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

It's more than two months since anybody posted!

I'm just starting The Fatal Voyage by Peter Aughton. It's about Cook's last voyage. (Fatal Passage was about John Rae and his involvement in the search for the Franklin expedition.) Part way through 1415 by Ian Mortimer, about events in the year of the battle of Agincourt. Both are tree books. Reading Why the West Rules - For Now by Ian Morris on Kindle.

I've been reading a lot of history lately because a lot of the books on my unread pile fall into that category. I was hoping to get the pile down to 60 books by the end of the year. I don't think I'll make it. I'm down to 77 books with 3 weeks to go. Let's see if I can bring it down to 70, or somewhere close. Wish me luck!

Have you read our Entry on the Franklin Expedition A2116504 ?

They left a lot of questions that may never have a clear answer.

F S

I hadn't read that article. I have read a number of books on the Franklin expedition over the years, including the ones by Geiger & Beattie and Cookman. The truth will probably never be known.

Don't try to cram them in like that, CD - you'll have trouble sorting them in your head afterwards if you read them quickly and back-to-back.

I am reading "Roughing It" by Mark Twain, having seen quotes on boards in parks in California when we were there. It is so fresh and modern and extremely humorous, with some really interesting bits. Every paragraph is quoteworthy (except where he quotes pages of the Mormon bible verbatim, which he has already said is the worst-written, most boring book he has ever read).

Like Robert Louis Stevenson's "Silverado Squatters" which is about his time in the area, it is a great improvement on the Amazon Kindle deals I was reading in the summer.

On my bedside table, I have Lionel Shriver's "Big Brother" about a woman and her morbidly obese brother. I heard a lot about this on the radio at the time, and was vaguely interested in reading it, then my son got sent it by mistake in a book delivery and asked if I wanted to read it. So I'm struggling with a floppy paperback book in bed - such a hassle after the Kindle. It's on the verge of being stilted and concentrating too much on the story, but she does occasionally have bouts of intelligent writing.

I've definitely noticed that the story should never be in the foreground if you want to write a really good book. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but the worst example I read of this was "The Circle" which was a best-seller. Absolutely clinical and unpleasant to read, despite the story being a really good idea. It should have been a medieval tract rather than trying to pack the idea into a story with "real" people with no depth.

No wonder the best writers always say they don't know what's going to happen as they write. They let the characters guide them.

Read The Martian recently (finished last week) and loved it. I thought it was really well written and very entertaining, can't wait to see the film now!

TC, there's little danger of me getting books mixed up in my head. If I have more than one book on the go at a time, which is usual, they are all different topics or genres. If I read two history books in succession, they're about different eras, sometimes even different countries.

Anyway, I may be doing less reading over Christmas. I have a number of jigsaw puzzles that I've never done for want of somewhere to do them, so I treated myself to a large Portapuzzle. I'm planning to do a Christmas , as a start. It should be fun. (Book target reduced to 75!)

I'm reading a history of British confectionary. Also a sort of humorous semi-biography about a woman who joined the army a few years before I did (it's ok, not brilliant and it's not something I'd recommend)

About to start The Count of Monte Cristo despite my ban on re-reading

My last post should have said that I'm planning to do a Christmas Wasgij over Christmas. My tablet keyboard sometimes deletes whole words for no apparent reason.

Sho, why the ban on re-reading? I've been trying to do that with both tree books and e-books, but there are some books I enjoy so much that I keep going back to them. It's really messing up my attempts to reduce my unread piles. (I think I just answered my own question!)

what with the uni work and my teetering TBR pile it's a self-imposed ban. But I'm reading the Silmarillion next year whatever, come hell or high water. It's been too long

Just started Mary Tudor by Linda Porter, The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen and Scarlet and Black by Stendhal, all tree books.

I have just started reading The Pit and the Village and the Store, a portrait of a mining past by Linda McCullough Thew which is set in Ashington NE Northumberland in the 1930's.

I am about to begin a complete Discworld re-read (I need to time it so I finish as the paperback of the final book arrives).

Not sure whether to review them all on GoodReads as I go along because there will already be 100s of reviews for each book. My usual fare is niche children's literature where sometimes mine is the only review (and on one occasion I had to add the title to the GoodReads database first). So it's possible somebody might find my review helpful or interesting. But I don't really see the point in adding to the millions of words already written about TP's work. I'll see how it goes.

Anyway, diving into Discworld feels like a fairly major thing to do, so I'm spending a few days putting my affairs in order before I begin

Mol

I've been neglecting GoodReads - I may just completely skip a reading diary this year...

Currently reading The Shepherd's Crown (birthday pressie from my mum). That's all I'm going to say about that.

I'm very slow on the reading front. Currently have Villette by Charlotte Bronte, a second hand find from a few years ago.

I haven't read much since Christmas. It's partly because of the Wasgij, but also because of optic neuritis messing with my ability to see text clearly. Still with the books I mentioned in my previous post.

I started reading The End of Mr Y by Charlotte Thomas but the main character is so ... meh, and the story is so slow. It's just too annoying so I've abandoned it in favour of a Felix Francis.

How do the Felix Francis novels compare with the original Dick Francis novels? I used to buy those every year if I didn't get one for Christmas. I've been wary of the son's books as he's an unknown quantity. Yes, I know he was co-author on the last few Dick Francis novels, but you can't always judge one person's ability from books with two authors.

You can tell the difference, but they jog along nicely in the usual way.

I'm finding this one a bit weird because it's Sid Halley and he's married with a 6 year old daughter. That's not the weird bit for me. The weird bit is that the daughter has the same name as Gruesome #1

I may check them out on Kindle. Not sure about adding them to my tree-book collection, though.

My sight is still problematic, but I've found it improves enough for me to read in the evening. I'm reading Elizabeth and Leicester by Sarah Gristwood, and Gai-jin by James Clavell.