What are you reading now?

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RIP
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

Bearbonesnorm wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 11:49 am
re-read that recently and noted the gatewood reference. I suspect it may be related, I think you should email SMD and find out Reg!
Yep, the Gatewood cape is named after her. :-bd
Oops, ta, I think I can predict what their answer will be then :smile: . That rather tickles me.
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

And here's the good lady in question!

Image
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

"At least you got some stories" - James Acaster
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

Well there we go, obviously there's a book all about her :smile:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Grandma- ... HAQAvD_BwE
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

"At least you got some stories" - James Acaster
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

htrider wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 11:47 am I think you should email SMD and find out Reg!
Well that was quick :smile:

"Hi Reg,

It is inspired by Grandma Gatewood's minimalism!

Graham Hodge
----------------------------------------------
Customer Experience Manager
Six Moon Designs
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"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

"At least you got some stories" - James Acaster
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Boab »

Her Wikipedia entry is fascinating.
After a difficult life as a farm wife, mother of eleven children, and victim of domestic violence, she became famous as the first solo female thru-hiker of the 2,168-mile (3,489 km) Appalachian Trail (A.T.) in 1955 at the age of 67.
At the time of her death at age 85 from a heart attack, Gatewood had one surviving sister plus 66 living descendants: 11 children, 24 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
I bet she had a tale, or three, to tell...
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by fatbikephil »

RIP wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 4:55 pm
htrider wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 11:47 am I think you should email SMD and find out Reg!
Well that was quick :smile:

"Hi Reg,

It is inspired by Grandma Gatewood's minimalism!

Graham Hodge
----------------------------------------------
Customer Experience Manager
Six Moon Designs
Go Wild, Live Young!"
:-bd
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Boab »

There's an article on 99% Invisible that some might find interesting - Katie Mingle's Right to Roam.
When 99% Invisible producer Katie Mingle’s father Jim Mingle retired, he began walking —a lot. He’d always been a walker, but with more time, he took up long-distance, multi-day trips. And even though he’s an American, he mostly preferred to walk in the UK. In fact, over the course of a decade, he walked the entire length of Great Britain.
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

Entire length of Britain over ten years? I hesitate to mock but that's, er, what, average 90 miles a year, erm, quarter of a mile a day? :???: . I suppose for a person from a country where folks drive 100 yards to the shop that's not bad :wink: .
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by PaulB2 »

RIP wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 9:17 pm Entire length of Britain over ten years? I hesitate to mock but that's, er, what, average 90 miles a year, erm, quarter of a mile a day? :???: . I suppose for a person from a country where folks drive 100 yards to the shop that's not bad :wink: .
90 miles over two weeks in that year isn’t bad though…
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Dave Barter »

Yeah , leave it aaaaaht Reg. Me and Helen are doing the SW Coast path over a similar timescale. Each section ~ 20 miles a day.
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

:smile:
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

"At least you got some stories" - James Acaster
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by thenorthwind »

Keep forgetting to post on this thread. Had to dig for it, since searching for it is hampered by the King Alfred's Way threads (think about it) and the fact that 'what' 'are' 'you' and 'now' are too common to be used as search terms on here.

Anyway, I started "This Game of Ghosts" by Joe Simpson of "Touching the Void" fame. It's essentially an autobiography, with the theme of "how my friends have all died and how close I've come" running through it. He does not lack for content in this regard :shock: I have to admit you can detect a hint of arrogance in his writing (perhaps it comes with the territory) but he's a genuinely engaging writer and has some pretty good stories to tell. I've had what I thought were sketchy bivouacs, but none of them ended with me dangling on a vertical face above several thousand feet of air from a rope tied round a bit of flaky rock all night while a helicopter rescued someone even more precariously clutching onto life.

I left that at my mum's so in the meanwhile I read "The Grapes of Wrath". Having not been in the office regularly for nigh on 18 months, I've been out of the habit of browsing the books in Oxfam at lunchtime, and for the first time in years, my to-read pile has diminished almost to zero (there's a couple of books on the shelf that, embarrassingly, I can't remember if I've actually read or not). The upside of this is that I've had to actually seek out the books I want to read, from the list that I keep adding to but rarely tick off. There's a few classics on this, and The Grapes of Wrath was one of them.

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting it to seem quite so relevant, or be so moving. I knew the rough synopsis, but hadn't appreciated the political thrust of it. At times it made me angry, other times depressed, but definitely worth reading.

I'm now onto wor Dave's "The Year". I can tell already I'm going to enjoy it. Not sure if I mentioned that Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder was my "leave around the house to be read in spare moments" book, as opposed to my "main" book which lives by the bed and only gets read at night. That role often involves lying around for months not being read, before my partner "tidies" it and I forget about it. Not so with OCCD - I seemed to find a surprising amount of spare moments, when previously I thought I had none, such is the nature of Dave's writing. It didn't last long before retiring to the "read" (past tense) shelf.
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by TheBrownDog »

How on earth have I missed this thread? Just been pinging through the pages. I bloody love books and i bloody love reading them, and they must be physical things. Ive tried Kindle but find myself constantly going back to re-read pages as they don't seem to sink in. That could be all the rugby concussions I managed to live through till my late 30s, or it could be something else.

In the meantime, I'm reading A Man Called Ove and it's great, though like watching a car crash that you cant take your eyes off.
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by faustus »

Finally got round to getting a copy of Mark Boyle's The Way Home. Interesting so far, and an engaging subject to read about...
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by FLV »

I dont read anywhere near as much as i could.

Taken a few reccomendations from here, ill start with the seagull one, then try Mountain days and bothy nights and player of games. Sounds like a good mix...

Ta
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

I've just started 'A history of Rat Rods'. A slightly odd subject but I can see some parallels between the rat rod versus shiny hot rod and the bikepacker versus cycling :wink:
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by ledburner »

thenorthwind wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:12 am

Need something a bit lighter next - I think Nick Crane's Two Degrees West is on the top of the pile :-bd
1
yeh, nick crane is that whe re he walks south from the North East, Beswick(?) and can only deviate 100m eitherside of the nth-sth OS grid line..'00oo'
I also enjoyed the one where he walked east from galicia(?) western most point Spain on Atlantic, then walks lots of mountain, pyrenees,alps through Europe to the Urals.. (title, something maybe fresh spring rising). this wher he got into brollys.
his Journey to centre of the earth, most in land point(Mongolia(?)) , basically travelling ultra light, was thd invention of Ultra bikepacking. interesting Guy..
I hope you think you know, what I might of exactly meant.
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by thenorthwind »

ledburner wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:21 am
thenorthwind wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:12 am

Need something a bit lighter next - I think Nick Crane's Two Degrees West is on the top of the pile :-bd
1
yeh, nick crane is that whe re he walks south from the North East, Beswick(?) and can only deviate 100m eitherside of the nth-sth OS grid line..'00oo'
I also enjoyed the one where he walked east from galicia(?) western most point Spain on Atlantic, then walks lots of mountain, pyrenees,alps through Europe to the Urals.. (title, something maybe fresh spring rising). this wher he got into brollys.
his Journey to centre of the earth, most in land point(Mongolia(?)) , basically travelling ultra light, was thd invention of Ultra bikepacking. interesting Guy..
That's the one, Berwick to... erm... somewhere on the south coast, within 1km of 2deg west.

The Pyrenean, Alpine, etc. one is Clear Waters Rising - possibly one of my favourite books ever. It must be nearly 20 years since I read it, so maybe time to revisit it.

A friend of mine who's moving abroad dropped off a crate of books for me to "look after" for a couple of years :grin: There's a lot of climbing books, but a couple of others I'll read too. Already made a start on Robert MacFarlane's "The Wild Places".
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by psling »

TheBrownDog wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:57 pm
In the meantime, I'm reading A Man Called Ove and it's great, though like watching a car crash that you cant take your eyes off.
I've read that, excellent book :-bd Remind me, did he drive a Volvo or a Saab? :wink:
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by ledburner »

thenorthwind wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:10 am
ledburner wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:21 am
thenorthwind wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:12 am

Need something a bit lighter next - I think Nick Crane's Two Degrees West is on the top of the pile :-bd
1
yeh, nick crane is that whe re he walks south from the North East, Beswick(?) and can only deviate 100m eitherside of the nth-sth OS grid line..'00oo'
I also enjoyed the one where he walked east from galicia(?) western most point Spain on Atlantic, then walks lots of mountain, pyrenees,alps through Europe to the Urals.. (title, something maybe fresh spring rising). this where he got into brollys.
ledburner wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:21 am his Journey to centre of the earth, most in land point(Mongolia(?)) , basically travelling ultra light, was thd invention of Ultra bikepacking. interesting Guy..
That's the one, Berwick to... erm... somewhere on the south coast, within 1km of 2deg west.

The Pyrenean, Alpine, etc. one is Clear Waters Rising - possibly one of my favourite books ever. It must be nearly 20 years since I read it, so maybe time to revisit it.

A friend of mine who's moving abroad dropped off a crate of books for me to "look after" for a couple of years :grin: There's a lot of climbing books, but a couple of others I'll read too. Already made a start on Robert MacFarlane's "The Wild Places".


Berwick to Poole Harbour, or the abouts?...
ledburner wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:21 am basically travelling ultra light, was the invention of Ultra bikepacking. interesting Guy..
now we really aren't making an effort like the Crane twins-I still have all my labels, zip pullers, buckles & drawstring etc.. all dead weight.. :roll:
quartering matches is a little OTT just for the OCD weight weenies... :ugeek:
I hope you think you know, what I might of exactly meant.
Warning - may contain value odded typos & ither mythspellings..
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by RIP »

Mildly surprised nobody's read anything for 2 months :wink: . Such is the modern world I guess.

I'm a reading a few pages at a time of "The Gentle Art Of Tramping" again by Graham Stephen Graham. Very relaxing. Plenty of bon mots to idly contemplate.

Let us enquire if the larks have any beds at all.
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP

The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....

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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Boab »

I started reading a new book the other week Monolithic Undertow by Harry Sword. I can see it being an expensive book to read...

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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by AndreR »

RIP wrote: Mon Oct 04, 2021 10:03 pm Mildly surprised nobody's read anything for 2 months :wink: . Such is the modern world I guess.

I'm a reading a few pages at a time of "The Gentle Art Of Tramping" again by Graham Stephen Graham. Very relaxing. Plenty of bon mots to idly contemplate.

Let us enquire if the larks have any beds at all.
Really enjoyed that and return to it for a few pages evry now and then!
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by belugabob »

Struggling to find time to read any books, really.
"22000 miles" & "Being Gary Fisher" keep catching my eye, on the bookshelf, but my life seems to be sliced up into 10 minute gaps, between interruptions, at the moment, and I can't read a book on those terms
:(
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Re: What are you reading now?

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

Mildly surprised nobody's read anything for 2 months
Don't you fret Reg, plenty of reading going on here although I doubt much that'll interest most folk ... although, I am reading 'Underground Wales' just for you :wink:
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