What is East Dulwich reading?

[????]

;-)

[Ted Max]

I'm re-reading wee Andy Marr's "My Trade", which is not a list of his favourite rent-boys but a very dull potted history of British journalism.

I think he only wrote the 350+ pages so he could spend 50 of them tearing into David Montgomery, Charlie Wilson and the Mirror Group for what they did to the Indy (and Andy).

[SeanMacGabhann]

sounds like reason enough to me

[????]

Have you heard his accents on "The Making of Modern Britain"? Fancies himself as a Thesp methinks.

[david_carnell]

Bloody Foreigners - The Story of Immigration to Britain

by Robert Winder

Fascinating read that starts in pre-Roman times and higlights each major wave of immigration up to the modern day. I'm up to the hard-working Huguenots at present. The had a pretty nasty time of things under the Catholic Church in France so fled over here bringing much trade and skills with them. And we needed it after the Black Death had wiped a third off our population.

Great stuff.

[Ted Max]

I haven't seen that, ????. He says that he hates his face and TV presence, but perhaps he protesteth too much.

Sean, agreed. Marr wanted to run a highbrow paper for the 200,000 people in the UK willing to read lengthy articles from Fisk, McCrae and so on, and pay for them.

Monty wanted an aspirational lifestyle paper with articles about Rolex thefts and the like. And he had Kelvin Mackenzie on the board.

All the while co-owner O'Reilly, who hated the oiks too and would eventually buy them out, sat over the water watching them drive his price down and down, as Marr begged him to come to the rescue.

[????]

David - The black death was a few 100 years before the Hugenots. The Great Plague (admittedly part of the same bubonic family that started with Black Death) was around that time but didn't decimate the population to the same extent

PS - I have Hugenot blood

[????]

Ted - I agree, but I like him and his presenting style generally (The accents are hysterical in the way probably not intended though). It's ok but vignettes of people and issues of the time used as an explanation of how modern britain emerged so a bit history-lite for my tastes but amusing and I don't see much else on the schedules that I like.

[david_carnell]

Sorry Quids, I stand corrected. Your Huguenot blood probably explains your free-market associations, Protestant work-ethic and vast consumption of stella!

Not sure if they were big gamblers though.

[????]

...yup.....forget the Protestant Work Ethic bit though! And my weaving needs a lot of work to be honest..

[mockney piers]

I quite like Marr he's a very affable chap and his histories are entertaining if occasionally for the wrong reasons as noted.

I must say though his prime ministerial interview at number ten was the weakest political interview I've ever seen, it was more like a PPB!!

Mind you Private Eye REALLY has it in for him at the moment for using court injunctions to squash news stories (not that I'm particularly keen to find out who hes been boffing in all fairness)

[huncamunca]

A boig of Pol Pot

Superfreakeconomics

No Jodie Picoult. No Partick gayle.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Would a history of Partick Thistle do?

[Keef]

I have been reading some of the Falco books by Lindsey Davis. Really quite fun, just private investigator stories set to a Roman backdrop. Apparently she takes care to make them accurate, and it is quite interesting picking up some little facts about daily life in Rome at that time. I really like the cynical lead character too.

[vinceayre]

So who has been boffing who, Mar or the PM.

Either one doesn't really put pleasant images in you head.

[stereforth]

White Jazz by James Ellroy. His style in the later books is strange but makes Hammett and Chandler seem soft-boiled.

Got about three quarters through Hugo's Les Miserable. Great for social background of 19th century France, but very exhausting.

Live From Golgotha by Gore Vidal. Excellent satire for all atheists.

[huncamunca]

I cant cope with later Ellroy , its very tiring - American tabloid was fantastic tho

[stereforth]

Yes, Huncamunca, American Tabloid is a great read. Do try the follow-up The Cold Six Thousand. I agree his style is disjointed.

I read somewhere this was to get more action in fewer words. The publisher told him to cut one down by several hundred pages and that style was his answer.

[Brendan]

I know there are some of you who will appreciate this:

10000 comic books you must read

[katie1997]

Shantaram by Gregory Roberts...fantastic read, set in India and really compelling, ranging from life in the slums, jail and gangs to war in Afghanistan (its not depressing..honest). And re-reading Three Men on a Bummell..by Jerome K Jerome. Fabulous. Just finished Alan Bennett's Talking Heads...great writer..

[flapjackdavey]

rogue male by geoffrey household . and I am thoroughly enjoying it by jove !

[daizie]

Oliver Sacks - The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

[capt_birdseye]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I know there are some of you who will appreciate

> this:

>

> 10000 comic books you must read

I'm glad that's a typo, you'd have to book a week's holiday just to peruse the full list.

Just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire. A cracking read, I'm already itching to get hold of the next in the series. Currently reading a bizarre japanese book lent to me by a colleague - Almost Transparent Blue, in which nothing actually seems to happen.

[monica]

Currently reading Saturday Night Peter by the god of comedy Peter Kay. The first one was great the Sound of Laughter, could not stop laughing, and the sequel is as good. The thinking woman's crumpet, oh yes, I love a man who can make me laugh.

[Townleygreen]

I must say Lee Child's books are just unputdownable. Not literary classics I'll admit.

James Lee Burke? The heat and passion of Lousiana? Love him.