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Nothing wrong with Enid Blyton, I hope - I read so much of the stuff as a kid, it would be a bummer to hear those were bad or dumb books.

"The Eyre Affair is the story of a police investigation into the abduction and murder of characters of classic English literature. It takes place both inside and outside Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit and Brontë's Jane Eyre, in a world almost, but not entirely unlike ours". You're quite right...

I agree with the 5/5. For me, it was a very fast read: I simply could not put it down. Quite whacky, very uneven, the plot moves here and there, starts out as a teenage-angst novel, bubbling with literary (and other) references, suddenly it's a murder mystery, which finally turns into almost...

Guns, Germs and Steel deserves a spot in that other thread: Does reading make you smarter? This book has certainly made me smarter. In essence, it gives an answer to the question of why some areas of the planet have been so much more successful than others ("successful" in the sense that...

LOL - wonderful summary of Descartes. It always struck me as rather cute that Descartes got as far as figuring out that there was no way he'd deduce his way out of the solipsist conundrum (how do I know that this is ME thinking and not somebody else making me think that it's ME thinking) -...

Perfectly put - that's how it works for me. The blurb IS important though: it makes me pick up the book in the first place. The other, even better way to get me to buy a book: a recommendation by somebody I know.

I must be the only person on this planet who likes Hudson Hawk. Over the top, self-referential, just plain whacky. My kind of picture. The 5th Element was great fun, too.

Eloquent, as ever.

I get the impression that the Burton translation has been thoroughly discredited (unless it's the salacious bits you're most interested in). There is a problem if you want to read the "complete" Arabian Nights: to my knowledge, there is a bit of an argument about which stories belong in...

Tricky. Thinking of the Danish Mohammed cartoon debate, I tend to think an author does have a certain responsibility for what (s)he writes. Just because the writer has the RIGHT to be nasty/contemptuous/demeaning (a right to be defended at all costs), it does not mean (s)he has an OBLIGATION to...

I used to think Amazon Prime was only for planning weenies, but I am beginning to come around. I and my partner ordered stuff for each other from Amazon several weeks before Xmas. We are both still waiting for our presies.

Concerning Quantum Physics, may I suggest David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality? Nobody understands Quantum Physics of course (was it Nils Bohr who said that if you think you understand it, that is definite proof that you don't?), but this was the first time I got an inkling of what it could...

Please let me know if you manage to actually finish Gao Xingjian. It's fascinating stuff, but I found it very impenetrable and finally gave up.

If your list is a cross-section of your taste in reading, I can only recommend to go for Thomas Mann - should be up your alley. I am bit puzzled nobody has mentioned (or did I miss it?) Elias Canetti. He does not quite fit in with the rest, but then, he doesn't really fit in anywhere. He...

Now that you mentioned him: reading Steven Pinker's books has definitely made me smarter. Whatever smart means. Actually, I don't really think there is that much point in debating what smart means - we all sort of know, don't we? When somebody tells me "wow, this girl is really smart!", I...

I spent Xmas Eve under the Xmas tree in fear of Uma. Tarantino has always been 2 things for me: violence and whacky dialogues. Reservoir dogs has plenty of both (the analysis of Madonna's Like a Virgin comes to mind), Pulp Fiction has a bit less of the first and a bit more of the second, and...

Thanks! Sounds indecently rich, but mouth-watering.

You are not alone.

I am always looking for interesting liver paté recipes - would you care to share yours?

I have read Catch-22 so long ago, I can hardly remember, except that I thought it was great. I liked the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, incidentially. I am not sure why - I just couldn't stop reading, though, that narrator's voice seemed almost hypnotic. The atmosphere is quite strong, even if not...