A Summary of Things I have Read - with my comments
Created | Updated Jan 14, 2006
What's all this about then?
I read a lot. Some have said that I read too much. Often they mean I read one or two books in particular too much - but that is easily countered with a little addition to a quote. The quote is, I believe, of Wallace Simpson1:
You can never be too rich, too thin or read too many books.
But before we go any further, I suppose I will have to put one of these in:
Disclaimer
The comments on this page are all mine, unless I have quoted - in which case I have/will tried/try to give a source.
Back to the point...
In fact at one point, when I had a 40 minute each way tram ride to work, I decided to do some focussed reading. I took, a good 15 years after leaving school, English Lit. A-level. And despite doing it in a year, and despite only managing to read (rather than study) two of the books - (Henry James, The Bostonians and F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night) I am rather strangely proud of the B that I managed.
But why make an h2g2 entry?
The simple answer to that is: because I can. And until I can think of something pithy and witty to say at this point, that's the only reason I will give.
Actually, there is another reason. I read Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code. We were on holiday, and I'd read everything I had taken for myself. So, when 
finished his book, I picked it up and read it. And Oh My Goodness. For my thoughts on it, see the reference below. But thank Reddyfreddy's firey conviction of the awfulness of the book and his many comments here on h2g2 2 for tipping me into writing this.
And now...the books
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: I read this in summer 2004 and I want those 4 hours back (mostly because they were by a rather nice pool in a very sunny Croatia).
Digital Fortress: This one gets its own link because... well just because.
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Moby Dick - Hermann Melville
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
The Accidental - Monica Ali: the writing is beautiful, and for the main part reading this was an enjoyable experience. But the ending left me confused and disappointed - and so far I still have no actual idea what the book really is about, apart from four members of a family coming to terms with episodes in their lives.
