Don DeLillos's Underworld is as relevant and valid today as it was at time of publication some ten years ago. In that time so much has happened and yet precious little has changed.

I acquired Underworld by Don DeLillo over 10 years ago as a result of having studied and enjoyed the author's book White Noise at university. I desperately wanted to read more work of this person who seemed to have his fingers on the pulse of our era as well as a good grasp of the past events, both small and sizeable, that helped to form the present. He also seemed to dislay an almost uncanny insight into the future.

DeLillo has the magical ability to present the varying strands of our current ethos, culture, lifestyles and ideologies in succinct form without foregoing any of the vital minutiae of daily life that make up these things. One minute his characters are discussing, quite seriously, the merits of wearing sunscreen in the desert, for example, and in the very same sentence or paragraph we realise that they are also commenting on the atomisation of society at large. The author manages to do this without any of the usual jarring gaps in flow and avoids any sense of disconnect. The books - all those I've had the good fortune to read - flow like understated but crucially zeitgeist movies - think American Dream and perhaps sometimes Donny Darko.

Reading DeLillo's work (I can't bring myself to use the words 'novel' or 'story' as they seem too trite descriptions for works so intrinsically linked to real life) is like watching a perfect mix of documentary and fictionalized drama that blends so well it is almost impossible to tell what is 'real' and what isn't. In this way his work is simply a mirror on our lives. If you cannot find yourself, or at least a part of yourself in his work, perhaps your existence is questionably.

Back to Underworld, which I wanted to read and attempted to at least hit the 100 page mark before giving up (as advised by one of my English tutors at school) several times over the last ten years. The size of the book overwhelmed me however and in conjunction with the highly americanised subject of the first chapters - baseball - which I felt no desire to even try to relate to, meant that I quit after only a few pages several times over. Size (and sport) are not everything however and honestly, I think I was just not ready for Underworld. Not yet ready to understand its simple complexities and appreciate the subject matter from a well balanced distance matched with the closeness of experience.

Until late last year. Now I am finally ready to devour this book in a way I could not have done ten years ago. I have just passed the half way mark (in page terms) and am as excited about it as I was at the start. The characters are familiarly intriguing, their personalities forming, dissolving, adapting before my eyes as DeLillo takes his readers backwards and forwards in time. The events of over 50 years played and replayed from different angles with clues and signs dished out here and there. I feel as though I've been given special privilege to wallow through restricted archives on vast micro-fiche, piles of newspapers, audio and film reels and diaries.

The specifics of Underworld's era, from Cold War fever, J Edgar Hoover's paranoia through 70's alternative counter-culture, consumerist ignorance and the shameful wastefulness of post war periods right through to the present, are as relevant today, if not more so, than they were in the late 90s. I would highly recommend this book as both fascinating fiction and documentary research of why we are where we are today.

My favourite room is the cosy, self contained room that lies within the realms of my over active imagination. It is like a tardis inside, or more accurately, I suppose, like Wonderland.

One minute there is just enough room for me contently curled up warm and snug on the world's comfiest bean bag, reading endless books and munching my way through delicious food that handily keeps appearing from nowhere.

The next, I suddenly feel alone, surrounded by deepest green water. A brood of baby sharks are playfully piercing holes in my barely floating beanbag. Oh, bugger! I'm falling into the ocean and I can't swim - agh!

My favourite room is also my most feared...

Do I look like a Harry Potter fan? Really?

Parceltongue?

One Christmas (or was it a birthday?) I received 3 separate copies of the same Harry Potter book which had been released relatively recently (of course I don't recall the title).
It would have been an odd gift to receive once, let alone three times, as I remember clearly making an effort to not express any affinity to the Potter phenomenon which was raging like an out of control vortex full of evil minded gremlins at the time. And, in fact, on more than one occasion I'm fairly sure I expressed my utter distaste for the trite modern fairy tale style wizardry pap that is HP.
Ah well - they went to a good temporary home in the charity store where I'm sure hoards of under-literary-nourished children poured over them and their older-but-no-wiser counterparts got over excited at the 10p price tag and took them away with glee. Pah!