Originally Posted by
Paulclem
1) The Damned United by David Peace - A football novel based upon real people and events in the football league in 1970s England written in a stream of consciousness style with intercut flashbacks.
2) Snuff Terry Pratchett - Commander Vimes brings Goblin equality to the country.
3) Pure - An engineer from Normandy is commissioned by a French Minister to dig out and remove the bones and bodies that have built up and begun affecting the air in the cemetery of Les Innocents in 18th century Paris. (The site of modern day Les Halles).
4) Life and Fate by Vassily Grossmann. Grossman's epic, banned after it was written, has been compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace. I would agree that the novel, which spans the months during and after the fight for Stalingrad in WW2, is a brilliant depiction the life of soldiers, commisars, civilians, old Bolsheviks, Nazi commanders, prisoners and scientists. It details the lives, loves, characters, thoughts, flaws and pressures of living under Stalin's regime.
5) No Country For Old Men by Cormac Mcarthy. A bleak, violent but philosophical novel that challenges the effectiveness of the cowboy/ American icon of the self sufficient, capable and honourable man. The psychopath Chigurh survives the course of the novel with his bleak, nihilistic belief in predestination.
6) All The Pretty Horses by Cormac Mcarthy. Not as bleak as No Country, or Blood Meridian, but full of brilliant landscape evocations of Mexico with a ripping story. I've never ridden a horse, and I am unlikely to, (though you might be fooled into thinking I had with my bandy legs), but I enjoyed this almost mystical celebration of horses and their relation to people.
7) Eon by Greg Bear Interesting sci fi with good ideas and a story that keeps you engrossed to the end.
8) A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr Bernie Gunther - ex Berlin detective co-opted as an investigator into an organisation of judges looking into war crimes - is called upon to uncover and present the mass grave at Katyn Woods near Smolensk as a Soviet Russian war crime in order to boost Nazi standing abroad. Great plot, instructive historical context and ripping thriller. I really enjoyed this one.
9) The Odin Mission by James Holland. Routine WW2 thriller, though I liked finding out details of the Norwegian campaign.
10) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Excellent sci fi exploring the unknowableness of an alien nature and its attempts to connect with scientists studying it on Solaris.
11) The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris. Morris claims in the blurb that everything you think you know about the Norman Conquest is wrong, and so it proves to be. Harold wasn't the rightful King - he was just in a powerful enough position to take the crown before losing it to William. An interesting and enlightening read about the Norman Conquest.
12) The Winter King by Thomas Penn. I decided to read this because I knew very little about Henry VII and so much more about Henry VIII. What a brilliant example of a king! Grasping, exploitative and paranoid. No wonder his son turned out as he did. This was another interesting volume, and definitely one to fuel latent republican tendencies.
13) The Penny Falls by Mark Bastable. This book, by our own poster Mark, is funny, packed with interesting observations and has a plot with more twists than that twisty thing Blackadder used to go on about. The narrative structure is complex and interesting, and the characters are vivid and well realised. If you've read any of Mark's comments and conversations on the forum, then you'll recognise his voice in here too - from his use of Amsterdam as a setting, (he's referred to living there on these boards), to the humour. "I'd rather nail my scrotum to a passing train" comes to mind. A very enjoyable read.
14) Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys. A fantastic premise - Alien artefact discovered on moon keeps killing those who try to explore it - turns out to be a disappointing novel full of psychobabble masquerading as a reflection on death. The exploration part - when it comes - is the weakest part of the book.
15) Sun Diver by David Brin A hard science sci fi with an intergalactic civilisations, ETs, spaceflight, missions into the sun to meet new ETs, murder, sabotage and tech. An enjoyable sci fi with twists.
16) The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth A top advertising exec experiences life as a consumer and revolutionary in this grungy dystopian vision of corporate power. It's vision is relevant and very interesting given it was written in 1952.
17) Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil A Bombay addict introduces us to a variety of characters associated with an opium den through the 80s and 90s. Their lives are traced through their stories, which are mainly tragic. Thayil seems unnecessarily brutal in this book, which reminded me of 70s pulp novels. There is also a lack of female characterisation, despite the presence of Dimple who is referred to as a woman throughout the book, and seems to represent what female views are expressed, but who is a eunuch.
18) A Dark Summer in Bordeaux by Philip Massie. A slow paced murder/ thriller whose interest lies in the response of the characters t to the Nazi takeover of France in WW2 and the Vichy government.
19) Uplift Trilogy Book 2 by David Brin Written in the 1980's, this hard science book has a mixed dolphin/ chimpanzee/ human crew searching an alien water world from a hidden spacecraft after needing repairs following the discovery of an ancient alien artefact and attack by other galactic members. An enjoyable read.
20) Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski A book full of stories and opinions and observations. It is funny and often ghastly, but Bukowski's honesty and outsider perspective makes him, overall, a sympathetic character in a depressing and often brutal world.
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I didn't enjoy it as much as The Magician's Nephew, my only other Narnia book and a book that I really fell in love with, but I was a kid when I read it so I guess that accounts for it.
