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

I am reading Ronin Ro's "Have gun will travel: the spectacular rise and violent fall of Death Row records"

Excellent history of the East Coast / West Coast rap battles and the rise of one of the most controversial record labels of all time. Not one for the easily offended, some of the eyewitness accounts of the violent activities of Death Row CEO, Marion "Suge" Knight are bloody to put it mildly.

But one of the best books I have read in ages. And strangely I have never failed to get a seat on the train in the morning since I picked it up! Coincidence?

I am readind Zen and the art of motorcycle Mantainace
it is one of the best books i have ever read.
Go out and read it now!

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

Very Interesting

Ohh also "Magic Roundabout The Adventures Of Dougal"

stick to the classics that's what I say

Down Time. A collection of short stories, articles and anecdotes about diving by some great writers, spanning over 70 years of underwater writing. Amazing stuff!
The exception among the writers - Hans Hass, Michael Crichton, James Jones, Peter Benchley and many more - is Jacques Cousteau because permision wasn't granted to use any of his writings

Bookwise I'm reading:
"Mao - an autobiaography" which is a huge and mostly tedius tome but does have little nuggets about some of the most spectacular things to have happened this century.
"The Tain" which is a translation of the Irish ring cycle stories and is fascinating but taking a while to get to, as I keep having to ask for place names and peoples names to be translated etc.

However, I'm just this second reading the Guardian science section article on "Isolate 2-9-3" which is among the more fascinating things I've vere read....more soon.

Take your pick: I'm part way through either "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett, "Archangel" by Robert Harris, "The mean who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks and "An Urchin in the Storm" by Stephen Jay Gould.

Clive

What I forget to say is that 'Have gun, will travel' has some cracking anecdotes about Vanilla Ice!

Such as?

Sadly not about how he sculpted his hair into such amazing shapes.

But basically how he passed off another lyric writers work as his own. And how despite pretending to come from the Ghetto he had infact lived quite a comfortable existence with his music teacher mother.

But mainly it is about the lyrics and how when Suge Knight went in to get him to recognise the writer's rights, he just collapsed at the merest hint of threatening behaviour and squealed like a little piggy.

All of which he now hotly denies and tries to make out there was a huge standoff between bodyguards armed to the teeth!

"To the extreme I rock the mic like a vandal"

Cool selections Clive.

"Ringworld" by Larry Niven recommended to me by jqr. It is classic space-fiction, and fun, but not very compelling. We were talking about genetic modification of the human race, which is touched on in the book.

I have just tasted a collection of Bruce Chatwins uncollected writings, which has no completely disappeared. It is not in the living room, kitchen, loo, or bedroom. Wormholes in space.

A guide to Stocholm, because I will be working there for 10 months.

And I am *always* reading last week's "Sunday Times"

While I think about it Clive - a book I am scared to read is "Unweaving the Rainbow", by Richard Dawkins. "The Selfish Gene" blew my mind, but I am afraid that Rainbow will be just too challenging. "The Knowledge of Angels" by Jill Paton Welsh looks kindly and delicately at what happens when a medieval monk tries to convert an athiest. What happens, of course, is the monk loses his faith.

The Cloud of the unknowing. A very old christian mystic book, wriiten by a unknown monk around the 14th century.

"Magician" - Raymond Feist
"Magic Kingdom for Sale SOLD" Terry Brooks
Oooh, ooh and I can't remember the title but it's the book before "A source of light" by Reynolds Price. I started at the third book, then my partner surprised me with the first two, So I started at the end, but contrary to popular belief, that actually *was* a very good place to start...The trilogy follow a family from turn of the century to now in the Deep South of the States..*beautifully* written. Downside is that every other sentence is a gem, so need the first two books for light entertainment (*not* really an early morning commuter book...).

Oh, and "Street Spanish" to brush up my colloquial espan~ol in the gap between OU study terms...

Well, you did ask...

A

Currently residing on my bedside table are -
"Wide Sargasso Sea" Jean Rhys
"Climbing Mount Improbable" Richard Dawkins
"Hyperspace" Michio Kaku
and Homer's "The Odyssey"

And the Lonely Planet guide to Iceland, because I've just booked a trip up there for next month.

Just finished it, but dipping back into "Heavy Water" by Martin Amis - cool short stories.
Just finished "Miss Lonelyhearts" by Nathanael West (wow - 60 pages of insanity) and about to start on the 2nd half of the book - "The Day of the Locust".

For the third time in 5 months, im trying to wrap my mind around "A brief history of time". One day, i WILL succeed...

Ben, at university every week they hold cheap book sales in the Union. Ocassionally a Stephen Jay Gould or Richard Dawkins appears and I try and buy them then, mindlful of the fact that to purchase them at the on-campus Waterstones upstairs would be considerably more expensive (Urchin and Dinosaur in a haystack together only come to just under £10 - normally they would be nearer £20. I picked up the copy of Archangel for only £1.50! ! )

I await the release of the next discworld novel, The Truth in November I got 50% if I pre-ordered it!

Clive, Student: License to bargin hunt.

I'm reading:

Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes
Some collected writings by Thomas de Quincey
Political Justice by William Godwin
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

QUALITY





(you'll know what I mean when you've read far enough in)