themightypuma

I always think it is appropriate to swap medication when first meeting, so in answer to the question: It is my turn to take your medication, and yours to take mine.

is TBR to be read pile? If it is I strongly advise you to promote Oryx and Crake to the top of it. Give it a chance though as it comes across as a bit standard sci-fi until you realise of the complexity and depth of what Atwood is attempting, and I believe manages, to achieve.

1000 year eggs are available in almost all convenience stores and cost 0.6 yuan or RMB thats about 4.5 pence in sterling or 9 cents in dollars - they have an initially unusual flavour that becomes addictive. They are particularly nice when served in Ramen noodle based soups. They taste a lot better than they look. The bullfrog in a stone pot was the most challenging thing I ate while out there and believe me I have very adventurous tastes so if I tell you its challenging I'm not lieing.

Hi everyone. I have just joined as I got to bursting point about not having anyone to chat to about what I'm reading! Let's get the standard likes list out of the way: I love Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan (just read on Chesil Beach), J.M.Coetzee, Malcolm Lowry, Margaret Atwood, Graham Greene, Joan Didion, Ian Fleming and many many more. I am a big film fan too and love to cook, I have degrees in Philosophy and love travelling. In fact I am just back from a trip to China on which I gorged myself on Dim Sum and 1000 year eggs. I am sure I shall get to know many of you via my late night rants and your more measured and insightful comments about them. I would also like to perhaps set up book rant dinners in restaurants in the London/South East area of England. But that is juat a thought at this time. If anyone is interested in the idea though do speak up.

I am generally pretty careful with books, and expect people to have the same attitude towards them as I. I have lent people books and been annoyed with the state they have been returned in - usually it is general bashed-ness that is indicative of a general lack of care - you can tell they have had coffee cups rested on them and have had pages folded over and similar. However the condition of some of my favourite books are quite poor, generally because they have been everywhere with me. Many of my favourite have even been destroyed and I am on copy no 2, or copy no 3. I am on copy No 4 of Martin Amis' Money, copy no 2 of the collected poetry of T.S.Eliot, Copy no 3 of the middle of the journey - Lionel Trilling, Copy no 3 of Huxley's Brave New World, copy 2 of Madame Bovary and others that I don't recall. I will write in some books to highlight passages and I have gone as far as buying a second copy to write in and kept one for 'best' Which I realise makes me sound mentally ill, but there you are. Generally of course I really like nice looking books in the best possible condition, but I do not hold it against a copy if through the years of careful usage and love it starts to look a little worn around the edges, as the truth about many pristine books is that they look nice because no one has read them. A tatty book which I have almost loved to death about which I can tell you that this spot was made by a glass of red wine, or that mark made by a gravy rip-tide when I dropped a big piece of steak back on to my plate, or that muddy corner of a page was acquired when I was not looking coming out of Kings Cross station and some girl in a fantastic green trousersuit knocked it out of my hand in to a puddle, is valued much more than 100 books that I haven't touched.

Hello everyone this is my first post, so if I do something terrible please tell me. Favourite book, hmmm, too difficult. Here's five: Money - Martin Amis Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry Disgrace - J.M.Coetzee The Human Stain - Philip Roth The Middle of the Journey - Lionel Trilling Hmmm no women in the list! That makes me seem like one of those terrible men who think women can't write. I love Iris Murdoch, Woolf and Margaret Atwood too before I get any comments, but Oryx and Crake, Mrs Dalloway and The Black Prince just missed the top 5.