Raven

I really need a bigger fork for this stir fry . . .

After the Quake By Haruki Murakami In January 1995 the Japanese city of Kobe was rocked by a devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of over 6,000 people and left another 300,000 homeless. After the Quake, a collection of six short stories, is author Haruki Murakami

Another, "I really should get around to reading this" comment [from me], as I picked up a copy last year in a 5 x Poirot novels for a fiver deal.

I think they are due to start in April. Not sure if that has been pushed back or not as there was some problems with the film rights, I believe. Seconded!

I do like that staircase book shelf, but the alternating step size looks lethal to me!

As much as I like Kenneth Moore, that version is very much the weaker of the three films that exist. Try to get hold of a copy of the original Hitchcock version, it really is miles better!

Hobbit delayed until 2012. Not entirely surprising, given that they haven't started filming yet.

I finally got around to watching part two of this last night. Oh dear . . . What a dreadful waste of time and money.

They are, I still have a small pile of them too! Mark Gatiss did a very interesting half-hour program on them on Radio Four at the end of last year.

It is a good book. If you like Wyndham's other work, I think you will like this, even though it is a bit different from his other novels.

You know it is - your turn!

Anyone? (I thought this was an easy one too!).

Boogie up the River by Mark Wallington One-hundred years after Jerome K. Jerome wrote Three Men in a Boat (that really is just a coincidence), author Mark Wallington sets out to find the source of the River Thames with his flatulent travelling companion Boogie. Will the pair make it through the backwaters of Suburbia? Will they overcome the challenge of Henley or the perils of the Goring gap? And will Mark's potential girlfriend, Jennifer, ever join them? It is the late eighties, a time of endeavour for the daring business executive, when the rat race was really being run and when Yuppies were at the height of their power. Slowly rowing past all of this are Mark Wallington and his dog Boogie, in the restored camping skiff Maegan. Like Wallington's previous books, 500 Mile Walkies and Destination Lapland, this is a comedy travelog. Starting from the pier at Tower Bridge, and heading up the Thames, he recounts numerous amusing exploits and intersperses them with trivia and historical information about the places the pair visit. All very good, and pretty much par for the course, really. Where this book differs from the previous books, however, is with the inclusion of a sub-plot about whether Mark's high-flying, poetry writing friend, and prospective girlfriend, Jennifer will join them on their quest, and to my mind this is where the book falls down. It starts off as a bit of a running joke, as at each rendezvous the pair arrange Mark is met by a motorcycle courier carrying an apology, a takeaway meal and some bad poetry. After a while the joke starts to wear a bit thin though, and when Jennifer finally does turn up, I very quickly found myself wishing she would disappear again, as she is the literary equivalent of finding a stone in your shoe. The parts of the book where Wallington is actually focused on the Thames are interesting and charming, and for anyone interested in the river - or his other books - it is worth a read, but ultimately the book is let down by the inclusion of the unnecessary and over-played sub-plot.

Catching up on a few reviews . . . Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham When scientist Diana Brackley accidently drops a speck of lichen in the cat's milk, and discovers that it stops it from turning, she stumbles upon the secret of Antigerone; the cure for ageing. Whilst her boss ponders the ethics of announcing such a discovery to the world, Diana sees it as a way of liberating women from the eternal cycle of marriage and child bearing, so she sets off to start a very unique revolution . . . Trouble with Lichen is something a bit different from the other John Wyndham novels I have read. There is no threat to mankind and, for a change, the middle-classes aren't really suffering that much (on the contrary, they are living longer!) but there is still a strong central theme and an awful lot of speculative thinking going on, that makes this accustomed territory for anyone familiar with the authors other works. Written in the late fifties, the book has a cheerful optimism about it that embraces a time when rationing was being abolished and the standard of living was on the up. Into this walks Diana Brackley; probably Wydham

You're not wrong; the Orson Welles version was based on the HG Wells version, after all!

That was the Orson Welles version of War of the Worlds, broadcast in the US in the thirties. It did cause some panic at the time, but people generally looked out of their windows and realised that they weren't on fire so it was a case of panic over!

What's that like? I've read all of Gayle's novels, but this is him being Mike Gayle, isn't it? In other news, I finally got my first book on the board for 2010: Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami. Utterly captivating, intriguing and heart breaking, all at the same time - how does he do it?! I think I want to have the man's children.

That, and beer. I don't read a lot of fantasy, but what I do - like any book from any genre really - is for a bit of escapism, to put the mundane and the ordinary behind me and lose myself in another world (whether that is Mordor, Rama or the streets of Tokyo, doesn

He's good on TV, but I've never read any of his books. Should give him a go, really.

I've still not seen most of the first series, I need to get a copy on DVD.

My OCD is kicking in; those Lord of the Rings DVDs and books aren't in the correct order!

Absolutely, one of the best comedies on TV at the mo. The Wil Wheaton episode that was on last night was excellent! "Whea-ton!"

Yes, very good, and well deserved. But best Talent Show award? Isn't that like voting for your favourite pox?!

Yay! Here's mine!

^Inglourious Basterds (2009).