Book Corner.

Sue192 said:

I've read quite a few of the Roy Grace books too, and the Tom Thorne series. Slightly different from the world-weary flawed 'tec are the Cooper & Fry books by Stephen Booth, about 16 of them, and well worth a read. These are set in the Peak District and he conjures up the bleakness and beauty of the area well. I recently attended a talk by him and he asked this question of the audience: "put up your hand if you honestly feel you could never murder someone." Out of around 30 only two put their hands up (me not being one!). Apparently only one or two hands is the norm. Makes you think.....

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Thanks, I've had a look at his web site. I'll try and get hold of a copy of Black Dog, which appears to be the first in the series. I live not too far from The Peak District and have visited on a number of occasions.
I read a Peter Robinson book recently (Inspector Banks) that was based in Derbyshire I think. (Just found out that he died earlier this year.)
Murder, mmmm. My wife ran an amateur psychology group. On one occasion she asked how people would change their behaviour if they only have 3 weeks left to live. A really mild-mannered, quiet chap of about 70 said, 'there's someone I would kill.' Rather took the shine off the get-together!

Just finished Angela Marsden latest crime thriller. Seventh in Det Kim Stone series.
Really good.

I'm now back reading the Diana Gabaldon series because I havent been to the library and picked up the Last Tudor by Phillipa Gregory.

I do have other books reserved but as you can appreciate its first come, first served hence going back to a series I started reading last year as a fill in.

I tried reading Wilbur Smith again the Tiger's Prey but couldnt get my head around it so will leave it until another day when I'm perhaps finding it a bit easier.

I started reading Artemis by Andy Weir

Finally picked up Last Tudor by Phillipa Gregory.

And also picked up a couple of Penny Vincenzi novels from the library - guess what I'll be doing over Christmas? Yep drinking, eating and reading as I guess there wont be much on tv worth watching

Just finished 'Walking with ghosts' by Larry Hyndman.

Starting 'Children of Time' by Adrian Tsychovsky.

Both recommended time travel (ish) novels.

Guzzler said:

After listening to a couple of fifteen minute episodes of 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro (severely abridged but narrated very well) on Radio 4 I decided not to listen to more episodes and buy the book instead.
After reading his 'Remains of the Day' I was expecting a good read and havn't been disappointed so far, though I'm only a few chapters in. Set in a 1990s dystopian England and telling the tale of the three protagonists from childhood in a boarding school to adulthood in the 'real' world. It is so intriguing, a real page turner that speaks of the relationships and dynamics of the group and the personality traits of individuals and their impacts on each other.
Can hardly wait to unravel the mysteries that Kathy, Tommy and Ruth live through. I do hope it has a satisfactory ending, I dislike one that leaves you thinking 'Whut! What was that all about?'.

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Brilliant book - and it was made into a very fine film a few years ago, with Keira Knightly, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield playing the three central characters.

I have said this before but I was at the University of Kent at the same time as Kazuo Ishiguro. I didn't know him, though one of my friends did, but I am inordinately proud of the fact that I was at Uni with a Nobel Prize winner

I didnt read the Last Tudor, it was too similar to another book I'd already read so

I'm reading The Dilemma by Penny Vincenzi. Interesting so far but we shall see as my concentration seems to be waning.

Guzzler said:

Well, I I finished the book. My first thought afterward was that I really don't understand how some people go through their whole adult lives without reading books for education or pleasure.
I once asked a non reader this question and her reply was that she could never imagine the characters, what they looked like or sounded like or their surroundings and she much preferred films for that reason. This confused me even more because how, when the words are there to convey it, can you not immerse yourself?

The book has a great ending because it ties in, it then 'completes'.

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I absolutely agree. Although most people cite The Remains of the Day as their favourite, I actually think this is a better book

About 40% of the population either never, or very seldom, buy a book, maybe because they don't have any imagination or maybe because they don't have the stamina. Whatever the reason, I feel profoundly sorry for them.

Guzzler said:

Have you read all of Ishiguro's books? If so, which would you recommend I read next?

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I have read them all. The trouble with books is that they're such an individual thing - one person's meat is another's poison and all that - but I have always enjoyed something in each of his novels, although his most recent book, the Buried Giant, is a kind of Sword and Sorcery novel, which isn't my favourite genre. My other personal favourite of his is An Artist of the Floating World, so you might like to give that a try.

If you're into Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzz, he has also written lyrics for the singer, Stacey Kent.

Guzzler said:

I like a book to grab me by the throat and try to throttle me, I think it centres my concentration a bit but then, I'm weird like that

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oh it's nothing like that - I have bipolar affective disorder so I lose concentration when I'm building to a hyper mood. Normal service will be resumed in about a week

If nobody minds me turning to a different category of book I have just finished reading D-Day through German Eyes, Book 1 and Book 2. My father served on board HMS Frobisher which was among the support ships on D-Day. Frobisher was moored alongside HMS Roberts as part of the mass of ships whose job was to pulverize the German defences for the Allied troops to land. These two books originated when a journalist interviewed a number of soldiers on the northern French coast, who were to be the defenders in the event of a landing by the Allies, for a German military magazine. The journalist, Dieter Eckhertz, didn't get the interviews published before that historic day, June 6, 1944. After the war he decided to track down the soldiers he had interviewed to ask them about their experiences on D-Day and in the days and following. He was able to find a good many of them and he got their stories down verbatim. Unfortunately, he died before he could carry the work out and the interviews eventually came into possession of his grandson, Holger Eckhertz, who edited them and linked them together into two books. These two volumes, as far as I know, are the first to give an account of the landings from the German soldiers' experiences.
If you've read The Longest Day or any of the other histories of that momentous event, you will have gained an insight into the mindsets of individual Allied soldiers, the planning and the decision making, but all of it from the Allied point of view. D-Day through German Eyes are books that are shattering in their rawness. The descriptions of new weapons developed by the Allies which I hadn't known were used that early are amazing in their effective but brutal way. One of them sounds like an early version of napalm. Another piece of information I gleaned from these pages was the sheer jaw dropping shock the German soldiers experienced as the early morning fog dispersed and they saw for the first time the thousands of ships moored off those Normandy beaches. One of them confesses that he realised the war was lost for them when he saw the immense numbers of ships and landing craft that had assembled without them knowing about it. They stretched from horizon to horizon as far as the eye could see.
For a different viewpoint on this turning point in World War II, these books are a must read - they certainly expanded my knowledge of D-Day.
These books can be downloaded or ordered in paperback format from Kindle.