Reading Two Books at Once? Combine Them.

'I capture the castle of Otranto' - Bloodcurdling, gothic - but tender - coming-of-age saga.

Mr The Nipper, my lawyers are onto it.

An orphan's story doesn't turn out quite as he'd expected.

Teen girl becomes drug addict, takes the trip of her life.

Australian rabbits, posing as humans, capture hitchhikers and eat them.

Three-book fantasy epic about rectal parasites.

Hip NY club kids do mounds of coke and smack, pass out, end up in dreamland where they're told the only escape is away off in Arcturus; on the way there one loses his arm and a girl's sucked into a pimp's sexsport harem.

Multiple murders in an abbey. Snow White's sister did it.

Algernon is transported to Redwall, where he's made to think up genius ideas on how to save everyone from evil cats/rats/etc.

Vermeer paints Griet as the spokesmodel for what will be the biggest marketing campaign for Diet Water in history.

1) Mason & Moby Dixon

Explorers cross the plains in search of giant mechanical white duck.

2) The Crying of Lot 40-19-84

Not only Big Brother's watching, but Tristero and Pierce might be, too.

Middlemarchsex

Tale of a 19th century provincial village of Greek hermaphrodites.

Hero of the Irish struggle for liberation gets mixed up in a different kind of struggle for liberation altogether. Hilarity ensues!

Charismatic computer hacker is committed to mental hospital. This way for laughs!

James Bond discovers that the love of his life has a terminal illness. Mind your sides!

A naive orphan girl from London who can't comprehend evil and bad motives falls for a well-meaning clerk-cum-imperialist who becomes the godhead for a tribe in the Congo. Marlowe returns home to tell her that Kurtz is dead.

Too sensitive to face combat, neurasthenic lies up in WWII military hospital. After dipping a donut in a mug of coffee, he recalls, in excruciating detail, every moment of his upbringing and basic training. Novel tops 100,000 pages.

(3 books: The chapters of P.J. O'Rourke's Eat the Rich called "Bad Capitalism," which is set in Albania, and "Good Capitalism," set on New York City's stock exchange; "Herodias," the third of Flaubert's "Trois Contes; "Colonel Sun," Kingsley Amis's Bond novel; and Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates)

Agent 007 goes to Albania to break into a pyramid full of embezzled parrot bombs. His beautiful assistant, Salome, is decapitated by Ralph Nader and comes back to life three days later as a mermaid; Bond can't get it up for a fish and while he's trying the parrots sell him to the Queen of Spanish Harlem for 30 shares of Enron stock.

George and Anne notice strange lights on deserted Kirrin Island so round up the rest of the gang and unleash a day of ferocious fire-bombing.

(Mikey, I can't believe that i spent 10 minutes trying to find a way to shoehorn 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn' into my post and missed that one...cheers.)

Grammatical irregularities of early eighties football magazine.

On the road to Wigan Pier
Author meets working-class people, borrows money.

and

Alice in Wonderland Avenue
Teen girl follows Lizard King through doors of perception, finds bags
labeled Inject Me and Snort Me.

Two people finally get it on after years of fannying around. Soundtrack features Lulu.

Timmy gets what's coming to him, little canine fucker.

Love story providing an incisive perspective on the lives of 19th Century English Jews. At the end, the two lovers sail off into the sunset, bound for America, where they grow old and are tragically executed for selling US nuclear secrets to the Russians.

A Suitable Butcher Boy -- Enormously long, everyone dead at the end.

To Kill a Wind-up Bird Chronicle -- Boo Radley is unjustly accused of imprisoning a made-up girl in a well because of something that happened in China or something. Valuable life lessons learned from Gregory Peck.

The Famous Five People You Meet In Heaven -- "Gosh, welcome to heaven!"
said Dick. "Woof!" said Timmy.

Sweeney climbs trees to escape trenchfoot and the horrors of war.

Overcrowded fun as Iranian ex-official buys haunted house.

Not for the dyslexic, this is the ultimate in spoon-licking chick lit.

Feck's sake.

Anna Madrigal's quiet life is thrown into disarray when Michael beats his boyfriend to death with a frozen leg of lamb and gets the police to eat the murder weapon.

Young girl begins 12 voyages of discovery of magic, alternative worlds and original sin in the company of classic menko Iain Sinclair.

Does Scarlett find a way to get Rhett back? What new joys, frustrations and adventures does the future hold? Who cares? I think I'll wait for the film starring Basil Rathbone.

Stephen Hawking takes time out from being clever to condense Robert Jordan's gargantuan fantasy sequence for people who can't be arsed reading the whole bleeding lot. 10 books and running, you've got to be having a laugh, mate.

The Player of Patriot Games
Set in a anarchist/right-wing future
where a government agent
infiltrates a mysterious game
organised by the IRA

Close Encounters Of The Third Policeman - Man is beset by strange visions of
mountains and lights in the sky. Discovers it is all, in fact, about a
bicycle.

The Plague Dogs of War
A crack team of ex-laboratory dogs is assembled to overthrow evil cat
dictator

"In Remembrance of The Thing Past" - Belle
Époque author reminisces on struggle with
shape-shifting alien.

I could go on.

Non-fiction polemic about the post-modern authors that are destroying America.

Female convict writes to President for pardon, is denied, becomes syndicated right-wing columnist. Ann Coulter sues for libel.

Heart of Darkness at Noon

English explorer misreads map, winds up in gulag.

The Idiot Girl's Action-Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Plucky city fashionista takes raft journey with mischievious lad; hijinks ensue.

Snow Crashing on Cedars

Hacker uses futuristic technology to solve murder in Pacific Northwest. Jake Gyllenhaal to play lead in film version.

Catcher in the Cut

Disgruntled prep-school boy bums around Manhattan, commences illicit affair with homicide detective.

Pa and Almanzo enter a cabin that mysteriously is larger on the inside than outside. Turns out it's all due to that rascally Nellie Olsen.

The Maltese Falcon and the Snowman

A pair of affluent American boys trade sought-after bird statue for cocaine and cash to Russians.

Tipping the National Velvet

Fishmonger's daughter takes up racy affairs with a string of female jockeys.

The Joy Luck Fight Club

Chinese American daughters and mothers bond over fist fights, family history, dim sum and bouts of anarchy

The old man goes fishing. He casts his line. With a horse.

Halfway through the novel, a motley crew of travelers has quantum physics humorously explained to them over drinks, dinner and one hell of a light show.

Inequality in the Wessex class system leads to dead kids and war in Iraq

In a world of knock-offs and corporate logos, our hero/ine searches for meaning and authenticity through visual media. What is real? What is fake? A fast-paced doorstop of a thriller but the end will leave you wanting more. Characters have fun names. "Couldn't put it down... couldn't pick it up, either." -- Medieval Science Fiction Weekly

Kublai Khan questions Marco Polo about a series of ominous castles to which nobody can ever gain access.

The Heartbreaking Prince of Staggering Tides
Southern youth loses his parents to cancer, adopts his younger brother, works on superiority complex with sexy Jewish therapist.

Young man's struggle against French prep-school tyranny proves futile after author's fifty-page epilogue proves that free will doesn't exist, anyway.

Kids in bus on way to and from a field trip compete to tell the best story. The winner gets fudge.

Lestat finds himself trapped in Uberwald when a dimension-hopping member of the undead steals his body.

A Little Princess Diaries

The secret diary of Sara Crewe, detailing her transformation from scullery maid to heir to the throne of a small European principality.

Ender's Game of Thrones

A child genius plays political games in an elaborate fantasy world.

A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Mrs. Miniver

A British housewife during the blitz imagines she is Eleanor of Aquitaine in heaven.

The Life of Brian, the Bitch and the Wardrobe:
Man easily mistaken for the messiah find dog breeding manual in closet.

Withnail and the Philosopher's Stone:
Out of work actor finds hallucinogenics for sale in Camden.

Anne hides in a loft from the Nazis, while sneaking a crafty look at Big and Bouncy.

Ageing butler tours postwar England. Takes up gardening.

The Natural in a Strange Land – Boy raised by Martians revolutionizes baseball.

A Canticle for the Manchurian Candidate – Brainwashed pol leaves warnings of the dangers of nuclear war that are heeded only after WW III.

The Scarlet Box Man – Loner wanders streets of Tokyo in a red box to signify his sins.

'nuff said

The Dilbertine Prophecy – Attaining enlightenment through incompetence.

Chariots of the Delta of Venus – UFOs came to ancient earth to get kinky.

Breakfast of Champions Lost – Midwesterner freaks out during midlife crisis in glorious iambic pentameter.

My Antonia Also Rises – Nebraska farm girl overcomes difficulties to fight in Spanish Civil War.

Lolita’s Run – Young girl and male Runner flee Sandmen.

I’m OK, You’re Algernon – Self esteem from making those close to you become geniuses then suddenly lose their faculties.

The Story of O with Morrie – Dying man teaches life lessons while engaging in weekly S&M sessions.

One Hundred Years of Moby Dick – Sailor and his descendants have mystical experiences while chasing white whale throughout the seven seas.

The Portrait of Huckleberry Finn – Perpetually youthful trickster cavorts while his hidden portrait ages.

"Rime of the Ancient Moby Dick"
Vengeance-blinded ship captain hunts the White Albatross.

"The Most Dangerous Lord of the Flies"
Ship-wrecked crew is hunted for sport by children.

A masked vigilante kidnaps and teaches a mysterious woman retrofitted with mechanized body parts who might not even exist to spread individualistic ideals through anarchic means.

The Phantom Tollbooth Menace
A novelization. "Milo. I am your father."

I sing the Body Electric Sheep!
Can the replicants love?

From Luthe:
American Gods and Generals
Gods from various mythologies take an active interest
in the battle at Gettysburg.

Harry Potter and the Chamber
Harry Potter risks his brilliant legal career to save Lord Voldemort from the death penalty.

Free spirit gets electrocuted while picnicking in the Hattifattener's garden with anthropomorphic hippos.

Scout's Mom offs Little Joe, marries Hoss two weeks after, it scarce seemed the funeral grits had cooled for they were serving up the marriage fixins remarks Scout petulantly.
Before long Scout is killing kith and kin right and left in her search for vengeance. Guildenstern and Mary try to stop her so she sets them to get kidnapped by indians.

The Bell Jarhead
A terse study of one woman's gulf-war depression.

The City of Godot
An enigmatic stranger turns up in fourth-century Carthage.

Early humans seek & fight over Drew Barrymore across prehistoric plains of Virginia.

"In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was Jabberwock."

'Tess of the Baskervilles'
The lycanthropic tragedy of a Wessex milkmaid.

Othello Darkness My Old Friend....

(Sorry. Just broke all the rules there.)

A giant octopus reveals how he created the world in six squids ("and on the seventh squid he rested") and tells you what not to do, next, and in the end he goes on a rampage and says if we're not careful he'll destroy everything in a fit of ink.

Lovely little cuddly bear with a taste for honey gets nailed up and covered in blood. That'll teach him.

40 Ways to Leaves of Grass:

I celebrate leaving you.
====================================
Three Billy Goats Budd, Sailor

"I forgive you Captain Troll!"

Depressed girl has a McDonald's and feels even worse.

Heart of the Army of the Darkness.
Marlowe gets sent back to the Belgian Congo, where he meets a zombie army led by Kurtz(played by a heavily made-up Bruce Campbell). He finally ends up in shopping center telling Kurtz's intended, "Klaatu barada nikto."

Pere Ubu Roi.
A Cleveland post-punk band takes over Poland, plays "30 Seconds Over Tokyo".

"The Lottery" In Babylon.
A family is stoned to death by neighbors because of random chance.

With Great Power and the Glory.
A whisky priest is bitten by a radioactive spider while fleeing across the border. He returns to Mexico to preach. His Uncle Ben is executed by a firing squad.

The Merry Stepford Wives of Windsor.
Shakespearian bedroom farce - with added robots.

The Pelican Brief Encounter
A chance Meeting of two lost souls. Near an aviary.

Poor Richard III's Alamanac
Folksy wisdom on how to become King of England.

Lord of The Flies by William Golding and Jean Paul Sartre
Orestes decides to free Argos from Aegisthus and Clymenestra by stranding British schoolboys on an island.

Through the Looking Glass Teat
Alice goes through her television set and sees how crappy it is.

Letters from American Psycho
Alexander de Tocqueville records his observations on American life while brutally murdering attractive women.

Out of the briar patch and into a WWII submarine for this discontented suburban bunny. An affair with Private Tar-Baby turns disastrous, but hilarity ensues as Brer Rabbit dreams of beating Brer Hitler at a game of hoops.

Czechoslovakian surgeon/womanizer ponders the racial identity politics of 1968 Prague, is crushed by Soviet tanks.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of the Secret History
While roaming the Forbidden Forest engaged in a mystical bacchanalian ritual, Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione accidentally kill a centaur. Draco Malfoy finds out, so they feed him to the Whomping Willow. However, they feel really, really bad about it afterward.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Zenda
When Professor Dumbledore is kidnapped by Dementors, Harry Potter drinks Polyjuice potion and pretends to be headmaster of Hogwarts to foil Voldemort's evil plan. After Dumbledore is freed, Harry is quite irritated to find that he has to go back to sharing a dormitory with Neville Longbottom again.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Pale Fire
As part of an pan-European inter-school tournament, Harry Potter is asked to write and defend a dissertation on a 999-line poem. Viktor Krum wins.

Harry Potter and the Last Orders of the Phoenix
Sirius Black dies. Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Severus Snape meet up to reminisce about him.

Do Androids Dream of a Wild Sheep Chase?-An detective in the future must chase down a mutant robotic sheep.

The Story of O. Pioneers!-Czech tips for girls

Swann's Way of All Flesh-erm, yeah. I'm done now.

Fathers and Lovers - Nihilist likes to screw his dad. In public places.

Sons and Sons - It runs in the family.

All the King's Men in the High Castle- A corrupt populist Southern governor has a change of heart and writes a book about a world where the US won World War II.

The Avengers' Tragedy- A bloody revenge tragedy, but everyone has superpowers!

The Iron Man in the Iron Mask- Tony Stark fights crime and his identical twin brother, the King of France, with high-tech battle armor.

The Death Ship of Fools

The Treasure of Sierra Madre Island
(On the way home with Flint's gold, Squire Trelawny becomes inccreasingly paranoid)_

The Loch Being and Nothingness Monster

Tristram & Isolde Shandy

Discworlds in Collision
(A velikovskian account of the science of discworld)

Chariots of the Gods of Small Things

Hamlet, Prince of Thieves

Much Ado About Mary

The Taming of the Titanic

The Merry Wives of Stepford

Henry IV (parts 1 and 2), Henry V, and a Baby

When the forest is ready to be at one with you, then you will become at one with the forest. And kill people.

"I can't believe Laura Ingalls ate the whole sheet. There must have been 100 tabs. Wait til Pa hears about this."

Winnie tries to save Piglet from his self-imposed servitude, but gets frontalled by Christopher Robin. Eeyore saves the day with juicy-fruit.

Don't reveal the ending! (The Nazis did it.)

Or we could have very different books with the same title;
Plato's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Watership Down - A cargo helicopter carrying water to American troops in Fallujah is hit by an RPG

Alice drowns in toilet bowl attempting to follow the white rabbit.

-lady in hoop skirt, with 37 inch waist dreams of cheating on her husband

On the Road to Perdition

-strung out hippie meets paul newman on a truck, who adopts hima nd they live unhappily ever after.

Scarlett been eating all the pies then?

"Doctor No Exit" - Hell is other people than Sean Connery playing Bond

"As I Lay Dying You Like It" - A family impoverishes themselves trying to take the body of their mother back to her home town for burial, only to discover the corpse was an amateur wrestler masquerading as a woman.

"The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit Who Would Be King" - A man once proclaimed the God-King of a lost tribe in the Himalayas finds it difficult to adjust to his new life as an advertising accounts executive.

"Huckleberry Finnegan's Wake" - Huckleberry Finnegan well replete by an escapaded jaded slave, winnoweather down the elderly Man Muddy, attrafting much adventitures. The dukeanddauphin exdrapetomanise old Jim, the better the pleasure for levy. Picaresquestingrailiterraturaturaturagreatamericannovelbadabing!

"A Children's Garden of Satanic Verses" - The author is under threat of death by the Teacher's union, because this heavy volume so thouroughly convinced children that reading was a painful waste of time.

"The Hardy Boys from Brazil" - Teen detectives actually result of nazi experiment.

"By Perdido Street Station I Sat Down and Wept" - Extraordinarily long story of doomed love during attack on fantasy city.

"The Witching Hours" - Clan of New Orleans witches are big fans of Virginia Woolf novel.

Eldest sister, stoned out of her gourd, passes out in front of train and stops it crashing. Then gives up drugs.

PG Wodehouse turns what could have been a trenchant look at the paradoxes of the twentieth century into a lighthearted farce set in a thinly disguised Sandringham

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying in Venice- Millionare Bruce Wayne develops a fascination for a young acrobat in an Joker-afflicted Venice.

A Man and a Boy and His Dog- Thomas Mann reflects on walking with a boy and his genetically mutated dog through a post-apocalyptic Berlin suburb, until the boy feeds Mann to his dog.

Super Mario and the Magician- A plumber is embarassed by a hypnotist who makes him think his princess is in another castle.

In the Blood of the Walsungs- An inner-city Hester Prynne goes to the opera.

(Did any of you clever fuckers do this one? You must have.)

By a combination of ingenuity and charm, Toad survives the American Civil War, only to be propositioned by Scarlett O'Hara, to whom he croaks, "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn" then jumps in his car and leaves with a poignant "Toot toot!"

In 20th century England, a man kills because of too much Nietsche reading. He is about to be saved by the love of a girl, when hers little sisters denounce him for rape.

A young man daydreams about being a gay alcoholic comic genius when in fact he's just a tedious git reciting Monty Python.

The Selfish Giant Gene

A giant drives all the children out of his garden thereby ensuring the evolutionary development of children born with holes in their feet who can scam him into thinking they're Christ.

Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass Bead Game

A young girl magically travels to a strange and distant land and realises she's in way over her head.

Places in the Heart of Darkness

During the Great Depression, a plucky farm widow (played by Sally Field) hops a freight train and travels deep into the heart of the Dust Bowl -- to rescue a deranged socialist balladeer (played by Woody Guthrie) who has become head of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. Hijinks ensue. Film climaxes with extended sequence of metaphysical philosophizing set to banjo music, followed by a tornado. Most memorable line: "You like me, you really like me -- the horror, the horror!"

yossarian sits naked in an invisible London subway; Milo buys out the faire and the chaplain goes mad trying to open a cellar to the upperworld.

Additionally, there was a mention for Bookslut and for Jessa's blog about airline reading.

Incidentally, I once knew a guy who wrote a new chapter to the bible. In binary. You shouldn't laugh at the mentally ill, but the bible! In binary!

English schoolmarm sent to educate disinherited son of Saxon nobleman.

Saddam's Nobel speech found

By Sam E. Colon

As news of Saddam Hussein's capture in Iraq electrified the airwaves last December, an equally dramatic story was secretly unfolding in Europe.

It has just been revealed by S & M News Service that, some weeks before the Iraqi leader was apprehended, a box containing some of Hussein's private papers was discovered in a cave near Baghdad by a Bedouin shepherd boy - who handed them over to US authorities. The writings were then flown in secrecy to an undisclosed European location, where they were turned over to handwriting experts and linguistic scholars.

For reasons of national security, American officials have kept the literary experts’ findings secret - until now. In a statement issued earlier today, the academics concluded that, among the papers, was a genuine final draft of a speech Hussein planned to deliver. They noted, with shocked awe, that the former dictator was actually convinced that he would be winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and that the draft in question was actually Hussein's acceptance speech to the Nobel committee.

The translated text in full:

"Well, the old men 'round here, sometimes they get on bad terms with the
younger men. Old, young - age don't carry weight; it doesn't matter in the
end. Things come alive or they fall flat. Not always easy kicking someone
out; got to wait awhile, it can be an unpleasant task. Sometimes somebody
wants you to give something up -- and, tears or not, it's too much to ask.
I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound. I've seen enough heartache
and strife. I'm like some feudal lord, got more lives than a cat. I'm
decorated, I'm well-schooled and I'm skilled. I'm not sentimental, it don't
bother me at all how many of my pals have been killed. Some things are too
terrible to be true. I won't come here no more if it bothers you. I’m
leaving in the morning, just as soon as the dark clouds lift. Gonna break in
the roof, set fire to the place as a parting gift. Why don't you just shove
off if it bothers you so much?"

In addition to this extraordinary document, the scholars also found
several unsent, notably torrid love letters to Britney Spears and Margaret Thatcher in Hussein’s handwriting, signed ‘Pookie.’

Clearly, the academics stated, the Nobel speech was lifted almost verbatim from several scenes of Bob Dylan's recent box office smash, Masked & Anonymous.

Dylan was reached at Junichi Saga's new mansion on Mount Fuji - where he and the Japanese writer are collaborating on a new cookbook, to be marketed with the upcoming Victoria's Secret 'Drunk Dominatrix Conquers Terrorism' ad campaign.

The legendary singer, songwriter, bon vivant, thespian and recently fired spokesman for a generation said of Hussein: "What good is he anyway, if he can’t stand up to some old businessman?"

-30-

Pride and Moby Dick
--A feminist discourse on Ahab's reluctance to admit size does matter.

The Mayor of Lolita
--A man's struggle to bring chastity to a city of nymphettes.

The Secret Garden History
--A group of students visit Greece where one of them falls in love with a crippled plant. Mad gardener vows revenge.

Harry Potter and the English Opium Eater
--Lord V's latest attempt to infiltrate Hogwarts.

bye

John Steinbeck and Steven King:
Doc collects specimens on Cannery Row. . . but they won't stay dead!

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sesame Street:
The scarlet letter A, the scarlet letter B, the scarlet letter C...

Aesop and Lenin:
Comrade Rabbit begs his Commissar not to throw him into dat ol' capitalist briar patch.

Raymond Chandler and the Oxford English Dictionary:
Marlowe learns what it means to be a shamus.

Shakespeare and Beethoven:
"To to to beeeee . . .
Or not to to to beeeeee . . .

Edgar A. Poe and Hunter S. Thompson:
The Cask of Amontillado, a quart of Wild Turkey, a handful of reds, a couple of 'Ludes . . .

Dickens, Melville, and the Canadian Supreme Court:
Scrooge is found impaled on a crutch; police withhold the name of the tiny Young Offender.

Mickey Spillane and Dr. Seuss:
Drop the gat,
Cat,
Or you'll
Eat
That
Hat.

- courtesy J. Cates, from the Vancouver Sun

A History Of The World In 9 1/2 Weeks
Series of interconnected love stories about people who have lots of graphic sex on Noah's Ark.

I Am David Copperfield
Thinly-disguised author character escapes from Eastern European prison camp before moving in with eccentric aunt in Kent.

A hard-boiled detective story with impromptu tests and summaries.

Anthony Bourdain, newest member of the Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts, reveals new statistical analyses of player performance based on what the players eat and drink during the season. In an analytic coup that will be discussed for years, Bourdain reveals that every perfect game ever pitched was preceded by the winning pitcher dining on bull testicles. (Other BP anlysts dissent in an accompanying essay, decrying the "small sample size.")

Ha, this happened to me when one of the second string songwriters in Ken Emerson's Always Magic In The Air: The Bomp And Brilliance Of The Brill Building Era had practically the same name as the (other kind of) hit man protagonist of Lawrence Block's Hit Man, Hit List and Hit Parade- Jack and John Keller.

A Good Huck is Hard to Finn

Atlas please be quiet please

Titans of American Industry protest at the lack of communication between them, the smallness of their lives and the pathos and beauty that lie at the core of the smallest moments.

by Raymond Rand

Now that I would read.

Portnoy's Complaint: The Hunter

After Portnoy is betrayed by his girlfriend on a heist gone bad, he returns to New York on a mission of revenge. He won't stop until he gets to the top of the organization: his mother.

Texas Tower shooter Charles Whitman showed up in two books I just finished, in Christopher Priest's The Extremes for obvious reasons and in Mordecai Richler's Cocksure as part of the black comedy. Can't really come up with synopsis of the combined book though. Both had too much going on already by themselves.

Around the World in 120 Days of Sodom - On a wager from the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg and his trusty manservant Passepartout set out on a transcontinental journey of drunken loutishness and debauched sexual tortures. Somewhere in French Indochina, they get held up for a bit.

The Fortress of Cecil Beaton's Solitude - Erudite socalite and photographer to the stars/royalty finds himself desparing of Greta Garbo's attitude and fading allure whilst making a treacherous journey across Brooklyn to buy a copy of Giant Size X-Men #1

Ha.

say, how was that Christopher Priest book?

Pretty good. Now I'm about to start The Glamour.

So far I've only read one of his besides The Extremes, Inverted World, which was amazing. In both of these he creates a world and then keeps slowly adding weird little details. At the end he somehow manages to come up with some kind of an explanation of what is going on but not spoil the mystery, eating his cake and having it. I guess these endings might infuriate some people who would want it all tied up with a bow, but to me they were right on.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest in The Ice Palace

A girl steals a billion dollars after her new friend goes missing, just before the winter snows arrive. An aunt is killed by a biker gang. An iBook is also involved.