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

'Before I Go to Sleep' might qualify as light, summer reading.

The heroine, Sarah, has a form of amnesia, which means that she wakes every morning with no memory of her previous life. She gets daily phone calls from a doctor - Dr Nash - who prompts her to read the diary she has been reading. Gradually she rebuilds her sense of identity.

Although this book has been promoted as a thriller, I found it took a long while to take off. There is, by the nature of Sarah's predicament, a certain amount of repetition, and her life revolves around mudane things, such as checking the photos round a mirror, and hiding the diary she's keeping.

I was never sure how credible her situation was, and I felt that the plot creaks a bit in places. But the story does appeal to any woman who fears losing the things dear to her. It works as a light, undemanding read.

That sounds interesting. Have you seen the film '50 First Dates'? It deals with the same sort of situation - short-term memory loss. Surprisingly, the film, which is warm and funny, reaches a novel solution to the problem.

No, I haven't seen that film. Perhaps I should look out for it.

The theme is very interesting - memory and its role in our sense of identity - but it does pose questions for the story teller. If our heroine has lost her memory, how does the author/filmmaker avoid saying the same thing lots of times?

Yeah, that really takes finesse. I suppose the classic, filmwise, is 'Memento', by Christopher Nolan and his brother. Beautifully done, with two stories that meet in the middle. And then there's 'Run, Lola, Run' - the audience becomes engaged in the various iterations and changes of a temporal-causality loop.

More things I ought to see.

Thanks for that, MVP. I'll look out for it.

I never saw Run, Lola, run. Somehow I never made it to the movies.

Would you read this one?

Dreaming in Stone. This story centres on an English family - Brian and Alison Delaney, and their teenage son, Steve - who follow their dream of a life in France. They buy an old house, which they try to renovate to provide bed and breakfast accommodation. But the house is crumbling, and they are sinking into debt.

There are some decent descriptions of places, as one might expect from a story set in South-West France. However, the characterisation is suspect. Brian seems self-deluded in his belief that he can find a way to raise enough money to live on. Francois Allombert, the chef who Alison works for, is obviously placed to provide her with romantic possibilities.

Something like that sounds like it depends a lot on the execution. When you suspect the character was thrown in for plot reasons, you tend to get annoyed, don't you?

I'm currently on a Jane Austen trip. I finished reading 'pride and Prejudice' and ma now half way through 'Sense and Sensibility'. Next up is 'Emma' (I know I started reading that once but can't remember whether I finished it). I really enjoy Jane Austen, her at times acerbic descriptionS of people and their characters make me laugh.

I used to like Jane Austen. But the last time I read Pride & Prejudice, I was working in London, looking after my house in Sussex, and being kept very busy. I started to get irritated by these women who never did any work beyond a bit of light sewing!

Hey, they were living the high life.

I find Emma extremely irritating.