I read Holes by Louis Sachar yesterday...all of it. It's good. It's a children's book so quite short but engaging. The book centres on the familialy unlucky Stanley Yelnats who gets wrongly convicted of stealing a pair of 'sneakers' (that's trainers to most of us) and sent to Camp Green Lake, which is neither green nor does it have a lake. There he is forced to dig a hole 5 foot deep and in diameter everyday...what is the mystery of the holes and how will it help to change Stanley's family's luck? Well?

Now I want to see the film.

I made up the word 'familialy'...but I thought it would work for what I meant...anyone want to guess?



Yay, Count Badgula!

This week I have been mostly reading:

Catch 22. Very funny in a mildly hysterically war kind of way.

Nick Hornby's 31 songs was quite good but a bit pants if you've never heard any of the songs. Like I havent. Methinks the accompanying CD would help, but im not forking out another tenner to understand his book... yet.

taking most of my literary cues from king, i can also recommend Holes, as a top notch little title. (The wrong thread but the film is pretty good too, it has the same feel as the book.)

Also, you were so right about The Eyre Affair. I have just finished it, so you can have it back next time i see you, and it is top quality and if you don't mind the extremely odd and i might just have to buy the hat.

At last; I can talk Thursday. I've got the next two books in the series (I got Well Of Lost Plots on Sat...finished!) so we'll have to do a swap. And the hat is an excellent choice.

I was tempted to upgrade your "the Eyre Affair" to a V1.4 but I decided that that ought to be your choice.

http://www.jasperfforde.com/upgrade.html

There is an upgrade for "The Well of Lost Plots" from V1.0 to V1.1 too.

http://www.jasperfforde.com/upgdtn31.1.html

Yeah, I know, I dunno; you know how I like to keep my books. I may have to just buy version 1.4 instead of getting the patch; or getting another version 1 and ugrading that one...need someone with great handwriting though.

1st post and clearly it belongs on the books section - the feist issue is critical as i have had to goa nd buy the other riftwar books - also the next jasper fforde (new for

Apparently Jasper Fforde is coming to the Berkeley Barnes and Noble to do a book signing/Q&A session and etc. It will be the evening of February 28th. Now, he may not be worth flying over the pond for (although anyone who wishes to is welcome to draw lots for the bathtub or the floor in my apartment), but if anyone would like a signed copy of a book...you could get one delivered to me, and I would be happy to accost him on your part (and mine.)

So, yeah. Plus, I just picked up a copy of George Orwell's essays. They are incredible...and worth a try if you liked his other stuff.

You know, I quite like that idea...it'd make a good story to tell him and would perhaps inspire him to genius on his autograph...then again, he could just ignore you completely 'cos of jet-lag and fall asleep in a pile of his own books...bets?

Could you not simply buy a book in the colonies and get him to sign that one? Different cover it will have, yes, but this should not be too much of a problem to a Ffan. (Do you see what I did there? Do you see? Try it yourself.)

Very clever. All of the Ffordiphiles out there appreciate your efforts. Yes, the original thought in my sleep deprived brain was that there would be a mass Amazon.com order that would arrive at my doorstep in time for the signing. This would do two things
a) save my credit rating...we wouldn't want to sprain my credit card buying too many things at once
2) enable each to purchase the book that suits him/her/dodo best.

sound good?

I admit to being fairly intrigued by what will occur at this event. Supposedly he will answer questions--shall I ask him when the next upgrade is out? or just request a meet n' greet with Miss Havisham?

Has anyone else noticed that King has started to talk like Yoda:

Deny I do the Yoda thing, hmmm?

I'll consider the book thing...though I shouldn't be too worried about the cost; only Tart, Kat and I have read these ffabulous books.

As for questions: Ask him what 'smeg' means. That seems to get a reaction at Q&A (that's a Red Dwarf joke folks). If you can find a plot-hole that has not yet been plugged, that could be a good place to start...may be a touch time consuming though. Ask him how close to world domination Goliath are, especially considering that they have found a way to sell stuff in our world (albeit only hats and t-shirts). Perhaps ask him if his Welsh wife is good with the kids (that's a Soccer AM joke folks). I'm not being useful am I?

now yoda everybody knows that smeg is a type of fridge and any man with 2 fs in his name will know that !!!!! cripes!

i belive they are available in arange of colours and sizes

Another John Le Carre job: A Murder of Quality. Pretty good - short and sweet. Helps a bit if you have read some of the other George Smiley books (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy etc.), but not necessary.

Finished Life of Pi; twas good, should be read. I'm now reading Vernon God Little (I'm obviously on a Booker spree here).

What's the Captain Coreilli sequel called? Red something or other?

there isnt a sequel as far as i know - he wrote a book called red dog that i just finished and liked. also three called - the war of don emmanuel's nether parts - senor vivo and the cocoa lords - the troublesome offspring of cardinal guzman. all three are excellent much more sureal that corelli and i think better.

I have met the man and he....was once in "the film industry." Fforde (yes, his real name, yes spelled with two "ffff"s) is a pretty funny guy, and I highly suggest going to see him if he ever comes your way. Some highlights:
1)Thursday was going to have a cat named "ella" for a pet, until a fateful visit to the Natural History Museum (in Oxford?) where he stared at the stuffed dodo and thought "how funny would it be if I had one of those as a pet."
2) all of the names in the books are names merely because Fforde thinks they are funny: hence "Land-on-Park-Lane" (monopoly reference) and "Schitt-haus" (quite obvious reference). Apparently Landon's parents' names were to be "Build-on" and "Haus-on". Ha. Ha.
3) He has groupies. I kid you not. There were women there who constantly peppered him with questions beginning :"When I was last at a talk of yours, you said" to which he merely raised an eyebrow. His girlfriend was sitting in the back (next to me) and was sniggering though.
4) He (and aforementioned girlfriend) are the two co-authors of the website. He does it all himself. And yes, you really can buy a t-shirt.
5) Whenever asked a question beginning with the word "why" and waxing philosophical, he always answered "because I'm the author and I could." His alternate answer (especially when something had been pointed out as "inconsistent" or inaccurate) was "because I thought it was funny and didn't want to take it out."
6) He considers The Eyre Affair a stand alone book and the others parts of a trilogy to be completed with the next book. He once wrote a book called "Nursery Crimes" where Jack Spratt is the investigating detective.
7) He writes his books mainly to get back at his "pathetic" literature teachers--who he charges with the crime of "ruining literature."
8) He wanted to use Cruella DeVille as a villain but was warned that he would be sued by Disney. Same for using various members of Winnie the Pooh and his "gang."

There was more, most of it funny. I will try to remember if others are interested. Oh, and the "best reward" he has gotten from his books so far?

He was mayor of Swindon for an hour and got to make pronouncements.

Cool.

1)Nice.
2)Only realised this after reading the 'Explanation for the non-English' part of his website.
3) Groupies eh?
4)I'VE GOT A T-SHIRT; I sent a cheque and an order form with 'I can't think of anything witty or interesting to say so I'll just leave this blank.' and I got a Spec-Ops 27 t-shirt and a Letter from Goliath saying that thay are also suffering from the world shortage of wittisisms and interesting things to say, but they are sure I'll understand'
5)Good man
6)Fair enough...found out about Nursery Crimes from the special features section of Well of Lost Plots.
7)Ha!
8)That's a shame.

Thanks for the report Jennie, I'd love to hear more if you can think of anything.

Thought I'd put this here as it's about Wheel of Time.


Link

all I can say is...

Please god, be better than the last few books. Please. God.


But what are the chances?

More ffacts about fforde (sorry, those double letters are just too much fun)

1) His "film industry" career (which he mentioned umpteen times) actually seems to consist of being a minor flunky for most films involving Catherine Zeta-Jones. See the IMDB for more info
2) Landon will be back in the next book--the final book of the trilogy
3) He had no idea that Jurisfiction would become the major part of the trilogy that it is. It came about because Miss Havisham was a fun character to write and he wanted to "write more."
4) He thinks that Wuthering Heights is "a book only read by school children under duress." Although he did conceded that it might be something if you were a masochist.
5) The Eyre Affair originally started with a chapter about a manuscript being stolen to introduce Thursday and her job. The current first chapter was written to be the second one--but his editor scrapped the original.
6) He says that footnoterphones will soon have a huge problem with footnoterphone spam and that methods will be created to divert it into Regency Romances as "no one will notice a little more fluff."
7) He is interested in, but has not plans for, a character exchange program with Terry Pratchett.

Character exchange with TP would be ffan-tastic! Come to think of it Terry did already steal Mr Pin and Mr Tulip from Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman to put in The Truth...perhaps the door led to the Discworld eh?

(If you don't know what I'm on about beg, borrow or buy both the books and read them and tell me I'm wrong.)

a character exchange with terry pratchett and jasper fforde, now that would be scary esp as you are letting loose the poss of another acpocalypse by sliding into good omens (beyond superb) and then i think there would be no limits because - lets face it terry pratchett stole ffrom everyone under the sun (now that was an accidental ff - me thinks a ffreudian type!)

am reading a town like alice - nevil shute suprisingly gripping althoug overshadowed by the fact mama has found me a copy of Ulysses (i tremble!)

DON'T DO IT IT'S NOT WORTH IT! God Ulysses is terrible...carry on.

Despite the warnings I have just finished The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (I was bored in a library) and found it quite passible entertainment. It looks like he's got enough for a number of books there but thirteen?

Has anyone read Steven King's Darktower series? Any good?

i bonce again chicken out of ulysses and went for gone with the wind instead - lots of very big frocks! but no irishmen - well alomst none

I'm sure that chicken was quite happy in Ulysses until you came along and bonced him out of it. Such violence...

Oh dear King - stop now before it's too late.
If you're going to read the series wait till he's done (10 or 20 years from now). Otherwise you'll end up like me - having spent months of your life (ok 11 days for you) reading his books only to find you've forgotten everything by the time his next one comes out. I'm not even sure I'll bother.

Here's a much better plan - get Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow and read them concurrently - yes...yes with one eye on each page.

Been there, done that...and it took 4 days, not 11...and that's only 'cos I had to work.

Paul Hoffman - The man who loved only numbers.

Biography of Paul Erdos. Genius prodigial (?) mathmatician.
Good entertaining book, recommended even though i'm only half way through.

By the way - are the rest of the shadow/ender books worth it? My bro says game and enders shadow are the best and the rest are just ok.

is the rule of fantasy books to throw as many plots characters worlds universes motherfuckers badgers and ho's into the mix as possible?

it is ... oh good!

Try George RR Martin.

heard of him? more of the feist jordan, dirty great big books, many many characters where nothing stays static for a second. Onto the third book and elves still havent turned up yet. tho im sure they will soon. so far there have been about 10 kings, 100 betrayals, 1000 charaters and about 1 million deaths. Quite nice.

also 3 Dragons. Some giants. some wolves. but no badgers... they're all missing a Gem resource there.

for me it goes Tolkein, Feist Martin Jordan. with anyone else coming after.

doo: useful I shall look him up. What book do you suggest starting with or is it obvious?

for George RR martin

the order goes

Game of thrones

Clash of kings

a storm of swords part 1 and 2 - A blue one then a pink one.

Books recently: Talon of the Silver Hawk and Krondor: Betrayal & Assasins all by Feist. I'm just reading what the library has there. Talon is the better of those three; Betrayal was based on a computer game and it kinda suffers for it...

Gunslinger and The Drawing of Three by Stephen King - Some quite dark, strange fantasy/western in a bleached, dying world...interesting, but probably not a buyer. I'll want to read the next one though so it's ok.

Reading: The Secret History by Donna Tart, mainly because she's got a great name, and another Brookmyre book (an excellent author as I have said many a time). Oh, and this month's Empire.

Strictly speaking this is a small screen thing but as it concerns Brookmyre: This is what I got off Xfm while looking for something completely incidental.



So they appear to be filming one of his books...cool eh?

(QUOM is the first Parlablane book with the interesting opening murder scene and the hospital conspiracy)

Just finished colour of magic (Pratchett)

Entertaining but the end left it hanging a bit - i expect Light fantastic will pick it up.

Feel a bit like I did after Kill Bill Vol 1.

I'm reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson...It's very informative. Though I did take a week out to read HP 1-5 again very entertaining it all was too.

I have been told that a book called something like "The curious dog incident last night" is ment to be a superb book.

Currently on T.P's Nightwatch which i'm enjoying far far more than the other two above. Next in line is LDBerniers's Red Dog followed by his South American trilogy.

That would be "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"

no..that just sounds stupid. It can't be right.

The De Berniers book are fucking amazing. COmpletly original and a fantastic imagination while all seeming so natural normal and possible. QWuality

And a fuck of a lot better than Captain fucking corelli and his piss poor Mandolin

I think I've made my feelings clear.

I can conrimf that is the correct name but is it worth it or is it bullshit...

I hand the answer over to King who MUST have read it!

Yes, yes I have; it's interesting, good even, but I don't feel the need to ever read it again as it's a little sobering all in all.

My holiday reading:


The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: V. good, if a bit silly. The blurb on the back is right, you will never look at The Last Supper in the same way again. In fact, this is probably the perfect book for reading while on holiday, full of conspiracy theories, secret societies and other excellent stuff. Currently reading Angels and Demons by same author.


The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason: Have to recommend this to you all, cos it's ace. A piano tuner is sent to Burma to tune the Erard piano of a British army officer who may or may not be bonkers. The descriptions of places in this book are fantastic and the story itself is genuinely moving.


Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: The book that was made into a (very good) film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. This is also excellent but I can't be bothered to explain why, so just read it.

Currently reading another Carl Hiaasen... Sick Puppy. So far so good. I will give a review upon finishing but here is the synopsis from our good friends at Amazon:

When eco-enthusiast Twilly Spree spots someone in a Range Rover dumping litter onto the freeway, he decides to teach him a lesson - only to discover that his target is Palmer Stoat, one of Florida's cockiest and most powerful political fixers, whose current project just happens to be the 'malling' of a Gulf Coast Island... A quick spot of dognapping later and the pathologically short-tempered Twilly finds himself embroiled in a murky world of singing toads, bogus big-game hunters, large vet bills and in the company of an infamous ex-governer who's gone back to nature with a vengeance.

I concur; The Da Vinci code is pretty silly, quite ridiculous really, but that doesn't get in the way of it being a good read; a perfect holiday book I'd imagine.
Remains of the Day is also quite good if a little sad.
Haven't read the other; I shall watch out for it.
Sick Puppy was quite good, amusing, still not as good as Brookmyre, misses that Scottish humour.

Just read King of Foxes which was quite good, brings Talon's story of revenge to an end...though it's not the end of th Conclave of Shadows series.

Reading: The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, which is (as the name suggests) the 5th book in Steven King's Dark Tower series which could be loosly described as a fantasy western. It's all very good and a little strange in typical King stylebut I've only just really realised how much he has decided to link all his other books to this one: The world in which it is set is failing and so is a little thin in places and links to many others. In fact there is a character in this book who is from Salem's Lot and is telling the others what happened to him during (and possibly after) that novel and how he ended up in Mid-World. I'm pretty sure there have been others that I haven't noticed as I've only read It...I guess I'm gonna have to read his back catalogue and then read all 7 books again after this. Anyway I recommend the series even if you haven't read any King...and It, that's good too, and not really scary at all. (Note to self: Get Salem's Lot from the libray)

PS Thanks Pete!

Finished Angels and Demons, also bonkers but has a good twist at the end - something that Da Vinci Code doesn't really have. Also has annoying inaccuracies about Galileo being harassed by the Catholic Church (he wasn't).

Next up, House of Cards by Michael Dobbs. I'll let you know.