h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading 'Hearts In Atlantis' by Stephen King. It's an odd book, touted as a collection of inter-connected short stories. Except that the first story is 250 pages long. I bought it when it first came out (1999), read the long story, and somehow put it to one side and never picked it up again. However, I recently read King's 'The Wind Through The Keyhole', and thought that if I'm going to read that I really ought to give the rest of the Dark Tower books another read as well, which I did, by a wonderful coincidence at about the same time as Pastey was documenting the same thing on these pages. And then I thought I ought to mop up the peripherals, starting with 'Hearts In Atlantis'. Next up will be 'The Little Sisters of Eleuria'.

Smoke and mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.

Short stories, bit of a mixed bag, but always interesting.

sprout

I forgot to post about my holiday reading. Vols 2 and 3 of the 'Rivers of London' series by Ben Aaronovitch. They really are 'imagine if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Metropolitan Police' ... in a good way.

Mol

Loving Game of Thrones - only about a quarter of the way through the first volume though.

I'm reading The Colonel's Mistake on my kindle (offer of the day) it's an ok spy thriller but the more of it I read the more I think it's by Dan Brown and it's the Da Vinci code without most of the God stuff. Older man, younger gorgeous woman, enigmatic villan (possibly villan) and a convoluted plot with a lot of detail about the cities being described.

But it's fine for the train/bus in the morning.

I am currently reading the Cisco Press book, "Definitive MPLS Network Designs." For fun... OK. For work, too, but mostly for fun...

There's a Japanese word, tsundoku, for the act of buying a book and not reading it. The book ends up on a pile of other unread books. I've managed to get my unread tree books down to about 120. It's falling because I don't buy tree books any more. (Presents are another matter.) My total of unread ebooks is going up all the time, though. I blame Kindle's Daily Deal. A few days ago I bought the Hunger Games trilogy for £2.29. It's not something I expected to enjoy, but just reading the first two chapters got me hooked. I've got a number of unfinished books on my Kindle from my last holiday, so I won't be starting the Hunger Games any time soon.

I've just checked my Kindle. I have 88 books on there that I haven't read yet. Of those, I have the Complete Works of six authors, so the actual number of unread books could be around 150!

Oh, and I enjoyed Game of Thrones, too. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I bought the rest of the series. They showed the first TV series on Pick not long ago, but I didn't watch it as I hadn't finished the book and I didn't want to spoil things.

The Hunger Games is *excellent*, definitely a set to take on holiday so you can read the whole lot back to back without interruption.

Mol

blimey yes, I started reading them when the the 2nd one came out - it was torture waiting for the 3rd (I'd love to hear what everyone things of the ending...)

I didn't realise GoT had been on Pick TV - we're impatiently waiting for the 3rd series on DVD.

The Kindle deal of the day is unfortunately different in Germany - but due to the book pricing regulations they're not allowed to offer German language books so they are always in English

I think they've only shown season 1 of GoT on Pick. Pick used to be Sky 3 and they only get good TV shows some time after Sky One has finished with them.

The Second World War by Anthony Beevor.

Does what is says on the tin, really. One thing it excels at is the insanity of totalitarian dictatorships involved in fights for survival. It's utterly disgusting, degrading, and very very disturbing. A fine read.

still Game of Thrones and also A Brief Guide to Star Trek by Brian J. Robb

I've finished Red Mars, which was superb, especially the final third.

I then rattled through The Cartographer's Handbook, which I reviewed here: http://ow.ly/ropzi (It's only about two quid on Kindle, so worth a look).

And now I'm reading an absolutely ludicrous book called ROBOPOCALYPSE. It's as trashy as the title suggests. Hilariously so.

It's Pastey's fault. He's not met up and sold me a copy of his book yet, so I'm having to read trash from the Kindle bargain bin...

You're not around tomorrow are you? I could drop by your office during the day you see.

I will be around tomorrow, yeah. 9-5:30, as per f'kin usual. How much do you want for this so-called book of yours?

Standard retail price, £7.50 (It's worth it )

So now I need to get change. Great.

get a room, you two...

I'm reading Angelmaker (as recommended by FB) can't remember who by but it's fantastic. Totally loving it.

I'm currently reading Snow White and the Seven Samurai by Tom Holt. It's one of his earlier books, and takes a while to get going.

I thought that was ok but not as good as Who's Afraid of Beowulf.

Yeah, I loved Who's Afraid of Beowulf

I've been finding his later books much more settled though, the magic door ones and Barking especially good.