~Andrea~

Woot - finally finished The Making of Modern Britiain. Only took me 6 months lol! Devi - hope you enjoy it. Let me know when you start it!

The Farseer trilogy is great Athena, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Started reading Seeking Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser.

I finished Ship of Magic just before the weekend and thought it was fab. Ship of Magic centres around the Vestrit family and their ship, the Vivacia, which has been in the family for three generations, and is now about to quicken into a true liveship. Althea Vestrit has longed for this day all of her life. Already partially bonded to the ship she has loved and worked on since a child, she is now ready for the carved figurehead at the helm to awaken, so she can fulfil her destiny to captain the Vivacia and truly realise her family bond with the ship. Inevitably, things don't entirely work out and family politics send her life reeling in another unexpected direction. I loved this book as I've loved all the Robin Hobbs I've read. It's a true adventure story full of danger and intrigue and unexpected twists. The story had a slightly slower start than the first Assassin novel, but I was engaged from the start. As with the Assassin novels though, I was transported to another world full of interesting characters, and magical ideas, without feeling engulfed in OTT fantasy. The characters were interesting and human enough to make the whole fantastical world believable. The author has a great knack for creating the sights and sounds and smells of day to day life in the worlds she creates so that I really felt plunged into sealife, and the landscapes and culture of the various trading cities was brought vividly to life. There are a lot of strong female characters in this one too, (as well as male) which also appealed. Recommended if you like fantasy, and even if you don't (but perhaps read the Assassin trilogy first as there may be some crossover)

Of course silly billy

Haha

Aw sorry for all the stress with work and health. Hope you get some good rest soon! Glad you're feeling a bit better.

Aww great review Kay - I've been wanting to read this for a while! Oh you do make me laugh

Some great reads on your shelves BSchultz! Especially these ones: I listened to Jekyll and Hyde on audio not long a ago. It's a great little story - and quite a quick light read. I also loved Catch-22 - one of my all-time favourites. These two I want to read some day too so I'd be interested in your thoughts - particularly The Iliad. Happy reading!

Fantastic news on the translating work. Congratulations Long may it continue Also I LOVE those pigs. How cool that they get a whole Caribbean island to themselves. Lucky lucky pigs!

Congratulations Frankie

Eek - has anyone tried the maths one? http://toys.usvsth3m.com/maths/ I found the earlier rounds a lot easier but am failing abysmally on the later ones!

Got there in the end - but was very frustrating! Some levels took longer than others

Well that's my usual trick however I think I'm going to set myself the goal of starting the next one before the year ends.

I finished listening to Wuthering Heights. It was good to experience this story again, as it was such a long time ago that I read it. I had forgotten so much of the story it was almost unrecognisable in parts. It was a good audio version, capably read by the excellent Juliet Stevenson, but it did suffer from being abridged. There were parts I remembered reading that didn't appear in the story, and it was the poorer for it. That said, I do remember it being long-winded in places so the abridgement was probably a good thing at those points. I've decided to give another push on The Making of Modern Britain so that I don't finish Ship of Magic before the weekend; I'm going away on the weekend and I'd like to take it with me, along with Philosophy of Mind. Hopefully soon I'll get my 'currently reading' list down to something a bit more manageable soon as it feels rather overwhelming at the moment.

Oops - bought another book today: Philosophy of Mind by John Heil. It's a Routledge text book. Hopefully it won't be too heavy going though. I wonder if I'll be able to resist starting it before I've finish the books I'm currently reading? Think I'm currently buying books quicker than I can read them doh.

Shepherd's pie. Actually anything with mince in it suits me. It's my favourite form of meat (I use quorn mince in things like chillies where there is plenty of flavour from other things) Sausage and mash. Actually anything with mash in suits me too. Potatoes are probably one of my favourite foods. I too love good simple honest grub.

Ah I loved James and the Giant Peach. I read it when I was little. I think it was the first 'proper' book (i.e. a proper story with chapters) that I read by myself. Black Beauty is also great! I didn't know this. How lush!

Indeed

Quite close to finishing Ship of Magic now. It's all getting very exciting . I know I'm going to want to start the next one right away - but I have so many other books to read.

People who eat with their mouths open. Ew!

The World's End Very funny and enjoyable. Better than Hot Fuzz.

I'd definitely recommend DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP Philip K. Dick FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon is a must read. I read this recently and thought I was too old to be impressed by a book this much anymore.

I used to love those puzzles but I don't remember them having a name. I just googled and found 'sliding block puzzle' or sliding tile puzzle'. That would work!

Sorry this is so late - I'm only just catching up with threads since I've been away - but great news Julie