recorded an album does: it's all about the might've been. The majority of his life he lived as an arsehole, in his lasy few years before an assassin's bullet, he brought a centre left aggression to the mainstream that's quite appealing.
I may have read this one—can't recall. But you capture the appeal and problem with RFK. His last couple years are notable for growth and questioning of the failing consensus in ways not Nixon or Weatherman. But he has become very much an ink blot. Still, that he identified so much with the underclass, those left out of narrative of postwar success, is why I still regard him highly. There was a great capacity to put aside ideological dogma to think of problems in terms of human consequences and morality. Mind you, that would have hindered him, potentially, from tackling problems that were more systemic, but fuck it, I'll take a guy who genuinely identifies with the marginalized any day of the week.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Bedtime book (starting tonight):
Image
Admittedly, I'm not even remotely well versed in military history, but I was surprised I'd never heard of this. But the premise immediately rings true to me, that Vietnam was a disaster but that doesn't mean the process that led to it was broken, but rather was predicated on assumptions that assured disaster.

Tub book (starting tomorrow):
Image
Third novel from a former classmate (we started at Iowa at the same time; dropped out at the same time; each did a doctorate elsewhere; meanwhile, he's been successful in a lot of areas, including music, so the similarities go only so far). I wasn't keen on his first novel, The Infinite Tides but his second, The Animals was superb.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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I've always wondered how soggy your tub books get, doc.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Flex wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 5:27pm
I've always wondered how soggy your tub books get, doc.
Mrs. Flex, you're trying to seduce me.

(Never ever dropped a book in the tub.)
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Olaf
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Olaf »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 5:04pm
his second, The Animals was superb.
Care to give us the gist?
Who pfaffed the pfaff? Who got pfaffed tonight?

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Olaf wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 6:39pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
03 Jun 2019, 5:04pm
his second, The Animals was superb.
Care to give us the gist?
Very standard noir premise. A man has sought to atone for his youthful criminal past by caring for wounded animals. Then a former friend is released from prison looking for revenge for a betrayal. It's a question of redemption and for whom. I remember telling Christian that it seemed a very GenX novel in its view of whether there can be redemption. I won't say anymore than that.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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