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

I thought it was 'It was the day my gran exploded'? I loved CR when I read, so much so that I read it all again when I finished it.

It is. But there is a Deacon Blue reference also.

The opening line is one that sucks you right in, as it were! Every book should have one of those!

The Crow Road is one of my favourite Banks books, along with The Bridge and Espedair Street. Recent offerings haven't been quite as good, imho.

RF

But you can't beat Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers. Or *especially* Lolita.

You're right, RF. I've stopped reading Banks. And The Wasp Factory is still his best.

Actually, I reckon the best book he's written over the past decade has been his one foray into non-fiction, Raw Spirit.

RF

Is it in CR that he mentions that whisky overtook brandy as the posh drink of choice because they changed it so it wouldn't go cloudy when ice gets put in it? And does he mention that in raw spirit?


And what's 10 PRINT all about?

It's pretty basic isn't it?

In Raw Spirit he goes into all the secrets of the whisky industry. However, the book where he first started uncovering this was Complicity, not CR.

Oh, and the 10 PRINT thing...go see what other brothers are up to...notably 2legs, the other R, and EV.

RF

...and, just in case it wasn't clear already, I *am* a Banks geek.

RF

Yes, that *was* clear..

There was also a Stargate reference in The Crow Road, which made me

I'm really stuck for a good book at the minute - I'll have to hit the shops now that I'm fiscally rumbustious once again. That's why I've been browsing the poetry so much.

R4's Front Row featured an interview with the writer of a biography of a WWI poet I'd never heard of before - Joshua Rosenberg. It sounded worth seeking out.

I am never 'fiscally rumbustious' thats why i go to the public library

best fishes....tod

Still edging my way through 'The portable atheist' but picked up this next book to further my understanding of how to teach science for university and have found it's fascinating despite it's rather dry title:

'Making sense of secondary science: research into children's ideas' - is a comprehensive study of more or less 'everything you thought you understood but actually don't'

More than a few times I've found myself muttering - 'oh yeah I knew that! So why did I think...?'

If we are in the business of recommending books that shift perspectives - then I humbly submit the above by Rosalind Driver et al, ISBN: 04150967657.

Clive.

I finished Cathy Reichs's Cross Bones, which seemed fairly weak compared to her other books, though that might be because some of the stuff about Jesus and early Christianity (the setting is modern, but there was a lot of archaeological business) made me a little uncomfortable.

On to Flashman's Lady by the late, great George MacDonald Fraser. Interesting to see a lot of corruption in 19th Century cricket, but the rest of the book looks to be about Borneo and Madagascar, so probably not much leather on willow.

Because I am loving The Crow Road so much - I am actually only reading one book at the moment

There's a part, close to the beginning, when he is arguing with his dad about religion. And it reminded me so much of the threads in Ask and the Forum that it made me

Just finished Philip Dick's Ubik and still trying to figure out how I feel about it
In a way it felt almost... shallow. Like a short story, that didn't give the author enough time and space for developing the characters. On the other hand it left me with much to think about. Like few things that did not add up but which may have been left there on purpose...

from Dick's fans

'Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi.

(now a major motion picture, featuring the voice of one James Osterberg)