BookJumper

If browsing were a sport, I'd be a pro ! Ditto if you want to open a nice shiny new thread in the Looking for a Book section, I'm sure recommendations for really creepy fiction would pour right in.

My method runs thus: Scan the spines in the desired sections (in my case, Science Fiction & Fantasy first, then Horror, then Fiction, then Literature and Literary Criticism) for recommended authors and inspiring titles; pick the above off the shelf to evaluate the cover, inspect the blurb and read the "Praise for" bits at the beginning. Lastly, open somewhere down the middle and get a feel for the style. If all of the above go well, take to the till !

My feelings are best summed up by the comment to the original post: All… all these books ruined! I understand the Windows 5 book, but the rest of these books are MURDER! You’ve killed them you sir, are no gentleman and scholar, but a destroyer of books and MINDS!

I like the sound of your masterplan is betting coffee where you bet one cup and if you win you get two back oooh can I play? Do make sure you to pop back in with your one cuppa or two to tell us what the books were like!

For extra added fun, I'll be compiling my list excluding books that I'd have liked to include but have already been mentioned : 1) One Book that made you read it More Than Once: The P

My book activity today was made out of awesome. Judge for yourself. Prologue: a while back me and my sister were talking books, and I used the word "metanarrative"; she then said to me that if I managed to use the word in conversation with a complete stranger - no booksellers allowed - she'd buy me a book. Activity: we went into a bookshop and I dithered nervously for a bit before tapping my sister on the shoulder and walking up to a random young man. I said to him, 'Can I ask you something? I am looking for people to interview for my thesis, it's on metanarrative; would I be able to contact you with my questionnaire? ...' All complete fiction, of course. My sister was suitably proud of my creativity and bought me Paola Boni's L'Evocatore (The Summoner), which looks abysmal in a marvellous way we've settled that when the sequels come out she'll give me other unusual words to puzzle innocent people with. Epilogue: I am not utterly mean though, I will write to the young man with a fictitious questionnaire so he doesn't feel cheated !

Thanks for the promising review you've just helped bump this right back up the wishlist!

UnLunDun was the one actually calling to me loudest so far, I find that good YA books tend to wipe the floor with a lot of supposedly mature fiction so that doesn't put me off in the slightest...!

Next time Spreadshirt have a sale on, you're (err) on I need to raid them anyway. Quick question for those in the know: will there actually be anyone in a postgraduate office in July *cries*?

I find myself in urgent need of investigating Mieville's mind for excitingly mysterious reasons what's a good book of his to begin with?

Sweetly pedantic I like that. I should turn it into a t-shirt and wear it at interviews, watcha reckon?

Thanks Noll, 'tis appreciated I remember when I broke my left foot years ago and had a knee-length cast, people still left me standing on public transport...! Maddening. A few weeks ago I was doing my flamingo stance on the underground, and this one bloke sitting in front of me made a point of staring at my bandaged ankle for nine stops. At least have the decency to pretend you haven't seen me! Oh well. When they operate the right ankle and splint me, I'll be beating the healthy people up with my crutches until they learn some manners *bwhahahahahaha*.

I like footnotes. I like reading them almost as much as I like writing them I always incorporate them in my readings to gain a fuller understanding of the text in context. I just don't like the idea of a text that makes little sense without footnotes. This isn't just applicable to Ulysses, I could throw T.S. Eliot's Wasteland and a bajillion others in. To my mind, a great writer is one who can be understood on different levels: most people can appreciate Shakespeare, Milton, Byron (to name but a few) footnoteless, and appreciate even more therewith.

I haven't read War & Peace yet but indeed I think it's just a case of it being long more than anything else; and at that, it's only about as long as Les Mis (which I know you've read and enjoyed) so I don't see us struggling to finish that one when we get to it I get the feeling it's the kind of book where you can choose to read the footnotes to enhance your experience rather than being forced to read them to make sense of it all.

When sitting on the (rightfully mine, as I have a manky ankle and a strap to prove it) disabled seat on a chocker-full bus, having to relinquish the place because no one else will let the old lady who just got on sit down. Furthermore, not even getting a thanks from said lady t's not like I can stand comfortably or at all, I have to keep my right leg right up like a flamingo and risk flying at every brake of the bus, so acknowledgment would be nice.

Thank you not that I'm not pedantic, I am and proud of it too, just I don't want to come off as such unless I know for a fact that Prof. Y in question loves ped... I mean, careful, eagle-eyed, passionate, committed students maybe I do worry too much but the universe knows I want to be able so sign off correspondence 'Dr. Giulia I. Sandelewski' in a few years' time...!

It was driving me nuts, so I compromised - I emailed everyone back, but rather than pointing the finger towards the specific typos I told them all to 'please find attached the revised outline for my proposed project'... hopefully that should do the trick, views seem to be conflicting as some people said they'd find the correction sweet as well as promising in the academic sense, while others said they'd find it pedantic so... argh. Thanks guys, hopefully you're right and it was never a big deal in the first place but... DOUBLE-ARGH!!! [eloquent, aren't I? And I call myself a scholar...]

Hug gratefully received the outline still makes logical sense with the typos, it's just I'm terrified of making a bad first impression as someone who can't spell...!

Ahem:lurker:! Yesterday I sent out a couple of emails of the 'I'd like to do PhD X with Professor Y, please find attached a brief outline of my proposal' variety. After sending them I realised that (having edited and re-edited it a million times) my outline ended up containing two typos in the form of words which shouldn't have been there - namely "[my] Italian" and "[a] perfection". I now don't know what to do: do I re-send it errorless, and risk coming off as nitpicky and/or pushy, or do I cross my fingers and hope that with me having two degrees it won't cross their minds to think I can't spell? Please advise *meep*!

I like the sound of that Kindle function because for me, the flow is broken by the very fact that I don't know a word - I am left physically unable to read onwards when it happens (there I go again with the unturnoffable Close Reading): thankfully it doesn't happen often! You goddess *kisses hallowed feet* as anyone told you how radiant you look today in your sacred shimmering gown?

I've seen the film recently and wasn't too keen, however since I know what you're looking for I'll keep and eye out for a book that's similar .

I've only encountered Shakespeare in Oxford World Classics form, the feeling I have gathered from this experience is that their introductions and notes are concisely informative, brilliant for those who've never approached a text before but maybe not enough for someone with your requirements; I don't know how many notes there actually are in their editions of prose, either, but my bet is not that many.

Thank you, my friend a diagnosis, after all these years! Not that I'm looking for a cure, you understand, but it's always good to know what one is "suffering" (notice the inverted commas) from. Who wants to live forever? We do, so we can read every decent book ever written! Well said !