The "I am currently reading" thread

Just working my way through these books ..up to "The Falls" at the moment

They get better and more fulfilling as you go along. They can still be read as one offs, but going from start to finish is just the best.

Just getting to the end of Cold Print by Ramsey Campbell. Campbell is our pre-eminent living horror writer, with an instantly recognisable style of his own. This book actually consists mainly of a reprint of the contents of his first ever short story collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake, which was published in hardback by Arkham House in 1964 (at which point it was still run by August Derleth) and has long been out of print, with copies of the original going for lots of money. Campbell was then just eighteen, and was heavily influenced by Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and devised his own milieu set around the fictional city of Brichester which was located somewhere around about where Berkeley in Gloucestershire is. These early stories are a bit pedestrian perhaps, largely of the same structure, but you can see his style starting to develop. Added to these are stories concerning the same mythos that he wrote for various later anthologies, up until the 1980s, when he had refined his craft. Maybe he's still a bit of an acquired taste, which is why he probably doesn't earn as much as Stephen King/James Herbert etc., but I highly recommend him. Just a wrod of caution: I'm reading the 1993 Headline edition; there was an earlier edition by Grafton in the mid-1980s which left out some stories, so I think this is the only complete one.

Entry Island by Peter May.

Not convinced he has to do the same plot device in every book hie writes, swapping between present day and the past, I'm finding myself skimming the historical bits as they are just so predictable.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abegnale. The reminiscences of a mind-bogglingly audacious swindler and confidence trickster. One of those books where you know he's a wrong 'un but you want him to get away with it. Engaging.

The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth.

Story is pretty gripping but lots of superfluous bits that could have done with some editing

I've read three good 'un's this week. Matthew Syed's "Black Box Thinking" which explores critical thinking and how to apply it. Also "Garden of Beasts" by Jeffrey Deaver, set pre-second world war, where the US government send a hitman to dispose of one of Hitler's key men. I've Finally also finished Grayson Perry's "Descent of Man", which was so good that I've been rationing chapters!

Ooh, the Grayson Perry looks good!

Bryant and May and the Bleeding Heart by Christopher Fowler, book 11 in the Bryant and May Peculiar Crimes Unit series. Listening to the audiobook, brilliantly read by Tim Goodman. Resurrectionists, necromancers, dead men walking... and the ravens have left the Tower.

This series of books is so good. I'm surprised it took me so long to discover them. I should be up to date in time for book 14, which is due in March.

Ooh, the Grayson Perry looks good!

It is! I saw him at the City Hall recently too... very entertaining

Bryant and May and the Bleeding Heart by Christopher Fowler, book 11 in the Bryant and May Peculiar Crimes Unit series. Listening to the audiobook, brilliantly read by Tim Goodman. Resurrectionists, necromancers, dead men walking... and the ravens have left the Tower.

 

This series of books is so good. I'm surprised it took me so long to discover them. I should be up to date in time for book 14, which is due in March.

Read a couple of theirs...entertaining but not a series I then went out of a way to buy. If I saw them in a charity shop I'd probably pick them up.

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Andrew Taylor, A Stain on the Silence.

Usually a big fan of Taylor but this is poor and the main character is badly written and elicits no sympathy or empathy.

Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jnr. A group of drug addicts do their thing in the Bronx while steadily giving up any hope of a better life. Sordid and depressing but strangely gripping, kind of like Trainspotting without the humour.

Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jnr. A group of drug addicts do their thing in the Bronx while steadily giving up any hope of a better life. Sordid and depressing but strangely gripping, kind of like Trainspotting without the humour.

You're a brave one - I've seen the film of Last Exit to Brooklyn although not read the book; Hubert Selby Jr. might make Emile Zola look like a comedy writer.