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

Well, I read 'The Handmaid's Tale' as part of a degree in English Literature, so I'd read a lot of good books before and have since, but I still rate it very highly. Atwood has a very distinctive style, and I can see that for someone who is new to her work it may be difficult to adjust to, but I certainly wouldn't consider the book to be badly written.

As for the historical notes, I agree that they are jarring, but I think they are meant to be. The purpose is to provide a layer of detachment from the main narrative, to try to convince us that rather than simply reading a dystopian fantasy we are reading an account of events that could actually have happened.

Still, each to their own I suppose. What would you suggest as a better read?

If you read it for a degree arent you reading it for a different reason?

the virgin suicides and middlesex both by jeffrey eugenides
the impressionist by hari kunzru
Jesus freaks by dc talk and the voice of the martyrs
too small for basketball by kris kenway
hanna's daughters by marianne Fredriksson
the seal wife by kathryn harrison
the love hexagon by william sutcliffe
tia's story (bril but can't remember who wrote it)
and of course hitch hiker's guide to galaxy triology bril - listen to the tapes if you havent already

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

I forgot to mention it in my last post.

~~A~~

"Fuhrer-Ex: Memoirs of a former neo-nazi"
By Ingo Hasslebach with Tom Reiss.

Interesting stuff.

the monkey king by timothy mo
the lions of al rassan by guy gavriel kaye

Life changing books? Cracking good reads?

I, Robot - Asimov; excellent use of logic and cracking good stories
Farenheit 451 - Bradbury;
Good to Great - Collins; probably the best management text book ever written and the only one based on solid data
The Terminal Man - Crichton; way ahead of its time
Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Neuromancer - Gibson; you have to read them all
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - Gray; probably the best key to relationships ever written
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes; one of the most tragic pieces of SF ever
To Kill a Mocking Bird - Lee; thought provoking and more relevant today than ever
1984, Animal Farm - Orwell; probably one of the most intelligent authors of the 20th century
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig; want to understand an engineer?
Macbeth - Shakespeare; probably the best tradegy ever written (others would say Hamlet)
Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare; probably the best love story ever written
The Devil's Disciple - Shaw; never judge a book by its cover or a play by its title
Lord Of The Rings - Tolkien; if you haven't read it you are in a minority
The Time Machine - Wells; the grand-daddy of SF
The Chrysalids - Wyndham; the problem with being different

The poems of Wilfrid Owen, Siegfreid Sassoon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespeare, W. H. Auden and others - all of whom have something to say and usually say it well.

I have to agree with many of you on the value of Hardy. Joyce is another painful read and highly over rated, which also enjoys a high school rating.

Took a while to read the backlog, pity I missed the conversation from the start.

Backlog? It's 4 weeks since I posted and if you think I'm going to read all that lot when I find little enough time for reading as it is (indulging far too much time on h2g2 as I do).
But I just thought I should endorse the Joh Irving recommendation. I've read most of them, not one was a duffer.

The Little Book of Management B*****ks by Alistair Beaton.

I've started carrying this around in my handbag, contains such gems as:

Loyalty

Demonstrate your commitment to your employer by staying in the office 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week and communicating with your family by videao-confrencing.
Maintain healthy relations with your children by sending them e-mails on their birthdays.
(Your pc can be programmed to do this automatically.)

Blatent BookMark

My favorite book is An Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison.