CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[shaunbhoy]

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. The fact it is non-fiction just adds to the enjoyment.

[DoctorStrangelove]

"...The Heavens and the Earth: A political history of the Space Age" by Walter A. McDougall.

It may have won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize but it took a lot of effort to read that, thank feck it's over with.

Off to the Oxfam bookshop with it to bore some other daft sod rigid.

Stick with the "Red Moon Rising", a far more inneresting read.

Next: "On Britain" by Ralf Dahrendorf (later Lord Dahrendorf apparently).

It's the book of some BBC programmes from 1982.

[DoctorStrangelove]

"Homo Britannicus" by Chris Stringer.

"The Incredible story of Human Life in Britain"

Bones, bones, more bones, hand axes, flint flakes, ice ages, interglacials, all good clean fun.

Or it was until we got to the global warming bit.

[DoctorStrangelove]

"Neighbours from Hell" by Mike Parker, being the curious relationship between two neighbouring countries who don't like each other much.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Following which is "The Wild Rover" by Mike Parker, being the story of the UK footpath network.

[OwlHoot]

Will shortly be reading The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, by Marc Morris when it is published tomorrow. For once, I'll actually be buying a book!

The Dark Ages aren't considered all that murky these days, apart from a fairly short period from c 420 AD to 520 AD when Gildas wrote his history, and Saxon history is becoming quite fashionable.

Needless to say, for the current young generation the Dark Ages ended only with the Russian Revolution in 1917, because that's what Marxist teachers are most obsessed about and I gather is practically all they teach their charges!

[DoctorStrangelove]

Goddamn Saes immigrants!

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "On Britain" by Ralf Dahrendorf (later Lord Dahrendorf apparently).

It hasn't aged well.

Though it taught me some new words, which I've immediately forgotten.

One of which was "heteronomous".

Next: "Lion time in Timbuctoo" by Robert Silverberg.

I'm halfway through the novella length first story.

It's not altogether gripping, being an alternative history wherein the Black Death killed 90% of Europeans rather than the 40 to 50% that it did, therefore no European colonisation since the Ottomans did the colonisation the othe way round, only South America is developed & there are No Septics at all, just the First Nations.

Purchased, remaindered, in 2006, so it's matured well in the pile.

<hiatus>

It's not proving to be a very inneresting read, I managed the first story, the rest are pretty meh.

As it transpired I had the mandatory two copies of "Lion Time", one of which has already met the Oxfam bookshop, the other of which has sat unregarded & mostly unread on a bookshelf since I finished the novella.

And, indeed, so it sits even yet. .

[OwlHoot]

Goddamn Saes immigrants!

Watched a Channel 4 mini-series a few years ago, 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth (2009), which as it's title suggests makes out the Saxons to be harmless inoffensive hobbits beset by ghastly Norman orcs!

In fact around 30% of people in Saxon society were slaves (whereas William the Conqueror abolished slavery), their punishments of ciminals were harsh beyond belief (way worse than the Normans' ), and blood feuds and assassinations were rife especially among the nobility and the royal court.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Following which is "The Wild Rover" by Mike Parker, being the story of the UK footpath network.

Duly finished.

Next up: "Map Addict" by Mike Parker.