There's also interestin stuff about this in Melvyn Bragg's Credo , which I've just finished and throughly recommend to anyone who liked The Book Of Kells - it's about St's Wilfred, Cuthbert and Bega in 7th Centrury Northumberland. And yes, it is by that Melvyn Bragg.

Has anybody read The Family Trade by Charles Stoss? Amazon says I want it.

Shakespeare fits in literary, right? As does Gorey, of course. So here are The Gashlyspeare Tinies.

A sample:

A is for Antigonus, lunch for a bear

B is for Banquo (but not for his heir)

Love it!!! Thanks Calli. I want illustrations now!

I'm meandering through my subscriptions over at Readerville. I haven't been in there since early November.

Anyway, I'm in a thread where they're talking about their talking about The Time Traveller's Wife and somebody commented, "A punk librarian. That's my dream date!" and I suddenly realized that I may have met the guy the author based Henry on. Well, possibly. When I took a course on Illuminated Manuscripts in Graduate School we went to the Newberry to see some and there was definitely a punk librarian working with the illuminated mss. I suppose "met" is rather strong -- he was the guy who presented the books to our class.

I picked up Curse of Chalion a couple weeks ago, because I wanted to re-test Bujold, but couldn't remember the order in which to read the Milesverse.

It did start out slow, but damned if it wasn't a lot of fun once it picked up. I like her theology quite a bit, and how it was wrapped into everyday, as well as the evolution of the main character, although it felt a bit rushed towards the end.

I've got Milesverse on hold for me at the library. Must pick that up today.

Be sure to get Paladin of Souls too, when you get a chance. IMO, if you liked Chalion, you'll love it.

OK, read a whole lot of Bujold this weekend, on my trips variously DC-London, London-Gloucester, Gloucester-London, London-JFK, JFK-MIA, and MIA-IAD. I know y'all love him, but am I the only one who mostly just wants to smack Miles, a lot? I mean, the books are interesting and well written, but mostly don't love the characters.

(Edit: I've read through "Memory" now, and will likely read the others in any case, since I have a lot of time on planes..;)

I started reading The Plot Against America by Philip Roth on Sunday and I'm so drawn into the story that all I want to do is read it. I took the bus in to work today and almost missed my stop because I was so engrossed.

This is my first Roth - what others would people suggest? More of the "Roth" books?

This is my first Roth - what others would people suggest? More of the "Roth" books?

Mmmm, I love Philip Roth. Portnoy's Complaint was his big breakthrough novel. It's still very funny. I LOVE his baseball book titled (amusingly enough) The Great American Novel.

I know a lot of people who really loved the Zuckerman books. They're a series, including Zuckerman Unbound. I think the first one is The Ghost Writer.

His novel Deception is basically about his long affair with the British actress Claire Bloom.