It's the best.

I have finished 'Bad Blood' by Lorna Sage and am now reading 'On Writing' by Stephen (Stevie) King. It's possibly the most entertaining thing I've read since, 'Which Lie did I Tell' by William Goldman. The autobiographical sections are fascinating and funny, the advice on writing invaluable.

"To write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine"

Take note Ms Rowling.

King has the best Rowling quote ever. It's something like ''She never met a superlative she didn't like''. Terrifically accurate appraisal of her style.

He said cuttingly.

He opined scathingly.

I've bought it but haven't started reading in earnest. I'm finishing World War Z first.


No I don't.

I just think the Night's Dawn Trilogy is more original, and despite the dull-in-places second book, keeps the attention more than a be-afroed scientist walking around for 600 pages.

This description has just sold this to me. You're your own worst enemy, Davison.

I just knew you'd say that. It's reverse psychology, they're actually my favourite books.

Ahhhhhh...

In that case I won't buy them.







Wait...

I was half expecting Adam to be totally contrary and go for the Mindstar trilogy.

That's hot.

Just finished The Da Vinci Code, which was an entertaining read.

Now planning to read The Sword in the Stone, a book I must have had on my shelf for over 10 years and not read. It's one of my favourite Disney films, so as a child whenever I started reading it and found it not like the film, I just gave up after a few chapters.

I'm hoping now I'm older I'll be able to sit through it, it's only 300 pages after all.

I finished reading The Catcher In The Rye, and I quite liked it. While it feels a tad dated, particularly the language, the themes from the book are as current today as they were when the book was written. Holden himself is a very entertaining character to read (if a bit of a dick), and I'm glad it ended on an almost anticlimactic note.

I've now started reading Atonement by Ian McEwan, and I think it's brilliant so far.

I had no idea Penguin were doing this, so imagine my delight when Alyssa bought me this!



My favourite book, in the classic Penguin paperback style! There are going to be 36 'Penguin Celebrations', representing the best books published in recent years.



It's so beautiful and my third copy of 'What a Carve Up!', every edition so far... I might keep up with that.

They are bloody nice. I'll have to keep my eye out for any books I might want in that style.

Currently reading The Book Of Lost Things by John Connolly. A beautiful read so far. Quite disturbing in many parts, like a very twisted fairytale. Very, very well written.

The full list of the 36 'Penguin Celebrations' titles are:

New fiction (orange)
Any Human Heart; What A Carve Up!; Everything is Illuminated; Notes on a Scandal; How To Be Good; The Other Side of the Story; English Passengers; The Impressionist; A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian; How I Live Now; The Accidental; White Teeth; Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction; Regeneration

Essays (purple)
The Consolations of Philosophy; The World According to Clarkson; Letter from America

Science and non-fiction (light blue)
Hegemony or Survival; The Revenge of Gaia; Empire; The Classical World; Blink; The Fabric of the Cosmos; Freakonomics; Fast Food Nation

Mystery and crime (green)
The Secret History; A Certain Justice; Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders; The Beach; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

Adventure and travel (pink)
The Shadow of the Sun; Congo Journey; Dark Star Safari

Biography and travel (dark blue)
Leonardo da Vinci; Jane Austen; The English

They're on 3 for 2 at Waterstones I believe.

Hmmm. A few to be going on there with. Certainly the Clarkson and Rumpole are tempting.

Most fairytales are pretty twisted in the first place, though. The early German versions of Cinderella are quite horrific.

My bank balance is not going to thank you for that Zoz.

Oh dear, so tempted.

As in Pat Barker? Ugh. Did that for A level.

Isn't it based on their role playing game sessions, and very formulaic. Apparently, they relaxed the formula afterwards (so sayeth wikipedia). A bit like Feist, but started bad and got good, rather than started good, got shit.

Andy JJJ, why haven't you read The Dreaming Void yet? Get on it.

Started Atonement at the weekend. About halfway through. Just got off the train and had to stop reading...just as they returned from the search for the twins. I''m bally well hooked.

I finished The Maltese Falcon yesterday. Pulp writing at it's very finest with a superbly crafted story, great characters and dialogiue. It was also interesting to see how much the Sam Spade character was cleaned up for the film version, on account of the Hays Code, which made him all the more compelling.

I've now started Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith.

My Grandpa visited at the weekend and got me 3 compilation books of short science fiction stories. These were The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction: Ten Classic Stories from the Birth of Modern Science Fiction, Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007, and Best New SF 19. All together that's a huge number of stories, so I won't list them all here. It's a lot of nice stuff to work through though.

He also lent (and I read and returned same day) me a 100 page short story called The Dechronization of Sam Magruder, a story about a man sent back in time to the time of the dinosaurs, who carves a diary on stone tablets which are then found in the 22nd Century. The book is his diary, along with some discussion from the panel of people getting ready to edit them into a book and reveal their discovery to the world. It's very interesting, but also near impossible to come across as it was only ever printed in a short amount.

EDIT: I'll also mention that Kevin Smith's new book, My Boring-Ass Life, comes out on the 25th.

Oooh! How lovely. I know what I want for my birthday this year.

I think I read somewhere that they will be discontinuing them after Christmas, so a December birthday might be the ideal opportunity to get the last few.

Good choice - have you read any of his other stuff?


Recently finished Alastair Reymolds' Chasm City which was superb, and I'm currently reading Market Forces by Richard Morgan which isn't up to the same standard, but it's certainly a page turner.

Never managed to finish that one, it just didn't interest me like his other books have.

No, this is my first delve into his work. Very good so far.What other books would you recommend?

I can recommend Spares and One Of Us. Don't read that much science fiction these days, but I'm now thinking of popping into FP and seeing what else of his they have on the shelves.

Good work sir! It's a very clever book - the twin threads of narrative set years apart, the hardboiled feel, and not to mention Reynold's original and gritty future. Are you planning on checking out his other stuff?

Market Forces is a readable romp, but the premise is so like a Nicholas Cage movie, it is difficult to fully engage with.

Definitely Spares and One Of Us (as mentioned by Sostie) as well as What You Make It which is a collection of short stories. All three are excellent.



I certainly will - I've already read Revelation Space and I'll be picking up the rest of his stuff ASAP.



It is - although Morgan did say that the novel is blatantly influenced by Mad Max and Rollerball (and it was originally written as a screenplay) so I suppose that's the sort of thing he was going for (sans Nick Cage, possibly).

Cheers for the Michael Marshall Smith recommendations guys, I'll be sure to check them out soon.

In other news, I checked out those new Penguin editions and picked up:

What A Carve Up- To see what Zoe has been talking about.
Fast Food Nation- Because my non-degree related non-fiction reading has declined sharply over the last few years and I wanted to rectify that.
Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky- Just on a whim.

Finally finished Eats, Shoots and Leaves which was an interesting, amusing and informative read. Also just finished Snare by Katherine Kerr which, while having an interesting premise, had characters that were largely so objectionable and racist that I had difficulty finishing it. I also got the feeling that the book itself had slightly racist undertones: with it's radical muslim society seen as a threat to all non-muslim societies. This is the second of her books that I've read, and the second I didn't enjoy. So don't always trust friends recommendations.

Read Cod by Mark Kurlansky. It's excellent.

I had a few hours in town to kill before meeting my friends, so I bought The Colour of Magic to see what all this Discworld fuss is about.

It's pretty entertaining, so far.

Will do. Though my ''to read'' pile is now 80 books high, so it will be a while.



It's the weakest book of the series as well. I recommend you check out Guards! Guards! next, the first book in the ''Night Watch'' series of the books.

Well I'm going to finish off the Rincewind ones first probably, seeing as that's what I've started. I found a handy flow diagram showing the relationships of all the books to each-other, so I know where to go for each.

That's one of the reasons I hadn't read them before now; there are 30-odd books and I had no idea where to begin (I wasn't aware that Colour of Magic had "The First Discworld Book" written on it).

I haven't read Pratchett for years then a few months ago I was lent Strata and recently bought and read The Truth, as there was nothing else in WHSmiths poor selection. I enjoyed them both, Strata more probably because I'd just read ringworld, but it was amazing how quickly names came back, Foul Ol' Ron, Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, Captain Carrot, Commander Vimes, Sergeant Angua, The Patrician. Like family i hadn't spoken to for years, but kinda knew I'd get in touch with eventually.
ETA: Do you mean this flow chart.

I'm reading 'The Dreaming Void' for real now.

150 pages in, and I was vaguely irritated at the typical Hamilton plodding, but intrigued at the multiple plot lines. I was struggling to engage with Edeard's world - for some reason PFH insists on including backwards pastroral idyll But this morning, things took a more interesting turn, and stuff started happening. If only he didn't take so long, his books would be crazy good.

It wasn't until literally the last two pages of the book that I took any interest in Edeards world, and that was so obvious it was abrely worth me reading them. I find myself almost quick reading through the 'Void' sections to get back to the meat of the story, even though those sections are what most of the situations going on are caused by. That isn't a spoiler.

Does that mean I get World War Z now? Cooly. I'm about 90 pages into The Steep Approach to Garbadale, but I'll take a break for Z so you can have it back sooner, Andy.

Yes, you can borrow that as of tomorrow. It is Andi at work BTW, not Jubes...

Oh, ok. Good thing you cleared that up, or I'd've been posting it to Exeter.

Pretty much. I have a different one, but it's the same order.

Finished Only Forward last night. A really wonderful sci-fi story that created a wonderfully strange world and which was superbly narrated by the main character. The second half of the book after the characters started going into Jeamland got increasingly dark and the final hundred pages were actually quite horrific, something which I wouldn't have expected given the reasonably light tone of the first half. I don't know why but I also found the ending surprisingly touching and sad.

All in all, a terrific book that came as a real surprise to me.

Now I'm onto I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

Of his early work, I always thought Equal Rites, Mort and Wyrd Sisters were very good (Sorcery and Pyramids were a bit meh though), but as you say, Guards! Guards! is very good indeed!

I really should read some of them again.



A very good book indeed!

I'm wondering how faithful the Will Smith film is going to be . . .

Atonement by Ian McEwan
I have in the past been a bit reluctant to read books that are Booker nominees/winners - I always thought they would be a hard slog, focussing more on prose than story, and only in recent years have I got over my "prejudice" leaving me with a whole stack of titles I should catch up on. I admit the release of the film of Atonement prompted me to read the novel and I'm glad I did.
Can't really give too much away except it is a rather brilliant and compelling story of 3 people, a lie (is that on the poster?) and its repercussions. Oh, and one hell of a revelation at the end. A revelation that by a lesser writer may have left the reader feeling a little cheated, but here makes the story all the more heartbreaking.

The Sanctuary Seeker by Bernard Knight. A not-too-bad medievial murder mystery, of particular interest because it's set in Exeter in 1194 complete with local landmarks and places. Interesting to get a feel for what the city was like in a storytelling sense rather than a history text. The Protagonist, Coroner Sir John De Wolfe is a fictional character but based in historical truth when the post of Coroner - or Crowner - was first instituted by Richard Lionheart. So far an interesting fiction woven round with historical fact all the more exciting as I can say 'St Sidwells, that's where Sidwell street is now...' etc. Only slightly let down by some clunky sex scenes...

(avert your eyes younger readers)

In spite of his lethargy, Crowner John roused himself sufficiently to give a creditable performance in the arms of his agile mistress before he rolled over and fell sound asleep for the rest of the night.

and

Nesta climbed on top of him and rode him as energetically as he cantered his grey stallion. When they had first become lovers, her fondness for straddling him had rather offended his masculine need to be dominant. However, she had broken him of the habits of a lifetime with good-humoured persistence until he had come to enjoy it - though often with a roar of passion he would roll the pair of them over and hammer her almost through the palliasse and into the floorboards beneath.

Gets one rather hot under the collar.

Just finished The Diary of Anne Frank which I really quite enjoyed. I'd have probably hated it if I had to study it at school though.

Now I'm onto re-reading Lord of the Flies. I have to read all the books that my 5th year are choosing for their Personal Studies. It's only now I realise how much I lack knowledge in suitable literary books for teenagers. Luckily I'm foisting short stories on a few of them so that should save my weary eyes.