Reply to: CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[ladymuck]

What's his opinion of whiskey drinkers?

Mixed!

[woohoo]

The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVolo

One man's highly opinionated (and tongue-in-cheek) view that there is only one type of cocktail worth having - a martini. It must be made a certain way and drunk at a certain hour. Anything else is an abomination, especially if it contains rum.

What's his opinion of whiskey drinkers?

[ladymuck]

The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVolo

One man's highly opinionated (and tongue-in-cheek) view that there is only one type of cocktail worth having - a martini. It must be made a certain way and drunk at a certain hour. Anything else is an abomination, especially if it contains rum.

[The Green View]

George MacDonald Fraser - Flashman. The first book in the series.

Just finished Tom Brown's Schooldays (which actually doesn't have a lot of Flashman & his bullying antics in it) so seemed a logical choice.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: TBD. "Things can only get better" by John o'Farrell being a memoir of the glories of the Ditch the Bitch era.

Done.

Next: "An utterly impartial history of Britain" by John O'Farrell.

Moderately amusing: I've got as far as 1066 and the Norman bastards since I woke at 05:58 and read for an hour before returning to the land of nod.

[Lockhouse]

As a huge fan of American Noir I really loved The Contortionist’s Handbook by Craig Clevenger. A cross between Chuch Pahlaniuk and James Ellroy. Top recommended reading list in the appendices too.

Just starting on The Shards by Brett Easton Ellis - been looking forward to this for ages, it's his first book in over ten years.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: TBD "All our Todays": 40 years of the Today programme by Paul Donovan. Really up to the moment stuff. written in 1997. .

Done. It became quite tedious towards the end.

Lots of vaguely remembered names. 1997 being a long time ago, like. . I have no recollection whatever of Anna Ford being a presenter on Today.

Next: TBD. "Dirty Words" by Mark Morton. Dunno how this one will go, it being about etymology.

[vetran]

Just started on my Terry Pratchett collection again..... Sadly missed genius.

I have converted them to audiobooks and when I have a long drive I can enjoy them.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: Lions donkeys & dinosaurs by Lewis Page: the impressive story of the MOD & their endless wasting of money.

Done. He's really unimpressed with BAE & who can blame him? Equally unimpressed with the MOD.

And quite why the armed forces are so top heavy is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma.

Next: TBD. "Things can only get better" by John o'Farrell being a memoir of the glories of the Ditch the Bitch era.

[sadkingbilly]

rereading* the 'zones of thought' trilogy by Vernor Vinge.
should keep me going for a while

*cos I can't find any decent new Science Fiction. it all seems to be rehashes of old ideas. even the steampunk genre's become a sausage machine

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done. Quite inneresting in its way, lots of places I've never heard of & dunno where they are.

Next: "Drugs of Hallucination" by Sidney Cohen.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Stone me that took a while to get through.

Next: Lions donkeys & dinosaurs by Lewis Page: the impressive story of the MOD & their endless wasting of money.

Buying Apache helicopters: instead of buying them at $11M each, build a production line in this countery & spend 4 times as much for each instead. You really couldn't make it up. Aparently it would have been a £1B cheaper to buy them off the septics & give the 750 Brits in the factory a £1M each in redundancy.

Bit like the fatuous Chinook debacle.

And the glories of the SA80. The M16 debacle had nothing on this turkey.

Next: TBD. "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre: read it before, once it's finished it'll be off to Oxfam.

Got through that one quite quickly. .

Next: TBD "All our Todays": 40 years of the Today programme by Paul Donovan. Really up to the moment stuff. written in 1997. .

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Americans" by Alistair Cooke being a collection of Letters from America from 1969 to 1979.

Done. For want of anything else that appealed, the Henry Kuttner "Ahead of Time" sufficed for the two remaining stories.

Followed by "Ahead of Time" by Henry Kuttner, being an anthology. Amusing enough in parts, though in essence it's Golden Age type SF.

Took an unexpectedly long time to finish: then again it's Golden Age (1940s/50s) and not one of my favourite authors.

Apparently Neil Gaiman has had the collected stories of the Hogbens published as one volume.

I think I'll give it a miss.

Next: TBD. "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre: read it before, once it's finished it'll be off to Oxfam.

[DoctorStrangelove]

For want of anything to watch on the idiot lantern this was plucked from its position on a bookshelf:

"Redbeard" by Michael (Mike) Resnick, being the tale of a post apocalyptic post nuclear war New England populated by assorted mutants and "Normans".

Amusing enough.

1969. An early epic of his. I read and enjoyed "The Dark Lady" about 20 years (or more, probly a lot more) ago, whilst "Ivory" sits on a shelf somewhere awaiting attention.

An easy read compared with some of the crap I read.

Which didn't take long to finish.

Followed by "Ahead of Time" by Henry Kuttner, being an anthology. Amusing enough in parts, though in essence it's Golden Age type SF.

[Lost It]

Just started on my Terry Pratchett collection again..... Sadly missed genius.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Secret Britain: Unearthing our mysterious past" by Mary-Anne Ochota. Somewhat lighter in tone but heavier in weight than the Stonehenge tome.

Done. What a lot of stones. And bones.

Next: "The Americans" by Alistair Cooke being a collection of Letters from America from 1969 to 1979.