Gwa - did he in the 80's when he started writing the books?
And I actually have a copy of Mort on my coffee table. I'm working through the graphic novel of The Light Fantastic so I can get a conclusion to that dopey cliffhanger, and I hear The Light Fantastic actually has a cohesive plot, so I'm looking forward to that.
there is a live action of the colour magic with jeremy irons as lord vetinari, sean astin as twoflower and tim curry as trymon, but it's pretty terrible
Every live action attempt at terry pratchett is always horrible.
You never kid.
I imagined Rincewind much younger than the SkyOne production. I like Sean Astin, though. I know most people pictured Twoflower as Asian, but I always pictured him as the naive, 'ugly American.'
I am reading A Venom In The Blood by Eric Van Hoffman. It is obscene.
Wanna know something?
Survivor
For fuckin' real. Chuck P. has Word of God on this.
It's sort of revision but I've been meaning to read it for a while, Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. It charts the changes in the european penal system through the enlightenment in order to study the nature of control enforced upon a population through dissonant and fragmented agencies of power.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to start I, Claudius today or tomorrow. I've heard good things, and I finally picked it up.
Survivor was thoroughly skippable
Ian McEwan's Solar
I was hesitant because it's about a physcist, and I know how writers can botch up physics to a migraine-inducing degree. But I needed something to read, and a quick perusal of the bookstore's shelves made it seem to be the best choice of what relatively recently published books I saw.
EDIT: 25 pages into the novel's 304, and Mcewan has already managed to mangle up and bungle the physics fairly well. He thinks that a particle physcist would be studying solar cells, and likewise why would physics post-docs who have such a deep interest and knowledge of m-Theory be working on alternative energy sources?! Despite this, critics claim that he did a great job treating physics. Well at least the story looks intreguing, even though it's very distracting at times how it feels like the characters are playing dress-up rather rather than being actual scientists.
I'm reading the adventures of alice in wonderland and through the looking glass
she really is an absurd girl, i didn't realize how truly nonsensical these books are
oh
it's pretty common to see protagonists with 0 personality or character to give readers a reference point (reader insert?) to which everything is explained
As you might know, I'm not a big fan of books that aren't filled with themed puns and jokes but Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife is really good.
My favorite quote so far: “Killing Archimedes was one of the biggest Roman contributions to mathematics.”
At bat: Three Cups of Tea
On deck: Lunatic Express
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." -Anne Frank
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” -Buddha
Identity
Currently reading Dundee International Book Prize winner An Act of Murder by Alan Wright (review here). I was at the awards dinner and copies were handed out free so I thought I should. It's a fantastic debut novel and I sincerely hope he has more great works in him.
Just finished the Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies. It doesn't quite come together as well as Fifth Business does, but Davies is a fantastic author and still manages to tell a good story, even if it does manage to drag from time to time. I'm going to check out the next two books from the Deptford Trilogy (which Fifth Business started) and then the Cornish Angels (for Rebel Angels).
Currently on my chopping block is Slaughterhouse Five, which I am finally getting around to starting.
Money by Martin Amis
I read Yellow Dog a couple of weeks ago and was ambivalent about it (ambivalence about a book is pretty strange for me), but as it was widely panned I thought I'd certainly read Money - it's his most celebrated offering. His writing style is so idiosyncratic and assured, his wit and value judgements so sharp, I've decided I like him a lot. I think what held me up with Yellow Dog were the obscene moral extremities he portrayed (not only morally uncomfortable but also made me feel kinda voyeuristic), and the slightly Rushdie-esque supernatural edge, which seemed out of place with everything else about him; I've made my peace with the former, having settled down to his style now, and the latter is far less pronounced in this book (so far).
I think he is a pretentious cunt who relishes in using cheap shock tactics to sell his novels.
However, I haven't read one so cant really say that with any conviction
I am reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell after its being highly recommended to me. The build up of atmosphere and hyper realistic approach in the first few chapters was effective and a pleasantly fresh style for the (possibly overdone) subject of fantastical magic. Unfortunately hasn't managed to capture my imagination enough for me to want to read it when tired after work or mildly drunk. As a result I have made very little progress.
Finishing up a book on how the Goedel's Incompleteness Theorum is misunderstood and misused as well as what it means, starting The Best American Non-Required Reading of 2009 (which is really, really light stuff).
I'm also audiobook'ing The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, about a fairly young Dutch clerk working for the Dutch East India Company right at the turn of the 19th century on the artificial island of Dejima off Nagasaki, where most Dutch traders had to be located while the mainland was forbidden to most foreigners except for special occasions.
I started reading Superfreakonimics today and now I'm a chapter away from finishing. It's an interesting read but I prefer Freakonomics over this one.
Interesting note: I learned that normal condoms are too big for men from India to use properly.
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