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

Not as bad as 'Dead Air', mind.

(Note that I clearly think that Banks is good enough to keep reading. He's *capable* - just that he seldom delivers the goods.)

He's *just* good enough to keep reading. One more piece of hurried, poorly-plotted, lazy, deadline's-almost-here shite will be enough to stop me though.

I've been disappointed by most of Banks' output since The Crow Road. Whit wasn't bad, but since then it's been diminishing returns, really.

About the only decent thing he's done otherwise is Raw Spirit.

RF

I liked 'Complicity', mind. But his first was by far his best.

My personal favourites are The Bridge and Espedair Street.

I'd forgotten about Complicity. That was the last decent thing he did.

It was made into a truly awful film.

RF

The Bridge was a great book, truly a work of high literature in its own right. It actually got me into Banks because i had to study it in my first year of eng lit. at university. Great stuff

I've never made it past the first 20 pages or so in 'The Bridge'. Must give it another shot some time..

You should. It's good.

Unlike 'Walking on Glass'.

But don't touch 'The Business' with a bargepole.

Or 'Canal Dreams'.

Unfortunately I did get soiled by The Business. Haven't read t'other two though.

Canal Dreams is probably one of the few Banks books (other than Iain M. Banks) that could be made into a passable film, IMHO.

The ones that have been filmed/televised suffer because most of the humour is in the internal monologue of the protagonist, and thus doesn't translate well to screen. Unless you want a really annoying voiceover throughout the film.

I also felt that The Business was written primarily as a screenplay rather than a novel.

RF

Just started Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain.

Just started Hannibal, Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham. It's a big book (640 pages), so it could take a while.

continuing with the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene

Just started reading 'Travels with Herodotus' by Ryszard Kapuscinski. So far, so riveting. A brilliant write IMHO.

D

Just getting into "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks

Lessee... the latest books I've read... Well, from most recent backwards:

The 16 books in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series (including the Guide to the Great Tree) which I bought for my granddaughter who started to read them then insisted I do. Waiting on the final, Lost Tales of the Great Tree.

The Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe) which includes four books:
The Shadow of the Torturer
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Sword of the Lictor
The Citadel of the Autarch

The Shattered Goddess (Darrell Schweitzer)

The Inheritance Cycle up to Brisinger, awaiting the fourth and final book. The first three (it was originally to be a trilogy) are:
Eragon
The Eldest
Brisinger

The Harry Potter series (all seven books)

Before that, I can't remember.

PS: for the last week or so I've been between books.

PPS Oh, we are also reading Gulliver's Travels, Treasure Island, Grimm's Fairy Tales, and Anderson's Fairy Tales. These I'm reading to my granddaughter, along with the Eragon books (we're at the end of The Eldest) now.