The OFFICIAL NPR Book Thread

[HKCJ]

Does exactly what it says on the tin.. Share your book reviews, thoughts, whatever

[stunt_cunt]

The Bible.

Too long, disjointed as fuck and way too hard to follow.
0/10

[Hugo]

Half way through Al Gore biography "Inventing Al Gore".

Fairly ho hum, prototypical D.C. insider upbringing - Dad was a senator, went to boarding school in D.C. then onto Harvard.

Interesting tidbit are the efforts that his wife Tipper and other congressional wives made in bringing in censorship for lewd and inappropriate music and music videos in the mid 80s. Backfired and cost him support in Hollywood, which is a key democrat constituency in terms of fundraising and support.

One of the great what if's of course is his loss to George W Bush in 2000 considering how that Presidency and the events of 9/11 have shaped the course of the 21st century thus far.

[HKCJ]

Just finished Days without End by Sebastian Barry.. surprisingly enjoyable for what is quite heavy on the literary front.

[Jim Lahey]

I’ve been rattling through the John Grisham audiobooks again while doing cardio over lockdown. From the ones I’ve listened to I’d rank them:
-A Time To Kill
-The Firm
-The Brethern
-The Runaway Jury
-The Testament (great start and middle of the book, but weak finish)
-The King of Torts (similar good start and middle, but average end)

From the other thread.

[Hugo]

Finished the Gore book. Definitely a very hard working, thorough, deliberate, studious and well researched politician. His big flaw was that he was too wooden and unrelatable and had this egotistical need to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room all the time. Interesting to read about how much tension there was between him and Hillary. Not sure how commonplace VP-first lady beefs are (I know Nancy Reagan kept the Bushes at arms length) but this one was a real power struggle for Bills ear. Hillary did not like Al and Bills weekly lunches and tried to take them off the schedule, he pushed environmental issues, Hillary was in favour of healthcare reform. All in all, I think he would have made a solid President. He was really undone by the collateral damage from Bill's scandals which is too bad because he himself was a straight laced family man.

[Turbiner]

Half way through Al Gore biography "Inventing Al Gore".

Fairly ho hum, prototypical D.C. insider upbringing - Dad was a senator, went to boarding school in D.C. then onto Harvard.

Interesting tidbit are the efforts that his wife Tipper and other congressional wives made in bringing in censorship for lewd and inappropriate music and music videos in the mid 80s. Backfired and cost him support in Hollywood, which is a key democrat constituency in terms of fundraising and support.

One of the great what if's of course is his loss to George W Bush in 2000 considering how that Presidency and the events of 9/11 have shaped the course of the 21st century thus far.

Seemed like something democrats should of stayed far away from considering where they got there votes from. You could see where a republican could pick up votes.

[Hugo]

Seemed like something democrats should of stayed far away from considering where they got there votes from. You could see where a republican could pick up votes.

Yeah, it was well intentioned on Tipper's part in the sense that she was trying to protect kids from vulgar lyrical content and imagery and such but doomed to failure because she was tag teaming with social conservatives against powerful record companies and 1st amendment advocates who fought tooth and nail against censorship.

[tabascoboy]

Currently reading 'The Mirror & the Light'. I know some find Mantel's prose and style a little, pedantic and verbose I guess but it's an immersive first 100 pages or so thus far.

[tcc_dc]

I know most of you probably will not care for the America focused books, but the last two books I read were:

Braddocks Defeat - really good read on Braddock and what went wrong in the campaign versus the French in 1756 at the Monongahela/Fort Duquesne (close to Pittsburgh) and how many of the American revolutionaries go their military experience.

The British are Coming - first in the trilogy by Rick Atkinson who is a great author...really enjoyed it, and spends some quality time on the Canada campaign by the Americans and the recapture by the British.

[sturginho]

Seemed like something democrats should of stayed far away from considering where they got there votes from. You could see where a republican could pick up votes.

Yeah, it was well intentioned on Tipper's part in the sense that she was trying to protect kids from vulgar lyrical content and imagery and such but doomed to failure because she was tag teaming with social conservatives against powerful record companies and 1st amendment advocates who fought tooth and nail against censorship.

As the song says, the sticker on the record made it more appealing to kids

[mat the expat]

I know most of you probably will not care for the America focused books, but the last two books I read were:

Braddocks Defeat - really good read on Braddock and what went wrong in the campaign versus the French in 1756 at the Monongahela/Fort Duquesne (close to Pittsburgh) and how many of the American revolutionaries go their military experience.

The British are Coming - first in the trilogy by Rick Atkinson who is a great author...really enjoyed it, and spends some quality time on the Canada campaign by the Americans and the recapture by the British.

They sound excellent TBH

[lilyw]

Finished the Gore book. Definitely a very hard working, thorough, deliberate, studious and well researched politician. His big flaw was that he was too wooden and unrelatable and had this egotistical need to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room all the time. Interesting to read about how much tension there was between him and Hillary. Not sure how commonplace VP-first lady beefs are (I know Nancy Reagan kept the Bushes at arms length) but this one was a real power struggle for Bills ear. Hillary did not like Al and Bills weekly lunches and tried to take them off the schedule, he pushed environmental issues, Hillary was in favour of healthcare reform. All in all, I think he would have made a solid President. He was really undone by the collateral damage from Bill's scandals which is too bad because he himself was a straight laced family man.

That's not how I remember him at the time. He came across as an empty suit, absolutely in thrall to the Washington insiders, and totally devoid of political instincts (see the disaster with Tipper & his later claims to have "invented the internet") - all in all not really much of a step up on Dan Quayle. It is telling that he couldn't even win his home state when running for president. I saw nothing in the aftermath of the Rwanda massacres or the Serb war to suggest that he would have been any better than Bush in dealing with 9/11.

[Un Pilier]

I’m reading C.J.Sansom’s latest outing of Matthew Shardlake in “Tombland”. Unusually it’s set in Norwich a couple of years after Henry VIIIs death, so England is sliding into chaos. A particular attraction for me since Narge is a city I know quite well.

These are interesting and dark times with a background of unrest and revolt. I’m sensing a bit of lazy writing at present with too much “God give you good morrow” dialogue. Maybe needed stronger editing, but Shardlake (the character) novels rarely fail to disappoint overall, so I’m sticking with it.

If you like historical fiction and fancy giving the Shardlake series a try, I would start at the beginning with Dissolution, the first in the series. That was excellent.

[sturginho]

I’m reading C.J.Sansom’s latest outing of Matthew Shardlake in “Tombland”. Unusually it’s set in Norwich a couple of years after Henry VIIIs death, so England is sliding into chaos. A particular attraction for me since Narge is a city I know quite well.

These are interesting and dark times with a background of unrest and revolt. I’m sensing a bit of lazy writing at present with too much “God give you good morrow” dialogue. Maybe needed stronger editing, but Shardlake (the character) novels rarely fail to disappoint overall, so I’m sticking with it.

If you like historical fiction and fancy giving the Shardlake series a try, I would start at the beginning with Dissolution, the first in the series. That was excellent.

My wife is a big fan of the Shardlake novels, she's been nagging me to read them but the idea never really appealed to me

[Ali Cadoo]

Been working through the audio book of Graham Hancock’s “Magicians of the Gods”. Fascinating, although it would be interesting to get the ‘academics’ viewpoint as it does seem very facile in it’s dismissal of the establishment and their blinkered ways.

[Un Pilier]

I’m reading C.J.Sansom’s latest outing of Matthew Shardlake in “Tombland”. Unusually it’s set in Norwich a couple of years after Henry VIIIs death, so England is sliding into chaos. A particular attraction for me since Narge is a city I know quite well.

These are interesting and dark times with a background of unrest and revolt. I’m sensing a bit of lazy writing at present with too much “God give you good morrow” dialogue. Maybe needed stronger editing, but Shardlake (the character) novels rarely fail to disappoint overall, so I’m sticking with it.

If you like historical fiction and fancy giving the Shardlake series a try, I would start at the beginning with Dissolution, the first in the series. That was excellent.

My wife is a big fan of the Shardlake novels, she's been nagging me to read them but the idea never really appealed to me

There was one I lost patience with - might have been the second - something fire. But I’d recommend Dissolution with some confidence.

[Hugo]

Finished the Gore book. Definitely a very hard working, thorough, deliberate, studious and well researched politician. His big flaw was that he was too wooden and unrelatable and had this egotistical need to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room all the time. Interesting to read about how much tension there was between him and Hillary. Not sure how commonplace VP-first lady beefs are (I know Nancy Reagan kept the Bushes at arms length) but this one was a real power struggle for Bills ear. Hillary did not like Al and Bills weekly lunches and tried to take them off the schedule, he pushed environmental issues, Hillary was in favour of healthcare reform. All in all, I think he would have made a solid President. He was really undone by the collateral damage from Bill's scandals which is too bad because he himself was a straight laced family man.

That's not how I remember him at the time. He came across as an empty suit, absolutely in thrall to the Washington insiders, and totally devoid of political instincts (see the disaster with Tipper & his later claims to have "invented the internet") - all in all not really much of a step up on Dan Quayle. It is telling that he couldn't even win his home state when running for president. I saw nothing in the aftermath of the Rwanda massacres or the Serb war to suggest that he would have been any better than Bush in dealing with 9/11.

There's clear daylight between him and Dan Quayle. Quayle was a laughing stock and was thought to be such a liability by republicans that they contemplated removing him from VP after Bush's first term. Gore was an asset to the Clinton administration, he brought an air of gravitas and seriousness that "the man from Hope" lacked. Clinton was the slithery, philandering politician with skeletons in his closet and Gore was the solid as a rock, son of a senator, faithful to his wife, family man. In the VP debates of 1992 Quayle knew he could not lay a glove on Gore, so the strategy was to focus on attacking Clinton's character. Gore was forced to defend Clinton's character in that debate and many subsequent times over the following eight years when they had to limit the damage from one scandal after the next. It almost brought down his administration and it hampered Gore's chance in 2000. In my estimation Clinton benefitted far more from Gore than the other way around.

Don't really see how he can be characterized as an empty suit, slavish adherent to DC orthodoxy either. He's been an environmental activist his entire public life, long before it became mainstream and popular. He was way ahead of the curve on that as he was on recognizing the way that the internet was going to be a game changer. His He was an assiduous planner, more of a visionary than someone who just rode the waves of whatever was popular at any given time.

[Hugo]

Just read the Jerry Heller autobiography.

Not bad, not great either, hard to get a clear idea whether he was a good advocate for NWA or the bloodsucking parasite that Ice Cube always alleges that he was. He talks about the infamous threat that Suge made toward Eazy to secure Dre's release but not why things got to that point in the first place.

Regarding the start of NWA, the way he tells the story Eazy E approached him from a business point of view wanting to start a record label rather than him being discovered. The way he talks about Eazy is as if he is in awe of him but I can't tell if he really thinks that or if its bullshit and Eazy was just someone he liked a lot because he could be easily manipulated.

When the NWA thing happened he was in his mid 40s crashing at his parents house but he doesn't indicate how he ended up there. He talks about his childhood, college, the army, the sixties but nothing about the late 70s/early 80s.

All in all a book that created more questions than it answered. Will need to hunt down a well researched, authoritative book on NWA/Death Row.

[CrazyIslander]

The Bible.

Too long, disjointed as fuck and way too hard to follow.
0/10

I could teach you my son.

[mat the expat]

Scarily close to Covid 19:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/ ... D6NZ1WhRL0

In the End of October, a horrifying virus brings the world to standstill, a situation that the author has now seen for himself

[Hugo]

Picked up a copy of 'Betrayal of the Negro" by African American historian Rayford Logan. It charts the demise of the African American in the last quarter of the 19th century, from free man to second class citizen. Its grim reading, every year from 1882 to 1891 over one hundred blacks were lynched yet efforts at passing anti lynching legislation only came about at the urging of the Italian govt. after eleven Italians were lynched in New Orleans. A subsequent bill to make lynching a federal crime (introduced in 1900 by the sole black representative in congress) died in the Judiciary committee. The author frames this time as the nadir of American race relations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_ ... _relations

Read the first six chapters and what is interesting is to consider how this dismal period of history for blacks coincided with the gilded age and the emergence of the United States as a world power. Another interesting thing to think about is the way that these problems are often written off as southern and democratic issues. The supreme court which ruled on the civil rights cases of 1883 and Plessy v Ferguson (both of which legalised segregation) was predominantly made up of northerners and republicans.

[Slick]

Just finished The Overstory by Richard Powers.

Really enjoyed it and recommend. 7 or 8 different stories that come together based around trees. Some amazing science and tree facts woven into the narrative and really well written, if a little pretentious occasionally

[C69]

My 13 year old daughter is reading all the works of George Orwell in sequence atm.
She really enjoyed Animal Farm and 1984. I had to give her a History lesson regarding the e Russian revolution and tye characters in Animal Farm as it is a few years since I read it I remebered it almost perfectly.

[BnM]

So in one go I read all of the Ben Aaronovitch books, apart from the graphic novels.

Last book I think was the weakest and I'm not the only one who thinks that going by the reviews but fatigue could have set in.

Recommend. Police, London, Urban, bit of magic, engaging main character.

Moved on to S. A. Chackraborty trio of books, starting with City of Brass then I think I need some non-fiction.

[robmatic]

Just finished The Overstory by Richard Powers.

Really enjoyed it and recommend. 7 or 8 different stories that come together based around trees. Some amazing science and tree facts woven into the narrative and really well written, if a little pretentious occasionally

I've read a couple of his earlier novels and he's probably the best example I know of a literary author who can authoritatively write about scientific topics. He seems to have a really good grasp of computer science and genetics.

[Hugo]

Was given a copy of Ozzys autobiography and almost done. How he made it out of the 70s alive is anyone's guess. What a brilliant rags to riches story though.

Im going through a rock n roll phase - next up an Eric Clapton biography.

[Slick]

Just finishing East of Eden. I'm finding it an extraordinarily good book, can't wait to turn every page.

[Jock42]

Just finished Burma '44 and now reading Fortress Malta by James Holland. Good overview and easy to read. Some input from previous interviews the author has done with veterans of the conflict.

[Fangle]

I would like to thank Monk Zombie for suggesting Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books, and the person who suggested the Rivers of London books. Both have been good fun to read between heavier books.

[Hugo]

Didn't realise Eric Clapton's old man was a Canadian. He was a soldier stationed in England and got Erics teenage mother pregnant at the tail end of WW2. Eric ended up being raised by his grandparents and his mother ended up living in Germany, married to another Canadian.

Just got to the part where he leaves the Yardbirds.

[Hugo]

The Clapton book was very dour so I jacked it in half way through and am now reading a Jack Johnson biography "Intolerable blackness". Its a very good read. This guy was a total one of a kind maverick with an indomitable spirit who practically refused to allow racism and prejudice to prevent him from accomplishing his goals.

[robmatic]

I enjoyed Cut Stones and Crossroads by Ronald Wright, about the author's travels around the Inca sites of Peru in the 80s. My wife and I did the Inca Trail on our honeymoon a few years back, so it was good to revisit some of the experiences.

[Hugo]

Condoleezza Rice biography by Antonia Felix.

Incredibly inspirational book - she came from a remarkably supportive family of academics and clergy who inculcated her with an ethos of discipline, self reliance and self improvement. Growing up in Birmingham they essentially refused to allow Jim Crow to limit her and as a family would walk rather than use the segregated bus or go home rather than be subjected to the indignity of using the "colored toilets".

She was a child prodigy, playing the piano at three, reading fluently by age five, an accomplished figure skater and graduated from the University of Denver at age 19.

Once she realised that her pianist skills were not going to get her any further in life than a gig as a music teacher she developed a fascination with the Soviet Union/Cold War and began studying Russian and the USSR.

In the field of international relations she knew that being a black woman she would have to be twice as good as white male counterparts to be considered their equal. So with an indomitable spirit, insatiable work ethic and meticulous attention to detail she worked towards that goal.

Quite a few parallels with Jack Johnson in that they were both undeterred by the obstacles that were placed in their way. They navigated their way to the top with that distinctly American belief in upward social mobility.

[Fangle]

I read an autobiography of Condi’s a number of years ago, in which she talks about the Birmingham civil riots in the 60s, and how the black community was threatened by white racists intent on attacking blacks. But the black men took their guns and blocked them from entering the black areas, which is why she is a supporter of the second amendment.

I will read this book as well.

[sockwithaticket]

I've been re-reading Kim Newman's Anno Dracula stuff. I think they get a bit weaker as they progress through the 20th century, but they're still top class pulp written by someone with a great appreciation for 19th century horror literature.

[Slick]

Just finished Cherry by Nico Walker, really enjoyed it.

It was like nothing I've read before, it's the same prose and narration the whole way through but it starts off laugh out loud funny then subtly changes to really fucking dark by the end, but with the same jokey style.

[Hugo]

I read an autobiography of Condi’s a number of years ago, in which she talks about the Birmingham civil riots in the 60s, and how the black community was threatened by white racists intent on attacking blacks. But the black men took their guns and blocked them from entering the black areas, which is why she is a supporter of the second amendment.

I will read this book as well.

Yeah, its a good one. Will make you re-examine how you live your life.

Read Tyson Furys book over the weekend. Some interesting insights in there about how political the sport is with all the governing bodies, promoters etc. Also, the mindset of Travellers, they see education for boys over 10 years old as pointless and from that age on they expect them to get out in the world and to start earning a living. Travellers in general are fascinating people because their codes and ethics are very distinct from the rest of society. I think its fair to say they value blood ties more than average folks.

It seems like one of his biggest frustrations was the fact he did not get to represent GB at the Olympics because Price was their man and Ireland did not allow him to box for them either. He comes across as a very authentic and likable bloke who is not afraid to make himself vulnerable and own his mistakes. I hope he goes on to have important roles after he is finished with boxing.

[Paddington Bear]

I know most of you probably will not care for the America focused books, but the last two books I read were:

Braddocks Defeat - really good read on Braddock and what went wrong in the campaign versus the French in 1756 at the Monongahela/Fort Duquesne (close to Pittsburgh) and how many of the American revolutionaries go their military experience.

The British are Coming - first in the trilogy by Rick Atkinson who is a great author...really enjoyed it, and spends some quality time on the Canada campaign by the Americans and the recapture by the British.

If you want more on this topic I highly recommend Tories - Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War. A history focussed on the loyalists and their plight.

[Hugo]

Read Tolstoy's novella the death of Ivan Ilyich over the weekend and also Family Happiness.

Much preferred the former. Both centred around married couples in the upper strata of society who no longer have a romantic connection. I really liked TDOII because it's a brilliant critique of sort of the inherent immorality of bourgeois social climbers whose lives revolve around the advancement of their careers, material wealth and keeping up with the Joneses. The protagonist is diagnosed with a terminal illness and whilst on his death bed has to comes to terms with the fact that although he accomplished many things in life his life was lived without meaning.

I'd say it's a brilliant story - really makes you thinks about how you live your life, what your legacy will be, the superficiality of human existence on so many levels etc.