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

I'm not really engrossed in anything. After nearly a year straight of being utterly consumed either by a diploma course or my summer job, this is a nice feeling to have. I expect I will get bored very soon though...

BMT, I am with you on that one - Wilbur Smith is addictive. I started reading in the middle of a series then began backtracking and collecting others, often from charity shops. The problem is they are page turners and with no-once to tick me off I read till 2am and later sometimes. His latest book is very good and a change of timescale for him.

I am giving them a rest for a wee while and reading an assortment of books, including several books based in Wartime Birmingham, which I can manage to put down at a respectable hour.

I wish I had kept a note of all the books I have read since my other half died, as they have been my salvation

Websailor

Audiobooks were wonderful on long car journeys when we were small children. Three Men in a Boat was read by Ian Carmichael, and must be. I cannot imagine that book any other way. We listened to that (and, for some reason, Wild Freedom, by Max Brand, read by Kerry Shale) several times. We also listened to all of Helen Forrester's autobiographies.

We listened to My Greengage Summer on the way to my granddad's funeral. That was strange.

TRiG.

Ah, yes, Three Men in a Boat - my absolute favourite.

The Hitchhiker's series is great to listen to, too.

I still prefer reading paper books, but I wouldn't mind an e-book reader. Speaking of listening to the Hitchhiker's Guide series ... I used to read that aloud to my sister ... when we were both already well out of school. She enjoyed it a lot, so I'd say we agree with you Bel!

Oh and I enjoy Jane Austen's books a lot. One of my university prescribed books was 'Northhanger Abbey' and from there I got and read all her other books. I am perhaps strange in that I really enjoyed pretty much all the prescribed works from English class in school as well as in at university.

Currently I'm reading a fairly old book on philosophy called Classical and Contemporary Metaphysics. I pace myself, only reading for an hour or an hour and a half before going to sleep.

Who was doing the reading on the 101 Dalmatians audiobook?

I think the voice is so important but Stephen Fry can't read ALL the audiobooks there are.....

Apparently Tony Robinson has done ALL the Discworld novels. I have just one on a vintage 1980's cassette tape.

Willem, there are books I enjoyed although they were compulsory in school. I was introduced to Herman Hesse in school, and enjoyed it so much that I read lots of his other books.

TC, I agree that the voice is important when listening to audio books.

As is the accent.

Willem, maybe you can wish for an ebook reader for your next birthday?

I'm pretty sure stephan did one of the two audios, and i think it was 101 dalmations.
I do remember the family being very specific when we bought the foxbusters one on cd (the tapes not being playable in the car) - we sent the first one back because it wasn't read by the guy we had it ordered it (apparently there was more than one version)

Reading 'Mystery Man' by Colin Bateman. Subtitled Murder, Mayhem and Damn Sexy Trousers.

I read his journalism in the local press years ago, but I think it's the first of his novels I've read. I'll probably read more. It's set locally, but it's thankfully lacking in the usual clichés - and in the forced, self-conscious dialect that mars too much NI drama and literature.

And it's got one of the oddest, most neurotic narrators I've come across for a while. I'm half expecting the whole mad plot to be some kind of paranoid delusion of his at the end, but that would be such a cop-out!