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

I started re-reading The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I haven't read it in about 8 years!

Mol, I'm doing a little bit of comfort reading myself. Having set aside all the books I've started recently to finish at some other time.

I can't believe it's been so long since I read it! I can still hear all the radio voices in my head as I read it - though there are some from the film mixed in.

I've just started The Wheel of Time series. Half way through book one. It's pretty good.

Currently reading The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. I enjoy his books on evolution, they're clear and easy to understand. I've already read The Selfish Gene and I may get some more of those books. His pro-atheism, anti-God work is a bit evangelical, so I'll give those books a miss.

When I've finished The Lord of the Rings, I'll read Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian. I need about 5 Aubrey-Maturin novels to complete the set. Logic says I should get them on Kindle if they're available, as I'm running out of shelf space. However, I have the others as 'tree books', and it would be nice to complete the set that way. Decisions, decisions.

wow, just checked Amazon for the Mark Moxon Land's End... book, it's available second hand for EUR 203.00 or as a Kindle edition for 89 cents...

I've just finished Second Coming and I can't remember the author's name but I can highly recommend it. I started it on Sunday night and just couldn't put it down, and when I had to (sleep and w**k got in the way) i couldn't wait to get back to it.

Currently reading British Politics for Dummies, Driving Over Lemons and Keeping Up with the Germans (depending on where I am)

It's taken a long time but I have just finished "Winter" by Len Deighton. The story of a German family through the first half of the last century including two wars, with two brothers taking very different routes. Good stuff about flying Zeppelins at the beginning and grim chapters dealing with the Russian front and Berlin immediately post WW2 but this wasn't quite the insight I expected. Deighton was a favourite years ago. 'Ipcress File' etc. but I found this dragging. It sometimes read like a translation. May have been the fault of my 'K' device. Lots of errors, spelling mistakes, broken paragraphs and erratic layout. How does that happen?

Recently read 'Where The Bodies Are Buried' by Chris (topher) Brookmyre, the Scottish, formerly comic, crime novelist. A good thriller, but while the patter is good, the lack of sarcasm and more mainstream-ness of it all means it's lacking something of his earlier stuff. Still pretty good though.

Currently reading 'The Glass Rainbow' by James Lee Burke. He's an astonishing author. Louisiana seems like a battleground between good and evil, where the good soldiers are devastated by the evil they battle daily. Saying he writes crime novels is like saying The Trial is about beetles.

Ha! Mixed similes or what

... like saying Metamorphosis is about beetles.

I don't know though, The Trial is as much about beetles as Metamorphosis is, surely?

Reading Soldier's Song about the Falklands. With a new (or updated) intro by the authoer, whose name escapes me). Soldiers are a bit mad, if you ask me, before things like the Falklands happen to them.

The Templar Magician by Paul Doherty.

I'm currently reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.

As a piece of speculative science fiction, I'm quite enjoying it - the main theme is the effects of relativity on interstellar war (and the psychological effects this has on the soldiers). But it has some rather misguided ideas about homosexuality. Essentially, the UN orders everyone to become homosexual to control population, so they do, because obviously, it's a choice

I usually have at least one non-fiction book 'on the go' at the same time as whatever fiction I'm reading. Right now I'm reading I May Be Some Time by Francis Spufford (a study of 19th and early 20th century views of Polar exploration) and Strange Landscape by Christopher Frayling (about life in the Middle Ages).

Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. He's planning to summon up evil spirits to do his bidding. I expect this'll have a happy ending.

Ooh! Dr Faustus! I studied that as part of an OU course two years ago. Loved it!

Yeah, same reason I'm reading it.

<> Mr603

First 3-4 are good, 5-7 are so-so, then by book 8 and plus you want to just get it over with....I gave up around there.

I've also just started, but only reached chapter 7 of the first book. I suspect this will be a slow burn for me.

Also reading Hamish MacBeth: Death of a Travelling Man. so-so so far.

Mala recommended 'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch. I've started treading during the weekend and I like it.

Just a heads-up for you bookworms


Summer reading is going to be the focus of our August Create Challenge. Please look out for further details on the Front Page, or over on the Create homepage itself. U14992038 - coming soon.

I'll be starting another Open University course in October, so I'm reading one of the 'recommended' books - The Stories of English by David Crystal. It's great to read a book by some one who celebrates the diversity of dialects in the UK, and the different 'versions' of English spoken around the world.