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

Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley

to be recommended even if you hate horses. Her descrptions are stunning.

Star Trek Dark Passions, Book One, by Susan Wright.

Haven´t gotten very far yet, so I can´t tell if it´s any good. But so far it looks very promising...

I'm currently diving my attentions between three books (whichever one happens to be in the bag I grab as I run out the door):
"The Flaneur" by Edmund White (strolling through the streets of Paris)
"The Vintage Collection of Amnesia" ed. Jonathan Lethem (short stories I don't really remember now
"A Treatise on Poetry" Czeslow Milosz (long poem about this century)

Yours,
Jake

I'm currently reading:

'Live from Golgothat' by Gore Vidal - truly witty, funny and quite insightful.

'Truman Capote - A Reader' - because I recently rewatched 'Breakfast at Tiffany's and had to read this again.

'Saki - the Complete Works' - this is ideal reading for the tube as it is a collection of short stories and plays by one of the UK's most neglected wits. He's as funny as Wilde and as irreverent as Coward.

'She is the Darkness' by Glen Cook

'Blood Price' by Tanya Huff

'Children of the Mind' by Orson Scott Card

'Star Dancer' by Spider Robinson

and i'm just about to start 'Lord of Light' by Roger Zelazny.

Just finishing 'A Shadow on the Glass' by Ian Irvine. Nice world ideas but so badly written I can't bear to read parts 2 & £

Just starting 'The Reality Dysfunction' by Peter Hamilton. Only 80 npages in and I'm hooked already.

Wading through 'Archaeology & Language' by Colin Renfrew. Interesting stuff but takes a little concentration.

Dipping into '100 Love Sonnets' by Pablo Neruda. OK I damit it, I'm a hopeless romantic at heart.

multiple typos apology. That'll be 3 not £, pages instead of npages and admit not damit. Amazing what half a bottle of a nice red wine can do to my typing skills.

Just finished Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley, and have now moved on (because of recent events) to re-reading the HHGTTG (just starting Life, the Universe and Everything).

Just finished White Teeth (Zadie Smith) - now getting into The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (Joe McGinniss)

I very very recently finished "Sophie's World" by Jostien Gaarder, and now I am reading "The Left-hander Syndrome" by Stanley Coran.

Started Tony Parsons "Man & Boy" last night...

have always meant to read it and never got round to it before now.

Is it good?

I'm reading Harry Potter now, except in French, it's cool reading something in another language, really cool. I've been comparing the English and the French versions and found lots of changes...the title of the first one is different, and Hogwarts is Poudlard. There's also a whole added bit explaining what a prefect is...they probably don't have them in France!

'The First Circle' - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a worryingly amusing story of life in the "special prisons" of Stalinist Russia

'Selected Non-Fictions' - Jorge Luis Borges, eclectic essays on various topics, even some film reviews

'50 Years of Communism' - G.F. Hudson, written in 1967 so not very up to date

I highly recommend the first two.

As per most of the people here, I too have three on the go at the same time ...

HHGttG due to obvious events and also cos I've only read it once - got the omnibus with the first four books - started on monday and am just about to finish The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (have to say it contains one of my favourite lines of all time: "He's spending a year dead for tax reasons" - absolutely superb!)

Karl Marx - biography of the feller rather than a Marxist rant - very interesting although hardly what you'd call light reading!

Crime and Punishment - old Fyodor doing his stuff - splendid!

I always have The Complete Works of Saki somewhere nearby ... have four copies scattered in various places including a copy in the car ... it's got to be done.

Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy... things are about to go pete tong for Frankie Boy with the Feds.

Just finished 'Catch 22'
Brought 'Sense and Sensibility' to Stockholm with me
Been lent 'Two under the Indian Sun' by Jon and Rumer Godden

And of course - my diary, as Oscar Wilde says - one must have something sensational to read on the train!

agcB

Oh man, I thought I was the only one who did the thing where I have 3-4 different books going at the same time... I didn´t mention it because I thought that I was as I said the only one and people would think I´m crazy.

But I don´t really read all the deep serious books that some of you have mentioned, mostly I read Star Trek and Buffy books.
I have started to read "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" and so far it seems pretty good. Unfortunaltly I have not been able to get my hands on "Dirk Gently´s Holistic Detective Agency" so I have never read that one...

How weird is this? I keep running into Dax today!

Okay, I also read lotsa books all at once.

At the moment:

"Finn en sy mense" by Karel Schoeman (Fionn and the Fianna, Afrikaans translation)

"A Guide to Mathematics for the Intelligent Nonmathematician" by Edmund C. Berkeley

"Lewis Carrol, and Illustrated Biography" by Derek Hudson

"The Mind Map Book" by Tony and Barry Buzan

I'm not only reading many books at the moment, I'm also writing one!

Right now I'm reading "Hornblower and the Hotspur" by C. S. Forester. Last month I saw two made-for-TV movies based on "Lieutenant Hornblower" and starring Ioan Gruffudd and Paul McGann. I had been meaning to read Hornblower for a long time, and had forgotten, but the movies reminded me. I started with "Mr. Midshipman Hornblower" and I was hooked. What impressed me the most was that these are not just straight-up sea adventures of the kind that might be found in a collection of stories for Boy Scouts. In the background are stories of battles and wars and ships; but the focus is on the story of one person, and his thoughts and feelings about war, military life, honour, punishment, love, etc. They are very human stories, and at the same time provide suspenseful and breathtaking adventure. It's been a long time since I have found a book that I genuinely didn't want to put down. During exams this year I was getting about five hours of sleep a night, and a couple of those nights were short due to the fact that I was trying to allow myself regular, brief periods of relaxation, and my method of choice was reading Hornblower... bad idea. Once I finished the second book, I made myself hold off on reading "Hotspur" until exams were over, since I knew I wouldn't get any sleep with Hornblower in my dorm room.

Two, actually - though I normally confine myself to one at the time

"Single & Single", John le Carré. When he's good as in this one (and, IMHO, especially The Night Manager), he's terrific.

"Den russiske trilogi" (that is, "The Russian Trilogy") by Leif Davidsen, Danish journalist/writer.