What Are You Reading??

Thanks ETR I will investigate today.

"Women in the Wild", ed by Lucy McCauley - a collection of writings by women travellers.

I was searching for something that ETR suggested and found this instead.

Reads somewhat like Iain Banks Culture books, or at least the same genre. First book pretty good, second one only 20% through it.

"League of Peoples" series. James Alan Garner.

Making my way through Nicholas Ostler's "The Empire of Words" a history of various languages. Enormously fascinating.

BTW, speaking of reading. Have any of you used the Project Gutenberg whilst being in China? The reason I ask is that if this web-site works in China, I'll be one happy nerd.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

In case you were unfamiliar with it, the above is the link to the site.

Sorry ETR - link isn't working for me.  Ill try again tomorrow, sometimes will come good.

Often doesn't work for me either but what I do is google the title of a book such as The Little Princess and then wade through the entries until I get a Gutenberg and from there I can get into the Home page.

It's a wonderful site. So many novels, so many terrific novelists, like Bulwer Lytton.

It's just rather expensive to print the books.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman" by Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton.  Stories from Feynman's life, interesting, some funny and others good insights into his thinking.

Feynman is one of my heroes. One of the great men of the world, ever. Makes the 'renaissance man' look like an amateur.

"What do YOU care what other people think" is the second book.

Wonderful wonderful man. Makes really complex stuff easy to understand. Einstein said he was the most intelligent man he ever met. I even understood his Nobel prize stuff.

Read anything by him. I had a lot of his lectures on audio, but the hard drive karked it, so it will have to be found again.

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/feynman.html

Based on the amount I have read so far, he'd have been a brat to bring up - used his phenomenal intelligence from an early age to play jokes on his family, figure out ways to do things 'differently'.   

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, best known for writing Fight Club.  I have a lot of painter friends; this story, about the nature of artistic genius, was fun to read.  Well worth the effort.

Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez.  It's brief- I read it in one afternoon- but marvellous.  I love this author's writing, but 100 Years of Solitude is hard to read unless you do it in long sittings.  I've taken several stabs at it, but get bogged down trying to remember what hapenned the last time I read it. 

After reading the whole "League of Peoples" series by James Alan Gardner (7 is the latest, but it's obvious there are more coming, I am reading James White's Sector General series again since I seem to have missed the last 2-3 books on a previous reading (not starting all over with a thorough reading, more or less catching up then continuing), and a Federation book by him, the name escapes me.

Also reading Dreamweaver 8 for Dummies to learn something about website making, followed by another website book on graphics for websites.

Simon Green's Nightside series latest "Unnatural Enquirer" is next in line.

Mr. Nobody, thanks for saying something about the coming Nightside novel. For some reason, I thought SRG had finished off the series. This gives me more to look forward to.

I have it as an ebook. PM me your email if you want me to send it to you. Or you can hit demonoid up for it, that's where I got it.

Such temptation, Mr. Nobody!!! I would, but I have the rest of the books and I won't have time to read for fun until November, anyway.

Thanks, though!