[Joinee Evilrhian]

Yesterday I finished 'Q - A Love Story' by Richard Something-beginning-with-M, it was brilliantly written off-beat fiction, definitely not your obvious kind of love story...it has tome travel and all sorts in it

Today I finished 'Wonder' by RJ Palacio, it's a children's book but should be read by *everyone*. Don't read the end on public though, take the advice from one who ended up sobbing on the number 28 bus home earlier.

Next up is a proof of Chris Cleave's new book 'Gold', I am trying so, so hard to read and review proofs before they're published!

*time travel, not tome travel, obvs.

[Gold Joinee Mhairi]

I'm reading birdsong just now as well, not far in but enjoying it!

Just finished all the hunger games books, they were insanely addictive and much much better than I thought they'd be. Such a good story. And a great perspective to give kids - it's completely anti government and anti war which is muuuuuuuuuuch more positive in terms of shaping ideas and critical thought than #!$&ing twilight. (disclaimer: twilight is awful but I love it. However only as an adult, if I'd read it as a kid I think it would have screwed me up worse than I already had been.....)

[SJ Del (The Train Man)]

Finished 'Red Plenty' last night, which I'm afraid was another one which just seem to stop, with no real answers. It seems to imply that the Soviet planned economy failed, because Kosygin didn't understand it.
Next up is 'Dave Gorman vs The Rest Of The World', which I know includes a game of Werewolf set up by Si Brake, which I was supposed to attend but had to work

This post has been edited by SJ Del (The Train Man): 27 March 2012 - 11:15 AM

[Worm]

Was Werewolf in the book? I don't remember, I could swear I read that book.....

[GJ Dandy David]

joinee_doug, on 22 March 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

I'm glad you said that, David...I'd been pondering it for a long time, based on the "Good story / Dull book" quandary. In the meantime, I read a more fun-sized account (150 pages or so) of Alexander Selkirk, generally thought to be inspiration for RC. Great story, mostly focused on the circumstances w/o having always to set the scene or go to the flashback, etc.
(I think it was aimed at the young adult reader (i.e. teenage) which was fine - I've kind of cooled on the Big Important Biography genre for now - I realized that for the most part, I didn't want or need to know everything about what a person did or was like... )

Selkirk's story is more interesting that Defoe's rewriting of it. Even the lecturer who taught it to me described it as an 'intensely boring' novel - it was set on our syllabus because of the reputation that it's gained as being the first English prose novel and even that claim can be picked apart if you look at it closely.

Joinee Hathorn, on 22 March 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

...Coral Island is much better.

I couldn't agree more, I loved Coral Island.

Finished The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano this week which I actually really, really enjoyed. It's for the same Islands and Oceans Literature unit that I read Crusoe for but it was really interesting and very readable.

Now moving on to Tim Winton's Breath for the same course. I'm about 100 pages in so far but just flying through it. He's a really interesting author and I find it odd that he's never flourished here (my lecturer is Australian and says that he's quite big in Australasia but has never had much luck outside - I'd certainly never heard of him). Really beautiful depictions of water and he knows how to keep a reader hooked. Plus it's always nice to read something that's very modern after a long stream of classics.

This post has been edited by GJ Dandy David: 30 March 2012 - 12:22 PM

[Joinee Evilrhian]

I was rather impressed by Gold, but then any book that involves cycling is good with me.

I was reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and I'm about halfway through but at some point between getting home from work yesterday and going to read it now it seems to have vanished somewhere in the House of Cake so I'm going out the garden with a pot of tea and jumping on the Hunger Games bandwagon

[Worm]

A Game of Thrones. Quite enjoying it so far, though it's pretty standard fantasy fare.

This post has been edited by Worm: 02 April 2012 - 07:48 PM

[PJ Wopunga (GA)]

I read the first Game of Thrones book a couple of weeks ago. I loved and it and can't wait to get the second one. But I have loads of books I borrowed from people I need to read first.

[Poohbah (Gsq)]

I'm reading 'The Runaway Jury' by John Grisham. I first read one of his books the other month because it's been turned into a TV show with Callum in it. I was wanting to get back into reading, so having a CKR-based excuse to pick a book out of all the bazillions of books in the world seemed like a good place to start.

I've read a few more of his books since then and the weird thing is that while I kind of enjoy them, I'm not actually sure that I like them. They're EVER so samey (hello, have your phone lines just been tapped? Are you wiring money to a random bank account in a far away land? Gosh, what a surprise!). And absolutely nothing happens for the vast majority of the book, and then in the last 100 (or sometimes 50) pages, it picks right up and becomes a rip-roaring read. Also, his characters aren't actually very likeable at all. Mostly because they're all shady lawyers (emphasis on the 'shady' not the 'lawyer'!) or just crooks in general.

Anyway, I'm now deep into the last 100 pages of this one, so stuff's actually starting to come together. Which is nice. I will be quite glad when it's over, but I will probably accidentally buy and read another one of his books in a couple of months and again be struck by the ridiculousness of it all. HOW HAVE YOU SOLD SO MANY BOOKS, GRISHAM? AND WHY CAN'T YOU GET THEM PROPERLY PROOFREAD??? (I almost stopped reading one because it said you're instead of your. I have genuinely never forgiven him for that.)

[Joinee Evilrhian]

The Hunger Games are over. I may never read another book again (blates lying, mind, cos I'd probs get sacked)

Ep.Ic.

[GJ Dandy David]

Just finished Amatov Ghosh's The Hungry Tide. I really liked his use of swapping narrators and the ending is (in my opinion) very well pulled off.

[Rachel Rose]

Martha Grimes-The Lamorna Wink

I haven't read one of her books for over a year. Isn't it funny how I can fall so easily back in love with Melrose Plant? I just adore this man and he isn't even real! We're lifelong, we've*never*even*met friends.

[SJ Aynsley]

Joinee Gwennan, on 13 February 2007 - 03:58 PM, said:

Well now you've harshed my buzz...

Oh wait! I have a signed Stephen Fry book!

I have a thumb-printed Good Omens and a thumb-printed Wyrd Sisters.

I'm currently reading Stormcaller, which I got free and despite my misgivings about it hopping on the back of all the fantasy novels that have gone before, it's actually okay enough to keep me reading it and not throwing it at the wall.

[Joinee Evilrhian]

Fifty Shades of Grey. Jump on a book bandwagon then realise you're just reading porn. In public. Oops!

[GJ Dandy David]

Been reading Getting the Buggers to Behave for my school placement and I think it's the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've ever read. She has some good ideas but the 'model scenario' sections don't suggest that she's spoken to a child in the last 20 years.

Also re-reading Treasure Island then it'll be time to start the hugely intimidating pile of French novels awaiting me for my dissertation.

[joinee_doug]

Portland Confidential, about rackets here in the late 1940s/early 1950s. It's entertaining and enjoyable, but a little mountain-out-of-a-molehill. Yes, Portland had rackets like any other city, but in reality was the boring little sister to Seattle and Frisco. It's well-researched and written and some notable figures pop up. Portland was still boring then (not a bad thing) and only became the magnet for hipster doofuses (doofi?) in the last 15 years or so.

[Rachel Rose]

Obedience by Will Lavender. Strange things are afoot in Logic and Reasoning 204.

And we were just discussing Milgram in Psych class.

[SJ Del (The Train Man)]

Worm, on 27 March 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

Was Werewolf in the book? I don't remember, I could swear I read that book.....

It's only very brief, where he's running through a list, he mentions 'Werewolf in Shoreditch'.

[joinee_doug]

Avian Architecture, a deeply interesting (yeah, I know, that's a relative term) book on the different types of nests and how birds design and build them. Something that I'd never really given a whole lot of thought to. Two interesting* factoids: While the ostrich lays the largest egg of any bird, it is also the smallest relative to the size of the bird; and how some large platform nests built can weigh up to two tons and last for fifty years. Lots of pictures and illustrations, this book just puts me in awe of our little feathered friends.

[edit] Finished this the other night - really enjoyed this - it includes scientific info to the side, but really is written for the general public. Finished with a section on bowerbirds and how the men go to great lengths to attract the ladies - singing, dancing, even making pimped-out bachelor pads to lure in the women.

This post has been edited by joinee_doug: 02 May 2012 - 04:31 PM

[Joinee Mum White]

Re reading Almost Auf Wiedersehen by our very own Curfew (Andy Nicholson) Its the very moving story of the, almost fatal, accident that changed his life. It has come out today on Kindle (Shameless plug for a dear friend!) Mum White xx

[Joinee Evilrhian]

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson aka The Bloggess. If you loved How to be a Woman then you need this book in your life.
Picked up Charlotte Street in today's delivery, a quick flick through has already unearthed a Neil Collins, Matthew Fowler and a vague mention of a Matt talking about Whitby