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

I've recently read Freedom from the Known by J Krishnamurti

Sho, have you read Anno Dracula by Kim Newman? It's set in London after the events of Dracula, except that he's survived and put himself in power. It's now fashionable to become a vampire, but Jack the Ripper has started hunting them rather than humans, and people are complaining that Tennyson is going to be the poet laureate forever... It's fun.

Today I counted my unread books. It's about 140, but that's just 'my' books. There's also a large number that we inherited. There are some of those that we'll definitely keep (including a lot of Bolitho books) and some that I'll have to read before I decide whether to keep them. (I've decided not to keep the Kafka book. The readability factor is appalling - paragraphs that last several pages, sentences that seem to go on forever.)

I haven't read any other vampire novels, apart from Dracula. Actually I try to stay away from them, although if that one is as strange as it sounds I may give it a go.

I've looked through the books we inherited and there are about 75 books that I'll keep to read at least once. Some will be thrown away after that.

So the total of books to be read is now around 220. If I read one per week (doubtful) it will take me more than 4 years to get through them all!

So what are you doing hanging around hootoo?!

Talking to myself here...

Finished the first of the Teen-Vamp novels (yes, twice within a month) and have now decided to have a re-read (because I don't remember it at all) of Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess. It's his ideas about Shakespeare's life.

Hi sho I am rereading time enough for love by Heinlein
Has anyone here read the dresdnon files?

My 'Pod was de-charged, so I took tye collected John Donne to the gym. Stunning! I'm in with him.

First a poem about how he likes both brown-slinned and fair women...all sorts really.

And a wonderful epigram along the lines of (though he said it better):
'Why do you call me effeminate for enjoying the company of women? Do I call you manly because you hand around with boys?'

One C18th dude - and proof that there's nothing 'modern' about modern attitudes.

"Getting Stoned With Savages", a follow-up to "The Sex Lives of Cannibals". It's as entertaining as the first.

I counted the books in *some* of our bookcases. I got to 790 (most of which are mine) and quit. Looking at the number of books in the other bookcases, I reckon we've got well over 1000 books between us.

I'll get back to my books.

Showoff!

I thought I was doing quite well with 'somewhere between 5 and 6 hundred'

OK, I finished counting. We have about 1300 in the bookcases downstairs, and about 200 upstairs. Not all of the books can be read, though. The total includes atlases, road atlases, cookery books and needlework books. Some of the books upstairs we inherited and not all of those will be kept. Most will, though.

My main reason for counting was to find out how big a job it will be to catalogue that lot. Right now, I don't even want to think about it!

Librarians always seem to be poor. Can't you get one to do a homer?

I've read about 4 Aubrey-Maturin books in the last week. Also dabbled a bit in 'The Dressing Station' by Jonathan Kaplan, about his itinerant life as a field surgeon in various shitholes/warzones etc. Pretty good, but not a nice read. Also have 'Marx for Beginners' by Ruis, a Christopher Brookmyre thingy, an Alistair Reynolds SF book (others I've read have been pretty good) and a few more Aubrey-Maturins to get through.

I am now on to the xanth books currently I am up to the source of magic

Gave up on Anthony Burgess in favour of reading the 17 Sackett books by Louis L'Amour.

I'm a sucker for cowboys.

Currently reading The Good Guy by Dean Koontz and just finished a Richard Laymon that I can't remember the name of for the mo

At the minute I'm referring to books rather than reading them. There is only one I'm reading for narrative and information both. And a lot of the enjoyment comes from mis-fact spotting.

I'm reading a book called "Into the Woods" by Tana French. It's an Irish crime/murder mystery type book.

It's quite good so far. I'm not sure how it's all going to work out, as I'm only one third the way through the book, and most of the criminal investigation stuff has happened already. There's going to be a lot more to come, I think...a bit like a Morse story, where the first murder opens up a hitherto unknown can of worms, leading to more murders per square mile than most people have any right to expect.

RF

Which Alastair Reynolds is it you've got pedro?