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

Saturnine, it may interest you to know that the judges of the Booker prize change each year.

RF

"Leonardo - the first scientist" by Michael White - fantastic biography and insight into the life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci.

Also reading: "Fugitive from the cubicle police" by Scott Adams, and "365 pep talks from Buddha" (my toilet book of the moment).

I've nearly finished my book.

I had a look in waterstones today, but couldn't really see much. Anyone recommend anything? Is Starter for Ten good?

Well, if you've never read anything by Iain Banks, I'd say "read something by Iain Banks".

If you've never read anything by Iain Banks, then DO NOT start with The Wasp Factory. Or Complicity, for that matter. Espedair Street is a good jumping-off point, I think.

RF

I'll take a look today

I'm FINALLLY into the last 2 chapters of The Subtle Knife.

I'm finding this trilogy hard work - in the first book I couldn't work out where on earth (....) they were. At least that was kindly explained at the start of book 2.

But the complete po-faced absence of any humour or light relief makes it a not-terribly-enjoyable read in my...erm...book.

Absolutely adored Espedair St (thanks RF!) and would recommend it heartily. Will probably read another Banks before plodding through Amber Spyglass.

The Stand - Stephen King (full version). I read it many times in my dim and distant youth and am thoroughly enjoying it all over again. Also re-reading Perfume - Patrick Suskind.

I'd recommend Whit to any Iain Banks virgins - it's excellent.

DNA: The Secret of Life by James Watson

Raw Spirit: In Search Of The Perfect Dram - Iain Banks. His first non-fiction work, he is paid to travel around Scotland, drink whisky, and write a book about it. It's a hard life being a famous author.

RF

Sir James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough"

I've had this book all my adult life (Dad's old BOTMC edition, the same Kurtz is reading in "Apocalypse Now") never got around to this "must read".

It's musty going, but worth it. Though mostly a fiction person, 'Ive read a bit of "ology"; Campbell, Levi-Strauss, Coe, Freud, Arendt... but this book, for all its faults, towers over everything else. If you want to understand what being human really means, read it.

perhaps not in print these days but complete online:

http://www.bartleby.com/196/

I've read "The Bridge" and "Walking on Glass" by Iain Banks, and I really, really enjoyed almost the whole of these books - but somehow the endings were lost on me. I'll give it another try with "The Wasp Factory" though.

The Wasp Factory is brilliant but gruesome. Or gruesome but brilliant.
You should give it a go, whatever. I love Iain Banks stuff: the last one, Dead Air, was quite good, but Song of Stone (?) is pretty awful.
I think I've probably waxed lyrical about his SF stuff here before, but I don't suppose anyone wades through the backlog, so I'll recommend it all again. Against a Dark Background is good; the Culture stuff is perhaps an acquired taste but I like it, especially because the Culture is just context, rather than the stories being related.

Anyway at the moment I am reading Amin Maalouf's Bathassar's Odyssey, which is about apocalyptic rumours in the Near East in the C15th. Strangely enjoyable as are the others of his I've read but can't remember the names of.

Spooky inadvertant link, there!

I am reading
'The Salmon Of Doubt' By Douglas Adams
'The Blind Watchmaker' By Richard Dawkins

I highly recommend reading

Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy...
Northern Lights The Subtle Knife The Amber Spyglass

There is an amazing fight scene between two bears and the Daemons idea
blew my mind away. Thats not all there are many other ideas in this trilogy that I love.
The way the subtle knife is described is breath-taking.
You are really missing out on a great writer if you have not
read these books.
They can be found in the childrens section of most bookshops and libraries.
Please read them...
so I have more people to talk to about them.

What Daemon do you have????

Just begun Brick Lane by Monica Ali - recommended by several friends. By my recommendation has to be The Shipping News by Annie Proulx - that's really one of the ones that saves your life when you need it.

Am currently reading Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October, theres masses more in the book than the film, even if I do kind of know the ending
Have just finished "The Girl in the Red Coat." This is the autobiography of the girl in the red coat in Schindler's List, who survived the war hiding in Krakow. it was certainly interesting.

Pi was as good 2nd time round, although without the impact of a first reading.

Had a burst and finished the LOTR Appendices and Enigma. Read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and had forgotten how great it is.

I've started Nick Hornby's How to be Good - amazed to find that yet again he writes women most excellently. Am now starting to suspect that he is, in fact, Nicola Hornby.


And I have started (again) The Silmarillion. It is tough going, as usual, but I appear to be thinking about it more (provoked, I think by the folks on the Tolkien thread in Ask h2g2)

and



anyone who is reading it/has read it is welcome to the discussion about it on my PS

Just finished RED RABBIT (Clancy) amd WHOSE BODY? (Dorothy L Sayers) and am reading STAR OF THE SEA (Joseph O'Connor) not as gripping as the other two.

Finished Nick Hornby's How To Be Good. Most excellent. It's disconcerting to find that a man can write such good female characters. I'm still reading The Silmarillion, but only when I have a spare hour (not often)

I've started Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I haven't read it in about 15 years, it's fab.

Just finished Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse, and it's one of his best. See, it's wonderful enough when Wodehouse writes about idiots like Bertie Wooster, but when the main character is actually intelligent…

I'm starting on The Black Tulip by Alexander Dumas. See, my friend is writing a musical based on the book, that the theater club at my school is going to put on next year, and I'm doing the set. So I started reading the book, because I have to research this stuff, and I'm enjoying it very much. Very good story with (so far at least) some dry humor.