READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?

[Stanley]

In my new 'look after Stanley' mode I have been passing spare time re-reading Len Deighton. I got through Hook; Line and Sinker and am reading 'Faith' now. They are as good as ever and you can read them over and over again....

[Stanley]

Still enjoying Deighton..... Some books can be read over and over again.

[rossylass]

Reading a beautiful American novel - "Stoner" by John Williams. Don't know whether I want to rush to finish it or slow down to savour it for a bit longer. Hmm

[Stanley]

Do what I do Rossy. Read it and go back later to read it again.....

[rossylass]

My book queue is too long so I don't tend to read things twice. Jack Reacher is waiting for me!

[Stanley]

It may be an age thing Rossy.... I am currently re-reading le Carre after working my way through Len Deighton. So much of what le Carre says still applies today. I was reading the Russia House yesterday and wanting to post whole quotations about the current state of what we used to call 'The Cold War'. Written in 1988 and still true today. (I read Kipling 'Puck of Pook's Hill' and 'Rewards and Fairies' at least once a year..... Written as children's books but totally delightful and very good history)

[Stanley]

I'm re-reading le Carre's The Night Manager and it is even more riveting after the TV series because I am putting faces to the names.....

[Stanley]

'The Night Manager' is going down very well. Some books get better and better over the years.....

[Stanley]

Finished 'The Night Manager'..... Next for shaving is 'Our Game'.

[Tripps]

If you have £2.04 to spare you could do worse than buy this book Backroom Boys

Many on here would enjoy it. I particularly liked the history of Mobile Phones - commonplace now - but easy to forget that they are only about 30 years old.

[rossylass]

National Book Week. Grab the book nearest to you. Go to page 56. Post the fifth sentence. Don't mention the title!

[Tripps]

"It was most extraordinary for him ever to appear for a preliminary hearing, but this was an extraordinary matter."

[PanBiker]

"Conditions were poor for the CQ WPX CW contest - better equipped stations might have worked a few JAs and VKs on 21MHz but no ZLs, west coast USA, or Pacific Islands were reported on the higher bands."

[Stanley]

By the time I get it back John has the fire going.
I've been reading a lot. All my sailing books, Rubbra on RR piston aero engines and at the moment Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

[David Whipp]

"Jarhundert ausgebessdert und gefestigt Die Bastei wurdle im 16."

[Tizer]

My page 56 is a photo of a shale specimen containing fossil fern fronds, no text! So I took the next one, a reference book, and looked at the fifth entry:
Atys. A youth beloved by Agdistis (Cybele); Driven mad by her jealousy he castrated himself with a sharp stone.
(Sorry about that, but you did ask!)

I've been reading a novel set in mid-17th Century London. The King has declared war on the Dutch and demanded funds from the bankers. Plaque is breaking out in the back streets. But most troublesome of all, the bankers are pulling in their loans and people, high and low, are going bust. It really is time we did something about bankers!

[plaques]

The only areas of physical science into which quantum mechanics has not yet been properly incorporated are gravity and large-scale structure of the universe.

Everybody will have read this one.

[David Whipp]

Plaque is breaking out in the back streets.

Blast! It'll be gingivitis next...

[Stanley]

I had an attack of panic when I read that he was in trouble.....

[Tizer]

It's no joke David, the population in London lived in fear of these recurrent outbreaks of plaque. If you were affected then the watchmen would come and write `plaque' on your front door and your neighbours would avoid you. If it didn't clear up they would take you to a Benedentine monastery where Dentite monks in long white robes would subject you to painful treatment with willow sticks and alum powder. Eventually a preventative was invented by William de Colgate which involved brushing the teeth every day with a magical mixture of long wriggly red worms in white alum paste. We have much to thank science for.

Postscript: When it became apparent that many people could not afford the extortionate fees charged by the Benedentine monks the king solved the problem by making a dispensation for William de Colgate to licence his invention for use by the barber-surgeons of London. This allowed them to use the emblem of `wriggly red worms and alum' on poles outside their premises.

[PanBiker]

[Marilyn]

Talk of Plague freaks me out.
We live in such ( comparative) isolation these days that we don't get sick. When exposed to crowds and I hear a cough, I hold my breath until well past the culprit. I figure that we are probably more at risk than others because we don't live in the toxic soup of the common folk. We are not exposed to snotty nosed kids and febrile adults. It is such a jungle out there....( I wash my hands after pushing a supermarket shopping trolley!)
Laugh all you like. It is working thus far.

[PanBiker]

It is such a jungle out there....( I wash my hands after pushing a supermarket shopping trolley!)
Laugh all you like. It is working thus far.

Until you meet the bug that you will have no immunity to because you didn't mix enough (or eat enough worms when you were kid).

Best not to be too paranoid, I wash my hands after using the loo and before preparing food, I like a clean kitchen but don't really vex about the rest.

[Stanley]

Clever spoof Tiz.....
I agree Ian but Maz has a point, I am sure that I am more vulnerable to infection if I am in strange surroundings. That summer cold I picked up from the kids at Keele is a case in point. (It's completely gone now thank God)
Finished Mr Pirsig, once again I got more out of him.... A very troubled mind but it was almost as though his recurrent insanity (it killed him in the end) acted like some drugs and opened the doors of perception for him. Well worth reading if you have never tried it. it's worth it simply for his analysis of Quality. "Quality is the pursuit of excellence".
I've started on David McCullough, 'The Path Between the Seas'; the story of the Panama Canal. A fascinating book about what is still probably the biggest feat of civil engineering of the age. I think this is my third time round, good books get better with time!

[David Whipp]

Love the Dentite monks...