What are we reading today?

First topic message reminder :

I was reading the other day that many people enjoy reading while on holiday. So given this is mostly a Political forum. What sort of Political books do you enjoy reading. or do you not read political books but enjoy a history book or a story of a murder.

I ask this out of interest and to find out if people still enjoy a book now we have the internet?

Who's Jeff Bezos?

oftenwrong wrote:Do you have a recollection of a truly awful rendering, or perhaps a happy experience of an entertaining transition from page to screen?

The film of The Bicentennial Man springs to mind. Absolutely terrible.

boatlady wrote:Who's Jeff Bezos?

CEO of a online retail company named after a huge South American river.

Norm Deplume wrote:

boatlady wrote:Who's Jeff Bezos?

CEO of a online retail company named after a huge South American river.

This one?
http://www.orinocoflavours.co.za/

Huger!

Dan Fante wrote:

Norm Deplume wrote:

boatlady wrote:Who's Jeff Bezos?

CEO of a online retail company named after a huge South American river.

This one?
http://www.orinocoflavours.co.za/

No, that's named after a womble.

Thanks everyone

Norm Deplume wrote:

Dan Fante wrote:

Norm Deplume wrote:

boatlady wrote:Who's Jeff Bezos?

CEO of a online retail company named after a huge South American river.

This one?
http://www.orinocoflavours.co.za/

No, that's named after a womble.

This is more my thing: http://www.tobermorymalt.com/

Meanwhile, back at the bookstand ...

A nightmare of an internet forms the theme of a novel "The Circle" by Dave Eggers, recently published by Hamilton at £18.99 (490 pages) or £9.99 as an ebook.

A company called The Circle absorbs all the other dotcom traders on the internet, beginning with a killer app "TruYou" that allows Users to sign-in to any and all websites, in complete security, using their own true identity. Thus pseudonyms and aliases are not only outlawed but trolling activity ceases along with hacking.

The downside is that users can have no secrets from "The Circle" whose mission statement, chilling in its idealism, runs A world in which everyone could know each other truly and wholly without secrets and without shame, and without the need for permission to see or to know, without the selfish hoarding of Life - any corner of it or any moment of it."

You don't need to imagine what sort of geeks produced such ideas, because the author paints a vivid picture of employees obliged to disclose every aspect of their existence to The Circle for general consumption.

You'll also have fun spotting the references to existing organisations.

Have ordered on kindle and started reading.

Bradshaw's Handbook (Old House) [Kindle Edition]
George Bradshaw (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (379 customer reviews)
Print List Price: £9.99
Kindle Price: £0.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: £9.00 (90%)


Beethoven: The Man Revealed [Kindle Edition]
John Suchet (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
Print List Price: £25.00
Kindle Price: £1.09 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: £23.91 (96%)


Valentin's JOB APPLIANCES: A Laugh Out Loud Comedy! (humourous & funny books) [Kindle Edition]
Tom Berry (Author), Valentin Gardemeister (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
Kindle Price: £0.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet

And by post in a few days.


Pub Walks: Walks to Cumbria's Best Pubs (Lake District Top 10 Walks) [Paperback]
Vivienne Crow (Author)

The Birthday Present - Barbara Vine

Which one was that?

I've just read a novel set in the Broads - The Reed Flute. Can heartily recommend.

Not quite the Broads but a fantastic novel set in the Fens is Waterland by Graham Swift.

White Fang.

I have downloaded a collection of the works of Jack London for my kindle, very reasonable too.

Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote:White Fang.

I have downloaded a collection of the works of Jack London for my kindle, very reasonable too.

I love a bit of Jack London. I've read White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Iron Heel and a few short stories. I keep meaning to read The Sea Wolf and The Star Rover too. I'm reading The Devil and Sonny Liston at the minute by the acclaimed writer Nick Tosches. The amount of people embroiled in his background was incredible. People like Meyer Lansky (who pops up in Boardwalk Empire) all the way through to the Kennedy clan who had it in for Liston because of his mob connections. The same connections that helped pay for JFK's election. Great stuff, even if you're not a big fight fan.

Osho: Living Dangerously- Ordinary Enlightenment for Extraordinary Times (Masters of Wisdom)

It's funny how I dismissed this guy while I was in my twenties when he was called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and yet I now feel drawn towards him now I'm in my fifties.

Heretic

George Orwell seems to have ventilated most of the important features of human interaction in his written works. There's something to ponder with every re-reading.

Recent reads include.

What Fresh Lunacy is This?:

The Authorised Biography of Oliver Reed

Robert Sellers

Part read.

See John Run: The Complete Radio 2 Janet and John Marsh Stories as Told by Terry Wogan
Kevin Joslin

Run, John, Run
Joslin, Kevin

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Book
Dolan, Deirdre

No More Correspondence Please
Robert Stevens
Kindle Edition
Sold by Amazon Media EU Sarl
The Timewaster Letters The Timewaster Letters
Robin Cooper
Kindle Edition
Sold by Amazon Media EU Sarl
The Internet is a Playground The Internet is a Playground
David Thorne

oftenwrong wrote:George Orwell seems to have ventilated most of the important features of human interaction in his written works.  There's something to ponder with every re-reading.

I've read loads of his stuff but, apart from Homage to Catalonia, it's been a long time since I revisited his work. What's your favourite? It's probably Down and Out in Paris and London for me.

The horrifying descriptions of kitchen work in DAOIP&L are hopefully well in the past, but there persists abuse of employees at some levels of society which is akin to slavery.

When Orwell wrote "1984" (in 1948) he correctly anticipated our near-universal CCTV, among less desirable modern customs.

Here is, I hope, an interesting list;-http://www.goodreads.com/author/similar/3706.George_Orwell

Thinking...do be patient wrote:Here is, I hope, an interesting list;-http://www.goodreads.com/author/similar/3706.George_Orwell

Nice one. I've read a fair few of their works too although I'm not sure exactly how like Orwell they all are. And I'm not exactly a sci-fi nut but Vonnegut, PK Dick and Ray Bradbury are all fantastic imo.

Cordwainer Smith - not only a fab nom de plume, but also a writer of excellent sci fi.

He spent most of his adult life in China, I believe, and wrote a series of stories set in the very far future collectively named the Instrumentality of Man. Definitely worth a look if anyone hasn't encountered him.
Not space opera, and not too 'sciency' - more reflections on social development and the nature and uses of political and other forms of power.

Interesting to note that the above-quoted American authors were all published in the pulp-fiction magazine "Astounding Science Fiction" in the 1940s and 1950s.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=astounding+science+fiction&qpvt=astounding+science+fiction&FORM=IGRE

As an aside, Philip K Dick longed to be taken seriously as a 'proper' novelist and he wrote some conventional novels which are largely a comment on the malaise in 50s America, particularly amongst the white middle class in California at that time. They're pretty good as it happens but none of them were published during his lifetime, ironically. They don't quite have the genius of his best sci-fi stuff though. Then again, not a lot does.

Here is a taste of the media headlines on Tuesday 25 October 2016 for anyone whose crystal-set failed:

The News today


The pound is falling off a cliff
Business Insider

'UK is heading for a Brexit tsunami'
The Guardian

Food is about to get pricier
Press Association

Leak reveals huge hole in UK budget
The Independent

EU-Canada deal is terrible for Brexit
Business Insider UK

The UK high street is on life support
The Guardian

'UK risks sleepwalking into blackouts'
The Telegraph

BoE deputy voices concern
Reuters
Inflation is a ticking time bomb.

Oh, and Tory policy on London airport runway extensions was completely reversed.

We're all doooomed, Mr Mainwaring

OK this thread seems to have been mothballed, so here goes.

I still have the original keyboard kindle. and I have to say I love it still, thought the 3G has slowed to the point where browsing for new titles on Amazon is very hit and miss.

So I add titles I am interested in to a wish list on my laptop, then when I want to buy a book move it to the top of that list and connect my Kindle to a wireless network and it is all pretty quick and painless from there. Most Kindle books are competitively priced and are often cheaper than paper ones I have found, and you can of course download for free any books when the copyright has lapsed, so that's a library of classic literature. I love Charles Dickens's books, and have read A Tale of Two Cities a dozen or times at least.

I am currently reading Stranger In a Strange Land by Robert Heinlen, a little over half  way through and it's very good I must say. I have not read much in the way of science fiction before, but this is a little more than just science fiction, it's witty and sarcastic comments on things like organised religion and politics is fascinating. I am also halfway through Don Quixote, and recent reads include Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, a long book but quite engaging, and some interesting ideas. Twelve Years A Slave - Solomon Northup. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War - By: Robert K. Massie, this is a prodigious read, but well worth the effort, a thorough and all encompassing examination of the European power politics that led to the carnage of WWI, and reshaped global politics in ways that still reverberate today.

A re-reading of Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire "Gulliver's Travels" can astonish by its relevance to 21st C. "news".

e.g. On the island of Luggnagg, he encounters the struldbrugs, people who are immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty.

Surely a comment on the NHS and Social Care.

Hi Sheldon - I also have my keyboard Kindle - but the screen cracked some time ago so I can only read half of each page - I downloaded a lot of stuff from other sources (so not in my Kindle library) so hanging on to it in the hope that my totally in-techy brain can suggest a way of extracting these books so I can read them again.
Read Stranger in a Strange Land as a young undergraduate and my mind was more or less blown - it started a lifelong love affair with sci-fi - one day I must read it again.

Another writer I plan to re-read soon is Alfred Bester - sure his work will now have extra resonance

Hi BL,

That's a shame about your Kindle, I have to say the newer touch screen Kindles don't appeal to me as much as my original keyboard Kindle. However when mine does eventually 'cease to be' I will have to bite the bullet as I couldn't be without a Kindle now. "Stranger In A Strange Land" is the first time I have read Heinlein, and so far it's very impressive. I really haven't read a great deal of science fiction to be honest, though this is clearly a little more than just SF, as it's a sweeping and incisive observation on the human condition. I mean I have read The War of the Worlds, but not much else in the way of SF, which is odd now I think of it, as I have always liked good science fiction. I might download a small list onto my Kindle for my holidays later in the year, so I can find a cool shaded spot and a cold drink while my wife and the rest grille themselves under the Mediterranean sun.

I am enjoying the touch screen but I miss the old fashioned page turning - with touch screen it's easy to skip a page

I have heard a few reviews make that criticism, and to be honest I even managed to turn the page accidentally on my keyboard Kindle when using one handed. I guess I will find out at some stage as I keep thinking it can't keep going for much longer. I bought it almost 7 years ago now, so I can't complain I suppose. I understand that transferring all the titles over to a new Kindle is pretty easy though. I'd simply be lost without it now.

I got my first Kindle in 2007 - it got dropped more than once and the screen cracked about 3 years later
At the time you could get it repaired but the repair was going to cost nearly as much as a new one - so I opted for a new one.
You are obviously more careful than I am - hope yours gives you many more years of pleasure

It lives in a leather case basically, unless I'm reading it, and I tend not to drop electronics. My OCD wouldn't allow it . I have never broken a phone I have owned either, maybe I'm just weird? I tend to sell my phones on with the original box, chargers earphones and paperwork intact. I am weird aren't I? Ah well it's a good weird, I have decided. I also bought a waterproof case for my Kindle, so it can survive trips to the beach and next to a swimming pool on holiday. Works a treat as well, even if you spill some beer over it, though I don't general do that, honest.

It means I can read quietly in a bar, with an ice cold beer, and some jamón ibérico, while the other tourists are boiling themselves to death in the midday sun.

My Kindle is mostly for reading in bed - often drop off mid sentence and either is falls to the floor, or the other half rolls over and sleeps on it - it's always turning up in odd places.

Very handy on holidays - I never have to CHOOSE a book - just take the whole lot along

I never have to CHOOSE a book - just take the whole lot along

I know what you mean, and not only can I take (literally) a library of books with me in a Kindle thinner and lighter than a few dozen pages of a paper book, but it can download almost limitless new books whilst relaxing by the pool, or in the bar having a drink. I really wonder it took so long to develop and sell these, but am massively grateful they happened in my lifetime. To anyone who loves to read they are truly 'miraculous'.

Last night, troubled by insomnia, I read the blurb for a book by and about Tommy Robinson - I resisted any temptation to buy it (at £9.99) but was interested to note how many admirers the horrid little oik seems to have - didn't do a thing for my insomnia.

I ended up reading a Miss Silver mystery by the ever anodyne Patricia Wentworth - much more soothing

"Babies Might Understand Language Better Than Anyone Thought"

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/family/babies-might-understand-language-better-than-anyone-thought/ar-BBFoFND?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=iehp

I'm sure I remember reading Noam Chomsky about thirty years ago, reporting a study which suggested that up to the age of about five, babies can absorb up to five different languages if it is hearing them all the time, but then settle upon the one which seems "theirs" i.e. the parents' tongue.

A fascinating idea.