What are you reading tonight?

[TANGODANCER]

Just started Reginald Hill's The Roar of the Butterflies. Read two chapters and knew this was for me:

A phone rang. It wasn't Joe's. His had the harsh shriek of a crow landing on an electric fire.

and describing a local housing estate: The lifts were moving urinals, when they moved at all, and the place had more hoodies than a monastry

Think I'm going to like it.

[TANGODANCER]

Mentioning the Bible, one for the Bish:

Watched Anne Robinson tonight taking the pxxs out of a nice and rather young, late teens/twenty, girl who stated she was a Christian; had four brothers and seven sisters, hadn't a boyfriend didn't believe in sex before marriage, claimed she was a good girl etc.

On to the next Weakest link question for her. Ironically, it was : From which text do the words "Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive them that trespass against us" come from. An embarrassed silence for long seconds then..."Pass".

[Worthy4England]

After missing out on last Sunday's book buying, I availed myself of the three for a tenner offer in Asda.

I now have Dan Brown's - The Lost Symbol; Mo Hayder's - Ritual and James Becker's - The Messiah Secret. I know about Dan Brown, but the other two are "speculators".

I spent all week trying to get into "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy for about the seventh time, being bookless for a week.

I'm going to start with Dan Brown.

[TANGODANCER]

After missing out on last Sunday's book buying, I availed myself of the three for a tenner offer in Asda.

I now have Dan Brown's - The Lost Symbol; Mo Hayder's - Ritual and James Becker's - The Messiah Secret. I know about Dan Brown, but the other two are "speculators".

I spent all week trying to get into "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy for about the seventh time, being bookless for a week.

I'm going to start with Dan Brown.

As someone who enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, and to some extent, Angels and Demons, I can tell you I found it a big dissapointment. Wife bought me the hardback version as a present a while back. Let's know what you think when you've read it.

[clapton is god]

I mentioned my current read in my list of holiday books a few weeks ago and said I didn't think it was quite a beach book...

How right I was!

Jonathan Littells 'The Kindly Ones' is an account of the Russian front from the perspective of a SS Intelligence Officer attached to an Action Group as they progress east towards Moscow and then back. The subject is telling the story from memory to set the record straight. It deals with the mass killings that preceded the death camps, the siege of Stalingrad and then the camps themselves as Max, nowadays a respected family man, gets promoted through the ranks. Max ends the war in Berlin by Hitlers side at the end.

it doesn't glorify the war or the atrocities in any way whatsoever, it just tells it in a dead-pan way that is truly horrific. I've never read a book that has made me feel so uneasy, even physically sick at times, but it is a fascinating and mesmerising account with a host of accolades from many respected historians behind it. Powerful, powerful stuff.

[William the White]

Just started Amitar Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, shortlisted for the Booker in 2008 and been on my Shelf of Shame ever since. Up to page 60. It's working for me without keeping me enthralled. We'll see.

[TANGODANCER]

Just started Reginald Hill's The Roar of the Butterflies. Read two chapters and knew this was for me:
A phone rang. It wasn't Joe's. His had the harsh shriek of a crow landing on an electric fire.
and describing a local housing estate: The lifts were moving urinals, when they moved at all, and the place had more hoodies than a monastry Think I'm going to like it.

I've got a new private-detective hero. Joe Sixsmith, in his own words: " Black, bald, vertically challenged, overweight and dressed in an off-white singlet and Bermuda shorts patterned with scarlet parrots snking their beaks into rainbow striped pumpkins."
Man, what more could you want?

[Raven]

Now reading Jeremy and Amy, the bio of Jeremy Keeling one of the founders of Monkey World.

Only just started and already had a good laugh and so so jealous.

Oh and just in case you did not know Amy is an Orang Utan

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

On the DSB loo shelf at the mo:

Mother Tongue Bill Bryson - typically thoughtful yet enjoyable analysis of our greatest asset, the English language

Dawn of the Dumb Charlie Brooker - collection of his Guardian columns, some TV-based, others not. Enjoyable dipper

Reliable Essays Clive James - excellent writer covering some of my favourite subjects. Reading his thoughts on Philip Larkin and George Orwell was like a warm bath after the long hard marathon of Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety; superbly summarised by Brooker as "people feel envy", it reminds me of James' earlier epithet about Alan Weeks having to provide more flannel than a warehouse of pyjamas

[Bruce Rioja]

On the DSB loo shelf at the mo:

Mother Tongue Bill Bryson - typically thoughtful yet enjoyable analysis of our greatest asset, the English language

Dawn of the Dumb Charlie Brooker - collection of his Guardian columns, some TV-based, others not. Enjoyable dipper

Reliable Essays Clive James - excellent writer covering some of my favourite subjects. Reading his thoughts on Philip Larkin and George Orwell was like a warm bath after the long hard marathon of Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety; superbly summarised by Brooker as "people feel envy", it reminds me of James' earlier epithet about Alan Weeks having to provide more flannel than a warehouse of pyjamas

Charlie Brooker once described Alain de Botton in the most hilarious character assassination that I've ever read.

“an absolute pair-of-aching-balls of a man—a slapheaded, ruby-lipped pop philosopher who has somehow forged a lucrative career stating the bleeding obvious in a series of poncey, lighter-than-air books.”

[General Mannerheim]

Im on Brookers follow up, 'The Hell of it all' - the blokes a genius. his verbal assaults are brilliant and the scary thing is i find myself nodding along in agreement with most of it! miserable misathropist bastard, thats me.

[William the White]

Have just, on another thread, recommended William Goldman's brilliant account of his years in Hollywood - Which Lie Did I Tell?

This is a funny - sometimes hilarious - account of the film industry by the oscar winning writer of Butch Cassidy and All the President's Men. Any idea that these guys know what they are doing is blown out of the water. Recommend hugely. And also the same author's Adventures in the Screen Trade.

[Worthy4England]

After missing out on last Sunday's book buying, I availed myself of the three for a tenner offer in Asda.

I now have Dan Brown's - The Lost Symbol; Mo Hayder's - Ritual and James Becker's - The Messiah Secret. I know about Dan Brown, but the other two are "speculators".

I spent all week trying to get into "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy for about the seventh time, being bookless for a week.

I'm going to start with Dan Brown.

As someone who enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, and to some extent, Angels and Demons, I can tell you I found it a big dissapointment. Wife bought me the hardback version as a present a while back. Let's know what you think when you've read it.

Rather enjoyed it TD.

Think it'll be a while before I solve Kryptos though.

[CAPSLOCK]

I've got two to do

Order to be decided

Penguins Stopped Play and Dragon Tattoo

It'll be the cricket that wins

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

On the DSB loo shelf at the mo:

Mother Tongue Bill Bryson - typically thoughtful yet enjoyable analysis of our greatest asset, the English language

Dawn of the Dumb Charlie Brooker - collection of his Guardian columns, some TV-based, others not. Enjoyable dipper

Reliable Essays Clive James - excellent writer covering some of my favourite subjects. Reading his thoughts on Philip Larkin and George Orwell was like a warm bath after the long hard marathon of Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety; superbly summarised by Brooker as "people feel envy", it reminds me of James' earlier epithet about Alan Weeks having to provide more flannel than a warehouse of pyjamas

Charlie Brooker once described Alain de Botton in the most hilarious character assassination that I've ever read.

“an absolute pair-of-aching-balls of a man—a slapheaded, ruby-lipped pop philosopher who has somehow forged a lucrative career stating the bleeding obvious in a series of poncey, lighter-than-air books.”

I like his description of The Art Of Travel as "Mr Logic on his holidays".

[Dujon]

For the last few months I've been re-reading most of my little library (fiction and non-fiction).

Whilst the local library is but a one and a half kilometre walk, and is limited in what it has on the shelves at any one time (see earlier comments on this subject), I am being drawn to the idea of purchasing one of the new-fangled e-readers (or ereaders). A wee bit of research on these things has left me no better off than before. The Kindle seems to be Amazon's product and thus restricted to whatever Amazon deems should be available in digital form. The Kindle is also relatively expensive when compared to some of the product now being offered by other manufacturers.

Does anyone have experience of these machines?

My basic criteria are:

Minimum screen size - vertically - 150mm (6")
Minimum resolution - 1024 x 768
Colour - not essential but a definite advantage
Publications - downloadable on my computer and transferable to the machine. Preferably not site specific (i.e. some sort of 'open' format)
Internet capability - not required
Telephone capability - not required

[clapton is god]

Does anyone have experience of these machines?

I got the Kindle DX back in January and have since read about a dozen books on it.

I love it!

The DX version has a larger screen that the basic version at 5.5" x 8". It has good contrast and is easily readable in bright sunshine. Its been updated since I bought (why does that always happen?) and supposedly has even better contrast now. It isn't illuminated and the reading surface looks similar to paper. You can adjust the font to suit your own eyes. It costs $349 US or its just been made available on amazon.co.uk at £149 which I think is excellent value. In fact, amazon.co.uk are opening their own Kindle store at the end of this month so I won't have to buy books from the US store after then and I look forward to a wider choice. Having said that, I've never been short of choice and a browse on either the computer or on the device has always turned up something I wanted to read. A quick press of a couple of buttons and the book is delivered wirelessly in a few seconds. It all works perfectly. You'll have to investigate to see what publications are available to you but there is a long list of daily news and magazines. I've not subscribed to any so can't comment on the service.

Its quite robust and it slid off a chair onto a tiled floor one day without coming to any harm.

You can download a program for the PC or Mac and also the iPhone so you can also read the book on those devices and it rather magically knows which page you are on across all three devices.

Cost of books is very reasonable - if you don't want the latest best seller which is always available cheeper in book form. I typically pay around $4 for a book and there's resources to get out of copyright books for free. For example the complete Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare and Dickens are all free or nominal.

It sits comfortably in the hand with the page turning button just under the thumb. There is a basic web browser but I've never used it and a few other functions but I've not used those either.

All in all a big thumbs up from me!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I used to hate the idea of reading anything digitally... indeed I used to be an enemy of the earth at uni by printing out reams of paper so as to avoid having to read things on a screen.

However, the downloading 'Stanza', the first decent eReader app on the iPhone, convinced me that it could work... having something in your hand and being able to turn pages with your finger (so no scrolling) does get near enough the real thing to make it worthwhile when you consider that you can carry a library around in your pocket.

Trouble is, even with the possibilities for different font sizes, the screen on the iPhone is just too small and fiddly.

All of which means I will be buying an iPad as soon as I can afford it!

[Bruce Rioja]

All of which means I will be buying an iPad as soon as I can afford it!

And then you'll need a massive pocket!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

All of which means I will be buying an iPad as soon as I can afford it!

And then you'll need a massive pocket!

I'll just keep it in my handbag, obviously...