# The Book Thread

**URL:** <https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [March 10, 2019, 3:09pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169 "2019-03-10T15:09:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Snurp](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@Snurp](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/Snurp)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 3:09pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/1 "2019-03-10T15:09:43Z")

</div>

What’s everyone reading at the moment?

I’m in a sci fi phase, I’m working my way through this list of nebula/hugo/lotus award winners: [Award-Winning Fantasy & Science-Fiction Novels - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qtH8waK4DgvoCc1iP34y-lbjGHFyKhrUBMTLaAmELiY/edit?usp=drivesdk)

Currently on The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. Story about a genderless society, and the impact that the lack of gender has on society. No division of humanity into strong/weak, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive. Everyone has exactly the same reproductive experience. Very weird and interesting.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![buildafire](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/buildafire/32/34_2.png) [@buildafire](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/buildafire)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/2 "2019-03-10T15:11:38Z")

</div>

![image](https://uksf-media.lon1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/original/1X/6f7d22a70de51e64854b5bdaec97f6e263387670.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![andy\_smoke](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/andy_smoke/32/21480_2.png) [@andy\_smoke](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/andy_smoke)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/3 "2019-03-10T16:14:51Z")

</div>

finally finished the brain bursting ‘Sophie’s World’ last weekend; now plowing through the wryly amusing ‘Travels with My Aunt’ by Graham Greene

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Whatsupbacklip](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/whatsupbacklip/32/377_2.png) [@Whatsupbacklip](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/Whatsupbacklip)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/4 "2019-03-10T18:28:48Z")

</div>

Just got done reading the Robin Hobb Fitz/Elderlings saga. Pretty rad if anyone’s after a Game of Thrones style fantasy series.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![judithpriest](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/judithpriest/32/37_2.png) [@judithpriest](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/judithpriest)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 11:37am UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/6 "2019-03-11T11:37:40Z")

</div>

currently reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.  
bit much.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![buildafire](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/buildafire/32/34_2.png) [@buildafire](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/buildafire)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 11:42am UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/7 "2019-03-11T11:42:15Z")

</div>

Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNabb. Which actually improves with every read.

Bad Slags by Stan the Stabber.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jimvo](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jimvo/32/336_2.png) [@jimvo](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jimvo)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 12:39pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/8 "2019-03-11T12:39:13Z")

</div>

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/books/review/james-mcbrides-kill-em-and-leave.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/books/review/james-mcbrides-kill-em-and-leave.html)

I really rated this James Brown book. Admits from the start that JB made himself unknowable. Admits he didn’t think he was the man to write the book but needed the money… It reads more like a pulp detective novel crossed with a kind of social history. V good.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 1:47pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/9 "2019-03-11T13:47:45Z")

</div>

Blood Meridian is amazing, probably my favourite of his books. It’s dark, but not as desperate as The Road. I also really liked Suttree.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/10 "2019-03-11T13:50:10Z")

</div>

> [@andy\_smoke](#):
>
> now plowing through the wryly amusing ‘Travels with My Aunt’ by Graham Greene

What is it with GG and Catholic Guilt? He always manages to fit some in in every book.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/11 "2019-03-11T13:56:28Z")

</div>

I’ve just finished The Plot Against America and American Pastoral by Phillip Roth, and then Among the Thugs by Bill Buford. The Plot Against America is interesting in the context of Trump’s presidency (it’s an alternative history with Charles Lindbergh voted in as a non-interventionist, anti-Semitic president in 1940 instead of FDR).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/anonymity/32/65_2.png) [@anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/anonymity)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/12 "2019-03-11T15:44:41Z")

</div>

Been trying to fill in gaps in my ‘classics’ reading of late.

Read Silas Marner by George Eliot last week - surprised to say that I loved it and it made me cry.  
Great Expectations was a bit of a slog but that’s Dickens I suppose.  
Did An Inspector Calls last night - very good.  
Then re-read Of Mice and Men, first time since I was in school - also excellent.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/13 "2019-03-11T15:49:31Z")

</div>

> [@anonymity](#):
>
> Read Silas Marner by George Eliot last week - surprised to say that I loved it and it made me cry.  
> Great Expectations was a bit of a slog but that’s Dickens I suppose.

George Elliot is a big gap in my reading. I’ve got a copy of Middlemarch burning a hole on my bedside table. I love Dickens, but I know what you mean about Great Expectations. Have you read David Copperfield?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/anonymity/32/65_2.png) [@anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/anonymity)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 3:54pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/14 "2019-03-11T15:54:26Z")

</div>

> [@jamjar](#):
>
> George Elliot is a big gap in my reading. I’ve got a copy of Middlemarch burning a hole on my bedside table. I love Dickens, but I know what you mean about Great Expectations. Have you read David Copperfield?

Haven’t read Middlemarch - Silas Marner is the first Eliot that I’ve read.  
The idea of the redemptive power of love/parenthood really got to me though.  
As for Dickens, only read Great Exp and Christmas Carol - I’ll give Copperfield a go soon as it’s supposed to be his best I think, isn’t it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anon90826813](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@anon90826813](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/anon90826813)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 3:57pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/15 "2019-03-11T15:57:41Z")

</div>

Middlemarch is meant to be the most boring book ever written.

I started Gravity’s rainbow about a month ago but barely gotten into it. I fall asleep too quickly when reading at night. Book feels like it would be alright thoughl.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/anonymity/32/65_2.png) [@anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/anonymity)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/16 "2019-03-11T16:17:33Z")

</div>

> [@anon90826813](#):
>
> I started Gravity’s rainbow about a month ago but barely gotten into it.

I did the same with V - great writing and very ‘progressive’ technically but hard to actually enjoy to be honest. Pynchon is a fantastic writer but he’s not that much fun.  
I’ve got maybe 80 pages left - will report back if I get through it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/17 "2019-03-11T17:47:48Z")

</div>

> [@anonymity](#):
>
> > I started Gravity’s rainbow about a month ago but barely gotten into it.
> 
> I did the same with V - great writing and very ‘progressive’ technically but hard to actually enjoy to be honest. Pynchon is a fantastic writer but he’s not that much fun.  
> I’ve got maybe 80 pages left - will report back if I get through it.

I read V when I was 18. I thought it would make me look cool. Not sure I really understood it, but it had some good character names in it. I read most of Vineland. I quite liked the film of it with Joaquin Phoenix.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 5:58pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/18 "2019-03-11T17:58:33Z")

</div>

> [@anonymity](#):
>
> I’ll give Copperfield a go soon as it’s supposed to be his best I think, isn’t it?

It’s the most autobiographical. The thing with Dickens is that he always has some amazing characters to counterbalance the sentimentality. I loved Joe Gargery, Wemmick and Jaggers in GE.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/19 "2019-03-11T17:59:11Z")

</div>

> [@anon90826813](#):
>
> Middlemarch is meant to be the most boring book ever written.

Wasn’t it John Major’s fav book?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/anonymity/32/65_2.png) [@anonymity](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/anonymity)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/20 "2019-03-11T18:12:29Z")

</div>

> [@jamjar](#):
>
> Joe Gargery

Amazing character right there.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/user_avatar/ukskateforum.co.uk/jamjar/32/25349_2.png) [@jamjar](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/u/jamjar)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 6:13pm UTC](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169/21 "2019-03-11T18:13:59Z")

</div>

“What larks, Pip!”

[Next page](https://ukskateforum.co.uk/t/the-book-thread/169.md?page=2)
