Guido

Shame that mate, you've been a great contributor. Hope you get the chance to join in later in the year maybe.

The book has been chosen, piscinin. It has been chosen and we shall follow Razor's lead. (Sure it'll be your turn next month though)

There'll be some poor middle-aged fucker reading those stats and openly weeping into his coco pops in front of his grown-up children. "Why do they pick on me?", he'll sob, before grabbing his Black and Decker and going out to add to the statistics.

Nice one Razor, we'll be on it. Just purchased. Yet to read any of his stuff so looking forward to it. Will finish Book 4 (finally) this week, then crack on with this next week.

Just PMed you razor, but i'll repeat! Think Behan at nearly 400 pages and being non-fiction might have a slow uptake and the club maybe needs a little kickstart after a sluggish winter - still a chapter to go with Book 4 myself! Would plump for McEwan, but should be your choice really. Welcome to the club anyways!

TOTAL 355 Burglary 75 ASB 110 Robbery 6 Vehicle 21 Violent 30 Other 104 Posh twats.

DINNERtime! Pleb. :whatever:

Another Gallas. Just what the league needs. Bloody French. Bloody pompous sitty Frenchies.

Nope. He's still stuck out there, somewhere in the matrix, like the rest of us. Sorry, it was a long 20 minutes without sustenance.

Wrong book thread dear.

Google Maps. Journey Planner.

Honey badger was my favourite cos it's the biggest psycho in the animal world. However, this is Falcon/Elephant all over again. Rhino would squish. Squish the badger.

Yup. One swipe of a trunk and Peregrin is screwed. Falcon would die of exhaustion before the elephant even gave a shit anyway.

Read 'London' last night, which surprisingly lacks a lot of depth. Too many ideas without cohesion or sufficient development. Seems the novel reached its peak at 'Mongolia' and it's been downhill since, as 'Petersburg' was less engaging than previous chapters. Hope it's not the case but it's now seeming like a lot of debut novels can seem - a bunch of short stories or story ideas bunched together to form a vaguely connected whole. Very much hope it doesn't end up like that as the first half of the novel was brilliant.

Falcon winning. Lunacy.

Stumptown, you're missing out. Check this. Remmie - don't expect that Swedish rake RiS to join in. He's all trouser and no postage stamp that fella.

"You're lookin very beautiful man. Saint Peter preached the epistles to the apostles lookin like that."

Two-thirds of the way through and i'm gripped. The interconnectedness isn't what is driving this novel though, so i'm not sure why a big deal is made of that in the blurb. That said, the individual chapters don't seem completely disparate, and the joins, both ghosly and opaque, are evident, as well as the connection through fate as razor noted. I'm just gripped by the quality of the writing. Considering Mitchell would have been in his late twenties when he wrote this I can't but smile in awe at his mastery of language and poetry and the ease of delivery. Makes me fuckin sick the talented bugger! Chapter six, with the noncorpi as protagonist, is one of the most orginal and inspiring sequences i've read in a very long time - i may return to this book just to read that chapter in the near future. The departures into memory and story within each chapter could easily be distracting, but again are handled with unbelievable skill for a debut. The only reason i put the book down the last couple of nights is because of eye-strain, otherwise i would've finished it in one sitting. To be honest, there's so much that resonates with me in this novel as the characterisation is so simple and direct you can't help but want to read on. The terrorist and later the lawyer rambling round their respective environs, the lovelorn record-shop kid, Margarita in the gallery who can't see her dreams crumbling around her, even the noncorpi (especially when 'disembodied') - all remind me of me at points in my life. These thoughts are reinforced by my own musings on how the author 'found' these stories (through his own travels?) and what his motivations and passions were when writing. This is quite an important point for me as I never used to look far into the contextual when reading novels, but recently i've found that acquiring just some basic biographical knowledge of the author, or even just pondering it, enhances the reading experience dramatically. I know most of you will think that par for the course, but it's taken me a while to appreciate the whole rather than merely the 'separate' fictional end. Realise i'm rambling wildly here so i'll leave it until i have more to say about the book rather than my head! And in a more coherent fashion. I'll take my poorly eyes to bed. Razor - i'll get back to you on your queries - i noticed there were spoilers in there for me at present (without reading your comments in full!) so hopefully i'll have something to add in a couple of days. How far are folk into this one? Would be good to gauge opinion, even from those who are only part way through.

Razor - Apologies for slowness this month. Again! I'm ploughing my way through it right now. Will read your comments when i finish, just in case there's spoilers in there. Hakuna - you can use the search facility to find the 'rate the last book you read' thread, which is full of recommendations. Also - the book club February book thread will start in a few days so you are more than welcome to join us. Seems the choices keep getting better as we go along!

He is. And does.

Fuckin youtube. Follow the link and you will become as ace as me.

[YOUTUBE]UyDhsDUorGA[/YOUTUBE]

Witches did it.

Just get on download.com and see what is recommended. That's what i'll be doing when i can be arsed to upload my vids to the PC.

Contents insurance via Asda - £88 with no voluntary excess contribution and £35 cashback from Quidco. Nice!