What book are you currently reading?

Recently finished, Rape of Nanking. Only shines the tiniest of lights on the Japanese in China but what an unbelievable read.
Also, Enemy at the Gates (I think that’s what it was called). Siege of Stalingrad.
Would love to be able to read fiction but just can’t get into anything.
 
A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry - really enjoying so far.

Going to read The New Jackals by Simon Reeve next, anyone read it?
 
Zanzibobs said:
Recently finished, Rape of Nanking. Only shines the tiniest of lights on the Japanese in China but what an unbelievable read.
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I haven't read the book but I have read about this massacre online. It was absolutely horrendous with some really horrendous acts of violence and torture.
The irony of this though is the hero of it was a member of the Nazi party and saved between 200-300k Chinese lives! A few years after the war he was punished by the allies and was basically living in poverty and the survivors of the massacre who he helped came together and raised money to help him and his family and also sent monthly food packages to him.
 
Hap said:
Just starting Colditz by Ben Macintyre. Heading there next month…
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I read that last summer and enjoyed it. It is good to hear both sides of the story with the Germans giving a true account of what went on. I had previously read Douglas Bader's book which reads like a Boy's Own, but when you hear what he was up to in Colditz and how he treated his orderly, you can soon be put off someone.
 
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theboydom said:
Just finished the Foundation trilogy by Asimov (again),
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Read this any number of times - did you read his short stories? He wrote tons of stuff for John W Campbell and featured in many of his collections. I absolutely loved his work - amongst others - and the short story Pulp 'SciFi ' era. In fact I read everything available in the local library and everything they could get hold of. After that I went to Ormesby, Middlesbrough and Redcar looking for more with limited success. That was in my mid t late teens tho!
 
Fiction: Just started The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (follow up to 3 Body Problem)
Non-fiction: the Nature of Code (2nd edition) by Daniel Shiffman - coding art, animation etc
 
swordtrombonefish said:
Read this any number of times - did you read his short stories? He wrote tons of stuff for John W Campbell and featured in many of his collections. I absolutely loved his work - amongst others - and the short story Pulp 'SciFi ' era. In fact I read everything available in the local library and everything they could get hold of. After that I went to Ormesby, Middlesbrough and Redcar looking for more with limited success. That was in my mid t late teens tho!
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Yeah, read more or less everything he wrote when I was a young'un. Same as you, libraries and second hand bookshops. I can still remember the excitement when they started letting you take 10 books home instead of just 4 😀 99p deals on Google Play Books have allowed me to start buying my old collection of Sci-Fi and Fantasy back at less than the massive prices for second hand books. Was looking at over £100 for the same copy of The Hobbit I first read to pieces in my childhood on a second hand stall the other day!
 
Bristolboro said:
How was it?
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Really good! I've been interested in his story for quite a while and liked his 3 albums. I'd heard that he overdosed on an old school anti depressant called Tryptizol - a drug I'd been prescribed about 20 years ago and that initially made me curious about his story. Musically, he was a brilliant guitarist and his mental decline is reflected across the 3 albums. It's a very sad and lonely story - I'm not sure that this book would be for everyone but I really enjoyed it
 
Norman_Conquest said:
I read that last summer and enjoyed it. It is good to hear both sides of the story with the Germans giving a true account of what went on. I had previously read Douglas Bader's book which reads like a Boy's Own, but when you hear what he was up to in Colditz and how he treated his orderly, you can soon be put off someone.
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Absolutely. Selfish arrogant narcissist. Boyhood hero of mine, but certainly not now.

His orderly could have been home with his family months earlier, but Bader forbid it.
 
equaliser said:
He really was! Always loved him, though not sure I can bear to unpick his short troubled life.
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I understand that!

His isolation and decline was very moving.

It was so sad reading how so many people tried to help him but ultimately could do nothing.
The story of his musical arc was fascinating and I recognise his terrible depression on the Pink Moon album which is so sparse and bleak musically (but still brilliant).
 
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