January Reading Thread

Definitely!
 
Vertigo said:
That's really interesting and I might well pick up a copy. I've recently finished reading Patrick O'Brian's Golden Ocean which is his take on Anson voyage around the world in the Centurion, being the voyage that the Wager started out on before the events in your book. This was good but less polished compared with his later works. And I will be going on to read The Unknown Shore which is O'Brian's account of the Wager.

The question is whether to read the fiction or non-fiction account first! Probably the fiction to avoid spending the whole book saying 'but that's not right!' Though O'Brian is generally pretty good at researching his work. Also probably not a book to buy as an ebook as I understand it is filled with lots of illustrations.
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I wouldn't know which to read first. Grann's book reads like a novel and I think he referenced O'Brian's in the narrative.

Much of the book was based on some radically different accounts by the participants, so it would be very interesting the see how O'Brian interpreted the events. Now I've read the non-fiction account, you have piqued my interest in the novel!
 
Steve Harrison said:
I wouldn't know which to read first. Grann's book reads like a novel and I think he referenced O'Brian's in the narrative.

Much of the book was based on some radically different accounts by the participants, so it would be very interesting the see how O'Brian interpreted the events. Now I've read the non-fiction account, you have piqued my interest in the novel!
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Interesting that he referenced O'Brian. I hope it was reasonably complimentary considering his was a work of fiction.

The Golden Ocean is the story of Anson's voyage so they part company somewhere around Cape Horn. It is worth a read. It is told from the perspective of a midshipman; not sure whose perspective the Unknown Shore is written from.. I have already added Grann's book to my wish list! Thanks! You'll need to be careful you don't get sucked into O'Brian's Maturin and Aubrey books; all 20 of them plus one unfinished one! Though they are also worth a read if you find yourself interested in the world of the great man of war sailing ships, one of them even visits Australia!
 
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Toby Frost said:
True, and I think the number who feel this will rise as things get worse. Besides, perhaps a certain percentage of the young always feel betrayed by the ideology of the day, as happened in many Communist countries.

A while ago I started reading Agency by William Gibson. Even for Gibson it was hard to follow, until I realised that it was the sequel to another book. Today I started the first book, The Peripheral. So far, very Gibson, which is no bad thing.
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I loved both of those books, though I can well imagine how trying to understand Agency without reading The Peripheral first would be quite a challenge. There is supposed to be a third, but still waiting!
 
Vertigo said:
Interesting that he referenced O'Brian. I hope it was reasonably complimentary considering his was a work of fiction.

The Golden Ocean is the story of Anson's voyage so they part company somewhere around Cape Horn. It is worth a read. It is told from the perspective of a midshipman; not sure whose perspective the Unknown Shore is written from.. I have already added Grann's book to my wish list! Thanks! You'll need to be careful you don't get sucked into O'Brian's Maturin and Aubrey books; all 20 of them plus one unfinished one! Though they are also worth a read if you find yourself interested in the world of the great man of war sailing ships, one of them even visits Australia!
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Grann referenced a lot of works, making it clear he was working from the same material and noting novelists and historians alike had a lot of interpreting to do! He also detailed the Anson voyage and outcome, which rounded everything out nicely. I was aware of the War of Jenkins' Ear, but none of the detail, so this book was fascinating.

I read all the Maturin/Aubrey books, together with the other wonderful collections of Hornblower, Ramage and Bolitho novels, in my youth and all of those seafaring heroes were huge influences on the main character in my first novel.
 
~On the Map by Simon Garfield
This book is something of a cabinet of curiosities dedicated to the physical object of maps - from the Ancient Greeks to Google Earth. Each chapter covers a particularly historically important or notable map. The author has a droll and conversational writing style, but the poorly reproduced black and white graphics and lack of colour plates detract from the reading experience. The book is interesting but I felt that it tended to get tedious towards the middle, and then got more interesting at the end with chapters on GPS, brain mapping and the development of Google Earth.​
 
I am on book 6 of 7 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It is one of the best science-fiction series I've read in a long time, it is so funny and so much fun. The writing us fantastic as well, super smooth. I don't love litrpg, but the author takes that concept and subverts it in a way I haven't seen before.

I am reading one of the books every 2 days, it is hard to put down :)
 
I finished Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I found the first half a little slow. There were some reveals and creepy feelings, but it dragged a bit for me. However, the second half of the book was a page turner, and I finished it pretty quickly. Overall I enjoyed it.

Now I'm reading Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds. I first started this at the beginning of the pandemic and got halfway through but then put it down. I think it was more a sign of the times than anything wrong with the book. I'm finally picking it up again, and I'm just going to start from the beginning again.
 
Lady of Winterfell said:
I finished Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I found the first half a little slow. There were some reveals and creepy feelings, but it dragged a bit for me. However, the second half of the book was a page turner, and I finished it pretty quickly. Overall I enjoyed it.
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I reread the first 30 pages or so about 3 times, just to find out that I hadn't actually missed the name of the narrator - Du Maurier never gave us the first name of the second Mrs. de Winters. That bugged me. Still does. The other thing that bugged me is the lack of a proper ghost. I was expecting a ghost because it was listed as a ghost story and read it because I wanted to read about ghosts, but no ghosts.
 
I also noticed the lack of name for the narrator. I think the categorizing of the book is odd, and maybe it's hard because it doesn't fit into one very well. My copy says 'The classic tale of romantic suspense'. I'm not sure I would say it's romantic, or a love story as I've also seen it described. It also says a 'psychological thriller.' I think the psychological part is right, but I definitely wouldn't categorize the first half of the book as a thriller. But I may be using today's standards rather than those from when it was written in 1938.
 
Rodders said:
I finished AListair Reynolds' Machine Vendetta. Quite good, actually.

Not listening to House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds, read by John Lee. I've not read this before, but i have heard so much about it.

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It's been almost 9 years since I read House of Suns, but it might be my favorite Reynolds book. Enjoy! (Now I'm thinking I should reread it).
 
~The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf
This is a not particularly scholarly, broad overview of the Crusades as they were recorded on 'the other side' i.e. the Muslims/Arabs. The book's content is based almost exclusively on the testimony of contemporary Arab historians and chroniclers, with a sprinkling of the author's own opinions. Informative, if you know something about the Crusades, but I doubt the book would be particularly helpful if the reader doesn't have some knowledge of the period.​
 
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