The GOT Book Club

[scratchnsurf]

Just reread this one as I picked up the follow-up book (Bear Head).

Thought-provoking and touching sci-fi about animal and human enhancement, strong recommendation.

Read another Sci fi of his set over generations - children of time. It was excellent.

 

[scratchnsurf]

Finished Conn Iggulden's Conqueror series about the Mongols recently, having started them on the back of a recommendation from a few of you lot.

Really good. Very well paced and lots of good characters to latch onto. Made Genghis seem like the absolute don, which is always partly what I want from these sorts of books.

I have a different recommendation request this time: can anyone point me to a good mystery that doesn't involve murder or anything horrible?

The Arteta money?

 

[scratchnsurf]

Just finished reading ‘Scar Tissue’ the autobiography of Anthony Kiedis. An amazing read if you are a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Been sat on my shelf for years now. Will probably get round to it at some point. I did read True Men don't Kill Coyotes, which tells the story of the band up until Fruiscante quit after BSSM. That was a decent read.

 

[COYBL25]

Excellent, thanks for the heads-up. Gonna order it too.

The next one, is out about a month after

 

[wm02]

Been sat on my shelf for years now. Will probably get round to it at some point. I did read True Men don't Kill Coyotes, which tells the story of the band up until Fruiscante quit after BSSM. That was a decent read.

My colleague at work saw them last night at the baseball stadium in DC. Still put on a great show by all accounts

 

[scratchnsurf]

My colleague at work saw them last night at the baseball stadium in DC. Still put on a great show by all accounts

I've seen them a few times - not recently - and it's varied massively. Saw them in Hyde Park - crap - terrible sound, too many people, they didn't seem that interested. Reading Festival - decent performances but they seemed quite insular - didn't interact much with the crowd. Best was Brixton Academy on the One Hot Minute tour. Absolute bedlam from start to finish.

 

[wm02]

I've seen them a few times - not recently - and it's varied massively. Saw them in Hyde Park - crap - terrible sound, too many people, they didn't seem that interested. Reading Festival - decent performances but they seemed quite insular - didn't interact much with the crowd. Best was Brixton Academy on the One Hot Minute tour. Absolute bedlam from start to finish.

Saw them at MSG around ‘96 or ‘97. Great show.
Was supposed to see them at Woodstock ‘99 but I left that dumpster fire one day early ?

 

[JohnRoss23]

My colleague at work saw them last night at the baseball stadium in DC. Still put on a great show by all accounts

I was supposed to see them in Chicago but I came down with COVID.

 

[verreauxi]

Saw them at MSG around ‘96 or ‘97. Great show.
Was supposed to see them at Woodstock ‘99 but I left that dumpster fire one day early ?

Saw them back when these two "no name" bands called Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins opened for them in like 92 or some such. They weren't the best band on the stage that night.

 

[Bilko]

Ben Aaronovitch, Amongst our weapons. Back to his best on this latest installment of Rivers of London series. Well written but think you would probably need to be up on the previous books.

 

[Bilko]

Not great, or perhaps not my boat. Got decent reviews, young man joining Army, serving in Iraq, leaves, becomes hooked on drugs, robs banks to fund lifestyle, sounds good doesn't it.

 

[atrottel]

Just finished Centers of Gravity, the eighth - and sadly possibly final - book in the Frontlines military scifi series by Marko Kloos.

If you've read and enjoyed stuff like John Scalzi and his Old Man's War series, this will definitely be up your street. Terms of Enlistment is the first one in the series if you want to give it a try.

 

[Black Belt Jones]

Anyone read Annie Ernaux?

Me neither, but she won the Nobel prize for literature this morning.

Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel prize in literature

The French author of mostly autobiographical work takes the prestigious books prize for the ‘courage and clinical acuity’ of her writing

www.theguardian.com

 

[Bilko]

easy reading,thoughtful book on two middle age who are perfectly happy in their own skin and live lives without the dramas.
Actually better than you might imagine.

 

[sdk]

I recently finished Sue Prideaux's I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche (2018), which is very good so long as you're not looking for detailed, thorough analyses of his books. The author provides brief glosses on his various works and ideas, of course, but mostly focuses on the gut Doktor as a dude with constant health problems, recurrent girl trouble, and a marked susceptibility to music.

I also recently finished the debut novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen (2015). It's a surprisingly suspenseful quasi-noir about how a very messed up young woman escapes from her life. (Just now, looking up the publication date, I learned that it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Go USA!) Moshfegh's been getting a lot of press as an up-and-comer in recent years and I'll be pleased to check out her other stuff.

Currently I'm reading Wildland: The Making of America's Fury (2021) by Evan Osnos, whose day job is at the New Yorker. The author examines three places where he lived/spent a lot of time in his life (Chicago; Greenwich, Connecticut; and Clarksburg, West Virginia, which, in the author's schema represent increasing racial division and attendant violence; the skyrocketing wealth of the 0.1%; and the steep decline-unto-hopelessness of a great mass of others, respectively), how they'd changed while he was posted overseas for many years, and the now apparent implications for America's economy, society, and culture. The period he's looking at roughly spans September 11, 2001 through January 6, 2021, and so far I'm finding it a rueful look at how my country's been going down the sh*tter in those two decades. Living in interesting times is interesting for sure.