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I'm in the midst of re-reading Orwell's 1984, just finishing Part I. It's a cliche to say that it's timeless but my goodness it's a deserved cliche. Tearing down statues, purges, sound familiar?

(14-10-2020 01:13 )Slabhead Wrote:  I'm in the midst of re-reading Orwell's 1984, just finishing Part I. It's a cliche to say that it's timeless but my goodness it's a deserved cliche. Tearing down statues, purges, sound familiar?

almost time to move it from fiction to non-fiction maybe ?? lol

(14-10-2020 01:21 )papahet3969 Wrote:  

(14-10-2020 01:13 )Slabhead Wrote:  I'm in the midst of re-reading Orwell's 1984, just finishing Part I. It's a cliche to say that it's timeless but my goodness it's a deserved cliche. Tearing down statues, purges, sound familiar?

almost time to move it from fiction to non-fiction maybe ?? lol

Probably, although a disclaimer may need to be included to explain that 1984 isn't a fucking manual to be used on society, just in case moron SJWs get that idea

Unweaving the Rainbow - Richard Dawkins

Working my way through The Witcher books, will be speaking Elvish by time I’m finished, those parts are heavy going

The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4" edited by Terry Carr




Ten stories from 1974, all by well known genre writers.

"We Purchased People" (Frederik Pohl)
"Pale Roses" (Michael Moorcock)
"The Hole Man" (Larry Niven)
"Born with the Dead" (Robert Silverberg)
"The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics" (Ursula K. Le Guin)
"Dark Icarus" (Bob Shaw)
"A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" (Philip K. Dick)
"On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi" (William Tenn)
"The Engine at Heartspring's Center " (Roger Zelazny)
"If the Stars Are Gods" (Gordon Eklund and Gregory Benford)

The usual hit and miss mixture found in these year's best anthologies. I quite enjoyed the Pohl, Moorcock and Zelazny stories. All but one of the rest were a bit dull, a bit silly or a bit pointless although the Bob Shaw effort is notable for being one of the few SF works to mention the town of Bedford.

The stand out story is Robert Silverberg's "Born with the Dead", a chilling tale which "describes a near-future world in which the recently dead can be "rekindled" to a new life, but one in which their personalities and attitudes are radically changed; although they possess their memories from their previous lives, their former concerns no longer appear important to them. The story parallels that of Eurydice and Orpheus in the underworld." (from wikipedia). This story won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella and is worth the price of the book by itself.
The Niven story also won the Hugo award for best short story.

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy - Anthony Beevor 2009
Normandy 1944 - Stephen Badsey 1990



"From critically acclaimed world historian, Antony Beevor, this is the first major account in more than twenty years to cover the whole invasion from June 6, 1944, right up to the liberation of Paris on August 25. It is the first book to describe not only the experiences of the American, British, Canadian, and German soldiers, but also the terrible suffering of the French caught up in the fighting. More French civilians were killed by Allied bombing and shelling than British civilians were by the Luftwaffe.

The Allied fleet attempted by far the largest amphibious assault ever, and what followed was a battle as savage as anything seen on the Eastern Front. Casualties mounted on both sides, as did the tensions between the principal commanders.

Even the joys of liberation had their darker side. The war in northern France marked not just a generation, but the whole of the postwar world, profoundly influencing relations between America and Europe. Beevor draws upon his research in more than thirty archives in six countries, going back to original accounts, interviews conducted by combat historians just after the action, and many diaries and letters donated to museums and archives in recent years." (from BookBrowse)

I reccomend the Beevor book as a gripping account of the events from Operation Overlord to the liberation of Paris. I bought the Osprey book as well because after reading Beevor's "The Second World War" I thought the maps might not be up to scratch; it's infuriating when the text mentions places which are not marked on the accompanying maps. In the event the maps were good and the Badsey book didn't really add anything not present in the Beevor.

Peter Duck - Arthur Ransome 1932 (Puffin 1984)



"The third book in Arthur Ransome's wonderful series for children, Peter Duck takes intrepid explorers John, Susan, Titty, and Roger Walker and fearsome Amazon pirates Nancy and Peggy Blackett onto the high seas. Under the command of the infamous Captain Flint (Nancy and Peggy's Uncle Jim), the children brave a real-life pirate and his cutthroat crew, fog, sharks, and the ravenous crabs of Crab Island in the search of buried treasure." (from Amazon)

During lockdown I dug out a couple of the books that I first read as a little lad. I enjoyed them so much that I've bought a load more from the same series including ones that I've not read before like this one from the "Swallows and Amazons" set. It's a simple nautical tale with a "treasure Island" vibe and is usually described as a metafiction although there's nothing in the book itself to indicate that it's not an actual adventure experienced by the characters.

The BBC attracted a lot of publicity for their most recent S&A adaptation by changing the name of Titty to Tatty which is probably why the cynical bastards did it.

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stane

Scottish version of H.P and the philosophers stone

I’m Scottish and I’m struggling with some of the words lol

Can only read a few pages at a time as my concentration span is poor but this has been a very good read so far.....