What Are You Reading ?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

^^
sounds like a good read SteveO

[CRAZY-HORSE]

a kid with psychic powers is kidnapped and taken to "the institute" were the doctors
try to harness his powers...
blah, blah, blah...
I couldn't get into it.
I struggled till the halfway mark and gave up.
I have no patience to finish things that don't get me hooked anymore...

[Ruby]

A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles


 
A fabulous work of historical fiction. Elegant, amusing, intelligent, witty, informative and well-written. Set in the 1920’s in burgeoning communist Russian, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a gentleman in his 30’s who is an unrepentant aristocrat, is sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol Hotel, Moscow, for the rest of his days. The reason he was spared the firing squad being that he was purportedly responsible for penning a revolutionary poem which was embraced by the Bolsheviks – they didn’t really know what else to do with him!

He is required to downgrade from the lavish suite he’d occupied at the hotel, however, decides to adjust to his altered circumstances with good grace and humour. The story weaves around the comings and goings at the hotel and the count’s interactions with various characters who are all extremely well drawn. The whole story, intriguingly, seldom ventures outside the Metropol’s four walls and the count runs the gamut of emotions once might expect from such confinement, including despair – not an easy challenge for a well-educated, well-travelled gentleman of refined tastes! He could have been a horrible character but instead is thoroughly likeable and I was very happy that the book has a satisfactory ending. So awful when they don’t! I loved it.  

I could just see the rooms the author described, The Boyarsky Dining Room, for example, or the foyer, and the Metropol is in reality, a large, luxurious hotel in Moscow which has been open since the early 1900’s; the reason it is so well portrayed is that that Mr Towles has spent plenty of time there over the years – the hotel was the inspiration for this book. When I looked the place up online, I was not disappointed at all – it was just as I had imagined. Another place to visit when I finally make it to Russia. https://metropol-moscow.ru/en/history/

When searching for a photo of the cover of the book, I found this review by Bill Gates, which is pretty much exactly as I would have put it, so thanks Bill - here it is … https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/A-Gentleman-in-Moscow

[Dissily Mordentroge]

Lots of People - The Bible.

Your link doesn’t work.
The Bible? Which translation?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

^^
Tiggi lives in Kent, so im assuming King James version?

[Dissily Mordentroge]

^^
Tiggi lives in Kent, so im assuming King James version?

Could be a Jehovah’s Witness living in Kent and they sure have a different translation.
Truth is the mistranslations, distortions, ommissions and alterations started many centuries before Rome even got it’s hands on the Gospels. Despite the firm belief of many branches of Christianity the Bible is the Word of God it’s the word of man re-written and reinvented since thousands of years ago. The New Testament is just one series of books that’s been fiddled with by many hands over the ages.

[Dissily Mordentroge]

SECRET:The Making of Australia’s Security State.
Brian Toohey. (Melbourne University Press: 2019)

I find Toohey’s writing style somewhat messy and confused but many of the revelations he makes I’ve known to be true for decades from previous employment. (Don’t ask)

Australians in general are very naive when it comes to big brother keeping tabs on them. Many don’t even know their local postie can spy on them through an agency known innocuously as ‘Address Post’ which provides information to over 57 gov’t departments and three privately run imprisonment firms. The almost total lack of overview of the processes ‘Address Post’ indulges in results in some appalling exposures. A routine request faxed to a particular post office asking the postie to list the names of those receiving mail at an address often returns with all manner of unrequested information. “They’re all on drugs and there’s pooftas living there and their car is stolen’ is just one example I encountered.
A more detailed and intrusive request can be received by you local PO. Called ‘mail monitoring’ this allows the postmaster to scan mail received for a particular address.
In discussions I’ve had about these matters with Federal politicians I’ve not had a single one agree this kind of thing is an unjustified invasion of Australian’s privacy.
So kiddies, big brother is watching and from unexpected quarters.

[Jerome]

Some pearls of wisdom - https://www.azquotes.com/author/10736-Willie_Nelson

Love the 'Ninety-Nine Percent' one...

[Jerome]

Summit - the book about the fatal expedition to K2. Harrowing read. Already watched the film on Netflix but the book takes it to another level completely. One seriously dangerous mountain indeed. One of the guys in my department went on a trek to K2 base camp a few years ago - he said the cold coming up through his legs while they were trekking across the glacier was a numbing experience - he was also quite ill on the trek - and that wasn't even anywhere near the mountain - just on the trek to get there. God only knows what those mountaineers go through much higher up. I would have loved to have done something like that in my younger days when I was stupid enough not to see the pitfalls (BTW the stupid part remains despite my age) but I don't think I would have had the nerve to go through with it. It takes a very special quality to endure those extremes. One I certainly do not possess.

Take a look at how quickly things can change on a mountain in Nepal. https://youtu.be/BFU7GQvKB3k

[Jerome]

Here's a great little movie about K2 - https://youtu.be/cvFt2Xcuois