To Read or not to Read

granger

granger

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What can you all recommend in terms of books that are worth reading?

Anything but fiction is my cup of tea

I will take all other recommendations on board

To help you all out, I'll give you a short list of books I have read that I'd recommend as well worth a read


Psychology/Mental Health - The Chimp Paradox - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12228097-the-chimp-paradox

Racing - DOPED http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10487966/Doped-by-Jamie-Reid-review.html

True Crime - Wicket Beyond Belief - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54171.Wicked_Beyond_Belief
 
granger said:
What can you all recommend in terms of books that are worth reading?

Anything but fiction is my cup of tea
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I know a few people who only read non-fiction but they were happy enough to watch 6 seasons plus of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Don't get it.
 
Euronymous said:
I know a few people who only read non-fiction but they were happy enough to watch 6 seasons plus of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Don't get it.
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I liked both of those tv shows but wouldn't think it unusual to like 2 different approaches from different mediums. Different senses get tingled in different ways
 
Euronymous said:
I know a few people who only read non-fiction but they were happy enough to watch 6 seasons plus of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Don't get it.
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Loved them both, but when it comes to reading, I'm a much more voracious-absorber of non-fiction than fiction. I just find real-life infinitely more fascinating, than made-up stuff.

A quick look at my Kindle app reveals the following tomes I have taken-in, over the last year or so:

Bernie Madoff: Wizard of Lies
Santo Trafficante Junior: The Silent Don
The Curse of Brinks-Matt
One Last Job: The Hattons Garden Heist
Putin's Russia
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Collapse of Lehman Brothers
Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men who Blew-Up the Economy
Enemy Number One: Patrick Veitch
All The Devils Are Here: Unmasking The Men Who Bankrupted the World
The Fix: Rigging Libor
The Smartest Guys In The Room: Enron Scandal
Broken Vows: Tony Blair - The Tragedy of Power

I've just downloaded 'Devil's Bargain; Bannon, Trump & The Storming of the Presidency'

To provide a little bit of balance, I also have Daphne Du Maurier's 'House on the Strand' (paperback) ready to go, but haven't started it as yet.
 
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I love dogs DO - many thanks

Grassy - i've yet to surrender to a kindle and prefer a paper book in my hands - how very modern of you and some interesting choices there
 
The Brinks-Matt book is made a little more relevant/contemporary by Kenneth Noye's impending transfer to an open prison (a proper nasty piece-of-work).
 
Just finished Donald McCain , my colourful life! As someone gave it to me. Its nearly twelve years old since first published,, and a gargantuan read detailing McCain's highs, lows, dealings, and stories within his time in racing, along with his association with Red Rum. Definitely an old school trainer.
 
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granger said:
What was the Enron book like Nick?

Capitalistic greed is one of my favourite topics to read
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Seriously good, PJ.......though naturally quite difficult to follow, given all the scams they were running........don't let that put you off though - deffo worth a read.
 
Grasshopper said:
Seriously good, PJ.......though naturally quite difficult to follow, given all the scams they were running........don't let that put you off though - deffo worth a read.
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Seconded. Great read - if you can dig up the film documentary it is even better. If you get hooked on corporate greed then go get Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin - definitive read on the 2008 crises.
 
There's a certain thread to those selections, Grassy. I hope you're not mining for ideas on how to become yet another criminal spinner of lies with a god complex.
 
an capall said:
Seconded. Great read - if you can dig up the film documentary it is even better. If you get hooked on corporate greed then go get Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin - definitive read on the 2008 crises.
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Can you point me in the direction of the documentary.
 
Devil's Bargain is a little bit light-weight (<300 pages), but an interesting enough read.

Just downloaded 'Brexit: All Out War'. Will let you know.....though will probably take me longer than a night and a day to complete it.
 
I loved White Bicycles; Making Music in the 1960's by Joe Boyd. Of course, you'd have to be as old as me to understand who he was talking about. Watching the BBC4 programme Psychedelic Britain made me think of it again; may re read it.
 
Very much so, but also Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band [who actually became Scientologists!!] etc I found it an incredibly good read [he's always very funny/eloquent on these BBC4 programmes]. As he says at the end 'As for me, I cheated. I never got too stoned. I became the eminence grise I aspired to be, and, disproved at least one sixties myth: I was there and I do remember'. We met Ashley Hutchins [sp] a few years ago at a village gig [a friend of ours manages his son, Blair Dunlop] and he still agonises over the fact that he discovered Nick Drake and worries that it would have been better had he not become 'famous'. My favourite book of recent times, though, is Bill Brysons 'At Home' which is about the rooms of his house [obviously] but, being Bill Bryson goes off into details about what was happening throughout the world at the time it was built, which happens to be at the time of the Great Exhibition, which is the historical event that I would go back in time to if I could. I'm currently having a tidy up/clear out of stuff in the garage [my ex left 15 years ago but it is still home to most of his car/motorbike stuff, along with his dad's lathes] and am fascinated by old tools and machinery. There are even old'ish oil cans that I will not throw away because I love the designs on them. And old prison scissors [his dad was a prison officer] with the ends cut off etc.
 
If you're into Game of Thrones (and it is imo as good as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad) and have also read and enjoyed the books, give the Malazan book of the Fallen a try. Around 20 books now between two authors. It's very daunting, and one of the authors warns in an introduction to the opening original novel (prequels are coming out now) that he just drops you right into the middle of the action and you have to sink or swim, the majority don't get through all the books. But if you do, you won't regret it. It'll never come to TV, it's too out there, but **** it's a magnificent journey.
 
I wish I had the concentration to read books like that now; I can't seem to read the sort of books I read in my youth eg Gormenghast, Dune etc. Having said that, GoT's is very readable but I'm too stuck into the series to read the books now. I'll probably do that when it's all over as I'll be unable to let it go.
 
Grasshopper said:
Just downloaded 'Brexit: All Out War'. Will let you know.....though will probably take me longer than a night and a day to complete it.
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FWIW, this was an excellent (edit: and I should add, ultimately depressing) read.
 
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Just finished 'Trump Revealed' by Marc Fisher & Michael Kranish.

Very good and highly illuminating. Definitely worth a read.


Now onto 'Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign'.
 
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