What You Been Reading?

[snuggleskunk]

So I've just finished Dreams of My Father by President Obama. I really enjoyed it. Well written, interesting. And you felt you learnt a lot more about the man. Now has anyone read Audacity of Hope because I suspect it's quite different and want to know whether it's worth trying next?

[outer-H]

I finished Affluenza on the train back from Heathrow the other week. I agree with Oliver James' central theory (as if we didn't already know advertising drives you crazy, but at least he shows us how crazy), but he tries to be too much of a lazy aristocrat sometimes, which is a bit annoying. But definitely worth a read!

[friendlywithteeth]

Read The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas, which I really enjoyed reading, if it twisted my mind in knots a little!

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman... also a lot of fun

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. It started off quite innocuously, with an old man's mystery... Then, before you knew it, there was rape, abuse, incest and downright skullduggery!

Finishing off Vellum by Hal Duncan... a bloody pain in the arse.

[friendlywithteeth]

Can anyone recommend a book about the Hapsbergs? Ran into them quite a lot when I was on off on a jaunt, and would quite like to read a bit more!

[Robson]

Now has anyone read Audacity of Hope because I suspect it's quite different and want to know whether it's worth trying next?

It reads like a presidential bid, which is what it turned out to be.


My recent reading has been a bit thematic:
Desperately Seeking Paradise by Ziauddin Sardar
The Walled Garden of Truth by Hakim Senai
A Faith for All Seasons by Shabbir Akhtar
The Wrath of Islam by Malvise Ruthven

all of which are excellent except Akhtar's which is so far the only book (academic or fiction) I have had to give up on finishing.
Next on the list are some Rushdie novels and Sardar's latest, Balti Britain.

[Tib]

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski.
Fantastic stuff - if you're a fan of Great Game, gunboat diplomacy, freezing winter marches with letters hidden under greatcoats. which luckily I am.

The French Connection by Robin Moore
Not the best-written thing ever, it lacked punchiness in places, but I suppose it set the scene!

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
Mostly good, though a few chapters were boring, and his arguments became a bit woolly - the chapter on how the entire court system fucked up with regard to statistics in a hospital case doesn't exactly prove his point that it's journalists dumbing down that's the problem. Nicely self-righteous though.

13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks.
Fantastic - made me want to give everything else up and retrain as a physicist. Funny to read the similar-but-different takes on the studies into homeopathy and the placebo effect in this book and Goldacre's.

Flat Earth News by Nick Davies
His basic theory is spot-on, but I felt it could have been a tighter book overall. Some chapters didn't seem to really relate to the main argument, and seemed to be just chucked in because he was interested in them. Sometimes it was even completely contradictory - listing the ludicrous/immoral/illegal extremes to which some journalists go to get a story hardly ties in with desk-bound churnalism of press releases and failure to fact-check. Not that both don't happen, but I thought he could be clearer.

God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars by Michael Braddick
Fascinating overall, though the final third dragged. A 'dramatis personae' would have helped, too, it was difficult to keep track of some of the major and minor players, especially considering how many of them were named after counties!

Just started Millennium by Tom Holland, a religio-historical dash through the Dark Ages which sounds reet good.

Probably some novels too that I've forgotten about!

Oh yeah, The Blue World by Jack Vance for one. I liked it, but it felt too much like the first half a book...I wanted more!