This was this months pick for the Dystopian Novels Book Club. I really thought I had already read this, but if that’s the case it was long enough ago that I didn’t really remember the details.
Stuff about Books I've Read
This is the Dystopian Novels Book Club pick for this month. I remember thinking that the Netflix film was okay, but very overhyped. I enjoyed the book quite a lot more, but maybe I’m just able to accept it on it’s own terms more easily without the hype.
This was published in 1939, and is set in 1930s Berlin. I’m not sure how much this book is real events and how much is fiction. The main character is the author, although he is mostly just an observer of interesting characters. Each chapter is a different subject, or a diary entry of a different time.
This book was written in a rush and then hastily extended and edited during the disastrous Truss government. It shows in places, reading like a tabloid opinion column and lacking depth. It’s fair enough given how little time they had to write it I guess.
This is a return to the earlier style of books where the plot is only there to ferry you from one joke to the next. The dungeon dimensions don’t really serve much purpose other than to add some “boding” as Gaspode would call it. I guess also to be able to wrap it all up in the end so that Holy Wood doesn’t exist again.
Rory Stewart walks from Herat to Kabul in Afghanistan not long after the fall of the Taliban. He does the walk in the winter months, stopping off at the villages and towns along the way.
This month’s book club pick.
Absolutely amazing. I remembered this being my favourite for a long time when I was a kid, and I can see why. This is such a massive step up from the previous books in the series. Pyramids had something to say about tradition and dogma, this has something to say about human beings. The characters have significantly more depth to them, and the plot threads are followed in more detail and tie together brilliantly.
This month’s book club pick. I loved most of this, but wish it spent less time lecturing me and gave some more nuance to the characters. I don’t really need convincing about it’s themes, and I think the message might have come across as more powerful if I was allowed to think about what was happening rather than being told how I should feel about it all the time.
I didn’t really know much about the KLF other than some of the hits and that they burnt a million quid. I was expecting this to just be a simple musical biography, it is a lot more interesting than that.
This is the second book I’ve read this year that features pyramids being built very quickly due to time being controlled (after Echoes of the Great Song). I don’t know if that’s a thing, or a coincidence.
The pacing felt much too slow. There are points where something exciting is supposed to be happening and the author spends paragraphs detailing where people are sitting and what clothes they’re wearing.
99% detailing all the current failings of the UK political and economic situation, 1% asking a few questions about what might be done.
This felt brutally honest at points. I’m really surprised at some of the stories he tells.
This was a lot. So many ideas that just keep coming. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and really quite silly throughout. I thought it was great.