CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Of Time and Stars" Arthur C. Clarke.

Containing two I really like: "Sentinel" and "Encounter at Dawn" (aka "Encounter in the Dawn") both looking across aeons of time, the first rather more than the latter.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Look! It was fiction!

Next: "Mother Tongue": Bill Bryson 1990. Didn't know I had this one, it was cunningly concealed on a bookshelf.

In addition: "The Weapon Shop" by A. E. Van Vogt, 1942, being the 2nd Weapon Shop short story following on from "Seesaw". It must be 40 years since I read "The Weapons Shops of Isher".

I suspect it's rather closer to 50 years, on reflection.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: TBD. I thought it might be "Their Trade is Treachery" but it's not in the pile, so I suppose "The Secret Offensive" by Chapman Pincher will do at a pinch. .

Done. Off to Oxfam with it.

1985 is a long time ago. He rails against Gorby but his reforms rid the world of the USSR.

The real pity is that it didn't rid the world of Putin.

Next: "Of Time and Stars" Arthur C. Clarke.

Containing two I really like: "Sentinel" and "Encounter at Dawn" (aka "Encounter in the Dawn") both looking across aeons of time, the first rather more than the latter.

[xoggoth]

Went to book reading club this morning run by loony lady 2 'cos she bossed me into it although I hadn't read anything at all. Hardly ever do these days, except short horror stories. Used to. Maybe I'll scan this thread and see what looks good.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hotspots: the legacy of Hiroshima & Nagasaki" by Sue Rabbitt Roff.

Done. Off to Oxfam with it.

More of the same: https://johnmenadue.com/author/sue-rabbitt-roff/

Next: TBD. I thought it might be "Their Trade is Treachery" but it's not in the pile, so I suppose "The Secret Offensive" by Chapman Pincher will do at a pinch. .

[vetran]

The sins of the father - book 2 in the Clifton chronicles by that ex Lag Jeffery Archer. Nice easy reading. Spoiler there are prison scenes in it.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The world's greatest spies & spymasters" by Roger Boar & Nigel Blundell. Ancient: 1984.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Inneresting enough in its way. Lots of spies I'd forgotten: The Krogers, Gordon Lonsdale, George Blake etc.

Next: "Hotspots: the legacy of Hiroshima & Nagasaki" by Sue Rabbitt Roff.

This got a 524 error so I posted it twice then deleted one.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "A Spy among(st) Friends" by Ben MacIntyre, being the story of dear old Kim & The Old Boys Network which selected dear old Uncle Joe's Englishmen, the irony being that the Reds didn't believe they were real spies & thought it was one of those cunning misinformation operations for years & years & years.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The world's greatest spies & spymasters" by Roger Boar & Nigel Blundell. Ancient: 1984.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: Fields of Thunder by Denys Blakeway and Sue Lloyd-Roberts: or how to strew radioactive tulipe all over Australia & Christmas Island, in the process contaminating servicemen & then denying that it ever happened.

Stunning tale of incompetence.

Or how we spread a load of radioactive tulipe over parts of Australia & eventually made a half arsed attempt to clean some of it up.

Since Cobalt is magnetic I'd have thunk that those bits of Co60 could have been picked up with a big feckoff magnet in a similar way they manage to incorporate it into steel rebar in various 3rd world scrapyards.

The 30kg of powdered plutonium from the "Minor Tests" is, of course, another matter. .

Next: "Official and Confidential: the secret life of J. Edgar Hoover" by Anthony Summers.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done. Off to Oxfam with it. That pile is getting dangerously tall, must pay a visit to Swansea soon.

Next: "The Road to Little Dribble" by Bill Bryson.

A somewhat lighter tome in topic if not in heft.

Done. Off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "A Spy among(st) Friends" by Ben MacIntyre, being the story of dear old Kim & The Old Boys Network which selected dear old Uncle Joe's Englishmen, the irony being that the Reds didn't believe they were real spies & thought it was one of those cunning misinformation operations for years & years & years.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done. A less inneresting read than I found it originally. Off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Enemies of the State" by Gary Murray. All about those nice spooks. And no, it's not "fiction" but more probably closely "faction" as are all these inside story tomes.

Gosh. I'd forgotten the ins & outs of this one: Hilda Murrell features a lot, along with a fair few others fitted up by the State, such as Willie McRae, one of very small group of people who've managed to shoot themselves in the back of the head. .

Done. Off to Oxfam with it. That pile is getting dangerously tall, must pay a visit to Swansea soon.

Next: "The Road to Little Dribble" by Bill Bryson.

A somewhat lighter tome in topic if not in heft.