Books and reading thread

[hallicks]

Recently finished two Elly Griffiths novels: The Stranger Diaries and The Postscript Murders. I don’t read a lot of crime fiction, but they’re both very easy reads and rattle along at a good pace. The characters are interesting and pretty three dimensional, moreso in book 1. Book 2 feels a bit Thursday Murder Club but written by someone with more nous. 

The first one had a character called Herbert H H____ (or something, can’t remember), which she explicitly shortened to HHH one single time, plus I’m certain there was another wrestling reference in there. So, presuming she’s a keffer, hi Elly and really enjoying the books. 3 and 4 already lined up!

Also re-read (for about 6th time) A closed and common orbit by Becky Chambers. Sci-fi, dual perspective, split timeline narrative, which might annoy you but it all comes together eventually. I think it’s my favourite fiction book of the last 10-15 years and always makes me cry at the end. A truly beautiful book.

[Carbomb]

Currently reading The Judge & His Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Murder mystery/crime investigation novella from the fifties set in Bern - the protagonist, Inspector Barlach, investigates the murder of his subordinate while dying of cancer. He clashes with his superiors and his subordinates: having served as a detective in Constantinople and Germany, his old-fashioned methodology is based around decades of learning about human behaviour, and he rejects the modern, Chicago-developed system of scientific criminology.

I'd actually heard it before on BBC Sounds, read by Bernard Hepton (who played Toby Esterhase in the Alec Guinness version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) in a disturbingly velvety voice, so I know how it plays out, but there's a lot of interesting detail in it that's been left out of the audioplay, as I suspected, so the book is still very enjoyable. It's a very easy read.

As I understand it, Barlach, whilst having a lot of personality, wasn't written as a serial detective like Holmes or Poirot; Dürrenmatt only wrote one more book about Barlach, so I'll probably pick that up at some point.

If you like crime fiction, this is pretty good; it was considered to have turned the genre on its head at the time, as the author takes a direction that, during that period, was relatively unprecedented. Obviously, it loses its impact because of decades of innovation in crime fiction afterwards, but it's still well written, and holds its own.

[davertfnewman]

12 hours ago, gmoney said:

13. 

What a weird list. The Godfather book is an absolute piece of shit, I can't believe it's on anyone's must read list. 

How come you're not a fan? One of my favourites, honestly.

[gmoney]

I found it to be really badly written, irritating and stupid. It's written like a child's idea of organised crime. All the stuff with Michael in Italy is awful. There's a hilariously bad subplot to do with a Sonny having a massive crank, and a woman with a big fanny. We then follow that woman after Sonny dies as she gets fanny reduction surgery so she can have sex with her new boyfriend and it not be like waving a matchstick in Madison Square Garden.

I don't know if there is a better film adaptation from dodgy source material.

Edited November 19, 2025 by gmoney

[SuperBacon]

35 minutes ago, gmoney said:

There's a hilariously bad subplot to do with a Sonny having a massive crank, and a woman with a big fanny. We then follow that woman after Sonny dies as she gets fanny reduction surgery so she can have sex with her new boyfriend and it not be like waving a matchstick in Madison Square Garden.

😆😆😆 This popped me big time. 6 stars @gmoney

[davertfnewman]

That's my favourite bit!

[Tamura]

Just finished The War of the White Roses: Yorkshire Cricket's Civil War, 1968-1986 by Stuart Rayner. Naturally Geoffrey Boycott is very much the focus of the book since he was the cause of the war in the first place. Terrible record as captain, selfish batting, slow scoring rate, disruptive presence in the dressing room. but he got away with it for years just by scoring a lot of runs.

[davertfnewman]

And a surprisingly promiscuous shagger.

[Thefatduck]

Just finished Nightboat to Tangier. tale of two Irish criminals that explores love, family relationships, crime and morality.

it’s fine. 

[Chest Rockwell]

On 11/18/2025 at 3:20 PM, Carbomb said:

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite books ever, and I recommend it to anyone.

Currently about 1/3 of the way through this as your post gave me the push to give it a go, and it is excellent. Amazing if it manages to keep this pace up all the way! Was always put off by the length but it's great. 

Also that book list must obviously be brilliant as I've read 26 of them so that means I am more well-read and learned than you, you big nerd. 😝

[Carbomb]

13 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Currently about 1/3 of the way through this as your post gave me the push to give it a go, and it is excellent. Amazing if it manages to keep this pace up all the way! Was always put off by the length but it's great. 

Also that book list must obviously be brilliant as I've read 26 of them so that means I am more well-read and learned than you, you big nerd. 😝

Glad you're enjoying it! And yeh - one of my resolutions is to read more of the "classical canon", so to speak. Not sure where to start, but I'm thinking maybe Dickens.

[davertfnewman]

Been reading a book at work a few pages at a time: The Things We Leave Behind. Pretty interesting dystopian novel grounded in some reality of an actor who becomes PM with extreme right views and the effect it has on normal people and their lives. Going to keep reading.

[Lorne Malvo]

My mother, god bless her, bought me a book for Christmas. I was very grateful as I am with all gifts, but she sees no distinction between any literature. So while my main go-tos are Richard Yates, Jonathan Franzen, predominantly mid-twentieth century US literary fiction, she sees no difference between this and airport thrillers, Dean Koontz books and Harry Potter. To her, it's all just 'books'. 

So she bought me 'Alchemised' by SenLinYu, a dark fantasy/gothic novel. I'm not a big fan of fantasy novels anyway, but that aside, this is fucking dreadful. Poorly written, full of cliches, meandering. Started off as fan-fiction apparently, and it tells in its unoriginality. Absolutely awful. 1000 pages too!

Obviously I didn't want to say 'that book is fucking shit' to my mother, so I just lied and told her it was really good. The problem is, she asked me what it was about and likes me to give her a little synopsis / update on it everytime I see her, so it got to the point I was having to google what happened in the later chapters just to try and keep the bullshit pretense up. I feel like Jez in the book club episode of Peep Show.

Anyway, I know there's a few fantasy fans on here. Avoid Alchemised, it's bad. 

[The Gaffer]

3 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

My mother, god bless her, bought me a book for Christmas. I was very grateful as I am with all gifts, but she sees no distinction between any literature. So while my main go-tos are Richard Yates, Jonathan Franzen, predominantly mid-twentieth century US literary fiction, she sees no difference between this and airport thrillers, Dean Koontz books and Harry Potter. To her, it's all just 'books'. 

So she bought me 'Alchemised' by SenLinYu, a dark fantasy/gothic novel. I'm not a big fan of fantasy novels anyway, but that aside, this is fucking dreadful. Poorly written, full of cliches, meandering. Started off as fan-fiction apparently, and it tells in its unoriginality. Absolutely awful. 1000 pages too!

Obviously I didn't want to say 'that book is fucking shit' to my mother, so I just lied and told her it was really good. The problem is, she asked me what it was about and likes me to give her a little synopsis / update on it everytime I see her, so it got to the point I was having to google what happened in the later chapters just to try and keep the bullshit pretense up. I feel like Jez in the book club episode of Peep Show.

Anyway, I know there's a few fantasy fans on here. Avoid Alchemised, it's bad. 

Aye, I know you'd have to be a bit wool-brained to put total faith in cover blurbs and the markups on sites like Goodreads etc but Alchemised seems to be one of the flag bearers of a much larger scale, more obvious marketing facade where - and fantasy seems rife with it - a book genuinely looks brilliant, a sure bet etc for all the world and yet it's tough to find anybody else in real life that didn't think it was a pile of shite. 

[Lorne Malvo]

6 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

Aye, I know you'd have to be a bit wool-brained to put total faith in cover blurbs and the markups on sites like Goodreads etc but Alchemised seems to be one of the flag bearers of a much larger scale, more obvious marketing facade where - and fantasy seems rife with it - a book genuinely looks brilliant, a sure bet etc for all the world and yet it's tough to find anybody else in real life that didn't think it was a pile of shite. 

I did a bit of googling on it the other week to see the general reaction to it. Seems like it's one of those books that went massive on BookTok as the kids call it (likely by paid-for influencers/content creators etc) but most of what I saw was overwhelmingly negative. It made me glad that I mostly read stuff from the 1900s as it seems the publishing/literature world has fallen victim to mediocrity completely overwhelming orginality.

Nice cover art on the jacket though, so at least there's that.