IWe used to have this category - -seems to have slipped away. Anyway - the snow last night and today meant that I could not get to work and the by product is that I managed to finish reading a book I started back in December.

When Giants Walked The Earth - A Biography Of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall

I bought this several months ago after someone on here recommended it and made it come to th etop of the "to read" pile. This has got to be one of (or maybe THE ) best books about Led Zep. Mick Wall has used a technique where without actually quoting the band, he visualises thoughts that they (including Peter Grant) might have had at the htime. To do this he has thoroughly researched loads of articles and also had many discussions with the band over the years. It certainly comes across as a kind of authoritive piece of journalism. He gives it a warts and all approach but without truying for sensationalism. Definitely a must read for any fan and probably a good read for th eanti Led Zep person also - they can say "yeah too right - the bastards" at all those excessive moments.

Highly Recommended

G

Just finished reading "THE RISING" by Brian Keene, excellent horror PB about Zombies with a neat twist reagrding how people in the book become Zombies

Just started the follow-up book "CITY OF THE DEAD".

John

Zombies are cool and very popular these days. Has anyone read "pride and predudice and zombies"? I haven'y myself,but I'm tempted as it was on the NY Times bestsellers list!
I just finished reading "nickel and dimed" about a woman writer who in order to write an article about trying to life in the USA on minimum wage decides to "rough" it herself. She goes to 3 parts of the country and tries to live off waitressing, cleaning houses,all at minimum wage or less. Bottom line, it's almost impossible these days. My daughter had to read it in college and thought I would lke it. Well, I did.
The interesting part of it was that back in the early 70's when I first moved into Boston I lived on minimum wage ($1.65 hour), shared a flat with a pal and still had money to buy beer, concert tickets,music,etc. I certainly could not do it now. I have a lot more sympathy for people making minimum wage and trying to raise a family and just get by than I did before.

I just read Stone Me, a Keith Richards quotes compilation, funny as f*ck!

Three on the go at the moment (depends on what I feel like reading).

James Blish - Doctor Mirabilis; 13th C historical fiction based on Roger Bacon. I believe Blish wrote some Star Trek stuff, but for a sci-fi writer he really gets into his stride with medieval dialogue. Very good but heavy going in parts; not for those who like it fast paced.

Neil Oliver - A History Of Scotland; links with the BBC series. Extremely readable, but full of errors. Up to 937 AD already and no mention of how Jock Stein, Jimmy Johnstone and Kenny Dalglish beat off the Vikings. Clueless.

Ian Mortimer - The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England; similar to a real travel guide taking you behind the scenes and off the beaten path. Split into chapters such as the landscape, the people, travelling, health, etc. described from contemporary viewpoints. Gets into the locals' heads and builds up the scenarios from historical documentation and deduction. Fascinating.

Mick

The Mammoth Book of Horror Comics

Currently I am reading Michael Palin 'Halfway To Hollywood' which is the second part of his diaries. As with the first it is a good read - covers the things that you may want to know about someone in the public eye but with plenty of other comments about things happening at the time.

I've seen a set of his books based on his BBC travel series's (Around The World In 80 Days', 'Pole To Pole, Himalayas', etc.) and am tempted by them but think they may be a bit limited by sticking to theme of the TV series of which I lost interest in after the first 2.

Before this I read the first 3 books of Spike Milligan's war memoirs - got the other 3 to read at a later date.

The Pali suttas. Buddhist scriptures - 3600 pages of bliss - tough reading though.



Also going through a lot of Beatle books. I like Geoff Emerick's 'cause I'm a recording geek.

3600 pages is a lot, but doesn't the whole thing comprise even more? - it is dozens of large encyclopedia type books.

I don't know if you can , but can you put an extract here to give a flavour of the script?

G

The Nikayas I've been reading run 3 volumes and 3k pages and contain a great deat of the Buddha's 84,000 teachings. There are 2 other nikayas as well. They're a dry tough read at times.

This does a better job than I could ever for those interested. A greai, great primer:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... nding.html

also excellent:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sutta.html

Here's apage with actual material from the suttas (great stuff here as you go down the page:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .ntbb.html

I really love that one. Great, Great stuff.

Currently reading Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel. A lot easier to read than, say, Gravity’s Rainbow, this book is basically a detective novel – sort of Pynchon’s ode to Raymond Chandler, if the Philip Marlowe character was replaced with Jeff Spicoli. Think “The Maltese Falcon” starring Cheech and Chong. A cross between The Big Sleep and The Big Lebowski. Pynchon is not for everybody, like Vonnegut he can be a little jarring in his prose and tends to wander out into the cosmos every now and then for no purpose, but all in all I really enjoy this novel, more for the characters and sense of place than for the actual plot. Highly recommended.

For about 3 months now I've been working my way through the Flashman Chronicles about to start the last volume.

Currently reading what other people have posted on this topic

The old ones are the best Ray.

Totally Wired by Simon Reynolds. It is just a series of interviews. He wrote a post-punk history called Rip it Up. I suspect these are interviews he did when researching for Rip it Up. It's not a book I could read all the way through , but ok to pick out individual chapters.