a good author

Wouldn't want Archer, Mandy, or Robbins either, for that matter. It was just my silly sense of...er...humour (which, by gad, you ought to be used to by now!).

Dear Beef, I discovered her last year and think she is wonderful. Can't remember the name of the book I read though and I've just gone searching for it. I must have lent it to someone. Ho Hum, So It Goes (K. Vonnegut). pip pip, tony

i think barbara trapido is excellent ... have read all her books ... she also wrote juggling, temples of delight, noah's ark and the travelling hornplayer... saw her do a reading some while back and she is charming ... i think mandylifeboats is another fan ...

Definitely am! Recently read the one about two girls - I can never remember titles. Took it back to the library yesterday. Am now reading Atomised by Michel Houellebecq. The blurb said: Unhealthy and haunting, rich and provocative. Sounds just like me, I thought. But it just shows you shouldn't trust blurbs. Too much French introspection for me... Have also been picking at Dave Eggers' AHWOSG. Liked the beginning with his mother, the sneakers in the dryer and the aquarium, but am now halfway through and realise I don't like people who think they're the epitome of cool (Spag-Si excepted!). I have an unopened copy of The Abomination by Paul Golding on the shelf - "An astonishing, heart-rending tour de force" Pat Barker / "Paul Golding writes like an angel who has recently fallen from grace" The Observer - anyone read this? I didn't like the picture of the author much, not my type at all, but then neither was Dickens and I enjoy his books...

Is it Juggling Mandy? That't the one I've got from the lib at the mo. Ifb, are the characters of Alice and Jem in Juggling the same ones that are in Temples of Delight (haven't read that one, but have read blurb)?

Yes, that's it, Beef - Temples of Delight, about demure Alice and worldly Jem. Is Juggling a sequel?

i think it is a sequel ... i am just peering at my (signed) hardback ... ah fandom doesn't strike me very often ... but it doesn't say on the back ... and my copy of juggling is on loan to someone so can't say for sure ...

But doesn't Jem DIE at the end of Temples?

gawd i think she does ... i remember i was listening to it on tape in the car and had a sniffle parked outside my house while i listened to the end ...

i'm thinking now MLB that The Travelling Hornplayer has the same characters in as Brother of The More Famous Jack ... hmm ... wish i didn't loan books out sometimes ...

I don't loan books out anymore, ever since I lent someone (who shall remain nameless - mainly because I've forgotton who it was) 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God' and never got 'em back. This appalling breach of friendship took place 20-odd years ago, but I've never forgiven him/her... Isn't it strange (I sometimes think in my more philosphical moments) that people who would never dream of nicking anything else, seem to think it's ok to keep books they've borrowed? Not only that, but I had to buy the bloody thing again...

well andrea ... i think i have at least as many books borrowed from other people as i have loaned out ... so i figure it works out in the end ... in any case there is not an inch of room on any of my bookshelves ...

It's worse when you visit a friend's house, see one of your books on their mantlepiece and just can't ask for it back....you hope that they will notice the item and offer it back, the same goes for cds videos, et al.............

Oh, I'd ask for it back, all right. Something along the lines of... "Ah, I see you've still got my Shakespeare/Wilde/Robbins/Archer...have you finished with it yet...?'

I'd ask for it/them back immediately, Martin T, and have done so many times. Amazed you'd want Archer back, Andrea - or would that be Stiffy St-Archer, the stuffed shirt writer, or Bio Tex Archer, the biological cowboy?