The blog's late, I'm really sorry! I don't even have a good excuse.

The conversations on last week's thread covered a number of topics including the problem of the never-diminishing to-read pile, originality in fiction (or lack of it), and the merits or otherwise of the books we're currently reading. Here are some highlights:

AggieH:

The more I read, the more acutely aware I am that the world's library is Borges-sized, filled with impossibly many unexpected books that are waiting impatiently to be found and read.

r042:

I finished The Fall of the Stone City last night and it really confirmed something I'd suspected for some time; simply looking for "originality" on a thematic level is entirely pointless. Little in thematic or basic plot terms in either Kadare's book or indeed Fludd, the previous book I read, is really "original" in that it has never been done before - the themes and ideas are very broad and common. However, the interest really is in how the author makes well-explored themes their own.

Dylanwolf:

I'm currently reading The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, as cooling, precise and delicate as a Japanese tea ceremony. I'm only fifty pages in so I don't know what future pleasures lie in store for me, but so far those are best savoured by a process of slow reading

hydatius:

I'm currently reading the superb (and superbly-titled) This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own by Jonathan Rendall, a memoir of life amidst boxers and boxing in the late eighties and nineties

Lukethedrifter:

I'm reading Norman Collins' London Belongs to Me - an absolutely marvelous book so far. And, having just finished Hangover Square, I feel like I'm getting through two great 'city novels' in quick succession... I'd love to see an article or blog on here about the greatest city novels from around the world. London Belongs to Me must be in with a shout for London, and there must be so many for other major cities

Not a bad idea at all, lukethedrifter, I'll see what I can do.

Here's the list of the books our critics will be reviewing and writing about this week. Tell us what we're missing and what you're reading this week.

Non-fiction

• When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone by Philip Gould
• The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
• The Real Romney by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman
• Imagine: How Creativity Works by Joshua Lehrer
• A History of Singing by John Potter and Neil Sorrell
• Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? by William Poundstone
• War of the Sexes by Paul Seabright
• Bosnia: The Reckoning by Ed Vuilliamy
• Strindberg: A Life by Sue Prideaux

Fiction

• The Apartment by Greg Baxter
• Dark Tower by Stephen King
• Scenes from Early Life by Philip Hensher
• Pure by Timothy Mo
• The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

Children's

• To Be A Cat by Matt Haig

I'll give the last word this week to Lioc:

I need more Science Fiction recommendations. Anyone have any good new Hard Science Fiction / Space Opera books to recommend?