What books are we reading at the moment ?

[clarion]

I try hard not to take them off, though I have to say that my previous experience of cottered chainsets is that the nuts like to ease themselves

[Moloko]

I miss the ol' cottered chainsets.

There was something nice about having the manufacturers name (the better ones) making up part of the spoking.

[clarion]

If I wasn't an Irish nationalist, I'd love to get an Ulster hand chainset for my Rudge...

[Moloko]

If I wasn't an Irish nationalist, I'd love to get an Ulster hand chainset for my Rudge...

Oh yeah, I remember seeing THAT one before. 

[her_welshness]

Just finished The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. As that followed The Road by Cormac McCarthy I think I am due for a happy book now.

Well it is Holocaust Memorial Day to day so its very appropriate!

[mark]

George Orwell's "Animal Farm". I dimly remember reading it many years ago, but I was too young to really appreciate it and I've forgotten too much of it.

[andrewc]

Tim Powers excellent "Declare". I must look up some of his other stuff. 

The Anubis Gates is one of my favourite ever SF novels (or perhaps it's urban fantasy...) - by turns ridiculous, literary, zany and really quite beautiful, it has time-travel, magic, gypsies and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a dirty, dangerous London... what more could you want?

Just finished "The Anubis Gates",  a very good read, thanks for the recommendation.   Next one's going to be a toss up between Jon Courtenay Grimwood's "Redrobe" or Kim Stanley Robinson's  "Icehenge"

[Flying_Monkey]

Tim Powers excellent "Declare". I must look up some of his other stuff. 

The Anubis Gates is one of my favourite ever SF novels (or perhaps it's urban fantasy...) - by turns ridiculous, literary, zany and really quite beautiful, it has time-travel, magic, gypsies and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a dirty, dangerous London... what more could you want?

Just finished "The Anubis Gates",  a very good read, thanks for the recommendation.   Next one's going to be a toss up between Jon Courtenay Grimwood's "Redrobe" or Kim Stanley Robinson's  "Icehenge"

Hmm. Neither are their best works. Redrobe has more guns.

[andrewc]

Tim Powers excellent "Declare". I must look up some of his other stuff. 

The Anubis Gates is one of my favourite ever SF novels (or perhaps it's urban fantasy...) - by turns ridiculous, literary, zany and really quite beautiful, it has time-travel, magic, gypsies and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a dirty, dangerous London... what more could you want?

Just finished "The Anubis Gates",  a very good read, thanks for the recommendation.   Next one's going to be a toss up between Jon Courtenay Grimwood's "Redrobe" or Kim Stanley Robinson's  "Icehenge"

Hmm. Neither are their best works. Redrobe has more guns.

So I believe, but I've not read anything before the Arabesque series.  Redrobe is supposed to have a talking gun, the last one of those I encountered was in Ken Mcleods "Star Fraction" 

I've read and enjoyed most of KSR's other stuff so Icehenge is just tidying up the bits. I think I read "The Gold Coast" when it was first published and picked up "Pacific Edge" and "The Wild Shore" on Ebay a few years ago. Good stuff.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I've just finished The Damned Utd and enjoyed it so much I think I'll see if I can get secondhand copies of Cloughie's autobiographies on Amazon.

[JT]

Me Cheeta: The Autobiography

[Deborah]

Single Man. I like to the read book before I see the film.

[Nuncio]

Magnus Mills - The Maintenance of Headway.

[rogerzilla]

An Edgar Allan Poe collection. 

[her_welshness]

The True Blood Omnibus by Charlaine Harris. Not high literature but very entertaining 

[toekneep]

In search of Robert Millar. Somebody in the pub was returning it to it's owner and I raised the old sex change question. "Read it and find out for yourself" was the response. Now I feel obliged to read it whether it is interesting or not. 

[clarion]

It's an interesting book by a pretty good writer.  I really like Millar, irascible or not.  As for the sex change thing, I really don't care.  It's his life, and I would like him to be able to live it in peace as far as possible.  He was a terrifically exciting rider.

[Redlight]

I think the book is inconclusive on the sex change rumour.  It's a good read, though, and I like the little email exchange at the end. He was a great rider.  I forget which climb it was (Super Bagneres, maybe?),  but I that clip of him passing his bottle to a rival rider who had run out of water sums the man up for me. 

[andygates]

Cosmonaut Keep.  There's a project manager as a hero.  That's new.

[jogler]

Cosmonaut Keep.  There's a project manager as a hero.  That's new.

I've been doing heroic work as a Project Manager for years .
I may be biased of course & I realise that self-praise is no reccommendation but I don't suffer from false modesty where work is concerned

Currently I am reading Arrivee

[Auntie Helen]

The True Blood Omnibus by Charlaine Harris. Not high literature but very entertaining 

I read these books as individual stories a while back - they sadly go downhill quite a lot after the fifth or sixth book and rather spoiled my enjoyment, retrospectively, of the first book. Hope you get on better with them.

[her_welshness]

The True Blood Omnibus by Charlaine Harris. Not high literature but very entertaining 

I read these books as individual stories a while back - they sadly go downhill quite a lot after the fifth or sixth book and rather spoiled my enjoyment, retrospectively, of the first book. Hope you get on better with them.

Yes, thats the impression that I got from other readers on the Interwebs, but we shall see 

[geoff]

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Thought it was a bit one-paced to start with but actually the author was just being strict with himself, presumably so's not to show off too much. Technically it's dazzling, with deft switches of style and idiom, double narrative lines and the story-within-a-story plus a whole world of sci-fi technical wizardry. But even better it's a rattling good yarn to boot.

[Flying_Monkey]

"The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Thought it was a bit one-paced to start with but actually the author was just being strict with himself, presumably so's not to show off too much. Technically it's dazzling, with deft switches of style and idiom, double narrative lines and the story-within-a-story plus a whole world of sci-fi technical wizardry. But even better it's a rattling good yarn to boot.

Yeah, it was the last disciplined book he wrote (or maybe the last time he had an editor). Consequently, it's by far his best IMHO. He seems only to write bloated and overblown things now.

[Bledlow]

"Castorp", by Pawel Huelle. Very good, so far.