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I read this 14(?) years ago for school and loved it. I recently bought and re-read it and it was still able to give me shivers.

*** WARNING *** Here be spoilers ***

Just a number and three little words were enough to make me shiver on the train this morning - "8. You may lie". The fact that Lowry managed to build up a world enough to make that have such a high hitting line without ever mentioning the idea of lying is testament to how well this book works.

I just got back from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club at my local Borders. This month we've been reading Dark Space by Marianne de Pierres. Of the five of us there this month, we were unanimous. This exchange opened the discussion:

"Not got a lot to say about this"
"Is it four letters and start with 'c'?"
"No, starts with 's' and has 4 letters"

So today I got the very late train. I just didn't want to actually get moving - I'm ready for my break I tells ya. This means I often meet with Eleanor at the station. No sign when I get there. So I'm there with my book open (Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook which incidentally is part of Border's current Buy One Get One Half Price and Give Us Lot's of Moolah promotion) and near the end. Suddenly Terry announces a new Janet and John story - John Goes Sailing. So I stop and stare blankly listening to the build up.

Time to pay my dues for this Early Reviewer book. I read this is just over a couple of hours or two days worth of train journeys. I'm going to start with some criticisms of the book.

Fortunately, my complaints all fall under "typographical" issues really. The lack of the quotation marks threw me. And would it have killed them to have some distinction between real world and the internal fantasy monologues?

Having said that, I liked the use of internal fantasy monologues. I think it built up Sean's character in a way I don't see often in the books I generally read.

I finished reading Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer by Riki Wilchins. As I have said previously, I don't read a lot of non-fiction so a lot of what was being said in this was new to me. Postmodern theory, Derrida, Foucault. Nothing I had heard of. Despite that the book was accessible enough for me to follow.

In other news, I am down to just one book left on my "must read before starting any more" list - the Plagiarism one. Once that's out the way, I can start on Iain M Banks' Matter. It's thick, hefty and hardback. Going to be fun in my bag and on the train...

The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins, 2007 paperback ed.) is the one I just finished reading. I wrote a quick review for LibraryThing which I reproduce and expand upon here:

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