I finished Lucky Jim last night and I'm glad that I finally got around to reading it. Clever, witty and painfully true in its observations about academic life and what people will to to keep jobs they hate but need, I thought it was marvelous.

I've started reading A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin, which jumps right in where A Game of Thrones left off and has already introduced some new characters and concepts that should shake things up nicely as it goes along. I've ordered the other two (technically three, since the fourth book was split in two for the paperback release) since I'm pretty sure this one won't take too long to read, and I don't want to leave that world just yet.

Just finished The girl who kicked the hornets' nest as the finale to the Millennium trilogy. Definitely worth reading and I got through them a lot quicker than I thought I would given their size, I can only put it down to there being so many bits where I really wanted to know what happened next. I'm hoping the films live up to the books now.

New Terry Pratchett
It's a Tiffany Aching one which some people don't seem to like; I think they're great though. Gonna go pick this up today. It's been far too long since I've sat and read a book.

I just finished a rather rubbish crime thriller, which was so forgettable I've forgotten the title (even though I read it yesterday). This morning I started on a book I've been meaning to read for years - A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

I love the Tiffany Aching/Feegle books, Hat Full of Sky is especially good and I'm very much looking forward to reading this. It's on the birthday list.

Apparently this will be the last book that TP writes with her as main character.

Really? Where did you read that? Did he say why or what his plans for the Discworld are?
He must have some sort of plan in place what with his Alzheimers (). I'm hoping he wraps some things up. Mostly I want to see what he does with Carrot, Vimes and the Patrician (make Careit king, Vimes head of royal guard? Patrician pretends to be dead but goes to live his days with Margalotta?).
Poor Terry

Btw, Waterstones had the hardcover for £9 instead of RRP £18

Hur! Good luck with that! I thought I was doing well until I hit the chapter on black holes and multi-universes, then my brain melted and started dribbling out of my ears!



I saw him on stage just before Christmas last year, and his plans then were to keep on going as long as he could.

He did say that the next Discworld novel proper would be another Moist Van Lipwig tale, probably centred around the water industry, but I've not heard anything more on that since then.

I think he also mentioned I Shall Wear Midnight, though I don't think it had a title at that point, and he also talked over some themes for further novels, but he didn't elaborate very much except to say that he doesn't tend to plan much beyond the next book to two anyway.

I started The Death of Grass last night, by John Christopher, and finally forced myself to put it down and go to bed at 3.15am! Very good so far, it's like a dark John Wyndham novel.

A rather good Guardian article here. Not that much about Discworld but still good stuff.

More here: Meet The Author: Sir Terry Pratchett.

Haven't had a chance to watch it yet!

Thanks! My brain is slightly better with concepts than the actual maths/physics of it, so hopefully I can get through it. Being a total nerd about Bill Bryson's awesome book A Short History of Nearly Everything will help, as he discusses these theories in layman's terms very well and I've read it about 10 times, so I'm quite familiar with the idea already.

Thanks Raven/Sir Robin

@Wids: That Bill Bryson is a really really good read. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I ruddy bloody love it. I've honestly read it over 10 times. Also his book 'Mother Tongue', about the development of the English language, is excellent even though it was written in the late 80s and is therefore a little out of date.

For SF readers (mostly Chappers), Peter F Hamilton's 'The Evolutionary Void' which concludes the Void Trilogy, is now out!

DAMN YOU LACK OF MONEY!!!

Edit- actually, I have £7 of credit at play.com and they have it for a tenner. I can juuuust afford it.

I got it last week, then - as tends to happen with him - I quickly realised I'd have to reread the earlier books to work out what on earth was going on.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Death narrates story set in wartime Germany. Excellent.

Tell me about it!

I'm resisting the temptation to ask who Aaron is. I am glad that I decided to re-read Dreaming and Temporal Void last month though.

Just finished Darkest Day by Christopher Fowler. The usual entertaining mix of detective/horror story with some interesting nuggets about London's history thrown in, featuring elderly detectives Bryant & May.

Just starting Black Dogs by Ian McEwan

Next week sees the release of John Irving's latest in paperback. Can't wait.

All is revealed, apparently, although Hamilton has himself said that people have read way too much into his possible identity thus far, so it could be that he was a very insignificant character.

I am trying to skim through the other books before I get too far into "TEV". Luckily the Void Trilogy has been leaner and meaner than his previous works – particularly with regards to the size of its cast of characters – so I'm picking it up fairly quickly.

Read this last year - very good.

This year on holiday I have been mostly reading:-

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

Bleak, post-apocalypse America story of a father and son's struggle to survive. Not seen the film yet but the book is an incredible read.

Room - Emma Donoghue

Story of a mother and son living in an 11'x11' room, as told through the 5 yr old childs eyes.

Mystery Man - Colin Bateman

Read this through a recommendation from earlier in this thread. Nicely written and good story. The main character reminded me of Bernard Black

And currnetly reading Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men)

I've just realised I don't think I've read Wintersmith. I was sure I had it and have read it but I don't recognise the synopsis at all. How the hell has that happened D: I'm sure I own it

It's like seeing the world through Dylan Moran's eyes. Although slightly more OCD.

Am reading my second Tom Holt book at the moment. For fans of Jaspar Fforde and/or Christopher Moore, I think he's worth a look. Funny, complicated and mostly fantasy.

Quite liking Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde so far. I really enjoyed The Eyre Affair, and quite happy there's still another three books, and will try to read them all by the time "One of our Thursdays is missing" comes out (Next year isn't it?).

I got this out of the library after both the recommendations. Oh my goodness, this is an incredible book. I cried sitting at my desk at a temp job.

Took me the best part of a month, but I finally finished A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin, the second book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. As with A Game of Thrones, it's 500 pages of intrigue, suspense and thwarted escapes followed by 200 pages of brilliantly intense and gripping action - this explains why it took me three weeks to read the first 550 pages and two days to read the last 158 - but even though the intrigue can get frustratringly methodical and slow, it's never less than entertaining because the world he has created is so rich and involving and the characters are all so well-defined and fascinating. Tyrion Lannister, in particular, is fast becoming one of my favourite fictional characters, and I can't wait to see what Peter Dinklage does with him when the TV series starts next year.

Even though I really loved it, I didn't realise just how immersed I was in the story until an event happened about two thirds of the way through that triggered one of the biggest emotional reactions I've felt from reading a book in quite a while. I was actually quite shell-shocked by it, and fell in love all over again with Martin's writing.

For omni (and anyone else who's read them): The bit I'm referring to is the couple of chapters after everyone has been told that Bran and Rickon have been killed. In the back of my mind I thought, "They can't really be dead, surely?" but after the end of A Game of Thrones, I thought Martin might genuinely have the guts to kill two kids, and all the talk of heads of pikes convinced me that they were actually dead. It was such a relief when it was revealed that they weren't.

Enjoyed my second Tom Holt book recently - The Better Mousetrap.

I do feel like I have to concentrate though, he's good at spinning webs.

Now reading Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese. I'm enjoying it, but I wish it was shorter. Not because it's not good but because it's too darned heavy to carry around.

Has anyone actually finished the latest Fforde? I gave up pretty early into it. Just wondering if it's worth bothering with.

Regular Payday (which was yesterday, but had no time..) Waterstones 3-for-2 purchasing today.

Starter for Ten By David Nicholls
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
The Complaints by Ian Rankin

Gonna read Starter For Ten or Amsterdam after I've finished Lost In A Good Book.

I've been "reading" it for three months. I'm only 100 or so pages in.

I shall wear midnight is very good so far. A character from the 3rd Discworld Book "Equal Rites" has just shown up Eskarina, the first female wizard... Great stuff.

Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team and A Dream by H.G. Bissinger

Being an admirer of the film and a huge fan of the TV series, I decided to go back to the source and read this account of the Permian Panthers' 1988 season. Whilst ostensibly about the team's run at the state High School football championship, Bissinger also examines the economic, social and racial culture of Odessa, Texas, a town that at the time was in the grasp of a terrible economic depression due to a drop in oil prices and was struggling to come to terms with the recent desegregation of the local schools (which took place in 1982!). Bissinger both celebrates the communal joys of supporting the team that allows people to forget their troubles whilst also condemning the way in which the schools all over Texas pride football over everything else and, in one particularly damning chapter, will lie and change students' grades so that they can play. A really fascinating book even for people who, like me, know next to nothing about American football.

All The President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

As someone who has always known of Watergate but not known about it, it was really interesting finding out all the details of how Woodward and Bernstein and their colleagues at the Washington Post were able to uncover the conspiracy that unseated a President. It's one of the most exciting and outrageous detective stories of all time.

Cutting For Stone - Abraham Verghese

Overall, it felt much more of a chore than it should have. About 100 pages too long, but nevertheless there were moments of joy and sadness.

Now got "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters and "White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga to read.

Not sure which to start with.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Terrifically written and it maintains a good balance between the serious and silly aspects of its conceit - showing how being married to someone who involuntarily travels through time would be emotionally punishing but could also lead to some funny situations - but I found the ending really cold and clinical. Admittedly, I never cry reading books, so a lack of tears shouldn't be that much of a shock, but I didn't feel the visceral emotional punch that a lot of people have talked about. It's probably due to the structure of the book, which is incredibly clever and well thought out, and I appreciated that cleverness so much that the emotions unfurling within it wound up feeling secondary.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

Not hugely taken with this; some good ideas, but it's also pretty bland as well. It's the third PKD book I've read, and it may well be the last.

What other novels of his have you read? I'd recommend his short stories more than his novels, since he's able to take his frequently brilliant ideas and explore them fully without having to try to wrap a long plot around them. I do really like his super-crazy novels like Ubik and A Scanner Darkly (one of the best books about drugs I've ever read) though.

I've been trying track this down since it was originally posted about but the shops near me don't have and the special order is taking forever... I am now excessively excited for it.

I'm currently reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I'm really liking it, it's very witty and there is some lovely use of language. The sentence structure and word choices are pleasurable, though he was definitely and admittedly a usage snob, there is no pretension in his words. In fact my current favourite sentence ever comes from this book: "Marath continued to hum the USA song, all over the map in terms of key."* Surprisingly it's also not as daunting as I was lead to believe, though it's taking me awhile to get through it - it's just a big book and I don't have enough time to devote to it. The only thing I can put against it is that unlike his essays the footnotes are all at the back of the book, but it does not signify - two book marks instead of one really.

*I feel like such a dork, but seriously the language is enjoyable... It's like a really good meal.

I just finished reading a book my friend Paul J. Newell wrote called Altered States. There's a sample section on his website here, in the form of a PDF. It's a fiction book but I'd highly recommend it to people interested in various forms of psychology, and especially Derren Brown fans, who would be familiar with a lot of the techniques included.

Damn, could have sent you my copy but I left it in the hotel after reading it on holiday!!

It's a top book. The Sequel (The Day Of The Jack Russell) is even better. In my opinion anyway!

Apart from The Man in the High Castle, I've also read Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep and Ubik.

All three were okay, and explored some good ideas, but whilst reading each of them I got the impression that PKD was making things more complex than they needed to be (not so much in the terms of the plot, but in the writing itself - it just seemed kind of laboured).

They are also pretty humourless and dry, and with the Man in the High Castle supposedly being his most accessible science fiction novel, it's put me off reading any of the other five novels of his that I own.

Perhaps I'll pick up another one day, after the memory of this one fades a tad.

He is quite dry, but I've always found his ideas to be strong enough to make up for the slightly workmanlike aspects of some of his writing. I would recommend A Scanner Darkly, since it's easily his best written novel, but it's also not so much a novel as a series of scenes inspired by his prodigious drug use.

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster

Picareque novel in which Walt Rawley, a young orphan living in Saint Louis, is taken under the wing of Master Yehudi, an old mystic who promises that he can teach him how to fly. From its evocative opening line - "I was twelve years old when I first walked on water" - the book unfolds over several decades as Walt lives through the various ages and major epochs of America in the twentieth century. Auster creates a beguiling mix of whimsy and psychological insight that explores the pains of adolescence not only for Walt, but for America as a whole. He does a lot with very little, and the final product is a unique and delightful fable.

Glad to hear it - I was in two minds whether to buy it after a few lacklustre reviews I'd read.

I'm currently trying to work my way through Something Rotten, but it's slow going at the moment. I really want to get back into reading regularly like I used to, but I seem to be really struggling lately to find the time, inclination or the ability to concentrate. I used to read all the time. I blame the internet.

I've recently enjoyed a double-dose of minimalist American melancholy with The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver.

I'm a big fan of Peter Bogdanovitch's film version of The Last Picture Show, and it was interesting seeing just how closely it sticks to the novel, not just in terms of events, but also in terms of specific exchanges and the overall tone of the story. The story itself is a beautifully sad story of people living in a dying town in the middle of Texas and the ways in which they try to find some form of happiness, most of which revolve around the pursuit of sex, as well as an examination of what sex and love mean to people spend all their time working numbing manual jobs, fighting and drinking. Also, there's pig-fucking.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love was a similarly heartbreaking collection of Craver's short stories, all of which were shot through with his keen observations about relationships and his almost perfect ability to say everything with as few words as possible. Several of the stories, namely "They're Not Your Husband", "The Bath", "Tell the Women We're Going" and "So Much Water So Close to Home", formed the basis of segments in Robert Altman's film Short Cuts (and the latter would be adapted again as the film Jindabyne) so it was cool seeing how they translated from one medium to another.

I started and read The White Tiger first.

Written in the form of letters to a Chinese premier, it tells the tale of a villager in India who moves to the city and tries to make some money. It's a fairly unremitting tale and it really gives you an impression of India.

Good overall, nearly great.

I've decided to set myself the task of reading the Complete Sherlock Holmes by the end of the year. I need to average 15 pages (or one short story) a day and so far it's going pretty well. At least it's a fun task.

Just finished Native Son by Richard Wright.... Very interesting but difficult for me to read. The main theme is a lot broader than I think it was intended (it is a protest novel about being black in America during the 30's). I found myself occasionally identifying with the main character, which was what made it difficult to read as he is not intended to be obviously sympathetic.
I enjoyed very much though.

I highly recommend. I think it might be one of those books that everyone should read. - It describes the human condition quite well and can be applied to any group of people.

Currently I am reading the Book of Law by Crowley. Not quite an Erin book, but someone I quite admire said the book meant a lot to him, and that everyone should read it around my age. It has actually brought up a number of questions for me about him (mostly just, "Really?" "Huh?").

This has been a promise I've made to myself for the past few years, and I've never delivered. It will be done.

I think I'm reading them too fast since I'm already nearing the end of pre-Reichenbach Falls Holmes having only started reading them in earnest three or four days ago. But they're like opium. Sweet, sweet opium.