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

Well... I'm an impatient reader...

The last book I finished was About A Boy by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, Fever Pitch). He has terribly stark and funny insight into everything. He's witty and not hard to read. Even someone of my tender years can understand. If there's one thing about Hornby's books, its that you'll relate personally to at least seven parts, he's that good

I'm a big Pratchett fan... though I've only read 7 of the 25, my favourite being Pyramids. I saw The Truth and read the blurb, it looks like a hit to me

I'm currently reading Catch 22 (Joseph Heller) and A Prayer For Owen Meany (John Irving). Catch 22 is hilariously ubsurd, while Meany is subtley absurd

[HP}=~~

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams, High Tide in Tuscon, The Poisonwood Bible

Kingsolver is an ecofeminist writer who grew up in rural Kentucky. Although she can get a bit heavy on the ecology at times, her books have appealing plots and move quickly, and I really identify with the characters.

The Museum of Purgatory, Nicholas Bantock

This really surreal book has lots of pretty pictures (always redeeming). It focuses on Non, someone who wakes up in Purgatory with amnesia. Everyone in Purgatory has an obsession, which they must work out before they can progress . . . but he's forgotten his. So he is sent to be none other than the museum curator--so we get to see pictures of what everyone else collected obsessively, and finally learn who Non was and what he collects.

Kathy

Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees" was particularly good.

I just finished Caleb Carr's newest "Killing Time", a look at computers, humanity, the media, and the future. A fast and terrific read. Although he dabbles into foreshadowing a little more than I would like...

I suppose I'm biased towards Kingsolver a bit because her sister is my Theories of Culture (Anthropology) professor. However, I don't talk about her novels much with Ann because she gets a bit irritated that people are always talking about her sister and not her. I would too--Ann is a very gifted anthropologist who serves on the prestigious AAA Ethics Committee (the group much in the news lately--and since she studies Latin America, she may even be on the Yanomami subcommittee--she hasn't heard yet)--but her profession simply isn't as high-profile as Barbara's.

Kathy

That's a shame. Ann has the far more important and interesting job, in my humble opinion. Not that I dislike Kingsolver personally, but it's a shame when celebrities assume more dignity and importance than those who are actually working to help people and change the world. If only historians, scientists, etc. were on the cover of the supermarket check-out line magazines, rather than some vapid supermodel or athlete!

Due to my busy schedule, the last two books I read were The Mode of Information, by Mark Poster (for a class *yawn*) and Harry the Poisonous Centipede, by Lynne Reid Banks (who also wrote The Indian in the Cupboard) which I read aloud to my daughter. I don't seem to have time to read anything just for me! Waaaa!

Neither Ann nor Barbara are vapid celebrities--I have met them both and they are both intensely intellectual. I keep having to talk people out of taking Ann's class on account of Barbara, though . . .

I also enjoyed Kirin Narayan's Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon, speaking of anthropology.

C

It would depend. For fun? Tad Williams' third volume in the Otherland series, Mountain of Black Glass. For classes, I just finished How the Irish Saved Civilization (they didn't, really, but Thomas Cahill sure wants you to *believe* they did!). I am currently delving into Margaurite Porete's The Mirror of Simple Souls, and trying desperately to find something new. I must say that I think Kingsolver is highly overrated, as is Louise Erdich. As far as women authors go, I am terribly fond of the classics...I love Austen and the Brontes. I do think that there is a dearth of good women writers who write something universal. As a woman, I am tired of the laborious exercise in writing about being a woman, in a woman's way. Oh, please! Just write! Although I did enjoy Catherine Neville's The Eight...
Anyway, with that .02 said, I am sure to gain heaps of abuse and hate mail. All I can say is bring it on...

a quick note to argonO...you DID jump into the middle of something. Lord Prestimon is the first book in the third series about Majipoor. To get a real feel for it, start with Lord Valentine's Castle. There are three in that series, two in the series about the boy in the first (can't remember his name for the life of me), and then the one you are on. I know, I know. So many series. I tend to find an author and stick with it, although Raymond Feist has dissolved into nothing...I would highly recommend Dan Simmons' Hyperion series... theology, Keats, technology overload all wrapped up. And it actually makes you think.
Okay, okay. Can you tell I LOVE!!! books? Fraulein, I think I need to raid your library. And you need to raid mine!

Raid it? You've already got some of it! Return those when you're done, and you can check out whatever you find interesting. I have it all, the Classics, history, natural science, humor, travel, modern fiction, biography...I'm a BIG Austen fan, BTW--I have a lot of her work.

That's big as in my love for her writing, not as in my personal size.

Ah, yes. Books, books, books. I want a house with a library. A whole room of nothing but books and a fireplace and a couple of big comfy chairs...oh, yeah.
I'm drooling already.

I just read a good book by Anne McCaffrey- The Mark of Merlin. It's not one of her sci-fi books, rather just a regular fiction. It's nice.

I just got a carrel in the library today!!!!! Yay, a space just for me where I can keep lots and lots of books and it's quiet and I can type papers!!!!!!! Academic asceticism. Now if I can only pass my exams!!!!!!!

C

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I finally started reading the Harry Potter series ... and read all four of them, back to back. This is a good way to get totally involved in the world of Hogswart! I have a strange sort of anti-best seller attitude, and I was suspicious of the Harry Potter books, but now I suppose I'll be in the queue with the rest of the world, for Book 5.

It's nice to read back over the thread and see some of my favourites, like Neal Stephenson, being mentioned. I might go back now and re-read Cryptonomicon. And there are a couple of people mentioned like T C Boyle that I must look up.

Can I skew this thread slightly and ask, what book would you most like to be given for Christmas?

Why is it that I am always too impatient for Christmas, and get them for myself ahead of time? Although I must say that the book I would most like for Christmas aren't OUT yet, so there goes my wish for Harry Potter 5, and the last book in Tad Williams' Otherland series. Books actually out? I don't know...how about I say that I would like a very large gift certificate to a bookstore, and I just go pick out a bunch? Although I do know that I would like to get God: the Biography, Angela of Foligno's Complete Works, and a cookbook of nothing but cookies. I would also like a full-size, full-color copy of the Book of Kells. Okay, I would just like a whole room full of books.

For Christmas my mother gave me "Baking With Julia" a complete guide to baking by Julia Child. I read it just like any other book over the weekend...how to make brioche...croissants...poppy seed torte...galettes...madeleines...artisan breads...rugelach...mmmmmmm.

Plus, it's autographed by Julia herself!!!! Whoopeeeee!!! I squealed and danced like a small child when I saw that!

Can you believe the Otherland series just keeps going on and on? After the fourth comes out it'll probably mean ther'll be another and then another. This has to be the longest story in the world. I just want it to be over. It's good, it;s just long...

But that's the way Tad Williams is...did you read the last series of his? The Dragonbone Chair was long, The Stone of Farewell was longer, and To Green Angel Tower was 2 1000+ page books! You have to admit that his worlds are very well-realized. Besides, it gives me something to do!

I didn't get any books for Christmas, sigh.

Speaking of Kirin Narayan, I really like her novel, Love Stars and All That, too!

I'm reading a lot right now. Lots of different cultural theory things for a class in the spring, lots of museum studies things.

Here's a partial list:
Gloria Anazulda--Borderlands
Paul Farmer--AIDS and Accusation
Roland Barthes--Elements of Semiology
Edmund Leach--Culture and Communication
Kay Turner--Beautiful Necessity (about women's altars)
Susan Pearce--Museums, Objects, Collections
Lubar & Kingery--History from Things and Learning from Things
Karp & Lavine--Exhibiting Cultures

And those are only the ones I plan to actually FINISH!

Kathy

Two of those sound really interesting to me (I have a History/Anthropology degree, what can I say?)--the Susan Pearce and the Lubar & Kingery. What are they about, specifically?