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

Just finished Toby Litt's Deadkidsongs - disturbing, but very good.
Then I sprinted through P.G Wodehouse's 'Service with a Smile' on the train home today - felt like a little Uncle Fred to lighten things up!

Well, the US version doesn't have that part... and besides the ones from HP the only prefect I've heard of is Ford. (Heh-heh.) Well, anyway, at some point I'm going to start reading So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, (I've read the first three again because I saw the DVD of the TV version and thought it was cool so I re-read the books.) and hopefully we'll find it.

Barry Norman's "Death on Sunset". I dont usually read murder/ thriller type books, but this is so well written that I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's also very funny. Plus the police inspector shares his name with my son....


I usually read in bed before going to sleep, so short chapters are very welcome.

Gormenghast: Mervyn Peake

"The Surgeon of Crowthorne" by Simon Winchester. A true tale of murder, madness, and the compilation of the OED.

Followed by "Climbing Mount Improbable" by Richrd Dawkins. If he's lucky.

Just starting Joanne Harris's 'Five quarters of an orange'

Also reading every gardening book and website I can get hold of - in need of plants my voracious slugs won't eat for breakfast

"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves.

It's quite a different book to "Count Belisarius" by the same author. "Count Belisarius" was mostly about the wars of the Roman Empire in the early Byzantine period as well as some of it's politics. So far "I, Claudius" is about interpersonal relationships and Roman politics at the time of the beginning of the Empire.

my mum uses eggshells baked in an oven: I'm not sure what it does or how nice it is to the slugs and snails but as mum says, when they eat your geraniums it becomes personal!

"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon

The Pickup by Nadime Gordimer

I just started reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. (she's my favourite writer) But this time I'm having a go at reading it in English. It's complete hell! Nobody talks that way in real life! A forty minute's train ride got me to page three...

Just finished Ian M. Banks' Feersum Endjin and am just about to start Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

So I'm currently between books.

Liam.

Just finished Dead Famous by Ben Elton. Great satire on Big Brother, and if you watch the show you can totally match real people to the characters. Which may not be a healthy thing...anyway, very funny and with a great ending. I read it in about six hours straight. Once again, not healthy...but compelling.

yeah i couldnt put dead famous down!

now onto Dirk Gently. I bought the salmon of doubt but decided to reread the first 2 books first

Have also read "The Surgeon of Crowthorne" (see Frogbit's post above). Very fascinating and sad. A good read.

Have just finished "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. A very anti-war science fiction classic written by a Vietnam veteran. Soldiers who survive tours of duty return to Earth many years into their own future due to too much zipping about at near light speed.
They are almost like aliens on their own home planet which has changed a lot and can then choose the only life they know....more active service in a pointless war against an unknown enemy.

Also reading Philip K Dick's acclaimed "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which gave birth to the Bladerunner film. Weird, sad and more than a bit depressing.

'I Claudius', and 'Claudius the God' have got to be two of the best books ever written in the 20th century! Ever. Anytime. Ever! I read them at the same time as William Horwood's 'Duncton Hill' and borrowed Suetonius from a boyfriend, to see what Graves had used for source material. Amazing, he hadn't fictionalised very much at all!

Reply to posting 631: Yesterday I finished reading 'Emma' by Jane Austen. I agree, nobody talks like that in real-life *these days*, but language was a lot more formal then. The thing I had problems with (other than having any sympathy with Emma in the early chapters) was the lack of verb contractions. Nobody said 'don't you' or 'won't you'; it was always 'do not you' or 'will not you', which sounds wrong - 'do you not' or 'will you not' sound better, but still awkward. And "aren't I" (the only contraction) was written as "an't I", which kind of supports the attitude I took in another conversation some months ago. (Can't remember the thread, but we were discussing why we never say "amn't I".)

Oh, nearly forgot. I've just started reading 'River God' by Wilbur Smith. Richard gave me the sequel, 'Warlock' for my birthday, and I wanted to reread 'River God' first. I'm also reading 'Watership Down' again, for the first time in years.

"An't I"? Maybe Ms Austen was bored in her little cottage and thought it might be fun to re-arrange the English language a bit...

Fallen Dragon by Peter F Hamilton....

space opera, alien planets.... humans gone bad in the future... lost first love... and so and so forth... lots of daring do... and technology



can't put it down

Jack-oh