The Reading Pile

This is my reading pile:


Going through them in turn:

Iain M Banks, Matter.

Iain Banks (with or without the M) is the writer I want to be when I grow up. I can’t wait to dive into Matter, the latest Culture novel.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

The final book in his seven part series. I’ve read them all before, but haven’t revisited them until now. It’s been great following his progression through thirty odd years of storytelling. I’ll hopefully have time to do a blog post on the series once I’ve finished this.

Sunnyside by Glen David Gold.

This is a signed first edition hardback. Yum. I love signed first editions and have a small collection – more on that another time. I found “Carter Beats The Devil” at a charity shop in Arundel and when I started reading it I fell in love. He’s got a great writing style and I was very excited to find a pile of signed Sunnyside’s in Waterstones recently. I’ve made a start on this but haven’t had time to devote to it properly yet.

Kate Atkinson – When Will There Be Good News?

This is the third Jackson Brodie novel and is actually my wife’s copy. I like her writing but struggled with Emotionally Weird. The previous Jackson Brodie novels have been good so I’ll hopefully like this too. One for the commute.

Nick Hornby – A Long Way Down

I’ve read most of his other novels. I thought High Fidelity and About A Boy were great, but I’ve found his later work to be a little too dour for my liking. How To Be Good was a tough read in places, and I stopped reading him until recently, when I borrowed SLAM. That, too, was difficult. Funny to begin with, and ferociously easy to read – his writing slips down very easily – but then it took a darker turn and I struggled to finish it. I know this one’s dark too, so it’ll be interesting to read.

Paul Auster – New York Trilogy

This is a new one for me. Never read any of his work before, but this comes highly recommended. This was his first novel.

Michael Collins – Carrying The Fire

Ah, Michael. Possibly part of the family – who knows? I should really find out. For anyone who doesn’t recognise the name, he was the third man on Apollo 11, the one who stayed behind whilst Neil and Buzz went down to the Moon’s surface in Eagle. This is his account of that astounding historical moment, as well as the rest of his career. At some point I’ll get Buzz and Neil’s biogs, but I’m most interested in Michael’s version of events – doubly so, after reading favourable reviews.

And finally, American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.

Neil is a poster boy for how to interact with fans and the world in general – affable, caring, intensely interested in a huge range of subject matters, and owner of a body of work that is astoundingly varied. For me, nothing can top his work on Sandman, but American Gods is still a very good book. This is the first time I’ve revisited it since it was published. I’m just under halfway through, and am enjoying casting the characters for the film version in my head – I can’t help seeing Brian Cox as Wednesday. Shadow remains uncast at present; he’s only vaguely described in the novel, and is hidden away in plain sight for the most part – perhaps that was Neil’s intent. It’s a little frustrating, to be honest – the peripheral characters are far more interesting in some ways – but it gives us a relatively unfiltered view of events. It’s been long enough since I last read it that I can’t quite remember the end, so I’m looking forward to getting there soon.