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

Apart from what is on the monitor of course! I'm reading Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster - very very good.

Yesterday I read Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card. Excellent stuff. Takes place at the same time as Ender's Game, but is not a sequel. You could just as easily read either one first, and this later one might be better.

(As I side note, I literally read it yesterday. All of it. I started about 3am and finished around 7 or 8pm I think, with a break for a few hours of sleep, a shower and a short trip to the grocery store. )

A few days before I finished Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. Very slow in comparison, certainly not one of Pratchett's best.

I'm now out of books I haven't already read. Think I'm gonna try some Wodehouse.

The first Wodehouse I read was, I think, a short story called "Meet Mr. Mulliner" and it was the first time in my life that a book had made me laugh out loud. As regards Pratchett, I have read them all with the exception of the latest,. Is it me or are they 'less good' than the first few? "Equal Rites" etc?

Yeah, I'm beginning to think so too. My favorites are Mort, Reaper Man (I should read that again though), well, the Death series still seem to be pretty good. (I liked Soul Music & Hogfather.) I also like the standalone Pyramids and Moving Pictures.

I've just recently finished 'Children of the Mind' by Orson Scott Card, the fourth part of the Ender trilogy. Also excellent stuff.

At the moment, I'm reading 'The Fifth Elephant' by Terry Pratchett and, in parallel, 'Endless Night' by Richard Laymon.

The latter, a horor novel, is not something I would normally read but was recommended by a friend who is a complete Laymon nut.

As it goes it is quite gripping reading and I will probably read some more of his stuff. I've got 'The Stake' waiting in the wings and 'Body Rides' is another recommendation.

I haven't read too much lately, but I usually like anything written by humor columnist Dave Barry. He has some very funny books.

I'm reading 3 books in parallel - nice trick if you can do it without frying your brain.

1. The Seventh Scroll by Wilbur Smith. This is my bedtime reading, and it's well up to his usual standard.
2. The 6 Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser. This is the book I relax with in the evening.
3. The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine by Audrey Salkeld and someone whose name I can't remember! This is about two men involved in one of the early attempts to climb Everest. Very interesting if you're into that kind of thing.

Currently "Frameshift" by Robert J. Sawyer.

'Journey to Cubeville' by Scott Adams. Funny, painfully true to life, and like all good things, much shorter than any of my guide entries!

HELP ME....
I've run out of books to read and nothing in my bookcase interested me so I borowed one of my sisters books - A Mills & Boon romance.
Now normally I steer clear of romance book but I was desperate for something to read and you can only read the newspaper so many times through the day!

These books should have an R or X rating on them because whoa! the sex scenes in them are pretty graphic. My sister told me that the book I borrowed was a tame one compared to some. Now I know why they are so popular. As much as this book has been 'stimulating' I'd rather stick to my type of books...going to the library...

The last book I read was The World of Henry Lawson, edited by Walter Stone. Any Aussies out there would know the great poet and story writer that was Henry Lawson.

Try the Book Nook at the aroma cafe http://www.h2g2.com/A229943, Theyre pretty good for ideas.

I just finished reading what is perhaps the best book I've ever read... it's called 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid'. It's about... well, it's about a lot of things. It's about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which proves, basically, that there are always true facts which cannot be proved, no matter what system you use; it's about Bach's music, and Escher's drawings; it's about Artificial Intelligence, and the limits of computer programs and logic; it touches on Zen, and discusses in detail where human intelligence arises from; it frequently surprises and forces you to think in new ways.

It succeeds in getting across some of the most important concepts in mathematics and logic, without actually assuming any prior knowledge... it's a *good* book. It's also very entertaining... each 'serious' chapter is preceded by a dialogue, which introduces some of the ideas in that chapter in an interesting and often humorous way.

Having finished the book, I now find myself reading two Terry Pratchett books simultaneously, to sustain the same level of interest... (well, the first part is true. The real reason is because 'An Eternal Golden Braid' got me to thinking about how my mind works, and I wondered just how good I am at keeping track of what's going on). Anyhow, I can definitely recommend it to anyone who's ever wondered what infinity *really* means...

Happy reading!

26199

Amen Brother

I am currently reading Stark by Ben Elton because I enjoy a good laugh, and I am in no way dissapointed. What a funny book, and being a Terry Pratchett fan this is no easy task.
However I have just one small problem. It takes me a decade to read the damn thing, and there is no real reason why. O.K I am not the fastest reader in the world, in fact I'm on the same level as Joey out of Friends, but I do enjoy reading.
I did solve the problem once. I spent a two week holiday with my wife in Majorca. Oh well.
Why isn't Terry Pratchett knighted???
"Librarian for Mayor"

Nonono, if you're going to read three books in parallel, Cheerful Dragon, you have to read 'em by alternate pages to get the full effect .

Try it some time, especially with books with the same characters in... I just finished reading 'Sourcery' and 'The Light Fantastic' (both Terry Pratchett), and it's an interesting experience...

Strangely enough, I didn't have much problems with the characters appearing in two different places at once (from my point of view)... until it came to the Luggage (for non-TP fans: a magic box with legs). For some reason - maybe because my mind sees the Luggage as an object - I had trouble with it appearing in completely different situations in the two stories.

*grin* I've joked about working up until I can read *all* the Discworld series simultaneously... but now I come to think of it, it'd be an interesting challenge... (and, in addition, a very long-winded way of finding out which is the longest Discworld book ).

26199

I'm with Cheerful Dragon on the simultaneous reading of lots of books. I like to have a selection on the go for when the right mood strikes. At the moment I'm reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Count Zero by William Gibson, Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett and attempting James Joyce's Finnegans Wake in my less sane moments. I'm not sure the alternate page theory would work very well with this selection.
While you're talking about Discworld, the Luggage is one of my favourite characters in the whole series. If anyone knows where I can find some sapient pearwood, I want a Luggage of my own please!

26199; Do you suspect you have too much free time on your hands?

No I just think 26199 has spent too much time answering simultaneous forums like the rest of us.

Too much free time? Not since I took up juggling... now I have just the right amount of free time.

Knife juggling, in particular, fills in those little gaps in the day when you've nothing better to do.

26199

I don't tend to rad more then one book at a time principally cos it only usually takes me a few hours to read any book - it begins to seem like skimming through a newspaper or something similar. As to what I've read recently, Point of Origin by Patricia Cornwell, (as a way of breaking my sci-fi fixation), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (briliant!), and Inferno and Utopia by Roger McBride Allen, would be some of the books read over the last week or so. The McBride Allen books are based on Asimov's Robot series, and are pretty good, considering the level of genius they are attempting to emulate. I believe he was involved in the initial storyline development though he didn't actually write them.