Next book club dates and books I read on my hols

Hi folks, I'm back from my travels and read a few reads on the way. Can heartily recommend Louis Theroux's Call of the Weird (a follow up from his documentary series). Great writer, great research, some good introspection. Pastoralia (as mentioned in the previous post) not as good, but some great exposition. Here's something I wrote about it on the road:

It would have been a much better book if each of the short stories featured a character who had the same affectation. Relentless self-doubt and stream of consciousness, self-contradiction and worry.

He wrote it brilliantly, but I’d like to see other characterisations. He seems to have perfected one particular description, and won’t let it go.

Same problem with Roald Dahl short stories. Perhaps it’s a problem with short stories? Too formulaic?

Any thoughts?

I also consumed a book called The Devil's Picnic: A tour of everything the governments of the world don't want you to try, which is in the same docu-book vein as Call of the Weird, but isn't as objective and/or well-written. Still, an interesting conceit. Here's the blurb from Amazon:

This detailed chef's tour of prohibited pleasures for the palate, from Norwegian moonshine and Bolivian coca leaves to Spanish bull testicles, is laced with magnificent descriptions—some mouthwatering, others quite repulsive. Grescoe (Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec) uses food as a pretext to lead readers on a heady quest to corroborate the libertarian principle of free will. Through his well-researched history lessons, readers learn of the birth and evolution of nine different foodstuffs, and the politics behind their prohibition. Grescoe paints colorful portraits of contemporary cultures by walking the land, sampling the fare and providing firsthand interviews with various food experts: aficionados, suppliers and officials charged with enforcing interdiction. His narrative makes a convincing case that most restrictions are based on unwarranted or outdated health concerns, or political agendas that profit the government (up to 86% of the price of liquor in Norway can go to taxes!). And while he successfully illustrates the arguments used by supporters of legalization, he surprises himself by conceding that certain governmental intervention can indeed be a necessary evil (e.g., protection of endangered animals). With amusing anecdotes and exotic imagery, this walk through the garden of "forbidden fruit" is a savory and powerful scrutiny into the psychology, markets and politics of prohibition.

I also ate through A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, which I found to be an easy read, albeit rather racist. Has anyone else been through this fiction? Interesting take on the relationships between last generation eastern european immigrants and new eastern european immigrants. Felt like it was written by a Daily Telegraph reader tho. Too much "they only want to take advantage of our system" malarky.

Finally, to confirm my "geekiest of the book group" status I also read a non-fiction called The Planets, by Dava Sobel, "A breathtaking, intimate view of the heavenly bodies in our solar system". INteresting read; written kind of awkwardly, but filled with a bounty of information about the historical, astrological, harmonic and cultural origins of planet names, lore and observation.

But the point of this post is to confirm that we've got another get together in two weeks. I'm afraid I'm busy on Sunday 22nd. Has anyone suggested any other dates? Thereafter I can't do anything until - at earliest - Sunday 5th November.