What book are you currently reading?

[Schroedinger]

I can't find in a quick search

Surely surprising this is not, as Schulz was one of Hogans Heroes ? Ach du Lieber.....

[Magnus]

Reading two just now; a daft sword and sorcery thing written by a farmer from Fife (also does excellent murder mysteries), and Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom".

Not sure how eating off wooden plates crept in to the thread, but last time I had them offered was in Nelson's Eye restaurant in Hof St, Capetown (major hat tip to Capetonian who recommended the place).

As for "I know nothing", was the Manuel incident not when Basil told him to forget everything, and Manuel responded "Si, Señor Fawlty; heeventuallly"? Must dig out the box set for a binge-watch.

[OFSO]

Mark Twain's "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur". Adventure, Sociology, History, Economics all combined with such wit and a pinch of satire that I frequently laughed out loud. What a marvelous man 'Mark Twain' was.

[ribrash]

Revisiting 1984.

[Cacophonix]

Fascinating though "West with the Night" undoubtedly is, even in the light of its long-suspected joint authorship with Raoul Schumacher, there is much to be learned from "The Lives of Beryl Markham" by the meticulous biographer Errol Trzebinski. This provides extensive background to all of Beryl's aviation and amatory activities. I have both books, and the two volumes are a revelation when read in association!

Arrived today and is proving to be a fascinating, well researched and stylish read. Thanks for the steer.

Caco

[603DX]

You're welcome, Caco. You might also find "The Splendid Outcast; the African Short Stories of Beryl Markham", compiled and introduced by Mary S. Lovell, of interest. (ISBN 0 09 172604 2) The compiler makes many perceptive background comments on Beryl's writing abilities and lifestyle.

[Cacophonix]

You're welcome, Caco. You might also find "The Splendid Outcast; the African Short Stories of Beryl Markham", compiled and introduced by Mary S. Lovell, of interest. (ISBN 0 09 172604 2) The compiler makes many perceptive background comments on Beryl's writing abilities and lifestyle.

I am about halfway through the Trzebinski book and her evocation of Kenya rings true. I am not sure I would have got on with Markham' had I known her, but one cannot fault her strengths such as courage, persistence and not a little guile and, when needed, charm. Her flying exploits aside, she would have been worthy of biographies and attention in and of herself. Fascinating stuff.

Caco

[Hydromet]

"A River Runs Through It and other stories." by Norman Maclean. Excellent stories of life woven through tales of trout fishing and working in the US forests, from the author's youth in the early 20th century.
Maclean has an excellent way of telling a story, and an understated humour that comes through even near-tragic stories. I'd never heard of him, although I'd heard of the movie of the same name, and only came across the book by accident.

[Cacophonix]

Yesterday was Caco poetry day, as opposed to the monthly nude day and multiple flying days, and came across this chap's book by happenstance while reading some of Dom Moraes' poetry.

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil, so purchased it immediately and what an excellent read it is... (although as yet unfinished).

Narcopolis <<this guy hated it but what does he know?>>

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/ ... ate-saints

For those who may have their own poetry days I also recommend Dom Moraes.

Rendezvous

[For Nathan Altermann ]
Altermann, sipping wine, reads with a look
Of infinite patience and slight suffering.
When I approach him, he puts down his book,
Waves t the chair beside him like a king,
Then claps his hands, and an awed waiter fetches
Bread, kosher sausage, cake, a chicken's wing,
More wine, some English cigarettes, and matches.
‘Eat, eat,' Altermann says, ‘this is good food.'
Through the awning over us the sunlight catches
His aquiline sad head, till it seems hewed
From tombstone marble. I accept some bread.
I've lunched already, but would not seem rude.
When I refuse more, he feeds me instead,
Heaping my plate, clapping for wine, his eyes
-Expressionless inside the marble head—
Appearing not to notice how the flies
Form a black, sticky icing on the cake.
Thinking of my health now, I visualize
The Aryan snow floating, flake upon flake,
Over the ghetto wall where only fleas
Fed well, and they and hunger kept awake
Under sharp stars, those waiting for release.
Birds had their nests, but Jews nowhere to hide
When visited by vans and black police.
The shekinah rose where a people died,
A pillar of flame by night, of smoke by day.
From Europe then the starved and terrified
Flew. Now their mourner sits in this café.
Telling me how to scan a Hebrew line.
Though my attention has moved far away
His features stay marble and aquiline.
But the eternal gesture of his race
Flowing through the hands that offer bred and wine
Reveals the deep love sealed in the still face.

Dom Moraes

Caco

[Cacophonix]

Bill Waterton's 'The Quick and the Dead' is a cracking read! He pulled no punches and comes across as a forthright, pugnaciously honest, uncompromising and brave man who would have gone down like a dose of cold poison with the kind of slimy, politically slippery and mealy-mouthed Englishmen he was dealing with at the GAC! Sadly he was spot in his observations and within a decade Gloucester had been subsumed and within less than a generation the British aircraft industry has all but gone! The world was a better place for the fact that men like him lived and who also, sadly, died as his book's title implies. If you love aviation and British aviation even more, then this book is a must read if you haven't read it. Highly recommended!

Caco

[ian16th]

Reading a disappointing book, one of the Lovejoy novels. Never read one before, but this is a rare case of the TV program/Movie being better than the book.

IMNSHO, Ian McShane must be credited with breathing life into a not so likeable character.

[Cacophonix]

Reading a disappointing book, one of the Lovejoy novels. Never read one before, but this is a rare case of the TV program/Movie being better than the book.

IMNSHO, Ian McShane must be credited with breathing life into a not so likeable character.

Ian McShane was superb in the Deadwood series and played notable small roles in films such If it is Tuesday This Must Be Belgium and The Battle of Britain, amongst many other films, and he is a very good actor but it will be for his portrayal of Lovejoy that he will be remembered (I used to fancy Phyllis Logan who played Lady Jane Felsham in the series!)

Caco

[om15]

I'm reading "New Grub Street" by George Gissing, published in 1891 it is a fresh and well written account of life in literary London.

It is interesting that the two main characters have popped up in the 1830hrs Radio 4 comedy Ed Reardon's Week, that is Milivain and Ed Reardon.

Sort of recommend it if you want to spend a few hours in the last century before WWI changed our society. May well take me on to more George Gissing novels, not sure if the novelists like Gissing and Patrick Hamilton were typical of everyday folk, both had sticky ends, in the case of Gissing he married an alcoholic prostitute and died of syph in his mid forties, Hamilton went seriously off the rails on the booze, but perhaps this was normal in those days.

[Cacophonix]

I'm reading "New Grub Street" by George Gissing, published in 1891 it is a fresh and well written account of life in literary London.

It is interesting that the two main characters have popped up in the 1830hrs Radio 4 comedy Ed Reardon's Week, that is Milivain and Ed Reardon.

Sort of recommend it if you want to spend a few hours in the last century before WWI changed our society. May well take me on to more George Gissing novels, not sure if the novelists like Gissing and Patrick Hamilton were typical of everyday folk, both had sticky ends, in the case of Gissing he married an alcoholic prostitute and died of syph in his mid forties, Hamilton went seriously off the rails on the booze, but perhaps this was normal in those days.

Must admit I have never read anything by Gissing but he sounds like he had a pretty ghastly life. On the basis of the old dictum that "you have to suffer for your art" and your recommendation om15, I will give Gissing a try.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/book ... -life.html

Caco

[Cacophonix]

Bill Waterton's 'The Quick and the Dead' is a cracking read! He pulled no punches and comes across as a forthright, pugnaciously honest, uncompromising and brave man who would have gone down like a dose of cold poison with the kind of slimy, politically slippery and mealy-mouthed Englishmen he was dealing with at the GAC! Sadly he was spot in his observations and within a decade

Gloucester

had been subsumed and within less than a generation the British aircraft industry has all but gone! The world was a better place for the fact that men like him lived and who also, sadly, died as his book's title implies. If you love aviation and British aviation even more, then this book is a must read if you haven't read it. Highly recommended!

Caco

Gloster!

Waterton notes the spelling was changed to help foreign buyers who couldn't pronounce Gloucester! My autocorrect made less of a foreigner of me but also made me laughably incorrect..

Caco

[Cacophonix]

Still grinding on about Bill Waterton's 'Quick and the Dead', as most here will know he was fired from his job as the aviation correspondent of the Express for his unpopular comments in the book. It seems that Flight Global were none too pleased either at the time.

Flight Global-Waterton.JPG (191.62 KiB) Viewed 440 times

It is untrue that the R.A.F. had no aircraft comparable in speed with the 1946 Meteor record-breaker in large-scale service in 1955, and mere foolishness to criticize A.R.B. pilots for lack of jet experience in 1948—before any civilian jet aircraft had flown.

The first Waterton claim is dubious, I agree, but the second bit about the A.R.B. (Air Registration Board) pilot misses the point. Waterton was making the point that when the A.R.B. sent down a pilot, without jet flying experience, to certify the Meteor for civil use they were effectively relying on Waterton himself to do the flying, and effectively to teach a pilot, who was clearly not yet able to do a type authorisation on a jet and it was Waterton himself that did the certification while the fiction of the A.R.B. pilot certification was maintained. Bureaucracy gone mad! The A.R.B. was the forerunner of the modern CAA of course!

The fact that the writer of the critical review seemed to miss or misunderstand the ironic play on the word "quick" (as in alive and not just fast, as in reaction time, or even the speed of the aircraft) made me laugh as well.

Caco

[Cacophonix]

Just received my copy of 'Out of The Blue The Sometimes Scary and Often Funny World of Flying in the RAF'. Looks like it will be a good read.

Starts of with some bugger upside down over Germany at Mach 1.2 at 70,000 feet in a Lightning. Probably Boac!

Blokes risking WW3 by shouting "Readiness 15 minutes"" into metal dustbins to Victor crews...

Caco

[Ibbie]

At last I have managed to track down a copy of " Crash Landing - An Inside Account of the Fall of GPA" by Christopher Brown.

Found in a book shop in Dublin and was their last copy.

[603DX]

Another book from my son, who knows my interests well, is "A Higher Call" by the military historian Adam Makos. I am finding this so absorbing, I'm reading it at a rather sedate speed so as to savour the sheer quality of its detailed text. Not a book that encourages "speed-reading" I think, it's best savoured as if it were a rare antique or a moving creation like Mozart's Requiem, having the ring of truth about it.

The back-cover "blurb" summarises it well, in my view:

"Five days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged Allied bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a twenty-one-year-old American pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. Suddenly a Messerschmitt fighter pulled up on the bomber's tail - the German pilot was an ace, who with a squeeze of the trigger could bring down the struggling bomber.

This is the incredible true story of 2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown and 2nd Lieutenant Franz Stigler, the two pilots whose lives collided that day. It was an encounter that would haunt both pilots for forty years until, as old men, they would seek out one another and reunite."

[Magnus]

Still making my way through Mandela's autobiography, and using "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh as a bit of light relief. I ought to wander through the local charity shops for a copy of Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", as I suspect I can find a mint copy.