GRcade

Can someone recommend me some books? Looking for quite easy holiday reading, sort of like Ian Rankin, Stephen King level. I'm pretty open to genre.

Rocsteady wrote:Can someone recommend me some books? Looking for quite easy holiday reading, sort of like Ian Rankin, Stephen King level. I'm pretty open to genre.

I've started reading Le Carre's George Smiley books recently which are fantastic.

Rocsteady wrote:Can someone recommend me some books? Looking for quite easy holiday reading, sort of like Ian Rankin, Stephen King level. I'm pretty open to genre.

Stephen King tweeted about this book the other;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XXSVQ9T/ ... J36H&psc=0

I've not read it so I can't comment on it.

I'm currently reading "Children of the Deterrent".

So far so good. It's superhero comic book which isn't a comic book.

Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Stephen King and Owen Kings Sleeping Beuties is a great read if you are looking for something, came out last year and was brilliant.

Cheers lads, will look into each of those and grab a couple of them.

Has anyone read Perdido Street Station by China Miéville? Noticed it after seeing an upcoming BBC series and it looked interesting.

Kavalier and Clay is outstanding.

Rex Kramer wrote:Has anyone read Perdido Street Station by China Miéville? Noticed it after seeing an upcoming BBC series and it looked interesting.

Bought this the other week and it's really quite peculiar. It's quite difficult to pigeonhole into a particular genre, it's fantasy but also Victorian with steampunk and some body horror. It's also very long and the author doesn't use one metaphor when they can cram about 5 into a sentence. But because of this, the text is so evocative and it sets the scene of what is a complex world really vividly.

Further in to Perdido Street Station and it really is very, very good. It's definitely fantasy but like no fantasy I've ever read. It doesn't take the easy Tolkien route for its world, it's truly fantastical. For example, one of the main characters comes from a race of insect/people hybrids where the females have a human body but a scarab beetle for a head whereas the males are just beetles. She's an artist that makes sculptures by excreting and moulding a substance from her head. Like I said, fantastical.

I really like Jennifer Egan novels and have went out of my way to read every one. There are not too many of them, mind. Started with A Visit From the Goon Squad which is maybe my favourite book - I've read it several times. It just resonates with me - particularly some of the chapters (each a sort of short story) during the point in my life I read it. Her other novels are similar in style or tone. Modern/post-modern stories about people. Liked them all a lot.

Recently I've been trying to get into her latest book which was released last year but only about a tenth of the way in I'm bored and confused and thinking of just dropping it. It's more a conventional story and the only one not set in present day (or post 1960s/70s), a 1920s (?) American period drama. It has features of her usual writing but if I had read this not knowing this was Egan I probably wouldn't have thought it was. Normally I can largely breeze through her books but there are parts of this book I just don't understand, partly because I'm not that familiar with the era I guess. Bit disappointing.

Not quite sure what to read next. Been thinking of re-reading the A Song of Fire and Ice series (the next book might be out by the time I do that...maybe), finally reading LoTR (stopped and started Fellowship a few times) or maybe reading some of the Haruki Murakami books I haven't read yet before the latest one is translated for later this year.

On a recommendation by my father I've just begun Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden.

"Wolf of the Plains is a historical novel from English author Conn Iggulden. It is the first book in the Conqueror series based on the Mongols of the Asian steppes"

The main focus centres around Ganghis Khan. Only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far.

Gemini73 wrote:On a recommendation by my father I've just begun Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden.

"Wolf of the Plains is a historical novel from English author Conn Iggulden. It is the first book in the Conqueror series based on the Mongols of the Asian steppes"

The main focus centres around Ganghis Khan. Only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far.

As an accompaniment I'd suggest Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series on the Mongols. Well worth a listen.

Rex Kramer wrote:

Gemini73 wrote:On a recommendation by my father I've just begun Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden.

"Wolf of the Plains is a historical novel from English author Conn Iggulden. It is the first book in the Conqueror series based on the Mongols of the Asian steppes"

The main focus centres around Ganghis Khan. Only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far.

As an accompaniment I'd suggest Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series on the Mongols. Well worth a listen.

Cheers, I'll check it out

Gemini73 wrote:On a recommendation by my father I've just begun Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden.

"Wolf of the Plains is a historical novel from English author Conn Iggulden. It is the first book in the Conqueror series based on the Mongols of the Asian steppes"

The main focus centres around Ganghis Khan. Only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far.

I've read Dunstan which was published last year, that's a standalone novel by the same author that follows the life of Saint Dunstan in tenth century England. That's near enough my favourite period of history, so it was good stuff.

Gemini73 wrote:

Rex Kramer wrote:

Gemini73 wrote:On a recommendation by my father I've just begun Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden.

"Wolf of the Plains is a historical novel from English author Conn Iggulden. It is the first book in the Conqueror series based on the Mongols of the Asian steppes"

The main focus centres around Ganghis Khan. Only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far.

As an accompaniment I'd suggest Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series on the Mongols. Well worth a listen.

Cheers, I'll check it out

You will not go wrong there, Dan Carlin’s Wrath of the Khans is fantastic.

I really enjoyed the Lies of Loche lamora, but can't remember it too well now. I remember life getting in the way somewhere in the second book. The bad guys seemed well OP too.

Curls wrote:I really enjoyed the Lies of Loche lamora, but can't remember it too well now. I remember life getting in the way somewhere in the second book. The bad guys seemed well OP too.

I just finished the second book this week and I think I preferred it in places. Give it another go, the bad guys aren't as OP, and you won't need to remember too much from the first book.

And Perdido Street Station is finished and what an utterly fabulous book it was. I can't recommend it highly enough if you like fantasy, steampunk or even sci-fi. Going to take a break from the series before picking up The Scar in the summer.

Just got one more Witcher book to read and then I can continue playing the third game. I recently reached Skellige but then the book I was on featured Skellige, Yennefer and Crach an Craite heavily so I decided I wanted to finish the books first.

I love them a lot though. They are so good. Think Tower of the Swallow has been my favourite so far, despite the translation feeling very different to those before it. But it really felt like a culmination of everything before it with lots of pay off.