Reading books

Stevieo said:
Reading books
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If you were in charge of the libraries the wouldn't have been closed and sold off to developer's
 
Andy g said:
Anybody read books I have all way found this very hard to do , to concentrate very hard
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If you don't have time for reading try audio books, if you get the right narrator they're an absolute joy. Listen to them in the van, whilst you're working, or during the evening instead of watching TV.

I'd suggest the first one to try would be war of the worlds narrated by Richard Burton.
 
Havagojo said:
The others I can believe but I'm pretty sure the dinosaurs were extinct by the time Jesus was about
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I had this with a Preacher Man once...an evangelist creationist....he told me that dinosaurs were real but they weren't very big because scientists made it up. He said very often, they just found one bone and then drew a dinosaur around it.

So there you go. Now you know.
 
Andy g said:
Anybody read books I have all way found this very hard to do , to concentrate very hard
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If you want something to get your teeth into I'd recommend "The ragged trousered philanthropist" written by a Paddy working in Britain as a decorator. A semi-autobiography and IMHO as notable a read as Animal Farm (not that one you perverts!).

I'm not sure either of those will cheer you up mind. More likely to confirm that you're just the latest in a long line of working people to be fcuked over. Still, at least you'll feel less alone in your struggle. :)
 
JessThePlasterer said:
I always loved Wilbur Smith. The Courtney series was great
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You might like King Solomon's Mines. Not the G** film, the book written in 1885.

It's truly a product of its time and is funny as fcuk when you look at it through modern eyes.

Pair of white guys beating about S Africa, basically on the rob get hold of a map. Apparently some African King has got loads of diamonds and they decide that those diamonds would be better in their pockets than his.
On the way, they shoot loads of elephants and lions, kill some of their servants and trick a load of natives into thinking that they are Gods.
Unsurprisingly, the bloke with the diamonds (Twala) doesn't want to hand them over so they torture his female witch doctor to make her hand them over and eventually kill her.
Then they chop Twala's head off and run off with all his money.

Now, here's the brilliant bit. Not once in the whole of the book is the slightest suggestion that they've done anything wrong. In fact, Twala ends up being painted as the bad guy.
 
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imago said:
If you want something to get your teeth into I'd recommend "The ragged trousered philanthropist" written by a Paddy working in Britain as a decorator. A semi-autobiography and IMHO as notable a read as Animal Farm (not that one you perverts!).

I'm not sure either of those will cheer you up mind. More likely to confirm that you're just the latest in a long line of working people to be fcuked over. Still, at least you'll feel less alone in your struggle. :)
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Stevieo said:
You might like King Solomon's Mines. Not the G** film, the book written in 1885.

It's truly a product of its time and is funny as fcuk when you look at it through modern eyes.

Pair of white guys beating about S Africa, basically on the rob get hold of a map. Apparently some African King has got loads of diamonds and they decide that those diamonds would be better in their pockets than his.
On the way, they shoot loads of elephants and lions, kill some of their servants and trick a load of natives into thinking that they are Gods.
Unsurprisingly, the bloke with the diamonds (Twala) doesn't want to hand them over so they torture his female witch doctor to make her hand them over and eventually kill her.
Then they chop Twala's head off and run off with all his money.

Now, here's the brilliant bit. Not once in the whole of the book is the slightest suggestion that they've done anything wrong. In fact, Twala ends up being painted as the bad guy.
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Read it!
 
Stevieo said:
Snigger.

Classics. Science. Great Works.

Read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell recently. Mein Kampf (again) Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey. I have everything Hawking wrote, everything Dawkins wrote, and everything Lawrence Krauss wrote, everything Dickens wrote, everything Edgar Allen Poe wrote. I have the Principia Mathematica, Opticks, the Origin of Species, a few (auto)biographies of great men. I have a great fascination with the evolution of Bomber Command - loads of books on that.

I'm currently read The Case Against Adolf Eichmann and before that, I read and really enjoyed The Martian.

I have a pretty good bookshelf.
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What even their shopping lists
 
Stevieo said:
Snigger.

Classics. Science. Great Works.

Read Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell recently. Mein Kampf (again) Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey. I have everything Hawking wrote, everything Dawkins wrote, and everything Lawrence Krauss wrote, everything Dickens wrote, everything Edgar Allen Poe wrote. I have the Principia Mathematica, Opticks, the Origin of Species, a few (auto)biographies of great men. I have a great fascination with the evolution of Bomber Command - loads of books on that.

I'm currently read The Case Against Adolf Eichmann and before that, I read and really enjoyed The Martian.

I have a pretty good bookshelf.
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Crime and punishment - Dostoevsky
Villette - Bronte
Wuthering heights - bronte
Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
To the lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
For whom the bell tolls - Hemingway
John Updike, Philip Roth, kazuo ishiguro, j g Ballard (empire of the sun amazing) Charles bukowski, William S Burroughs, hans Fallada , Graham greene

All time favourite - sylvia plath
 
Squarehead said:
Crime and punishment - Dostoevsky
Villette - Bronte
Wuthering heights - bronte
Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
To the lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
For whom the bell tolls - Hemingway
John Updike, Philip Roth, kazuo ishiguro, j g Ballard (empire of the sun amazing) Charles bukowski, William S Burroughs, hans Fallada , Graham greene

All time favourite - sylvia plath
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Dosteyevski is a monster read...Can't remember the title but I read his book about the gulag.
I couldn't make head nor tail of Crime and Punishment.

Don't like Bronte.

Not mad keen on Wilde.

I'm not mad keen on a lot of the supposed greats. I certainly don't have any shakespear on my bookshelf. Maybe he was a genius in his day but he was a contemporary entertainer. He's not contemporary any more, is he?

My all time favourite is Poe...pacing about in the middle of the night, tormented by not very much at all and trying to find solace by being a master wordsmith.



I sometimes pace the boards myself but I'm not as clever as Poe.
 
Stevieo said:
Dosteyevski is a monster read...Can't remember the title but I read his book about the gulag.
I couldn't make head nor tail of Crime and Punishment.

Don't like Bronte.

Not mad keen on Wilde.

I'm not mad keen on a lot of the supposed greats. I certainly don't have any shakespear on my bookshelf. Maybe he was a genius in his day but he was a contemporary entertainer. He's not contemporary any more, is he?

My all time favourite is Poe...pacing about in the middle of the night, tormented by not very much at all and trying to find solace by being a master wordsmith.



I sometimes pace the boards myself but I'm not as clever as Poe.
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Love poetry, have read some Poe. Words and stories. I love the pre-raphaelites and the stories and poems that go with their paintings.

Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror cracked from side to side

Rossetti’s own wife died after being muse for Ophelia, lying too long in a cold bath
 
Stevieo said:
I had this with a Preacher Man once...an evangelist creationist....he told me that dinosaurs were real but they weren't very big because scientists made it up. He said very often, they just found one bone and then drew a dinosaur around it.

So there you go. Now you know.
Click to expand...
Damn those pesky scientists!!
 
Stevieo said:
Dosteyevski is a monster read...Can't remember the title but I read his book about the gulag.
I couldn't make head nor tail of Crime and Punishment.

Don't like Bronte.

Not mad keen on Wilde.

I'm not mad keen on a lot of the supposed greats. I certainly don't have any shakespear on my bookshelf. Maybe he was a genius in his day but he was a contemporary entertainer. He's not contemporary any more, is he?

My all time favourite is Poe...pacing about in the middle of the night, tormented by not very much at all and trying to find solace by being a master wordsmith.



I sometimes pace the boards myself but I'm not as clever as Poe.
Click to expand...


Gulag dostoevsky is memoirs from the house of the dead. Incredible book, which resonated as my own gran was captured by the Russians and imprisoned in Siberia.

My friend used to read Poe after a night out on the piss, gonna order some, love the imagery.

Into poetry too, plath (as mentioned) larkin, Dylan Thomas, all the heavy s**t. Just back actually from seeing John cooper clarke, legend. "My psychiatrist recommended suicide" good ole Johnny.
 
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