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

I think my reason is that I often read books for the creative things they do with language. Graphic novels can do some great things - but I've yet to see one where the language has stood out.

Perhaps with twice the time available I'd read more graphic novels. I'd quite like to.

Halfway through Stone Junction by Jim Dodge.

No idea what's going on or why. It's a bit mystic, very American in style and tone, and seems to be mainly about gambling, drugs and sex.

Great book though...

We were collecting the TinTin books when we were expecting number one daughter and had picked up a new one just before I went into labour. He tried valiantly to read aloud Red Rackham's Treasure while I was in the bath. But the last important life lesson we learnt before becoming parents was that this *really* doesn't work.

Mol

"The Cello Suites" by Eric Siblin about Bach's cello suites mixed in with life stories of Bach and Pablo Casals.
"This is your brain on music" by Daniel Levitin, about what it says in the title, some of the science behind how we hear and interpret music.

I'm on the last two weeks of a five-week holiday and my Kindle has really proved its worth. So far I've finished reading The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carre and No Comebacks by Frederick Forsyth. I've started and finished A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith. I'm currently just over half-way through The Complete Sherlock Holmes and about one-third of the way through The Lost World, both by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm also reading The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes and The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert.

I've just finished Peter F Hamilton's book of short stories Manhattan in Reverse, and I've just started Malcolm Pryce's The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still.

'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'- Mohsin Hamid.

Quite good but stylistically flawed.

I've been reading 'Gog' by Andrew Sinclair [http://tinyurl.com/7a4fsdt]...... for years. It's one of the books I've been taking on holiday with me but never feel hooked enough to finish - I'm up to page 307 of 474. Has anyone else here read it?

Walking on Glass by Ian Banks.

So far we've had TWO references to Hitchhiker's Guide!

Part 1 of A Dance Of Dragons, George R. R. Martin's new one. As addictive as the rest.

After that I'll read part 2, then Are You Talking To Me by Sam Leith, which is about rhetoric.

I wasn't too taken with the Sam Leith, I have to say. It doesn't really do what it said on the tin in terms of teaching you about Rhetoric. It leaves the detail on techniques and all the fancy words for appendices. Ironically, given its subject matter, it wasn't awfully good at conveying information.

I shall probably be starting 'Other People's Money' by Justin Cartwright tonight.

I've also just downloaded a previously unpublished Vonnegut, 'Basic Training'. I'm rather wary because unpublished works are often unpublished for a reason.

I can't remember why, but a week or so ago I picked up and re-read 'Darcy's story' (which is Pride and Prejudice re-told from Darcy's point of view). And then of course I ended up on a complete Jane Austen re-read, which I haven't done for ages.

So far I have read P&P, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma; and I'm now a couple of chapters in to Northanger Abbey. I wish, I really wish, that there was some way of letting Miss Austen know how much delight she has brought to so many people.

Mol

Can't remember if we've had this convo before, Mol. Have you tried any of the Georgette Heyer Regency Romances? Some of them (Bath Tangle, Venetia, the Toll Gate) are easily as good as Austen, and most of them are a fab read. And her account of what the women did during the Battle of Waterloo (An Infamous Army) has had bona fide historians praising her research.

Oh, yes, love them A late discovery for me, mind - only in the past 5 years or so.

Mol

I am about to read two books I picked up in a second hand shop by Michael Moore, One is called "Stupid White Men" and another is called "Dude Where's My Country".

I would like to ask the esteemed members of H2G2, what should one make of Michael Moore - is he a maverick journalist / writer that writes satire which is more bias than truth, or is he a "truthful" investigative journalist that makes use of irony? That is to say how serious should his view of the US, corporate america and the "west" be taken?

Oh, I've read those, a long time ago.

I think that the establishment seem quite afraid of what he says so there's probably more than a grain of truth in what he writes.

I'm reading The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. Lovely stuff.

I like Michael Moore...but he's also a bit of an arse. Sometimes I howl in frustration at the naivety of some of his arguments. A bit more focus would give his targets less wriggle room. Still - he's On The Side Of The Angels.

There's a good bit in SWM about why you should never fly with an airline whose pilots are paid less than the staff at Taco Bell.

I have finished reading those two books of Michael Moore. He seems to be exceedingly bright and perceptive, but not necessarily "intellectual". He also seems to be exceptionally brave, considering he is a US-American political campaigner, highly critical of the US state and infrastructure, and having no obvious political constituency for his message (at least when he started out). The two books were published in 2001 and 2003. Although his message is a little black and white, and I wouldn't necessarily agree with some of the side issues he comments on, I would say he paints a very convincing picture of the powers and influences at play in US-America from the Nixon to Bush II era's. I quite liked the idea of the role of "sport" in modern america (reminds me of the opium for the masses).

It's a little bit frightening to see recent announcements of intended policy from the British Con-Dems being nothing other than wholesale blocks of policy taken from the "USA Patriot Act". I assume the US-Americans are urging implementations of this act in Britain in time for this summers Olympic Games.

I also see that he is an Orwellian - with the novel 1984 being a good model for the present US-UK states. I wonder whether anyone has updated the "1984" story for todays age.

A while ago I watched the film "Good Night and Good Luck" (dir G Clooney) about Ed Murrows opposition to Joseph McCarthy. Murrows voiced a warning regarding news broadcasting in the USA, which seems to have sadly come true.

ps In "Dude Where's my Country", which tried to rouse support for an opposition to Bush 2004 presidential campaign, Michael Moore was sufficiently insightful to recognise the possibility that US-America might be ready for a women or a black president. The book was published in 2003, Barack Obama was elected president at the end of the 2008 election campaign. In 2008 both Hilary and Barack vied were for the democratic nomination.