Kylie

Wow, I had no idea that Aberdeen was an oil city. I really wish we all had governments that planned ahead and thought in the longer term. We've received plenty of warning of what's going to happen, and yet we won't do anything until the problem reaches a critical point and we're forced to act.

I may think you're crazy, but I also think it's sweet that you think that way.

I'm not really a fan of Cruise, and I know it's not really 'cool' to like the remake of The War of the Worlds, but I did rather like it. But I loved the original too. Did you know that the male and female leads of the original made a cameo appearance in the remake? Cool! The original The Time Machine is one of my favourite ever movies. The remake is abysmal. There are (expensive) models of the time machine that you can buy and put together. I'd love to have a replica with real working lights and everything! And I love the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard accidentally buys a full-sized time machine.

Yes, I remember. I always thought you were a little bit crazy for not wanting to watch them. Maybe one day I'll convince you to watch the Liza Weil interview (I can't remember which DVD season it's on at the moment...)

It's scary, isn't it, Kell? Back when I was in high school, I'm sure we were told that oil and coal would run out within about 20 years (which would make it around five years from now). While it's nice to see that hasn't happened, it's not much better seeing that they're still going to run out in our lifetime!

I can't wait to hear your thoughts! I hope to read it in the next couple of months. Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed The War of the Worlds. It's a shame you didn't enjoy Nemesis as much; hopefully your next Agatha Christie will be better. Which other books are in the omnibus?

I'm planning to start reading One of Our Thursdays is Missing soon, but it's been a while since I last read a book from the series, so I was refreshing my memory by reading the synopses of the previous couple of books on Wikipedia, and I came across something slightly puzzling. Did everyone else know that books 5-7 in the Thursday Next series (that is, First Among Sequels, One of Our Thursdays is Missing and The Woman Who Died a Lot) are actually considered a 'new four-part Nextian series'? I only just found out. I thought they were all considered part of one long series (which I guess they still are). Is it because the book is set (as I recall) years later? Or is it just to do with the title having the word 'sequel' in it? I found this snippet in an interview on Jasper's website: '...it seems perfect to have it [the title First Among Sequels] on this, the first book in the second batch of Thursday books. Indeed. TNs one to four were essentially 'Thursday Volume one'. First Among Sequels is the first part of the next four-parter, which will continue with One of our Thursdays is Missing in 2009'.

This website is pretty cool. You enter your birth date, gender and height, and it presents details relating to you and earth. From the BBC website: For example, I'm 33 years old on Earth, but 137 years old on Mercury. Also, there have been 159 major earthquakes during my lifetime. And so on...there are loads of interesting facts! Check yours out and let us know what interesting facts you discover.

True! Given that you recently read some Enid Blyton books, you might be interested to know that Five on a Treasure Island is going to be featured on The Book Club next month. (Yes, really! ). Alan Cumming (Eli Gold on The Good Wife) is going to be a guest on the show, and he chose the book.

I've only read the first couple of (short) chapters. But I was already tired when I started reading it last night (well, this morning), so I think I'll start from the beginning again. After only a few pages it was reminding me of The Decameron (because it was a little bit naughty and there was a bit of 'ooh, did I really just read that?!' ). I thought you had enjoyed reading Candide, but then when I was adding the book on Goodreads I noticed that you only gave it two stars. Let's just leave the horny dilemmas to Janet, then.

Brief(ish) thoughts on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy: I believe the Swedish title of the first book in the trilogy translates to 'Men Who Hate Women'. I think that would be a better name for the entire trilogy, actually: the Men Who Hate Women Trilogy. There are so few decent men in these books (and even the 'decent' men tend to objectify women). It's rather disconcerting, and I have to say, it doesn't make me want to visit Sweden any time soon. I know it's a ridiculous thing to say because it's only fiction, but geez...the hate from nearly all of the men towards nearly of the women is so palpable. Spoilers for book 3: To say nothing, of course, of all of the men who hated Lisbeth and plotted against her for no reason whatsoever. Anyway, it really doesn't paint Swedish men (and therefore Sweden itself) in a flattering light, but I doubt it has harmed tourism at all (I recall reading that tours of the areas mentioned in the books are very popular). One of Larsson's greatest writing strengths can also be one of his weaknesses, I think. The amount of detail that he writes is incredible. A character doesn't just wake up and go to work—Larsson will detail the route they took to get to work, what they ate for breakfast etc. This level of detail provides more reality and enables the reader to become more engrossed in the characters' lives. But sometimes it feels a bit much and you'd rather he just get on with the story. Some sections of the third book, in particular, felt a bit long-winded. Occasionally I felt that I was reading the same thing over and over, as one character would meet with another and there would be (yet another) summary of the case to date. Luckily the plot was so gripping that it wasn't too much of a problem. Lastly, a flaw with the reader: there were so many damn characters to keep track of! I think it was almost worse than reading a Russian novel. My reading was a bit halting because I'd often have to pause when I got to a character's name and wrack my brain for a moment trying to remember where the character fit within the story (it probably didn't help that Larsson jumps from one 'scene' to another every few pages). At one time I paused for several seconds while I tried to place a particular character's name...and then realised it wasn't the name of a character but the name of a place. But don't be deterred by the above points. I loved this trilogy. I read the first book back in 2010 and loved it, so I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to the second and third books, but I'm so glad I finally read them. It was worth the wait! I've rated the last two books 9/10 (I believe I rated the first book 10/10, but it's a close thing between the three books, and now I would perhaps revise the rating of the first book down and give them all a solid 9/10).

As I'm sure you already know, I completely agree with this! Argh, I hated it so much. At the risk of repeating myself for the millionth time, I love Catch-22 so, so much.

I forgot to reply to this. Sorry Gaia! I've only read the first five Discworld books so far. I have so many to read! Speaking of Discworld (or rather, Terry Pratchett), I bought an amazingly cheap hardback copy of Good Omens from the Book Depository recently. It will replace my secondhand paperback (or maybe I'll keep the paperback too...they are my preferred book format after all...). About a week after I ordered that, the BD had another snap sale and I snagged a Penguin Modern Classic edition of Arthur Miller's play called All My Sons. I've never read anything by Miller before, and this was such a bargain that I couldn't resist. It should be a quick read. In other recent book activity, I finished Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy this morning and started on Voltaire's Candide. It's been a while since I read a classic. So far so good! Thoughts to follow on the Millennium trilogy.

I finished it this morning. It's great, isn't it? So glad I finally got around to finishing the trilogy. I've now started reading Candide by Voltaire. Yay! 'Lovely' is the perfect word for it, I think. Sounds painful, doesn't it?

I haven't heard of most of the cancelled shows. I watched Revenge and The Following but don't mind them being cancelled because they had both pretty much gone as far as they could. There's a couple of interesting shows listed in the new batch, but nothing truly excites me.

Another 25-hour sale has started at the Book Depository (started half an hour ago).

That sounds like a good decision, Muggles. I hope you don't have to wait too long for the fourth book if you need to re-apply for it.

Ooh, that's tricky. I suppose you could if you really wanted to, but you should know that there are events that occur in the last book that relate to the third book. I think you could still follow it well enough though. They work pretty well as standalone books. Was that any help at all? Sorry!

I thought you weren't watching it anymore? How would you have liked it to end? I think it ended the way it had to.

Yes, poor Raj seems to be more of a secondary character these days. And it seems that the writers got stuck with where to take his storyline, so it's as though they've just given up. It should have been a big thing for Raj to get a girlfriend, but it just kind of happened and then she disappeared, only to make the occasional very brief appearance. It's hard to get a feel for their chemistry when she's hardly ever around...I just don't think it's working with that particular character. They should probably get rid of his girlfriend and introduce a new one who is going to become a regular like Amy and Bernadette. The season finale was quite good. Has anyone else seen it?

I completely missed your post until now, Frankie! I don't know much more about the reunion than what is in the link, but your summary sounds correct to me. I don't mind watching them talk out of character. I absolutely love hearing anything to do with 'behind the scenes' stuff, and I love watching them interact with each other out of character. It's so different, of course, but still fun to watch!

I just watched the final ever episode of Revenge. It ended perfectly, I thought!

Yeah, it's a mammoth! They're kind of like the Harry Potter books...each book is longer than the one before it. It's a gripping read though, and very difficult to put down. I'm sure you could finish it in about two days.

I have about 60 pages left of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (out of 746!). I plan on finishing it tonight if I can stay awake long enough.

Your cats are gorgeous, Icsucr! What breed are they? Aw, such cute chicks, Gaia! Was that you talking on the video? I recently went to the annual Easter Show in Sydney, which is largely an agricultural event. There was an area with lots of baby chicks (I love their chirping!) and there was a sort of glass box with lots of eggs that were in the process of hatching. Some had hatched already, and there was hours-old chicks finding their legs, and other eggs had partially cracked open and you could see the chick moving under the surface and getting ready to arrive. It was awesome!!