Raven

I think I currently have over 80 books waiting to be read on my Kindle... I did make a bit of a dent in it last year, but have ended up buying more over Christmas.

Long periods of posting no reviews at all tends to help as well.

It's amazing what you can achieve by not reading much or posting very often!

I suspect anyone who has been browsing books in a Waterstones in the last year or so will be familiar with these, but has anyone read any of the books from the British Library Crime Classics series? They are the range of crime novels that have old railway posters on their covers, like this one: I've been tempted by a few of these now, and the Amazon ratings seem good for a lot of them, but I was wondering if anyone here has any first hand experience (and if so, what would you recommend?).

A slow start to the forum's longest running book blog.

Happy New Year to you too! I can recommend his books, or at least the two I have read to date! I've actually gone straight on with Falling Towards England myself.

The first five Rivers of London books are 99p on the Kindle today.

Happy New Year, all!

I didn't get any books for Christmas, but I did get some money, so on Sunday and Today I have spent some time in my local Waterstones and have picked up the following: Wind/Pinball, by Haruki Murakami Mortal Engines, by Stanislaw Lem The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind, by Jackson Ford and The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski It is the first time I have spent that much money on physical books in a long time! Additionally, I have also picked up the following for 99p each from Amazon for my Kindle: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons and A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin So, a bit of reading to do there!

Unreliable Memoirs By Clive James Just squeaked over the line with 20 books for the year, the last one being Unreliable Memoirs from the late, great, Clive James. For those who have not had the chance to read this, it is an account of James' life from childhood though to University and his leaving Australia for the UK in the early 60's. James knew how to spin a tale, and this book is chock full of them. By his own admission this isn't an accurate autobiography, with a lot of the characters being facsimiles of real people and sometimes combinations of several, but that doesn't make it any less interesting for that. Reading the book you get the impression James is his own harshest critic, but there is a lot to entertain, and he paints a vivid picture of what growing up in post-war Australia was like. Highly recommended. Volume 2 is Falling Towards England, but that may have to wait as I've picked up a few books over the last few days!

I'd second a dedicated reader; the basic Kindle is what I use and it does me fine - easy to read, not expensive and holds a truck load of books. I'd also recommend paying the extra £10 for the add-free version!

Hope you all have a great day! I plan to eat like Jabba the Hutt and drink like a Glaswegian who doesn't want to see the New Year! *burp*

Apt name!

Well, you are an American and they are speaking English, so it is understandable! (Just kidding!)

Article here: The Book People goes into administration I used to use them a lot about 10 to 15 years ago, but haven't ordered anything from them for several years now.

I've been enjoying His Dark Materials; it is the best adaptation I've seen for a long time.

I've just read the above post.

Oh, it was, but it wasn't an invented part of the story.

Do you know, I completely forgot about this program - haven't watched a single episode! I think I should take a look at iPlayer...

Precisely. I would go as far as to ask how arrogant does a screen writer have to be to completely re-write a story that has been in print and selling well for over a century? In the novel, the invasion is limited to Surrey, London and the surrounding area - there are no cylinders in other countries or other parts of the UK. The book does deal with Man being deposed as the dominate species and the way it is written it is clearly a parallel for the imperial expansion that happened under the British Empire (that wasn't added political correctness, despite what some commenters on social media may have thought). Climate change isn't a theme in the novel, however, and in my opinion it wasn't a good fit for this story (there are other science fiction stories that do climate change much better - The Kraken Wakes, by John Wyndham or The Drowned World, by JG Ballard, for example). If you have not read The War of the Worlds, do so, it is a very well written book!

Having re-watched Triffids this weekend (because I found I could for free on Amazon Prime) I would have to say that now I have seen the whole thing, War of the Worlds (WotW) was the poorer of the two adaptations. Where Triffids was a frenetic mess with a botched ending, it did largely stick to the plot of the book. WotW, for the most part, took elements of the book and worked it into another - inferior - story. I've no idea what the flash-forwards were in the series for, except to add a topical climate change sub-plot, but all they did for me was to remove any tension from the story - they actually managed to make a dull alien invasion story out of one of the best! One of the first comments I read from Peter Harness about the series was about how the story was being reimagined for a contemporary audience (or words to that effect). I had an uneasy feeling about how that was going to play out at the time, but I never expected the level of butchery managed here. At the end of the day I don't think they had the budget to do the story properly and they did what they could with what they had to work with, but overall I wish they hadn't bothered.

I'm tempted by Velocity Weapon.

No probs! There wasn't a link from the main page of Orbit's website that I could find, and searching Orbit books on Amazon just threw up everything they have ever published!

Where is this? I cannot see a way of buying books on Orbit's website.