*What book are you reading ?

[Virtual Blue]

Seven Tales of Sex and Death - Patricia Duncker.

Best book I read this year.

 

[onemonkey]

I'm reading Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which I bought for the ridiculous price of £3.76 in Tescos.

Neil Gaiman has hailed it as the greatest novel about magic for 70 years.

that's quite a recommendation..

i own a copy but i am not too sure who has it at the moment

 

[Brainaddict]

I'm reading Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which I bought for the ridiculous price of £3.76 in Tescos.

Neil Gaiman has hailed it as the greatest novel about magic for 70 years. I don't know about that* but I am thoroughly enjoying it and will be doing so for some time as it is over 1000 pages long! After a weekend spent mostly reading (again) I'm halfway through.

If you like Neil Gaiman, you are pretty much guaranteed to like this.

*I'm sure Mr Model will have something to say on the subject.

I just finished this. It's an interesting book but I'm not quite sure what to think of it (very rare for me ). It's *way* too long, over-researched and under-edited in one sense, but it does have that quality of good fantasy books that it can immerse you in an alternative world.

Did anyone else think that she *must* be familiar with hallucinogens to create her interestingly strange version of magic? Some of the magic scenes actually reminded me of trips I have had...

 

[IntoStella]

I just finished this. It's an interesting book but I'm not quite sure what to think of it (very rare for me ). It's *way* too long, over-researched and under-edited in one sense.

I agree. It's all very well but there's just so MUCH of it.

Maybe in this world of Harry Potter, publishers think people want 'value for money' in the form of books as thick as a breezeblock. But Lord of the Rings it ain't. I can't help thinking some judicious pruning would not have gone amiss (and I am still only half way through). She could have worked some of the ideas in the copious footnotes into something else, perhaps short fiction. It gets a bit tiring reading all that script in minuscule type.

More to the point, I am nervous of reading it in bed in case I fall asleep and drop it on my nose.

I am also not entirely sure about the Pickmanesque spelling of words such as 'shew', 'chuse' and 'scissars'.

 

[jms]

To Kill A Mockingbird (for school)

Bill Bryson - Down Under (for myself)
TKV

 

[Pickman's model]

that's quite a recommendation..

i own a copy but i am not too sure who has it at the moment

it's not with me.

 

[dormouse]

Brick lane... a suprisingly good read.

I thought that too... unlike White Teeth which I'd always somehow equated it with and didn't particularly like.

 

[Dubversion]

Pie Eye has been recommending the Jonathan Strange book so i might give it a shot. i'm just coming to the end of Houllebecq's Platform which is entertainingly 'wrong'.

 

[bluestreak]

i've been reading mr norrell and jonathon strange for a few days now and i'm finiding absolutely enchanting. exactly the sort of book that i wish i had written.

 

[rennie]

I thought that too... unlike White Teeth which I'd always somehow equated it with and didn't particularly like.

Haven't read it and don't intend to either.

 

[onemonkey]

Pie Eye has been recommending the Jonathan Strange book so i might give it a shot.'.

so that's where it is

 

[colbhoy]

I'm reading L.A Requiem by Robert Crais. Picked it up in a book sale at work. It is excellent, I have read one of James L Burke books, the highly rated crime writer and think Crais is better.

 

[Dubversion]

so that's where it is

i don't think she has it, which is why i was planning to buy it.

 

[onemonkey]

i don't think she has it, which is why i was planning to buy it.

you can borrow mine if we can find it.. i think it was last seen in the grubby hands of that filter child

 

[onemonkey]

I am currently reading Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan.. yet more brain melting hyperphysics and Strong A.I.

not the most gripping but again dazzlingly inventive..

 

[killer b]

matthew sweet's 'imagining the victorians' - a pretty entertaining debunking of loads of myths about our 19th century predecesors, with loads of rauckus(sp?) tales.

 

[tastebud]

still reading regeneration but have also started oryx and crake by margaret atwood.

 

[Orang Utan]

Both are fantastic - good choices!

 

[Dubversion]

Both are fantastic - good choices!

btw, how come you weren't on University Challenge last night?

 

[tastebud]

Both are fantastic - good choices!

ace!
and earlier on the thread someone recommended the other pat barker books, which i would imagine my dad/sister have and am really looking forward to. so far, so good.

 

[Orang Utan]

btw, how come you weren't on University Challenge last night?

You've lost me there

 

[Orang Utan]

ace!
and earlier on the thread someone recommended the other pat barker books, which i would imagine my dad/sister have and am really looking forward to. so far, so good.

The others are great too and not just the WW1 novels - she's one of my favourite writers - few novelists have her humanity and can show how people can do such evil, yet remain so uncynical about humanity.

 

[Dubversion]

 

[Orang Utan]

Ah! Did we win the final then?

 

[Dubversion]

nope, because all the questions were about Detroit techno and Jones only knew about the Sheffield stuff. you let them down!

 

[flimsier]

Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs. Same old same old.

 

[Orang Utan]

nope, because all the questions were about Detroit techno and Jones only knew about the Sheffield stuff. you let them down!

Oh well - don't like those cunts anyway, esp Jenny Haddon - she got the hump with me cos I kept pointing out her appalling spelling in her newsletters

 

[Echo Beach]

Finished Cloud Atlas, yay! Great book and I highly recommend it

Now I'm going through HG Well's 'The War in the Air', and it's quite fun though not the same as his classics.

 

[Dubversion]

finished Platform. what a cheery little number that was..

"For the West, i don't feel hatred; at most i feel a great contempt. I know that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live; and what's more, we continue to export it."

cheer up - it might never happen

 

[tangerinedream]

Mac fucking beth.

It's doing my head in, I hate reading Shakespeare, the only way I can understand it is to actually produce it or watch a good production of it. I don't have time to think about how i'd produce it and it's making me cross I keep getting confused. The book I have explains perfectly obvious terms and not stupid elizebethan words. I'm only up to act 1 sc3 as well.