Book 'Em, Danno!!

Having returned to work after a week off today, I realised I was left without a book to read at lunchtime. I was faced with the dilemma of do I visit Amazon or traipse over to Waterstone's? With Amazon, I could probably find anything I wanted cheap but you either have to pay postage or are forced to buy over £15 of material to get free P+P, again forcing your expenditure up. Plus, you have to wait and it was this deciding factor that forced me out like a vampire into the bright sunny afternoon to the bookshop.

I fancied some sci fi: I love the genre but am not a great reader of it so thought I'd see what classics they had available. I first picked up Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? but put it back down as I'd already read (and enjoyed) it years ago. I briefly perused the PKD selection before my eye caught a lovely faux leather bound copy of the Conan Chronicles, then saw a more affordable softcover next to it. I picked it up but remembered I tried the Conan books as a teen and they pretty much bored me then so I felt this was too large a volume to buy if the stories still bore me now.

So after a little bit of further perusing, what did I walk away with? Well, I loved War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, so I selected The Invisible Man...I loved the 80s BBC adaptation but would like to read the real deal. I know it doesn't end well for him, but at least he doesn't get bummed to death by Mr Hyde.

The second book, which will annoy Rol no end probably, was Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (always sounds like a command to a homosexual, that name). While I truly dislike his Sandman --and most of his other--comics, I've enjoyed the prose work I've read by Gaiman, including his recent World Book Day thingee. This made me remember Smoke & Mirrors, which I've always wanted to pick up, and I thought the anthology format would be great for me to read on the bus and in my lunchtime. If something's crap, at least it'll be short or I can skip it altogether.

I haven't read any fiction for some time, in fact I can't remember the last novel I read, so I think my bus trips and boring lunch breaks may be better occupied for the foreseeable future..