Partly because I'm looking foward to the film version and partly because the author was on the writing staff of The Wire, I've just finished reading Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane, and a great book it was. It starts with the kidnapping of a four year-old girl from her home whilst her alcoholic, drug-taking mother is out and only gets darker, taking in child molesters, drug dealers and vicious killers, all the while being told through Lehane's entertaining and wonderfully written prose. I'm still thinking about the ending, and that doesn't happen a lot with crime novels.

Who Goes There? by John W Campbell
Apparently this is one of the most printed SF short stories ever! Took me long enough to find a copy of it. The story that inspired The Thing. Very impressive considering it was first published in 1938. Can't believe how wrong Howard Hawks got his film version, and how great a job the John Carpenter version did in expandng the story.

Now I need some advice from the SF buffs here. This is in a large book of collected SF stories I bought. Can anyone recommend any of these that are also in the collection

C.L. Moore, "Shambleau"
A.E. Van Vogt, "Black Destroyer"
Lee Gregor, "Heavy Planet"
P. Schuyler Miller, "Spawn"
Ross Rocklynne, "Quietus"
Chester S. Geier, "Environment"
Arthur C. Clarke, "Rescue Party"
Theodore Sturgeon, "Thunder and Roses"
C.M. Kornbluth, "The Only Thing We Learn"
Wyman Guin (writing as Norman Menasco), "Trigger Tide"
Jack Vance, "Liane the Wayfarer"
Fritz Leiber, "A Pail of Air"
Michael Shaara, "All the Way Back"
Poul Anderson, "Turning Point"
Robert Ernest Gilbert, "Thy Rocks and Rills"
Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations"
Fredric Brown, "Answer"
Robert Sheckley, "Hunting Problem"
L. Sprague de Camp, "A Gun For Dinosaur"
Isaac Asimov, "The Last Question,"
H. Beam Piper, "Omnilingual"
Robert A. Heinlein, "The Menace From Earth"
Gordon R. Dickson, "St. Dragon and the George"
Christopher Anvil, "The Gentle Earth"
Murray Leinster, "The Aliens"
Rick Raphael, "Code Three"
James H. Schmitz, "Goblin Night"
Keith Laumer, "The Last Command"

Today I was reading a bit of The Fade by Chris Wooding. I haven't read it for a few months and it feels like I'm reading it for the first time all over again. Nice!

I've read Rant. I hell of a read and even if the genre of oral biography makes it quite hard to get into a reading for the first 50 pages I was thrilled from start to finish. I think this book is the best attempt of Palahniuk to merge the story itself with the way it is told. Some of the twists are pure genius in my eyes. It's probably the most thrilling fun I've read in ages.

Now I'm reading In search of Captain Zero. Much deeper than I expected a book about a surfer trying to find his friend to be.

Not a book, as such, but over the last few days I read Stephen King's novella The Mist in preparation for watching the film this weekend. Very good, probably my favourite thing that King has written (that I've read). Succinct, thrilling and damn creepy, as well as being pretty bleak.

Oh you are in for a real treat.




If you haven't read them Running Man and Longest Walk might well change that.

I've got the Bachman Books to read (and a pre-Columbine version at that, complete with [I]Rage[/B]) so I'll get around to them eventually. I've still got to finish The Stand but I'm currently reading The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster in my brief breaks at work. My first Auster and I'm enjoying it immensely.

I'm re-reading this now! I love it. I just finished Oracle Night and it made me want more Auster. He's got a new one out in August.

Seconded. The Longest Walk is my favourite King.

Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith

A conversational, ghost-assembled, auto-biography of the Fall frontman. He is the Nietzsche of pop. Provocative, fiercely idiosyncratic, severe, arrogant, hilarious, mabye wrong but brilliant. The two also share a prophetic and poetic inclination. With Smith's Diogenes stance his sharp take on things is amusing and interesting. However, much like Nietzsche, he doesn't much attempt to explain his remarks which thus function as scornful observations expressing his unquestioned prejudices. He rarely develops his thought to the extent which would illuminate his cranky, enigmatic persona. It's a very funny and brief read, limited by Smith's reluctance to argue his position.

I read some of that in Borders the other week. As soon as I read his attack (there isn't really any other word for it) on the former members of The Fall who quit during an American tour, I knew it was going to make for interesting, if shambolic, reading.

Any fans of Michael Marshall Smith might want to look out for an interview with him in a writing magazine that's out at the moment. Can't remember which one, but he's on the cover and the interview is a nice little insight into his inspirations and writing.

I finished this today and I also loved it. So funny, intelligent and it maintained the perfect balanced between real emotion, well-drawn characters and absurdist comedy. There were several moments where I really wanted to cheer the characters on in their successes and their setbacks were quite heartbreaking. I could see the ending coming, in one form or another, given the setting of the book, though the actual unfolding of those events did surprise me in the end. Absolutely wonderful and I can't wait to sample some more Auster.

Following Terry Pratchett praising them in a radio interview, I've been tempted to check out the Earthsea series by Ursula K. LeGuin. Can anyone else second the recommendation, as I can get the first 4 books for a fiver on play.com and it's very tempting.

I love the trilogy. The fourth book is a much later addition. I've not read it, but it's supposed to be a feminist reaction against what Le Guin considers to be the sexism of the earlier books. Definitely worth it for the first three, anyway.

Cheers, Chappers. I really like the sound of the series so I think I'll give it a go.

Earthsea is awesome! You'll love it! You should also try The Left Hand Of Darkness. It's one of the best books I have ever read.

Richard and Judy's Book Club List Announced

Congratulations! You're all about to become millionaires.

There are none this year that I've read, but I have heard bad things about 'The Pirate's Daughter'.

Which should cushion the blow of being recommended by Dickhead and Juggsy.

I'm sure the money, international acclaim and Hollywood movie adaptations are a real bitch. Audrey Niffenegger and Alice Sebold must be barely able to cope with the shame.

Awww Richard and Judy, I'll miss their special blend of inappropriateness and alcoholic shakes at teatime.

I'm sure they couldn't care less.

I just can't stand Richard and Judy.

I do always feel a little bit dirty for reading anything recommended by R&J, even if it's really good. Certainly, one is compelled to peel off the sticker before it's seen out in public.

I still feel embarrassed that I've read 'The Lovely Bones', even if it was a year before Richard and Judy recommended it.

I got about a quarter of the way through it before I had to put it down. And burn it.

I've just finished reading (for the first time) Bram Stoker's Dracula.

It's very good, and written in the form of diary entries, letters and journals. It's very good, although it ends a bit quickly. I wonder if he had a deadline to reach.

Next up - The Crow Road.

Darkman
It took me ages to finally finish this after getting a little bored last time around. Then again, it looks like I gave up about a page before it started getting good. I loved the film, and this is a straightforward adaptation, so I should have realised really.

A Clockwork Orange
Finally, second time around it was a lot easier to get into the nadsat. Not sure about the final chapter, whether it was just a bit too upbeat.

Native Son

Story about a 20 year old negro living in poverty in Chicago who gets the chance to work for a wealthy white family as a driver. He accidentally kills a white woman and the story goes from there through the investigation and trial. I really enjoyed it, had a couple of moments where it dragged but was very much a study type book. I can imagine an English Literature course going to town on it but if anything that increased my enjoyment. It was recommended to me because one of my favourite books is To Kill A Mockingbird and it's very much along the same lines of inequality and race, although Native Son also has a bit of Communism thrown in.

They're my favourite books ever, is that a good enough recommendation?



Tehanu is a great read, though very different to the other 3. The Other Wind (book 5 and final), and the Tales From Earthsea short stories are also well worth reading. The Tombs of Atuan (book 2) is my favourite.


I read Phillip Reeve's Mortal Engines and Predator's Gold recently, and I'm currently just under half-way through his 3rd book, Infernal Devices. A very unique vision of the future, full of airships and so on, and cities on wheels that have to attack and consume each-other in order to survive, as no natural resources of any kind exist after a war thousands of years ago that nobody knows anything about, and in fact no-one even knows when cities first started having wheels. Very interesting reads.

Just picked up The Light Fantastic, and I have to resist reading it until Thursday when I go on that university trip. I don't know if I can last that long now that I actually have it...

Those are very good. I was chided into reading Mortal Engines by a co-worker and ended up loving it.

I have to say, The Resurrectionist is one of the worst titles I've ever read.

Neil Gaiman interviews Terry Pratchett.

I was in Waterstones in Greenwich on Saturday and noticed that there is a new* hardback re-issue of Good Omens on the shelves, with an interview with Pratchett and Gaiman in it.

*Well, when I say new, it came out last year, apparently!

I finally finished Blindness by Jose Saramago this morning. I say ''finally'' because I've just not had the time to really spend as much time with it as I hoped. It was initially slow going, not because it was bad; it's probably one of the best books I've ever read, but because of Saramago's style, which is particularly strange and alienating of you've never experienced it before. Saramago's style consists of sentences that can be a paragraph long, paragraphs that can be a chapter long, and no traditional delineation between characters so you end with things like this:



This is a tad confusing at times, making it difficult to tell who is speaking, particularly if any bit of speech begins with 'I', but I managed to overcome my initial insecurity about the style and found a rich, deep and wondrous book about humanity, the depths it can sink to and the hopes that keep it going. The plot is reasonably simple; a strange epidemic of blindness hits an unnamed city in an unnamed country, taking away the eyesight of those who encounter it, with the exception of one woman (played by Julianne Moore in the forthcoming film, fact fans) who bears witness to the breakdown of human decency and societal mores as the blind are herded into quarantine and left to fend for themselves. A really powerful and beautiful book, even if I occasionally had to reread sections to work out what was going on.

Over the last four days I read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, which worked out nicely since the events of the book take place over roughly four days, adding to the sense of tension and paranoia that pervades the book. However, it didn't need any help in this regard, since the story of two U.S. Marshals sent to investigate a mysterious mental health facility in 1954 was already pretty damn eerie and had me gripped throughout. It's an interesting mix of thriller, Cold War paranoia (there are certain tinges of and references to McCarthyism in the narrative) and an atmosphere not dissimilar to that found in the works of the Bronte sisters. Very good, and I can't wait for the DiCaprio-Scorsese film adaptation due next Autumn.

Also, fans of Haruki Murakami should watch Imagine tonight on BBC1 at 10:35, as he is the subject of this weeks episode.

I've just finished reading Starter For Ten.
Very entertaining. I've heard the film was a bit shit, but I'd really like to see it now.

I read that earlier in the year, and I can't remember another book where after a really enjoyable build up I've been more disappointed with the finale.

I found the film was better, it was like Nicholls had been given a second chance to get it right (as he wrote the screenplay).

Where I would watch the film again, I wouldn't waste time re-reading the book.

It's only £3 in HMV at the moment.

Just finished The Light Fantastic yesterday.

Where to go next? Of course, I am limited by the fact that my local library only has about five Discworlds in total...

Guards! Guards! is a good place to go, assuming you can get hold of it. It's one of the best and is a nice introduction to The Watch, a group of characters whose collective arc is one of the best of the series, and particularly the character of Sam Vimes, who's brilliant.

Okay, thanks! I'll keep my fingers crossed that my library has it. At the worst, I can always go to the one in the city centre this weekend.

There are also a lot of our opinions about the various books in the Discworld thread so I'd advise you have a nose through there as well. I'd agree with Ed about Guards! Guards!, the next two books Mort and Equal Rites are brilliant as well.

Having read and enjoyedStardust a little while ago I finally got around to buying Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, although I've only read the Prologue so far. I've been drawn in already, going to start it properly before bed I think.

Mort is terrific, and Equal Rites is good fun, though I do think that it pales in comparison next to the subsequent Granny Weatherwax books, suffering as it does from not really fitting into the chronology that followed. Still good, mind, but I think that the series as a whole got better as Pratchett moved away from single, unconnected stories to more ongoing ones that depended on knowledge of the characters for the most enjoyment.

I'd stay as you are and continue reading them in order, if you can.



How so? (apart from they never mention Esk again).

Just finished Stealing Light by Gary Gibson. It was pretty good considering Waterstones are selling it for £4.99. Worth a read, although there was potential for it to have been better than it was. A 'superior alien race/ancient alien artifact' galaxy spanning romp, with intrigue, betrayal and even a bit of a love story.

Oh, and just found out it's 1 of 3, although the others haven't been written yet, so yay! Reviews on line are largely positive, comparing him in style and scope to Peter F Hamilton. I guess we'd have to wait till the rest of the series comes out to really make that comparison though.

That, the lack of any mention of female wizards in the rest of the series, Granny ending up in Ankh Morpork and a few other little things that don't really fit in with the rest of the series.

Spoilered so as not to ruin anything for SBI.

I never read that into it, I just assumed she went home again at some point, it's not like she was fated to stay in the city forever. Also, almost the entire faculty of the Unseen University changes in the early books, I just put all that down to the passage of time between the stories.

It's true that Pratchett does evolve the back story for his characters as the books go along, and as he explores the Discworld things do get more consistent, but at the same time I don't think there is an early book that doesn't fit with the later ones, so I would suggest again reading them in publication order.

I've just started reading Tolkien's posthumous Children of Hurin on my lunch break. One of the earliest things he ever composed and possibly showing more than many of his other writings, his love of the medieval epic poem style. It has all the shades of, as you would expect, Beowulf and Waldere and even nods to The Knight in the Panther Skin and so far it's an enjoyable read. The tragedy that penetrates the story is where much of the sadness in the (chronologically) later tales stems from. Many of the sad songs in LOTR etc come from this very story and others that dip in and out of it. It's an obvious must for fans and I'm looking forward to getting through it all.

Is it hard going? I read the Silmarillion which was very interesting to go into details about many of the things that are barely mentioned in the main story. Who and what are Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and the rest? Famous elven ancestors. The creation of middle earths world, the gods, the rings, the ring wraiths. It really sets tolkiens books apart from so many others because of the depth of backstory that you don't need, but is amazin if you want to dive into it. But it is hard going.

A friend of mine likened it to reading Leviticus, but you have to remember that the Silmarillon was a book Tolkien spent most of his adult life working on, and never finished.

The Lord of the Rings is a tiny fraction of the history of Middle Earth, there are two whole Ages before Bilbo finds the One Ring.

The thing is, I;ve read other books that are even harder to get into. I read some of the Unfinished Tales vol 1. If I remember rightly (it was a while ago, and I wasn't entirely - sober - for a long time) it's lots of little stories, like notes that he's written about a specific event or character or family line, as reminders for the sake of continuity, that have been combined and fleshed out. It doesn't make for easy reading as so much of it is disjointed. Almost like reading a history book, written in beautiful prose, where it talks about the ancestors of Alexander the Great one moment, then a chapter on the American-Indian world creation beliefs, then a bit on the build up to the battle of Hastings, then maybe how the Canary Islands were colonised, followed by a piece on the Picts. It doesn't make for easy, consistent reading.

I've not tried to read the Silmarillion, but I did read most of the appendix at the back of Lord of the Rings (I stopped when it started going into how the various calendars worked!).

I'm interested in how Tolkien devised the world and I do find the back story interesting so it's probably something I should read at some point.