Books

[Hardy]

Just started the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly, has anyone on here read them?  I don't know who recommended Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way but I have just finished it, an excellent read. Any more recommendations for books about this subject, it seems it's a periodin history that not very much has been written about. 

I recommended that for one. Glad you enjoyed it. It's one of the best I've read in the last few years. As regards other work in that vein, the best novels I've read about WWI would include All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and How Many Miles To Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston.

I've read some of the Michael Connelly stuff - a few of the Harry Bosch ones and The Lincoln laywer - top class crime fiction.

[ONeill]

Couple of books that caught my attention recently - anyone read them?

Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

[Minder]

Couple of books that caught my attention recently - anyone read them?

Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

Is that the Max Hastings one? Got it the other day for 99p from Waterstones with the Sunday Times offer. Haven't looked at it yet.

[ONeill]

Couple of books that caught my attention recently - anyone read them?

Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

Is that the Max Hastings one? Got it the other day for 99p from Waterstones with the Sunday Times offer. Haven't looked at it yet.

Cheapskate. Yes, the deal ends tomorrow at midnight. Hopefully she's passing that way.

[LeoMc]

I would have to say the Lee Child, Michael Connolly and Peter James are all very easy read.
James Patterson & Patricia Cornwall are just churning out cr&p.

[Minder]

Couple of books that caught my attention recently - anyone read them?

Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

Is that the Max Hastings one? Got it the other day for 99p from Waterstones with the Sunday Times
offer. Haven't looked at it yet.

Cheapskate. Yes, the deal ends tomorrow at midnight. Hopefully she's passing that way.

They were sold out of them after a day or two in the Waterstones I was in.

[Tony Baloney]

Couple of books that caught my attention recently - anyone read them?

Finest Years - Churchill As Warlord
Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany, By Rudolph Herzog

Is that the Max Hastings one? Got it the other day for 99p from Waterstones with the Sunday Times offer. Haven't looked at it yet.

Aye probably a good one...

[Billys Boots]

May have said it before, but if you like crime fiction set in wartime, try 'Berlin Noir' a trilogy set around Nazi Germany by Philip Kerr - a Sam Spade type ex-cop working around the touchy, feely attentions of the Gestapo.  Enjoy!

[charlieTully]

Just started the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly, has anyone on here read them?  I don't know who recommended Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way but I have just finished it, an excellent read. Any more recommendations for books about this subject, it seems it's a periodin history that not very much has been written about. 

I recommended that for one. Glad you enjoyed it. It's one of the best I've read in the last few years. As regards other work in that vein, the best novels I've read about WWI would include All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and How Many Miles To Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston.

I've read some of the Michael Connelly stuff - a few of the Harry Bosch ones and The Lincoln laywer - top class crime fiction.

just finished a long long way as a result of your recommendation, very moving book. good call.

[Cáthasaigh]

Apologies if anyone has already mentioned these books but Imperium and Lustrum by Robert Harris, concerning periods in the life and career of Cicero from the perspective of his scribe are absolutely brilliant, historical-political thrillers.

[Denn Forever]

May have said it before, but if you like crime fiction set in wartime, try 'Berlin Noir' a trilogy set around Nazi Germany by Philip Kerr - a Sam Spade type ex-cop working around the touchy, feely attentions of the Gestapo.  Enjoy!

And a few more where he emigrates to Argentina. 

Another good author is James Lee Burke.  Books set around New Orleans and the Louisianan coast.

If you enjoyed those Robert Harris books, you may enjoy I Claudius by Robert Greaves.  A retelling of the intrigues of the 1st (2nd maybe) Emperors of Rome.  The TV series of it from the 70's was great (as I remember it).  I wonder if it has aged well?

[ONeill]

Anyone read any of the Booker longlist?

Julian Barnes   The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry    On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch    Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt    The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan    Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail)
Yvvette Edwards    A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst    The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman    Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness   The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller    Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick    Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers    The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor    Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

Started Barry's last week and enjoying it - a view from the British side around the time of the Rising/civil war in Ireland (early on in novel).

Tried to finish The Finckler Question again and bored me rigid.

[Tony Baloney]

Paddy McGuinness is the boy.

Minder gave me a disc for the Kindle with about 500 books on it so I'm sorted for the forseeable!

[Celt_Man]

I would have to say the Lee Child, Michael Connolly and Peter James are all very easy read.
James Patterson & Patricia Cornwall are just churning out cr&p.

Not familiar with James but Connolly and Childs are superb....

Gave up on Cornwall long ago and Patterson is churning out some shite these days... all of about 3 minutes "sitting on the can" worth of thought put into plot and the like

[Minder]

Anyone read any of the Booker longlist?

Julian Barnes   The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry    On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch    Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt    The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan    Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail)
Yvvette Edwards    A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst    The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman    Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness   The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller    Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick    Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers    The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor    Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

Started Barry's last week and enjoying it - a view from the British side around the time of the Rising/civil war in Ireland (early on in novel).

Tried to finish The Finckler Question again and bored me rigid.

Julian Barnes win Booker Prize, finished it the other day, very good.