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

I am reading A Mew Earth, Awkening to your Life's purpose by Eckhart Tolle. It is a library book that I got out on Monday and I am nearly finished reading it. It is very good.

Almost finished Tom Brown's Schooldays, but in the meantime I've reread Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear.

I've just read the special edition and shortened version of Gordon Ramsay's book Humble Pie

Still reading Ian McDonald's "Brasyl", very good but life's been busy so taking a while.
Also reading 'Music, Food & Love', 2 parts memoir, 1 part recipe book, by Chinese flautist Guo Yue.

Opti - what did you think of Humble Pie? (I was more in with The Rammster than ever after reading that)

Not getting on very well with Die Blechtrommel so I'm giving my brain a rest and reading The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I'm on the poetry again. This time, Derek Mahon's Modern Irish Poetry anthology. Some interesting nuggets in it. First verse upon random opening:

Our youth was gay but rough,
much drink and copulation.
If that seems not enough,
blame our miseducation.

Reminds me of the Paul Simon song "Kodachrome":

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

...

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks WORSE in black and white

- Steve K.

“For the great Gaels of Ireland / Are the men that God made mad, / For all their wars are merry, / And all their songs are sad.”

G. K. Chesterton

Reading Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs. I get the feeling Reichs was less than impressed by the Da Vince Code, and that I'd understand more allusions if I'd actually read Dan Brown's magnum opus.

On holiday, I finished Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks. Very good, a lot different to the other books of his I've read (Birdsong etc).

Then I got Iain M. Banks' latest venture into The Culture, "Matter".

I can't help feeling that Banks is treading water here. His latest non-SF book, The Steep Approach To Garbadale, rehashed themes and types seen in earlier books, and this seems to do the same with The Culture, too. In previous Culture books, some new insight or perspective on The Culture was offered. I don't think there is in Matter, so other than introducing some new types of creatures I'm not entirely sure what it's *for*. Yes, SC get up to some morally dubious shit to achieve their aims. I think we knew that.

It's a right rollicking read, though! Oh, and my copy is signed!

I've just started The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson.

RF

William Blake, Poems

"For the great Gaels of Ireland / Are the men that God made mad, / For all their wars are merry, / And all their songs are sad."

I'm not overly fond of those lines of Chesterton's, I have to admit.

If I wasn't so charitable, I might even suggest that only a daft Englishman could pen such tripe

I felt for him and it reinforces the fact that everyone faces struggles even if we aren't always aware of it.

31 Songs by Nick Hornby.

not bad.

The problem I found with 31 Songs is that it's not good, either.

RF

Just finnished 'snow falling on cedars' by David Guterson . Not bad at all. Now i shall start on 'fahrenheit 451 ' by Ray Bradbury .

no one here gets out alive

RF - that's exactly it with 31 Songs.

But last night I started The Crow Road and it's much better.

And, especially for Ed, I've finished The Two Towers and am about to run through The Return of the King. I know how much he worries that not enough people read it these days.

Hell, what would I know? I have it on good authority that I'm an elitist snob.

The Crow Road has a wonderful sense of place. The drive up the side of Loch Lomond and over Rest and be Thankful is exactly as decribed. And that bend where he brakes too hard and she bashes her nose on the dashboard *does* take you by surprise. The bin the bike hit isn't there, though. I look every time.

I wish I lived in one of those houses on Park Circus where he signals to him in morse code, too. And I wish someone would signal to me like that.

(All will be revealed.

yes, I've read 2 pages so far...

Killer opening line!


Born in a storm...