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

Also about to embark on Jasper Fforde's Fourth Bear

I finished Atlas Shrugged* last week, and haven't picked up a book since...needed a bit of a rest after that one!

Not sure what to read next...I'll see if anything arrives in the post this weekend, and take it from there.

RF

* This book will change your life.

Im reading the idiot,s guide to the internet!!! subtle hint there I recon wifey gave it to me for my birthday!!

What's Atlas Shrugged' about then?

Blimey! Well, seeing as how it's over 1,000 pages of *really small print* it's difficult to sum up in a few sentences!

It's a novel that allows Ayn Rand to showcase her philosophy...which, at its most basic level, states that "A is A".

RF

Am getting into Focault's Pendulum now, it's good so far - and erudite as you like - barely a page goes past without some obscure reference to something-or-another as the is-their-a-conspiracy-or-not plot starts to crank into gear....

Funny - that 'erudition' is what turned me off Foucault's Pendulum. It just seemed all too keen to show off what a lot of facts he knew, and ended up being rather banal. I gave up rather early because of that. If it actually has a plot that's worth persevering for, maybe I'll pick it up again.

Well, we'll see how long I can put up with it for - then I'll get back to you.

If I remember the book correctly, it does slip in to philosophy more than plot. It doesn't have the same core story that Hollywood picked up in 'The Name of the Rose'; though in my opinion the philosophy behind the control of knowledge that 'Rose' discussed was more interesting than the whodunnit that Hollywood picked up on.
I learned some interesting facts in Focault's Pendulum and enjoyed the philosophy, but the plot (or at least where it ended up going) was slightly disappointing.
If you don't like this, then don't even try 'The Island of the Day Before' as that has even less plot.

Apologies for butting in. I have had Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand lurking on my desk for months and can't work up the enthusiasm to start it. Has anybody read it? Should I make the effort or sell it back to Amazon?

Spooky or what. I didn't even look at the top of the page before I posted that.

I read the Name of the Rose edition that came with an explanatory postscript from Umberto Eco (sort of like a literary directors commentary for a film) and that made a lot of things about 'rose' clearer, particularly, as you say, the murder-mystery (which isn't so much one man and x number victims as it is multiple deaths surrounding a central figure with an agenda) and alongside that the the control of knowledge as a recurring premise in the book that I don't expect would have survive transition to a screenplay. That said I'd really like to see the film (apparently, it's quite good even if Sean Connery is in it) but how to get hold of it - blockbuster certainly don't have a copy.

I'm really starting to like 'Pendulum' - more than once caught myself smiling at the jokes (the most recent one I can remember is the imagined conversation between an editor - the self hating Belbo in third person - meeting Shakespeare and critiquing the manuscript for Hamlet. ) and the novel; now having set up the erudite trio of editors as intellectual raconteurs has reached the part where the templars are introduced as background exposition so things are about the pick up plot wise.

I was reading some more at lunch today and was pleased to enjoy the parrells being brought out between the crusading monks slaying Moselems for God and a Little Profit, the lines of facist and leftist demonstrators marching, the childhood gang rivalries born out of the rule of italian fascism and allied skirmishes: all in themselves echoing the crusading battles so in a way a re-telling, or perhaps better yet another instance of the sense that history is being repeated or at least played out by new actors according to the same script.

Provided you don't let the 'erudition' of Eco overwhelm the story - there are more tangents than you can shake a Freemason's set-square at - and provided you don't give in to the all-to-frequent desire to go googling to see if fact 'xyz' is true - the book is really quiet enjoyable. At least I think it is.

I liked it too but I may have to re-read because it was a long time ago (and I'm steeling myself up for The Island of the Day Before)

back from my jollies and I have finished:
the second in the Viking trilogy by Tim Severin - good
The Thunderbolt Kid - good
the most recent Dick Francis - jogged along in true Dick Francis stylee - good

What to read now?

I've decided I'm going to try and read Dante's Inferno as my next book because I keep coming across references to it and frankly it's probably about time I obliterated this yawning gap in my literary ignorance.

I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. And while doing so I've come across two odd things.

I was reading the chapter about the Africans who were captured by slave traders, and it talks about their gods, one of whom is called Elegba. I thought the name was familiar, then I remembered a Talking Heads called Papa Legba, which is probably referring to the same superstitions.

Later that day, I start listening to my mp3 player, which is currently playing on random, and the very next song that it plays is Papa Legba. That's a one in 720 chance. Especially creepy since I did actually think about the song, and wonder if it was coming up on my playlist.

The other weird thing isn't a coincidence, but he wrote about another phenomenon that I first noticed years ago:

"An episode of Cheers began. Shadow had never really watched Cheers. He had only ever seen one episode of it - the one where Coach's daughter comes to the bar - although he had seen that several times. Shadow had noticed that you only ever catch one episode of shows that you don't watch, over and over, years apart; he thought it must be some kind of cosmic law"

Which is exactly the conclusion I came to when I first noticed this happening to me.

So the only possible conclusion is that Neil Gaiman is spying on me, and I need to reinforce my tinfoil hat.

American Gods - is it the author's preferred text edition? Either way, excellent book but the longer edition adds some important material missing from the earlier release.

Yes, it's the preferred text. I've also got Stardust sitting on the shelf waiting for me to read it.

Recently finished 'Wintersmith' by Terry Pratchett. He's on auto-pilot for this one, ho hum. Not that good. Before that I also read 'Pushing Ice', by Alistair Reynolds. Hard sci-fi, pretty good but not brilliant.

Deciding whether to start 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. If it's as rambling as Oryx and Crake I don't think I'll bother.

The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory. Not an author I'd heard of, but it seems promising. It concerns a young Jewish girl in the sixteenth century forced to leave her father and become a "holy fool" at Edward VI's court when it's discovered she has "the Sight". I haven't got that far yet - when Mary ascends to the throne the title will make more sense.

Just read a couple of bios - "Out-Bloody-Rageous" and "So Farewell Then" about Soft Machine & Peter Cook respectively. Both give some surprising insights into the '60s which I managed to miss as I was trying to have a good time at the time....and I didn't live in London or Canterbury which might explain things!