I fall asleep after my 3rd mug of Vodka.
The trick is not to pour the 1st one too early.
Equally for the 1st time in decades Iām sleeping 9 or 10 hours a night.
I rationed the last Lee Child Reacher novel Blue Moon but finished it a couple of weeks ago.
Now randomly pulling books out the packing crate.
Just finished the not very Tom Clancy Against all Enemies, Killing Floor next then that African Detective Agency thing. Randomness is probably best.
Yeah no English bookshops in Krakow & tight budgets mean making do.
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I just finished āSomeone Like Meā by MJ Carey. Heās the guy who wrote āThe Girl With All the Giftsā which was f##king excellent and Iām happy to say āSomeone Like Meā is just as good if you like slow burn psychological thriller with paranormal aspects
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Been waiting for the final installment to come out. Thatāll be my next book too.
As a very slow reader, itād take me a year to re-read the first two. That said, itāll also take a while to get up to speed with her āauthenticā dialogue so perhaps a dip in to the second book might be an idea.
A big shout out to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. A quite amazing book that I read during last yearās election. It lays the case for socialism and is set against the struggle of workers at the beginning of the last century.
I was struck by how current the political observations still were and can only imagine that it will become even more relevant as we get deeper into the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Read it.
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Taking into account your serious reading disability, as a friend Iām really proud of how you persevere despite so many things against you.
Genuinely I think you deserve a very big āwell doneā. Well done.
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Iām reading Camus at the moment(cheers @Scotty), but itās next in the to read pile. Had a quick read of the first chapter when it turned up, as was concerned about the writing style(because of date written) but it reads well(the little iāve seen).
Might be time to claim some of the free(?) money and catch up on some reading.
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Iām reading Winstons War (again, easy reading) and also Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.
Iāve just finished āThe Ruinsā by Mat Osmanā¦his first novel. Mat is Suedeās Bass player. Not really a glowing recommendation in itself youād think but Matās background gives him an interesting insight into the music business in which this murder mystery is set.
For a first novel Mat has an unexpected elegant, easy to read style and for someone like me who has a short attention span to read it in three weeks itās an almost couldnāt put it down book.
I found the music business setting much to my liking and for most of the regulars here who also enjoy the music of the last 50 years, there is much here to keep you absorbed.
This is a bit of a lazy review so Iāll copy and paste the synopsis to whet your appetite:
āWhen Adam Kussgartenās twin brother is found gunned down just yards from his flat, Adam is drawn out of his solitary, dream-like life into a neon-lit world of forgery, deceit and violence. The Ruins is the story of twin brothers - Adam and Brandon - who havenāt spoken for decades, When Brandon is found gunned down just streets from Adamās flat, Brandonās girlfriend enlists Adam to find out what he was doing there and who killed him. Shy, stuttering Adam finds himself caught up in his brotherās world of deception, violence and forgery. As things turn increasingly dark and his entanglements with his brotherās family grow, heās faced with a choice of whether to dive deeper into Brandonās world and risk losing himself, or turning his back on his future.ā
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Heās Richard Osmanās brother.
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Razzle (Vintage 1983)
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Books Iāve enjoyed this year:
Feast: Food that Celebrates Life - Nigella Lawson
Starve Acre - Andrew Michael Hurley
Pine - Francine Toon
Days Without End - Sebastian Barry
Botchan - Natsume Soseki
Underland: A Deep Time Journey - Robert McFarlane
The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Dark Lies The Island - Kevin Barry
City of Bohane - Kevin Barry
Night Boat to Tangier - Kevin Barry
Bad Behaviour - Mary Gaitskill
Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss
The Vegetarian: A Novel -Han Kang
Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
Strange Hotel - Eimear McBride
The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland - Nan Shepherd
Ash Before Oak - Jeremy Cooper
The Scramble For Africa - Thomas Pakenham
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - William Dalrymple
The Unwomanly Face of War- Svetlana Alexievich
Not really reading, but I am starting to work my way through the Expanse audiobooks. Iāve gone a bit Expanse mad recently, so listening to the books and getting all the extra texture and fireworks really isnāt a chore.
Theyāre written like Game of Thrones in that each chapter is a point of view of one character. Iām getting through them faster than they got through Ring space 
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Is this something I should hold back from until the tv series is done - eventually - or just jump in no matter how it fucks up my understanding of characters from the tv series ?
Depends on the person.
Iām personally of the view that I donāt want anyone else spoiling the plot for me, but I have no problem scooting through the books.
Iām not one of these people that minds about changes in an adaptation either. As long as the spirit of the thing is not lost, Iām down.
On book seven of the Expanse.
I wonāt spoil the content, but I will say that if you thought weād seen the peak of holy shit moments on the show, weāve not seen nothing yet.
I will also say that the present run of the TV series ending at Season 6 doesnāt mean it is over. There is a big time jump between books 6 and 7, and itās used fucking wonderfully.
Told you theyre worth reading!
TBF someone is reading them to himā¦
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Buck off Iām flind
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I am very impressed with how much of it stays relevant. The stuff in the seventh book, which I am almost done on, is a great example. Every bit of it is a consequence of everything else that has gone on.
I know thatās pretty common in a long running book series, but its the way theyāve employed those possibilities. I really hope they do that part of the story on TV when the time is right.
The stuff so far on telly has been excellent, but itās a mere appetiser for shit that went down in this book, and Iām guessing the next two too.
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The madness of crowds by Douglas Murray.