Christmas Book List, What Do We Think of this Mix?

[Katie-Ellen]

So, Gillian Flyn's 'Gone Girl' has spawned a proliferation of 'domestic noir.' I have a domestic, slightly eerie domestic 'noir' in the pot - by the pricking of someone's thumbs, something wicked this way comes - and the something wicked is a lonely young farmer's new love interest. I didn't start it because of her novel. I struggled to stay with Gone Girl because of the writing, though I clocked up a mild interest as I went on with it. This 'domestic noir' thing will probably be passe by the time I have this second novel finished (how do I put accents over letters, folks?)

Bruce Forsyth? NO! Sue Perkins? I quite like her on the box, but no! And her biog is hamstrung by the awareness of her family reading it - my father has expressed anxiety lest I write a family memoir, but there's no point in writing one and holding back, or setting out without something both particular and universal to say, about a time as well as the people concerned, as with Bad Blood, a memoir by Lorna Sage.

I'd get the book about Chaucer, I think, maybe Richard 111. And other titles would be timely and instructive but I can't bring myself to read them right now...ISIS, the Gestapo, the de-armament of the West.

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, 'The Buried Giant,' 'passionless, direction-less'....not in the mood for existential mythos-stew. Sounds like one to read for research.

What grabs YOU here?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/best-100-books-for-christmas/

 

[Paul Whybrow]

To type French accent marks, you could use a page such as this, cutting and pasting the result into your document:

http://french.typeit.org/

Or you can use keyboard tricks, such as for é - hold down the ALT key then type e

http://french.about.com/od/writing/ss/typeaccents.htm#step3

 

[KG Christopher]

So, Gillian Flyn's 'Gone Girl' has spawned a proliferation of 'domestic noir.' I have a domestic, slightly eerie domestic 'noir' in the pot - by the pricking of someone's thumbs, something wicked this way comes - and the something wicked is a lonely young farmer's new love interest. I didn't start it because of her novel. I struggled to stay with Gone Girl because of the writing, though I clocked up a mild interest as I went on with it. This 'domestic noir' thing will probably be passe by the time I have this second novel finished (how do I put accents over letters, folks?)

Bruce Forsyth? NO! Sue Perkins? I quite like her on the box, but no! And her biog is hamstrung by the awareness of her family reading it - my father has expressed anxiety lest I write a family memoir, but there's no point in writing one and holding back, or setting out without something both particular and universal to say, about a time as well as the people concerned, as with Bad Blood, a memoir by Lorna Sage.

I'd get the book about Chaucer, I think, maybe Richard 111. And other titles would be timely and instructive but I can't bring myself to read them right now...ISIS, the Gestapo, the de-armament of the West.

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, 'The Buried Giant,' 'passionless, direction-less'....not in the mood for existential mythos-stew. Sounds like one to read for research.

What grabs YOU here?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/best-100-books-for-christmas/

Ahhh thanks Kakie-E,

Just a few I'll add to the list, but try to remember to order them at least 2 weeks before Santa comes down my chimney.

Mary Beard - SPQR - She is such an ispiring women, and brings her subject to life, love her.
Caitlan Moran - Another great read I expect, full of pretty good life experiences
Annabel Pitcher - Silence Is Goldfish, looks like a good witty read YA
Elvis Costello - Unfaithful music disappearing ink - I do love a good biography of my youthful musical idols
Marlon James - A brief history of seven killings - looks like a good suspense.

Actually, quite a few look good, but the 5 above capture my attention.

Lots of books about Sinatra? and WW2, but that is the Telegraphs readership I suppose.

Under no circumstances send me

Charles - Heart of a king - For I am a republican
Or
Nigella Lawson - Simply Nigella - For if I want that sort of thing, there is the Internet

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Kakie-E! Ooh, I'm turning into cake. I want to be a vanilla cream slice.

Scratch that.

I WANT a vanilla cream slice.

The Charleses. Charles 11, I have a soft spot for and he owed his restoration to a great Republican soldier, Moncke. Charles 1 was an idiot. This Charles, I am inclined to like, personally, and few may agree, I'm not arguing politics with anyone, but I think his has been a strange and difficult life; and a poisoned chalice. My brother has encountered him through work - police security, and said he was a bit of a w- but, look how they live. It is weird. But I wouldn't buy this book, or any book about the current incumbents. I am ambivalent, and besides, it will be thin fare at this point in history.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

To type French accent marks, you could use a page such as this, cutting and pasting the result into your document:

http://french.typeit.org/

Or you can use keyboard tricks, such as for é - hold down the ALT key then type e

http://french.about.com/od/writing/ss/typeaccents.htm#step3

Ah, thanks for that Paul...et voilá. Merci!

 

[KG Christopher]

Kakie-E! Ooh, I'm turning into cake. I want to be a vanilla cream slice.

Scratch that.

I WANT a vanilla cream slice.

The Charleses. Charles 11, I have a soft spot for and he owed his restoration to a great Republican soldier, Moncke. Charles 1 was an idiot. This Charles, I am inclined to like, personally, and few may agree, I'm not arguing politics with anyone, but I think his has been a strange and difficult life; and a poisoned chalice. My brother has encountered him through work - police security, and said he was a bit of a w- but, look how they live. It is weird. But I wouldn't buy this book, or any book about the current incumbents. I am ambivalent, and besides, it will be thin fare at this point in history.

I wonder what England would have become if it stayed a republic, before the restoration. A pre-cursor to the age of revolution, 100 years later. The putney debates, the levellers, all powerful advances in the rights of common people.

What do you say to that miss cream slice?

 

[KG Christopher]

je pence, donc, je suis

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Thanks Katie-Ellen, now I'm hungry!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I wonder what England would have become if it stayed a republic, before the restoration. A pre-cursor to the age of revolution, 100 years later. The putney debates, the levellers, all powerful advances in the rights of common people.

What do you say to that miss cream slice?

I say, I yearn, but I'm not going to eat you. I can't run it off afterwards.

I wonder. There could be a novel in that....like with The Man In The High Castle, now out, where they paint a Nazi dystopia, because the Allies lost. The US is now ruled by Japan on the western seaboard, and the Reich on the eastern.
British Republicans had a problem and they had very good reason indeed to rebel, but it was hideous. When Old Noll died, they looked to his son Richard, now why did they do that, and he was a very different person, gentle, ineffective, and no-one else to step in Old Noll's boots. It took a lot for General Monk to write to the exiled Prince. What must he have felt, that it was the best solution he could think of. The new king knew though, that the game had seriously changed. Maybe it says something profound about the psyche of our people, not good, not bad, just something.
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/General-Monk-and-the-Restoration.htm