What will you be reading during lockdown?
- Thread starter cookiemonster
- Start date
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Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
War and Peace the extended version
Notafettler
Guest
Laurie Lee Red sky at night, which is the trilogy of 3 books. I must stop reading it. I remember a bit (cider with Rosie) where the children had to collect sticks before they could go home after playing out. There mother needed them to cook breakfast. Pot over an open fire. Was collecting sticks while out cycling for kindling. Decided to try it as firewood. Downside no napping or the fire went out. Upside so hot you run out of clothes to take off!
I have just bought 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell. I read these over 50 years ago when at school. I will probably understand them much better this time around. Also, I have bought Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. I haven't read this before.
Ridgeway
Veteran
- Location
- Lausanne, Switzerland
Just started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, good so far, the few pages are about the fact that life is just too easy these days as there are no famines or plagues
Kestevan
Last of the Summer Winos
- Location
- Holmfirth.
Just started Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. Cheerfull tale about the end of civilisation following a flu like plague.
Really enjoying it so far
Really enjoying it so far
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I studied 1984 and Animal Farm for my English Lit O-level about 50 years ago! We had a very good English teacher so we discussed the meaning of the books, Orwell's political views, his participation in the Spanish civil war, that kind of thing. I went on to read all of his books after that. My stepdaughter had read several Orwell novels but not 1984 so I bought her that for Christmas a couple of years ago. She had read Animal Farm as a young child and thought it was just a fairy story. I explained to her its real meaning and she said that she would like to read that again so I bought her that as well.
It is amazing how technology has overtaken us. The telescreen was just a nightmarish future technological possibility when Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, and still seemed remote to me when I read the novel at school in the early 1970s, but we now have something similar in most homes in the form of smartphones, laptops and the internet. Big
I also had a thing for Huxley at the time and read BNW several times.
I'd quite like to read those books again now too, so I'll borrow them back! I hardly read novels these days. I should make an effort to start again. I read 5 or 6 books while I was in hospital in 2012, but they were fairly trashy crime novels which had been left in the ward by earlier
Kestevan
Last of the Summer Winos
- Location
- Holmfirth.
Even in Orwells wildest nightmare he never expected that not only would we put up with constant monitoring, but that we would willingly pay for the priveledge too.
It's a source of constant amazement to me that society has calmly accepted the prevalence of cctv, facial tracking, number plate recognition and the growth of Alexa style devices in every home. Big brother is not only watching/listening he's pissing himself laughing too.
It's a source of constant amazement to me that society has calmly accepted the prevalence of cctv, facial tracking, number plate recognition and the growth of Alexa style devices in every home. Big brother is not only watching/listening he's pissing himself laughing too.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Indeed! And with coronavirus there is now pressure for western nations to adopt the same kind of tracking app that the Chinese employed to monitor and control the movement of its citizens in the outbreak there.
twentysix by twentyfive
Clinging on tightly
- Location
- Over the Hill
Currently nearly through the first in that series (are there any more than 2???) Homo Sapiens. Quite interesting. Much I'd worked out for myself or already was aware.Just started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, good so far, the few pages are about the fact that life is just too easy these days as there are no famines or plagues
After that I had the Third book in Alison Weir's Trilogy about the Tudors. But Mrs 26 decided we didn't want that book ("Elizabeth The Queen") and gave it to charity with not a "by your leave"
Notafettler
Guest
Now on "Salazar and modern Portugal". Written with a positive bias. An elected dictator, a bit like Putin but instead of jailing or killing his enemies he sent them into exile...to the Azores. Quite clearly was not in tune with the behaviour of proper dictator.
Accy cyclist
Legendary Member
- Location
- The hills of Accrington
My usual mags will be well thumbed,if i can be bothered!
https://www.fogeyunlimited.co.uk/product-category/chap-magazine/
https://www.magazine.co.uk/magazines/gq-magazine
https://www.fogeyunlimited.co.uk/product-category/chap-magazine/
https://www.magazine.co.uk/magazines/gq-magazine
lane
Veteran
I was trying to remember the name of that book the other day - thanks for the reminder.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
You've just reminded me that I started that book years ago and forgot to finish it. I'll track it down and read it again from the beginning!
