meltonblue
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Just to check, is that that you read last year? As Dominion really rings a bell to me but from a few years ago.
Reading Challenge 2022
- Thread starter RobMCFC
- Start date
Just to check, is that that you read last year? As Dominion really rings a bell to me but from a few years ago.
Dominion is an excellent book, really enjoyed it. If you’re after further WW2 alternative history reads I recommend The Afrika Reich and The Madagaskar Plan by Guy Saville.
meltonblue
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Yes, just checked and I read it a while ago, I remember really enjoying it so might give it a reread as I can’t remember too much aside from that! Cheers for the suggestions, heard the Africa reich was good too but not read it.
JRockBlues
Well-Known Member
Philip K. Dick's THe Man in the High Castle starts from a premise of the allies having lost WWII with Germany & Japan sharing sovereignty of the US. Would also be a good starter if you've never read any PKD books too imho.
journolud
Well-Known Member
I could swear I asked my wife to get me To Kill a Mockingbird for Christmas, she swears I asked for Catcher in the Rye and says she even wrote it down. There will surely have been a time lapse between me asking and her writing. Doesn’t matter though, I want to read both.
Catcher is just the thing to ease me into a reading challenge. Just over 200 pages, easily digestible chapter sizes and a nice easy read. It got a little repetitive in places if you want me to tell the truth but I enjoyed it all the same.
With that and the golf psychology book I read (and today failed to implement any of the lessons) I’m well on the way.
Tonight I start on Tortilla Flat, one of three Steinbeck’s I’ll be rereading
Catcher is just the thing to ease me into a reading challenge. Just over 200 pages, easily digestible chapter sizes and a nice easy read. It got a little repetitive in places if you want me to tell the truth but I enjoyed it all the same.
With that and the golf psychology book I read (and today failed to implement any of the lessons) I’m well on the way.
Tonight I start on Tortilla Flat, one of three Steinbeck’s I’ll be rereading
kevin horlocks wand
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Some recommendations for those wanting inspiration.
matt haig is great. Dead fathers club, how to stop time , humans and his new one the midnight library
William Boyd books, especially any human heart. Although recently read his latest trio which I didn’t like at all.
agree with others about fawkes birdsong and Engleby.
love holes by Louis sacha. You can do it in a sitting.
the Steve cavanagh books about the lawyer Eddie Flynn.
disgrace j m Coetzee. Harsh tough read on post apartheid South Africa
the 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared. Laugh out loud funny.
matt haig is great. Dead fathers club, how to stop time , humans and his new one the midnight library
William Boyd books, especially any human heart. Although recently read his latest trio which I didn’t like at all.
agree with others about fawkes birdsong and Engleby.
love holes by Louis sacha. You can do it in a sitting.
the Steve cavanagh books about the lawyer Eddie Flynn.
disgrace j m Coetzee. Harsh tough read on post apartheid South Africa
the 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared. Laugh out loud funny.
RobMCFC
Well-Known Member
1. The Spirit Engineer - A.J.West - 7/10
I changed my mind about how much I liked this book in the last few chapters. The book starts in 1914 where we find William Jackson Crawford, a respected professor of engineering in Belfast, dealing with his troubled family. His wife’s brother recently died in the Titanic disaster and when a close family member also dies, she seeks solace in a local Spiritualist. As a man of science, Crawford is deeply sceptical and seeks to debunk Kathleen Goligher, the young medium who assures the family that the voices of the dead are all too real. The problem is that the professor cannot disprove what he hears and sees, including levitating tables and ectoplasm, and he eventually becomes an advocate for the medium.
Where it goes from here would spoil the book. It’s well written and spends a good amount of time documenting Crawford’s humdrum life, which whilst it can seem a little tedious, does pay off later. I did feel that either Crawford was missing something obvious as he attended one seance after the next, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with both the character and the way the author handled him. I was ready to give the book a 5 or a 6, but well, you’ll just have to read to find out why I ended up giving it a 7 and now have a good deal of respect for what the author achieved.
After completing the book, I found out that most of the main characters were real people (Professor Crawford, Kathleen Goligher and their families) and the major events described in the book tie in with real life. He did meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (a renowned believer in Spiritualism) and Harry Houdini (who spent much of his later career debunking the whole idea).
I changed my mind about how much I liked this book in the last few chapters. The book starts in 1914 where we find William Jackson Crawford, a respected professor of engineering in Belfast, dealing with his troubled family. His wife’s brother recently died in the Titanic disaster and when a close family member also dies, she seeks solace in a local Spiritualist. As a man of science, Crawford is deeply sceptical and seeks to debunk Kathleen Goligher, the young medium who assures the family that the voices of the dead are all too real. The problem is that the professor cannot disprove what he hears and sees, including levitating tables and ectoplasm, and he eventually becomes an advocate for the medium.
Where it goes from here would spoil the book. It’s well written and spends a good amount of time documenting Crawford’s humdrum life, which whilst it can seem a little tedious, does pay off later. I did feel that either Crawford was missing something obvious as he attended one seance after the next, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with both the character and the way the author handled him. I was ready to give the book a 5 or a 6, but well, you’ll just have to read to find out why I ended up giving it a 7 and now have a good deal of respect for what the author achieved.
After completing the book, I found out that most of the main characters were real people (Professor Crawford, Kathleen Goligher and their families) and the major events described in the book tie in with real life. He did meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (a renowned believer in Spiritualism) and Harry Houdini (who spent much of his later career debunking the whole idea).