What are you reading right now?

[bill]

anything by george mcdonald fraser the FLASHMAN novels. about 10. bernard cornwall the RICHARD SHARPE novels. 2 other epics by frasier are the ARCHER and the VIKING novels. the SHARPE books are to my mind the best i've read.

[lomuamart]

Recently waded through "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson. Thought it was excellent and it's increased my knowledge of The Restoration enormously - basically didn't know anything about it before.
A lot of the science went over the top of my head but it didn't detract from the book overall. Some of those Natural Philosophers who founded The Royal Society and its members were a bit brainy!!

[buksida]

John le Carre - The Honourable Schoolboy. Just watched the old 70s Tinker Tailor series with Alec Guinness and it has put be back in the mood for some spymastery.

[Vital Spark]

Victoria Hislop (Ian Hislop's wife) - 'the Return'. It's a fascinating insight into the Spanish Civil War, with a romantic touch. A good read, but perhaps more of a ladies' book? I'm not sure..

VS (aka Ms.Plug )

[lomuamart]

If you're enjoying the spy stuff, Buks, try and get hold of Len Deighton's trilogies revolving around Bernard Sampson, a not too clever officer at the British Secret Intelligence Service. They're great books and he's the only writer who comes close to Le Carre in the spy genre of the Cold War - IMHO.
There are three trilogies - the first Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match. Then Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker and lastly Faith, Hope and Charity.
They'll keep you going for a while and if we see you creeping around HH acting suspiciously while looking for decent locations for dead letter drops and chalking lines on buildings we'll know that you've finally flipped and will have to report you to MI6.

[richard]

John le Carre - The Honourable Schoolboy. Just watched the old 70s Tinker Tailor series with Alec Guinness and it has put be back in the mood for some spymastery.

See my brother in it?

He admired AG so much he adopted a new Christian name and is now know as Alec instead of John

[buksida]

Good stuff, I'll keep an eye out for those.

If anyone is interested all 7 parts of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080297/ can be downloaded from Veehd.com

[Arcadian]

anything by george mcdonald fraser the FLASHMAN novels. about 10. bernard cornwall the RICHARD SHARPE novels. 2 other epics by frasier are the ARCHER and the VIKING novels. the SHARPE books are to my mind the best i've read.

Bernard Cornwell named his hero after the England rugby stand-off who played in the 60`s.

[Arcadian]

If you're enjoying the spy stuff, Buks, try and get hold of Len Deighton's trilogies revolving around Bernard Sampson, a not too clever officer at the British Secret Intelligence Service. They're great books and he's the only writer who comes close to Le Carre in the spy genre of the Cold War - IMHO.
There are three trilogies - the first Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match. Then Spy Hook, Spy Line and Spy Sinker and lastly Faith, Hope and Charity.
They'll keep you going for a while and if we see you creeping around HH acting suspiciously while looking for decent locations for dead letter drops and chalking lines on buildings we'll know that you've finally flipped and will have to report you to MI6.

I have to agree with Lomuamart about the Game Set and Match trilogy, compulsive viewing when on the telly.

[STEVE G]

I've just been reading a bit of John le Carre as well, The Constant Gardener which is one of his more recent post Cold War books based in Africa.
If you can find a copy, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold which I think was the very first of his spy novels is very good. It has a much less complex plot compared with the later books but is well written and probably something closer to the reality of period.

[dtaai-maai]

^ Have you seen the film, Steve? Richard Burton, I think. Probably worth revisiting after many years.

I'm reading an SF novel by Iain Banks, Can't remember the title, but everything he writes is weird and wonderful.

[lomuamart]

"The Spy who came in from the Cold" is spot on.
No James Bond stuff, just the breakdown of someone leading a double life.

[lomuamart]

dtaai-maai,
I've read a couple of Iain Bank's SF stuff and must admit that it didn't anything for me. That was years ago.
However, books like The Wasp Factory (the first one I read), Canal Dreams, Espedair Street and The Bridge I loved..
If I could only bring my book collection over from England.
Has anyone seen a copy of The Wasp Factory? I'd read that again just for the ending and blown up crabs.

[STEVE G]

^ Have you seen the film, Steve? Richard Burton, I think. Probably worth revisiting after many years.

Actually, I didn't know there was a film but I'll look out for it if as I admire Richard Burton as well.

[hhfarang]

Recently finished "Roma" by Steven Saylor and am in the middle of "The Forest" by Edward Rutherford, both excellent epic novels; the first, the story of ancient Rome covering many generations and the second the story of life in Southern England starting about a thousand years ago and again covering many centuries and generations (thanks to D-M again for both books).

Two authors I've never read before but will certainly be keeping my eye out for more of their work.

Migrant, you said a few pages back that you were reading Mitchener's Hawaii. I've read that twice and if you like his work, you would like Roma as, like with Mitchener, it starts at the beginning and describes how Rome grew from a single family's trading business to the center of the known world. It reminded me a lot of a few of Mitchner's works.