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I'm about half-way through "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. It's written from the perspective of a dog and so far I'm thoroughly enjoying it. :)

In a nutshell, Bloom County was a *brilliant* comic that ran during the 80s, stopping in '89. It was intelligent, political, insightful, and hilarious. So the gag is that Opus (the penguin) has...

For the last couple of days I have been reading something that I have missed *terribly* for far, far too long. Bloom County is back! OK, so it isn't War and Peace, but it does my heart good to see...

For the first time in far took long, I'm stretching my palaeographic muscles with this. It's an indenture settling a land dispute in Shropshire in 1409. As a recovering academic, it feels good to use...

Just finished "Hand for a Hand" by T. Frank Muir. It is a kind of Rankin-esque crime novel set in St Andrews, where I lived for six years. There's something special about reading novels set in places...

Rankin is quality. I'm a bit biased because Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities, but he has become one of my favourite authors.

In a similar (I hope) vein, I picked up "Eye for an Eye" by T....

Reading is such an individual thing I believe it completely depends on the person doing the reading. I agree with you that when I read fiction I do a lot of thinking about what the author/book say...

"How Music Works" by David Byrne.

Life has been pretty insane for me lately so I haven't had time to really sit down and read long chunks of anything, but this is a really interesting exploration...

Thanks - I'll check it out. I'm writing a paper on smells in mediaeval cities to present at a conference in England in a couple of weeks. So things like the defenestration of human waste has loomed...

"The disposal of Human Waste: a comparison between Ancient Rome and Medieval London"

I kid you not...

Congrats! Enjoy your newfound literary freedom. :)

Just finished re-reading "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which, having recently visited Savannah, seemed like the appropriate thing to do. :)

Next up: the new Ian Rankin, "Saints of the...

Right now I'm about 1/2 way through and thoroughly enjoying "Through Black Spruce" by Joseph Boyden. I also *highly* recommend his first novel "Three Day Road". It is absolutely brilliant.

Very sad to hear of the death of Seamus Heaney today. First and foremost of course he was a poet - one of the greatest of his generation. But as a mediaevalist, my thoughts upon hearing this news...

Ah... but a great author's work will have layers of meaning and interpretation that one can appreciate in new and different ways when revisiting the book. :)

At the moment I'm about half-way into "Through the Language Glass" by Guy Deutscher. It examines how language and culture affects the way one looks at/perceives the world. Fascinating stuff. :)

World War Z. I haven't seen the movie (although I am curious about it now) but when I saw the book in an airport bookshop on the weekend after having listened to three distinct groups of...