Books & Reading Thread 2025

Como Cat said:
  1. Fire and Fury – Michael Wolff - 8/10
  2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John le Carre – 8/10
  3. Act of Oblivion – Robert Harris – 2/10
  4. East West Street – Phillipe Sands – 9/10 - Clever, fascinating and desperately sad - as Rob mentions war crimes..
  5. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak - currently reading
I've bought Notes on an Execution to read next.
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2/10 for Act of Obluvion - wow, that’s harsh!
 
stoneblue said:
11/23 Outback - Patricia Wolf

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This is the debut novel by this author and as you may gather from the title it’s a thriller set in Australia. The author grew up in outback Australia and the description of the desolation and vastness of the landscape as well as the searing heat brings the setting of the book to life.

It’s a fairly routine story. 2 young German backpackers go missing and a detective, DS Lucas Walker from the city fortunately happens to be in the area on compassionate leave visiting his terminally ill grandmother. He is asked by his superiors to assist and support local police in the investigation. One of the missing backpackers has a sister in the police in Germany and she comes to the area to look for her missing sister. The local view is that the backpackers have changed their plans and are out of range and will reappear shortly, but the DS and the German policewoman are not convinced and work together on the various strands of the investigation.

If you’re a fan of Aussie noir you’ll probably enjoy this book, it’s a decent read and promising first novel, although for me not at the level of Jane Harper or Chris Hammer.
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Like crime from other countries but never read any Aussie noir. The Lost Man looks looks interesting. Going to add to my list.
 
threespires said:
Like crime from other countries but never read any Aussie noir. The Lost Man looks looks interesting. Going to add to my list.
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Como Cat said:
I thought The Dry was an excellent book, really captured small-town Australia (not that I have first hand experience!).
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I have read both of these and they are both excellent.

The film version of The Dry starring Eric Bana is also worth a watch - very faithful to the book and captures the atmosphere perfectly.
 
RobMCFC said:
2/10 for Act of Obluvion - wow, that’s harsh!
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I thought it really poor to be honest. The story itself could have been interesting but I thought the writing and plot development incredibly dull. I developed no affinity for the characters and stopped reading with about 50 pages to go. The parts where the older bloke was writing a book were almost unreadable they were so dreary. Being positive, I did learn some historical aspects to the period.
 
Como Cat said:
I thought it really poor to be honest. The story itself could have been interesting but I thought the writing and plot development incredibly dull. I developed no affinity for the characters and stopped reading with about 50 pages to go. The parts where the older bloke was writing a book were almost unreadable they were so dreary. Being positive, I did learn some historical aspects to the period.
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Yes, I agree about learning some of the historical aspects. The civil war and Cromwell era is not something I knew a great deal about before reading this.
 
I'm about a hundred pages into Notes on an Execution, definitely going to need Bob M's book afterwards for a bit of lighter relief!
 
1. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch. 7/10.
2. The Racketeer - John Grisham. 5/10.
3. Orphan X - Gregg Hurwitz. 9/10.
4. The Longest Kill - Craig Harrison. 8/10.

A very interesting autobiography of an ordinary soldier who becomes one of the world's most deadly snipers. The book ends with a description of Harrison's struggles with PTSD, and gives a reminder of the effects combat can have on soldiers. This guy has my total admiration.

Harrison was involved in two tours to Afghanistan. He was seriously injured by a mine, but recovered to be sent back for a second tour of duty.

The title refers to what was the longest ever sniper kill. Harrison managed to take out an Afghan insurgent at a range that was later measured at 2475 metres. For context, Harrison hit a target the size of you and me, from his position 2400 metres away. That's the same as looking at a person hiding in cover in Picadilly Gardens, from your seat at the Etihad. It would take 3 minutes to cover that distance in a car at 30mph.

The book is fascinating for the descriptions of how a sniper operates and prepares to engage. Harrison's record was beaten in 2017 by a Canadian sniper in Iraq, with an incredible kill distance of 3,450 metres.
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12/23 Assault on Truth - Peter Oborne

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I was away for a few days and didn’t take either of the Q2 reads with me. Bought this sometime ago and as it's not a long book decided to read this. To get an idea of what this book is about see the sentence under the title.

Peter Oborne is a former political commentator of the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. He now writes about politics for Open Democracy and Middle East Eye. He voted for Brexit but regrets it.

I don’t propose to comment further, there are other threads within this website where this character (BJ) and the issues raised in the book are discussed at length.

And now for The Satsuma Complex!
 
Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey
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Got there at last. The final volume of The Expanse series barring the short story collection.
A changed Duarte revives and believes he’s been thinking on too small a scale so sets off to rectify that. A special forces agent is sent after him to bring him back and restore the Laconian empire whatever it takes. The crew of the Rocinante decide that a ship in the middle of a galactic war is no place for a young girl so plan to drop Teresa off with a distant relative but find someone waiting who wants to put her to other use. Elvi Okoye uses what she has at her disposal to delve the archive in hopes of finding something to stop the old aliens from just wiping everyone out… again!

I felt a little underwhelmed by the ending but I don’t think there’s much that could have been different to keep it cogent and consistent with what had come before. Not particularly liking one of the new viewpoint characters probably also played a part. It does wrap things up nicely though and if you’ve read this far you will want to read this. To me it just felt as though the authors had reached a certain point and thought “We’d better end this now” and so they did. I’d been entertained by the series as a whole and still enjoyed spending more time with the ongoing characters which is an accomplishment in itself when you consider the length of it. Going over this review it reads quite negatively but shouldn’t be taken as an indictment of either this instalment or the series as a whole. I think I’d just become so invested in the tale and those who inhabit it that it just felt a little anticlimactic. 3½★'s
 
  1. Cunning Folk – Adam L.G. Nevill - 8/10
  2. Bad Apples – Will Dean – 7/10
  3. The Winter Road – Adrian Selby – 6/10
  4. The Dark Place – Damian Vargas – 9/10
  5. Act of Oblivion – Robert Harris – 7/10
  6. The Tyranny of Faith – Richard Swan – 7/10
  7. The Game – Micah Richards – 8/10
  8. The Ticket Collector from Belarus – Mike Anderson and Neil Hanson – 8/10
  9. The Satsuma Complex – Bob Mortimer – 6/10
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I'll save the review and comments until more people have read it.
 
14/23 Notes on an Execution - Danya Kukafka

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I won’t comment until everyone who intends to has read it, except to say that I thought this was a tremendous book. Looking forward to reading everyone’s views!
 
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