Couldn't get into it

post wrote:Just finished 'The Forgotten Highlander' by Alistair Urquhart. Its a real life story of his time in WW2 getting captured by the Japanese at Singapore and his work on the Death Railways. That bloke went trough a lot, its inspirational. I'm about three quarters through it - its actually unbelievable isn't it and if you didn't already know that its a true story you'd swear it was far-fetched and impossible. If you want to read another story that is just as incredible then try "Devil at my heels" by Louis Zamperini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini, not just a 1936 American Olympic athlete, not just one of the longest crashed airmen to survive at sea in a dinghy but then survived four years in a Japanese prison camp headed by one of the top 40 most wanted Japanese war criminals.

post wrote:Just finished 'The Forgotten Highlander' by Alistair Urquhart. Its a real life story of his time in WW2 getting captured by the Japanese at Singapore and his work on the Death Railways. That bloke went trough a lot, its inspirational. I'm about three quarters through it - its actually unbelievable isn't it and if you didn't already know that its a true story you'd swear it was far-fetched and impossible. If you want to read another story that is just as incredible then try "Devil at my heels" by Louis Zamperini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini, not just a 1936 American Olympic athlete, not just one of the longest crashed airmen to survive at sea in a dinghy but then survived four years in a Japanese prison camp headed by one of the top 40 most wanted Japanese war criminals.

Funny – and poignant – interview with the wonderful Terry Pratchett.

Funny – and poignant – interview with the wonderful Terry Pratchett.

I've just finished reading Walt Disney The Biography by Neal Gabler. It got a bit repetitive at times but an interesting read nonetheless. Perhaps the strangest thing about the book is the fuck up where pages 463 to 494 are printed twice. Makes the book look bigger I suppose.

I recently bought The Life of Kingsley Amis by Zachary Leader for £1 at poundland and that's what I'm reading now

May have found something I actually agree with you on, the Anno Dracula series is fantastic, at the end I love seeing how many easter eggs I've spotted and learning about classic books and films to watch out for, the recent imprints also have some additional novellas and short-stories which are pretty good. I've read up to Dracula Cha Cha Cha but not yet got to Johnny Alucard. What I like is that the stories are clever and intricately put together, but are ripping good reads too. There are some technically accomplished writers who go for cleverness and lose the entertainment, I find so called high brow "literary fiction" often goes down this path, it's all finely crafted but can become very dull. Newman is a very good writer.

Some fun books with a north of England setting and Whitby and Dracula links in particular are Paul Magrs' Brenda and Effie novels, unchallenging fluff but amusing all the same, although the central conceit starts to wear thin by the Bride that Time Forgot. Not in the league of Anno Dracula but worth a look.

It happens to everyone eventually.



I've got Dracula Cha Cha Cha on the shelf, but am sort of being sparing with them.



It's enormous fun spotting stuff – but as you say, they never read as though Newman is being 'clever'.



I might look those up, cheers. On the northern theme, and also funny, is Alan Plater's The Beiderbecke Trilogy, which is a series of three novels – as well as the TV series. I see via Amazon that that's available from as little as a penny, used.

Anybody like to throw in their comments on my latest novel "Two Seasons". It certainly qualifies as a Northern novel being set in a fictional industrial town 'close' to Leigh, St Helens, Warrington, Widnes and Wigan and unlike all the other books mentioned in this topic, it also has a strong Rugby League background.

Currently reading a REAL BOOK instead of a virtual eBook for a change, bit of a pain in the bum to have to hold the thing open isn't it, it'll never catch on.

ANYWAY - bought it from Oxfam Books in Headingley, possibly the best second hand bookshop I have ever been in and an excellent way to spend a Saturday morning just grazing the bookshelves, I find if I go into somewhere like Waterstones where books are sorted by author then I tend to target certain authors and ignore the rest - browse in a second hand bookshop and you pick up all sorts of stuff.

ANYWAY AGAIN - current book is Bruce Reynolds autobiography, you know, Bruce Reynolds of Great Train Robbery fame, its well written (or well dictated) and as more than two thirds of the book is dedicated to his years before the train robbery its full of detail of London and a petty criminals life in the 1940s through to the early 1960s, a love of classic sports cars, fine tailoring and dining, and driving down to the South of France to throw away ill-gotten gains and plan their next heist - it reads like a novel but its his life story, very good book.

Currently reading Mike Tyson's autobiography


insane

Current 'heavy' reading is A Life of Picasso, Vol I by John Richardson, which isn't actually anywhere near as heavy as it sounds – fascinating stuff.

For something lighter, Red Square, the third Arkady Renko novel by Martin Cruz Smith, which is enormously entertaining and, as always with Smith, very well written.