The books and reading thread

[STEVE G]

I found one on there that gives a description of Hua Hin in the early days of the railway by a British civil servant traveling from Bangkok to Singapore but I can't remember the title, I'll try and find it again when I have the time.

[migrant]

....W Somerset Maugham's "Gentlemen in the parlour: A record of a journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

Thank you for the idea, that looks an interesting read and I'm going to download in from Amazon later. Incidentally, for anyone interested in earlier travel books about SE Asia, there are many available for free on sites such as Gutenberg.

I'm getting a message on Amazon that it isn't available for purchase. Maybe a short term thing. If I have success I'll post

[STEVE G]

I'm getting a message on Amazon that it isn't available for purchase.

I've just downloaded it for kindle from Amazon.co.uk for about £6:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gentleman-Parlo ... he+parlour

[PeteC]

^ I wonder if you have a kindle account in the US you can also use it for Kindle UK books? What Steve and Migrant say above is correct. It's available for Kindle in the UK store but not in the US store. Pete

[PeteC]

^ Checked some blogs and indeed people say you can cross order between locations. All you need to do apparently is enter your Amazon membership info into the UK site and you're good to go. I don't know if you can have Amazon bill you in USD from the UK site, or you have to leave it up to your credit card company to do the conversion. Pete

[Big Boy]

Isn't there an International version of Amazon, where you can use your currency of choice? I stumbled across it recently when considering ordering a Kindle.

[migrant]

^ I wonder if you have a kindle account in the US you can also use it for Kindle UK books? What Steve and Migrant say above is correct. It's available for Kindle in the UK store but not in the US store. Pete

I tried to order and once I was logged on got a message that said I could not buy, it was for UK customers only and I needed to go to Amazon.com

I didn't even get a chance to see if it was translated to american

[PeteC]

Take a look at below. I only looked at this one but probably more advice on there. I googled "amazon usa buy uk".

http://askville.amazon.com/live-buy-ite ... d=41371221

[Chromeman]

....W Somerset Maugham's "Gentlemen in the parlour: A record of a journey from Rangoon to Haiphong

Thank you for the idea, that looks an interesting read and I'm going to download in from Amazon later. Incidentally, for anyone interested in earlier travel books about SE Asia, there are many available for free on sites such as Gutenberg.

I'm getting a message on Amazon that it isn't available for purchase. Maybe a short term thing. If I have success I'll post

I haven't tried to buy it from Amazon.com, but I did manage to download the sample to my Kindle app from Amazon.com.

EDIT: OK, I tried to buy it from Amazon.com and it worked. Maybe it is about to what countries Amazon has the rights to sell that book?

[Rider]

Been thumbing through Mountain Hold; an adventure book that's quite a yarn.

http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Hold-Ter ... B00GNTUNA4

[Frank La Rue]

I am an avid reader - recenty I read a lot of military history and I came accross this book below by Jonathan Walker:

http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Unthink ... -Soviet/dp

I had vaguely heard about this story in the past and here you get the facts behind it.

This lead me on to a man named Colin Gee who writes about the resulting Soviet attack on the West in the wake of getting to know about Churchills plan, The Red Gambit series:

http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Moves-fir ... Gambit/dp/

This guy is Awesome - both plot and battle details writing style makes you feel this is happening and you are there to watch.
I was really reading Harry Turtledove when I just started to flick through The Red Gambit books waiting for my attention on the table - I just dropped Turtledove and will not pick him back up.

Colin Gee does to military fiction what Emerson Lake and Palmer did to Rock Music - silencing the rest.

[lomuamart]

I'm not usually a great lover of sci-fi but I've just finished "The Martian" by Andy Weir and enjoyed it immensely.
It's billed as a cross between Apollo 13 and Castaway which would be about right and centres on a manned mission to Mars (not the first) that goes horribly wrong on the surface during a violent dust storm. One crew member is hit by an radio antenna and is blown away with his space suit punctured. As the landing craft is in danger of toppling over due to the storm, the other crew members make the difficult decision to call off the search for him and evacuate as they believe he's dead.
Of course he isn't.
Then, in log/diary form, follows the next year and a half or so of the stranded spaceman trying to survive with limited resources and no contact with earth.
The author is some kind of scientist in his own right but read up on loads of related fields such as botany, how to produce water and oxygen etc etc and the science of a lot of the story is meant to be viable. Must admit that some of it went over the top of my head but it wasn't so technical that I was ever lost as to the general thread of what was being attempted.
The book is also dead funny in places and is sure to get you chuckling in places.
All-in-all a good read. Maybe they'll make a film out of it?

[Frank La Rue]

Another good read about Mars - travel (there are many) is "Voyage" by British sci fi author Stephen Baxter.
It is based on the 1980'sies actual plan from NASA to reach Mars in that decade with a technical rocket concept called Ares, using nuclear reactor power as onboard thust technology.

Other good ones are the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars serie from Kim Stanley Robinson, written in an era when lots of scientific attention was given to Terraforming Mars.
The one who has dedicated most time and attention to how realistically establish colonies on Mars is Robert Zubrin, ex rocket engineer and founder of the "Mars Underground". He has written both scientific accounts and novels about it.

There was a period in the late 80ties/early nineties when it looked like just about "everybody" amongs sci fi authors seemed to think thay had to write a novel about Mars.

I personally think Greg Bear took the price for Mars-writing with his novel "Moving Mars" - I don't really remember the plot anymore but he made the whole planet disappear!

That kind of put an end to novels about Mars, untill someone comes allong and decides to write a novel about how to find it and get it back..........

[dtaai-maai]

"The Martian" by Andy Weir

Sounds interesting - downloading it now. Praise the Lord (or Amazon...) for Kindles!

I'm reading the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough at the moment. It is pretty much what it says on the lid - an account of the leading figures in Roman history from 110 BC to 27 BC. It's fictional but thoroughly researched and totally believable. Intrigue, wars, romance, murder, etc. And very readable - not at all stuffy. Fascinating stuff if you're interested in history - and even if you're not, I'd imagine.

[lomuamart]

Hope you enjoy it, DM.
Another, older book that I re-read recently (although I didn't remember much of it) was le Carre's "The Little Drummer Girl" which was excellent.
Israeli/Palestinian conflict, recruitment of British girl to infiltrate the Palestinians. As with most of his books, it's very detailed and a good read.
As an aside, I've downloaded the movie version of it as well and will be watching it soon. One thing that stands out is that Diane Keaton stars and the English parts of the book are set in the USA. Hey ho - don't know if that'll detract from the story.