BookJumper

Glad to hear it! Although, I have just discovered the wonderful uses of Shakespeare concordances & found more beautiful Shakespeare quotes on writing than I would have space to tattoo on my entire body I'll come back for opinions once I've narrowed it down from the current 3 pages of A4...! Ooops.

Noted this one down as I watched my theatre company rehearse Shakespeare's little performed history King John: "I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen upon a parchment" - how do we like that for the line of verse up my right arm?

Of course you can in fact - do come to the light side, we have hippogryphs!

Have just caught up with the last two episodes of Being Human and the latest Glee (I'd gotten my facts mixed up it seems, new Supernatural not out until April it seems), and the verdict is: Being Human - beautiful, brilliant, touching, some superb acting all involved, Russell Tovey and Aidan Turner in particular shine even more than usual. BUT, I'm really annoyed with the hinting at an already commissioned Season 4 when they've just it was stunningly done and couldn't have really gone any other way but it should have marked the perfect ending, not some sort of new beginning. I feel like I did at the end of Supernatural Season 5: why does no one have the nerve to leave a series on a high rather than milk it for all it's worth? I'll still watch Being Human Season 4 in the same way I'm still watching Supernatural Season 6 which I know is what they're banking on, but valuing money over artistic integrity is just not cool. Glee - awwwwwwwwwwwwwww! That is all.

Someone please decide for me - having as usual forgot to sleep, I have the time to dozily catch up with a show while I have brekky. Do I watch the last episode of Supernatural, or the one before last of Being Human (just realised I have somehow fallen behind)?

I find it really interesting that all three of you fairly surely identified Screwtape as a manual / guide / rulebook / pathway / whatchamacallit for (aspiring?) Christians. This may very well be my agnosticicsm projecting onto the text, in which case you may very kindly tell me to shush and stop talking nonsense, but I would have thought that this kind of book - I.e. one where pretty central tenets of Faith are scrutinized for satirical purposes - would not be viewed kindly by the religious majority, the author's own Christianity nonwithstanding. Having met those who shot down Paradise Lost in flames (poetically appropriate, one might argue) as pretty much heresy, I had thought this would be widely considered the black sheep to the flock of Lewis's more conventional theological works such as Mere Christianity. I am immensely relieved to find that this is not the case, naturally, but I suppose also a little surprised that it's not more controversial than it is. I guess I was expecting that, precisely like Milton's masterpiece, this would be a book written by such a left-field Christian perspective as to be appropiated by successive generations as an atheist manifesto, yet no such hijacking seems to have taken place here, which intrigues me. Thoughts? Have I actually lost it, or am I actually making sense? It really didn't get better for you, did it Janet? I'm so sorry to hear that can you pinpoint what Lewis might have done differently to secure your appreciation, or is it just such a dreary mess in your view as to be essentially unsalvageable? ... off to think about ladymacbeth's extremely pertinent question, & hatch furher ones!

As a writer who's been both accused of and praised for her use of long, complex, jolting vocabulary, I'd hazard that - since one cannot possibly please everyone all of the time - most writers will operate a choice in terms of desired readership and go from there, which is why even in modern times you have good authors who write very simply (Richard Bach) and good authors who write very intricately (Jasper Fforde). I personally write from the perspective of someone who loves learning new words and means to communicate with kindred spirits who also love learning new words, but there are many authors who work according to principles of sparingness and concision so there's something out there for every disposition I think .

I'm sure I've done this many times but the one that springs most vividly to mind is still Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys - it's such a skilfully crafted book that every single word of the first half resonates twice as beautifully when read in the light of the second half, so I'm glad I dived back into the front cover having just emerged from the back.

No no no, don't worry, no putting off involved - if I was that easy to scare I wouldn't have proposed a religious topic in the first place I'm just a bad circle leader *slaps wrist* on the dash now as usual but I will be back later tonight to un-pause this marvellous discussion, even if I have to do it at 3 in the morning, by golly! And very good question you pose, I'll be back with a witty & insightful answer for you amongst other things...!

Trust is Shareware - The Ark.

I HAZ A BIG HAPPEE :mrgreen: !! Thank you for the fantastic news Kell, I'm officially psyched!!

Submarine at a free student screening courtesy of my local cinema. Do catch it if you can, it's a really adorable quirky film which I fear might just pass under everybody's radar.

Some very good suggestions from Ninth there. That said, the one I always find myself recommending - surely a good thing, pointing to the quality of the book - is the far from cheesy and ridiculous The Book of Flying by Keith Miller. It's not as well known as it should be (there's only one review of it on Amazon UK, and it's mine! I'm copying it below, minus the spoiler, for your ease of reference), which really vexes me as it's an absolutely stunning story written by a man who could make a shopping list read like pure poetry. I bought this book on an aesthetical whim: the cover was pretty and was nice and smooth to the touch. It paid off. This is a classic yet innovative fairy-tale which arranges well-known ingredients in a way that is completely its own. Pico is a gentle, day-dreaming librarian, guardian to old books only he reads; son of winged people yet flukily born wingless, he is in love with a winged girl who forsakes him because he is not fully one of her kind. So he embarks on a perilous journey to the distant morning town, where it is said he may find the book of flying and earn his wings. On the way he meets many enchanting or frightening characters whom I won't spoil here, whose stories interwine with his and change it forever. The book is spell-binding, sweet, beautifully written; and though much of it made me sad or uncomfortable, it all serves the (masterful) storytelling. Read, read, read this book.

Everyone in my family reads extensively and was influential in my own development of the bookworm bug - books have always been the staple birthday / Christmas present with us, and trips to the library / bookstore the most frequent kind of quality time outing. There's bookshelves in every sigle room of my childhood home, one of which even collapsed at one point under the duress of having books in triple file on every shelf! My Mum and sister in particular are great readers of speculative fiction and classics, these are also my favourite genres so I tend to trust their suggestions pretty much implicitly. All of my older cousins read and I'm proud to see the younger ones do the same as they get old enough. I think that growing up in this kind of environment has meant that I've always looked for the same passion in potential friends. Not many people read for pleasure while I was at school, so with the few that did we necessarily gravitated towards each other. Since starting at my first uni five years ago just about everyone I met was bookish, which made for a welcome change. I do think that these days I'm probably the one of my everyday circle that reads most fiction, but considering how much time we're (rightly) expected to spend reading for research, I think that's got more to do with how many hours there are in the day rather than anything else!