| Summer holiday book recommendations 13:58 - Jul 20 with 9966 views | traininvain |
Looking for some inspiration ahead of upcoming holidays and presumably others are in the same boat.
Don’t mind a bit of fiction or non fiction. Not so keen on business/life coaching type books.
Please share any ideas and apologies if there’s already a similar thread but couldn’t see anything. |  | | |  |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 11:30 - Jul 25 with 2324 views | DubaiR |
Just finished Killing Thatcher on holiday, about the Brighton bomb. Very good |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 12:07 - Jul 25 with 2264 views | SonofNorfolt |
As I'm not off gallivanting for a fortnight, I have a box of 'Guilty by association' sitting here ready to go to anyone wishing to procure one. £13 & £3 postage.
I think it's good anyway.
melh64@hotmail.co.uk |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 12:44 - Jul 25 with 2213 views | derbyhoop |
Val McDermid 1979
Typical crime thriller, set in the winter of discontent. Could be semi-autobiographical
Took me 3 days to read cover to cover
If you want something more political and thought provoking try
Brexit Unfolded: How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to)
by Professor Chris Grey
He does a weekly blog and provides very clear analyses |  |
| "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky |
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 11:09 - Jul 30 with 2055 views | hubble |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 10:02 - Jul 21 by MrSheen |
Mitchell is a magician, but "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" is exceptional. Our hero is a Dutch officer stranded on duty on Dejima Island, Japan's only contact with the outside world, at the beginning of the 19th Century. He's just great at depicting the difficult interaction of the lost world we are familiar with - Europeans in the service of Empire - and the one we know almost nothing of, Shogunate Japan. Completely brilliant. |
I'm already a Mitchell fan (as you may have guessed). As far as I'm concerned he's the most exciting novelist of the 21st century. So many thanks for the 'Thousand Autumns' recommendation. I bought a copy yesterday and already I am enchanted. Fabulous historical fiction of the highest order. |  |
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 16:43 - Aug 30 with 1409 views | acricketer |
Light Summer reading recommendations:
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt
Both heartwarming reads. |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 17:06 - Aug 30 with 1333 views | StreathamRanger |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 11:30 - Jul 25 by DubaiR |
Just finished Killing Thatcher on holiday, about the Brighton bomb. Very good |
Excellent book. I am just finishing Politics on the Edge, the political memoir of Rory Stewart. He's a bit of a narcissist but it's an interesting insight into the shambles of the last conservative government.
Alan Johnson's childhood memoirs are also an excellent read. He had a tough upbringing. [Post edited 30 Aug 17:15]
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 17:19 - Aug 30 with 1278 views | HotCurrie |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 11:30 - Jul 25 by DubaiR |
Just finished Killing Thatcher on holiday, about the Brighton bomb. Very good |
I also just read Killing Thatcher on holiday. Like a Le Carre thriller (only it's true) and a fascinating glimpse into recent history with a lot of historical 'what if's' to ponder. |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 19:05 - Sep 5 with 1076 views | Logman |
If it's not too late, and if you are going somewhere with a chance of a lot of rain, I would recommend Sapiens. It is such a good book. It basically explains how the economic, religious, social and political transformations which the species has lived through are to a large extent by products of our animal instincts and need to create institutions which assist in allowing us to cope with the old time honoured fight or flight scenario. After reading the chapters on how we create these economic, religious, social and political machines to enable us to connect it really sheds so much light on the world we live in. Amazing book. [Post edited 5 Sep 21:58]
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 19:10 - Sep 5 with 1064 views | BlackCrowe |
Not a new book but a great book.
Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential.
I loved this guy and still gutted he's know longer with us. Love his outlook on food and drink.
On US coffee shops:
"I don't want to wait for my coffee. I don't want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherf***er to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don't want to wait for it, and I don't want it with the cast of Friends. It's a beverage; it's not a lifestyle.”
🙌–Anthony Bourdain🙌 |  |
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 19:33 - Sep 5 with 1013 views | thame_hoops |
If you like crime fiction, the new short stories by Lee child ‘safe enough’ that came out last Friday is superb. |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 00:02 - Sep 6 with 896 views | MrSheen |
On the recommendation of The Rest Is History, I’ve finally made a proper attempt on the copy of Simon Schama’s monumental “Citizens”, that I bought over 30 years ago. I was instinctively repelled by the revolting spectacle of the decapitated Marie Antoinette at the Olympic Opening Ceremony, and disgusted by the director’s description of it as a “celebration of the revolutionary values of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité. I was therefore gratified to read Schama (on page 631!) on the massacre of 1,400 prisoners that followed a month after the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792: “Disturbed by its horror and poorly trained in their professional discourse to contemplate it, historians at this point tend to avert their eyes and dismiss the event as somehow incidental or irrelevant to any serious analysis…the overall effect is meant to be comforting for the revolutionary historian: the scholarly normalisation of evil. |  | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:00 - Sep 6 with 791 views | BrianMcCarthy |
Also inspired by The Rest is History, I bought Tom Holland's 'Dominion' (The making of the Western Mind). The Introduction is the best thing I've ever read about humankind's desire to either believe in a deity or to convert their heroes into deities.
The problem is that the introduction was so inspiring, so all-encompassing, that I have little desire or motivation now to read the next 600 pages! |  |
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:46 - Sep 6 with 753 views | MrSheen |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:00 - Sep 6 by BrianMcCarthy |
Also inspired by The Rest is History, I bought Tom Holland's 'Dominion' (The making of the Western Mind). The Introduction is the best thing I've ever read about humankind's desire to either believe in a deity or to convert their heroes into deities.
The problem is that the introduction was so inspiring, so all-encompassing, that I have little desire or motivation now to read the next 600 pages! |
I got a long way in but I’m saving the last few chapters for a special occasion (probably). I read an excellent book called Unbelievers by an historian of religion called Alec Ryrie that covers some of the same ground - the questioning of religious authority encouraged by Protestantism led people to question God, while keeping the values of the old religion. Not my usual, but completely fascinating. | | | |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:49 - Sep 6 with 746 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:46 - Sep 6 by MrSheen |
I got a long way in but I’m saving the last few chapters for a special occasion (probably). I read an excellent book called Unbelievers by an historian of religion called Alec Ryrie that covers some of the same ground - the questioning of religious authority encouraged by Protestantism led people to question God, while keeping the values of the old religion. Not my usual, but completely fascinating. |
It's an unusual subject for me, too, but enjoyable. | |
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| Summer holiday book recommendations on 15:37 - Sep 8 with 544 views | R_from_afar |
| Summer holiday book recommendations on 09:00 - Sep 6 by BrianMcCarthy |
Also inspired by The Rest is History, I bought Tom Holland's 'Dominion' (The making of the Western Mind). The Introduction is the best thing I've ever read about humankind's desire to either believe in a deity or to convert their heroes into deities.
The problem is that the introduction was so inspiring, so all-encompassing, that I have little desire or motivation now to read the next 600 pages! |
Good choice, I've read Holland's "Persian Fire," about the world's earliest empires, and it was excellent.
I am currently on holiday - lucky me - and am very much enjoying pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi's autobiography, "Iron Man". |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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