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Bad yes, not too sci/fi though :) How's about Robert Heinlein's 'puppet masters' they're pretty dastardly.

Iain M Banks' culture series are spectacular space opera's. I'd go for Consider Phlebas as its his first (some of the later ones require pre-knowledge of hie books) Gigantic super inteligent spaceships, AI all over the place. Excession is great too.

O.k its been a while but I'll give it a whirl. What they're about - loosely I guess they are fantasy books. They start off in an alternate Oxford woohoo (I think Pullman is oxfordshire based, though not sure) with a girl called Lyra and her daemon (kind of a talking familiar) scurrying around...

I know what you mean but I kind of liked the ambiguity. I have heard others complain that you don't get a resolution to Robin's murder and everything is left hanging. But I quite liked the idea I got from it that Harriet is after all a child, making childish assumptions and mistakes and its her...

Having oozed sweat over my answers to the macho movies, I thought I should even things out with a blokes view of romantic movies - you know Commando has a fine romantic subplot... honest. Seriously though, In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-Wai is extraordinary and George Cukor's Philadelphia...

I've got to agree with those who mention Die Hard, all men own at least one grubby vest in which to secretly pose. Also Predator WOOHOO my (sadly) favourite macho movie, Arnie, Jessie Ventura, Carl Weathers and a mini gun in one movie enough said. "if it bleeds, we can kill it" On a higher...

Have just finnished reading The Little Friend, which I waited impatiently to come out in paperback for ages. Would love to know what others think of D. Tartt's writing. For me she's fantastic, a cerebral writer rather than an emotional one perhaps, but an absolute master of prose and form. If...

Well the top 21's out now, they really should've just put the Harry P's under one entry - like LOTR and His Dark Materials. Three of the four Potters on the 100 list suspiciously ended up 24 23 and 22 :) So the top 21 in alphabetical order are... 1984 - George Orwell Birdsong - Sebastian...

Cool I can't wait for his next one. Underground is pretty good too, it really gives you a feel for how the Japanese public reacted to tragedy.

Many thanks for your thoughts, I might have to have a look at it when I get down my current pile of books.

This years Booker Prize winner was, for those who don't know already... D.B.C Pierre's Vernon God Little. Not habing read it myself, I'd love to hear what other people thought of it.

Well it is a British poll, I guess a French poll would have a similar predominance for French writing. It would be interesting to see how they compared, which ones got on both, especially the childrens stuff which I think kind of lets the BBC'c poll down a bit. Too many Harry Potter's and too...

Mac's are better and faster machines performance wise and much nicer to use. I would take issue with them being stable though, in my experience they're crash happy! However I won't buy another, for all the advantages, there's too little software, annoying compatability problems with the 90% of...

Gah, just wrote long winded post on King Arthur, only to have it disappear into the ether of my clockwork computer. Anyway the gist of it was... King Arthur being french, nope but apparantly his Grandfather came across form N France, which really makes no odds as they're all Celts anyway...

37 in all for me, although like most people my age, I'd reckon a good proportion of that is made up by avidly devoured copies of Roald Dahl and older Terry Pratchet. Also a big thank you to my mum who bribed me £1 a book to read stuff like Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island in the summer...

This probably doesn't help but I remember an episode of Doctor Who that was similar. Had Sophie Aldred almost becoming a cat person. ps. why is it I can remember cack like this? I can even tell you what S. Aldred ended up doing on BBC2, although I wont. :)

I thought it was absolutely fantastic. An adult horror story in the true sense of the word. Which as a great plus, had echoes of one of my favorite childhood scares The Day of the Triffids. Like you I went after other books by Saramago, however I would put in a word of caution. In my V.limited...

You could try some Japanese stuff, I'm a big fan of how it translates into English. The Hunting Gun by Inoue is fantastic, and South of the Border, West of the Sun / Norwegian Wood are great introductions to Haruki Murakami. Also The Dumas Club by A. Perez-Reverte? is a great read (crappy film...

Gadzooks, 'tis about time some culture was introduced round here. Just wait till I start quothing Rabbie Burns. :)

Just finnished reading Booker prize winning behemoth Peter Carey's The Illywhacker. "The funniest book of the year" quoth the Times. erm. OK, I think I missed the joke (or the point) somewhere along the line. Anyone here find it hilarious? It was good but kind of depressed me, can anyone aid my...