What are you currently reading?

[cathidaw]

I'm flicking through a book on the buildings of Warwickshire (which includes Birmingham), which I found in a 2nd hand bookshop a while ago. It's fairly out of date - published in 1961! - and not the most gripping of reads, but has a couple of interesting facts in it.

Just before Christmas we went to Polesworth Market and it was shut as it started to rain.On the way out we stopped at what I thought was a restaurant which happened to be a really smelly foreign food outlet. We sat outside a shop next door wondering what to do next. Casually looking at the windows covered in posters we realised that the shop Was a wonderful antiquarian bookshop---and it was open. One lady was packing books and one was labelling. The lady said they sold on line,that's why they were open that day-work to do-and hoped that someone like us called in. It was so packed and we had to squeeze through and twist through columns of books.Upstairs and out in the back room.
Of course we bought!! .I wondered how they knew where everything was, but when I asked if they had anything about the Newdigates of Arbury she said casually--left-left again and top shelf on the left.
The shop was a delight.

[Lex]

I love 2nd hand book shops - there's a couple in Warwick I like to mooch around in occasionally. I passed through Hay-on-Wye a couple of years ago, and managed to spend a small fortune in the short time I was there.

[rebbonk]

I really have to do Hay-on-Wye but it'll be without Mrs Rebbonk and with a full wallet.

I love old bookshops.

There's one in Coventry called Gosford books. Not only could I browse for hours, but you meet some really interesting people in there.

Although I've picked up some good reads in charity shops, you can't beat the dedicated second-hand bookshop.

As an aside, I bought a book for £34 from Oxfam. A few days later I had it valued at over £200!

[cathidaw]

I have been to Hay-on -Wye and usually go b and b. There is so much to see it's a joy.
My latest wonderful read is 'The History of the Irish Famine' by John Kelly. Out of a population of 4.5million, 1 million starved to death due to our then government and 1 million emigrated, many paid for by the government to get rid of the responsibility.
A book to get teeth into and to put into perspective this last government and the ones which have been before it. A change is needed.

[rebbonk]

My family fled the potato famine.

Shame I really know nothing more about what happened. The trail goes cold as regards the family in Ireland.

[Lex]

I briefly passed through Hay on a walking holiday a couple of years ago, and the festival just happened to be on. I didn't get to see much of the festival, but managed to get a trilogy by on of my favourite authors - Peter F Hamilton - for £10 (a real bargain for 3,500 pages of reading!)

[cathidaw]

My family fled the potato famine.

Shame I really know nothing more about what happened. The trail goes cold as regards the family in Ireland.

Rebbonk
YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THIS BOOK !! It has made up my mind who I am voting for.

[cathidaw]

My family fled the potato famine.

Shame I really know nothing more about what happened. The trail goes cold as regards the family in Ireland.

rebbonk, this book is a must if you like history.

[rebbonk]

Cathidaw, this is "the graves are walking" - the history of the Irish famine, is it?

[cathidaw]

Yes,I'm halfway through it.It has affected me very much and as I said before-I think-Changed my complete outlook on any government-or people having too much power.

[Margaret]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orwell-Huxle...der_1291951555


I am reading a new book called , Orwell, Huxley and the Fallacies of Futurity.
By Robert Neville.

For part of the book he imagines a conversation between these two great writers just after 1984 came out, and therefore just before Orwell's own untimely death.
The other bits look at the themes in the book and some of the main ideas.
What I liked about it was that it does not buy into the standard line we seem to get nowadays, that their two great novels are prophetic. Instead, Neville perceptively sees both men agreeing that they are more warnings than anything else. Obviously I can see the writer has done a lot of research, but its engaging and though provoking to read with many, many ideas in it. I bought it on Amazon.

[rebbonk]

Taken for Dead by Graham Masterton

It's the 4th book in a series about a female police detective. I've not read the earlier books, but this one was sent to me for review. I made the mistake of flipping through the first few pages and now I'm hooked. It really is a good read with a taut, fast flowing, plot.

I've also got a copy of The Establishment: And how they get away with it by Owen Jones for review.

Another good read that takes a look behind the thin veneer of democracy that we live in.

[cathidaw]

I'm now reading -again-A Town Like Alice-Neville Shute.
Just finishes the original documentary of Rabbit Proof Fence.And am looking down Abe Books lists to see what they have in the sale of oldies out of prints.--all freepostage

[Margaret]

A birthday present.
Another true story of a young nurse in Wartime London.
Bandaging in the Blitz.

[rebbonk]

I've just finished a book about the Mosquito aircraft. Really, this was the first multi-role combat aircraft, but the surprising thing is that nobody originally wanted it! Dead dry and boring to read, but the pictures really made up for it.


Mosquito: The Original Multi-Role Combat Aircraft Hardcover – Graham M. Simons

[cathidaw]

I have finished at long last,'The woman who went to bed for a year' Greatly acclaimed but half way through-- It lost the plot and so did I.
Just ordered, 'Accidence will happen,the non pedantic guide to English'.by Oliver Kamm
Sounds interesting