The GOT Book Club

[COYBL25]

If you can stomach the subject, Red or Dead by David Peace is excellent. Not an easy read, 250,000 words and 700 pages, lots of methodical repetition as Peace tries to convey the almost autistic focus Shankly has on whatever he's doing at the time. Not sure how much of it is dramatic license but Shankly comes of as a decent man who is lost without his team.

Liverpool Football Club come off as a classless organisation who use people until they don't need them any more (I never knew their club secretary hanged himself under the kop in the 60s, a victim of burnout) then throw them away. Drunk Hughes "Everton are tragic" chant makes Bill cry and turn his back on them for a period.

Have you read :

The Red Riding Trilogy ( there`s actually 4 books ! ) by David Peace ?

If not, they`re a must read for you.

Loosely based on the Yorkshire Ripper.

Set in the 80`s - Police / Council / Press corruption in West Yorks, whilst children are being abducted and ritually murdered.

Magnificent books, but incredibly bleak, with not one drop of redemption in them.

Amongst the best books I`ve ever read, almost like a British Cormac McCarthy.

Very good adaptation for TV too, with Sean Bean as one of the corrupt councillors.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

Have you read :

The Red Riding Trilogy ( there`s actually 4 books ! ) by David Peace ?

If not, they`re a must read for you.

Loosely based on the Yorkshire Ripper.

Set in the 80`s - Police / Council / Press corruption in West Yorks, whilst children are being abducted and ritually murdered.

Magnificent books, but incredibly bleak, with not one drop of redemption in them.

Amongst the best books I`ve ever read, almost like a British Cormac McCarthy.

Very good adaptation for TV too, with Sean Bean as one of the corrupt councillors.

I've not read those, I read Damned Utd and Red or Dead as research for a similar sort of thing I'm working on. I'll maybe pick them up in a couple of weeks. There's only so much densely written ultra-modernist fiction I can take at a time.

 

[Blue Sky]

and his other classic, " if Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden I wouldn't look out my window", or words to that effect.

He didn't say no when invited though , I use to stand in the Paddock ? Enclosure ? and he'd be in the Main stand behind us .

 

[COYBL25]

I've not read those, I read Damned Utd and Red or Dead as research for a similar sort of thing I'm working on. I'll maybe pick them up in a couple of weeks. There's only so much densely written ultra-modernist fiction I can take at a time.

I can`t recommend them highly enough.

I`d go as far as to say that they`ll be looked upon as modern masterpieces in the very near future.

 

[edge]

Just read Roy Hudds autobiography, i think he is really good on the radio.
It was rubbish started off in a decent way, early life, army ect then just seemed to go on about who he met in various shows, panto, ect ended up chapters on his health at various times and his favourite dogs?
how i found the will to finish it i don't know, shame for such a witty man to put this waste of time out very disappointed in it.

 

[davmaher]

I can`t recommend them highly enough.

I`d go as far as to say that they`ll be looked upon as modern masterpieces in the very near future.

GB84,about the miners strike, particularly the involvement of the British security services, is very good as well.

 

[Philw]

Read quite a lot, SF mainly. Have made a real attempt to get through some of the classics this year though.

I'm similar. What good SF have you ready recently?

 

[Deleted member 48881]

Reading Elias Canetti's 'Crowds and Power'. So powerful and underrated

 

[Brett Angell Delight]

I’ve decided - not entirely sure I remember why - to read all Stephen King novels (I will read short stories and Bachman books at a later date) that I have yet to read (which is most of them) in the order in which they were written.

Just finished Cujo and I’m a wreck. Proper didn’t expect the ending it had (which I believe is Stephen King’s biggest regret to date); my eyes got a bit sweaty for a while, there...

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger is next.

 

[COYBL25]

Breakout at Stalingrad.

The author wrote this novel as a serving German Soldier during the siege of Stalingrad.

He was captured by the Russians and the draft copy was taken by the Russians,only to be found by pure chance in the Russian military archives many years later.

Fantastic book. The madness of Hitler seen through the eyes of a regular soldier.

@bluebrotha77 one for you this.

 

[summerisle]

As the blurb says, an examination of the life of Franz Stangl, commandant of the extermination camps of Treblinka and Sobibor.

It's more than that though ; there are interviews with the miniscule survivors of Treblinka, and with the station master of Treblinka station who was there through the totality of the existence of the camp; interviews with SS soldiers who were in the camps ; an examination of the protestant and Roman Catholic churches' views towards the Jews and their actions thereto, as well as input from other participants in the story

His wife and daughters also contribute, but the horrible fascinating core of the book is Sereny's interviews in jail with Stangl, and his justifications for the actions he took pre-war (taking him into the Nazi's euthanasia project), and his eventual descent into the barbarism of the Holocaust.

Not exactly a barrel of laughs, but well worth looking out for.
After the grimness, I'm now reading, although I wasn't previously aware of it, the sequel to The Eagle Has Landed. The type of thriller which is a bit of a nonsense, but you say to yourself - just one more chapter, more than once.

 

[TyphooToffee]

View attachment 62051

good book.enjoyed it.having been to auschwitz a few years ago good to get an insight how the camp came into being and the stories and inner workings of the camp.hard to get the head around the amount of people they were killing.other camps were killing similar numbers but never received the notoriety that auschwitz got.

I read this recently. I never realised how all German citizens were living in fear of the Nazis, especially those who didn't join "The Party". I didn't know there had been a film made (2016 - Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson) until I looked for an image of the book.

 

[TyphooToffee]

the charlie parker series by john connolly.

View attachment 62185

Started reading John Connolly recently when I borrowed The Wrath of Angels from the local library. Good read. I prefer to read American authors, my favourites being John Grisham, Harlen Coben, Linwood Barclay, Michael Connelly and Karin Slaughter.

Lee Child as well, but he's English even if Jack Reacher isn't.

 

[Alan Whittle]

As the blurb says, an examination of the life of Franz Stangl, commandant of the extermination camps of Treblinka and Sobibor.

It's more than that though ; there are interviews with the miniscule survivors of Treblinka, and with the station master of Treblinka station who was there through the totality of the existence of the camp; interviews with SS soldiers who were in the camps ; an examination of the protestant and Roman Catholic churches' views towards the Jews and their actions thereto, as well as input from other participants in the story

His wife and daughters also contribute, but the horrible fascinating core of the book is Sereny's interviews in jail with Stangl, and his justifications for the actions he took pre-war (taking him into the Nazi's euthanasia project), and his eventual descent into the barbarism of the Holocaust.

Not exactly a barrel of laughs, but well worth looking out for.
After the grimness, I'm now reading, although I wasn't previously aware of it, the sequel to The Eagle Has Landed. The type of thriller which is a bit of a nonsense, but you say to yourself - just one more chapter, more than once.

She also did an excellent biography of Albert Speer, Hitlers' architect and subsequently, armaments minister,having spent many days with him interviewing as well as much research. It deals with questions of truth, honesty, self delusion, blind ambition. Fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.

 

[summerisle]

She also did an excellent biography of Albert Speer, Hitlers' architect and subsequently, armaments minister,having spent many days with him interviewing as well as much research. It deals with questions of truth, honesty, self delusion, blind ambition. Fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.

Speer was proved to be a liar extraordinaire.