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Monday 31 March 2014

My month of reading

Many books started and paused, but also many read though to the end this month. Not in any particular order.

'All in the Mind' - Alastair Campbell. Ironically picked up in Headway charity shop  A crackling start with an interesting character structure. I admire his use of words.

'Warwick' - Tony Riches. A book review read - as not really my period of history reading. Easy educational read although I found out afterwards Richard Neville is quite a controversial character.

'Lily's daughter' - Diana Raymond.   A recommendation, again not my kind of book but a useful read for writing purposes.

'Flying Cats and Flip Flops' - Paul Johnson. Another recommended read.  Not really sure why I read this to the end.

J G Ballard's Biography and his book 'Kingdom Come'. Both worth a read. Interesting history as a writer.

Michael Morpurgo's biography with seven short stories. A good presentation and corrected my erroneous view his marriage to Penguin founder's daughter must have helped in his publishing success.

'Empire of the Clouds' A nostalgic look at post war British military aviation. 

However the best read of the month, still in progress, is Angela Macmillan's anthology 'A Little Aloud' A delightful book with the selection of stories providing great entertainment and examples of excellent writing and story telling.

Alexander

 


Monday 17 March 2014

Not well read

Gary Smailes has drawn our attention to a web site of book listings and a BBC contention that few readers will have read more than 6 to 10% of the books in the lists.

On checking the claim appears pretty accurate for us even with film versions added in.



Many part reads Bible and Shakespeare

Wild Swans

Jaws

Birdsong

Ian McEwan features

Many titles we have started but not completed

Also viewing an interesting reflection on the subject of  cover design although many of the covers shown are quite old

An interesting web site

Allrighters

Friday 7 March 2014

Reading update


A response to Mary Tod's winter reading list on www.awriterofhistory.com
 
"Old habits of a figure’s engineer die hard. I keep a SS for all my reading to chart different genres and split between my fiction and nonfiction reading. 2014 is an interesting reading year so far. The Railwayman by Eric Lomax led to five other books about the Burma Railway and war with Japan including The Prisoners List. This book an excellent factual background written by a son Reuben supported by quotations from his father, Ben who was a prisoner of Japan.  On all the recent film awards the awful events still remain part of a forgotten war, although I see the Railwayman Book has topped UK non fiction best seller charts in January 2014. Also related fiction Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng and J G Ballard’s biography and Kingdom Come his dystopian book. The latter has poor reviews, but I liked the theme of the story all very memorable and frightening. 

Robert Wilson’s A Small Death in Lisbon as well as being a good read gave me help in structuring ideas for books over two timeframes. Kiss me first by Lottie Moggach a great idea, but too long and I found hard to read. Tom Cain Assassin probably a better book than I found it to read. The Yellow Birds by Kevin Power a disturbing book about modern warfare, almost a biography. Abomination Jonathan Holt – yawn. 

Various books about self and e book publishing and how to write also started, but they are hardly page turners. 

Current delightful reading - Little Aloud and a wonderful read - Michael Morpurgo’s biography structured nicely with a Maggie Fergusson telling his life story and Michael contributes seven stories. Even he had some awful rejection letters as a writer and apart from marriage cash did not benefit from Penguin from writing as I thought he did.

Books by Bernard Cornwall, Hanif Kureishi and Diana Gabaldon and book The Sky Wept Fire started but put down.

Most books I find too long … a bit like this post you will no doubt say!"

Alexander