READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?

[Stanley]

Back into Unilever and at the moment I'm learning about the origins of Van den Burg and Jurgens in Holland. Fascinating seeing how these firms are inter-connected and the battles they had before amalgamation.

[Stanley]

Finished the first two volumes of Unilever. I've had enough of margarine and soap for a while! Bit of light reading for pleasure I think.....

[Stanley]

The print on demand book from Russia hasn't materialised. Have mailed them to ask why...... Have I been scammed?

[Stanley]

Allibris tell me to give the Russian book 45 days before contacting them! No mention of that when I bought it....
Have started to re-read Susan Allport's 'Queen of Fats', a must-read if you care about your diet.

[Stanley]

Finished the re-read of 'Queen of fats' by Susan Allport. Well worth a read if you still believe that saturated fats are death.

[Stanley]

I'm expecting a book today, 'The Omega Diet' by Artemis Simopoulos who was one of the first scientists to recognise and publicise the advantages of long chain Omega3 lipids.

[Stanley]

The book on corn milling arrived yesterday in a battered and much travelled zip bag. It is print on demand and has taken over a month to arrive. I was intriged by the domain name bookvika.rus and looked it up on the web. Look at this LINK for what I found. It looks as though I have fallen for a near-scam but on the other hand I have a well-printed copy of the book for me library. No mention of this when I ordered the book on Amazon. It's a complicated world isn't it!

[Whyperion]

Yes ,there are a number of sites 'publishers' , listed on Amazon and similar book site , titles are copied from Wikipedia (pages ) using (automated softwar), ) usually without any subsequent editing of content. They contain, therefore, material freely available online but packaged between two covers as a book. (normally overpriced ). Subjects can be obscure and often put in a quasi-scientific way and under a number of impressive sounding 'pen' names. Libraries that subscribe to new issued publications are partliculary caught as they think they are getting ( and because science/maths/economics publications tend to have expensive retail prices ) , a 'proper' publication. To avoid being 'blacklisted' by libraries the publishers frequently change their names as well. They do clutter up amazon when one is looking for proper books , partly because Amazon has not tidied up user provided content well and its difficult to get amazon to rectify mistakes made by legit publishers/distrbutors on some uploading of pre-press content.

[Stanley]

The Corn milling book was good and very interesting. Have got diverted ito reading Christopher Hill's book, 'The World Turned Upside Down'. His explanation of the birth of political debate in the 17th century. 'The Omega Diet' sits there waiting for further attention!

[Stanley]

Finished refreshing my brain about the Civil War, back into the Omega Diet and soaking up the excellent advice, backed by sound research!

[Stanley]

Decioded I needed a rest from lipids so I'm reading Hilary mantel, 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring up the bodies' again. Looking forward to her final book in the trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, 'The Mirror and the Light'.

[Nolic]

Reading "100 year old man who climbed out of the window". Jonas Jonasson. Funny quirky and touching. Well worth a read. Nolic

[rossylass]

Quirky title Nolic! It sounds tempting.

Currently reading "The Rotters Club" by Jonathan Coe, which I am enjoying. Am working my way through Hilary Mantel's repertoire interspersed by other books....she's up there with Margaret Attwood who is another of my favourites. Wondering whether to read Mantel's novel about the French revolution next. Hmm

[Stanley]

I keep wondering about her other books but am rationing myself and waiting for the third part of the Cromwell trilogy. Cardinal Wolsey has just died......

[Nolic]

Well worth a read rossylass. Its a little like Forest Gump as so far our hero has saved Franco's life, got drunk on tequila with Trueman and during their session Harry found out that he was president as a result of Roosevelt's death and now he's on his way to China to blow up bridges with Soong Mei-ling the wife of Chiang Kai-shek. Very enjoyable read. Nolic

[Nolic]

I just love this book. Allan has now met Beria and Stalin and later inadvertently contributes to the death of the latter. He is currently being feted by Mao... after saving his wife from the Chinese nationalists and Kim Ill Sung in the midst of the Korean war. Nolic

[Stanley]

Nearly finished Wolf Hall. Tripps gave me a book when he visited, 'Thief in the Night' by John Cornwell. I'll read that next, never read any Cornwell but heard of him.....

[Stanley]

I've started 'Thief in the Night'. At the moment all I can say is that it is a well written account of how Cornwell started his investigation in the Vatican. I shall report later.

[Stanley]

Finished 'Thief in the Night'. Not the most riveting read in the world but an interesting description of the internal workings of the Vatican from what, as far as I can judge, is an impeccable source. The main conclusion is that the Curia are far too powerful and to them, the management of the church is secondary to the maintenance of their absolute power. A lot about Calvi and the Banco Ambrosiano, a very murky episode.
Back to normal now, I shall re-read Mantel's 'Bring up the Bodies'. I look forward to 'The Mirror and the Light', the third book in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

[Tripps]

Thanks for the review - I think we've had our 50p's worth. He also concluded that Pope John Paul 1st died of natural causes rather than was murdered as the conspiracy theorist would have it. . The research seemed to be impeccable, but can't help wondering why the Vatican gave him such good cooperation. That Marcinkus was an interesting character.
I now find there is another book, "In God's name" by David Yallop, which is said to equally convincingly come to the opposite conclusion. Don't get me going on the moon"landings"

[Stanley]

Have started on the re-read of 'Bring up the Bodies' and note that BBC2 are going to do a series on Tudor dynasty. Should be good....

[Stanley]

I've ordered le Carre's latest book and have started to re-read Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. A heavy read but basically the genesis of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, but far more detailed.

[Stanley]

Finished Foucault and le Carre hasn't arrived yet so I got up to mischief.... Many years ago a friend gave me a copy of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert M Pirsig. They put an inscription in it, "Stanley, you could have written this book!" and they were right, I loved it. In 1991 Pirsig came back on the scene (he was a troubled soul and spent much time in mental institutions) with a new book, 'Lila, an inquiry into morals' so I got a copy and couldn't get into it at all. It sat on the shelf for 22 years and yesterday I got it down and had another crack at it. I can't understand why I initially had difficulties with it. He started by giving a long description of the value of card indexes, a subject close to my heart and went on to discuss the use of subjectivity versus objectivity in pursuing research, another subject close to my heart because I always argued that the reason why I was able to get my informants to open up when I was doing the LTP was because I was entirely subjective, I was one of them and liked them and they knew it. I always contrasted this with the archetypal 'middle class researcher' who parachuted in and expected to be able to get into the culture they were studying, they prized 'objectivity' and hence never got the informants onside. It was like a rerun of reading Zen again. In short, I'm loving it and glad I got it down again.
I have a story for you about the original copy of Zen. It fell from my shelves at some point and eventually I decided I wanted to read it again and ordered a new copy. During the week when it arrived I chanced to be in a friend's kitchen and noticed a corner of a book peeping out from under some papers on the table top. I recognised the cover and pulled it out saying I was glad they were reading Zen. I opened the cover and there was the inscription! It was my original copy and I must have lent it to her. I took it home and replaced it with the new copy. Books have a life of their own, this one was obviously trying to get back to me!

[Nolic]

I tried to re read Hilary Mantels first Cromwell book but unlike you with Pirsig I was still unable to get on with her. Looking forward to the Tudor's .......I think that would have been my time. Nolic

[Stanley]

Comrade. If you mean the promised BBC series, yes, I'm looking forward to that as well.