New Year's Resolutions

I thought you were down on anything fantasy? Not to mention the whole
children's books argument. Alan Garner is superb. Did you ever read
the Philip Pullman?

 

I see Ben as a more of a JK Rowling fan TBH.

 

Started well then got bogged down I thought. I ended up skim reading
to the end.

 

There was a definite 'Not to mention' up there...

Are you doing the darsy stand in thing?

 

Which is the RRP.

Thought you might have.

 

Uh oh....

 

Can I come out as a tree-hugging hippy and recommend
www.greenmetropolis.com - buy the books secondhand, then flog them again
afterwards, just try to forget that part of it's for charidee.

Fido.

 

And not forgetting 'A Walk In the Woods' - Bryson tackles the Appalachian
Trail. Bloody brilliant IMHO.

 

I think I've previously recommended all of the above on here. Pinker's
"How the Mind Works" is also worth a read, but it's not exactly light
reading. Novels I've (in come cases re-) read (and enjoyed) in the last
few months:

Non-fiction:

* Bernard Lewis: "What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern
Response"

* Bernard Lewis: "The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror"

* Joseph E. Stiglitz: "Globalization and its Discontents"

* Steven Pinker: "The Blank Slate"


Fiction:

* Jeffrey D. Ford: "The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque"

* K.J.Bishop: "The Etched City" [warning: may contain traces of Magic
Realism]

* Gideon Defoe: "The Pirates! In and Adventure with Scientists" [mmmmm
*ham*]

* Percival Everett: "Erasure"

* B.S.Johnson: "Christie Malry's Own Double Entry"

* Jean Rhys: "Wide Sargasso Sea"

* Andrew Motion: "The Invention of Dr. Cake"

* Damian Galgut: "The Good Doctor"

* William Gibson: "Pattern Recognition" [Ben, despite Gibson's rep,
this isn't even really science fiction, and certainly has no spaceships
in it].

* Richard Matheson: "I Am Legend" [Ben, this *is* sci-fi, albeit
couched as a vampire story]

* John C. Wright: "The Golden Age Trilogy" [Ben, avoid, avoid, avoid:
hard sci-fi, with several spaceships]

 

For those that might remember I stuck up a bit for Dan Brown a couple of
weeks ago. I'm now halfway through Digital Fortress and regretting
everything I said :-(

 

I didn't read any further than:

"The lives of three young men in three different periods of British
history converge and each influences the destiny of the others"

and thought it sounded okay.

Don't think so.

 

nice try, mf

Somebody needs to.

 

Not while I have my strength.

 

Read it. Good.

Read it. Good.

 

I've gone with the latter. Thanks.

Own it.

Read it.

 

darsy wrote:

<snip>

All added.

Neither amazon.com nor amazon.co.uk had this.

I'll give it a miss, ta.

<avoided>


The last couple of days have sent my amazon recommendations *wild*!

 

'cos I was being dim (though if /you/ had searched on the title alone,
you'd have found it) - it's "Damon Galgut". I'm pretty sure you'd like
it.

mine are screwed at the moment, because I forgot to use my spare
account when ordering stuff for the children at Christmas.

It's now recommending I buy a bunch of "Alien -v- Predator" books, CDs
from The Streets and Sepultura etc.

Oh, speaking of music, I got this for Christmas:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001FFL30/
and I think despite it being "modern", that you'd like it.

 

Off the top of my head:

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey (
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0719561027/darkwings-21 )

Marching Powder - Rusty Young (
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330419587/darkwings-21 )

Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seirstaad (
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844080471/darkwings-21)

 

OK ... two authors that I like who I think don't get enough recognition are
Michael Frayn and Chris Wilson.

Amazon are doing "Headlong" and "A landing on the sun"[1] by Frayn for 15.98
the pair and I'd recommend them both.

From Wilson I'd recommend "Mischief" and "Blueglass", although both seem to
be completely unknown, more's the pity.

Anyway, my NYR was to give up smoking ... would you care to recommend some
nibbles I might enjoy rather than having a fag?

[1] Despite the title "A landing on the sun" involves no spaceships at all,
although it does have a train in at one point.

--
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The speccy Geordie twat.

 

Am I the only person around here that gets books from libraries?