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

Read John Steinbeck's Cannery Row on sardineplane, pendolinotrain, greenschoolbus and my own humbleshanks and on a comfy camp bed in a best mate's cellar. It was loaned me by my friend so I had to kind of jog through it as and when the opportunity arose bwtween copious scoops of real ale in various sessions and return it in a reasonable condition after a few days. Maybe I couldn't do the thing justice in the time available or maybe I was simply expecting too much of it but I didn't really get into the mood of Mack the "I and the boys" frog-hunter and his saltofthevivisectionlaboratory pal Doc.

Bought Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky on my recent travels. Currently a quarter of the way through Steinbeck's 'East of Eden' which is more to Crunchbracken's taste, so far, than Cannery.

I'm reading Ian Rankin at the moment. Hide & Seek.

So far, so good.

I never really got on with The Cold Six Thousand. A pity, because I adored American Tabloid. Even though most of the time I hadn't a clue what was going on.

I'm plugging aways at 'Consciousness Explained' by Daniel Dennett at the moment. It's very good. I'm slightly struggling with all the epistemological stuff at the moment - I don't really have a philosopher's brain and need to get on the slightly more solid grounds of neuropsychology.

Meanwhile...at librarything, I've come across a couple of gizmos: http://www.librarything.com/suggest.php One is a book suggester. You type in the name of something you've read and it returns the books most likely to be in the libraries of people who have it. A bit maybe. But the other is an *Un*suggester. It's told me that people who haven't read 'The Catcher in the Rye' own a lot of books about God and Fair Isle knitting. It also has a sidebar which tells me that If I've enjoyed Immanual Kant's 'The Critique of Pure Reason' I'll likely not go a bundle on 'Shopaholics'.

Kant argue with that. Oops, dropped another stitch...knit one purl one...
Actually that Un-suggester was mentioned in an earlier post somewhere. I looked and thought it was a load of bollards myself.

I'm about halfway through my carryaroundinthepocket novel about the Italian bricklayers in 1930s New York - 'Christ in Concrete' by Pietro di Donato. I love the grizzly way it's written:

And fear unravels his stomach.
"Nurse. Bedpan."
"Yes, doctor."
White enameled instrument table approaching with settings of steel as of scissors, steel of straight razor on bone.

My second set of books is now Power of the Sword by Wilbur Smith, and Charles II by Antonia Fraser.

Almost finished 'Neither East or West: One Women's Travels in the Islamic Republic of Iran'. The author had the good fortune to visit when khatemi (sp?) was President and things were less tense than at present but still a fascinating travelogue about a country I'd like to visit 1 day.

Just shy of halfway through my keep-at-home book - East of Eden - and like Christ in Concrete it's jogging along very well. Steinbeck may well be heading for another top 5 position in the Crunchbracken chart. He currently leads the way with Grapes of Wrath.
Is this the best storyteller of all time, I'm beginning to wonder, and I haven't even got round to reading his Tortilla Flats yet.

to Blackberry Cat. Long time no etc. etc.

" Is this the best storyteller of all time, I'm beginning to wonder, and I haven't even got round to reading his Tortilla Flats yet."

And I'll bet you haven't read "Travels with Charley" yet, either. It's a good book, about an across-America road trip he took with his dog, in a specially built truck, with a house built on the back.

Interesting take on America; I've never been able to decide if it's a travelogue or an autobiography...

More here: http://www.steinbeck.org/Travels.html

No, I haven't read Travels with Charley yet either. I thought I'd tackle his two epics first off, apart from Mice and Men, that is.
I've noted the link.
Cheers!

And you have to read 'In Dubious Battle' too.

And also 'The Moon is Down'. His novel about human courage and the power of the individual against tyranny. In Fascist Italy mere possession of the book was punishable by death.

'Christ in Concrete' got the better of me. It started on a high note and went on and on almost in the style of a religious dramatic opera until I was too fagged out and worn down from the high Italian kitchen-sink drama style to follow it all through to the final 2 or 3 chapters despite Stud's Turkel's initial introductory encouragement. Sadly it must go the same way as the last Italian book I read and into the charity box. It didn't make the Crunchbracken list! Maybe there's something about Italian writing that doesn't agree with me. It's like a too-large bowl of spaghetti. Too samey. Too filling. It leaves too little room for the imagination.
For my next slip-in-the-pocket novel I'm going to try Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz (Tim Wilkinson translation from the Hungarian). Like Steinbeck, East of Eden still bowling along a treat, the author Kertesz is a Nobel Prize winner.

As was Steinbeck.

(Is he the only USAnian so far? No. Far from it. I must have been imagining it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature#List_of_Nobel_Laureates_in_Literature)

Kurt Vonnegut says he's never received the Nobel because he badmouthed Saab automobiles (he had an unsuccesful Saab dealership)

The USA and France are running away with it!

Poor old Kurt.
I've got a neat little Renault myself. A friend has a Saab. It's built like a tank. Has a dashboard like an airplane. Not my style.

In his day they had two-stroke engines. You had to add a can of oil every trip and they emitted blue smoke.

Bugger! That's blown *my* Nobel, too.