What are you reading now... II!

[SiHart]

Special Sound- the Ceartion and Legacy of the Radiophonic Workshop by Louis Neber. if ever there was a book written just for me...

Si xx

[Larry]

just started reading Robert Ludlum's - The Bourne Betrayel.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Reading Restaurant at the End Of The Universe.

With his distrust of psychologists and belief in aliens ... I'm pretty sure Douglas Adams was a closet Scientologist ...

[Rob McCow]

I'm reading 'Lucky Jim' and 'Sandman Book 6'.

[Alex]

What do you think of Sandman, Steve? I'm a big fan, but think it loses it's way a little towards the end...

[Rob McCow]

It's gothtastic. I'm missing some bits because the library don't have all the collected editions, but what I've read so far is fab. It seems to have another level of imagination to most other comics - to most other stories in general. My fave one so far has been the one with the Cuckoo.

Also, Morpheus has the best speech bubbles ever.

[Alex]

I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I really liked Book Six as well - to be honest it's only the very last storyline I struggle with as I think Gaiman dragged it out for too long - but I am in the minority there.

As for favourite issues, I love so many during the first 50 issues or so, but I found no. 20, Facade, to be incredibly touching stuff, and 7, with the introduction of Death, is a bit of a classic too...

[Anthony Williams]

At the moment, I'm reading Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant, on my wonderful new Kindle!

She has some very interesting ideas, and a lot of what she writes about is so prominent in the debates in Christian Spirituality today that it's surprising that she was writing around 100 years ago!

Ant x

[Paul Monk]

I'm currently reading How I Escaped My Certain Fate by Stewart Lee. Its very interesting. Basically its a dvd commentary in book form but with more indepth biographical stuff in between. There's lots of stuff in there about the art of stand up. Nothing too heavy but a bit about the thought processes behind the material which is really fascinating.
Anyway its a superb book.

[SiHart]

I read Doctor Who- Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins, One Day by David Nicholls and The Fourth hand by John Irvine on holiday and am now starting Ghostwritten by David Mitchell.

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

Where did we get to? Ah yes - I read The Lives And Loves of A She-Devil, which was rather more outrageous than I expected and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, which made me want to see the film.

I'm now reading Feersum Endjinn by Iain to the M to the Banks.

[Paul Monk]

Fear and Loathing is one of my favourite books. Its very very funny. The film is pretty good. I've just finished Stewart Lee's book and am trying to decide whether to start Mark Gatiss's Black Butterfly or try and get through the many graphic novels I have sitting around.

[Paul Monk]

I struggled with Feersum Endjinn. The phonetically spelt part I found quite tricky to get into. I think if you've got plenty of time, you probably get into a flow with it but I was reading it in short bursts so it never worked for me.

[Rob McCow]

Graphic Novels for teh win.

I've actually found the phonetic sections of Feersum Endjinn the easiest to engage with, mainly because Bascule the Rascule is such a great character. The problem with the book is that it's a spiralling, massive, hyper-complex text with various layers of reality all interfering with each other. It would be alright if the other sections weren't so rock hard to follow as well. Now one character is on a steam train! Now they're in a castle! Now they're at the base of a space elevator that used to work! The animals are intelligent simaculara for people who have sublimed themselves in the 'Crypt', the virtual reality simulation that underpins reality! The Encroachment! Asura! The Chaos! Sloths! Resurrection! A giant floating head that goes gibidigibigibdigbidibgidibgi! Argh!

[Paul Monk]

I know! Its not the sort of book to read in short bursts on the commute to work!
I've decided on reading The Hell of it All by Charlie Brooker instead. Although I am also reading the Captain Britain graphic novels I have.

[Rob McCow]

Charlie Brooker is always amusing. He has a very distinctive style of writing too, a clear voice, which is fairly unusual.

I finished One Day by David Nicholls, which was a cracking read. An excellent example of a romantic novel.

[Perry Vale]

Started reading 'Damaged Goods' by RTD for the first time earlier, and couldn't help laughing at the fact it only took two paragraphs to introduce a character who's father had left them.

[Rob McCow]

How are your Damaged Goods, Steve?

I'm now reading Dave Gorman's America Unchained. An easy read - 230 pages in a day and a half is pretty good for me. Dave comes across as obsessive and a bit of a git, even if he knows he is a bit of a git. He's also rather superstitious and obsessed with graphs. Despite that, there are some genuinely funny moments, a good bit of travelogue (usually when he's veering wildly off-course) and an amusing quest to follow. Dave must drive from one-side of USA to the other without using any chain hotels, gas stations or restaurants.

However, the main feature of the book and the one that will stay with me, is Stef (his cameraman) and her bad back. Her back is clearly destroyed early on in the trip, but she soldiers on for three weeks before she finally collapses at a gas station. They visited numerous chiropractors on the way, who should have said 'For pity's sake woman, go home and get your back sorted properly before you slip all your discs!'

It might have been better if it had been 'Dave Gorman goes to interesting hotels in a vintage car'. The book is as much about the writer as the country he's visiting, which is not a bad thing but there is a sense of missed opportunity. The bizzarre hotels he has stayed in have been truly fascinating. Hummmm.

[Captain Tancredi]

I've started reading my first ever Terry Pratchett- it's a copy of Reaper Man my Grandma must have bought me in my student days because it's dated 1992 but I've just never made time to read it. But I brought it back from my mum and dad's a while back because I wanted to read it while Sir Terry is still on the ball.

[Rob McCow]

I would recommend Nation of all the Terry Pratchett books. Because I'm totally biased and it's the only one I've enjoyed, but it was magnificent.

At the weekend I spent £35 on second hand sci-fi at Reading Oxfam, after Brian Stableford unloaded his collection of Sci-fi books onto the store. Just read 'Solar Lottery' by Philip K Dick, a bog-standard Dick tale and I'm about to launch into Michael Moorcock's 'Dancers At The End of Time'. Only another 10 or 11 books to go!

[Stuart Wallis]

a bog-standard Dick tale

And I defy our critics to read something into that!

In other news, I'm just starting on Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.

[Paul Clement]

I'm working my way through some of the 'classics', and am currently over halfway through Uncle Tom's Cabin.

[SiHart]

One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde. The latest in the increasingly bizarre but quite wonderful Thursday Next series.

Si xx

[SiHart]

The Bride That Time Forgot: Paul Magrs. Another splendid book in the Brenda and Effie series.

[Rob McCow]

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (finished Tuesday)
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, which is pretty damn good!