CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[NotAllThere]

Russia. Antony Beevor. Just got to the bit where Lenin declares the Bolshies are taking over state power. Gripping stuff. And very depressing.

In other news. Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of... trilogy. Great fun evolutionary hard scifi. Love the Portia spiders. Aw... just look at those eyes... What's not to love?

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done: next: "A legacy of Spies" since I don't feel like reading any of the others at the moment & this is the one that started me on rereading such of the Le Carre oeuvre that I'd read back in the day, being full of names I remember.

Maybe I'll remember more of the plot too since I read it starting 10th of May. .

Fingers crossed on that one. .

Gosh. Having revisited "The spy who came in from the cold" etc. it made rather more sense than on the first reading.

Next: "A small town in Germany", J. Le Carre

This was in an M&S hardback collection of his first five books. I've never seen the paperback version.

[WTFH]

Rare for me to do much reading these days, but I'm currently reading "I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes.

It's 800+ pages long, it's been a few years since I've read any fiction (excluding Daily newspapers).
I would thoroughly recommend the book, it was gripping from start to end.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Gosh. Having revisited "The spy who came in from the cold" etc. it made rather more sense than on the first reading.

Next: "A small town in Germany", J. Le Carre

Done: Next: "Agent Running in the Field" J. Le Carre.

[NotAllThere]

Russia. Antony Beevor. Just got to the bit where Lenin declares the Bolshies are taking over state power. Gripping stuff. And very depressing.

As an antidote, I'm also reading the entire PG Wodehouse canon. For some reason, I hear Fry and Laurie's voices...

[NotAllThere]

Gosh. Having revisited "The spy who came in from the cold" etc. it made rather more sense than on the first reading.

A depressing read.

Next: "A small town in Germany", J. Le Carre

Actually, most of Carré is a depressing read!

I like the Karla trilogy best, I think.

[DoctorStrangelove]

As an antidote, I'm also reading the entire PG Wodehouse canon. For some reason, I hear Fry and Laurie's voices...

Oddly enough I hear Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price. .

A depressing read.

Actually, most of Carré is a depressing read!

I like the Karla trilogy best, I think.

The futility of "TLGW" is what got to me: s attempting to revive the glories of WWII to zero effect.

The Honourable Skoolboy is a downer too. And it could have done with a good editing to make it shorter. Seemed endless.

Not to mention "A perfect spy" or "The little drummer girl".

So yes, the entire oeuvre is a great big downer.

Mostly due to Le Carre's analysis of the End of Empire & all that.

I'm not sure I'll bother with the Bond books, but the Len Deighton epics are next on the list, though I think there's one of the Samson ones missing as I read it as a library book IIRC.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done: Next: "Agent Running in the Field" J. Le Carre.

Done: that was a bit odd but there you go.

Next: "Our Game" by J. Le Carre.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done: first half is rather dry, the second half more inneresting: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Wild Blue" by Stephen E. Ambrose, he who I recall seeing as a talking head on "The World at War (1974): Reckoning: 1945 & after" or some such when he was a much younger man. Shame about the plagiarism.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen E. Ambrose. This one's about the Lewis & Clarke expedition "from sea to shining sea" some 20 years before Douglas did it in the opposite direction whilst collecting samples of vegetation.

So far it's full of stuff about The Evil British, as one might expect.

100 pages in before the journey begins.

And by page 331 we've reached the Pacific having canoed down the Columbia River.

If the Native Americans had any sense they'd have killed them all. But there you go.

Journey ends at page 440, then there's 100 pages of What Happened Next.

Spoiler: it doesn't End Well for Lewis.

[NotAllThere]

What I liked about The Honourable Schoolboy, is the way Connie gleans intelligence from the gaps.

Just added Oliver Sacks "Awakenings" to the mix.