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

I think you'll quite enjoy Cat's Eye, Lucky. In fact, I've never known Atwood to write a dud, though I've enjoyed some of her stuff more than others. You really ought to try The Robber Bride - I have a feeling you'd really love that one.

Jim Lynn, you and I seem to keep putting Ancestor's Tale 'on hold' while we read other things. Why is that? For my part it isn't because I'm not finding the book very interesting. But perhaps it's the sort of book that is best read a chapter at a time with other stuff in between.


az

OK - filmable, but not releasable. Is the world really ready for a charming story set in a desert country peopled by nasty dark-skinned, turban-wearing, scimitar-wielding people with a harsh religion and who are cruel to animals?

az - that's more or less it. It's quite a dense book that takes a lot of concentration, so it's sometimes good to break off and consume something lighter for a while.

Oh I don't know. No one seemed to give a monkeys about exactly the same problem in Return of the King.

what?

az

>a charming story set in a desert country peopled by nasty dark-skinned, turban-wearing, scimitar-wielding people with a harsh religion and who are cruel to animals?<

Speaking of 'difficult to film' books - there's a film of 'The Last King of Scotland' by Giles Foden out this year. It's a rather good book, based on Uganda under Idi Amin. Highly recommended.

There was a documentary about its making on BBC2 Scotland the other night. The cast and crew (played by the excellent Forrest Whittaker) seemed thoroughly sensitive to the dangers of portraying Amin (played by Forrest Whittaker) as the tabloid hate figure/ clown of the 70's, while still showing his full horror. Jon Snow (who interviewed Amin at the time said something along the lines of 'For the tabloids, he was too convenient. They could use him to give the impression "That's what Africans are like."')

I await the results with interest.

Er...delete second parentheses. Move the first one into the place vacated.

I am reading 'Earthly Powers' By Anthony Burgess

Oh, you lucky person! I re-read it last year. As I told someone the other day, I'm a major, major fan of the pretentious auld bore.

I love the way he punches you with the dynamite opening sentence...and then on the next page he tells you about how great the sentence was. Pure Burgess!

I read "Earthly Powers", on Edward's recommendation, last summer. I quite enjoyed it!

Dan Simmons "Endymion", almost unputdownable

I read the first part of his biography, good in parts.

Anthony Burgess that is.

I assume you mean his autobiography, 'Little Wilson and Big God'. There's a critically-derided biography by a guy who ended up hating him (Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis), and a more recent one (The Real Life of Anthony Burgess by Andrew Biswell) which is meant to be much better. I feel I should read the former, though. Burgess infuriates me, and I love him for it. Little Wilson... is certainly informative about his influences. I think shows how his showy erudition and sesquipedalia derive from a massive inferiority complex.

Also recommended:
'The Malayan Trilogy'
'A Mouthful of Air' - his introduction to Linguistics. ('A book about language, mostly English'). He says at the start that to talk about English, he's going to have to talk about how it differs from other languages. To do that, he's first going to have to teach some linguistics. So let's start with phonetics...)

Have almost finished Field Marshal Mongomerys Autobiography. Goes through his thinking on how he dealt with various issues. Very good

I've started The Planets now (Dava Sobel). She does quite a good job of showing just how much our knowledge about the Solar System has grown in quite a short time. She seems so keen to stress all the wonder and awe that she lays it on with a trowel in places though.

Alongside the other books I'm reading, I've started The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian. Chapter 1 is just a normal story. From chapter 2 onwards, it gets surreal. I've seen it described as the kind of book Lewis Carroll would have written if he'd been Irish. That probably sums it up, although it doesn't have the word-play of Carroll.

China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station". I can't decide if I'm enjoying it or not.

SWL, I love the first line of Endymion - "You are reading this book for the wrong reason."

ive finished prince caspian now.


im currently reading goodnight mister tom by michelle magorian