Tambo

"I guess it depends what you're reading" ...would be my retort.

I like the site garfield minus garfield. "Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb." Works much better without the cat getting in the way. http://garfieldminusgarfield.net

Impossible to pick one, but I will anyway... Feeling Good by Nina Simone

The City of Thieves by David Benioff mentions a fictional book, The Courtyard Hound.

There's a great scene in Don Quixote where a couple of Quixote's friends have decided to burn his library that houses the books on Knights Errant (the source of Quixote's madness.) As they decide which volumes to keep, and which must be burned, the author Servantes uses it as an oppurtunity to slag off a lot of genuine books that were around at the time. The books Servantes doesn't like get thrown out of the window into a pile to be burned. The books he does liked are given a reprieve. The book he really doesn't like get a reprieve and a generous amount of grand praise, in the translation I read there is a footnote explaining the authors sarcasm. Being the 16th century or whenever, of course I didn't recognise any of the books. Nothing changes though, there are good and bad books around today and you could imagine this scene taking place. Except that it would take a very brave author indeed to write such a scene when the books being burned or saved are written by his contempories.

I went a bit crazy on BookMooch, and coupled with an inability to walk past a second hand bookstore without having a browse, my pile of book to be read has become a mountain in the last two months. 88 to be read, plus 56 in my housemates collection that I want to read too. So a total of 144 books, (or 147 if you count the 3 I'm halfway through. I thought I had a problem, but looking through this thread, it seems kinda standard.

My OH didn't mind me reading, so long as it didn't get in the way of her TV watching. I can't read with the telly on so would usually just use the computer or watch her programmes with her. Hollyoaks, Eastenders, Gordon Ramsay, Big Brother, America's Next Top Model, ugh, they never ended. I'm reading much more since we seperated. When I get round to looking for the next OH, I'll be staying away from the telly addicts!

The book I'm waiting to come out is Bones on the Hills by Conn Iggulden. Out on the 1st September. I choose my own hours at the moment, so I'm planing a day off work to be there when the postman arrives with the Amazon package. Then I'll just devour it one sitting.

Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar saga is quite good.

I do try to dispel my disbelief when I read, I do want to enjoy the books. These two just took me a step too far though. I don't mind slagging them off as they're both well established and commercially successful authors. WARNING - SPOILERS Step on a Crack : James Patterson Treasure of Khan : Clive Cussler my main gripe was that the fight sequences got very repetitive. I might read another Cussler one day, because there were some redeeming features of the book. (I enjoyed the first half) You'd have to pay me to read another James Patterson though. If I were stuck in a bathroom with a copy, I would first read the sidesa of all the shampoo bottles.

Conn Iggulen made a bit of history in the UK bestseller lists with this book. It topped the non-fiction chart for so long, that when Wolf of the Plains came out and started to do well, Iggulden became the first author to simultaneously be number one in both the fiction and non-fiction charts.