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

This thread is becoming difficult to deal with!

Hey guys, could you check my site later on today. I'm going to write a section on poetry, as part of an english assignment, and I want to start a forum surrounding the question "What is poetry?"
I'm going to start it off as a blank page, so you could just start up a conversation.

See the forum "Stuff" (Find it from my page, I can't do these linky things) Cos me and Prufrock and a few others who I think have dropped out and let us get on with it are having some deep and meaningful poetry stuff happening! Also good for help with english asignments. See also my entry on Dylan Thomas, maybe you could give me some further pointers! Can I take your cup?? Anyone for more coffee? Tea? Me?
Hxx

Hm, most of you folks are too highfalutin' for me. I've settled down with a copy of Harry Turtledove's THE GREAT WAR: AMERICAN FRONT. This is an alternate-history novel set in a world where the South won the Civil War. Turtledove has carried this world forward to 1914 and now, with the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand, the U.S.and Germany are squaring off against the C.S., England, France, and Russia.

Well, I'll just settle down in a corner here with my trash reading...pass me a cup of black coffee...none of those foofy whipped milk fake coffee drinks for me either.

Heres your coffee, I think if you pull hard enough the spoon will come out, our coffee maker isn't here, so I made it the way I like it! And I don't know anything about the Amercan Civil war, well very little, so be sure to tell me all about your book when I'm passing.
My favourite alternative history book has to be Stephen Frys Making History. And mines is signed, with three kisses sigh....... ( The only man I could ever love, boo hoo) (The waitress retreats to the safety of the counter)

Ah, the coffee is perfect, just the way I like it too!

The book I'm reading now is the second in a series that starts with the Civil War. Turtledove actually has a PhD in history so he manages a fairly convincing case. His basic turning point starts when the South manages to win an important victory early in the war. This leads to diplomatic recognition by England and France, which in turn breaks the naval blockade of the south by the north, and lets the south manage to win their independence. I look at his stuff and say, yes, it could have happened that way.

The fun part is in following the consequences...Abe Lincoln as a socialist agitator, Woodrow Wilson as president of the CSA while Teddy Roosevelt is president of the USA...I'm looking forward to seeing how he plays all this out on the European front of the Great War as well.

I haven't heard of Bright Hair, but I've read The Relic (lots of Donne, in fact), and my bed has a bookcase next to it, too, like Gingers... I'm an addictive reader, too - open at the moment are "Angelas Ashes" by Frank McCourt, "100 years of loneliness" or something like that by Garcia-Marquez (in german, so I don't know the exact english title), "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett, "Setting free the Bears" by John Irving again, "Gaudy Night" by Dorothy L. Sayers - and "Lord of the rings" for about the 20th reading (it's always like "what was that line in that song again" - and then I'm hooked on reading it again....). Each of those is worth reading...*sighs*settles down in a corner and starts reading*

could I have a double shot of espresso with that please, as long as nobody needs me in the kitchen?

I'll give you a shout if we do. I think thats everyone all coffed up, so I'll curl up here with my curent must read author, Iris Murdoch. Not really my style, again, but I can never resist sheer talent! Just finished a womans guide to adultery, and she went about it the wrong way, she actually liked the guy. Stupid...

you're so right with that last sentence *snicker*... and seems like I have to find something by Iris Murdoch, do you have some titles all one and ready?

Well, I have finished Blood Meridian now. Thematically, I think I have it covered (brimstone, hellfire, how can humanity be defined in a godless universe, lots of burnin' etc). But I still don't know what a bungstarter is, so if your friends can enlighten me...?

I shall await the movie with interest...

The Book and the Brotherhod is probably one of the best known, thats the last one I read.
I do prefer stuff that is fantasy, or funny, or both, but I started reading books that i should read, to broaden my mind, and waterstones picked a book a year for the century, and I'd only read 20 or so on the list, so I'm working my way through it. The Library here (in Bergen) has most of them funnily enough!

There must be someone in the known universe who can resist multiple readings of Lord of the Rings. But I've never met anyone, personally! Did kats-eyes get her double espresso yet? If not, here . If so, have another, on me! I'm going to read Allen Ginsberg for a while... one weird poet. Hey! Someone above mentioned an essay on what poetry is! I've got an unsubmitted guide entry somewhere on Beat Poetry (my first entry, so you'll have to click the "see all entries" link, I think).

She got it, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind another. I suppose i'd better look like I'm going to do some work. I wrote a guide entry on my favourite poet Dylan Thomas, now thats weird stuff! I Have so far managed to read lord of the rings only once, but thats because I'm so busy trying to read every book in the canon of English Literature, I rarely go back!!
Hxx

thanks for the espressi, luvs - and it's not like I plan to read it again, it just happens to me...

Yeh, It'll probably draw me sometime soon. If i ever find Robert Jordan, I'm going to lock himin a room and torture him daily until he finishes the damned wheel of time. Eight f**king volumes and still not over?? I'm not having fun anymore Bobby!! Maybe thats why he uses a pseudonym, cos he thought that people would try to strangle him after the first 5........

Okay, here goes:

"A cask is sealed with a bung, as a wine bottle is sealed with a cork. To open the wine bottle, you use a corkscrew. To open the cask, you hit the bung with a mallet called a bungstarter."

Oh, and bye the way, book adicts are the best people. Always.....

Thanks, Lupa! Enlightenment at last.

All I knew is that you could attack someone with one...
(runs off to get her copy of BM to look for other words she didn't understand the first time )

Neal Stephensen has my attention at the moment. I am re-reading "Cryptonomicon" and have only just finnished "The Diamond Age" and "Snow Crash" Stephensen writes about high technology and he does it well. Few writers can go indepth and make an interesting story. But the mix of action and intrigue is perfect. Throw in a computer or ten and mix it up with a truly unique writing style and you have the basis for a great book.

Perhaps I should check out his "adult" stuff...all I've read are his children's books, although they're all quite good themselves.