The Reading List

Read Blake as counterpoint... it will help

Thanks mate. I love Blake. He's completely and utterly barmy, and a fantastic poet and artist. Very talented guy. What I love most is that he saw God looking through his bedroom window as a kid, and still grew up to believe that "All deities reside in the human breast."

I'm currently reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and it's brilliant.

Starfighter Pilot wrote:I'm currently reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and it's brilliant.

It SO is

I am currently rereading the Twilight saga.

I'm an intelligent woman with a double major in Literature and Philosophy. And yes, I'm a Twihard. Oh for to have come to this....

Starfighter Pilot wrote:I'm currently reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and it's brilliant.

Rushdie is one of my favourite authors. I recently re-read Shame, which has been described as the Pakistan novel to Midnight's Children as the India novel. My favourite of his is The Moor's Last Sigh.

I'm currently reading, for the first time, Breakfast At Tiffany's. It's great! As soon as I've finished it - another fifteen pages or so to go - I shall watch the film again.

Having just finished - and very much enjoyed - reading Sebastian Faulks' Jame Bond novel, Devil May Care, I've now moved on to Adrian Goldsworthy's mammoth biography Caesar: The Life of a Colossus.

696 pages of lucid, intelligent and page-turningly wonderful biography, from an author who effortlessly paints a vividly compelling picture of both the man and his times.

Wonderful stuff.

I finished Shock Troops by Tim Cook, and went over for some lighter fare.

Re-read The Gold Falcon by Katharine Kerr, and am almost done The Spirit Stone by the same author.

Finished the biography of Caesar and am now halfway through The Lost Army by Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

I, um, ripped through both The Spirit Stone and the next book in the series.

I am now tackling The Canterbury Tales, complete with modern translation, with a bit of Shining Darkness when I need something a little less difficult for the brain to process.

QueenWing wrote:I, um, ripped through both The Spirit Stone and the next book in the series.

I am now tackling The Canterbury Tales, complete with modern translation, with a bit of Shining Darkness when I need something a little less difficult for the brain to process.

Nice eclectic choices.

Next on my list are Suetonius History of the the 12 Caesars, interspersed with a collection of Raymond Chandler's short stories. This is all just marking time while awaiting the - much anticipated - delivery of Lindsey Davis' latest "Falco" novel.

I usually have two or three books on the go at once.

I'm waiting for Jasper Fforde's new book, Shades of Grey, to come out at the end of the year.

Me too! He's a fantastic author

And he's working on a new Thursday Next book....

*squees*

I went to a reading of his here in Toronto last year and had him sign First Among Sequels.

Recent Reads: "Little Brother" - Cory Doctorow.
- for those of you with teen readers nearby, please get them to read this scary, scary book.

"Small Gods" - Terry Pratchett

"Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads" - Kipling

"The Mote in God's Eye" - Niven and Pournelle

"Right Ho Jeeves" - PG Wodehouse

"Flashman" - George MacDonald Fraser

"Tik Tok" - John Sladek.

Currently reading: The Diary of a U Boat Commander
- WW1 vintage, not at all sure if it's fact or fiction, enjoying it lots.

I am currently working my way through the "Peter 'Mad Max' Maxwell" novels by M. J. Trow, after reading work's copy of his latest, Maxwell's Revenge. They are very witty, well written whodunnits. I like the way that Trow does not paint the Police as bunch of blundering buffoons. I suspect I have known quite a few teachers who were a lot like Mad Max, well apart from the murder solving bit.

Right. Have polished off both Manfredi and Matthew Reilly's Seven Ancient Wonders, just in time for the book I've been waiting for with tongue-lolling anticipation to arrive from Amazon. And it's here! Lindsey Davis' brand new Falco novel - Alexandria.

I'm an exceedingly happy Eocene.

Can I add Robin McKinley to the list? Anything, absolutely anything by her is utter gold.

Not brain taxing, nor is it high literature - but it is intelligently written re-workings of Fairy Tales and myths mostly. Not for the faint hearted either - think Grimm's Brothers rather than Disney.

Finished the U-Boat Commander story.

And "Starship" by Brian Aldiss.

Now I'm not sure what to read next.

I polished off Shining Darkness.

I'm thinking about starting the latest P. D. James I picked up a few weeks ago...

Sid, do I take it that Alexandria is now out in paperback?

I've just finished reading Christopher Brookmyre's A Snowball In Hell, which is a wickedly black comedy and confirs his return to form. He's been described as the Scottish Carl Hiaasen, which for once is a pretty accurate description, as he combines crime, humour, journalism and corruption, only with a backdrop of tower blocks and the Firth of Forth than the Keys and sun-drenched Miami. Not The End Of The World (a rare departure from Scotland from him as religious fundamentalists clash with a B-movie festival in LA) and One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night (an oil rig is stormed by terrorists, except the oil rig has been converted into a luxury holiday resort, which is now hosting a school reunion so its creator can gloat over his old school friends...and the 'terrorists' aren't exactly that, or well informed) are his best.

And like Hiaasen, he's been cursed by bad adaptation syndrome - so far, he's only had one TV adaptation of his work and as Quite Ugly One Morning decided to turn the main character from Scottish to Irish to allow them to cast James Nesbitt as just the first in a series of bad decisions.

Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldrin.
I love Buzz.