• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

A Good Read: Book Suggestions & Recommendations

That's a coincidence, I bought my mum a copy of Tey's The Franchise Affair as a present recently and she loved it.
 
Lost Cosmonaut by Daniel Kalder. A Scots mon who moved to Moscow. This book covers his journeys across four of Russias' Ethnic Republics.

Part of the section on Tartarstan was published in FT, this was about the Exhibition Rooms in the Kazan Kremlin which contained Peter The Greats collection of bottled mutant babies, Pete bought the collection of the great Dutch embalmer Frederick Ruysch. As well bottled babies, Ruysch put foetus skeletons in Dioramas.

In Kalmykia he discovers a Mongol Buddhist Republic, located on the sandy Steppes. Ruled by a megalomaniac President who was also President of the International Chess Federation.

A great read.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/m ... ianreview8
 
Shweta Taneja’s Cult of Chaos:

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-thrill-in-occult/article6857297.ece
Updated: February 4, 2015 21:21 IST
The thrill in occult

05BGMSHWETA_2300040f.jpg

Shweta Taneja dabbles in the supernatural underworld. Photo: K. Gopinathan

The launch of Shweta Taneja’s Cult of Chaos was made unique by an occult detective quiz.

The launch of Shweta Taneja’s Cult of Chaos was just as unique as the genre she has explored in her book. Cult of Chaos is a tantrik thriller set in Delhi. The launch kick started— at Atta Galatta recently—with an occult detective quiz, conducted by Sathvik Ashok of QuizCraft Global. The audience, avid quizzers most of them, were divided into groups of three. The quiz had five rounds, including detective fiction, urban legends/myths, religion/religious practices, etc. There were questions on cauldrons, pentacles, Bloody Mary and tarots through which the audience got to learn more about detective fiction and the occult.

Author Sharath Komarraju launched the book, with two convincing words, “Buy it!” Shweta’s dazzling smile made the event even brighter. The protagonist, fiery, in-your-face, Anantya Tantrist, is clearly close to Shweta’s heart. The story revolves around Anantya’s investigation into gut-wrenching cases of girls being sacrificed in a black magic ritual.

She also travels through the supernatural underworld of Delhi. For the book, Shweta read up on tantrism and folklore. “When I started to research on the occult, folklore and tribal tales in this country, one day I knew my protagonist was a tantrik detective. And the angry, victimized Anantya Tantrist, who was a survivor from a failed novel of before, a revenge saga which never took off, was a perfect fit here. This is not a single book for me, but a series. Each book will be a standalone case, but with each of these books, I want to explore Anantya’s world deeper,” said Shweta, an author and graphic novelist, who has also authored The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong.

Cult of Chaos is a HarperCollins publication.
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Chaos-Anantya-Tantrist-Mystery/dp/9351364445

cultofchaos.jpg
 
Last edited:
For an entertaining read it has to be the Merrily Watkins series by Phil Rickman - about a female exorcist vicar in rural Hertfordshire! Someone recommended it and I was hooked after reading the first book.
 
caroleaswas said:
Not at all Fortean, but let me recommend the Poldark books by Winston Graham.

There are about a dozen of them, ranging from the late 18 century to the 1820s. Cornish tin mines, tragedy, romance, war, action, comedy, a wealth of brilliant characters. I read them over and over again and never tire of them.

Carole
Click to expand...

I'm plugging this old post because it could soon be the 'in thing' to know about Poldark and Winston Graham:
VIDEO: Stars shine for premiere of Poldark at Plaza Cinema in Truro
Last updated 16:22 Friday 27 February 2015

THERE was a palpable air of excitement in Truro’s Plaza Cinema last night at the world premiere of the much anticipated, in Cornwall at least, BBC production of Poldark.
The stars of the show Aidan Turner (Ross Poldark) Eleanor Tomlinson (Demelza), Heida Reed (Elizabeth Chenoweth), Jack Farthing (George Warleggan) were there to add a bit of glamour and after the screening treated the audience to a Q&A.

For those who don’t know the story, it’s 1783 and Britain is in the grip of a chilling recession with falling wages, rising prices and civil unrest. Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) returns from the American War of Independence to his beloved Cornwall to find his world in ruins: his father dead, the family mine long since closed, his house wrecked and his sweetheart pledged to marry his cousin.

...

The series of eight episodes took five months to film in Cornwall last summer with Cadgwith Cove being one of the stunning sites used for filming.
Cornwall looks stunning in the first episode with many in the audience trying to work out where each scene was filmed, although some were shot around Bristol.

It is hoped that when the series is screened on BBC1 Sunday, March 8, it will do wonders for the Cornish tourism economy, much as the original series did in the 1970s.
That series, which ran in 1975 and 1977, had audiences as high as 15 million, figures today’s TV executives can only dream off. The love lives of Ross Poldark and Demelza had the nation glued to their screens.

Actress Eleanor Tomlinson, who plays Demelza, does a pretty convincing Cornish accent, as the Illogan girl who becomes Ross Poldark’s wife told the audience she had a lot of fun playing the role but it had taken a long time to get the makeup off.
She said she had spent weeks with a voice coach and hoped that she had got the accent right as she had been really worried about it.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...e_of_Poldark_at_Plaza_Cinema_in_Truro/?ref=mr

Sadly, the earlier TV screenings were during my 'at sea' years, so I never saw them, but I think I have read a couple of the books in more recent years.
 
A Month in the Country, J L Carr.

amonthinthecountry.jpg

From Amazon -
"A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he experiences a sense of renewal and belief in the future. Now an old man, Birkin looks back on the idyllic summer of 1920"

A very short, but beautiful book at only 80 or so pages, I took over a week to read it in small sections just to try and make it last a bit longer. It reminded me of my own early twenties when I took a craftsman type of job in a Northern market town.
 
davidplankton said:
A Month in the Country, J L Carr.

"A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby...
Click to expand...
Never having heard of the place, I had to look it up on Bing maps - and found there are two, in North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. But neither of them appear to have a church!

The Lincolnshire one has a nearby church, but it's in Kirkby, a hamlet to the west.

Wiki has two references, one to the novel, and the other to a film of the same name.
According to the latter article:

"Set in rural Yorkshire during the 1920s, the film follows a destitute World War I veteran employed to carry out restoration work on a Medieval mural discovered in a rural church while coming to terms with the after-effects of the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Month_in_the_Country_(film) "

So it seems the church and mural at Odgodby are fictional!
 
rynner2 said:
So it seems the church and mural at Odgodby are fictional!
Click to expand...

From the foreword by the author,

"So I set its background up in the North Riding, on the Vale of Mowbray, where my folks had lived for many generations"



Then talking of how real life events found their way into the novel,

"....and much more happened between the Pennine Moors and the Yorkshire Wold. But the church in the fields is in Northamptonshire, its churchyard in Norfolk, its vicarage in London."
 
rynner2 said:
I'm plugging this old post because it could soon be the 'in thing' to know about Poldark and Winston Graham:
VIDEO: Stars shine for premiere of Poldark at Plaza Cinema in Truro
Last updated 16:22 Friday 27 February 2015

THERE was a palpable air of excitement in Truro’s Plaza Cinema last night at the world premiere of the much anticipated, in Cornwall at least, BBC production of Poldark.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...e_of_Poldark_at_Plaza_Cinema_in_Truro/?ref=mr
Click to expand...
More on the new TV version:

Pardon? Stars of Poldark
'spooked' by Jamaica Inn mumbling row
By DaveCDM | Posted: March 03, 2015

The outcry over mumbling during last year's TV remake of Jamaica Inn left the cast of Poldark 'terrified', the star of the new show has revealed.
Aidan Turner, 31, who plays Ross Poldark in the show, admitted the criticism spooked the entire cast.
Hundreds of viewers complained about the adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic gothic novel, set in 1821 against the windswept Cornish moors, after struggling to make out the dialogue.

Aidan said: “I didn’t see the show (Jamaica Inn) but the fuss about it spooked us all a lot.”
“We started shooting a few weeks later and I can tell you all the actors were aiming for 10 out of 10 on enunciation. I’m doing posh RP (Received Pronunciation) anyway so it didn’t really affect me directly but I was scared,” he said of filming the drama, set in 18th century Cornwall.

Poldark, which attracted audiences of 15 million when it was first broadcast by the BBC in the 1970s, begins on BBC1 on Sunday at 9pm.


Read more: http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/Pardon-Stars-Poldark-spooked-Jamaica-Inn-mumbling/story-26109822-detail/story.html#ixzz3TJf0xaZa
 
Loquaciousness said:
Someone recommended it and I was hooked after reading the first book.
Click to expand...

snap! have you tried his other books? also good :) I got the companion to the border book for Christmas, very enjoyable.
 
The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Untitledbgjpeg.jpg
I bought this the day it was released and finished it yesterday. Its description as ‘a literary Game of Thrones’ is, I think off the mark. Whilst it contains a dragon, ogres and pixies, it is primarily a book about memory and relationships. Ishiguro’s readers will immediately recognise his spare prose style and there is a surprising amount of swash-buckling action.


I hope Fantasy Genre readers will like it as much as I did.
 
I just came across this charming little book and its interesting story:

''The remarkable rabbits of Sigmund Freud’s niece''
03.10.2015

These remarkable dreamlike images come from a 1924 book that came out in Germany called Buch der Hasengeschichten (“Book of Rabbit Stories”). The author published under the name Tom Seidmann-Freud, but her given name was Martha Gertrud Freud—her mother, Maria Freud, who went by “Mitzi,” was one of Sigmund Freud’s five sisters
Click to expand...
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_remarkable_rabbits_of_sigmund_freuds_niece
 
Having seen it praised on this message board i bought "mythago wood", didn't manage to finish it as i found it very dull, the characters where dull, the story was dull and the writing was dull.
i found it strangely lacking in myffic quality and a big let down
 
titchagain said:
Having seen it praised on this message board i bought "mythago wood", didn't manage to finish it as i found it very dull, the characters where dull, the story was dull and the writing was dull.
i found it strangely lacking in myffic quality and a big let down
Click to expand...


I've read some of Holdstocks short storires (which were good) but not his novels.
 
I]m sorry to hear that - I love the Mythago Wood series, find them haunting.
 
titchagain said:
Having seen it praised on this message board i bought "mythago wood", didn't manage to finish it as i found it very dull, the characters where dull, the story was dull and the writing was dull.
i found it strangely lacking in myffic quality and a big let down
Click to expand...
Aww, sorry you had that experience. I must admit, for me it did take a lot for me to get into it. You actually have to make an effort, and finally the effort pays off.
 
Now is a good time to binge-read Pratchett. I'm going to start with Small Gods.
 
For me, it's the Guards books.

Perhaps it's the development of Sam Vimes as the Discworld series ages, or perhaps it's merely the fact that being police narratives - of sorts - there's lots of touring the city and encountering a wide variety of its denizens.
 
Who suggested Mythago Wood? I read it after seeing it mentioned on here and must say I really enjoyed it. Very 'British'.
Well thanks because I wouldn't have heard of it, or the author R Holdstock otherwise.
 
Ripley Underground, Patricia Highsmith.

RUjpeg.jpg


The second book in the Ripley series.
Yes, there are plot holes if you want to look for them, but I chose not to and instead enjoyed this immensely for what it is. A damned good thriller by one of the best thriller writers ever.
 
davidplankton said:
Ripley Underground, Patricia Highsmith.
The second book in the Ripley series.
Yes, there are plot holes if you want to look for them, but I chose not to and instead enjoyed this immensely for what it is. A damned good thriller by one of the best thriller writers ever.
Click to expand...

I've only read The Talented Mr Ripley, which is a fine book. Damn, she was cold, though.
 
Physics On The Fringe by Margaret Werteim. There are many Outsider Physics Theories, some are collected here and refreshingly the author takes a Fortean approach and doesn't just dismiss them all as loons. Jim Carter gets most attention from her and he is a likeable character, gold prospector, abalone diver, conservationist. Even film editor and sound engineer Walter Murch (two Oscars) features with a theory of his own.

Engrossing, enjoyable read.

Maverick science writer Wertheim (A Field Guide to Hyperbolic Space, 2005, etc.) challenges the right of the scientific establishment to lay claim to the position of gatekeepers of truth.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in physics, the author pursued a career as a journalist, writing a column on science for three fashion magazines including Vogue Australia. At that time, she began following the work of outliers in the field, and in 1994 she discovered Jim Carter, a central figure in this book. She admires his commitment to describe physics in terms a layman can comprehend without knowledge of higher mathematics. Carter rejects the theories of Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein, as well as quantum theory, in favor of his own view of the universe.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/margaret-wertheim/physics-fringe/

 
ramonmercado said:
The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr. Its good stuff.

Storr meets and debates with creationists, homeopaths, cultists, mad rights campaigners.

He also meets with Davis Irving, Lord Monckton and Rupert Sheldrake.

He even takes The Great Randi to task.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9823893/The-Heretics-by-Will-Storr-review.html
Click to expand...

I have read it, at first i thought it was going to be as entertaining as will storr vs the supernatural, but when it started examining the effects of upbringing, society etc on our actions i had to force myself to finish the book, i found myself trying to marshal arguments in order to defend free will, but all i could come up with was I DON'T WANT TO BE A FLESH AND BLOOD ROBOT.


There are many excellent points to the book, the new ideas on mental illness, the interview with randi and the tour with david irving where superb, but i found the whole outlook of the book to be very bleak and depressing, i normally read a book again right after i finished it, this one is going to a friend for their views on it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top