Seiichi

It depends on what the book is about. I can think of a few books that are 100 pages or thereabouts, a couple of which are fiction, that I could easily read over and over again, and which have given me a longer lasting impression than any of the other books I've read.

I was disappointed myself because they sounded like books I would have liked to read. Hopefully something similar will turn up.

I agree that the premise is interesting. I've had a quick look at reviews for the first book. On the surface, the opinions seem to be split, but for the discerning reader who loves Milton, the matter is more clear cut than the ratings suggest. The impression I've formed from reading the various informative reviews on Amazon.com/.ca/.uk can be best summed up as follows. The book at best is worth only two stars in total: one star for the premise and another for effort. From an objective angle, I'd side with the people who gave it one star (I even suspect they would have awarded the book half a star if that were possible). I saw the words "Dan Brown" being mentioned with one reviewer saying how inappropriate the alluded comparison is. My own impression from reading other reviews is that the comparison with Dan Brown is appropriate for this book...if you like poorly researched, poorly written books. The imagery Wendy Alec invokes is lackluster and clich

Well, after I read the book something about the writing felt strange so I did a brief search and saw some articles that suggested there was some dispute over the authorship. I didn't bother to look any further until now. It seems the matter is pretty mundane and more a question of how much of the novel Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. He originally intended to write a story with someone called Fletcher Robinson, the person who gave him the initial idea, but ended up writing the story himself. I managed to find a short history of the book if you're interested.

I'm not sure he really counts because he's more of a special agent and is promoted beyond being a simple clerk at the police force, but my favorite detective would have to be Erast Fandorin from Boris Akunin's Fandorin series.

I think mine would be my copy of Norwegian Wood, which has both sentimental and monetary value. It's the boxed edition that comes in two volumes---one small red book and one small green book, both signed by Haruki Murakami---and resembles the original Japanese edition. Here's the Amazon listing with someone else's pictures of the edition.

Thanks for the description. I'll keep an eye out for it. Looking over the list of books you wouldn't mind reading, here are my thoughts about a few of them. This one I think I have a moral obligation to warn anyone about: The Book with No Name. I know it has good reviews on Amazon but I can only say that it's an acquired taste. I thought it was dreadful and can count the number of chapters I read before giving up on one hand. Even more annoying was the fact that I bought the ebook (the only printed copies were available on demand from Lulu) so I couldn't even sell the book to get some of my money back. It's too much of a mish-mash of genres for my liking. I did have I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki but I couldn't get into it. It was probably a problem with me more than the book itself, probably because I had tried to read it during a time when I had stopped reading fiction altogether. I would recommend Kokoro, Soseki's seminal work, which I completed in one sitting, but it's also a book you need to set away time for. The Hound of the Baskervilles is the only Sherlock Holmes novel I enjoyed and thought it was well structured, which I find a problem with Arthur Conan Doyle's other Holmes novels. In fact, I think it's so well-written compared with the other novels that I'm inclined to buy into the controversy that it wasn't penned by Conan Doyle.

This is a great book to have on the shelf which you can dip into now and again. I don't really read my copy much but it's old and slightly worn, which gives people the impression that I consult it often...not that I'm complaining. It goes well sitting next to The Elements of Style by Strunk & White.

Yes. Some of the books, depending on the copyright laws of individual countries, will be in the public domain. There was some fuss over copyrights a while ago but I think Google reached some kind of agreement with the copyright holders.

It depends on what you mean by new. For modern short stories, you could try the ones written by the late Raymond Carver.

It's been years since I've read this. I'll try to give a better description of the book. From the back cover: This is Mark Danielewski's take on the house that conceals strange spaces. The story behind the Navidson Record is the exploration of a strange doorway that leads into another place---a shifting space engulfed in pitch darkness. The novel preys on the fear of the unknown, of being lost in unfamiliar places, and of being stalked by some unknown creature, which may or may not be a figment of the imagination. To recreate the feeling of space and claustrophobia, Mark Danielewski uses unconventional typography to make the reader lose himself within the text just as the characters become lost in their explorations. Although he's only reading an essay on the Navidson Record and annotating the essay with his own thoughts, the terror of the house appears to invade Johnny Truant's consciousness, eventually taking over his life. Edit: I forgot to add my own opinions of the book. I loved this book. People may not like the style and find it annoying, but I think it's worth trying out because it's an exercise in creativity---a book that you won't see many of. There are similar (but nowhere near as sweeping) devices used in other books that I can think of where text and pages are manipulated to convey some meaning, e.g., 1. using gradually fading text for the diary entries of an Alzheimer's Disease sufferer to parallel the memory loss; 2. a fictional book called Hole in the Middle (or something similar) where there are many blank pages in the book. Mark Danielewski goes much further than these examples. For a first novel, it's a bold move, and one that works...if the reader appreciates it. I should perhaps mention how I found this book in the first place. I had been playing Silent Hill 2, in particular the psychological horror aspect, and was interested in the concept. It seemed that House of Leaves is a favourite book and the inspiration Team Silent, the developers of the game.

Andrey Kurkov - Death And The Penguin I enjoyed this book and might read Penguin Lost someday. I've also read A Matter of Death and Life, which I prefer. I still need to read The Case Of The General's Thumb. Mikhail Bulgakov - The Heart Of A Dog This was the first Bulgakov book I read, and led me to try The Master and Margarita, which remains on my list of part-read books. I think The Master and Margarita will be one of those books I need to read in three or four sittings if I ever want to complete it.

You have to set your own price. The only guide you have is what everyone else is charging for the same item, although the item condition will vary from seller to seller.

Might that have been An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestly? The inspector calls at a house following the suicide of a girl, and interrogates everyone. I had a quick look to check this. As far as I remember the case isn't as clear cut as that entry would have you believe so there's no need to worry about is spoiling your enjoyment of the book.

The back cover blurb: Based on the radio comedy series of the same name, Ed Reardon's Week follows the writer as he struggles to scrape a living in whatever way he can. Like his namesake from George Gissing's New Grub Street Ed is a one-hit wonder who has failed to recreate the literary success of his first novel. Sadly, Ed doesn't seem to have a second novel in him, and he gets by, accepting any writing jobs his agents will throw at him. It's not an ideal situation to be writing to a readership in a world full of 12-year-olds, but sometimes an author must compromise his artistic integrity however unwilling he may be. Ed's diary, therefore, contains the recollections and rants of literary ventures gone awry from an ageing, grumpy writer living alone with his cat. Much of the humour comes from his tirades, which he delivers with flourish, and his readiness to speak his mind in front of his paymasters. Older readers may sympathise with Ed's views as he tries to resist the culture of dumbing down and appreciate what he has to say. Being impoverished also means that he sometimes finds himself being involved in unfortunate incidents, often of his own making. As would be expected, Ed writes in such a way that he makes out that he's the victim of the injustices in the world. Sometimes this is true; sometimes not. If anything, he's a victim of himself, lacking the will or resolve to change his behaviour. Then again, if he did change, the book would be much less entertaining. The book contains six stories, each comprising a number of diary entries covering one or two weeks of his life. It makes for light reading, easy to pick up and put down. It's also one of the few books I remember that has made me laugh out loud.

I liked the footnotes, too. As well as the language Susannah Clarke uses, I felt those notes further heightened the illusion that she was writing as a contempary at the time.

The longest book I have is The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. The story itself occupies 1184 pages.

If you just want to sample his writing then I'd go for Different Seasons, a collection of four short stories, three of which were adapted for film. They're not horror stories, so it might be a good first choice.

Might it be that you're suffering from genre-fatigue? If so, I'd take a break from all of those books and try something a bit lighter: either collections of short stories that you can pick up and put down at any time without having to worry about leaving something half-finished, or something similar but in a different genre.

Yes. It's a wonderful book, but can be difficult to get into at first. There's an old thread for it: http://bookclubforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=656 I'd have to agree with this. The more I read of his novels, the less impressed I became. That being said, I only read the Drizzt line of novels and had to give up because they were becoming so terrible. I'm under the impression that it's quite a niche area in which he writes: either you're a Forgotten Realms fan, which I'm not, or you're a Star Wars fan, which I'm also not. The chances of someone on these forums having read his novels, let alone mentioning one as a favourite, isn't really that large.

I love Calvin and Hobbes too. Some of the strips are timeless classics, especially the traditional 3 or 4 panel ones. I actually think some writers could learn from reading comics: they're succinct, short and sweet.

After suffering an embarrassing breakup with her boyfriend, Alexandra moves in with her brother and his flatmate Gareth, both of whom are indifferent to her presence. Stuck in a dead-end job, and cut off from her circle of friends, she finds herself volunteering for the WriteToAConvict Scheme by chance. The pen pal she chooses is Andreas, who is serving time following "a series of events too freakish and appalling to recount." Andreas is quiet and has little to say, but unexpectedly unloads his story to Alexandra in the form of his memoirs written in his native German. Fortunately for Alexandra, Gareth offers to translate for her. So begins the story of Andreas and how he met and fell in love with Rose, the fifth tallest woman in Britain. When I heard that Mark Watson had written two books, I immediately bought them, confident that I would be pleased with both. I had enjoyed his first novel Bullet Points and was looking forward to this book. My expectations have not been disappointed. The writing is familiar: there's the element of the character looking back on his life and setting his thoughts to paper. The difference between this novel and Bullet Points is that there are two very different voices being related as the book alternates between Alexandra's current life and Andreas' past. Both lead solitary lives in their own way, and soon finding out Andreas' story becomes the one interesting thing in Alexandra's life. The big question, of course, is what did Andreas do to land him in prison. It's this that drives both Alexandra and the reader on. Gareth teases the reader by delivering translated scripts in installments that he admits to ending in some kind of cliffhanger. Through them we learn how Andreas found himself in the celebrity lookalike industry---a concept completely alien to him, and of his career as an Adolf Hitler impersonator as he struggles to make sense of the English language and British humour. There's a strange mix of characters involved, but Mark Watson writes intelligently, portraying them simply as people trying to make their way in life, avoiding caricature. Andreas himself is a sympathetic character. Throughout the book it's difficult to believe he could have done something so terrible to warrant such a long prison sentence. Andreas himself is reticent about his past so it's only through Alexandra's reading that his story unfolds. It's a device that works very well, keeping the story fresh. This is a strong second novel from Mark Watson and one that I would highly recommend, together with Bullet Points.

I think they're important because they provide a frame of reference when visualising the story. Pictures themselves can be a form of storytelling and I always appreciate the extra effort that's been taken when producing illustrated books. I can think of one book in particular that wouldn't be the same if there weren't illustrations and that would be The Little Prince, which I consider a book every child should read.

It's not a bad book. I managed to read around a third of the book before giving up. It certainly invokes a lot of raw emotion---the kind born out of the outrage caused by a grave injustice. It's simply not my cup of tea. Hopefully someone else will have better luck when I offer it up in a book chain.