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Posted: 02-04-2013 14:46 Post subject:

I notice that this is scheduled for publication this summer:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Peter-Cushing-The-Complete-Memoirs/dp/0956653480/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1364910330&sr=8-6

Posted: 04-04-2013 15:58 Post subject:

A couple of free books in PDF which may be of interest here:

http://fordham.bepress.com/history/6/ -

The Rose Man of Sing Sing - A True Tale of Life, Murder & Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism

and

http://fordham.bepress.com/history/1/ -

A Century of Subways: Celebrating 100 Years of New York's Underground Railways.

Posted: 21-04-2013 18:11 Post subject:

Can anyone suggest a good book on Wren & Hawksmoor?

Not a masonic-psychogeographical one, just a good biographical tale of their work together.

Posted: 22-04-2013 15:55 Post subject:

Posted: 22-04-2013 16:01 Post subject:

Hmm, I'd expected to find something on their work together. I may chase the book you recommend though, thanks. Cool

Posted: 22-04-2013 16:14 Post subject:

Talking of Hawksmoor.

One dark and wintry night back in February I was drinking in The Ten Bells on Commercial Street in London, which is hard by Christ Church Spitalfields. The road directly in front of the church was being dug up and the road-gangs lights were swaying about in the wind and casting all sorts of mad and restless shadows over the area.

Now, I thought, there's the start of a movie right there.

Posted: 29-04-2013 21:56 Post subject:

This is a series of delightful videos about alternative heritage appreciation:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA2F359FC07A49A44

They accompany this book that I have read with much amusement. It's deeper than it looks and quite philosophical:

http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Counter-Tourism-Handbook.htm

Posted: 07-05-2013 23:03 Post subject:

I've just finished reading Nile Rodgers' autobiography Le Freak, and besides it already being one of the great music autobiographies, I was watching out for any weird anecdotes as prompted by a recent FT article. There were two: Nile pressed the wrong button on a lift and ended up on the only floor with someone there when the doors opened - to see Nile collapse with a drugs-induced heart attack. If he hadn't pressed the wrong button, he'd be dead now.

Secondly, one of the most moving bits of the book tells of the night his great friend and bandmate in Chic Bernard Edwards died. They were in a hotel in Japan, separate rooms, but the minute Bernard passed away Nile fell out of bed after a nightmare when he saw a good friend float away from him into the sky. He thought it had been an earthquake, but it seemed to be shock from his soulmate's death that he somehow felt, in spite of being in another room.

Anyway, fantastic book, great to see Nile at No.1 in the charts with Daft Punk this week, and highly recommended for a fascinating story on practically every page.

Posted: 04-06-2013 20:24 Post subject:

Just finished "Ghost Hero" by S.J.Rozan.

It's a crime story (not a murder mystery) set amongst the NY Chinese community. It's not just about goodies and baddies, but involves artists and art dealers, PIs, crime gangs, the American and Chinese governments, and others, all with different agendas, so the plot gets quite complex at times.

But there's plenty of fast-talking NY humour as well to lighten the tone. All in all a very satisfying read. When the ending is all worked out, even the loose ends I'd forgotten about are tidied up.

But, like a Chinese meal, not long after you finish it you find you want more... Cool

Happily, there are more S.J.Rozans for me to read. Very Happy

Posted: 14-06-2013 18:35 Post subject:

My latest read was Horns by Joe Hill, who is Stephen King's son, which obviously makes you read closely looking for the influence of his father, but this stood up as a decent horror novel in its own right.

Only trouble was I heard Daniel Radcliffe has been making the movie version in the lead role, which sounds like nutty casting, he's a nice guy so I can't imagine him pushing an old lady in a wheelchair down a steep hill in a fit of evil.

Anyway basic story is Dan will play a bloke who everyone thinks killed his girlfriend, but he didn't, and then one day he grows horns on his head which make people act strangely under their influence. Might be a better book than film, I think.

Posted: 15-06-2013 11:46 Post subject:

Reading Neal Stephenson's "Reamde" which is damn fine (so far - 400 pages in and not at half way point yet.) I expect some readers will give up before finishing it as it's so long, but so far the effort is worth it. (Conceptually it's light-weight compared to some of his earlier works such as Anathem, Cryptonomicon and the The Quicksilver trilogy, but it has more action.)

Posted: 27-07-2013 22:44 Post subject:

I would recomend "the time travellers guide to medieval england" by Ian mortimer, i have always wanted to travel back to medeval times, just for a holiday, until i read this book.
Still the sport sounds fun, medieval tennis players get extra points if they hit a shot through a window, and if you see a medieval football player on the ground you can be sure he isn't pretending to be injured, looking for a penalty.

Posted: 28-07-2013 05:54 Post subject:

Posted: 28-07-2013 12:20 Post subject:

Spent a week in a tent on the tiny sandy island of Schiermonnikoog, in the Waddinzee, last week. Found a copy of The Bull of Minos [Pub. Pan. 2nd ed. 1956], by Leonard Cottrell, in the jam-packed little secondhand bookshop, in the picturesque little village. It's a book I've seen around in various places for years. Must have been a bit of a best seller in its time.

Since it was too hot to do much during the middle of the day, I was forced to retreat to the nearest beach hut, bar on stilts and sit in the shade, drinking Grolsch and reading. I can heartily recommend this book. An introduction to the pioneering work of Heinrich Schliemann, his discovery of Troy and Sir Arthur Evans, with his discovery of the Palace of Minos , at Knossos, on Crete. A great, if slightly dated, introduction, not only to the discovery of these extraordinary sites, but also to the subject of the development of archaeology, as a whole.

Cottrell obviously relishes his subject. His background at the BBC, does occasionally remind one of the Blue Peter approach. It's all very BBC (as I said to some of my Dutch and Belgian friends), but none the worse for that. I have read complaints from readers about the book being bit of a hagiography of these two early pioneers and moaning about their lack of archaelogical thoroughness. Schliemann does come across as a bit of a mid-Victorian oddball romantic and Evans had an early life, as a reporter and campaigner in the Balkans, that puts fictional Indiana Jones in the shade. Archaelogy, back in the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth centuries, was still very much in its infancy. Alongside Pitt-Rivers and Carter out in Egypt, these early diggers were really learning on the job. Archaeology has come along way since then, but I can still remember, back in the late 1970s, early 1980, when some leading archaeologists were still advocating the virtues of an entirely voluntary and gentleman amateur approach to the subject. Worth a read as much for the way Cottrell invokes the gray austerities of post WWII and Cold War Britain and Europe, reflected in the bright warm sunshine of Mediterranean Greece and Crete, as for a good overview of the rediscovery of one most extraordinary periods in human prehistory.

I'm also glad that I found a browning copy of the 2nd ed. from 1956 rather than the 1952 1st ed., because it mentions Ventris's work on deciphering the Linear B script, which was published between editions, in the appendix. Cottrell mentions Alice Kober's contribution to the process, amongst others, more than once.

Well worth a read.

Posted: 28-07-2013 12:53 Post subject:

Ive not got that one but several of his others, mentioning his friendship with Ventris.

A great read, and an author who has enthusiasm for his subject.