What's with today, today?

Well, every time I plan to get into the swing of regular updates I seem to fail! So sorry about that... I do have some exciting news though. I got a new job! I'm now working as a librarian at a university. I'm really happy to be there, but it means I'm no longer working part-time and I have a longer commute, so recently things like writing (and even reading) blogs have fallen by the wayside a little. Hopefully this will change once I've settled in a bit more. Happily, I have had time for reading books (in fact, lots of time on my commute) and I've been reading a few things that I've really enjoyed. I've been in the mood for fantasy and fantastical books lately, which has been helped by a couple of book group picks- the magic realism of The Master and Margarita and the sci-fi of Inverted World (which was quite strange, and a lot of us found the ending fairly unsatisfying). My two most recent reads have been Among Others by Jo Walton and Sea Hearts by Margo ...

It feels like there have been a lot of distractions around lately, so I thought why not share some of these distractions with the world? Firstly, a list of books mentioned or read on the Gilmore Girls! This is a fun reading challenge idea as well. For fellow Gilmore Girls fans- enjoy! I found it through Book Dirt. Secondly, Ronni's boyfriend has started a blog with another medievalist friend about the Anglo-Saxon riddles, called The Riddle Ages . Since uni ended I haven't been reading much Old English at all, and I miss it, so I'm hoping that this blog sticks around. The riddles are largely found in the Exeter Book, a manuscript which also contains most (all?) of the poems known as the elegies- which are my particular favourites- and some riddles have similarities with the elegies. They can be very poetic, and there is the added fun of trying to solve the riddles. I'm looking forward to reading a discussion of the possible solutions. So far there is an introduction...

I thought I was getting onto a roll with blogging, but then February happened and no blogs got written at all! Worse than that, even, is that I got into a bit of a reading slump, though I had to push through to finish my book club book, which has helped. And I haven't even started my reading challenge yet! So what better way to get back into things than a short round-up of recent reading? Here are the last five books that I read: Image from Goodreads Unspoken - Sarah Rees Brennan I ended up buying this because I couldn't get it from the library- and sadly I didn't get this cover, which I like, but the book itself made up for it. I really enjoy Sarah Rees Brennan's blog (I think I first heard about her from Ronni ) and this book sounded great to me- it's a Gothic mystery YA book with a small English town, an aristocratic family with secrets and a telepathic connection between a high school girl and her 'imaginary friend' who turns out n...

Today I was struck by a post over at a gallimaufry about reading things set in unfamiliar places- and how to visualise them- I wonder whether we can familiarise ourselves with different cultures by reading about them, or will we always miss something when we read about things we don't already know? Like when we figure out the meaning of words from their contexts, but sometimes find out years later that we've gotten them wrong (at least, I have done that). Then I came across this post on facebook, which is a piece of writing memories of childhood in South India, and I was reminded of that idea again. Because in the piece I can recognise the nostalgia, even if I can't recognise the things the writer is nostalgic for. This feeds into a lot of different ideas I guess, like the concept of the other, or maybe the subjectiveness of language and meaning sometimes, but I just thought maybe it was some interesting food for thought.

Finally, and belatedly, my 2012 reading challenge comes to an end, with Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg representing the 1990s. It's a book I've been meaning to read for ages, but have somehow never made it past the first page. But while on my beach holiday, accidentally without a book, I found a copy in a second hand bookshop and it seemed the perfect opportunity to finally read it and to finish off my Century of Books challenge at the same time. In some ways this was an odd book to read on a summer holiday, after all the first sentence reads: It is freezing, an extraordinary -18°C, and it's snowing, and in the language which is no longer mine, the snow is qanik - big, almost weightless crystals falling in stacks and covering the ground with a layer of pulverized white frost. (Note: I lent this book to my sister when I finished it so I had to look this up online and I'm not 100% sure if it's the translation I read) While I was lying around tr...

I've been reading Book Lust by Nancy Pearl recently and loving it- it's a collection of lists of books on different topics and to suit different moods put together by a booklover and librarian, and though it seems like an ideal book to dip in and out of I've pretty much been reading it cover to cover (it's helping with a small lack of reading inspiration as well). In the introduction she says: I love to read. And while I may not absolutely agree with the Anglo-American man of letters Logan Pearsall Smith, who said, "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading," I come awfully close to subscribing to his sentiment. I was struck by this, and her dedication to her granddaughter "who I hope grows up loving to read, but not too much." It reminds me of the time a friend in high school told me that some day I would have to stop reading and start living. Of course, I immediately dismissed this, because isn't reading part of living (a vital...

I do realise that it's a bit late to be wishing people a happy new year, but I've been away out of reach of internet for the past couple of weeks, enjoying views like this one: Looking out over the lake while eating fish and chips And this one: South Coast beaches are beautiful, this is near Tilba And generally enjoying the beach. I hope everyone had some good holidays as well! Now it's time to face the fact that a new year has started, head back to work and talk about plans for the year. Specifically, reading plans. On my holiday I did manage to read my 1990s book, so I will soon be able to post about that and finish off my 2012 reading challenge (belatedly). For this year, I want to do something a little bit inspired by the Century of Books challenge and read books published before the 20th Century. Mainly because I have quite a few sitting on my shelves that I can't bring myself to start, and I need a little motivation, and also because I sometimes ...

Time for a round up of books read in 2012! As always, rereads are not included and I've linked books I've reviewed/mentioned elsewhere to the blog post in which I talked about them. Favourites are marked with a * . I seem to have read a lot of crime fiction again this year, of all different flavours, and one book of crime non-fiction. Usually I dislike true crime, but this was about the Somerton Man mystery, which I find fascinating, so that is an exception. My blogging was mostly dominated by my Century of Books challenge, which provided one of my favourite books of the year- Swann's Way . My other favourites included some fantasy and Northanger Abbey . Anyway, here is my (annotated) list! The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht Domestic Violets - Matthew Norman Kind of male chick-lit? I ended up very much disliking this book, the protagonist was infuriating. Starlight - Stella Gibbons Not quite Cold Comfort Farm . Much more strange. A Room with a View - E.M. Forster...

This is a frustrating review to write, because I had just finished writing it, pressed 'save', went to my dashboard and it had entirely disappeared. It's taken me weeks to rewrite, because I do hate starting from scratch again. It's especially difficult because the review I had written finished off with something like: "this is a difficult book to write about, because I had a strong emotional reaction to it". So maybe I should just work backwards from there. I had a very strong emotional reaction to the book because the events at the end of it were so horrific- basically it covers Pinochet's rise to power (in fictionalised form), and the characters in the book were so heavily affected by it, especially the narrator, Alba. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende focuses on a family in Chile in the 20th century. They're a wealthy family, and the patriarch is involved in conservative politics, but the rest of the family (including the matriarch, Cla...

I may have finished a while after the winner was announced, but I have made it through the Booker shortlist! Part 1 here . Now to round up the rest of the Booker books: I may have finished a while after the winner was announced, but I have made it through the Booker shortlist! Part 1 here . Now to round up the rest of the Booker books: The Lighthouse - Alison Moore Without knowing much about it, I was really looking forward to reading this book, it just piqued my interest. Unfortunately, I didn't end up enjoying it as much as I'd hoped. It felt a little hollow to me, kind of lacking in emotion or narrative force I suppose. I did like how Alison Moore built up the story by replaying the same events in Futh's life over and over with slightly more information, from his memory while on holiday in Germany. It wasn't so much that secrets were revealed, more that the characters were built up a bit more, and the use of scent as a trigger for memory was used effect...

Lists seem to be an ever-popular feature of the book world, from Awards shortlists to lists of books read through the year (yep, both of those have appeared on my blog). There are an infinite variety of lists to choose from, such as lists that tell you a bit about a person (like Simon at Stuck-in-a-book's 'My Life in Books' series ) or books are about topics (like this Christmas-gift version at Booksellers NZ ), but the most controversial are the 'Best-of' lists. Some people hate the idea of imposing a ranking on books, some people like to use them as a jumping off post for thinking about their own favourites (see Book Snob's take on Stylists list of must read's ) and sometimes they are just good for inspiring reading choices (or Christmas shopping). So for your enjoyment, I found a list of all the best of lists of the year (i.e. I think someone posted it on Twitter but I forget who): Largehearted Boy's 'Online 'Best of 2012' book lists O...

Helen over at A Gallimaufry has given me a Liebster award! Which is basically a meme for small blogs (with under 200 followers) where you answer 7 questions and then ask a new set of 7 questions to 7 people. I enjoy both memes and A Gallimaufry (she has a series on the Grimm Fairy Tales which I particularly enjoy) so I am excited about this. The questions: 1. Describe your ideal home library/study.  I'm going to base this on my ideal home library as described to a friend 10 years ago, while doing my final exams at school. Because obviously I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. For starters, this library is situated somewhere near the sea. I'm thinking of a remote Hebridean island, but a cliff-top anywhere would probably do. One wall of the room is double-glazed glass, looking out at the ocean and the storms that roll in from the distance. The opposite wall is covered in bookshelves which are full of books. The floor has rugs and beanbags scattered round, and t...

"Did you move to Scotland for a woman?" "No, for money" "Oh, I understand. It's hard in Turkey. Everyone's wearing burqas!" - American tourists to owner of Turkish restaurant in Inverness Rowley died in 1806, leaving the estate in trust for his 5 natural children 'begotten on the body of Elizabeth Selwyn' and one sixth for his wife 'so long as she does not live in a state of co-habitation or marriage with any man and continues to take care of my said children'. -From an article on early Stanmore history- a little cold "He's at a funeral" "Who died now?" "Oh no, he's been dead two years" -Overheard In many cases, fiction over the last 35 years has eschewed the novel's traditional attempt to render depth, preferring to tell a story, which, instead of seeking to offer truth, deep meaning or philosophical belief, depicts particular aspects of the modern world refracted...

The Booker Prize winner gets announced sometime today, and I am still only halfway through the shortlist! Oh well, I can still read the rest, I just won't be able to make predictions. And there's still time to write a halfway point blog post before the winner is announced. So, a short recap of the shortlist so far...  Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel   I loved Wolf Hall , so it's not surprising that this is probably my current favourite Booker book. Reading the second book of a series after loving the first is always a tricky thing, and I don't know how I would rate this in comparison to the first. The writing remains excellent and fresh and the plot remains tense, but this time there's a greater sense of ambiguity in Thomas Cromwell (and many of the other characters). His thoughts don't match up to his actions, and it's not clear why- is he motivated by revenge? Survival? A political trade-off to achieve his reform goals? All of the above? I felt lik...

Love by Angela Carter was a difficult book to read. For starters, it's title is misleading- the plot centres on three people: Annabel, an art student, her husband Lee and Lee's brother who also lives with them. All three are disconnected with reality in their own separate ways, and seemingly incapable of really knowing or interacting with each other, but none more so than Annabel. When the book opens she is overcome by terror when walking through the park by seeing the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time. The book then moves around in time to look at the doomed relationship (love?) between Annabel and Lee. The first thing that really struck me about the book was the style it's written in. It's full of long run on sentences that don't seem to end the way you'd expect- with the end twisting away from the beginning. Take, for example, this sentence: All was as it should be in the kitchen and she gave him a smile of such unexpected sweetness that he tu...

I'm not always someone who has a clear list in my mind of what books to read next, and that means I don't tend to have piles of books waiting around to be read, like lots of bloggers that I read seem to do. This is great for not having unread-book-guilt, but terrible when I finish one book and have no idea what to read next. The panic! Happily, at the moment I do happen to have a large reading list lined up, and I'm a little bit excited about it. Now I can rush through trying to finish them all and put off having to worry about where my next book's coming from for a little while. So I thought I would share my current TBR list with you: I borrowed a few from my friend (the lovely Georgia ), which I have started on: On Literature by Umberto Eco I just finished this- really enjoyed the change of pace (it's non-fiction essays, I usually read fiction). Had some nice arguments with him about reviewing and symbolism and felt very inspired to read a lot more class...

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of those books that people have been recommending to me forever, and yet the title has always put me off actually reading it. That and the fact that I have always kind of mixed it together with Catch-22 (which I have also never read) in my mind. But in the spirit of this Century of Books challenge I thought needing a '60s book to read was  the perfect opportunity to put my misconceptions behind me and actually see what this book is all about. In short, this book is all about the life of Billy Pilgrim- traveller in time- and sort of revolves around his experience of WWII and, in particular, the bombing of Dresden. The book proceeds in a linear way through Billy's war experiences, but these are inter-cut with his travels to a range of different moments in his life, sometimes for a brief impressionistic moment and sometimes for longer, from his time in hospital to his time as an alien abductee on the planet Trafalmado...

I was already late writing up this one, and then I found that the draft of the post I'd been writing has disappeared, so that is partly my excuse for such a long blog silence. I have run so far behind schedule on this project but I haven't given up, in fact I'm already reading my 1960s book. Hopefully I will post on that in a more timely fashion! But I digress, back to The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, and hopefully I haven't forgotten too much of it... I haven't read any Graham Greene before, but when I noticed this book in the bookshop while looking for something completely different ( The Door in the Air by Margaret Mahy, but that's another story) and realised it was written in the '50s it seemed like the perfect time to start. When I started reading the book my feelings of serendipity diminished somewhat. It wasn't what I felt like reading, it was too ironic feeling, too much emotional distance, the kind of book that makes me want to star...