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

Not pint singular, no.

Now you're talking!

See PS details if up for it.

The Time Traveller's Wife is an excellent choice Sho! I keep on recommending it to anyone who would listen
It's very well written and the story is fascinating. I was impressed by the author - she manages to tie all loose ends seamlessly. I suspect she has been keeping maps and separate diaries of the time travels in order not to forget what happened when!

Isn't it fantastic?
It will be up there with my 3 favourite novels, I suspect. With Ed's favourites, the and Ivanhoe.

Changing Planes by Ursula Le Guin.

An amusing premise about airports inducing the precise combination of boredom and indigestion that make inter-planar travel possible, but that has little to do with the rest of the book, which is really a bunch of short stories about the different planes you can visit.

Another charidee shop book buying extravaganza...replacing thems as what I sold for Burma last week:

The Desert Queen - Biog of Gertrude Bell
Anthology of 2nd World War poetry
The Preludes - Wordsworth
The Complete Poetry of John Donne
Sky Burial - Xinran
The Fairie Queen - Spenser
The Prince - Machiavelli

oh I really miss charity shop book splurges. I won't be over for ages now and won't get the chance.

Also...

Dylan's Visions of Sin - Christopher Ricks.

Happy Birthday, Bob!

Reading a book called "Empress Josephine" (She of the "not tonight..." fame). The author's main point so far seems to be that her first husband was a dick. On the plus side, though, I know more about Martinique in the 1700s than I did before I started it.

Just finished the Time Traveller's Wife. Very good indeedy.

Now I don't know what to read. I have a few things that I started and put aside. And I still have The Children of Hurin looking at me resentfully from where I put it. No idea what's stopping me picking that one up.

Maybe I'll have a dalliance with Richard Sharpe.

I'm reading 'Sarum' by Edward Rutherfurd.

Regarding Josephine, I recently read a book called 'Napoleon: His Wives and Women' by Christopher Hibbert. According to that book, Napoleon was smitten by Josephine, but she wasn't so madly in love with him. 'Not tonight, Josephine' was more likely to have been a note from her - 'Not tonight. (signed) Josephine'.

Actual hard facts about Josephine are quite hard to come by - a lot of it comes down to reading between the lines and inference. Some writers have really had a field day because of this, and come up with all sorts of far fetched theories. It's probably true though that she wasn't as mad about Napoleon as he was about her. (Conquering most of Europe must be a good aphrodisiac or something!)

'Power is an aphrodisiac. Absolute power leaves you feeling dead by Wednesday.'

<>

It's miserably depressing but extrememly good and well-written, in my opinion... I'd love to know what you think when you've read it!

Vicky

unfortunately I'm hooked on the teenage vampires, then I have the Japanese thing Ed mentioned. Then Hurin. Or maybe before. I really don't know why I've been putting this one off - I was hankering for it for ages (probably worried I'll be sorely disappointed as I was with The Silmarillion)

In the meantime, sadly, I've now got the 3rd part of the Teenage Vampire thingy so I'm avidly reading that. I reckon I'll have it done and dusted by Wednesday night. (oh it's Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer - I have a theory that the book is doing the subliminal equivalent of injecting crack into my eyeballs. Honestly, the plots are non-existant and the characters are increasingly hysterical but I can't put them down)

thankfully you can do a whole vampire book in 2 evenings...

so now I've started Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima. Hopefully the translation is a good one (it's by Michael Gallagher) because I have no way to tell.

Anyhow, 4 chapters in and so far I love it.

Thanks, Ed.

Going through some boxes of books we inherited, I found 'Metamorphosis and Other Stories' by Franz Kafka. It looks like it might be heavy going, so I'm making it my book at bedtime. It looks sure to send me to sleep!

Hi Cheerful D.

Metamorphosis is an excellent novel. Short but very intense. I read it during a long summer afternoon. It was in my mind for a few days. Now I remember it with a deep sympathy for Gregorio(I read it in Spanish, could it be Gregor?)

It deserves to be considered a classic of Literature. YOu will enjoy it.

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I'm going to read Travels with my Aunt, by G. Green. I read The Human Factor and Our man in Havana a lot of years ago, and I like his sense of humour very much.

curently reading (Manga)Addicted to curry (Manga) Death note (4 book novel series) Midshipman Quinn

note that the last one is about a *~*~British~*~* Midshipman in the Napoleon wars

the other 2 I just read when I have time on my home cpu or manage to get a hold of one of the actual books(I can only do that with Deathnote since Addicted to Curry is only translated online)

Metamorphosis is fantastic - I read it last year and I thought about it a lot. The thing that really sticks in my mind is

look away CD
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When the dad throws the apple and it sticks in Gregor's underside. Ew!