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

Inspired by tanzen's tagline...

What book would you like to live in?

And to make it a bit more interesting, please tell us a bit about the book (and don't assume everyone has read or heard of it) and why you want to be there.


kea.

Well let me just start by saying what a brilliant thread !

(useless trivia: “I wish I could find a good book to live in” is a line from “What have they done to my song ma?” by Melanie Safka…what is it about the earth mother types that makes me swoon ?)

Anyway….

The trouble I’ve been having with finding a good book to live in would probably be the kind of books I read. I love Kurt Vonnegut. I don’t think I would want to live in a Kurt Vonnegut book. He’s a little “out there”. Some of the characters would be interesting to meet. Like Billy Pilgrim, the soldier/optometrist who is unstuck in time and gets abducted by aliens.

But I don’t think I’d want to live in the book (“Slaughterhouse 5"). There’s a but too much…war…

So the best I can come up with at the moment is “Pride and Prejudice”. For those who haven’t read it (or seen it ) it’s basically about Eliza Bennett, her sisters and their family…old England. You know, it’s the stuff romance is based on…the rich man falling in love with the poor woman…the woman being smart and witty and not being able to stand him…and having sisters who are “the silliest girls in England”…

…but then you think about the times…no proper plumbing…girls having to be “ladies”…so it wouldn’t all be *great*…

…but it’s the best I can come up with so far



tanzen
(still looking for a good book to live in)

Iain M Banks' Culture would be a pretty good place to live - technology has solved all the worst problems a society has - money is anachronistic, there is an almost infinite production capacity you could use if you can convince the Mind (SuperAI) that what you want doing is fun, or purposful, depending on the Mind. Lifespan as long as you want, drug glands part of your body, 10 minute orgasms. Other societies to dabble in if you want something to do. What more could a'body ask? Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Another emphatic vote from me for the Culture.

Reading between the lines I think the world of William Gibson's Sprawl series ("Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa Overdrive" and some of the stories in "Burning Chrome") would be a pretty cool place to live.

I'd also quite like to live in Known Space after about 2500, well after the Puppeteers have left, the Kzinti are tamed etc., about the time of the story "Safe at any Speed". (Known Space is described in the books of Larry Niven, including (although not most typically) "Ringworld").

SoRB

great idea for a thread BTW Ooo so tricky.... It'd have to be a novel set in the past.... but which past?... OOo My wreckless side wants to go one way, and my Romantic side wants to go a differnet way.... surely theres something that would suit both Ooo naa.... At the moment I'm torn between Graham Greens Brighton Rock (or some such simular type thing), The Great Gatsby... Or Bran Stokka's Dracula.. Ooo But theres so many others ... *goes to find thinking cap*

Viz.

B

It's gotta be the Culture. Secular heaven.

I wouldn't want to live in a novel. Too much conflict.
I'm with Gnomon. An encyclopedia, or maybe a book on the history of the state of Ohio History is immortal.

Hmmmmm I'm thinking the 1982 Rupert annual.... or a copy of playboy

I read some books when I was a kid about two schoolboys Jennings and Derbyshire. Can't remember the author. I remember enjoying them. I would therefore like to escape this horrible suicide bomber threatened, intolerant, unpleasant, unsocial and debt ridden society and go and live in those books. I'd ignore the upper class public schoolboy what ho aspect of it all and just enjoy my only worries being how to get extra bullseyes from the tuck shop and not annoying old Wilko.

alternately, I'm with Mr Legs in the playboy annual (not literally of course)

"My family and other animals" by Gerald Durrell! That's the book to live in! Small kid, roaming free the countryside, warm sea, good food, relaxed and funny relatives, and lots of animals

Oh, and not too much lessons

The Jennings books were written by Anthony Buckeridge. And were brill

B

Thanks Mr B

Thinking about it now, I figure I could amazon the name and pick up a couple of em to see if my son enjoys reading them.

'Coot Club' by Arthur Ransome.

It's set in Norfolk and is about a group of children messing about on boats for the summer hols. Probably supposed to be set around the middle of the last century.

I know you can mess around on boats on the Norfolk Broads nowadays but this is set in a less commercial age and is gentle and seems a nice world to live in.

(As a child reader I also fancied one of the characters in the book so he'd have to be there too )

Jules

There are quite a lot of great books set in the past, or fantasy worlds, that would be great. However it would be just my luck to be a peasent working every hour god sends to feed my 8 surviving children and then contracting leperosy or one of the equally nasty, or worse, diseases prevelant at the time Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Go to the Norfolk Broads 'out of season', and it could be any time in teh last four hundred years just about still very idealic and peaceful if you pick the right bits of the Norfok/Suffolk Broads, (I spent my entire childhood messin about on the broads in Suffolk, and in teh neighbouring fields woodlands, marshs etc )

Ah but would that lad from the book be there?!

I'd like to live in one of Terry Pratchett's novels for a day or so (and I'd hope to survive it); especially walk around in the city Ankh-Morpork on the discworld; a city rich in violence, magic, history, and mayhem.