O/T Fit You Reading 3

[TheDeeDon]

My latest reads have been.

Colm Toibin - Long Island.
I like how he weaves everyday stories of the mundane, into something very readable.

Chris Stein - Under a Rock.
Not a bad book at all for a music biography.

My wildcard book was Diane Morgan - Lost Aberdeen.

Not a classic page turner, but lots of good reading about the architecture of the city and what has been lost over the centuries in the name of progress.

Whilst cities have to evolve. I am convinced that the building of the St Nicholas and Bon Accord centres were very ill advised and looking even more so now.

Goodness knows what kind of monstrosities they will replace them with in the years to come.

[57vintage]

I can?t remember which way chronologically Brooklyn and Long Island are set, but both are Colm at his very best. I?ve just begun his The Magician, am still working my way through David Hepworth?s A Fabulous Creation, and have dipped a toe into Anthony Quinn?s latest The Mouthless Dead. I had a mini-crisis with the audiobook of Sarah Moss?s The Tidal Zone when my monthly 15 hours of Spotify credit ran out, less than 10 minutes from the end. The IT sorcerer that is former TRF stalwart Basin City somehow found me the last three chapters as an audio file to my delight. I?d recommend anything by Ms Moss.

Now over to Sean for the weekend weather.

[TheDeeDon]

I can?t remember which way chronologically Brooklyn and Long Island are set, but both are Colm at his very best. I?ve just begun his The Magician, am still working my way through David Hepworth?s A Fabulous Creation, and have dipped a toe into Anthony Quinn?s latest The Mouthless Dead. I had a mini-crisis with the audiobook of Sarah Moss?s The Tidal Zone when my monthly 15 hours of Spotify credit ran out, less than 10 minutes from the end. The IT sorcerer that is former TRF stalwart Basin City somehow found me the last three chapters as an audio file to my delight. I?d recommend anything by Ms Moss.

Now over to Sean for the weekend weather.

It's Brooklyn first, released in 2009 and Long Island was released last year. I just looked it up.
Another book I was reading thinking I was missing something.

According to my Library history I haven't read Brooklyn, so will see if I can get it when in tomorrow morning.

I haven't read The Magician, but I have read his book The Master, which was excellent and of a similar vein.

[57vintage]

I think I discovered the chronology by accident when I listened to Brooklyn just as Long Island was published. I think there was quite a time gap between them, and I got lucky. Both top quality human yarns in many ways.

Have you investigated Graham Swift? Light Of Day, Mothering Sunday, Wish You Were Here (great film too, featuring every ageing Cockney wide boy/hooligan you can think of), and especially Waterland are well worth your time.

[TheDeeDon]

I think I discovered the chronology by accident when I listened to Brooklyn just as Long Island was published. I think there was quite a time gap between them, and I got lucky. Both top quality human yarns in many ways.

Have you investigated Graham Swift? Light Of Day, Mothering Sunday, Wish You Were Here (great film too, featuring every ageing Cockney wide boy/hooligan you can think of), and especially Waterland are well worth your time.

Don't think I have read Graham Swift before, but took out Mothering Sunday and Here We Are, from the library.

Brooklyn was picked up too and that will be first to be read this week, with the Swift books to follow.

[57vintage]

I?d forgotten about Here We Are. I read it because of its synopsis, about 3 years ago. I never made the connection, even when on the recent Swift binge.

[57vintage]

Taking a hoor o a time to get the third part of the Boyle books from the Library. Think there are still 6 before my shottie. I'll have to be quick off the mark when Fire comes out.

We're all waiting to die min. Just be glad you made it to retirement age.

The synopsis of Boyle?s Air from Amazon:

?From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a contemplative story about one man trying to move forward from the trauma of his youth to become a better father to his son.

Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it?s an opportunity to connect with his 14-year-old son as they travel halfway across the world to meet a woman who isn?t expecting them.

Unsettled by his past, and anxious for his future, Aaron is at a crossroads in life. The damage inflicted upon him during his youth has made him the man he is, but now threatens to widen the growing fissures between him and his only child. This trip could bind them closer together, or tear them further apart.

In this penetrating examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution, John Boyne gives us a redemptive story of a father and a son on a moving journey to mend their troubled lives.?

I?ll give it a few weeks to land at the library, or for a decent deal from Hive.

I picked up a Kindle copy of Colm Toibin?s The Master for 99p today.

Still on David Hepworth?s A Fabulous Creation, and have barely swiped a single page of Toibin?s The Magician so far.

According to Goodreads, I?ve read 24 books this year to date. Light evenings and warmer weather will soon slow that sprint doon though.

[TheDeeDon]

The synopsis of Boyle?s Air from Amazon:

?From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, a contemplative story about one man trying to move forward from the trauma of his youth to become a better father to his son.

Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it?s an opportunity to connect with his 14-year-old son as they travel halfway across the world to meet a woman who isn?t expecting them.

Unsettled by his past, and anxious for his future, Aaron is at a crossroads in life. The damage inflicted upon him during his youth has made him the man he is, but now threatens to widen the growing fissures between him and his only child. This trip could bind them closer together, or tear them further apart.

In this penetrating examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution, John Boyne gives us a redemptive story of a father and a son on a moving journey to mend their troubled lives.?

I?ll give it a few weeks to land at the library, or for a decent deal from Hive.

I picked up a Kindle copy of Colm Toibin?s The Master for 99p today.

Still on David Hepworth?s A Fabulous Creation, and have barely swiped a single page of Toibin?s The Magician so far.

According to Goodreads, I?ve read 24 books this year to date. Light evenings and warmer weather will soon slow that sprint doon though.

You're one up on me, as I can't stick the Kindle. I won one in a raffle a few years ago and despite acknowledging it has a lot of advantages I just couldn't take to it.

I usually only buy second hand books and rely on the Library for around 90% of my books.

Read both the Graham Swift books I picked up.
I preferred Here We Are to Mothering Sunday, but he has a good writing style and doesn't waste words. Which is something many writers could learn from.

Most importantly though, he writes good stories that come alive on the pages.
In both the above books, he goes back to the past for his stories. That is my kind of book.

[TheDeeDon]

My books this week are.

David Peace - Munichs
I usually like his work and looking forward to it.

Roddy Doyle - Oh, Play That Thing.
A writer I love and this was actually a charity shop find.
I actually thought I had read all his work, but this one somehow escaped me for 20 years. 🤣

[57vintage]

I finished the David Hepworth book, and for once I am hudding on to it rather than recycling via the charity shop, as there?s quite a bit of material that I need to re-read.

Like the gype that I am, I failed to realise that Melvyn Bragg - what a writer - had written The Soldier?s Return as a trilogy, and read book 3 first. I am now on book 2 - A Son Of War - making the anarchic sequence 3-1-2. Disna matter, they can be read in their own right.

The good news is that the John Boyne Air file is on Spotify already, and my allowed miserly 15 hours audiobookage starts again in the middle of the week. I will be in there like a hun on his sister and her pet rat.

I have the Kindle app on my iPad, and have got used to it. I am the Andy Harrow of sleep, so I dinna have to put on the lights and disturb others at 2.30am in getting my literary fix.

[TheDeeDon]

David Peace - Munichs
I usually like his work and looking forward to it.

What a brilliant book.

I no little about Man U and even less about the Munich disaster, but what a way to bring a tragedy to life.

If you like reading and fitba, it's well worth a read.

[57vintage]

What a brilliant book.

I no little about Man U and even less about the Munich disaster, but what a way to bring a tragedy to life.

If you like reading and fitba, it's well worth a read.

I?ll have to get around to that, thanks for the tip. I loved The Damned United, and the film. Best of all, though, is the audiobook which former Jute-baiter of these here parts, SMsW bootlegged for me. John Simm narrated it perfectly. I have read 1974 - finished on 7 August 2015 apparently - but cannot remember much about it. I have given it 4 stars though, so it must have been good.

When I was a nipper in the late 1960s, I read everything that Keith library offered, and I think I borrowed a Bobby Charlton biog a dozen times and thst was my first-person grounding in the horrific tale of the Munich crash. I took the bus there in 1983 - taking nae chances.

I have been working through the Jonathan Coe canon, and my toenail has been dipped into Bournville (2022).

[TheDeeDon]

I?ll have to get around to that, thanks for the tip. I loved The Damned United, and the film. Best of all, though, is the audiobook which former Jute-baiter of these here parts, SMsW bootlegged for me. John Simm narrated it perfectly. I have read 1974 - finished on 7 August 2015 apparently - but cannot remember much about it. I have given it 4 stars though, so it must have been good.

When I was a nipper in the late 1960s, I read everything that Keith library offered, and I think I borrowed a Bobby Charlton biog a dozen times and thst was my first-person grounding in the horrific tale of the Munich crash. I took the bus there in 1983 - taking nae chances.

I have been working through the Jonathan Coe canon, and my toenail has been dipped into Bournville (2022).

I've read all the Peace books now bar his stuff set in Tokyo. No idea why I have never bothered with those.

I like Jonathan Coe a lot. The Rotters Club is an excellent read, good TV adaptation of it too, and the last of his I read, Mr Wilder and Me, was a great too. I suspect you should get on well with Bournville.

[Mason89]

Ive had quite a productive week as far as reading goes, completing three books

Mr Nonsense, Mr Messy and Mr Clever. My favourite was Mr Nonsense. He goes sledging on yellow snow in his bed boat with Mr Silly. Jnr hasnt given any indication whether he likes them or not.

Mr Clever is a bit of a smug @rsehole to be honest

[TheDeeDon]

Ive had quite a productive week as far as reading goes, completing three books

Mr Nonsense, Mr Messy and Mr Clever. My favourite was Mr Nonsense. He goes sledging on yellow snow in his bed boat with Mr Silly. Jnr hasnt given any indication whether he likes them or not.

Mr Clever is a bit of a smug @rsehole to be honest

We still have our full set of Mr Men books that we used to read to our boys, many moons ago now. We even have a box thing to put them in and when the books are in order it spells out Mr Men with a picture, very cool. Be able to pass them on to the the grandkid soon.

It's great reading to your own kids and a sad day when they tell you they will manage to read the books on their own.

Make sure you take him to the Library too, when he's a little older.