BookJumper

No matter how much I happened to loathe a book, I'd always charity shop it or set free it on public transport - someone might well love that which I have hated.

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Note: I have not read any George R.R. Martin. However, I am an avid reader of fantasy, and would hands down, no question about it recommend Keith Miller's shamefully little-known The Book of Flying as the most beautifully written book I have ever read within the genre.

I'll just have to leave reading it long enough for me to forget the spoiler, I guess - some time ago I read a scathing review of Neil Gaiman's American Gods which revealed the ending so I'm deferring that until I can't remember the revelations anymore .

I also got a few giggles out of Anne Hathaway, trouble is I don't think we were meant to Amy Adams played Giselle in Enchanted (a must-see film if you haven't, so cute, and one which I most certainly did not forget about the instant I left the cinema!) and is therefore the expert in behaving like a fairytale muppet and still coming off as real, emotionally complex and adorable.

We were talking about endings at my last Creative Writing meeting, and someone spoiled the end of The Dark Tower series for me *not amused*!

I'm of the opinion that books cannot teach anyone to write better. There's books by writers which inspire me to open up my notebook/MS Word (such as Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Wave in the Mind and Stephen King's On Writing), but I believe that stylistic improvement is 100% the result of: - reading like a maniac - writing like a maniac every word you read and write shapes you as a writer, and that's all there is to it IMHO .

... I've changed my mind, can I have my book club meet at The Firehouse please?

A small, cozy pub with a bit of money behind the till for members to spend sounds ideal to me - I had many a literary discussion with Liverpool Uni friends at the small, cozy pub on campus and the atmosphere was awesome. An early afternoon setting and Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror etc.) titles would clinch the deal.

I saw Alice in Wonderland yesterday and was a bit underwhelmed. Stephen Fry's Cheshire Cat was *squeeee*-worthy, Helena Bonham Carter made for a complex, misunderstood Red Queen and Johnny Depp's Hatter was quite interesting when I could actually understand what he was saying (though I do believe that the shifts in accent thickness were intentional). However. Anne Hathaway was just bizarre as the White Queen (I wish she'd been played by Amy Adams, who has mastered the fine art of prancing around like she's in a fairytale without looking like a demented wet rag), Alan Rickman's Caterpillar was woefully underused, Crispin Glover's Stayne could have pressed that smouldering anti-hero button harder and, generally, there was no 'whoa!' factor such as the one I got after seeing Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Alright, but I expected better from Tim Burton.

I find them all the time. They irk me to no end and also make me wish someone would give me a proofreading job. The latest was a mixup between 'to' and 'too' in Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey.

Always glad to be of service .

Cookie - Sophie's World is really good but I'd disagree with those who say it's an introduction to philosophy; I was given it years ago and couldn't get past the first few chapters; I read it again at the end of half of a Philosophy degree and only then I got (most) of it. I'd hang onto it as it's worth reading, but may I suggest trying Lucy Eyre's If Minds Had Toes beforehand? It's a short, snappy, funny novel about philosophy that's 100% more accessible to than Sophie's World so it'd be a brilliant stepping stone (I know 'cos I've analysed them side by side in a narratology essay) hope this helps.

I have only read the Frankenstein edited by P.B. Shelley as of yet, but I can recommend the Vintage Classics edition - it's called The Original Frankenstein and includes Mary's earliest known draft, Percy's text as we know it and a nice introduction to the differences between the two do want! I was made to read The Blind Assassin for university and just found it dull, dull, dull - I don't mind books where nothing happens for 100 pages so long as the nothing is described prettily, but alas, this was a case of no plot or style !

I've read 40 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams - The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams - Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar - Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau - The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - Animal Farm by George Orwell - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exup

Being Human, S01E05.

It's one of my favourite books ever Univerze, so I hope you enjoy it the story's good and Hawthorne has an undeniable gift of rhetoric, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't.

I've just remembered - The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an absolutely brilliant book of the kind to make one appreciate all the freedoms we might give for granted today; considering when it was written and that the author is a man, it's astonishing how heartfelt and sympathetic the portrayal of Hester is. Bring a hanky.

I bow down to your superior stomach - I'm glad I read it as it is a very cleverly crafted piece of fiction which makes many important social points, but I doubt I would have finished it even the once hadn't it been required reading for a uni module. I'd give it a 7/10, with the 3 1/10ths deducted purely because the ending was missing - what is there is superbly made, if very difficult to watch. The conceited !

Always glad to cause mirth I never got along with free verse; I find it hard to understand and even harder to write...! I need metre and rhyme to latch meaning onto, frame-of-reference like. I experience a similar problem with instrumental music, i.e. it could mean so many things I get overcome by artistic anxiety and feel positively dizzy, while you usually know where you are with songs that have lyrics. ... does that make sense?

I agree with Burgess as regards the last chapter's important contribution to the overall message of the book and (OCD as I am) sympathise with his annoyance at having the symmetry of his structure messed around with.

Uptown Girl - John Barrowman.

Ooooh, was it good?

As a very easily distracted bag of anxiety with no attention span, this sounds promising, I'll let you know if it helps!

I agree about Stevie King having his phases - I absolutely adore his classic stuff (The Dark Half, Misery, Carrie, Christine, Nightmares and Dreamscapes etc.), but his newer stuff has never gripped me into being bothered to finish it (see Dreamcatcher and Hearts in Atlantis).