Recommend a Book

Also Empire of Booze by Henry Jeffreys. An episodic book on how the British empire influenced the development of sherry port rum wine and whiskey. I like that you could dip in and out and read a chapter every now and then.
 

The Whitest Flower - Brendan Graham
The Day of the Jakal - Frederick Forsyth
 
The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer. Am currently on book 3 in the series, very enjoyable reads to date.
 
Tiger Woods
Well researched & written and provides a good insight into the man himself, but nothing much new
8/10

Bad Blood
Interesting but it could have been written in 50 pages
6/10

The Traitor and the Spy
Excellent book. A real eye opener to Cold War espionage. Russia was pretty messed up thanks to communism.
10/10

I also bought Operation Mincemeat and am nearly finished- also by Ben Macintyre. Fascinating story of trying to deceive the Germans in WW11. A bit slower than The Traitor and the Spy but fantastic all the same.
10/10

Ben Macintyre has a great way with words and I'll probably read more from him soon.
 
Just finished Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. Wow! What a book! It is captioned Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. That put me off but the duchess insisted I read it. Okay I am always a bit sceptical about a non fiction book with clear good guys and bad guys. The bad guys are launching a Unicorn set-up which claims to have a machine to do blood tests fast and using pin pricks with a view to ultimately being as ubiquitous as the iPhone. The good guys are ex employees who say the claims are mostly bogus. I get sceptical when we are told the good guys were motivated by concern for patients.
Nonetheless the exposee by the journalist is a fascinating insight. For those who want to know the facts of the story beforehand Google Elizabeth Holmes but you might prefer to do what I did and read the book as a page turner.
 
The End is Nigh (British Politics, Power, and the Road to the Second World War) by Robert Crowcroft, about how British domestic politics influenced their response to Germany, Italy and Japan.
I've read a lot of books about World War Two and the 1930s, usually if they are discussion say, the British response to Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, it is framed from the perspective of what would come next.
This book does a great job of staying 'in the moment', almost more like opinion journalism, explaining politicians actions and policy decisions from their perspective.
It is only in the conclusion that he switches into 'hindsight' mode.

Financial Times review here: https://www.ft.com/content/40781cfe-6a72-11e9-9ff9-8c855179f1c4

There's some copies in the Irish library system, mine is just about to be returned
 
Judge & Jury by James Patterson is a god-awful written book readable in a day. It's full of Americanisms and everything that turns me off continuing. Effectively, it is a comic without pictures and reminds me of the Zane Grey books of the 1960's which promoted my reading from comics Victor, Hotspur, Commando-64-page to real reading.

However Judge & Jury has a terrific story which is fast moving, entertaining and ideal on a warm beach under a parasol where you can shut out the real world while simultaneously improving your sun-tan. The hero always gets his man and of course the girl. I'll be reading more of James Patterson until mid September.

If you don't read a James Patterson book might be a good place to start. Exclude reality and embrace escapism.
 
For anyone with even a passing interest in Cyber-Security, WIRED writer/author Andy Greenberg has a new book coming out next month called Sandworm about the Russian hacking group of the same name. It promises to be a great book and there's a fascinating excerpt online at wired.com:

Inside Olympic Destroyer, the Most Deceptive Hack in History

The untold story of how digital detectives unraveled the mystery of Olympic Destroyer—and why the next big cyberattack will be even harder to crack.
www.wired.com
 
Reactions: Leo
There are two more books following from on the Stieg Larrson trilogy , by David Lagercrantz, called The girl who took an eye for an eye and the latest one called The girl who lived twice, which I am just about to read. James Patterson has many books which I would also recommend. All great reading.
 
I thought that the Girl who took an eye for an eye, was good but , not quite as good as the trilogy. I have not started the other one just yet.
It could be the change in writer.
 
I have just finished he Girl who lived twice and enjoyed it as much as all the other four. I hope that there will be a sixth..
 
Ulysses - James Joyce. It took me 9 weeks to read (all of September, October and sometime into November) including reading a 450 page segment which I read three times. To be honest, I was just as wise at the end of the reading as I was at the start. I don't know what Joyce was on or was it his fear that World War 1 would catch up with him? Or was it something to do with Nora Barnacle? Was it his love for Dublin from afar? My mind is still in confusion of the original Bloom's Day in 1904. I think a dozen languages are represented in the book including some Richie Kavanagh Irish. Leopold Bloom steals the show although I'm still trying to figure out and for what reasons. My own favourite was Stephen Dedalus who was a kind of me nearly 50 years before I was born.

I consulted google for notes. I even reverted to non personal advice from David Norris to read Ulysses as a humorous book. I even took part in a walking tour of the famous day hoping to pick up some information from the tour guide. At the end of all my sought after information I was as wise as ever. Somebody said "Lep, that's it you've cracked it!" I don't know what I cracked; I'm still confused.

I think I'll read it again as now I have the spare time and on a sunny terrace overlooking the Mediterranean to the south and Sierra Cabrera to the north. For anybody in the same confusion as I, I reckon read the first 200 pages, skip about 700 pages and read Molly Bloom's dream/daydream in the last 60 pages. Don't tell David Norris I said that.
 
Brilliant!
 
Trick of the Dark – Val McDermid. After reading Ulysses a trek into this serial murder yarn was like taking up an old Daily Mirror while waiting for a haircut in a €10.00 per cut barber’s shop. It is well written and a structured plot that gets a little out of hand thirty pages from the end. Charlie Flint takes you through the behind the scenes of her old Oxford college.

The groom of a College wedding gets murdered on his wedding day. There were several other murders in the lead up and so you get an insight into several peoples’ memory of what happened. It’s a good book over a wet and cold weekend in Ireland. But, if the weather is good put the read on hold. The book will do more good later, if you present it to a Charity Shop. Not a bad read though.
 
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