Ye Ol Written Word

EEK! My secrets out!!!

Copied from the Tony Hawks link you sent me

 

I'm reading the *predictable* Harry Potter Order of the phoenix at the moment - I know who gets killed without reading it too - narrowed it down to 3 and my so called mate told me while we were drunk - cheers - my 2nd guess on the list was right though

Anyone read The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield? Very strange but interesting...

I'll check out that Tony Hawk book when I've read Lord/Bored of the rings - so some time next decade then

 

Am I the only person that HATES :chainsaw: :gatling: :chop: :micro: ::saw: :bs: Harry f*ckin' Potter

 

Looks like you are

Michael.

 

your not alone voodoo,give me the secret seven any day

 

Errrr.. no !!


GTM

 

I've started on Order Of the Phoenix now. Not very far into it but it's starting to come back to me. I've a few suspicions over who will get killed, but nothing MOre than guesses really. I enjoyed the previous ones and hope this will turn out as good

I think last book I mentioned on this thread was "Death and the Penguin" Nice and quick read, and amusing use of words.

Also, as I've said earlier, I'm working my way through the huge pile of Discworld Novels I have here. Feet Of Clay and Small Gods were the last two. Both keeping up the standard of the ones I'd already read. Small Gods in particular was very good. Quite a bit of underhanded huMOur, questions, piss takes etc...

Everyone else?

 

Aha! try some 'Carlos Castenada' that'll mess wiv ya head

Cheers

Barnie.
http://www.barnies-place.co.uk/

 

Currently reading a collection of Boris Johnson's journalism, Lend Me Your Ears (it was an xmas present, I didn't buy it for myself, honest guv). Some of it is actually quite sensible. Also reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which is pretty good, but not as good as his recent collection of short stories, After The Quake, which is excellent, and Walter Benjamin's monumental The Arcades Project (cookiemonster, you'd like this I think).

-- Ian

 

OMG!!! I got it for Christmas, from my Amazon wish list. Its currently just casting a shadow in my room - not started it yet, its in a large queue to the brain, behind MM among others.

Cool. :MILD:

I am currently reading Robert Musil - The Man without Qualities. Just started it. And also, a not entirely convincing book which was a crimbo present, by Tammy Bruce - How the Left Polices Your Mind - or something like that? Its written in a bit of a tabloid fashion. It was from my brother in law, who has just started university, and is getting 'political'. I think he is encouraging me to see through the bulllshit. Read an autobiography of Ronnie OSullivan last couple of days. Read Erich Fromm - The anatomy of Human Destructiveness, before Ronnie. My next book should probably be one on 'improving your memory', as i can't really remember any of them.

cheers.

 

:lol:

 

Currently reading

''The Africa House'' Christina Lamb.
The story of an English gentleman's dream of setting up a home in Africa in the early part of the 20th century.

It is an interesting book, particularly the attitudes to people/power/life which are very much of the time.

 

Reading 'Fermat's last theorem' by Simon Singh. Lent by a chum, top notch if you can see the beauty of & in it. Very interesting about why the cicada's life-cycle is a prime number of years, for instance.

 

Recently:
The Business and Dead Air by Iain Banks - both so so as previously posted by others, I will get Raw Spirit though.

Currently:
The Complete Illuminated Works by William Blake - very pretty pictures

Soon:
Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs - only a quid from the Oxfam Shop!

 

I'm surprised no-one's asked about the cicada's life-cycle. Incurious or well-informed audiophiles.

 

Absence is my excuse but I'm here now and will bite - why is the cicada's life cycle a prime number of years?

Presently reading 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad: re-watched 'Apocalypse Now' over the weekend and remembered that I'd still not read it. Found it in a charity shop on Monday morning so decided that fate was telling me something.

Next up is another charity shop purchase from Monday - 'How to talk dirty and...' by Lenny Bruce.

 

The nymph sits underground for 13 years before emerging as the adult form.

13 being prime minimises any chances of encountering a parasite because the parasite's life cycle will only coincide with the cicada's on very rare occasions indeed. So rare, in fact, that the parasite has long died out, so the cicada now spends 13 years avoiding a parasite which no longer exists.

 

Just finished "Castles of Steel" by Robert Massie, a marvellous naval history of the First World War and a great follow-on to his "Dreadnought". Seriously thick books both, but wonderfully written so that you can't wait to get back to see what happened next. The sketches of the characters with all their quirks, foibles and failings - Queen Victoria, her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II, the young Winston Churchill, Admirals "Jacky" Fisher, Tirpiz, Jellicoe and Beatty, etc. etc. - are marvellous. Difficult act to follow.

 

Thanks for that - very interesting. I wonder why it ended up being 13 and not, say, 11? Or 17? I think I'm going to read up some more about this...

 

Don't know why 13, but essential that it is prime. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed mathematics before this book.