SueK

I'm glad you enjoyed Novel in the Viola Janet and great that you were able to secure a free copy. I'm keeping hold of my copy because I feel sure I will want to read it again in the future. I've started on The House of Dust and Dreams on the Kindle - I think I will enjoy it. It's set in 1938 Crete and the description of the island is beautiful.

I'm listening to a BBC dramatisation of The Devil's Ransom by Ellis Peters (a Brother Cadfael story) on my mp3. It's a great story.

Yes, it was very sad Frankie. Glad you enjoyed the book though. I picked up a Sister Pelagia book recently and will give this a go very soon. I quite like the sound of them. I'm reading The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore right now. It's a sequel to the Siege which I read a couple of months back. Excellent reading.

Hehe, you can imagine the problems I have with a Thai surname. Thank goodness I'm mostly known as Sue K. I do get irritated sometimes though as my surname isn't really that difficult, you just pronounce it as it is written but it seems to fox a lot of people. btw, Siobhan is pronounced Shh-vaun.

Not in a bad way ..... I just found him difficult to fathom out at times. Like you, though, I welcomed a Russian detective series (I love anything Russian) and I liked the plots. It's just my personal reaction. Be warned of the second book in the series, I believe the publishers jumbled them them around. The order should be: The Winter Queen The Turkish Gambit Murder on the Leviathan The Death of Achilles Special Assignments The State Counsellor The Coronation She Lover of Death He Lover of Death The Diamond Chariot Jade Rosary Beads All the World's a Stage I believe his "quirkiness" is down to what happened in Winter Queen if you know what I mean.......

Frankie, I enjoyed The Winter Queen and found Erast Fandorin a rather quirky character! I did, however go on to read a few more in the series and found he got quirkier as the books went on and in the end I gave up on him. They are good crime novels though. I suppose he's Russia's equivalent of Hercule Poirot.

I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment: The Report by Jessica Francis Kane and The Story of a Secret State by Jan Karski - both centred around WWII - although Secret State is non-fiction.

Peter Lovesey came to talk to us at Tonbridge Library last night. He is a very prolific crime writer and has won various awards including the Crime Dagger award. He has written a Victorian Detective series which was on TV back in the 70s featuring Sergeant Cribb (I never saw them) and more recently a series around Detective Supt Peter Diamond of the Avon and Somerset Police - and I think the 11th has just been published. I thought I would read one of his books before going to the talk so I downloaded Skeleton Hill. This is an excellent crime story and I thought Peter Diamond was one of the most well written detective characters of recent times. Mr Lovesey is a very interesting man and he read snippets of his latest work Stagestruck which I shall get in due course. He was asked on his views of e-books. He said that although e-books was the way of the future, he still preferred holding a real book in his hands and (like a lot of us) liked the smell and feel of a real book. Some people in the audience had no idea what an e-book was, sooooo, yours truly got hers out and before you could say "murder" my kindle was being fondled by all and sundry with lots of questions asked. Here is a link to Peter Lovesey's webpage if anyone is interested in reading his books. I, for one, will be getting a few more of them. http://peterlovesey.com/about

Has anyone read any books by Peter Lovesey. I confess I had never heard of him but he is quite profilic and his genre is crime (mostly taking place in the Bath area). He is coming to give a talk at our local Library tomorrow evening and I wondered how popular his books are.

Charm, the only times I have to do hard reboot is if I've been on the "experimental" section - this brings up the internet part of the Kindle when Wireless is on. If for some reason the internet has frozen, it means I can't get back to home page (it's rather like when the PC freezes). I find that by holding the release button for a short time(it can be up to 1 minute) the screen will flicker and then take you to the Kindle Homepage . Switch the release button again and you carry on as before. I tend to switch mine off completely at night or if I'm not picking up the Kindle for a few hours. Otherwise it is in sleep mode (bit like me this morning! ).

Hello Kurtz What is the book about.

Was just wondering if anyone found the battery life on the Kindle went down quicker when in sleep mode, or turned off completely between reads. I expect the power surge would reduce it a bit but not sure what is best. I made the mistake once forgetting to turn the GPRS switch off and the battery went down in about a day!

I've just started Skeleton Hill by Peter Lovesey. I've never read his books before but he is coming to talk at our local Library on Wednesday evening so I thought I would go a bit prepared! He seems to be quite popular according to Amazon reviews. I'll report back on his talk.

I had to laugh that UK gave Moldova 10 points They were so funny with those meter-high hats. Did we (UK) want to give the competition a bit of a scare? I quite liked the winning song I've been trying to remember what it reminded me of and I think it's Annie Lennox' song about the little Vampire. The favourite didn't do all that well (France) and I thought Blue looked very nervous. Still Bulgaria must be our new best friends for giving us Deuze Points! Thought it was a very good production though - some stunning staging.

Today I received The Report from Amazon Vine to review - it's a fictional account of the Bethnal Green tube disaster during the War - and I downloaded Agatha Christie's The Thirteen Problems. I've just finished The Small Hand by Susan Hill and loved it. Short, concise and straight to the point - that's what I love about her ghost stories. Thoroughly recommend it.

I'm not sure if there a section on TV Adverts so, Mods, please feel free to move/merge. Thanks. I just had to put this one up as, right now, it is my favourite TV ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0

Wow, you certainly know your Eurovision Kell! I'm impressed. I haven't heard any of the other entries (OH was watching on BBC 3 last night) and he thought Jedward were pure Eurovision too! I usually try to skip the songs and watch the voting but I shall give it all a go tomorrow.

I might just watch this tomorrow. I'm not bothered about Blue but I think they have a chance of not getting Nil Points. The problem is we don't have an "ia" at the end of our country - oh wait! we should call ourself Britannia in future. I want to see what a laugh Jedward will be. They have got thru to the Finals and I caught a glimpse of them on youtube. What a pair of .............

Personally I think Rutherfurd is a better storyteller than James Michener - although I did rather like Hawaii.

Sounds good Inver. Let's know what you manage to get hold of. I finished The German Boy and will now read The Small Hand as it needs to go back to the library (but it's only 167 pages long).

Hi jjzazzy I'm quite a fan of Edward Rutherfurd. I particularly liked SARUM (history of Salisbury) and LONDON and although I found RUSSKA a bit slow going, I still enjoyed. I haven't got round to reading NEW YORK and not sure it will be on my list just yet as I've got lots to get through first. But I think he is a first rate storyteller. And I like the idea of writing each book around the history of one place.

I've just downloaded this onto my Kindle for the princely sum of £3.99. I look forward to reading this soon.

I downloaded Time's Legacy onto my kindle (it was a good price at the time) but have yet to read it. It is a book I shall look forward when the time is right.