Once Again, The Phantom Has Piles

I'm afraid they just keep on coming back. This is a photo of my post-Christmas bedside bookpile. I always know it's getting a bit out of hand when I can't see the bedside table anymore and start using the books instead.

Some of these will be bookcrossed. In fact the Bill Bryson on the right was released and caught earlier on today. Check the link here to my BookCrossing Journal entry.

If I was the type for resolutions I'd try and keep the bedside clear. I know it will never happen though. I'll check again at Easter and post a photo.

One Man's Meat...

Sometimes a particular second-hand bookshop will call out to me. Maybe I haven’t been there for a while. Sometimes I just get a feeling...

I was in the Traid shop in Holloway Road when I found this…




I get the feeling that Welsh Dog already has a copy, but if you don’t, you can find it on Amazon here.



It has somewhat mixed reviews…

“I've sent copies to several of my friends as Christmas presents and I'm sure they will find it just as funny as I do.”

Contrasting with…

“Never before have I waited with breath so baited, only to have every dream, hope and wish crushed. This book is nothing of what I had heard. The prose is uninspired, and lend the book a pompous and smug air, not unlike that Jamiroquai Rowling what writes kids books except treats the kids like idiots incapable of keeping a single thoughts in their head. Except this is worse; the witless and insipid text positively inspires vomiting (projectile) from every reader, sucking out the very essence of what makes a good read and replacing your heart with a heavy grey twilight. I do not recommend buying this.”…

One may guess which review, if any, was written by the author:-)

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Feeling Lonely

It's not often that I get to feel lonely. I'm a pretty self-contained individual. I guess it's the legacy of being an only child. But the last few days I have felt something or someone was missing. I'm afraid to say it is this book:



Regular readers may have noticed that it appeared as my "On The Bus Book" for quite a while. This was because Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, is a book and a half. Actually it's three books. And even then it's only the first part of a trilogy! (The Baroque Cycle).

It's a historical epic anchored around real people such as Isaac Newton and King Louis 14th of France. It's a Fantasy, a philosophical work-out, a primer in Cartesian geometry, a pirate story. I could go on. It even had a Wiki devoted to it.

In short, it's a brilliant book, which I feel bereft of now I have finished it. To actually get 900 pages through and feel sad that it has ended says something for the quality of the experience that Neal Stephenson provides.

I already have the second volume of the trilogy sitting in the bedroom, but I'm making myself wait a while before I dive in. I'm like a smoker in a non-smoking area, glancing at my fag-packet every now-and-then for reassurance that I can get a hit later.

Tomorrow England and Ireland, Next Month The World!!

Oh, the decline of Empire!

Tomorrow is World Book Day. In England. And Ireland.....

Err...

That's It...

Pink Bits on the map, where are they now?

Apparently The Rest of The World celebrate WBD on April 23rd. This has been deliberately chosen as it is (probably) Shakespeare's Birthday.

It takes little imagination to see why Ireland would not wish to have a major celebration on the birthday of England's greatest writer. A day which also happens to be the feast of St. George, patron saint of England.

But why don't the English celebrate it then?

I feel a campaign coming on....