Various and sundry...

[graculus]

I remember reading somewhere that the average lifespan of a new paperback nowadays is about 5 years. And that they're actually not made to be as resilient as the old style - my collection of 1960's Evelyn Waugh paperbacks with the Quentin Blake illustrated covers would back that up, as would the fact that the other day I literally had a brand new paperback fall apart in my hands as I was reading it.

Now, I'm not one of those people who breaks the spines of books, or leaves them lying about splayed open. I've been known to spend time erasing pencil marks from books I've acquired. So, it was more than a little dismaying when the last hundred pages or so of that brand new copy of The Amulet of Samarkand (which I recommend as being a good read) came out as the binding apparently disintegrated. I've emailed Random House to complain but with no response to date.

Other than that, I've been catching up on original fic (see my recs page for details - scroll down past the copious Harry Potter recs). I spent a happy couple of weeks working my way through msmanna's wonderful Administration universe, which is entertaining, well-written and prolific, always my favourite combination. And then there's Parhelion, whose original fic is so good that it almost makes me forgive him for no longer writing Nero Wolfe. Almost. ;)


Gakked from przed:
Bold those you've read.
Italicize those you haven't finished/have only read excerpts.
Underline those you own.
And then add a few of your own :)


1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The DUrbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernieres
102. The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant
103. The Murder Room P.D. James
104. The Island of Adventure Enid Blyton
105. A is for Alibi Sue Grafton
106. Grass, Sheri S Tepper
106. Howards End, E.M. Forster
107. The Pilot's Wife, Anita Shreve
108. Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier
109. In the Days of the Comet, H.G. Wells
110. A Long Fatal Love Chace, Louisa May Alcott
111. Alanna, Tamora Pierce
112. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
113. Lost Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
114. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
115. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
116. Briar Rose, Jane Yolen
117. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
118. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
119. Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
120. Maurice, E.M. Forster
121. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones



Gee, what has been going on with my jetset lifestyle? ;)

Well, my electric kettle died yesterday after almost 15 years of loyal service. My central heating is playing up again and god knows when I'm going to be able to get someone to come and fix it.

I felt guilty for putting the kids outside this week when the first morning rolled around in which I had to defrost their water bottles... I'm giving serious consideration to taking my house off the market for a couple of months (since that was why their hutch moved outside and nobody seems to be interested in it anyway so it's not going to sell now till Spring) and bringing them back indoors till some time in the New Year.

Other than that, I've just been busy at work. I'm running some training in a couple of weeks and have been toiling away on stuff for that, as well as getting involved in helping deal with a bit of a crisis. Which got me a free trip to Birmingham yesterday for meetings, with a nice side-trip to Cafe Soya for aubergine and tofu in black-bean sauce. Mmmm.

Oh, and I discovered that a friend of mine will have his first (academic) book published next year, by a rather well-known university press. Considering I helped subsidise a chunk of his studies with curry, beer and books, I'm feeling rather proud on his behalf. :)

Got to get on with finishing some fic, particularly my submission for the muncle Secret Agent Santa. It's coming along quite nicely, at about 1500 words so far...