BookJumper

Comfort authors of the 'I'll re-read your work whenever I need a metaphorical cuddle blankie' variety are Douglas Adams and Ferenc Molnar (author of the The Pal Street Boys). Comfort authors of the 'I'd buy a shopping list with your name on it' variety are Jasper Fforde, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman - in that order.

*is suitably warned* The Book of Lost Things can't have been me, surely, unless I came back from the future in a time machine to recommend it to you as I haven't read it myself yet the others were indeed all me though and I am super-duper made up to have been right yet again *hands over a shiny 'Dracula? Yeah I've read that' badge*!

... you know me by now would I object to this? It's one I've picked up in bookshops many a time because it looks pretty and interesting but have never invested on due to the possible graphicness...

Well I was at the doc's this morning for something else entirely, and she commented that I'd lost weight (70.9kgs on a full stomach, fully clothed and with shoes on!) so w00t w00t She also stated that my heart rate was fine, unlike the last time the practice tried to refer me to the gym across the road for some free personal training, so she urged me to try again *fingers crossed*!

I read 46 pages of The Curious Incident etc. in the shop today (*sniffle*); I'm in Friday afternoon and all day Saturday so I see myself finishing it this week - w00t w00t, could this be the book that gives Giu back her mojo just in time for Generation Dead Books 2 & 3 *prances about in a happy mnner*?

*dances about happily* see, all it needed was for it to be the right book at the right time. I'm so glad that said time is now, Dracula is one of those books I don't think anyone ever should be deprived of the priviledge of reading.

It's funny actually, I'm tendentially a paperback person but am slowly building up a hardback Pratchett library, because the mass market paperbacks in circulation are just so horrendously fragile. I suppose there's the trade B/W ones, but they would look silly beside the leather editions of the first 18 (of which I have 5), and besides I feel the need to boycott these so-called 'adult' covers - such a silly concept.

I think there's no topic that should be avoided on principle. If the teen's interested in something, they're going to talk about it and investigate of their own accord, so they might as well have books to help them form a more balanced judgment. One thing I know for sure is that books don't brainwash young people; a book's going to have an emotional impact on you and steer you in a certain direction only if you're already predisposed towards heading in that direction. A book about LGBT characters for instance is not going to 'turn' any kid gay, the most it's going to do is give a kid who already is a probably much-needed sense of belonging and being understood. A lot of young people aren't told a lot about relationships and the issues that can arise from them, which leads to an utter naivete about such matters which can be really harmful - an honest sex talk from a book is better than no sex talk at all, I think. As for wars and the other bad things human beings can do to one another, I'd only object to them being included in a YA book if they were being glamorised for something that they are not. I read tons of fictional books full of dead bodies when I was younger, most of them school assignments, but because nowhere I read it said that killing was just or fun or right, I never became desensitised to violence; if anything, I became even more sensitive - books affect me far more than films or television, so reading about the horrors of war is what has made me realise just how horrific it is, better than any history lesson ever could've.

What a gripping match: Bram Stoker: 4, Vanwa: 0 ! I think Dracula is one of those books that are so Good it is impossible that someone should be destined never to like them, ever; I'm thrilled that you've decided to give it another go, it sounds like this time it's The time so go go go!

Another fellow joinee (I know of another two on here)!? This just goes to show what an amazing bunch us BCFers are I loved Join Me!, it's the first book I ever read by Danny and I found it so funny and inspiring, I just had to have two copies - one has followed me to Meets since 2005 and is signed & dedicated by the Leader and a whole lot of joinees, and the other's for lending around and spread the lurve!

Not a problem, I live to serve !

Does dancing for joy because my pretty hardback copies of Generation Dead, The Kiss of Life and Passing Strange have been shipped from the states count ?

Hi I have merged your thread with a pretty similar one whose posts should hopefully should help explain the kind of differences that do indeed exist between editions - I've done my best to break down the basic features of various editions in my reply on Page 1. Basically, with books that are hugely popular and/or over a certain age you are almost always going to have a wealth of different editions. Some will offer just the text, others the text and accessible introductions, others yet the text and more academic introduction/footnotes/extra material, etc. Paper/ink quality will also vary greatly, which is something to keep in mind if you're a collector as well as a reader. In some cases (with Shakespeare, for instance) different editions will reprint different versions of the same text, so as a rule of thumb the further you go the more important the choice of edition becomes.

Wahey, I'm the spokesperson of a generation go me! If I ran a bookshop, I might very well only employ people who either hadn't read it or had read it and not enjoyed it . Man, that sounds riveting not.

If the book's any good, yes I find that one of the best incentives towards re-reading, actually. Gaiman's Anansi Boys I started over the day I finished it for instance, precisely because I wanted to savour all the subtle foreshadowing Neil is so good at.

Surely this can't be true of everyone. If it was, I wouldn't be scared by any book, ever - I have hardly any visualisation powers at all, you see. I think in typesetting rather than images so seeing things in my head is hard no matter how good the author is, it gives me a headache and I can barely do it even when I write. Yet a lot of books (by Pike, King, Rice, etc.) have successfully scared me. ... am I odd?

Thanks for that it's not even anything to do with feminism, the way I see it; even if the story was told from the bloke's viewpoint and it was the woman who had done something equally awful, I personally would find that just as hard to accept in the context of soulmates.

I've decided the time is high for me to purchase my own copy of Les Miserabl

Aw I'm more lucky than amazing really, it's all down to international parentage and clever parenting anyhow, 'pluripremiated' is not technically a word in English because it's not in the dictionary, however I'm not the first to have tried to coin it from the Latin root 'cos according to Google a handful of bloggers have used it in reviews and things.

Totally my bad, apparently it's not even a word in English, I was translating literally from Italian again what I was trying to say was that the author has won many literary awards. Ahem.

Has anyone read The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel? I leafed through it in the bookshop the other day and don't know what to make of it; there would seem to be much to recommend it (the author's pluripremiated, the reviews are pretty much universally awestruck, the cover art is stunning, it's a multimediatic narrative with a CD and funky graphic novel bits, the idea of two souls looking for each other across 1,400 lifetimes is fascinating), yet I'm sorry Ms. Esquivel, but if I were your heroine I would not at all be happy to wait 1,400 lifetimes to be with a so-called soulmate who is if anyone who's read it could kindly explain to me what I'm missing, I would be very grateful.

I'll Be Back Again - The Beatles.

Never Without You - Ringo Starr.

88% first time round, 100% the second and third. What does that make me? I am slow .