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

Currently working my way through the old "Shadow" radio drama, something I can close my eyes and simply listen to, available on youtube and long out of copyright.

I don't have much in the way of audio books, just a few we inherited when my mother-in-law died. I do have This Sceptred Isle on CD, which should last me a while. Maybe I should see which of my Kindle books are available, although I don't really like audiobooks. In order of preference: print books if I can hold them, ebooks, audiobooks.

False alarm. Turns out that I have posterior vitreous detachment, which doesn't require treatment. The reading can continue.

Started Conclave by Robert Harris on Kindle, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson in print.

I can't believe that it's nearly eight months since anybody posted to this thread. In that time I've rediscovered the Pern stories by Anne McCaffrey, been persuaded to read the Harry Potter books and discovered the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman (a great name for the author of steampunk fantasy).

I'm currently reading Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien, and La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (who obviously doesn't know that sauvage is masculine), both of which are print books. On Kindle I'm reading The Ghost by Robert Harris, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince by J. K. Rowling and The Crusades by Thomas As ridge.

My mum snatched the newly arrived Aaronovitch from my hands because she 'reads faster' and now she didn't finish it for 3 weeks.

I had the opposite problem, if you can call it that. Mum used to give me her books because she wasn't able to read them. Then we gave her a Kindle with an assortment of books that we thought she'd enjoy. It took her a while to get to grips with it, but she was delighted to be able to read again.

The author of The Crusades is Thomas Asbridge, btw. I don't know whether the problem was predictive text or tired fingers last night.

One of the books I read in the interim was Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop". It is much funnier than you would expect.

I forgot to mention On the Map by Simon Garfield. It's a fascinating book about maps throughout history, from earliest times to modern sat nav, including maps of Mars and maps in games. I'm reading the print version. I'm not sure the black and white illustrations would work on Kindle.

I've finished Harry Potter and started The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman. I love the idea of a dragon taking human form, especially if it's the form of a handsome, athletic man.

I have so many books on the go on Kindle that it's not surprising that it's taking me a while to finish any of them. Here's a list:

The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge - the paperback is a brick
She-wolves by Helen Castor - women who ruled England before Elizabeth I
A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman

Also reading Wolsey by John Matusiak and a book about M. C. Escher, both print books. I'll post again when I'm at least half way through that lot!

Forgot to mention two Kindle books:

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I've read this at least eight times but I keep coming back to it!)

I've finished She-wolves. It's OK if you don't know much about the women in question, but I've read a lot of history over the years, including books about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella. The only sections that gave me anything new were the ones about Matilda and Margaret of Anjou.

Also finished The Burning Page and Flashman. I'm a bit bogged down in The Sword of Shannara. I first read it more than thirty years ago, before I read The Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed it then. Now I'm comparing the two books and finding similarities that I wasn't aware of when I first read the them. It's affecting my enjoyment.

Finished A Game of Thrones and moved on to A Clash of Kings. The Arthur C. Clarke book is a collection of short stories that I dip into from time to time, so that will take a while. I've also started The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders on Kindle.

I have just read a couple of cheap Kindle downloads by an Irish author, Caimh McDonnell. Has all the elements of a good romping read with thriller story and lots of humour. Not great literature but, hey, I was on holiday!

Very few typos or spelling mistakes (which ruin reading for me and which are often found in these Kindle penny dreadfuls) so I was happy enough with them.

Thanks for posting, TC. I was beginning to think that I was the only person still posting to this thread.

Regarding typos/bad spelling in Kindle books, I don't mind so much in "cheap" books. I will complain if the book comes from a quality publisher who ought to know better.

I'm reading 'Dickens' by Peter Ackroyd. It is an informative biography, but it reads as though Ackroyd wrote it like Dickens wrote his novels, in weekly instalments, so it is not very polished in places and I'm finding it heavy going...

I also read a collection of biographies of women mathematicians - there were more typos in that, but it was easier to read. It gave me inspiration for h2g2 Entries A87936123

I think I read his book on Shakespeare, IIRC, but found it hard to stick with. May have been the same problem.

I read Foundation by Peter Ackroyd, a history of England up to the Battle of Bosworth Field. It was readable enough, but it suffered from being an amalgam of other historians work. I appreciate that it's hard, if not impossible, for one person to do a history of England working from primary sources. However, looking at the sources that Ackroyd used, I found myself wondering if he'd used the most recent work on the subject.

Ah! Very interesting...

I read a book aimed at children by him, about the Aztecs, and that was very good - humorous and informative (but also well-edited). I enjoyed The Lambs of London - a fictionalised biography - and also The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein.

I'll press on with Dickens (as it is the 600 page abridged version, not the 1,000+ page one), but I will compare and contrast it with his 'Queer City' in due course

I've started reading The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham on Kindle. I read it when I was much younger (late teens, I think) and thought it was OK. Now I'm aware of how much has changed since it was published in 1953. There's ALVIN, a submersible that could go deeper than the "bathyscope" in the story. Then there's the Blue Planet series that explored the oceans, discovering creatures that had never been seen before. I won't bother mentioning the Cold War US/USSR aggravation. It's not easy to write science fiction that doesn't get out-of-state, but a story is doomed once it brings the politics of the time into the story.

"Out-of-state" in the previous post should have been "out of date".

After finishing The Kraken Wakes, I read The Day of the Triffids. I was surprised to find that I had never read it all the way through before. I'd could remember the first few chapters, but it seems that I'd never got beyond that. In some ways I found it less dated than Kraken.

We're going on holiday tomorrow, so all my reading will be Kindle based. I'm still working my way through Crusades and Clash of Kings. I've added a book about William Armstrong to the collection, and I'm also reading The Coffin Dancer by Jeffrey Deaver.