Topic: What are you reading?

[DadnDom]

have you guys heard of book crossing?
http://www.bookcrossing.com/
i love the idea of releasing books into the wild.

Fantastic link!!!
thanks for that. i have some books I will be releasing into the wild now :)

[emmy1978]

I did it today with If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon Mcgregor.
Fun!

[froglets]

My local charity shops are absolute caves of delights when it comes to books.  And then I take 'em back again so they can be sold again.   Yikes, in my head I sound like Eddie Izzard!
Book recycling, the possibilities are endless.

just finished Portrait in Sepia by Isabelle Allende - great read, something translated from modern Greek about a Greek family, lives & loves, difficult to read due to the use of English so that went straight back out again,  Flying under bridges by Sandi Toksvig, ok but not her best.  Now reading It could happen to You by Isla Dewar & lining up Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

[emmy1978]

Portrait in Sepia just brilliant. Love Isabel Allende.
I love charity book buying too, but i am a keeper. I dream of house with books books everywhere. I love them. I want them around for the girls to read as they get older as that's how i grew up helping myself from grandparents and mums bookshelves.

[SueSteve]

Well, apart form reading Gardening Magazines??!!
For many years I could not read fiction, I was a student from 1997-last Nov, I felt that if I read fiction I was wasting my time as I should have been reading academic papers!
Anyway, I now read loads of teenage books, started reading a few books that my children were reading at school (aged 12 & 14), I really enjoyed them and found them so easy to get into, I am still enjoying reading teenage books, and enjoy the time discusing the stories with the children. I am currently reading Ragwitch by Garth Nix.
I liked Eragon and Eldest, much better than the film. I also like Marcus Sedgewick, Michelle Paver, Eva Ibbotson, & William Nicholson.
I get a lot of books from Read it swap it, but I do find it hard to swap a good book, with 15 book cases in the house (although 12 are non-fiction!), and only one empty shelf, I think I will need to let some go soon!

[froglets]

Hi Emmy, yes I love Allende & keep thinking I've read them all when another one turns up on the Charity shop shelves.  I used to keep all my books but house moves and downsizing forced me to be a bit ruthless over the last few years.  Having said that I have about 200 paperbacks salted about the place in boxes & the corner of the office.  I think it stems from the almost complete lack of books in the house when I was growing up.   If I could get some paperback deep free standing bookshelves for the upstairs hallway I'd get them back out of the boxes at least.

I've registered with the book crossing site & think that will supplement my donating to charity.  I have to make myself do it to keep the numbers down and spread the reading around, after all sharing books is a good thing.

[emmy1978]

Oh joy! More keepers!!
SueSteve - have you read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer? And the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman? They are teenage books but absolutely brilliant. I also love The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime by Mark Haddon. Oh i love books so much. Books, music or gardening? Reading a book, in the garden, listening to music, glass of wine...BLISS!

[sarah]

i cant read and listen to music at the same time. i love reading though but i havent heard of most of the books you guys like.  theres so many books out there waiting to be read. at the moment i am reading the letters of vita sackville west and harold nicholson.  i guess my attitude to books is that i love to keep the ones i love.  the ones that i have enjoyed but wont read again i am happy to pass on.  i am also a great believer in the transient nature of certain objects which arrive in our spaces for short periods to enhance our lives in some way and then move on to do good works in other peoples lives. not just books, but books fall into that catagory for me. 

[Ceratonia]

have you read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer? And the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman? They are teenage books but absolutely brilliant.

My 8 year old son (and quite a few of his friends) like Artemis Fowl , too.  Eragon & Eldest also popular with the 8 year olds round here, as are The Anthony Horowitz "Power of five" and "Alex Rider" series of books.

'His Dark Materials' will probably have to wait a couple of years, I think. Although supposedly children's books, they have a fair bit of philosophy/ theology, ideas from quantum physics and lots of influence from Paradise Lost & William Blake, so plenty to think about for an adult reader. Really good books. Philip Pullman was my wife's teacher at school in Oxford when she was 9 or 10. She always talked about how great a teacher he'd been. It was a quite a shock for her when she saw a full page interview with him in the paper one day....

A quick multiply of number of books per shelf by the number of bookshelves suggests we have about 1500 books in the house  :-[ They must be doing an excellent job of insulating the walls.....

[DenBee]

Today I started (and kept going till I finished) a book by Christopher Brookmyre called 'All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye', which I picked up in a charity shop last week, and kept as a reward to myself for finishing my Open University assignment, which I had to have in by last night.

I love Brookmyre's novels.  He's dry, witty, caustic, and very funny.  A Scottish version of Carl Hiaasen I suppose, another satirical author whose books I love to read.

The one I read today was fast and amusing.  With a woman as the hero.  Recommended if you like action in your books.

[greyhound]

Re His Dark Materials, do you know the film of the first part of the trilogy will be released in December as The Golden Compass.  Very impressive cast headed by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

[SueSteve]

Oh joy! More keepers!!
SueSteve - have you read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer? And the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman?

Hi Emmy,
I have the Philip Pullman books, they are among the many on the 'to read' list! My son has some of the Artemis Fowl books, but I havn't read any yet.
Sue

[SueSteve]

Reading a book, in the garden, listening to music, glass of wine...BLISS!

I must agree with you there, but not in this rain  ;)

[emmy1978]

Doesn't happen often enough now with girls running about!

[robkb]

Morning all, another couple of crackers I've just finished:

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka - a black comedy set in the world of migrant fruit pickers; sometimes horrifying (the chicken farm will stay with me for a while...) and often extremely funny.

Digger's Diaries by Victor Osborne - just republished; yet another 'one year in the life of my allotment' book, but well written and very truthful about the ups and downs of allotmenteering.

Cheers,
Rob ;)

[emmy1978]

hi Rob, my mum has Two Caravans for me up in Blackpool I think. She trawls charity shops for me and I do for her!! We did end up with 3 copies of Memoirs of a Geisha though ( she bought 2 the loon)
I'm still working my way through Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, very hard going. Found Beasts in my Belfry by Gerald Durrell in chario ( charity shop in 3 year old speak) - not exactly high lit but he is one of my heroes. His best book is My Family and Other Animals though, laugh out loud time. The others focus on how he came to set up Jersey Zoo and his life running it.  ;D

[robkb]

Must read Gerald Durrell one day. Have read some of his brother Lawrence(very different - high literature) but somehow haven't got round to Gerald. I seem to remember trying Bury My Heart... once, but didn't finish it - can't remember why, so might have to try again. Enjoy Two Caravans, it's fab ;D

Am about to start Woodlands by Oliver Rackham, a 600+ page weighty tome about... woodlands! Supposed to be brilliant, so hopefully I won't notice the sprained wrists from carrying it on the train! And then I've just ordered two books by Roger Deakin - Waterlog, about his attempts to swim most of the 'wild' waters of Britain, and Wildwood, about mankind's relationship to trees. Deakin was (I think) a founder member of Friends of the Earth, and comes highly recommended by Richard Mabey - which is more than good enough for me!

Cheers,
Rob ;)

[emmy1978]

Yes Rob, very different to Lawrence. He was a dry old stick. Gerald was a real bon vivant, took nothing seriously except animals and ecology. He reminds me very much as a latter day Steve Irwin. Informed, intelligent, enthusiastic and insane.  ;D ;D

[robkb]

Informed, intelligent, enthusiastic and insane.  ;D ;D

Four essential qualities in life, I reckon!

By the way (re your avatar) - as my eldest daughter keeps reminding me, it's now only 3 days until Pirates 3 comes out! I guess you're looking forward to Friday as much as she is...

Cheers,
Rob ;)

[emmy1978]

I knoooow!!  ;D ;D ;D