We can still get Amazon delivered. And, as I tire of mentioning, I live in a (mostly) enlightened bit.
This is 100% my issue. I used to lie in bed and read, now I lie in bed and aimlessly scroll. It's a terrible habit that I need to break.
I’ve been tested and apparently am not ADD/ADHD but talk to anyone that knows me and they say I have all the markers. I’ve always been distracted and “a fidget” but the smartphone has destroyed my ability to concentrate on much of anything.
This is why I love books. I don’t read any on my kindle or phone. The turning of pages and taking my time indulging in them has really helped me with stress.
My wife thinks I am a hoarder due to the amount of novels and hardcovers I have accumulated but I have a lovely library in my office and it is all pretty neat and tidy. It looks chaotic (and I know I am ADD) but I know where everything is much to the chagrin of the missus.
I currently own over 6000 books. I will never read all of them but I am not stressed having them. Ah the benefits of owning a huge house.
Chicago: Lost in literature.
I also need to put the fucking phone down. Read a proper book last night. Not well written and a small print run I think but still worked very well. Factory Fairy Tales by Ged Duffy. It uses language of the time which we might consider unfortunate now. Manchester football, fighting and music from the early 70s. Polishing it would make it less.
But not reading on my phone meant I hadn't unknowingly switched to social doom scrolling.I have the opposite problem. I put the radio on, put the fucking phone down, shut my eyes, and fall asleep before I really want to.
I have a difficult relationships with books these days. They used to be the best way to accumulate knowledge (ideas and philosophies as well as facts and techniques). At the speed it takes to actually learn from them, compared to other methods, you are effectively paddling backwards (in respect to an ever changing world) while you waste time reading.
I also no longer really enjoy the process of reading. I don't particularly want to have some random individuals out of date curated view of a subject (fact or fiction), when I can spend the time sourcing my own information. Very many wider sources of detailed information are now available virtually instantaneously, where that was not possible before the communications age. I've always been a derive from first principles sort of person, than a take someone elses view on trust, and remember it.
I is also probably ADHD:
Textbook.
If you are like me, I imagine this is indeed very bitter sweet. I have had occasion to direct my thoughts recently to people who I knew, who are now dead. For someone who has almost no memory in a general ongoing daily functional sense, it is remarkable how vivid and detailed these thoughts can be. To an extent that they do overwhelm me, and leave me a little panicy...for such a 'real' feeling memory, that I know is forever gone. It feels to me to be almost overwhelming to be the last living holder of these feelings and memories. This isn't necessarily even a particularly emotive memory, it can just be a memory of a thing that happened or we did....doesn't even have to be a person...it also happens for places or pets. But to a person or thing to which I felt connected, that is forever gone. It's definitely connected to the sense of loss. Being an adult is carrying these scars, and finding a way to drag yourself through in a functioning way. And it can be quite shit. but it's better than the alternative. It would be lovely and simple to be your classic fascist sociopath, and not make an emotional connection with things that you couldn't discard or monetise, for your convenience. Which I suppose is why they do it. I can't help but think it might be a better world if we all saw each other as warm blooded, thinking, feeling, and valuable. Better socially...but much more problematic when it comes to oppression and exploitation of productive units. But for those of us who are not sociopaths, the shell that we wear to get through the day can still crack and leak, and when it does it's not necessarily something that can just be easily taped up.
I like reading my Kindle. I read at least 30 mins to an hour every night.
I have to read a book in one go. Which means it's only really on holiday where I have the time for it. And then only because reading a book, is marginally better than being on holiday. No point reading a book half an hour at a time with my memory.
Yeah, this is me.
I've recently "read" Shogun Part One the audiobook. I listened to about ten minutes a day while going to sleep. Occasionally an hour on the train but I'd rather play Zelda. I'm sure Shogun is a great story, but I had no idea who anyone was for most of the story due to my memory and heavily interrupted listening style.
Audiobooks are not reading. Shogun the book is 1200 pages long. I finished it in three weeks. Loved it.
This is why I didn’t really like the recent show as they changed a lot of elements in the books that didnt really make sense. The James Clavell book is fucking great and like Dune should have been translated literally.
Chicago: wordsmith.
Henry Cavill, James Carville and James Clavell. Well, I've never seen them in the same room at the same time.
Say Nothing whilst not quite as good as red Notice really is a very very good book. Holy shit what a mess the Troubles were. Way worse than I htought. I am not sure the show is going to do the book justice but I am going to try. One lingering issue with the book is that we discover the third shooter in the missing Jean McConville +++++++++SPOILER ALERT+++++++
Moving on to another book set in Ireland but this time fiction. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett which has been highlyt recommended to me...
Chicago: Re-visiting the fair isle.
That's hardly fair. After that goal against liverpool he should never have had to work again.
Good book, that. Set in Mayo which I recall being one of Donny's favourite places. Don't think he features though.
Finished reading all the John Le Carré novels, followed by Frederick Forsyth.
Different styles obviously. Le Carré more about procedure and focussing on tradecraft and the elements behind espionage. Forsyth more on the active side, but with a clear change in style with the later books; more like what I would expect McNabb books to be like (I haven't read any), especially in the "The Fox" and "The Fist of God", which are the two books based on an SAS character behind enemy lines.I've always been a book snob, refusing to read the likes of Dan Brown and Andy McNab, dismissing them as populist tripe. I'm probably wrong, and I'm sure they're decent books, but possibly formulaic after a while. Anyway, the later Forsyth books would come close to this category, a far cry from the brilliance of "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Odessa File", but still enjoyable. I read "The Day of the Jackal" many years ago, probably 25 years, and I'd forgotten much of it, so it was a delight to re-read.
Anyway, now on to Graham Greene, an author often cited as an influencer. The first book, "The Man Within" is quite a tough read, indeed a poor book. In the preface written years later, Greene himself admits he'd have liked to re-write it, but thought it best left as an example of early work (He did repudiate his following two novels and did not allow them to be reprinted).
Of course, Greene comes from an earlier period, and cultural attitudes of the time are clearly present, especially in the pre-WWII books. In "A Gun for Sale" (much of it set in a loosely disguised Nottingham known as "Nottwich"), the Mayor's wife has a Pekinese dog called "Chinky". It is a good book, however, one of his better ones.
There are also plenty of Jewish tropes in the pre-WWII novels, the usual allusions to hooked noses and how untrustworthy they are, particularly in "The Orient Express" (1932). Some of this you could excuse as being characterisation; it is the characters of the time reacting in the way you would expect, however, there is too much detail in the descriptive parts to absolve Greene of antisemitism which, to be fair, was prevalent prior to WWII.
There is a lot of misery pervading Greene's novels; no happily ever after endings. "The Power and the Glory", published in 1939, is a dark and difficult book to read. At times I found it almost a chore to read, and it is a generally unfulfilling read. It tries to cover the tyranny of Communism from a religious perspective, but it's hard to find any empathy with the main character, so I found myself not really caring if he lived or died.
The first of the books set in wartime, "The Ministry of Fear" (1943) promises a lot from its title. Perhaps I was hoping for something along the lines of 1984, predating it by 6 years? It doesn't really deliver. The plot is deeply implausible and rather convoluted. It's a much easier read than some of his earlier work, and it provides an interesting insight on what it was like to live in London during the blitz, but again, not an entirely satisfying read.
Brighton Rock (1938), is ok as a book, going into detail about the underworld of Brighton and exploring the themes of "Right" and "Wrong" versus the religious concept of "Good" and "Evil". Prior to reading this I'd always thought it was about mods and rockers, bit obviously the publication date precedes that period by several decades. It's certainly a violent novel, and the main character "Pinkie" is portrayed as a thoroughly despicable person; this is supposedly offset by "Rose", an innocent drawn into his orbit by accident, so the two are almost cast as good plus evil. Again, the main character is too unlikeable to really care about what happens to him.
So, I'm currently reading "The Heart of the Matter" (1948), set in wartime West Africa. Racism is present from early on: "'The niggers, but one shouldn't call them that now'". Of course, that particular offensive term was in fairly common parlance right up to the 1980s, and you could argue that Greene was simply evolving into a more tolerant author given the qualification of the term in speech; certainly the novels from WWII onwards seems less overtly racist; on the other hand, he could simply be railing against anti-racist ideals and invoking sarcasm . Given this book is set in West Africa, it'll be interesting to see if he manages to avoid racist tropes.
Anyway, of the novelists mentioned, I'd rate Forsyth as the most enjoyable of the three, particularly the earlier works. Le Carré is a close second; the Smiley books are probably up there with the best cold war stories written, especially "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"
As for Greene, I'll reserve full judgement until I've read them all, but so far fairly disappointing.
Agreed. A book read by someone else is their interpretation of it. They place their own emphasis on the words and give their own style to the speech of characters. When I read, I put my own emphasis on words and hear the characters' voices in my own way. An audiobook is like having your mother read you a bedtime story.
The only real exception to this is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" original radio play. This predated the book and so is a rare example of a play being adapted to a book that works in both formats. Of course, when I read the books the characters' tones are lifted from the play, but it makes perfect sense in this case.
Nothing will ever trump reading for me; I do use a Kindle because I would be overflowing with books otherwise. I read something like 130 books last year, and I'm far too lazy to get rid of any. I'll spend at least two hours reading every day, often more if I really get into a book.
