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

Sounds very interesting, Lakie...

Reading The Fellowship of the Ring (it has to be done) - and have, due to unforseen circumstances - read rather more of it than I expected (having started on Tuesday).

As usual (apart from Tom Bleeding Bombadill) it's fabbo.

catching up on the backlog...

fords - I thought Brick Lane was amazing! All of the characters were well drawn, and one could even have some sympathy for the husband. The poverty of immigrant life was well described too. I gave it to my wife for Xmas, and she loved it also.

'JK Rowling has cobbled together the last couple of HP books and has started to leave a lot of threads hanging and plot dead ends. Discuss.'

sho - No, No, No! Return of the King does not have to be done! . Go read a proper book instead!

Just finished 'Rancid Aluminium' by James Hawes. I really loved his 'A White Merc With Fins' - which was an ingenious comedy heist. But this one was simply tedious ageing-ladism. Nick Hornby with guns.

I've just moved on to 'Independence Day' by Richard Ford. I'm lead to believe that this is proper litratcha. It's too early to judge, but so far it seems to have an air of Roth/ Updike small town America about it. I'm guessing that it's going to be dealing with some major US political/social themes on a small canvas and from the p.o.v. of an ordinary, middle-class American.

I really need to read 'Small Island' by Andrea Levy, which sounds like an intelligent antidote to the execrable 'White Teeth'.

(oops. It was the LOTR1, not LOTR2. My bad. Same difference.)

You mean White Teeth by Zadie Smith? Why didn't you like it?

(I haven't read it, but might)

Because it was meant to be a book dealing with multicultural Britain. Now, admittedly Smith is black - but I thought that she dealt with it from a white, middle-class perspective. All of her characters were characatures and she was thoroughly patronising towards their cultural backgrounds. This is in contrast to Monica Ali, who while she is critical at times, at least shows an understanding of where people are coming from.

Also - Smith plays too many pointless, literary games (like having characters introduced in turn whose names begin with letters progressing up the alphabet) which are clever enough, but are not even remotely integrated into the book as a whole. I guess one is supposed to chuckle knowingly at her academic sophistication.

And then there's a specious scientific sub-plot about genetically-modified mice and fundamentalist muslims which has almost zero understanding of either perspective. Hanif Kureshi does disillusioned British Muslim youths much better!

There! That's got that off my chest.

But if you want to read a book which deals with multicultural themes, and also has some excellent English - Bombay Duck by Farukh Dhondy (although it may be out of print).

I've started with
The History of Middle Earth Volume 6
The Lord of the Rings
Part One

that's about Tolkiens manuscripts, several versions of all chapters, hundreds of footnotes, many "afterwards my father brackened the words..." (it's written by Christopher Tolkien) and "in pencil..."

I'm sure many of you don't understand it but: I like it!

Edward - sorry to disagree, but LOTR has to be done. I love to do it, however it's becoming my guilty secret these days!

I hate reading stuff by Christopher Tolkien, although I'm intensely interested: he comes accross as too pompous to me.

Nearly finished with Baudolino - what can I read next? The choice is between The Brothers Karmazov and Madame Bovary (neither in the original)

Finished The Da Vinci Code. I found it very entertaining, even though I felt it went a bit too far at places (meaning the story lost its thin layer of credibility). But yeah, liked it. Especially the way real works of art were given slightly creepy meanings. Like what *is* that spare hand doing in The Last Supper?

Another book that did something silghtly similar, but only to one painting, was Maya by Jostein Gaarder. That was also effective.

Which do you think are better, the Earthsea or the His Dark Materials books? I've been meaning to read them.

How long has Maya been out? I've read a few of his books but haven't come across it.

The English version is from 2000 or 2001. It's a sort of philosophical mystery revolving around a Goya painting.

Aina - I prefer His Dark Materials, but then I can't really remember what happens in Earthsea, but I think I enjoyed it at the time.

Edward the Bonobo - I liked White Teeth but I did prefer Brick Lane.

I just finished reading The Iliad (finally!) and was quite surprised becasue it finished quite suddenly - I was expecting Achilles' death from the arrow in the heel, the wooden horse, and the fall of Troy, none of which happens in the book. So I started The Odyessey, and it says in the intro that the wooden horse is mentioned in The Odyessey in flashback, but I don't kowo about the rest.

Just thought I'd mention that, since it surprised me.

*Odyssey*

For me, I started reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, on Saturday. I managed two chapters before I remembered why I hadn't been able to finish it back in 1983. It's well written, but an appalling book, with unspeakably awful characters - both the ones who are meant to be awful, and the others..

I'm reading Dorian by Will Self just now. A real page-turner

I'm reading Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson and I've just bought somebody Nichols new book (David Nichols?) The Understudy

Fear and Loathing will be re-read soon, although I want to read Catch-22 again after watching the film the other night

It's great I saw the film a couple of years ago and have only justgot round to getting the book Now, I'm just waiting for the film to ome back on telly