TSF Book Club
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Have been struggling with finishing some writing this week, so have gone back to an old favourite for inspiration. JG Ballard really was great.
I am looking into a silent world. Through the viewfinder of this cine-camera, set at its maximum field, I can see the Hotel Coral Playa three hundred yards along the beach, covered by a desert light so glazed that it would embalm Pharoah. It’s incredible that the sea is only a few feet to the right of frame – with this dense powdery light we could be at Karnak, in that tourist hotel by the necropolis where Helen befriended her Stuttgart dentist and first set in train this epic of the amateur camera.
"Stuttgart dentist"
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Finished the Inspector O series by "James Church". Inspector O is a police detective in North Korea, dealing with geopolitical threats/ mysteries to be solved. Your protagonist embodies quiet, sardonic wit in navigating the bureaucracy and inherent corruption of an authoritarian regime.
The books are written by an ex-intelligence officer who specialised in North Korea. Even if that isn't true, they're remarkably well written depictions of the environment, both physical and mental, North Koreans have to contend with. They're easy page turners with a great insight into what it must be life to live and work in a surveillance state.
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@kiwiwomble said in Books:
Might put this in the movie thread too for obvious reasons
Anyone read other books by Andy Weir? they author of "the Martian"
I loved the film so read the book and very much enjoyed it, did he just hot one rich vein or are his other books good too?
Martian was Apex.
Project hail Mary good fun
Artemis is ok to poor depending on your life perspective
so, got around to reading Artemis as was sale on amazon...easily the worst of the 3 IMO, I think what i like about the Martian and PHM is there isn;t a "bad guy"...the hero is fighting against his situation, i realised re watching the martian over xmas that i was surprised there wasn't a penny pinching accountant...or a rival manufacturer sabotaging things...people argue and disagree but theyre generally all trying to solve the same problem...Artemius has all those things...selfish people, double crossing, hit men
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@nonpartizan said in Books:
Am currently working my way through a Travellers history of NZ by John Chambers.
Actually, a very fascinating book. I did not realise that NZ was so sparsely populated well into the 19th century. The author cities that the number of non native settlers in NZ in the early part of the 19th century was just 2,000 - a combination of 1. missionaries
2. professionals and then the type of opportunists and
3 disreputable people that any new frontier always attracted.Author talks about the French exploration of the south Pacific in the 18th century by Cooks contemporaries. It seems that NZ could have just as easily have been settled by the French.
Another fascinating element was how the author says the Maori were very receptive to Christianity and incorporated it into their existing belief systems. Rather than abandoning or rejecting one or the other I find it fascinating how people's will borrow from other religions and give it a new twist.
I do want to tackle Michael King's history of NZ which appears to be considered the best book of its kind.
Did you get this digitally? I'd like to read it but don't want to buy the paper book (and in Oz so no access to the library). Your's is the first positive review I've heard of it. A couple of mates of mine (ones a historian and the other is writing a travel book based on famous people's recollections touring NZ so they're a little bit biased) are not that fond of it. So, I'd like to read to see for myself.
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@nonpartizan Recommend pairing the Michael King with Ranginui Walker's Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou if that's available.
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Superb read, well told story.
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@taniwharugby said in Books:
Superb read, well told story.
Thank you
Next read locked inI read John leCarre novels while I was in Poland and Germany so spy shit is my current go
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@nonpartizan said in Books:
I just started the Bone People.....
I want to really get to grips with the Kiwi canon so this was as good a place to start as any.
Damn, there's much better places to start IMHO, never was a fan of the Bone People, but let us know how you find it.
Maurice Shadbolt's NZ wars trilogy is really good for a second place - Season of the Jew ( about Te Kooti), Monday's Warriors (essentially about Titikowaru), and House of Strife I think (set up in Russell/Paihia).
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@taniwharugby said in Books:
Superb read, well told story.
Was interested until I saw it was the same guy as did the SAS book. Great TV, but shitty made up bullshit outside of entertainment
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@Machpants said in Books:
@taniwharugby said in Books:
Superb read, well told story.
Was interested until I saw it was the same guy as did the SAS book. Great TV, but shitty made up bullshit outside of entertainment
Have you read the SAS book that he wrote? The first TV series seemed only very loosely based on the book, I read it a while ago and enjoyed the book - he's written some others on Kim Philby among others which were great
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Smith's Dream by C.K. Stead is worth a read, and captures an era of NZ well. Bonus points for setting the secret police's torture chamber in the basement of Auckland University's (horrendous) Chemistry Building.
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@Machpants said in Books:
@taniwharugby said in Books:
Superb read, well told story.
Was interested until I saw it was the same guy as did the SAS book. Great TV, but shitty made up bullshit outside of entertainment
Have you read the SAS book that he wrote? The first TV series seemed only very loosely based on the book, I read it a while ago and enjoyed the book - he's written some others on Kim Philby among others which were great
Ok, no I haven't. So more historical and less lock, stock and two smoking barrels. I really enjoyed the TV series, but only as a fantasy version of what happened. So I disregarded the book. I will check it out, thanks for the info
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@Machpants said in Books:
@Machpants said in Books:
@taniwharugby said in Books:
Superb read, well told story.
Was interested until I saw it was the same guy as did the SAS book. Great TV, but shitty made up bullshit outside of entertainment
Have you read the SAS book that he wrote? The first TV series seemed only very loosely based on the book, I read it a while ago and enjoyed the book - he's written some others on Kim Philby among others which were great
Ok, no I haven't. So more historical and less lock, stock and two smoking barrels. I really enjoyed the TV series, but only as a fantasy version of what happened. So I disregarded the book. I will check it out, thanks for the info
The series is loosely based on the book, but you shouldn't punish the book due to the TV series.
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There is a series on Netflix, Spy Ops, and is an episode on the extraction of Gordiesky from Russia, seems to follow closely to the book and includes interviews with people around him at the time.
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