What's with today, today?

As I wrote back in January , one of my challenges to myself this year was to read a book from every continent ( author's nationality + setting of book + language originally published in must all be from the same country in that continent, although I will read them in English) . Since we're now almost halfway through the year, it seems like a good time to report on my progress. I'm actually quite pleased with my progress, but not quite finished with this challenge yet. Here's what I've read so far: Africa : Song for Night by Chris Abani (Nigeria). On the recommendation of my friend Duncan . While all the reviews for this say it's set in 'an unknown country in Africa', the tribes mentioned in the book are both from around Nigeria, as is the author... so I'm calling this Nigeria. Not entirely happy with this one as a representation of Africa though. I do feel this is perhaps written for Western audiences... which wasn't really the point of this...

I finished up the semester of uni a couple of weeks ago, and, as is often the way, completely lost motivation for everything else. I was getting so excited about reading books that are harder going when uni's on, I borrowed two non-fiction books from the library (one on Old English literature and society, and one on fairytales) and I haven't opened them. Instead I have been reading fashion  blogs, considering starting a fashion blog, my last blog post was about food, I even painted a picture the other night, despite my lack of anything resembling artistic talent. By contrast, while uni was on and I was getting more and more stressed and feeling so short on time, I read like crazy, found myself enjoying books more than I have for a while- you know, when you read late into the night and don't want to put the book down. Don't ask me why this is, all I can think is that it's a break, a time for something different. Speaking of fashion blogs, here are a couple that are...

Seeing as it's a long weekend, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about brunch. Brunch would have to be one of my favourite meals, because it goes very well with a sleep in and basically you can eat whatever you feel like at the time. Today I ate a croissant and muesli at 2pm. Why not? Alternately, you could have a burger at 11. It's brunch after all, and anything goes. The one downside is the prevalence of eggs in brunch foods, I just don't like 'em, and some menus have little else. But many do, and here are some of my favourite brunching places in Sydney... Vargabar, Newtown This is my regular, and it's great for having a wide range of options (vegetarian, meat, breakfasty, lunchy, eggs or not). It also does good coffee. Of all the things they have here my favourite is the pumpkin chili hotcakes. They're a savoury twist on pancakes and just delicious. I love the way the dishes here keep changing, nothing seems to be presented the same way twice, b...

A full bottle of wine next to the public phone - Pitt St Bree and Adam Locked 2gether in hatred as it's the closest to love- we're forever - sad toilet graffiti at The Annandale "When the dog that you tattoo on your arse turns into a shark" - Overheard on a train Though contrived, this little story might as well exemplify the mischief that involves us all who take on the job of turning real life into words. Always the essential thing gets lost. That's one rule holds true of every inspiration. - 'The Moon', Jorge Luis Borges "His dad's a novelist" "What, writes books and stuff?" - Overheard Graffiti on a train seen on the morning commute: "Be not a man of success, but a man of value"- Einstein "I just want to go live in Europe... I want to do everything and I want to do it now." (other person says something) "But when? What's the plan? How will it all fit in?" - Overheard o...

I wanted to write this post ages ago, in responses to the post over on Stuck-in-a-book   post , but blogger has been playing up and uni assignments have been calling... so some of these books are out of date, and some have been changed, but here we go... The book I'm currently reading... I loved Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles  SO MUCH when I was younger, but I haven't read anything else by her (or even the whole set of the Chronicles, for that matter). This is living up to my expectations, it's a regency/fantasy book and it's so much fun! The main character is a street urchin in London who dresses as a boy to stay out of trouble and takes a job breaking into Mairelon the magician's caravan and is then taken on as an assistant. Adventures ensue. The last book I finished... I am reading quite a bit of fantasy at the moment I feel, and this is also set in a quasi-regency period, but with the added complication of an alternate hist...

Well it is certainly a woeful year for blogging for me. But it is a hectic year for uni, work and apparently everything else. Heading into panic mode. So at the moment not much is getting done, and all my books are comfort reads. Books to read when your brain is all worn out at the end of the day. If I look at my current reading list, I think it pretty much sums up all my comfort-read categories: 1. Agatha Christie Maybe that should be 'murder mysteries', but there are few things as comforting as Agatha Christie. I'm currently reading 'Lord Edgeware Dies', which has Poirot, dead actresses and suspects galore. Agatha Christie has written so many books I don't think I've read them all, the only problem is that it can be hard to sort out the ones I have read from the ones I haven't. Pretty sure this is a new one though. 2. Anything with a really strong plot Fast-paced books, preferably full of action, wake you up at the end of those 10 hour days. I ...

I know I have been doing very poorly at keeping up my goal of blogging more frequently this year, and am only now putting up pictures from my birthday earlier this month, while it is still the same month. Hope you enjoy them anyway! This year I turned 25, and for my birthday Andrew made me a spectacular chocolate mud cake type cake. It was very secretive and time-consuming, but I think he did an amazing job. The view from above. It looks so cozy, I would like to sit in that armchair by that fire and read those books. As it is, I nibbled on the armchair and ate those books (they are made of white chocolate + food dye + flavouring). There's me, turning 25 with cake, candles, bookshelf and friends (not pictured, but I swear they were there). After this we headed to the Berkelouw Books wine bar for some food and wine and book-browsing. For my birthday I got a lot of book vouchers (appropriately enough) among other things, so I spent Sunday book sho...

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon is a collection of thoughts, like a diary, written by a court gentlewoman in Japan in the tenth century. This absolutely blew me away when I started, because it was impossible not to make comparisons to Old English literature, and there is just nothing like this in Old English (sidenote: though many works I studied in Old English are dated pre-10th C., technically the period ends in 1066, so this book is roughly contemporaneous with the late Anglo-Saxon period). This book seems so personal, in a way that Anglo-Saxon literature is not, and it's so concerned with the affairs of women (it's written by a woman) and everyday life, and aesthetics, it's like an entirely different world. There is something really incredible about reading something that seems so personal and yet was written 1,000 years ago. Besides, this book is a great introduction to the world of the Japanese court in the 10th century, with its descriptiveness and anecdotes. There...

The first word I can remember reading was in a fairy tale, and folk and fairy tales have long had a fascination for me. When I was growing up (or when I was a teenager even) we had a collection of books at home by Ruth Manning Sanders ( A Book of Dragons , A Book of Sorcerers and Spells  etc.) which rekindled that interest after fairy tales had become overly familiar and a little bit boring. These books had a selection of fairy tales from around the world on a specific theme (dragons or sorcerers for instance), which meant that it had a wider range of stories than I was used to and made me aware of the universality of fairy tales. Tales from all over the world were familiar, there are so many variations on Cinderella. And yet, they were not the same stories that I had read. There are dragons from all over the world, but Chinese dragons are very different from European dragons. I am not the first person to be fascinated by fairy tales, of course, or to notice that there...

As January draws to a close, it's really my last chance to blog about New Year's resolutions, so here they are before the time runs out. 1) Blog more. This is one of those things like 'exercise more' or 'eat healthily' that crop up over and over again but rarely eventuate. But all the same I'd like to blog more regularly this year. And leave comments on other blogs, rather than lurking as usual. 2) Read at least one book from every continent (apart from Antarctica). My reading tends to be very dominated by, roughly in order, England, the US and Australia. So in order to mix things up a bit I've set this target, I think it's pretty easily achievable but I don't really have a plan of attack. Any recommendations (particularly for books from Africa and Asia, which I don't come across often) greatly appreciated! It can be difficult to define a book's 'nationality', so I'm using these guidelines- author's nationality + set...

Sam's companion review of Gilead  is here Coming to Home straight after reading Housekeeping I was struck by the differences. Home feels earthier, more dialogue, less light and water, less dreamy. But then the similarities- the interest in family, the presence of loneliness as a force that seems intrinsic to some people. The outsider, the drifter, and home. As you might expect, home is a major theme in this novel. Home begins with Glory, the youngest of eight children, returning home to the Iowa town of Gilead to look after her aging father, the Rev. Robert Boughton, after her own dreams have been shattered. Shortly after her return her brother, Jack, comes home too. Unlike Glory, he hasn't been home for 20 years, and his return fills the house with a mixture of anger, joy, love and anxiety. Home in this book is a place of happy childhood memories, but also painful ones. It provides sanctuary but also a sense of failure. Both children have returned less than voluntarily, ...

Author discovery of the year: Marilynne Robinson! I would be happy to go out and just read anything by her. Other notable authors I read for the first time this year were Kate Griffin and Anais Nin. Top 10 books read last year (not in order): Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel Scott Pilgrim series - Bryan Lee O'Malley Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf The Changeover - Margeret Mahy The City and the City - China Mieville The Summer Book - Tove Jansson The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet- David Mitchell A Madness of Angels - Kate Griffin Home- Marilynne Robinson I feel like it's cheating to pick 10, since that makes up such a large proportion of books read. But it was still hard to pick. Honourable mentions to The Piper's Son-  Melina Marchetta,  Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson, Under a Glass Bell - Anais Nin, The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton,   The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Hunger Games... I could go ...

I did this a couple of years ago- it's a meme taken from Ronni- and I liked it so I'm doing it again. Pretend that it's NYE rather than New Years Day.... 1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before? Studied by distance, ran a bible study. 2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I'm a bit wishy washy with new year's resolutions. I guess the same as most people- eat better, exercise more. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Two school friends of mine did- to Amelia and Matthew. Both in October. Also my cousin, in June, to Oscar. 4. Did anyone close to you die? My Gran. It was somewhat unexpected. We remembered her chocolate cakes and love of books. I remembered the time she defended us from a charging bull (it may have been a cow) armed with a pitchfork. Love you Gran. 5. What countries did you visit? Didn't leave Australia. 6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010...

As always, books I finished reading for the first time this year. This year with links to where I've talked about them before, for added convenience. [edited to add link to Home  review] Wolf Hall- Hilary Mantel Don't know how Hilary Mantel managed to make the intricacies of Tudor politics so clear and readable, but she did. Reviewed here Bella Tuscany- Frances Mayes Self-indulgent travelogue Angel Puss- Colleen McCullough AA Gill is Away- AA Gill  The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman Perhaps my favourite Neil Gaiman to date. A Madness of Angels- Kate Griffin Fast paced and lots of fun, urban fantasy. More here Under a Glass Bell- Anais Nin Gorgeous little short stories that made me want to read more. The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins One of the most talked about books of the year, reviewed here The Slap- Christos Tsiolkas One of the most talked about books of last year. I was in two minds about it though, see here and here . On the whole, not a fan. Unseen Academic...

Happy Christmas all! Hope you had a great day. I was away from my computer at the time (actually spent about half the day on the road), so sorry that the Christmas greetings are belated. I am currently in the process of writing up my list of New Books Read This Year, but for now- what I got for Christmas (aka Christmas books):                - Truth, Peter Temple (Australian Crime)               - The Little Prince and Other Stories (Collected Children's stories, including The Little Prince and                The Railway Children)               - The City and the City, China Mieville (Fantasy/Crime)               - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen (American Literature)               - The Grimm Reader, trans. Maria Tatar, foreword by AS Byatt. (Fai...