The GOT Book Club


Been working through some of the books that I got for Christmas. Just finished the Oppenheimer (American Prometheus) biography that my oldest daughter. Overall an enjoyable read, but I was hoping for more insight into the science.

Just started reading this one about the history of baseball ballparks. It’s absolutely fantastic with some lovely quotes from literary scholar and former baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti (father of the actor Paul Giamatti).
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Really good read and bits of it, have been used for the current series of SAS Rogue Heroes on BBC 1.

The SAS assault on the Italians and Germans in Sicily and Italy prior to the full invasion.

Very well written and really puts you into perspective what an insanely effective fighting force the SAS are.

Also what a truly one off leader Paddy Mayne was.
 
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The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.

Really enjoyed ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ last year by the same author, was in a bit of a reading slump though so it took me ages to get through this given how dense the writing is with all the historical lore and whatnot.

If you are familiar with his work, you’ll know the plot takes a firm back seat to his he characters having lengthy conversations about the historical aspects of the story. Ode to the Eco being a historian and professor of semiotics (the study of symbols)

The main plot follows a monk named William of Baskerville (who is somewhat based off Sherlock Holmes) and his scribe & novice ‘Adso’ (from who’s perspective the story is told) as they investigate a series of murders at a monastery in Northern Italy during the 14th century.

Eventually they are drawn into the strange goings on around the monastery at night including in the mysterious labyrinthine library in the monastery’s aedeficium.

I quite enjoyed this despite the slog, a lot of the dialogue centres around stuff like the ideological conflict between the Franciscan and Benedictine monks and debates over whether Jesus ever laughed or not (!!) and can get a little bit tiring as a result. The he main murder plot, when it finally turns up, is great though!
 

Tried once more and failed with a Lee Child novel. There's just too much pointless detail in the narrative.
It has been suggested that Child himself is on the autistic spectrum and his constant repetition of trivial matter is something he has to do. Either that or he is writing lone hero Jack Reacher deliberately as an autistic man. I veer towards the former, having some personal experience.
I might give Child another go if I'm stuck on an ice station at the north pole but otherwise no.
 
Tried once more and failed with a Lee Child novel. There's just too much pointless detail in the narrative.
It has been suggested that Child himself is on the autistic spectrum and his constant repetition of trivial matter is something he has to do. Either that or he is writing lone hero Jack Reacher deliberately as an autistic man. I veer towards the former, having some personal experience.
I might give Child another go if I'm stuck on an ice station at the north pole but otherwise no.
I remember reading a book like this a while ago. I mean, it was a good book, good story, but it went into mad detail about the specs of the laptop someone was using or something like that, just totally unnecessary. We get it, he's using a top spec laptop, we don't need to know the exact model number of the RAM and CPU, get on with the story ffs!
 
It is one of the things I do look at, number of pages, anything over 450, or preferably 400 is about my limit. It is really why I'm not big into sci-fi as often they run into 600+ pages and I've no capacity for that, for me,it's waffle, pointless crap.
It started with me reading John Boyne " the hearts invisible Furies, 700+ pages and I struggled to the bitter end ( not recommended btw, imo ). I'd be well angry if at around halfway through and I thought it was crap and DNF.
 

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