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

Various things I've read over the last wee while (mainly light reading):

What Is The What - Dave Eggars/Valentino Achak Deng
I'm bereft because I polished off the last three of the Aubrey/Maturin series. I particularly liked 'The Hundred Days'.
Various Walter Mosley - The White Butterfly; A Red Death; Fear of the Dark
Cotton Come to Harlem - Chester Himes
Blood And Guts: A History of Surgery (Book of the BBC series, which I missed)
The Yacoubian Building - Alaa al-Aswany
The Tony Benn Diaries, 2001-2007
2 by Jake Arnott - He Kills Coppers; truecrime
Food In History - Reay Tannahill
Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me - Martin Millar (*highly* recommended. I've been a fan since Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation. This is his best so far.)

Now I'm tackling The Age of Extremes - Eric Hobsbawm's history of 'the short 20th century (1914-1991). Which is a bit less light.

Currently reading "Anna Karenina". I started last week, and then got really busy at work again. So far, so good.

We visited SS Great Britain last week, so I thought it would be fun to have SS-GB by Len Deighton as my 'handbag book'.

Just about to start Little Dorrit Vol. 2. I'm just about keeping pace with the TV series.

Over halfway through Vol. 2 of Little Dorrit. My 'handbag book' is Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry.

Herodotus. The Histories

On-and-off:

Purgatory - Dante.
Misquoting Jesus - Bart Ehrman.
Unfinest Hour - Brendan Simms.

I'd like to read the blood 'n' guts book, is it any good?

Blood and Guts is a bit superficial. You can tell it's the book of a TV series.

'Granny Made Me An Anarchist' - Stuart Christie.

Plus still dipping into the surprisingly readable Hobsbawm.

Moab is great.

"Pies & Prejudice" by Stuart Maconie. Musings on life in the North of England.

I enjoyed Maconie's 'Cider With Roadies' recently. He's talkin' about my generation.

I read the last two Aubrey-Maturin books during the week. The Hundred Days was.. odd, in that some characters' deaths were pretty much ignored. Very strange that the author had so little to say on the 17th book that they featured in. Otherwise both were of the usual standard.

I was going to read that Calamity Physics one RF recommended, but I bought Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (he's got a new book out and been mentioned a lot in the press, so I got a cheap old one) and that struck my fancy, so I started it earlier on today. It's about how we think, and how accurate first impressions are. Really good so far, and I expect I'll be reading more of him.

I liked the bit in the Aubrey/Maturin when they gave the big build-up to the midshipman who played the violin beautifully and they all fell in love with...and then he fell off one of the masts.

Mabinogion - a bunch of Welsh myths.

Dark Fire by C J Sansom. Murder mystery in a nicely realised 16th Century London.

After Dark - Haruki Murakami I'm only on page 34 so not quite in to it yet but I have enjoyed a lot of his other books. Particularly liked Kafka On The Shore and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

Have just finished "Nation". Definitely a disappointment for Pratchett fans, but will probably become a classic.

Interesting. But put-downable.

finally finally finally have got round to reading An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer. (but I'm having a lot of problems reading so much about the 95th Rifles without their most famous officer getting a mention )

I'm also reading Second Wind by Dick Francis. I've read it before but it didn't really grab me so I'm giving it another go.

Also about half-way through Krabat. The recent film was fantastic, but the novel is so much better.

Oh and since I last posted (well, not last posted since that was a minute ago, but the time before that) I've finished reading The Sea For Breakfast by Lilian Beckwith.

I loved it - it reminded me a lot of Lark Rise to Candleford and One Pair of Hands/Feet by Monica Dickens. I'd appreciate some recomendations for similar memoir type things.

I started Sweet Thursday today and I was extremely pleased to find that it's a follow-up to Cannery Row (one of my favourite books.) Reading about the Doc and Mack is like catching up with old friends

I've just finished a sort-of-whodunnit-type novel called The Messenger OF Athens by Anne Zouroudi. Quite good, although all the loose ends do get tied up a little too neatly. Uppances get comed, the bad get punished, the good prevail, that sort of thing.

RF

Ah! Sweet Thursday!

Wait until you read about the beer milkshake and the trip to collect octopodes.