Be Excellent To Each Other

[quote="Goddess Jasmine"]1) Jo Nesbo - The Son
2) Lee Child - Without Fail
3) Jim Denny and Pat Williams - How to be like Walt (Audio)
4) Stephen King - Duma Key
5) Lawrence Levy - To Pixar and Beyond (Audio)
6) James Herbert - Nobody True
7) Stephen King - Skeleton Crew
8 ) Peter May - Lockdown

Well, reading a near-1,000 page chicklit novel isn't going to help me get to 52, is it?

14) Kiss and Tell by Fiona Walker
The third book about Tash French, this is more horses and more men and more pages and more ridiculous but I still loved it to death.

I can’t remember if I had read any books in the months prior to lockdown. I did just finish one though.

“Oryx and Crake” by Margaret Atwood.

I shall endeavour not to go off on a rant about why she gets her science fiction novels put in the ‘fiction’ section of the shops and not in the ‘science fiction’ one, as if by putting it in genre fiction she becomes less worthy...

*ahem*

Anyway! It’s a very interesting and good book about genetic engineering and sort of the end of the world. It’s told mostly in flashback, but it weaves the narratives together well. It’s full of ambiguity and nuance, and left me thinking about the motivations of characters and stuff like that.

There are two other books in the same trilogy (though I think with different characters, perhaps) and I am likely to read all of them.

Been a while since I last updated this list, and I've spent much of the past few months reading magazines rather than books but have managed to finish three more in that time.

7. "Underground USA" by Geoff Marshall
The Youtube Tube guy's quest to visit 48 places in the contiguous US that share names with underground stations. I rather like pointless trips and there's something charming about how he repeatedly ends up in clearings in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a petrol station and, if he's lucky, an unexpected bit of railway line.

8."Gotta get Theroux this: my life and strange times in television" by Louis Theroux
As recommended byMarkg. Enjoyable, easy read that I couldn't help hearing in Louis's own voice . He's not shy about admitting getting Saville completely wrong either.

9. "Black and British: a forgotten history" by David Olusoga
Fascinating look at the history of black people in Britain from Roman times onwards, and how slavery, empire, and racism intertwined with British life throughout the centuries. Highly recommended.

I wathced the youtube video for 7 there Kern, and the televised documentary series for 9, if the books are as good as the audiovisual experience they'll both be really amazing (Geoff swears a lot more in that video than any of the others I've seen him do)

Yes, I've been saving the TV doc until after I've finished the book. Olusgoa's a great broadcaster.

Will have to look out for the Underground USA doc. The book is in a diary format and, being self-published, is riddled with typos but that didn't mar my enjoyment. It made me want to spend more time wandering aimlessly in the US and the flyover states! The section on a particularly difficult week was a surprisingly honest meditation on how travelling with someone is always a test of a friendship.

1) Jo Nesbo - The Son
2) Lee Child - Without Fail
3) Jim Denny and Pat Williams - How to be like Walt (Audio)
4) Stephen King - Duma Key
5) Lawrence Levy - To Pixar and Beyond (Audio)
6) James Herbert - Nobody True
7) Stephen King - Skeleton Crew
8 ) Peter May - Lockdown
9) Richard Laymon - The Woods are Dark

In the woods are six dead trees. The Killing Trees. That's where they take them. Innocent travellers on the road in California. Seized and bound, stripped of their valuables and shackled to the Trees. To wait. In the woods. In the dark...

Sounds lovely.

I hadn't read the synopsis before I read the book.

It's a bit... 'Hostel' meets 'chainsaw massacre'.

If you liked it J. A. Konrath has a few books like that. Trapped is one.

It's not at the top of my list, mostly because of the sexual content (some of it was unexpected, some of it was maybe too close to home with my job).

I'm not allowed to buy anymore books until I've worked through my current lot anyway. Thanks for the recommendation though, I might consider giving him a look in the future.

Doesn't gluing your books together make them harder to read?

Christ, what did I read? I only finished it two nights ago, and I have no idea what it was called. Not a good sign.

Ah, here we go:

15) Black Dawn by K. Gorman
"Like Firefly? Can't get enough Killjoys? Then this series is for you." says the Amazon page. Bullshit. Bullshit. This is nothing like Firefly. It's just average, in all the ways it could be. The baddies aren't very interesting, the MC isn't interesting, her powers aren't interesting, the universe isn't interesting and the only interesting-sounding character (MC's sister) doesn't even show up! The book just stops in the middle of the story (and yes, for the people that have read my book, I know). It was well-written and stuff, but just not much to hold my interest.

16) He-Man/Thundercats

MAXIMUM EIGHTIES

This is a surprisingly good comic. Skeletor and Mumm-ra join forces to try and fuck up He-Man and the Thundercats. It actually works pretty well, although the ending is a bit weak. The art is great throughout. WOULD RECOMMEND

I'm only part way through it but couldn't find the other book thread. But I'm reading a book by a friend of mine that is truly, objectively excellent. Wild and Crazy Guys, charting the careers of the SNL crew like Steve Martin, bill Murray, Eddie Murphy. It's essentially artfully drawn together vignettes from their various careers, but it's fascinating throughout and you gain a real sense of what drove them and what they wanted to do e.g. how the fuck Golden Child came to exist. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

17) Skin Game by Jim Butcher
The new Dresden came out after six years of waiting, and I decided I should re-read the most recent book so I could get back up to speed, and it turns out I remembered barely any of it. That shouldn't put you off though, because it - like all the other Dresden books - is great. I can see a series re-read in my near future (once book 17 comes out in September).

18) Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
More Dresden, and it's still great. But it was clearly meant to be a longer book - it's the first Dresden book that basically ends on a "to be continued", and as the next book comes out in September it was probably one story when it started. So that's a bit annoying. But it was still great.

I quite enjoyed this one, kept me interested all the way through, some interesting characters too.

If you're getting into Herbert, my favourites were Moon, Creed and Haunted.

I Don't think I've read Haunted, but I think Portent is my favourite Herbert book (I've not read them for a while though, really should rectify that)

I've been really slacking on this as my main reading time was on my kindle on the bus to work. No commute for 6 months and misplacing my kindle hasn't helped! I have now found my kindle recently, and resumed reading Altered Carbon, so might get to double figures by the end of the year.

1) The Midnight Line - Lee Childs - Kindle
2) The Chimp Paradox - Dr. Steve Peters - Audiobook
3) Past Tense - Lee Childs - kindle
4) The Unicorn Project - Gene Kim - Hardback


5) Batman Hush Part 1 - Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Scott Williams

One of my fave Batman graphic Novels, will have to do part 2 now.

I could have sworn I'd read Creed, but looking at the synopsis on Amazon, I don't remember it at all.

I've looked through the books I have and don't seem to have any more James Herbert which is a shame as I've enjoyed everything I've read by him. When I've made a dent in the ones I have waiting, I'll look out for some more though.

I've been the same with my podcasts. They're really backing up now too. I only really listen to them when I'm doing the ironing these days.

10. "One..Two..Three..Four - The Beatles in Time" by Craig Brown

Not your standard history of the Beatles. Whilst they predominate, it's more about the people surrounding them. As well as Brian Epstein (who comes across a father figure and the book implies his loss started the band's descent into crazy), we hear about a Bedfordshire couple who hosted McCartney when he arrived in the village by chance, the other acts on the Ed Sullivan Show, what happened to a starstruck competition winner, and plenty of others who might normally appear as a single sentence or a footnote, if not erased from history. Brown also toys with the whole idea of historiography itself by not only highlighting inconsistencies across the handful of books written about the group, but also by devoting entire chapters to alternative timelines. He also annoys the hell out of the guides at various Beatles tours. It's a compelling and delightful read, taking us from the early days to the inevitable breakup. Paul comes across as pretty decent, John is a total dick, and Yoko remains a pantomime villian. Great fun, especially if, like me, you've never really dipped into Beatledom.

19) Hyperion by Dan Simmons
This was a good read, although it felt very eighties. Some brilliant ideas in the setting, and the stories-within-the-story were mostly very compelling. But! I hate books that don't have sensible chapters. Some of the chapters in this book were 100+ pages! I need to plan my reading, damnit, and I don't like stopping in the middle of anything. Also it didn't really end - I know there are sequels but there's very little payoff. That said, overall, it was good - if you treat it as an interconnected collection of novellas then it's great.

20) Buffy: The Long Way Home
The start of Season 8 of Buffy makes for a really good graphic novel, but fuck me they're expensive to pick up now - the two omnibus editions that make up series 8 would set you back £150!

21) All Systems Red by Martha Wells
A book about a shy MurderBot who would rather be watching soap operas than keeping her band of stupid meatbags alive. I liked this one a lot

22) The Post Office by Charles Bukowski
"It's an American classic!" screamed the Internet. "It's gritty and realistic!" screamed the Internet. "Hank in Californication is basically Hank from this book!" screamed the Internet, and that I'll listen to.

However, no. Hank from Californication is nothing like the work-shy lead character in this book. Californication Hank is funny, and hawt, and despite his many faults you love him. Hank in this book is a dickhole. And the book is, well, it's fucking odd. Nothing happens! Well, stuff happens, but as Hank doesn't care neither do you. He keeps getting into trouble at work, but he doesn't care. Women he's been with for years suddenly announce (with zero foreshadowing) that they're leaving him, and he says "okay". There's never any drama, not at any point did I care about Hank. Most of the book is taken up with literally talking about the technical processes of working for the Post Office in America in 1969, which is as exciting as you expect it to be - ie. not.
Critics and members of the public rave about this book, so maybe it's just me. But it's crap

11. "How to be a liberal" by Ian Dunt

Engaging overview of 500 years of liberal thought, from Descartes to Berlin. Dunt continually stresses how the individual as opposed to the group is the key foundation of a free society and the good life. He ends by connecting it to contemporary events and the threat of nationalism on the right and identity politics on the left.

As ever with any such survey, it's easy to pick things he omits and Dunt openly admits in the acknowledgements that he lacked time to go into later 20th century philosophers such as Dworkin and Rawls. I'd have liked more of a discussion on the tensions between equality and liberty but he does a reasonable job of using Berlin's framework to show how cultural relativism can be averted.

I don't think I've read any political philosophy since university a very long time ago and whilst many of the arguments and people were not new to me, it was refreshing to reacquainted with them and ones I wasn't. Dunt is also very good at picking up the limitations, omissions, and hypocrisies of the greatest names, and talking about those such as Harriet Taylor Mill who have long been brushed under the carpet.

Highly recommended, and with a very good bibliography at the back a great jumping-off point for further reading.

11) Jo Nesbo Knife
Finished just before my surgery, I have really enjoyed the Harry Hole stories.

I've been given a stash of Ian Rankin books too. So that will keep me good for a bit.

Did I spot that there is a TV adaptation on Netflix or Amazon the other day. And is it any good?

Dresden? Yeah it's decent. Only one short series though.

12. "Entangled Life: how fungi make our worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures" by Merlin Sheldrake

Delightfully fascinating overview of the strange kingdom of fungi and how they shape our world. We venture underground to grapple with how fungi transport nutrients to plants in return for favours, see how they display signs of something amounting to intelligence, understand the kinds of things they can do to minds (apparently there's a fungus that afflict cicadas causing them to lose the lower third of their body, become hyperactive, and fly around to their doom releasing spores from their behinds), and the multitude of ways we have and are harnessing them to our benefit (or, perhaps, theirs?).

Sheldrake writes in a leisurely, sometimes poetic style. He addresses the problems that it's very hard to avoid anthropomorphising them when trying to describe their functions, but also how taking a human or plant-specific view of fungi heavily underplays their centrality to so many systems. He's also quite happy to note limitations to current research. Gorgeous line drawings and a decent amount of plates accompany the text. I felt throughout that I was getting glimpses into a previously unknown side of life. An ideal read to snuggle up with during these darker evenings.

13. "A fatal thing happened on the way to the forum" by Emma Southon

A look at how pervasive homicide was in Ancient Rome, and what it tells us about Roman attitudes to social hierarchy and status. Death, it seems, was part of Roman life since the moment Romulus and Remeus fell out over artistic differences. Southon explores crime and punishment, women, the games, political backstabbing, magic, and slavery showing how the Romans did not value life so much as they valued the dignity of the family.

As with her book on Agrippina (see MaliA, above), Southon writes in a leisurely, chatty style akin to a mildly-drunken pub conversation or a modern podcast. It's engaging, but prone to some sudden gear changes such as referring to "spurty fun" shortly after a rather serious and detailed look at what happened during the agonising and ritual end of a gladiatorial combat after the thumb has been raised/lowered and the victor pierces the loser's cartoid artery. Similarly, I think she needs some tighter editing because, as with all us, when she gets a good line in she can't help but repeat it sometime after.

I think her chapter on slavery opens with the best description of the Roman world I've ever come across, surpassing even the immortal Beard:



Her most important observation running throughout the book is that much of what we know about Rome comes from the writings of the elites, who naturally disdained and didn't really consider the masses, let alone the slaves, as human beings. Perhaps by talking excitedly about the fun of someone having their face eating by a leopard then reminding us that this anonymous piece of entertainment was someone who lived, laughed, and loved along with the rest of us, she is making the reader feel just as complicit in the wretchedness of it all as the elites were. As the success of true crime podcasts shows, in 2000 years we haven't changed at all.

Whoops, here we go again.

23) The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson (non-fiction)
Obv title. It's an old book, written as a story so it's not too bad to read. No need though, because you just need to remember "set really clear expectations" and "give honest feedback - positive and negative - quickly and regularly". There, that's saved you £5.

24) Harleen by Stjepan Sejic
A great origin story for Harley Quinn, with some absolutely glorious artwork. Properly recommended. It's tricky to look up pictures online without spoilers, but here's one: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/im ... qaztoy.jpg

25) Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
Cyberpunk that Gaywood said I should read, so I did. Cowboy drives hover-tanks with his brain and Sarah has to deal with her dick-hole ungrateful brother. It is, indeed, good.

26) Accelerate by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, and Nicole Forsgren (non-fiction)
Do computer stuff faster. You can skip the chapters about how they gathered data, but this is useful stuff for any tech manager.

I'm sure I've forgotten one.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Please, I've already forgotten Accelerate.

14. "Why the Germans do it better" by John Kampfner

A look at contemporary German political culture. Structured around several key events in modern Germany's history (including the founding of the Federal Republic; the social upheavals of 1968, unification, and the opening of the gates to refugees in 2015), Kampfner describes a society where politics its much calmer than ours. He discusses how they deal with their recent history, and how German patriotism tends to be expressed through the durability of its institutions. He isn't afraid to show the downsides, highlighting for example its ailing infrastructure, lack of innovation, uncertainty about its role in the geopolitical sphere and the purpose of the Bundeswehr, and the rise and entry of the far-right AfD into regional legislatures.

There's a sense that as the Merkel era ends Kampfner isn't sure what will replace it. Most of the book was clearly written pre-pandemic and whilst there is some discussion of how Germany's response compares to that of other countries, it's probably the weakest section.

It's been ages since I last read about modern Germany, and several since I last visited. A welcome and timely review of the country, although as with all such books the undercurrent running throughout is what it says about Britain and our problems.

27) Battle Ground by Jim Butcher
It's Dresden book #17, and a direct "second part" to Peace Talks. And it's really good.

12) Dean Koontz - The eyes of darkness

Weirdly, I enjoyed the first part of the book more when finding out about the characters. I felt like he just had to give it an ending, which was pretty obvious too. Still enjoyed it though.

15. "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett

Logging books like this is surprisingly helpful. Not only does it let me boast to you all about my amazing sense of literary taste, but it also highlights gaps in my reading. The starkest example is that I haven't read any fiction this year. So having been meaning to dabble with Discworld for the first time since I was about 12, I saw this one recommended and got a copy from the library. I wasn't disappointed, in fact I absolutely loved it: the characters, the references and injokes, the subtle social commentary. I'm definitely going to be reading more.

Jem keeps trying to get me to start reading the Discworld books, so I've got 'em on my Kindle waiting to go. Somehow it feels daunting having so many books in the series to read, even though apparently they don't really matter in terms of reading order.

Well they kind of do. There's mini serieses in there that quite definitely go in sequence, though there are standalone ones that can be read in any order

Problem: Don't know where to start
Solution: Read "Guards! Guards!"

I'd start with guards or witches

Sorry, here's a better image

Ah, that's useful! Thanks for that.

16. "The Ascent of Rum Doodle" by WE Bowman

An account of heroic British explorers of the correct 1950s sort attempting the most feared and unconquered summit of them all - Rum Doodle.

Whilst not as laugh-out-loud as Three men in a boat or Diary of a Nobody, I warmed to this book's charms and scenarios. I particularly liked the utter delusion of the narrator and expedition leader as he constantly thought the best of his men and the porters, despite their obvious hostility to him. I was initially a little concerned about the portrayal of the porters but quickly realised that this was part of the satire and they have far more intelligence and bravery than the supposed heroes. An easy, comforting, post-Christmas read, but not one I'll be taking to the desert island.

I should finish this.

28) The Sentinal by Lee and Andrew Child
MOAR REACHER, this time co-written by the guy that's going to take over the series from now on. The story was good (the first two or three chapters were fantastic) but some of the writing wasn't great, which is a worry. And one of the fight "scenes" had quite a glaring mistake in, which is even more of a worry. We'll see, I guess.
29) Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
I liked this a lot! Although I found the MC a bit annoying at times, the future city was fantastic, as were all the gangsters. The sequel is called "Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick", to give you an idea of what we're dealing with.
30) Ready Player Two by Ernest Kline
The sequel to Ready Player One is a lot more of the same, but with all the heroes rich it's a lot harder to like them. Plenty of pop culture references if you like that kind of thing (including a big section about John Hughes, which I loved) and what felt like a really, really lazy love story. But I still quite liked it.

Not quite 52, then. I'm sure I've missed one, but never mind.