For those who can also read

[DiegoNT]

Am i the only one who reads like 3 or 4 books at a time. I'm currently part way through A Dance with Dragons, trump revealed and a book about the 92 dream team. I bounce back and forth between books, reading 100 pages here, a few chapters there.

Never been much of a fiction reader. Biographies, crime, war etc has been me. Few hundred in the collection as I smashed through them in my fly in fly out days spending countless hours on the plane so if anyone is looking for recommendations

I see you mentioned Mark Webbers biography, do you read a lot of f1 biographies and if so can you recommend any? In the past year I've read webbers ( was ok), schumachers (also ok), Mansells (great in parts and drags on in others) senna v prost ( loved it, biased towards Prost but a good counter balance to the Senna doco) and Frank Williams ( one of the best bio's I've read fullstop.)

 

[chigurh]

Finished reading Fear Drive My Feet a few days ago. It's a true story of an 18 year old Australian sent into the jungle of PNG to spy on the Japanese. It's a pretty amazing story.

Currently reading Let The Right One In.

 

[Parra]

Am i the only one who reads like 3 or 4 books at a time. I'm currently part way through A Dance with Dragons, trump revealed and a book about the 92 dream team. I bounce back and forth between books, reading 100 pages here, a few chapters there.


I see you mentioned Mark Webbers biography, do you read a lot of f1 biographies and if so can you recommend any? In the past year I've read webbers ( was ok), schumachers (also ok), Mansells (great in parts and drags on in others) senna v prost ( loved it, biased towards Prost but a good counter balance to the Senna doco) and Frank Williams ( one of the best bio's I've read fullstop.)

I often have several on the go at once. Usually a mix. Novel / business / non-fiction. Just got through some popular science and starting on some roman history.

Niki Laudas autobiography To Hell and Back is a great F1 read. As is Life at the Limit by Prof Sid Watkins. Touch Wood by Duncan Hamilton has some fantastic stories about early 50's sports car racing and the racers.

 

[Rhino_NQ]

Am i the only one who reads like 3 or 4 books at a time. I'm currently part way through A Dance with Dragons, trump revealed and a book about the 92 dream team. I bounce back and forth between books, reading 100 pages here, a few chapters there.


I see you mentioned Mark Webbers biography, do you read a lot of f1 biographies and if so can you recommend any? In the past year I've read webbers ( was ok), schumachers (also ok), Mansells (great in parts and drags on in others) senna v prost ( loved it, biased towards Prost but a good counter balance to the Senna doco) and Frank Williams ( one of the best bio's I've read fullstop.)

First venture into the motorsport land sorry.

 

[Stewbum]

Never been much of a fiction reader. Biographies, crime, war etc has been me. Few hundred in the collection as I smashed through them in my fly in fly out days spending countless hours on the plane so if anyone is looking for recommendations

You might like historical fiction. It's kinda the same but with the characters brought to life via the story. Maybe give Bryce Courtenay's Australian Trilogy a go. I used to go in for the same but made the switch unless it's about someone I am passionate about.

 

[Stewbum]

Yeah, I've also got Dostoyevski's House of the Dead and The Brothers Karamazov sitting on the shelf begging to be read too.

Too many books, too little time.

I've read Crime and Punishment and one other of his.

 

[Stewbum]

I often have several on the go at once. Usually a mix. Novel / business / non-fiction. Just got through some popular science and starting on some roman history.

Niki Laudas autobiography To Hell and Back is a great F1 read. As is Life at the Limit by Prof Sid Watkins. Touch Wood by Duncan Hamilton has some fantastic stories about early 50's sports car racing and the racers.

Business books make great firewood. As Don Watson calls it - the dead language of managerialism.

Otherwise, that is impressive!

 

[Stewbum]

A decade ago when I last started this thread here it went very well. I'm pleased to see nothing has changed.

 

[gUt]

OP, I enjoyed War and Peace and I'll read it again some day. Anna Karenina not so much.

Just re-read the eight Farseer books by Robin Hobb, patiently waiting for the 9th. They're fun.

In the middle of the Hyperion Cantos also, the first two are some of the best fiction I've read.

Started reading It last night.

Hyperion Cantos is f**king amazing. Such scope.

I'm thinking I want to revisit the Gormenghast trilogy.

Some classics that are unputdownable:
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Catch 22 - Jospeh Heller
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Money - Martin Amis
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

 

[gUt]

Some others that everyone should read

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Most Irvine Welsh is awesome too

 

[Stewbum]

Some others that everyone should read

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Most Irvine Welsh is awesome too

Thank you. Once I finish War and Peace I now have a dozen good books to choose from.

 

[Stewbum]

Am i the only one who reads like 3 or 4 books at a time. I'm currently part way through A Dance with Dragons, trump revealed and a book about the 92 dream team. I bounce back and forth between books, reading 100 pages here, a few chapters there.

Definitely not. People often ask 'How can you read more than one book?' and I reply, 'How can you watch more than a single television program and still follow the story and characters?'

Books ebb and flow and whilst I think you more accurately capture the experience one at a time, it certainly works well to have at least two on the go in case your interest or determination (as the case may be with tougher works) wavers.

 

[Fufu Andronez]

Never been much of a fiction reader. Biographies, crime, war etc has been me. Few hundred in the collection as I smashed through them in my fly in fly out days spending countless hours on the plane so if anyone is looking for recommendations

mate if you could provide some suggestions that would be awesome. I spend a couple of hours a day on the train so some new reading material always comes in handy. I tend to gravitate towards sports people's biographies but have been looking to get into some True crime books too.

Any suggestions on bios?

A few I've already been through include:

• Mike Tyson
• Michael Jordan
• Brock Lesnar
• SBW
• Melbourne Salary Cap (Storm Clouds)
• Bear Grylls
• American Sniper

 

[gUt]

mate if you could provide some suggestions that would be awesome. I spend a couple of hours a day on the train so some new reading material always comes in handy. I tend to gravitate towards sports people's biographies but have been looking to get into some True crime books too.

Any suggestions on bios?

A few I've already been through include:

• Mike Tyson
• Michael Jordan
• Brock Lesnar
• SBW
• Melbourne Salary Cap (Storm Clouds)
• Bear Grylls
• American Sniper

Clive James's autobiographies are great. Also he wrote a book of mini biographies called Cultural Amnesia.

 

[Stewbum]

I used to read a lot of sports biographies but branched off into music quickly and then more and more fiction.

I highly recommend (whether you think he's a twat or not) Jim Morrison: No-one here gets out alive.

Aside from that it's been too many years since I read non-fiction. If you want to try something extraordinary that is still non-fiction Charles Dickens has three non-fiction books. American Notes is the most well known and traces his journey to the States in 1843.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/400866.American_Notes_For_General_Circulation

If you wanted to try a fictional autobiography (which was in it's day first believed to be non-fiction) give Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe a read. It's amazingly easy to read for a classic. Another similar one he wrote was 'Journal of a Plague Year' which he wrote based on his grandfather's account of living through the black plague in England. Fascinating reading.

 

[Stewbum]

I see you mentioned Mark Webbers biography, do you read a lot of f1 biographies and if so can you recommend any? In the past year I've read webbers ( was ok), schumachers (also ok), Mansells (great in parts and drags on in others) senna v prost ( loved it, biased towards Prost but a good counter balance to the Senna doco) and Frank Williams ( one of the best bio's I've read fullstop.)

I was a HUGE Michele' Alboreto fan and also followed closely the fortunes of Gerhard Berger, and later Jos Verstappen.

Google search time I guess.

 

[OVP]

I go through phases where some years i am absolutely ravenous when it comes to books and will read every day. Some years I've even read close to 50 books in a year. Other times, like right now, I just can't seem to be bothered.

I'm about to read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco but I can't seem to do it. Currently I'm going through a period where binge watching good quality TV shows and re-playing older games is taking up too much of my time. I just finished binge-watching all six seasons of Drop the Dead Donkey and have now moved on to Penny Dreadful.

I know the Name of the Rose is brilliant and I will love it, but nope it just has to wait.

 

[Parra]

I go through phases where some years i am absolutely ravenous when it comes to books and will read every day. Some years I've even read close to 50 books in a year. Other times, like right now, I just can't seem to be bothered.

I'm about to read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco but I can't seem to do it. Currently I'm going through a period where binge watching good quality TV shows and re-playing older games is taking up too much of my time. I just finished binge-watching all six seasons of Drop the Dead Donkey and have now moved on to Penny Dreadful.

I know the Name of the Rose is brilliant and I will love it, but nope it just has to wait.

Could be the best novel ever written.

 

[OVP]

Could be the best novel ever written.

Yeah I've heard that, and the movie is probably in my all time top ten too.

 

[DiegoNT]

I was a HUGE Michele' Alboreto fan and also followed closely the fortunes of Gerhard Berger, and later Jos Verstappen.

Google search time I guess.

Does Gerhard Berger have a biography? Im addition to having a pretty decent career himself he had a front row seat to some off the big rivalries, characters and moments of the golden era