What book are you reading...

Meridian said:
I'd probably start with Hornblower, as Forester is easier to read then O'Brien. Read Hornblower in chronological order though, not published order. There are various other writers in the genre (sea stuff is all I notice). Alexander Kent is average, Dudley Pope is rubbish, Richard Woodman is OK.
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and Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie is a nautical version of Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe. I'd recommend his "the French Admiral" as a reasonably good book and history of the siege of Yorktown and the naval stratagy that perhaps lost us America.

One of the best "standalone" books I've read was Sean Thomas Russell's "Under Enemy Colours". It's a very entertaining book (I'll just read another chapter before bed).

Richard Woodman, the book I read he seemed to be obsessed with buggery.
 
Chicken #16 said:
Richard Woodman, the book I read he seemed to be obsessed with buggery.
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Wot, no mention of rum and the lash? It's a very long time since I read his books, but I don't remember that. It's generally accepted as common part of life at sea, but still carried the death penalty if prosecuted.

I'm still trying to remember the name of another writer who did what were essentially drama documentaries.

For non-fiction books on the Napoleonic Royal Navy I'd recommend James Dugan's The Great Mutiny (if you can find it), Forrester's The Age of Fighting Sail (ditto) and N A M Rodger's books on the history of the Royal Navy, particularly The Command of the Ocean.
 
After all the reccomendations in this thread I started Gardens of The Moon at the weekend. 150 pages in and a siege has ended with mages knocking lumps out of a floating mountain. Ha, that's a grand scale to be starting from. :D
 
Plodding through Silver Linings Playbook right now.

I... almost liked the film, so I thought I'd give the book a go and hoped to enjoy it more. Afraid not. If anything, it's frustrating in a way that the film wasn't. It certainly does add more to the characters - but nothing that makes me like them any more.

Can't wait for the end.
 
Meridian said:
N A M Rodger's books on the history of the Royal Navy, particularly The Command of the Ocean.
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Just ordered this. Looks great.

I'm currently reading 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow by Adam Zamoyski (recommended by someone on here). It's a little hard going but so far has given me a good idea of the diplomacy of the time and the build-up to France's war with Russia.
 
The Three Musketeers - dumas, not sure who translated it.

And D'Artagnan is a dick. Brash, cocky, overbearingly selfish, bit of a user tbh.
Apart from that, it's a good read :p


Next up will be Virgil's Aeneid. (this is currently serialised on BBC R4 - first episode was on Sunday just gone - if anyone is interested).
 
Jonny2284 said:
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi, I got old mans war as part of the Ebook humble bundle a while back and loved it so I figured it was time for the follow up.
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I'm enjoying the human division short stories by him. Really good.

On number 11 ATM.

Also on The Mongoliad: The Foreworld Saga
Really enjoying it so far.
 
Currenty reading Robert Adams' Horseclans series, on book 2 at the moment. Post-nuclear war, about 300 years after in fact. The Greeks took over most of North America and turned it into an hellenistic soceity, there's a roaming tribe (the Horseclans by which the series is named after) who can 'mindspeak' with animals including sabre-toothed cats (yes, you read that right), and all sorts else going on. A little hard to get into due to the different place names (due to the Greek influence) and the incredibly modified/archaic American English (For example Cumberland County in what used to be Pennsylvania is now Kuhmbuhluhn). However, it's still a very engrossing read.

Been really enjoying books with a post-apocalyptic/post-'event' bent at the moment. As I've posted in here before, S.M Stirling's Sea of Time/Dies The Fire books really gripped me too due to this.
 
I finished Captain Scott by Ranulph Fiennes last night and would highly recommend.

The number of characters is somewhat daunting but that is just the truth of the subject matter so cant complain.

Did take me a while longer to read than usual though as I kept referring to the various maps in the book to better understand the geography of the story.
 
I've retreated to 'comfort' territory with Gemmell's Rigante series. I had the first on the shelf for several years, but didn't particularly like the sound of it.

I needn't have worried: it's classic Gemmell.

Sadly I then bought the next two and picked up the third first by mistake. After 50 pages I realised this wasn't simply a bigger than expected jump in time. Doh! :-)
 
Currently reading

Stung!: On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean

It's not a laugh a minute, but well worth reading.

edit: I`m not usually a tree hugging hippy.
 
Andrew_McP said:
I've retreated to 'comfort' territory with Gemmell's Rigante series. I had the first on the shelf for several years, but didn't particularly like the sound of it.

I needn't have worried: it's classic Gemmell.

Sadly I then bought the next two and picked up the third first by mistake. After 50 pages I realised this wasn't simply a bigger than expected jump in time. Doh! :-)
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I've only ever read his Troy series and it's officially my favourite books/series ever. Have you ever read them and if so, how does the Rigante books stack up?
 
regulus said:
I've only ever read his Troy series
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Gemmell is... was a fundamentally masterful fantasy story teller. You can't really go wrong with any of his stuff. He just does what he does very well indeed.

There are various guides to which order to read them in, but I'm not sure it matters too much, apart from where there are obvious sequels. I think my first was Waylander, way back when.
 
Andrew_McP said:
I've retreated to 'comfort' territory with Gemmell's Rigante series. I had the first on the shelf for several years, but didn't particularly like the sound of it.

I needn't have worried: it's classic Gemmell.

Sadly I then bought the next two and picked up the third first by mistake. After 50 pages I realised this wasn't simply a bigger than expected jump in time. Doh! :-)
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I love the Rigante series, Gemmell was a brilliant writer. I have to admit though, the transition from book two to book three is... startling :D Pleasant surprise when I started getting into it though.

I still need to get all of the Waylander and Druss books, but I've run out of bookshelf :(
 
So I recently finished pt1 of book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire. I have to say, while I appreciate this is an epic and the continued stories of the characters is something I enjoy I can't tell you how pleased I was to be able to read a few different books before starting pt2. I recently finished 'The Damage Done' by Warren Fellows. The book is an easy read and pretty interesting, it definitely lacks that something that a proper author is able to put into his books I also felt like Warren, or at least the guy in the book, was a bit of a dweeb and probably spent most of his time crying, hence his survival but overal I would recomend the read.

Here's a picture of the new books I've got.

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I've arranged them in the order I'll most likely read them (although with pt2 dance with dragons before American Gods), I'm already half way through Factotum. Having read Post Office by Bukowski I can honestly say his book are probably the most enjoyable I've ever read. While Post Office is perhaps a better story it's more gritty, Factotum is a lot funnier. I quite want to re-read Post Office too.
 
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