Lycanthra, it's another of those where the publisher did an "adult" edtion as well...

Tom Jones (Fielding) is another great book with a hefty dose of tongue in cheek, especially if you can get your head into the right mode to appreciate the opening chapters of each section - you need to appreciate what the narrator is saying and who he was writing it for, but it's well worth the effort.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Slightly left-field stuff that people might not consider but that I have enjoyed recently -

52 Ways of Looking at a Poem - Ruth Padel. 52 poems dissected, basically. Gets you thinking and also introduces a whole load of poetry that you're unlikely to come across elsewhere. I bought it as it contained a poem I'd memorised but couldn't trace.

Do not pass go - Tim Moore. An attempt to unravel London through Monopoly. Lots of strange facts, a sense of humour and an insane task. Slightly marred by a high price tag.

Voyage of the Beagle - Darwin. Tells you as much about Darwin's character as any biography can. Especially illuminating for both his descriptions of scientific observations and his empathy towards people - shockingly modern once you get beyond the language.

Warlord Chronicles (The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur, IIRC) - Bernard Cornwell. The Arthurian myths, placed back into their original Celtic setting by the bloke who wrote Sharpe. More psychological than Sharpe, and with a very clever handling of Merlin - it's never made clear whether he can do magic or is just good at illusion, but you're left with no doubt that most people believe the former. It all rings very true, and has a solid grounding in 'known' facts about the period. It's all told through a contemporary of Arthur who was bought up as a Briton, despite being an orphaned Saxon, and follows his rise as muc as Arthur's.

The Beckoning Silence - Joe Simpson. Simpson famously fell off a mountain after his climbing partner cut the rope - an action needed to save at least one of them, but both survived. The Beckoning Silence is readable as an explanation of why people climb, how they come to terms with death, and also about the process of growing older and having to leave something that defines you. Whichever reason you read it, it's a brilliant meditation on risk and life.

'The Late Mr Shakespeare' by Robert (?) Nye. Biography of Shakespeare including rumours, haf-truths and outright falsehoods. Well worth reading, and fewer 'saucy' scenes than Nye's other books - 'Faust' and 'Merlin' drove many of my teenage fantasies. This one has many in-jokes to add to the brew, plus a great narrator character and a neat collection of every idea ever put forward about Mr S. Don't treat it as a biography though - filter stuff very carefully...

In a similar vein is 'The Memoirs of Cristopher Columbus' by Christopher Marlowe, although I'm not sure how much of this one is true either. Probably more of it as a proportion, but less so as a whole. Worth reading and thought-provoking, although it tries to get inside the key character, which is always a weakness when dealing with historical figures, in my opinion. Nye tells his tale of Shakespeare through a contemporary collecting myths, tales and legends about him, rather than trying to write for Shakespeare.


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That's a fairly diverse load - I reckon one of them ought to suit you...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Did Joe Simpson do 'touching the void' too? I may search out the beckoning silence.

Also want to read that 'do not pass go' as french revolutions was so well done. Price tag was a little off-putting though.

Yes, the Late Mr. Shakespeare is very good - I've read it twice. I must look up those Cornwell ones, that being my particular period in history (trust me to be an expert on a period where the total of known facts is .. erm ... there aren't any, really ...).



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Andrea, I get mine from the library. Cheating, I know, but I can't afford £7.00 each for 15 books in a series...

I also don't suppose that Landen would like being reffered to as a 'dopey love interest', even though he doesn't technically exist at the moment...



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

sarah B
I borrowed the 10 my library could get hold of, I'm now buying them on ebay (the max I will pay is about £3 inc postage) so if there's any you can't get give me a shout I may have it

Andrea
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Sylvester says.... *plock*




actually he says peep, cheep, chirrup, squalk,muttermuttergrumblegrumble, oh and now he falls off his pirch whish is followed by a sheepish peek round to see if anyone was looking and a quick scramble back up

Just bought the latest Artemis Fowl for holiday reading. I like the description on the obc 'Think Fairy. Think again.' And a Jeeves book (never read them before) so that should keep me occupied, given the lousy weather we're getting... it's rained non stop in Edinburgh this morning. (Just as well I'm going to the other end of the country for my hols... anyone got any idea what the weather's like in Cornwall at the mo'?)

A customer in Plymouth assures me the weather is foul. I read the first Artemis of that ilk and it was .... all right, but I wasn't tempted to but any more.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

just realised, no sign of PSD today. Thought the posts were clean...

Bernard Cornwell's Stonehenge is worth reading. His new Grail Quest trilogy (Harlequin, Vagabond, only as yet) set in the 100 year war is wonderful. The Gallows Thief is brilliant. Haven't read the Sharpe novels but quite happy to watch Sean Bean playing him ; )

Carla - I didn't know there was an adult version of Holes, must look out for it.

I got the new Artemis book, but it went from pg 19 - 50 twice then carried on so I had to take it back, I didn't think to look to see if it was alright first. Daft mare!

What to recommend??

I read about four or five books a week, but my tastes are highly eclectic, and many of them may not overlap with the tastes of other Jasper Fforde readers.

For example, my favorite fantasy epic series is George R. R. Martin's "Song of Fire and Ice", which began with "A Game of Thrones" and is scheduled to soon release the fourth volume, "A Feast for Crows", but Fforde's work is not at all in the fantasy epic vein, so it might not be to the taste of most Fforum ffans.

So to limit myself to favorites that have substantial similarities...

For humor, anything by Dave Barry. I literally laugh out loud every time I read him. He's most famous for his short newspaper columns, but he's also written two comic mystery novels, "Tricky Business" and "Big Trouble". They have a helping of Miami in-jokes that may go past non-Floridians, but mostly I find that you can infer the Miami culture he's parodying from the jokes. (I find the same thing with British humor. I may not recognize the digs from prior experience, but usually rather than going entirely over one's head, you can guess things like "Oh, there must be a lot of Jones in Wales".)

On the more serious side, but still fairly light, Sharon Shinn did a transposition of Jane Eyre into a space opera setting a few years ago, called "Jenna Starborn", which runs surprisingly close to the original. I first read "Jane Eyre" back in my early high school days, the same period I was reading Daphne du Maurier (I think a reference in some forward to "Rebecca" was what led me to the Brontes), but I'd almost entirely forgotten the story, since that was over thirty years ago. So I reread it after reading Jenna Starborn, just to see where the parallels were, and there were many. Even the scene with Rochester masquerading as a fortune teller is there.

If you have the patience for long philosophical musings, one book I would recommend highly is Doug Hofstadter's "Goedel, Escher, Bach", if you haven't already read it. Since Fforde and Hofstadter are both big fans of Lewis Carroll and Escher, anyone who likes one is likely to resonate with the other, as long as reading philosophy of science and mind isn't too heavy for you. The dialogues between Achilles and the Tortoise are witty and entertaining, and Hofstadter has a chatty conversational style that makes you feel like you are thinking through the book with him. (I got to read many of the dialogues before the book was published, since Doug and I both had offices at Stanford's Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences in the late 70's, and he used to distribute drafts of the dialogues for discussion.)

Oooh... another Hofstadter fan! *bounces* Have you read "Le Ton Beau de Marot"?

I had a brief exchange of e-mails with the Professor last year when I sent him some of my translations of Italian poetry. He was impressed, so I felt extremely pleased with myself. I also wrote him a little acrostic rondeau on his name, as a tribute; he was delighted with that too.

On the subject of the number of Joneses in Wales, this is a true story concerning an Irish chap I used to know by the name of Tony Kelly. I'm afraid Tony must have been the source of all those jokes about dim Irishmen, because honestly, his brothers got all the brains. Anyway, he was in the building trade before he retired, and some years ago he and a couple of friends were all employed on a contract in Aberystwyth. They arrived in town the night before they were due to start, and walked from the station to their lodgings.

The other two chaps were chatting away, but Tony was uncharacteristically quiet as they walked past the various shops: Jones the butcher, Jones the florist, Jones the undertaker and so on. Finally, one of the others said, "A penny for your thoughts, Tony."

"Jaysus," replied Tony, "this Jones must be one hell of a rich man!"



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Books to recommend...oooh. I prefer Wodehouse's Blandings books to the Jeeves stories.
'Diary of a Nobody' I liked a lot, and also 'Mrs Pooter's diary' by Kieth Waterhouse (I think), if you can find it.
There is a sequel to '3 Men In boat', which is '3 Men on the Bummel'. I got it in one of those cheapo classics versions. Possbly not quite as brilliant, but worth reading.
For anyone who's read those (and even if you haven't) I *highly* recommend 'To Say Nothing of the dog' and 'Bellwether', both by Connie Willis. They can be difficult to find in UK bookshops, but can be ordered from Amazon. Both are brilliant farces, literate and well-written.
I like Walter Jon Williams sci-fi books. Very literate and well written. 'Days of Atonement' is good stuff. 'Aristo' is quite an experiment that takes some concentration. The aristo characters have developed their alternative personalities, who join in while the main character is acting. So the main text has sidebars, which are the comments from the different personalities; all going on simultaneaously !
I'm also a fan of old-fashioned British sci-fi, like John Wyndam and Edmund Cooper. 'Kronk', by Cooper, is one of my favourites.

Thanks again to all! So many recommendations!

Very impressed that you've been in contact with Douglas Hofstadter, Sarah. I do love Godel Escher Bach, even though the maths is beyond me by about quarter of the way through.

I got one of the Blandings books yesterday (i think it was Heavy Weather, but I'm not sure) and Small World by David Lodge. Which is very funny. I like " "This business of phallic symbolism is a lot of rot." He stabbed the air with his knife to emphasise the point." It made me laugh out loud on the tube...

He is a bit sex-obsessed though! (Which isn't usually a problem, only I wasn't expecting it...)

I'm going to experiment with e-books for my palm pilot. (Convoluted reason: I bought a new bag, which is lovely and has a spider on the front, but is too small to fit a book in. At least without sticking out the top.) Anyone read e-books? Can you get free ones?



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Do something pretty while you can...

I've got Jane Eyre on my palm pda.

Shame the screen is so hard to read...

try [www.memoware.com], they've got loads of ebooks.

yeah, I was there last night, actually. I remember the Ducks of Doom.



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Do something pretty while you can...

Oooh, and I can get "25 Tom Swift novels" from there.



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Do something pretty while you can...

Last time I bought a handbag, I amused the sales lady no end by bringing along a paperback copy of "Sense and Sensibility". I couldn't decide which of two to buy, so I put them through the Jane Austen test: which one would hold the book better? The little black velvet creation won hands down, and I expect the sales lady is still dining out on the story.

Obsessive? Moi?



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah