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

Anyone know what 'Vetinari' means?

nope.

Looks like a corruption of veterinary -> vetinary. Maybe. Dunno.

reading The Gunseller by Hugh Laurie.

CD is right

I've started Fundamentals of Psychology by C.J. Adcock. The book was originally published in 1959 and reprinted several times. My edition is the 1968 reprint, so it's 40 years old.

I have a number of books on psychology, from those aimed at the intelligent layman through to those aimed at college students. Dates of publication range from 1960s to 1990s. It's interesting to see how much we've learned over the years - and we still don't know it all. I hope we never do.

Although we've learned a lot since the 1960s, the basic concepts still hold. I'll be keeping this old book because it explains them so well.

Decided to read some fiction... So I'm reading Neil Gaiman's "Smoke & Mirrors" - a collection of short stories.

By turns, it varies from delightful engaging storytelling and explorations of 'fairy-story' - so much so, that I read excerpts to my sons (11 & 12 years old) - to some disgustingly horrid stuff that makes me want to hide the book so that they couldn't possibly find it to read it for themselves.

So that's the more traditional fairy tales then?

I've been reading volumes 1 - 6 of the Rogue Trooper collection. Top story arc right up to volume 6, when it all goes horribly, familiarly wrong.

'Commando, in the future' to 'Cod-man-do' in a single volume. If you decide to read them, don't bother with 'Realpolitik' - it let's the side down.

The rest of it's a crackin' read though.

Finally finished all the books my co-worker loaned me. So I've at last been able to start on "Gravity's Rainbow". I'm only about 100-odd pages in, but so far, I really like it.

" ... 'Gravity's Rainbow'. I'm only about 100-odd pages in, but so far, I really like it."

Wow. That brings our total (of non-academics) who like it up to ... lessee ... two.

Really? I know a few people in RL who enjoyed it, but surely there can't be just two of us here?

My better half has a few other Pynchon books I've enjoyed- V especially.

My comment was . The reviews at Amazon average to 4 stars out of 5, with 168 5 star and 37 one star. The negative reviews include this:

" ... the author seems to go out of his way to make it hard. There are way too many characters that come and go. At times he will use only first names when we meet them and use only their surname later. Each time he starts a new scene it takes 2 pages to understand where you are. In Faulkner there was always a method to his madness. In Pynchon there appears to be only madness."

I find it interesting that "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources And Contexts for Pynchon's Novel" gets 4.5 stars. I have this and recommend it to anyone who wants to *understand* GR.

Oh, gotcha!

Reviews like that only make me want to read something more. I'm obtuse like that.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

The Count of Monte Cristo by alexander Dumas

cracking rediscovering its hidden depths by actually caring about the French revolution and its values

all i knew when i was twelve was

Napoleon: Bad

Liberty: Good

Just finished "The name of the Wind" by . . . someone.

Another good read.

Next up is the last of the proofs I've borrowed. It's called something with the word "Angels" in. I really should pay more attention at times.

Still, given I've paid my own cash for two of the last three proofs I've read (after having read them, and am intending to buy the third), I'd say the bookseller knows what he's doing.

For my train ride through Switzerland, when not contemplating the beauty of the Alps, I shall be resuming reading and indulging in Umberto Eco's 'Focault's Pendulum' - abandoned sometime last year - and also dipping into Iain Stewart's 'Journeys from the centre of the earth' - which will be fitting since I'll be in one of the most geographical spots there is. (I'd even consider taking The Earth: An intimate History by Richard Fortey for the same reason, since it has a chapter devoted to the Alps and their formation, but I read that again recently in prelude to this trip so I won't. Instead I'll probably take 'The Ancestor's Tale'to finish off. That I had to stop reading about 95 million years ago* and I'll pick it up from there.


That'll make sense to anyone familiar with the backwards chronology of the book.

Oh I should add I polished off Going Postal the other day and so am about 2/3rds of my way through Thud! which I aim to finish before I set off for the coach tomorrow evening.

Wordsworth. The Preludes.

Right, the something with the word "Angels" in is Principals of Angels by

It's lining up to go either way at the moment. A captive audience (artificial city above an uninhabitable planet) in a formalised distopia, where nothing is forbidden to those with the cash. All that formulaic cobblers. The writing and characters look as though they could well rescue the story though. I'll let y'all know.