Sunday August 19, 2007

This holiday's books, in the order I read them. The first two were read in parallel.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. by R.K. Rowling

  Enough said. I read it to my son and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

• The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

  This has been on my bookshelf for a while and I finally got enough time to read it. I'm sure plenty of people have written about this book. Evolution by natural selection explained in terms that someone who only studied Biology to O level (age 16) many years ago can easily understand.

• The Hour by Michael Hutchinson

  A book about an attempt to break the hour cycling record. The hour is a very special record for cyclists. Ridden against the clock, obviously, on a track usually indoors. This is a very amusing book telling the story of Michael Hitchinson's attempt at The Hour.

• Talk to the Snail by Stephen Clarke

  Light reading which should help an Englishman understand the French mostly it was just funny.

• The Boy in the striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

  My partner's book group read this book and then my daughter's history teacher suggested that they read it, so I thought I would read it. Since we had the paper back the topic was not entirely obvious from the cover. Deeply depressing. Great book though.

• The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

  The story of a Doctor caught up in the Idi Amin's rule of Uganda. Another rather depressing book again brought to me via my partners Book Club.

• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

  The last week of my holiday was spent with my Cousin who moved to France and the English translation of this was on a table, I read the blurb and so read the book. I really wish I could have read the book without having been enticed into it by the story of how the book was published. For that reason I won't mention that part of the story. However I would highly recommend this book don't read the blurb just read the book then read the blurb. It is the story of ordinary people during the fall of France and the occupation up until the Germans invaded Russia. The writing is fantastic.

Saturday July 21, 2007

The madness of queuing to buy the latest Harry Potter book at midnight.

I now have to Police the children so that the ones who have read it don't tell the ones who have not how it ends. That includes telling me as I will be reading it aloud to my youngest.

Monday April 09, 2007

Whilst away I managed to finish “The Death of Marco Pantani” by Matt Rendell which I found to be a difficult read. I suppose the title should have given me the clue but to have documented the self destruction of a person, a cyclist, who achieved so much was difficult to read. Add to that that it appears that most of his greatest feats were EPO assisted and it did not make for an uplifting read.

At the other end of the Scale was “One more kilometre and we are in the Showers” by Tim Hilton. It covers so much of the British cycling scene and British cycling clubs that it even describes the informal one I ride in. Even if it is not by name. It seems we are not at all unique. The slightly depressing nature of the book was to refer, probably rightly, to the 1950s as the hay day of British (club) cycling and that we are now in a long slow decline. I hope that this is not the case but see little to support my hopes. My local “club” has no members under 40, although we do continue to pick up members. That we don't compete and sometimes loose members temporarily or permanently due to not being fast enough does not make us completely typical. It also allows me to delude myself that we have helped a few riders start or restart. My thanks to Gary for recommending it.

Tags: cycling books

Sunday November 12, 2006

I've been waiting for Geoff's review of "The God Delusion" but on Saturday I went into Walton to see the new shppoing centre which contains a new book shop. Being a sucker for a book shop I went in with my daughters who managed to blag me for five books while I left with "The God Delusion".

Oddly the very fact that I don't feel easy commenting on a book on my blog, while it is hosted by my employer because the book is about religion is covered in the first chapter, while not actually singling out blogging.

I'll read it, so far I'm struggling to put it down, and may either decide I can post a review here or more likely will desert blogs.sun.com for a location not directly connected with Sun. I'm not entirely sure why though. Possibly cowidice.

Tags: books The God Delusion