Books & Reading Thread 2025

richardtheref said:
Today I received a delivery of 12 books from Better World Books. My Mrs went mental saying I already own more books than I will ever read in my lifetime.
However, when I had a fortnight off recently she received parcels on 10 days. Her crafting doesn't take up any space apparently!!!!!
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Oh it's my world as well...craft everywhere, but my books and vinyl neatly fit on shelves. "Another book!!" as 10 more parcels bulging with craft materials arrive. "You've probably got them in your craft room if you could actually get in it" is my helpful retort. Then I take the mutt out.

Moneta- A history of ancient Rome in twelve coins by Gareth Harney.

Amazing book if you like history.
 
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richardtheref said:
Today I received a delivery of 12 books from Better World Books. My Mrs went mental saying I already own more books than I will ever read in my lifetime.
However, when I had a fortnight off recently she received parcels on 10 days. Her crafting doesn't take up any space apparently!!!!!
Click to expand...
Tell me about it. I'm constantly finding fucking wool everywhere in our house.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
I've just started Klara and the Sun. Really enjoying the start of the book. I love Ishiguro. His writing is just so eclectic. I've also got The Buried Giant. I started reading it on a plane, but then life got in the way. I'm really trying to get back into reading again though after finishing my uni course (where I only had time to read boring academic bollocks).
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It's a lovely book to read. Loaned it out to my sister when I finished it and haven't had it back to read it again.
 
  1. A Lesson in Violence – Jordan Harper - 7/10
  2. The Silverblood Promise – James Logan 9/10
  3. Exiles – Jane Harper 9/10
  4. Palace of Shadows – Ray Celestine 6/10
  5. The Wager – David Grann 8/10
  6. Grimdark Magazine Issue #40 – 6/10
  7. Grimdark Magazine Issue #41 – 6/10
  8. The Trials of Empire – Richard Swan – 7/10
  9. George Harrison - Philip Norman – 8/10
  10. Go to War: Football on the Brink in the 80s – Jon Spurling – 8/10
GoToWar-80s.jpg


A few of us on here have read Jon Spurling’s book on football in the 1970s and if you have, you’ll know what you’re getting here.

There’s a good bit of city content in this 80s edition, including a whole chapter called “The Sky-Blue Soap Opera” covering Malcom Allison’s ill-fated return to the club. The inflatable banana craze is also covered as part of a separate chapter.

A few highlights:-
  • A chaper on England, including Bjorge Lilleien’s classic commentary rant naming a load famous English figures before telling us that “your boys took a hell of a beating”.
  • Mark Proctor questioning why he had been demoted to the second team and Brian Clough growling in response: “Because you’re too good for the third team, now fuck off.”
  • After losing out to Liverpool in both the league and FA Cup final, the Everton players were understandably not too keen to join in in a pre-arranged joint parade. “I told Reidy I’d fine him two weeks wages if he didn’t show,” said Howard Kendall, “Done”, was Peter Reid’s reply.
But my favourite laugh out loud moment from the book relates to David Pleat’s celebration at Maine Road when Luton put us down. Once the wounds had healed, I came to view Pleat’s dance across the pitch, trying to button up his coat as he went, as a comical moment and it seems I’m not the only one. Raddy Antic claims that it’s “the most incredible thing I ever saw in football”. As the author points out, given that Antic was Athletico Madrid coach when club president Jesus Gil rode through the city on an elephant after his team completed the double in 1996, that’s some statement.

But being the 80s, it’s not all fun. The Heysel, Hillsborough and Valley Parade disasters are covered, and Liverpool fan Peter Carney’s description of his near death at Hillsborough is profoundly moving.

There were a few chapters that felt like a drag at the end of the book, which is why it gets an 8 rather than a 9, but it’s a very entertaining and informative read. The good news is that the author working on a final part of the trilogy covering football in the 90s, which will of course be a must read.

PS: It's at a low price of £0.99 on Kindle at the moment
 
Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin.

Beautifully written, but found parts of it quite tedious. It might be one of those books that take me a while to appreciate after reading.

Got North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell to start later.
 
19. Love You To Death - Peter James

12th in the Grace series. I have enjoyed all of them so far. Think this is 1 of the better ones. However, this 1 does cover some of the same crime as the 1st one. Still very enjoyable. 4/5
 
81lfps-t11-L-UF1000-1000-QL80.jpg


Half way through this. Really enjoying it so far.
 
Palace of Shadows - Ray Celestin 7/10

EC807D7C-17F8-49DF-B76D-7A4130C63846_4_5005_c.jpeg

This is a standalone novel from Ray Celestin the author of the City Blues Quartet. It's set on the North York Moors in 1899. The basis for the story appears to be the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA.

The story follows Samuel Etherstone, a penniless artist, adrift in London whose disturbing art is shunned by patrons and critics alike, his friend Oscar Wilde is now in exile living in Paris, and a personal tragedy is wearing him down. So when he is approached by a mysterious heiress, Mrs. Chesterfield, and asked to work on a commission for the house she is building on the desolate Smugglers' Coast of North Yorkshire, he accepts the offer. Staying overnight in the local village pub, Samuel is warned not to spend too much time there. He is told the fate of the house's original architect, Francisco Varano, chilling stories of folk driven mad by the house, of how it is built on a haunted land where young girls have vanished, their ghosts now intent on calling others to their deaths. It is only on his arrival at the Chesterfield house that he learns the sinister details of Varano's disappearance. And yet her owner keeps adding wing upon wing, and no one will tell him the reason behind her eerie obsession. But as Samuel delves deeper into the mysteries that sway around the mansion, the nature of the project becomes terrifyingly clear. The story is told through Etherstone’s memoires, the architect’s journal and letters from the psychic who first encouraged Mrs Chesterfield to build the house.

For me this was a good but not great book, but if gothic horror is your thing you will probably enjoy it.
 
stoneblue said:
Palace of Shadows - Ray Celestin 7/10

View attachment 164926

This is a standalone novel from Ray Celestin the author of the City Blues Quartet. It's set on the North York Moors in 1899. The basis for the story appears to be the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA.

The story follows Samuel Etherstone, a penniless artist, adrift in London whose disturbing art is shunned by patrons and critics alike, his friend Oscar Wilde is now in exile living in Paris, and a personal tragedy is wearing him down. So when he is approached by a mysterious heiress, Mrs. Chesterfield, and asked to work on a commission for the house she is building on the desolate Smugglers' Coast of North Yorkshire, he accepts the offer. Staying overnight in the local village pub, Samuel is warned not to spend too much time there. He is told the fate of the house's original architect, Francisco Varano, chilling stories of folk driven mad by the house, of how it is built on a haunted land where young girls have vanished, their ghosts now intent on calling others to their deaths. It is only on his arrival at the Chesterfield house that he learns the sinister details of Varano's disappearance. And yet her owner keeps adding wing upon wing, and no one will tell him the reason behind her eerie obsession. But as Samuel delves deeper into the mysteries that sway around the mansion, the nature of the project becomes terrifyingly clear. The story is told through Etherstone’s memoires, the architect’s journal and letters from the psychic who first encouraged Mrs Chesterfield to build the house.

For me this was a good but not great book, but if gothic horror is your thing you will probably enjoy it.
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I agree. I was really looking forward to this after the City Blues Quartet, but although the idea was good, the execution didn’t feel that great. Not terrible but quite a letdown after his fabulous quartet.
 
RobMCFC said:
  1. A Lesson in Violence – Jordan Harper - 7/10
  2. The Silverblood Promise – James Logan 9/10
  3. Exiles – Jane Harper 9/10
  4. Palace of Shadows – Ray Celestine 6/10
  5. The Wager – David Grann 8/10
  6. Grimdark Magazine Issue #40 – 6/10
  7. Grimdark Magazine Issue #41 – 6/10
  8. The Trials of Empire – Richard Swan – 7/10
  9. George Harrison - Philip Norman – 8/10
  10. Go to War: Football on the Brink in the 80s – Jon Spurling – 8/10
View attachment 163819


A few of us on here have read Jon Spurling’s book on football in the 1970s and if you have, you’ll know what you’re getting here.

There’s a good bit of city content in this 80s edition, including a whole chapter called “The Sky-Blue Soap Opera” covering Malcom Allison’s ill-fated return to the club. The inflatable banana craze is also covered as part of a separate chapter.

A few highlights:-
  • A chaper on England, including Bjorge Lilleien’s classic commentary rant naming a load famous English figures before telling us that “your boys took a hell of a beating”.
  • Mark Proctor questioning why he had been demoted to the second team and Brian Clough growling in response: “Because you’re too good for the third team, now fuck off.”
  • After losing out to Liverpool in both the league and FA Cup final, the Everton players were understandably not too keen to join in in a pre-arranged joint parade. “I told Reidy I’d fine him two weeks wages if he didn’t show,” said Howard Kendall, “Done”, was Peter Reid’s reply.
But my favourite laugh out loud moment from the book relates to David Pleat’s celebration at Maine Road when Luton put us down. Once the wounds had healed, I came to view Pleat’s dance across the pitch, trying to button up his coat as he went, as a comical moment and it seems I’m not the only one. Raddy Antic claims that it’s “the most incredible thing I ever saw in football”. As the author points out, given that Antic was Athletico Madrid coach when club president Jesus Gil rode through the city on an elephant after his team completed the double in 1996, that’s some statement.

But being the 80s, it’s not all fun. The Heysel, Hillsborough and Valley Parade disasters are covered, and Liverpool fan Peter Carney’s description of his near death at Hillsborough is profoundly moving.

There were a few chapters that felt like a drag at the end of the book, which is why it gets an 8 rather than a 9, but it’s a very entertaining and informative read. The good news is that the author working on a final part of the trilogy covering football in the 90s, which will of course be a must read.

PS: It's at a low price of £0.99 on Kindle at the moment
Click to expand...
Gutted missed it at that price
 
Recently bought The Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries. A book I've been after for a few years and managed to get it on sale at £10. Idiot driver left it at shop as I missed his delivery by 2 minutes. Not shop 5 mins round corner but 3 miles away in middle of housing estate near Streatham in south London. Took me round trip of almost 90 mins to go collect it on public transport
 
ob said:
Recently bought The Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries. A book I've been after for a few years and managed to get it on sale at £10. Idiot driver left it at shop as I missed his delivery by 2 minutes. Not shop 5 mins round corner but 3 miles away in middle of housing estate near Streatham in south London. Took me round trip of almost 90 mins to go collect it on public transport
Click to expand...

Thanks that looks interesting I have a few "Troubles" books including one to that's basically a colour photo book devoted to Loyalist paramilitaries.
 
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This is it @PinkFinal - read quite a few myself as grew up in Northern Ireland in 70s/80s. My hometown had one of the biggest, toughest tartan gangs around at the time.
 

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Just finished Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer. Wonderful little story which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend. Especially if a fan of Bob's humour. I'd recommend reading his first book Satsuma Complex first as this kind of follows on from that.
 
ob said:
Just finished Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer. Wonderful little story which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend. Especially if a fan of Bob's humour. I'd recommend reading his first book Satsuma Complex first as this kind of follows on from that.
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Thanks @ob. A few of us read The Satsuma Complex a couple of years ago as a group read. Mixed reviews on here.
 
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