BookJumper

Yours are the ones I want, Roxi - as ever, great minds think alike! Alas, Forbidden Planet only had volume three with that cover and in tatty condition at that, I'll have to Amazon it I think... loath as I am to do that, given my recent less-than-satisfactory online purchases...

Glad to hear it I do try to provide a service !

Evil sellers who'll mis-describe a book to get you to part with your money in exchange for a damaged item.

I take it you're enjoying it then ?

I agree there's a chance a few will end up enjoying WH and go on to discover a wider world of literature; on the other hand, it strikes me as depressing that young people are reading so few classics as to need this kind of incentive to check them out. ETA, courtesy of my wishlist. Wuthering Heights should look like THIS.

Oh my gawd - that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, thank you ! ETA: The same author also wrote a book appealingly titled, "The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World" - DO WANT!!

Seconded. Seeing RHPS at the theatre is an insane experience (and one which I've indulged in 7 times), but alas - no Tim Curry!! I love that man and most of the things he's been in, from the surreal Clue (the only film ever, I believe, to have been based on a boardgame) to the dreadful-but-I-love-it-anyway The Man in the Iron Mask. I think Annie is probably the only thing of his I'll never stomach... not even he could save it!

My feelings exactly. Indeed. You have, I presume, seen Wilde, wherein our own Oscar is played by our own Stephen? Truly delightful. It had me crying buckets at the end though. I've loved what Gaiman I've read ("Neverwhere", "Anansi Boys", "Stardust" and a handful of "Sandman"s) but have been putting off the short stories for some time as I was warned I might find a couple of them too much - I don't mind grim and gruesome but explicit is a bit of a problem. As for "American Gods", I'm intrigued as to why it's such a polarising book (people either think it's Gaiman's best or unaccountably bad).

Would I enjoy his Frankenstein books, do you think? Mary Shelley's original is one of my all-time favourite books so I can be a bit protective regarding crimes against it, i.e. I cringed and cursed my way through Kenneth Branagh's appalling Mary Shelley's (???!!!??) Frankenstein, with its vastly underused De Niro whom the maimed script completely failed to render sympathetic. This is already on my wishlist so it's good to have it recommended by you. This was teetering on the verge of falling into my wishlist; I believe you've just given it a pretty hefty push. Seconded. Genius is what he was. R.I.P., D.N.A. Some have called "... Hercules Barefoot..." the "Perfume" of its generation; would you agree?, because if so I'm buying "Perfume" immediately. A friend lent me this once, I really wanted to get into it but the first few pages utterly failed to grab me... should I try again? Not a girly book, then (I'm not fond of girly books)? Again, already on the wishlist... I'm not a big reader of historical fiction but the very fact that this is narrated by the above mentioned tome is reason enough to intrigue me! Also interested in the same guy's "The Philosopher's Apprentice", have you read it?

These two are both set in leading British universities: Elizabeth Garner, "The Ingenious Edgar Jones" (emphasis on science) David Benedictus, "Floating Down to Camelot" (emphasis on literature and philosophy)

Alas, all my childhood books are at my parents' home in Italy; however, could I physically reach them I'd probably reach for: - Anything by Bianca Pitzorno. She used to be my favourite author, and the very first one I went to meet at a reading & signing session, hand in hand with my mum. My favourite was "Ascolta il mio Cuore" ("Listen to my Heart"), about three girls striving to defend the rights of disadvantaged students under the regime of terror instituted by the evil new teacher. The main girl, Prisca, wanted to be a writer when she grew up and the book was peppered with her stories; I identified so much! Another brilliant one was "Extraterrestre alla Pari" ("E.T. Au Pair"), about a young alien who comes to earth on an exchange program. Problems arise for the hosting family when they realise that, on Mo's planet, children are sexless - physical differences only begin to appear at a much later date, i.e. when they are needed. Hilarity but also much social commentary ensues as the family tries to decide whether Mo should play at war or with dollies. - Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, "Vampiretto" ("Der Kleine Vampir" in the original German; "The Little Vampire"). Sixteen short books across two series, telling of the unlikely friendship between human boy Anton and vampire boy Rudiger. Anton's parents are sensible and don't believe in vampires, while Rudiger's family view Anton as lunch. A spot of innocent romance is added by Anna, Rudiger's baby sister and smitten with Anton, and Olga, the snottiest vampire girl in the universe who reduces Rudiger to a deluded, starry-eyed idiot. My personal favourite was Lumpi, Rudiger's older brother, condemned to the throes of adolescence forever, his voice always cracking, his temper impossible, torn between Anna's youthful yearning for normality and his parents' killer instincts. The stuff of brilliance. On a side note, the recent film of the same name which modernises this by means of a family of Americans moving into a haunted Scottish castle (because as we all know, supernatural occurrences occur only in Scotland), is a corruption of all that's good in this world; please avoid it like the plague. I'm sure I saw a brilliant TV series of this aired in the UK when I was little, but no one else seems to remember of its existence, let alone want to transpose it on DVD. - Ferenc Molnar, "The Paul Street Boys", about two bands of children playing war games for a playground turf. The main is little Ernst Nemesek, the only boy in the Paul Street Boys gang never to get promoted, because all the officers need someone to order about; his bravery and sacrifice have me blubbering just to think upon. It might be an odd one to consider feel-good, but it's a good one for making you feel corageous, stroger than you're given credit for, and capable of anything. Back in school we used to be able to borrow two books at a time; one of mine was always this so I don't think anyone else had a chance to read it for three years... it's that good. If you've never read it, please do so. Now.

Hello there welcome! May I direct you to this thread I created some while ago? It starts with the section of my wishlist dedicated to books about books/writers/libraries (it seems we have something of a shared interested...), and continues with many a good recommendation by the lovely people of the forum. And, I wouldn't even had known you were foreign had you not specified... I wish I was that proficient in languages I wasn't taught as an infant!

Glad you found it and are enjoying it so much, it's one of my favourite reads of the year and one of those books I never stop recommending left right and centre! Although in my opinion, "Lost in a Good Book" (the second in the series) is even better so you're in for a treat. Can't wait to hand in my dissertation and regain the time and attention-span needed for "The Well of Lost Plots" - funny as they are, you can't exactly skim-read these. Not that I skim-read anyway, but you know what I mean. I might have to start again from the beginning (annoying, considering I've read nearly half) in order not to get confused... we shall see. Anyway, I'm hoping to devour it so I can finally get to "Something Rotten", the hamletic fourth title in the series which has been waiting on my shelf for the past year and a half... In the meantime, I snail-read Daniel Waters's "Generation Dead", mainly on the bus to the British Library, which is where I do most of my research. I've become a slow reader and find it impossible to concentrate with noise, of which buses are generous... so I'm lucky to read five pages a day. Which is a shame, as I'm really enjoying GD, and there's so much else waiting to be read... not least of which "The Kiss of Life", the sequel to GD!

These are on my wishlist or nearly so, you seem to have good taste so I'd be interested to know what you make of them !

Thanks for that, reviewers seem to be uncommonly divided on "The Looking Glass Wars" so I was unsure what to think! Although to be honest, some of the detractors sounded a bit on the dense side, such as the one who was horrified to think that others would fall for Beddor's claim that this was the "true" story of Alice in Wonderland. Obviously never heard of artistic licence and suspension of disbelief, some people... . I've never read any Brust, but this looked right up my alley because apparently it's a loving parody of the cash-driven eloquence of "The Three Musketeers" (Dumas was paid by the word) - "500 Years Later" being Brust's response to Dumas's "20 Years Later". Could I ask you why what you read of his was just "okay"?

... MEOWWWW! (Trans: YAY!)

That's what I mean by "glossing over". Much Ado is widely regarded as a "problem" comedy (as is "The Merchant of Venice", but you'd have to be really creative to gloss over the problematic aspects of that!) because in the play Claudio, after never-ending promises of undying love, readily believes the calumnies about her honour and, without so much as checking his sources or giving her a chance to explain herself, calls her very unkind things at the wedding before storming off while she tears her hair out, not knowing what's going on. Seriously - at least Othello clings to the belief in Desdemona's innocence for a while, and it takes Iago's deviousness masked by perfect innocence (played marvellously, may I add, by Branagh in his own version, so this is in no way a dig at his adaptations) to convince him that she's been unfaithful. I'll shut up now .

May I join the club ? Although, I'd never want to leave the Great Library so I might not get much work done... tell you what, I've changed my mind - can I be the Cheshire Cat, Great Library librarian? That way I get to be delightfully odd and surreal as well as bookish, and wouldn't have to leave the Library, ever!

Has anyone read any of the following: "The Phoenix Guards" by Stephen Brust and/or its sequel "500 years later" (both prequels to his "Taltos" series, I believe) "The Looking Glass Wars" series by Frank Beddor "Calculating God" by Robert J. Sawyer They caught my eye in Forbidden Planet the other day and I was wondering if anyone could share opinions...

You should give it a go, it's not very long and the plot is fairly straightforward - I admit to getting occasionally a bit lost in Macbeth's soliloquies, because unlike Hamlet he doesn't explain and expound every single small step of his brain processes (which leads me to believe Hamlet's madness but a fiction as opposed to Macbeth's actual madness); however the imagery is very vivid and, ultimately, rewarding. Apparently (I haven't actually seen it all myself) the Branagh film glosses over the most problematic aspects of Much Ado, i.e. Claudio being an untrusting cad who does not actually deserve to end up with Hero, hence the happy ending isn't really a happy ending for everyone... thoughts?

Possibly. I might even stroke it ever so gently, like so...

Awesome as he is, Daniel Waters ("Generation Dead") seems to have an awful lot of nodding going on. I counted six nods in two pages this morning...

I respect your tact and grace - if someone had dared present me with the second trilogy of Thomas "The Whinger" Covenant I probably would have hit them over the head with it. It didn't happen for me either then again, I gave it to someone on here who loved it so to each their own. Don't say that, I've got it on my shelf, looking all inviting and stuff... ! I admire your courage. My copy was mercilessly charity shopped - never (attempted to) read a more obscure, incomprehensible, pretentious thing in my entire life. I do like my philosophy but I like it engaging and, while by no means dumbed down, not obfuscated beyond necessity: Descartes, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard... now, those are the kind of guys who can get complex concepts across entertainingly and (within reason) accessibly.

Might it be the Animorphs series by Katherine Applegate?

Like most people, I distinguish between Mount TBR (things I physically own but have yet to read or complete) and the Wishlist of Doom (books I want to physically own). The way I see it is that, right now, I can't even afford the tip of the iceberg as far as all the good books out there are concerned; if I didn't make a note of them as I go along, chances are that when the time of plenty comes I'll have forgotten 99% of them! For this reasons I always carry writing implements around bookshops with me to jot down titles and authors of books I can't afford/don't have the space for/want to find in a different edition or better condition.