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

I'm reading a sort of detective story about a flock of sheep who speak German. There's more to it than that and it's better than it sounds

Laid up in bed ill though, and can't concentrate, so I think I need something in English. Think I'll go with "Journey to the centre of the Earth": I need a good yarn!

Ooooh, Glennkill? Garou?

Yeah, Garou. But I've read Glenkill, too - it's brilliant!

"System of the World" by Neal Stephenson. Good but taking me ages to read due to a range of other distractions.
Alos reading "Dr Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe, for my latest OU course.

MC

Most of my reading so far on holiday has been OU course books. I have started The Friar of Carcassonne by Stephen O'Shea, but that's all the non-study reading I've done.

At the risk of being excommunicated for shameless advertising may I commend to you "Mr. P (and GEORGE)" by a chap called Pheroneous. It is available from a website named after a big river in South America in the department that is aimed at devices beginning with the letter 'K' in the section 'short stories'. Please. I beg you. I beseech you. Just because you can read them for free here doesn't mean you can't spend $1 or its equivalent in UK, Italy or Germany thus making me even wealthier. Pretty please!

Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. It's about the systematic fraud, deception, and idiocy that the finance industry and politicians perpetrated/allowed to cause the credit crunch and current recession. Kinda mindblowing really.

My favourite example was one bank (Bear Sterns iirc) selling a bloc of mortgages the the US Virgin Islands' pension fund. The mortgages were the worst pieces of crap it was possible to scrape together, and they were sold for $82m. The bank took a commission for arranging the sale, then bet on the mortgages going tits up (which the bank knew they would), and then getting around $75m back from the pension fund. $157m in total, when you'd expect them to 'merely' take the $7m commission.

Not one banker has admitted or been charged with criminal liability.

I've started A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

I might start a seperate thread on this but for two more days only there is a Humblebundle for eBooks.

Pay what you like and I think it is a great initiative. Do give it a gander.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

FB

This is the Yootoob vid about it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UiEcVIGlDYU#!

FB

Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre. Subtitled "How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients" it may or may not be a good idea to read it when I do take medication weekly.

The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling.

At least four glaring errors re local government procedure (where was her editor?). Far too much irrelevant detail (where was ... oh hang, I've already said that). Both really wound me up. It really isn't hard to check which local government body funds social workers (clue: not the district council); and I kept waiting for irrelevant details to reveal their importance (but no, in the end it didn't matter that his coat pocket did up with a stud).

A good book if you like reading about horrible things happening to unpleasant people. I suspect she wrote it to try to show the comfortable middle classes why there are people who live on benefits in a drug-addled haze, and to show how the little things we do can often have a much bigger impact (good or bad) than we ever intended or could understand. But it's not a story - it's very weak on plot. And although normally I like that sort of book, I didn't enjoy reading this. There's nothing enjoyable in reading about racism, rape, violence, truancy, drug-taking, child neglect, prostitution ... or indeed smugness and complacency.

So, a book that's about to make a charity shop very happy.

Mol

Currently reading The Count Of Monte Cristo for the second time. Such a fantastic novel. I'm pretty sure it revolutionized the revenge genre. Everyone loves a good revenge yarn.

I've not heard a single good review of JK's latest. Can't say I'll bother with it, even gave up towards the end of the HP series because it was getting to be mostly tiresome drivel.

I've also started Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I start a new book when I can't get into one I've already started. This can lead to me having several books on the go at the same time and not being able to settle with any of them.

Currently got a few on the go.

I started 'Seahenge' a non-fiction about fenland archology. Very good but I have lost it. So I started 'The Lost Kingdoms' a non-fiction about prehistoric scotland.

Then I find myself stuck in Edinburgh with nothing much to do, and no book. I take myself off to buy 'Bring up the Bodies' by Hilary Mantel. And it's amazing, completely amazing. Like walking through a dream.

I heard JK Rowling's latest being described as 'Mugglemarch'

Probably won't read it though. Currently re-reading 'Here on Earth' by Tim Flannery, who should be read by everyone even remotely interested in nature, and our part in it.

I'm about 1/3 through The Long Earth and so far really like it. So far I would say it's a book about how humans explore and exploit every little piece of new land they can find. And once again there's a monk called Lobsang.

Why is it always Lobsang?

Well, it's not *always*, in fairness. It's more common among Tibetan Bhuddist monks than...French Cistercian ones, say.

Yes, after I'd read it, and posted here, I spent a while looking up all the reviews, and the Mugglemarch name was in there. A good description, really. Certainly I disliked the book in exactly the way I dislike George Eliot.

Mol