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

Anansi Boys takes a while to get going, but does get going very well.

The Real Me is Thin by Arabella Weir.

Now Arabella is lovely, and a funny comedienne, but oh dear God this book is just a continuous needy self pitying whine. I've almost finished it (short chapters, perfect loo reading) but I can't say I've learned anything from it.

Pathfinders by Jim Al-Khalili. Subtitled 'The Golden Age of Arabic Science'.

oh is it good? I have that on my to-read list.
I've just received Fads Fallacies In the name of Science (The curious theories of modern pseudoscientists and the strange, amusing and alarming cults that surround them. A study in human gullibility)

Well - I had to order a book to get free postage with my new Batman DVD

I forgot to post here when I read Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch three weeks ago (I know when it was, because the library books were due back today). Probably because I was so totally blown away by it

Mol

I'm reading Sins of the Fathers by Jane Jensen.

The Bafut Beagles by Gerald Durrell. It's about one of his animal collecting trips in the early 1950s.

He's a very, very good writer, CD!

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857660543

One of the books I got in the eBook humble bundle. And by some distance the best of them. Interesting and original.

In fact one of the best books I have read in blooming ages. I highly recommend.

FB

Sho - Seems pretty good. I'm up to chapter three and it's mostly been about the history of the Islamic empire rather than the science, but now they're translating stuff from Greece, China and India, so I think we're getting to the science.

I was a bit thrown by his claim in the introduction to have visited the Hanging Gardens of Babylon when younger. Presumably it's some site that was claimed to be the Hanging Gardens, but actually isn't - the location of the Gardens is still unknown and many classicists suggest that they were actually apocryphal. I'm hoping better scholarship prevails in the rest of the book.

I've just finished re-reading Anna Karenina. People say it's the greatest novel ever. Is it?

It does explore many of the issues that were current in Tolstoy's time - the role of women, the importance of marriage, even the way land was managed. And it does so by showing the contrasting actions of the characters -so the destructive love of Anna and Vronsky is contrasted with the efforts of Levin and Kitty to build a happy family life.

But it does go on a bit! You need a Russian winter to read it in. Personally, I would argue that some of the scenes from the Levin/Kitty thread could be cut.

Oooh, that is a great series, Mol!

mvp, people have been talking up books as 'the greatest novel ever' for years. Everybody's opinion is differernt, and I don't necessarily agree with any of them. I certainly wouldn't say Anna Karenina is the greatest novel ever. I've read it twice, and the first time I just didn't get it. I was probably too young - early 20s, not enough experience of life (and death). By the time I read it again, I'd seen a marriage fail (not mine, I hasten to add) and experienced the deaths of my father (stroke) and father-in-law (cancer). Passages that had left me unmoved the first time had me in tears the second time.

So, it's a good enough novel, but not the greatest ever.

a queston for the What Book thread.

I have just finished (and I still can't believe i didn't toss it aside after the 4th chapter or so) No Wonder I take A Drink. Which has been called one of the top 20 Scottish Novels. *vomit*

It's cack but by half way through I wanted to see if anything actually was going to happen, or if it was going to carry on as a losely connected series of anecdotes about a Glaswegian woman who moves to the highlands. It didn't.

Anyway, when I got to the end (great jubliations) I realised that there is another book. It's either a series already, or turning into one. *double vomit*

Why is it that all novels these days, of the lighter variety, have to be a series? Stephanie Plum was ok until about #11 when it started to get samey and ridiculous at the same time (no mean feat)

Things like Hornblower, the O'Brian series, Narnia... Discworld all sustain an excitement to them but these endless series of nothingness drive me crazy. Or is it just me?

Makes me think of one of Dorothy Parker's reviews: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." I don't know which novel she was reviewing, but it does seem to apply to a lot these days.

As for why all novels seem to end up as part of a series, it's called 'milking the market'. The first one was a success, so why not use the same formula again. And again. And... Some authors can do it and maintain some degree of originality. Others just end up churning out the same prose and should stop after the first one.

I just finished The Long Earth by Pratchett and Baxter.

I thought it was blooming ace. Cannae wait till the next part.

FB

Just finished "Hallucinations" by Oliver Sacks, and am feeling amazed by the unreality experiences the brain is capable of providing for people under a wide range of circumstances.

Next something light and fictional for the stressed out run up to Christmas. Or dip into the short story anthology " A World of Difference", a set book for my OU course.

MC

bedtime reading is The Wee Free Men which is fine.

also struggling with OU books, mostly because I keep falling asleep all over them and the pages are sticky with drool and slobber.

Les Miserables. Not really seeing how they turned it into a musical so far. (I have never seen the musical).

Re-read the Malory Towers series last week, onto the Famous Five this week. Think I may be comfort reading ...

Mol