The TriTalk Book Club

Bainsy · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 2284 Location: London SW11

Ok so periodically someone posts - whats your favorite book - or - recommend me a book...........There are always some interesting ideas and its obvious to me that the triathlon demographic is quite likely to read a lot and be a little 'literary' so how about somewhere we can all discusss and refer back to books we like ???

I give you the TT Book Club

Here's the idea:-

Post a review on something you have just read......good or bad, highbrow or lowbrow

Reminisce (sp?) about an old favorite

Try to persuade others to read your favorites

List your top 10 books

etc etc you get the point -

I'll start you off with the book i have just read:-

Dan and Mara by Doris Lessing

Recommended to me by the wife of a friend. A coming of age story in Africa somewhere thousands of years in the future when life has reverted to a struggle for survival and most of todays technology has been long forgotten. Part journey, part fairytale, part travel, part salutory reminder of how we are destroying our planet and part adventure..........

Intriguing but in the end just got too much towards the end - very strong idea but tried to be too many things and didnt quite settle.........a page turner with some interesting thought provoking strands but in the end just not quite there for me.

Obviously others disagree as it own the 2007 Nobel priize for Literature !

Off to chose the next one to read now...........
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Pompey · Joined: 04 Oct 2009 Posts: 483 Location: north east

will finish the ascent of rum doodle and post again! its so funny! excellent thread!

mudman · Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 5:50 am Post subject:

Nath · Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 875 Location: Zürich

Lets talk Steig Larsson.

I've read the whole trilogy now. I picked up Dragon Tattoo in the summer and read it on hols. Amazing, vicious, nasty, clever. It's not a book you could really recommend to your mum, but stands alone as an excellent novel.
Played with fire... the Empire strikes back of the trilogy. A very different style from the first one, being more of a chase/quest than a detective story (which the first one is, really). Learning what you do about Salander's family, back story puts the character into context, it's still very difficult to actually empathise with her, but you start to sympathise.

Kicked the hornet's nest... A different style again, now we're into the Grisham -esque legal thriller with a bit of a spy/secret service angle. It feels like it's moving towards a foregone conclusion (you never feel that the baddies will actually win, given the ever growing and growing weight of evidence) but there are some good, but not great twists along the way.

It is a shame there were no more, it does feel like Blomquist is the person Larsson wanted to be (especially the podgy-but-irresistibly attractive to stunning women parts), salander is a bit too-talented-to -be -true (not being a hacker and knowing how feasible all this is) but all in all, a very good insight into how nasty things get covered up, and the impact on the people involved - both the originators and the victims. Excellent reading.

ljs4 · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 322 Location: Chipperfield

Good thread, especially as I've just re-discovered my book worm mojo!

I've just finished the road by cormac mccarthy. (before that the first Steig Larsson, but that's already been covered.)

Anyway, I found it:

compelling and depressing at the same time.
beautifully written.
somehow made me feel that parental responsibility is both the greatest gift and biggest curse a person could have.
and it made me cry, which a book hasn't done for a long time.

next up : the lovely bones

zl · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 4438 Location: Harrow

bluntandy · Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 2470 Location: london

just finished Hoot by carl hiaasen.
I've read all of his other books and they pretty much fall into the same theme. new guy in town, discovers weird guy living in the florida everglades on an Eco mission. This one's for kids but follows the plan. Still has some funny moments, full of mischief and you still sympathize with the main characters.
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Bainsy · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 2284 Location: London SW11

Fuzzy Dunlop · Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:44 pm Post subject:

I am reading some great books at the moment by CJ Sansom. The first is called Dissolution. They are crime/mystery books with Our Hero being a being a hunchback lasted working for Thomas Cromwell at the time Henry VIII was on the throne. I was sceptical when my wife suggested them but they are very enjoyable - and I'm even learning Lots of interesting stuff!

The Dragon Tatoo books are the next in my stack.

Pompey · Joined: 04 Oct 2009 Posts: 483 Location: north east

Bainsy · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 2284 Location: London SW11

finbar · Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 2969 Location: The Dark Peak

I've heard mixed things about Stieg Larsson, including that 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' has so many typos it's almost unreadable (well, if that sort of thing bothers you at least)?

Pompey · Joined: 04 Oct 2009 Posts: 483 Location: north east

right. finished 'the ascent of rum doodle', and its truly brilliant. its a spoof about a group of men who take themselves of to 'Yogistan' to climb the worlds highest mountain, rum doodle (40 000 1/2 ft), but end of falling in crevasses, being poisoned by their cook, getting lost, then climbing the wrong mountain. if you love mountains or travel this is a must read. its a bit of a classic, written in the 50's by a man who supposedly hadnt actually done that much mountaineering, but a lot of peole thought for a long time that he was actually someone famous writing under a pseudonym as he seems to have all the 'in' jokes. what i love about this is the way the characters are such typical english gentlemen as they get into all the various calamities, and fact that its a mountaineering book that isnt meant to be taken seriously! ive read so many that are about tragedy, but this is a light-hearted romp up an improbable mountain with someone whose navigation and organisation skills are as bad as mine!

AndyS.. · Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3944 Location: Gotham

Pets with Tourette's.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pets-Tourettes-Mark-Leigh/dp/1840246103

Flicked through it in Smiths today while hiding from an ex-colleague I didn't want to speak to. Had to put it back to stop laughing and breathe again.

Cobbie · Joined: 02 Aug 2005 Posts: 7078 Location: Chester

I just finished Freakonomics, a book I had been meaning to read for some time.
Now it might strike you that a book on economics wouldn't be very interesting (me too, hence why I never got round to it) - on the contrary, it's a very thought provoking tome, whether you agree with some of the ideas within it or not

There are two central ideas - that people respond to incentives and that where information assymetry exists, people will exploit it. Nothing new or radical in that. It is the means of demonstrating the point that is fascinating - teachers administering tests and sumo wrestlers provide evidence for incentives, whilst estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan do the same for information assymetry.
These strange examples pave the way for a review of the main author's research into how economics can be used to inform us on social issues, predominantly crime and inequality.

I found it fascinating - Amazon reviews have a wide range of responses which is what I would expect - the central ideas are pretty provocative at times and the conclusion about why crime started to fall in the USA is unexpected to say the least Smile

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