Interesting. What was it that you didn't like about it? I found the pace pretty glacial, but generally I didn't find too much to dislike.

Pip's quite annoying but otherwise, I'm on your side.

I just ordered Thank You For Smoking on Amazon.

It took me an awfully long time to finish (I got stuck at a certain point and then ended up rereading Poison and Good Omens instead), but it was worth it in the end.

I'm most of the way through Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. It's bloody good.

I read two books (well, one and a half) on the flight. I finished jPod by Douglas Coupland, which I enjoyed but found a little disparate and unfocused. It's very funny and, as someone who worked in the video games industry, I thought it was well observed, and the idea of it being a novel written as if someone was reading it on a computer - complete with digressions into e-mails and websites - was interesting, but ultimately I didn't really care that much about the characters in the way that I have when reading other Coupland novels. There was still an awful lot to like in it, though.

After that, I read Double Indemnity by James M. Cain. I'm a big fan of the film, and the book was just as sleazy, sexy and bleak in its view of humanity. The ending is radically different to that of the film, but both endings get the same point across and suit their respective mediums. I was quite surprised to see that the dictation machine that is so central to the film is also in the book, since I thought that the machine might have been an addition to make sense of the voiceover structure of that version.

I then got 50 pages into Clockers by Richard Price, but then whilst idly flicking through the pages I discovered that about thirty pages of my copy consist of blank pages, double-printed pages, and pages where the writing is so faded as to be illegible. This is very annoying since I was really getting into Clockers, but don't want to continue if I know I'm only going to get to a certain point and have to stop. So I've now switched to Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, which is so far much more emotionally involving than jPod, and if it keeps being as good as it is then it could supplant Girlfriend in a Coma as my favourite of his novels.

I vaguely remember Hey, Nostradamus! being very engaging. Have you read Microserfs? I find those characters a little easier to like than those of JPod, but then I also found that JPod worked better after Microserfs.

I read Microserfs and jPod in that order and would have to say that I found Microserfs the better of the two by a long way.

Here's my review of jPod from the beginning of last year:

Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby.

Always a fan of Horno and I quite liked this. Covered the pomposity of internet forums quite nicely (he's obviously not seen this one...) and although I had the feeling I knew where it was going, there some laugh out loud moments and I liked the sound of living by the seaside.

My main issue was I didn't really like Tucker Crowe (the musician in it).

It's on my ever-growing Too Read List. I'll definitely check it out since I've loved pretty much everything other Coupland I've read, but JPod just didn't do it for me.

I started reading The Gum Thief this evening, because of the above exchange.

I've only just seen this. It was part of my 7th grade curriculum, and I found the Victorian-ness of the whole thing really suffocating.

Oliver Twist brought me back around to Dickens, but I've still never re-read Great Expectations.

I liked that one. It was a little weird, though.

His latest, Generation A was a return to form as far as I'm concerned.

Ah, I understand that completely. I'm the same with The Great Gatsby.

Gonna get started on 'Lost in a good book' by Jasper Fforde later. Really enjoyed 'Eyre affair'

You'll enjoy it.

Yay!

It's rather good. Although I suggest you note down some of the things that happened in the Eyre Affair because I'd forgotten.

Restless - William Boyd

Single mum finds out mum used to be a spy, cue flashbacks to the past and mystery solving flipping between World War II and the seventies. Pretty good.

I'm Stephen Baxtering myself up at the moment. I got the Xeelee Omnibus and I've worked my way through Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and I've almost finished Ring. I've really enjoyed the way each book has a central concept, like in Raft the gravitaional force, normally incredibly weak, is billions of times stronger so the entire universse is completely different in every way imaginable, or Flux is set around a community of almost post-technology pastoral micro people made of tin who measure distances in centimetres and metres and live in a neutrino superfluid in the photosphere of a star. Brilliant. Might have to see if there's an anthology of the short stories so that I can fill in the gaps in the 10 million year timeline...

Indeed it was. I was really impressed with his ability to give each of the four narrators their own unique voices and viewpoints, particularly since those viewpoints cast the other narrators in very different lights as the book progressed. I also thought that his unwillingness to comment to heavily on the cause of the school shooting at the start of the book was a great strength, since he really understood that the causes aren't as important to the characters as the effects, and how the shooting cast a pall over their lives, even people like Heather, who wasn't directly involved. I think I much prefer Coupland when hs is in philosophical, character-driven road, as opposed to the more bitingly sarcastic Coupland of JPod.

In that case, I think you'd love Generation: A, then.

I found Oh What A Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe in a free book share bin at work. Zoe is right. It is really really good.

Finished The Gum Thief, I really enjoyed it, a lot better than jPod.

Currently reading Mystery Man by Colin Bateman.

I think Christopher Moore fans would love it (except that it doesn't have anything that bends reality too much) as it's funny, the lead character is quite quite OCD and it's about a book shop.

Recommended.

Finished Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist Really wish I'd read this before I'd seen the film, but either way it's still both shocking and gripping. starts slowly and is not as terrifying as it would have been, but well worth a read.

I finished reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow yesterday. I really, really liked it. Doctorow is clearly very passionate about the rights of people in the digital age and he interweaves his concerns into a compelling narrative about a 17 year old kid who gets taken prisoner by the Department of Homeland Security following a terrorist task, and who fights back against the abuses of power he sees taking hold of his beloved San Francisco. It bristles with teenage rebellion and, if I'd read it when I was 17, it would probably have blown my mind.

I've now started two books; my public book - the one I can read on the train or at work - is Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard (brought on by watching Justified) and my at home book - the one I will get flack for if I read it anywhere other than at home - is My Booky Wook by Russell Brand. They have both proven very entertaining so far, but for very different reasons.

I read that last year, really enjoyed it. Funny, and just a bit clever too. In my head he was like a book version of Bernard Black, albeit less nutty and more organised version (like trying to avoid customers when they ring). I'll say no more, as I don't know how far in you are.

I hope there's a follow up though with these characters, that would be great.

I didn't know his (Bateman) first name actually. I hadn't heard of him previously.

I've just started reading The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss and am really enjoying it so far. The only problem is finding the time to read!

I'm reading Wide Open by Nicola Barker. Out of the trendy Granta list style authors - she is the few (like Peace, Coe and Mitchell) who have an original voice. Alan Warner is perhaps similar stuff. I don't think she is the best writer of the lot but she is good and proof that many writers improve with age. Here is a recent interview - she sounds both humble and funny. I will try her more comic stuff next. This one is quite dark and sinister.

As a reward for finishing a script and an article this morning (why do I do more work on my days off than I ever do when I'm actually working?) I decided to sit out in the sun and read a few pages. In the end, I wound up finishing it. I really enjoyed it and thought it was a frank, honest and funny book that unflinchingly tackles the various addictions Brand has had to overcome; alcohol, drugs, and sex. Unlike a lot of "survivor" tales, though, Brand never hides the fact that he did these things because he enjoyed doing them, and his willingness to so completely grapple with his demons did a lot to establish just what was at stake for him, both personally and professionally. He's got a skill for choosing the perfect phrase to evoke a scene (my favourite: "It was like an orgy directed by Mike Leigh" to describe a particularly grim encounter in a high-rise) and that skill raises the book from being just a series of tawdry anecdotes with a hint of pathos. You really feel like you know him by the end of the book, and whilst it doesn't make me like his comedy any more than I already do (I find him very hit and miss and only really liked his radio show) I came to like him more as a person.

Also, there's lots of sex in it.

^Sounds like an interesting read, I shall check it out for sure.

I've picked up The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, as it's a classic I have never read and I'm hoping to see a friend's production of a play adaptation this weekend. Hope to have finished it by then.

My Booky Wook is a brilliant read. He has a real gift of observance and - as you said Ed - no sense of victimhood or pity is enduced. He was just a foolhardy young fella. And I've always liked him much more since reading it.

Tom bought me Nick Cave's 'The Death Of Bunny Munro'. I've read mixed reviews about it but am looking forward to giving it a go nonetheless.

I drank the kool-aid and read The Girl with the Dragon fire playing hornets' nest. Or something. They're very good books.

I should read them - shouldn't I? The film put me off.

I hope one day to read them in original svenska.

I haven't read them either, although I haven't seen the film to put me off. I just tend to be about 2 years behind everyone else when something is cool.

Really enjoyed it. I think I finished it about 2 weeks ago. You're right, reminded me of Black Books too.

Ah, good. And today, I found that a sequel has been released called "The Day of the Jack Russell". I grabbed in waterstones at lunch. Something else for the 'to read' pile.

I finished reading Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard the other day, which I was inspired to read after binging on Justified a few weeks ago. I remember not being too fussed about the film, but reading the book has made me wonder if I just wasn't giving it my full attention, since a book this entertaining and cool surely couldn't make for a dull film. Leonard's prose fizzes with energy as he describes the relationship between Deputy Federal Marshal Karen Sisco and life-long bank robber Jack Foley, whose lives intertwine after Sisco interrupts Foley's escape from prison and the two share a taught trunk ride. The central attraction between these people caught on the opposite sides of the law is much more interesting than the machinations of the plot, which is all to do with a scheme to rob a crooked investment banker, but the interplay between Sisco, Foley and the supporting characters is just delightful.

Finished Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler the other day, it's a fabulous novel. Philip Marlowe is now, without doubt, my favourite literary character of all time, his witticisms and the sheer brilliance of Chandler's writing and invention astounded me several times during the book. It manages not only to be a great page-turner, but also a stylish, slick, funny and emotionally involving crime story. Anyone on here who's never read any Chandler, I really cannot recommend him highly enough, he's moving swiftly into my 'favourite author ever' slot and I'm excited to have more Marlowe novels to read. Just started on The High Window and it's already shaping up very nicely, this'll be my fourth Marlowe/Chandler novel and i'm desperate to get through them all. Genuinely fantastic.

On recommendation, reading One Day by David Nicholls.

Very good so far, although I think the unrequited love bit is being shoved unceremoniously into my eyes at the moment.

Aye, he is a great writer, though I've gradually found myself falling on the Dashiell Hammett side of the classic crime authors debate. I love the way Chandler creates seedy worlds in which you just want to lose yourself and hang out with the characters, but there's something about the raw, visceral thrill of Hammett that I find intoxicating.

I'm currently reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky and Fool by Christopher Moore. I might put The Jerk on rotation on my TV just to complete the set.

I just finished The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde - I found it a little hard to get engaged in the story for some reason. It's an interesting plot, but I kept putting it down and picking it back up again. Beautiful writing style, for sure, but something about it didn't grab me.

I'm now reading The Black Tower by Louis Bayard, which is set during the French Restoration and is all about the lost Dauphin and Vidocq, the infamous detective. Absorbing so far.

I'm currently back to reading Elmer Gantry, interpersed with Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake and a collection of the writings of one Thomas Paine.

I read Dracula by Bram Stoker a few weeks back and absolutely adored it. I want Van Helsing to help me get rid of Edward Cullen and his sparkly family...

^ Hah, I like that!

It is a bloody good book.

Yes - I prefer scary vamps like Salem's Lot.

I finished this last night - as with most of Moore's work, "just a few more pages," quickly became, "Oh, it's 2 in the morning and I've finished it" - and whilst it's not going to challenge Lamb or A Dirty Job as my favourite Moore, it lands slap bang in spot 3. A witty, hilarious romp through King Lear (by the way of several other Shakespeare plays) seen through the idea of his fool, Pocket. It brims with Moore's usual invention and sauciness, and it's just a hell of a lot of fun.

I'm now reading The Big Rewind by Nathan Rabin, the hip-hop writer/film critic perhaps most known for coining the phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". I'm a big fan of his writing for The A.V. Club, and his memoir is full of the sarcastic, cutting prose that characterises his best work. Essentially, it's a journey through his life viewed through the orism of the pop culture that he loves and which has given him comfort during his battles with depression, his stay in foster homes after his home life fell apart, all the way up to the time that he started writing for the A.V. Club. So far, it's brave, hilarious and brutally honest. Plus, it's so full of Simpsons quotes and love of musicals that I could have written it.