The GOT Book Club

[PhilEFC]

Got 'First Man In' by Ant Middleton (the guy from SAS Are you tough enough etc. autobiography) for Christmas from my Aunt and on just got around to reading it.

What a horrible little self aggrandising arsehole that fella is.
It's been a while since a book has actually made me this angry, but he comes across as an absolute tool.

He paints his whole early life as a difficult struggle and bases that on the fact that his father died when he was young. Granted that's a horrible thing to happen to anyone, but he milks it to the fullest. Completely sidestepping the fact that the rest of his family were there for him and were pretty well off. He grew up on a vineyard in the south of France ffs.

He spends the rest of the book bragging about being a hard-man and how all his mates in London are serious gangsters.
But he only got into fights to "fit in with the other Para's"

There's a whole section on how he ended up in prison for sparking out a policeman, which he half frames as being the coppers fault for provoking him by poking him in the chest and telling him to "move on" from the scene of an altercation when he was drunk. You know, just doing his job in other words.

He frames the whole thing as some sort of injustice when only a few chapters previously he tells a tale of him losing the plot and half beating to death a random fella outside his flat for no reason other than the guy gave him a dirty look. All the time he keeps going on about "not being that sort of bloke"

An absolute divvy of the highest order. Avoid.

Yes very much spot on that. Comes across very arrogant and up himself. I can’t imagine he was very popular in 9 Squadron.

That programme he’s on makes me cringe.

 

[bluebrotha77]

really good book on the baatan death march.americans get captured by japanese and put into a camp where i'm sure you can imafgine wasn't a holiday camp and then then are rescued by the rangers.well worth a read.

 

[gonetomorrow]

I just finished Philip Kerr's last novel Metropolis. He died recently leaving us with a string of entertaining material about pre and post war Germany through the eyes of Bernie Gunther, a wisecracking detective with a liberal conscience and a liking for the frauleins.
This one has a rather pedestrian serial killer plot and a disappointing finish but Kerr writes so well about Berlin intrigue and low life who cares?

 

[mawders]

Am debating whether to keep trying to plough through Will Self's Book of Dave. It's really dense and after about 150 pages not a lot is happening. I've been reading it for about 5 weeks. I don't like not finishing books but this is just a slog. And I've got a ton of books on my shelf I want to get to soon

 

[leslad]

The corrections. Quite amusing so far

Before that Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth and a book about Carl Jung.

 

[davmaher]

I just finished Philip Kerr's last novel Metropolis. He died recently leaving us with a string of entertaining material about pre and post war Germany through the eyes of Bernie Gunther, a wisecracking detective with a liberal conscience and a liking for the frauleins.
This one has a rather pedestrian serial killer plot and a disappointing finish but Kerr writes so well about Berlin intrigue and low life who cares?

I've just started March Violets, the first in the series. I'm enjoying it so far and is a series I've wanted to give a go for a while now. Have you read them all?

 

[gonetomorrow]

I've just started March Violets, the first in the series. I'm enjoying it so far and is a series I've wanted to give a go for a while now. Have you read them all?

Yes. I have favourites but the best thing is to read them in order of publication which you are doing.
Oddly, this last one takes place in an earlier time than the rest but it's no advantage to start with it as it's more of a straight whodunit. Mankell did the same thing with his Wallander novels, jumping back in time to feature his hero as a younger man.

 

[Black Belt Jones]

Am debating whether to keep trying to plough through Will Self's Book of Dave. It's really dense and after about 150 pages not a lot is happening. I've been reading it for about 5 weeks. I don't like not finishing books but this is just a slog. And I've got a ton of books on my shelf I want to get to soon

Maybe get on goodreads (avoiding spoilers) and see if there's a consensus that it's worth persevering with? I've not read that one, but Self is clearly good, so prob worth grinding through the foothills to reach the glorious vistas of the high peaks. Or something like that.

 

[gonetomorrow]

Atonement by Ian McEwan - an engrossing tale that starts off harmlessly enough but gets messy and unpleasant. The author takes in Dunkirk and scenes in a war hospital and his descriptions are very vivid. It's one of the great post-war English novels.

 

[davmaher]

Atonement by Ian McEwan - an engrossing tale that starts off harmlessly enough but gets messy and unpleasant. The author takes in Dunkirk and scenes in a war hospital and his descriptions are very vivid. It's one of the great post-war English novels.

I read Atonement when it first came out and thought it was a brilliant novel. Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin is in a similar vein if you haven't read that.

 

[atrottel]

I've just started March Violets, the first in the series. I'm enjoying it so far and is a series I've wanted to give a go for a while now. Have you read them all?

There are quite different tones as you go through, which range from quite grim ones from various points of the war, through to what are almost mini-stories of him post-war in France and South America. Overall I preferred the Berlin ones but they are all worth a read.

 

[gonetomorrow]

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really good book on the baatan death march.americans get captured by japanese and put into a camp where i'm sure you can imafgine wasn't a holiday camp and then then are rescued by the rangers.well worth a read.

Have you tried The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan? Won the Booker in 2014. It's not a comedy.

 

[verreauxi]

Have you tried The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan? Won the Booker in 2014. It's not a comedy.

Fabulous book!

 

[bluebrotha77]

Have you tried The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan? Won the Booker in 2014. It's not a comedy.

no i generally don't read much fiction books these days i'm afraid.thanks for the recommendation though.

 

[random]

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is a massive novel that tells a fictionalised version of the life and adventures of Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary Japanese warrior, writer and philosopher. In contrast to Dark Age the size of this book wasn't an issue at all. Despite being nearly a thousand pages long the book flew by. A massive amount of credit must go the the translator of this book Charles S Terry. This was originally published in newspapers in Japan back in the thirties and finally got an English translation in the 80's. I can't recommend this one highly enough, if you're interested in Japan or history this is amazing. If you're looking for something truly epic to read this year make it this book. You won't regret it. One of the best books I've read in years.

Recently finished this one, must admit I was starting to struggle with it at the half way point, but persevered with it.

I felt was losing track of the timeline on how long things were taking in the storyline (days/weeks/years), also a few parts of the story became a bit 'iffy' such folks meeting each other in random towns that I thought was a bit too coincidental, but I am aware that it was written in the 1930's and has been translated so I won't be too harsh.