Bought a book recently?

[Slim]

Just started Pete Townshend's autobiography, Who I Am, published in 2012.

It's actually quite similar in tone, and format, at least so far, to My Effin' Life. The same sort of account of a troubled childhood, an eccentric family and a difficult adolescence, and being in a band with like-minded individuals the same age. Except that all that takes place about ten years earlier. Pete mentions that he was born on May 19th 1945, so by coincidence I started the book on his 79th birthday, ie today.

I'm consuming it in audiobook form as usual, and like Geddy he laughs and chuckles from time to time while he's reading the text. Quite endearing.

I finished this on Sunday. By quite a distance the best autobiography I've ever read or listened to.

For one thing, Pete is a brilliant man. He has had an utterly fascinating life and some of the people around him have been very interesting characters as well - Keith Moon and Kit Lambert especially. He witnessed first hand the emergence of Hendrix, he played at Woodstock; he was pally with the Stones, George Harrison, Eric Clapton for example and some of his personal anecdotes about time spent with these people are eye-opening.

He writes very honestly and openly, and he writes beautifully. Actually he speaks the audiobook very nicely as well, sometimes so naturally that you think he must be ad-libbing.

Pete has often been a very troubled man. No criticism there, except that sometimes it's due to problems of his own making.

But what really struck me about this book is: Pete's judgement. His obsessive behaviour over various women, including making an absolute fool of himself on occasion. Regular philandering. Heavy drinking (he used to drink Remy Martin from a half pint glass). Many thousands spent on drugs (mostly cocaine but heroin as well, later on). Spending (or simply losing) huge sums of money in various ways. I lost count of the number of expensive cars he'd crashed by the end of the book.

And of course - in the late '90s he clicked on a kiddie porn link, something he was investigated for in 2003 and for which he ultimately received a caution. Personally I'd always thought that there was something of a question mark over his character here but I must say that after reading his account in this book I am convinced that his motive was genuine. Nonetheless it was obviously a stupid thing to do.

Most dismaying to me is his belief in a "god". Pete is at least more original than most victims of a higher intelligence delusion in that he doesn't just settle for the local superstition. In Pete's case the focus of his belief is a "spiritual master" called Meher Baba, whom he believes to be "God" in human form (albeit he "dropped his body" in 1969) and to whom he prays occasionally, presumably to this day. No dafter than a Christian for sure but all the same, for someone of Pete's undoubted intellect to fall prey to this .. well I found it really disheartening. No doubt it comes from the same need for a psychological crutch that inspired Pete's alcohol and drug use, and probably his need for validation from beautiful women.  But later in life he appears to have gained a bit of wisdom; in the afterword to the paperback / Kindle edition, written after the first edition was published, he writes:


Pete mentions in the appendix that the book was edited down from 1000 pages to 500 and unfortunately it shows in a few ways - there's barely any account of the recording of The Who By Numbers for example and his heroin use is mentioned in passing without the reader ever knowing how or why it started. But that's really my only criticism of this brilliant book.

[pxr5]

I rarely get emotional as my wife can attest to, and I never cry at anything, but reading Alan Davies memoire Just Ignore Him brought a tear to my eye a few times. I've never really cared for him (despite the often excellent Jonathan Creek) and I only picked the book up at at a holiday cottage just for anything to read. It's unlike any book I've ever read before and he writes in an eloquent, matter-of-fact style while revealing some rather horrendous childhood moments. There is little relief with some comic moments but it's generally deeply upsetting. One has to admire him for writing this book, it must have been so difficult to put down his feelings on to paper - beautifully written. Nostalgic too for anyone brought up in the 70s as quite a few things he mentions brought back my own memories of childhood.

[Slim]

I'm now onto another Reacher novel, Nothing to Lose. Written in the third person, which I prefer. A bit simpler than some of the Reacher novels, so far at least, but I like that. While reading The Enemy a few months ago I was tempted to start taking notes so I could keep track of all the different characters, and maybe even print out a map. This one's a lot tighter and easier to follow.

Nothing to Lose was poor. Since then I've also listened to Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours and Worth Dying For, all of which have been pretty good, especially 61 Hours. I've just started The Affair today which is the 16th Reacher novel. It's in the first person and set during Reacher's army days, in 1997. Pretty good so far.

[pxr5]

The first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I think this is the best sci-fi I've ever read.

[Thenop]

The first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I think this is the best sci-fi I've ever read.

It is very good, hard sci-fi, real well thought out.

[R6GYY]

I don't know when I will get around to listening to it, but I have just added Adrian Edmonson's autobiography, Berserker, to my Audible library.

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Berserker-Audiobook/B0BZ4MQXN2

[Slim]

I don't know when I will get around to listening to it, but I have just added Adrian Edmonson's autobiography, Berserker, to my Audible library.

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Berserker-Audiobook/B0BZ4MQXN2

Take up cycling, Reg!

[R6GYY]

For my 3rd free Audible month, I chose Peter F. Hamilton's Exodus: The Archimedes Engine

[dom]

MONEY - David McWilliams

Just a few chapters in but this is a fantastic read. The research is superb and McWilliams has such a fantastic way of explaining concepts that its a joy to read. Money is the link but this is a book about the progress of civilisation.

[pxr5]

The first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I think this is the best sci-fi I've ever read.

It is very good, hard sci-fi, real well thought out.

I'm half way through the second book in the series - The Dark Forest - the author, Liu Cixin, has incredible scientific insight and is very believable the way he puts things across. It all just gets better and better. There is a third book of course but then another by a different author. I'll be quite sad once I've finished them all, they really are that good - even better than the likes of Dune or Foundation. Just astonishing.

[Thenop]

The first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I think this is the best sci-fi I've ever read.

It is very good, hard sci-fi, real well thought out.

I'm half way through the second book in the series - The Dark Forest - the author, Liu Cixin, has incredible scientific insight and is very believable the way he puts things across. It all just gets better and better. There is a third book of course but then another by a different author. I'll be quite sad once I've finished them all, they really are that good - even better than the likes of Dune or Foundation. Just astonishing.

The third book, Death's End is also his. Not sure why you'd credit it to someone else. Maybe the translator is different?

[Slim]

I'm now onto another Reacher novel, Nothing to Lose. Written in the third person, which I prefer. A bit simpler than some of the Reacher novels, so far at least, but I like that. While reading The Enemy a few months ago I was tempted to start taking notes so I could keep track of all the different characters, and maybe even print out a map. This one's a lot tighter and easier to follow.

Nothing to Lose was poor. Since then I've also listened to Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours and Worth Dying For, all of which have been pretty good, especially 61 Hours. I've just started The Affair today which is the 16th Reacher novel. It's in the first person and set during Reacher's army days, in 1997. Pretty good so far.

That was a pretty good one, I finished it in twelve days.

After that I started Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I read another of Alastair's novels, Pushing Ice a few years ago and that was pretty good but woefully indisciplined and overlong - he just didn't know when to stop. It seemed he couldn't help throwing new stuff in instead of keeping it tight and winding the story up nicely.

Unfortunately Revelation Space suffers from much the same problem. It's like trying to keep up with three complicated novels at once. No doubt the various strands are ultimately weaved together in some clever way later on but after investing six or seven hours in it (I listened to it in audiobook form) I just gave up on it.

I think that, if I were prepared to make notes and do a bit of revision periodically it could be an interesting project, but I'm not going to do that.

So: I revisited a book I last read in 1984 called Chickenhawk. Published in 1983, it's a Vietnam War memoir written by a man who flew helicopters for the US Army there in 1965 and 1966. It's an eye-opening, brilliant book, just as I remembered. If I do have one criticism it's that, although it has a beginning and an end, there's no real flow in the meat of the book inbetween; it doesn't "unfold" in the way that some memoirs do, or that a novel would. It's really just a series of experiences and events, some of them extraordinary and grim.

[Slim]

The third book, Death's End is also his. Not sure why you'd credit it to someone else. Maybe the translator is different?

"Then another", ie the fourth book is by someone else

[pxr5]

The first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I think this is the best sci-fi I've ever read.

It is very good, hard sci-fi, real well thought out.

I'm half way through the second book in the series - The Dark Forest - the author, Liu Cixin, has incredible scientific insight and is very believable the way he puts things across. It all just gets better and better. There is a third book of course but then another by a different author. I'll be quite sad once I've finished them all, they really are that good - even better than the likes of Dune or Foundation. Just astonishing.

The third book, Death's End is also his. Not sure why you'd credit it to someone else. Maybe the translator is different?

No, after Death's End is a fourth book The Redemption of Time by Baoshu

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Redemption-Time-Three-Body-Problem-Novel/dp/1800248970/

[Slim]

So: I revisited a book I last read in 1984 called Chickenhawk. Published in 1983, it's a Vietnam War memoir written by a man who flew helicopters for the US Army there in 1965 and 1966. It's an eye-opening, brilliant book, just as I remembered. If I do have one criticism it's that, although it has a beginning and an end, there's no real flow in the meat of the book inbetween; it doesn't "unfold" in the way that some memoirs do, or that a novel would. It's really just a series of experiences and events, some of them extraordinary and grim.

Finished this a while ago, making it one of the few books I've read more than once. The others are Alastair Maclean's Ice Station Zebra, Orwell's 1984 and Stephen Fry's Making History. I think I may have read 1984 three times, the last time about 20 years ago.