Onto Louise Milligan’s debut novel, Pheasants Nest, yesterday, so onto that now.
Girl has made a smartarse response to some dude’s chat-up line in a night club, so he makes the only response any red-blooded man’s man can make - knocks her out and drives her to NSW, tied up.
Finished that now…damn good read!
I can only but concur, Mr. Noonan. As usual, Disher doesn’t disappoint.
This latest book has my unreserved, unqualified and unofficial seal of approval.
The latest Benjamin Stevenson book “Fool Me Twice” lobbed this morning and it’s a double bunger with one story called “Find Us” and another called “Last One To Leave” which were both previously released as audibles but which will be new to me.
His books are twisty mysteries with a comedic flavour and I’m looking forward to these.
I’m only just back onto the analogue books…and the second Lee Southern story from David Whish-Wilson, “I’m Already Dead”.
Lee’s working for an Alan Bond type (in WA) whose daughter was kidnapped and raped when she was young, and now the tycoon is back on his feet again, paedos are blackmailing him for nude photos of his daughter when she was kidnapped. I fear a few paedos are not going to make it to the end of the book.
Its taking a long while but getting close to finishing Catch 22. Had to keep going just to find out if they’re all crazy , the author Joseph Heller is crazy, or maybe I’m crazy. Some laugh out loud bits but otherwise verrry strange.
Try getting a copy of a birth or marriage certificate from the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages ( which is about to be privatised here) and the paperwork needed to get it. It’s Catch 22.
Gave it a like. Assuming it’s the same as most government forms 
. Having a similar problem at the moment trying to prove I’m due a pension.
Just knocked this one over (it’s only ~150 pages) and, while it’s not funny like his later work, there is a killer twist that I didn’t see coming at all. Pretty good. 7/10
This was one of our Form Five English texts and I remember loving it as a teenager. It’s a hell of a debut novel and the movie was excellent as well.
I found his second book “Something Happened” in an op shop a few years ago but, despite several attempts, eventually abandoned it as tedious and unreadable.
I struggled with Good as Gold
I thought I must have read it as school exercise when Mrs Tas brought it home but soon realised I’ ve never read it. Seen the movie yonks ago but now a tv series apparently.
I read it more than 50 years ago. Never read any other Hellers.
Any mention of Assyria and Assyrians in the media unlocks the memories of Catch 22 and Yossarian ( as does the avatar of a certain Blitzer):
It’s one of those books to never lend as it doesn’t get returned.
You can probably guess i was a big fan of Catch-22. I remember giggling like an idiot on the train reading it. Very enjoyable, i need to re-read it again.
Something Happened was a weird book. A lot of incoherent rambling about life regrets for 500 pages and then wham, you’re hit with the something that happened right at the end. A bt shocking at that moment, but a real chore to that point.
I’m reading The Three Body Problem. About halfway through, might be an expectation thing but still waiting for something big and mind blowing to occur given it’s reputation
I remember reading that when I was about 14 or 15 and being amazed by it. I must have read it 4 or 5 times as a teenager; it was one of those books I’d pick up and open at random and start reading whenever I felt like it. But that was the 60s and early 70s.
I started reading it again not so long ago and finding it completely different from how I remembered it, especially the jokes. Most of them just didn’t seem all that funny – although some still raise a laugh: Nately’s mother was a Daughter of the American Revolution and his father was a son of a ■■■■■. And some passages will never lose their power: Yossarian tending to the wounded man in the back of the bomber, or his late night walk through the streets of Rome.
It was made into a film by Mike Nichols. The film was not a great success, but I thought it was great. It didn’t slavishly follow word for word passages from the novel, but I thought it exactly captured its mood and feel. And I found it a far more powerful anti-war film than MASH, which was immensely popular.
Snowden was so cold.
And that note from Milo Minderbender in the first aid kit……
Seven contestants are in a $4 million dollar house and each have a hand on a wall with the last one to let go winning the house. Then one of them is found murdered …
Another shortish (~150 pages) and very enjoyable read. 8/10
It’s been a bit slow on the reading front recently, but just finished David Whish-Wilson’s second Lee Southern book.
He has a slightly offbeat style in that they’ll do a major deed, and then straight to the start of the next chapter. No immediate follow up.
This one has lots happening as paedos are distributing revealing photos of the young daughter of a WA businessman, and Lee Southern has been hired to track down the 5 photos.
Hard to work out who’s up who and who’s not paying, but all comes together in a pretty surprising dénouement.
I’ve been reading (listening to) Stephen Fry’s Mythos on Audible. It’s a retelling of ancient Greek myths, starting with the creation of the world and the gods and the human race and moving on from there. It’s read by Fry, and I found his super-expressive reading a bit hard to take at first, but I’m really enjoying it now. I like the way he pauses every so often to note that a particular name is the origin of many current words – some of them I knew already, but quite a few have been new to me.
If you think it might be interesting, give it a go. It is interesting.
I have his books on ancient Greece.