You are currently browsing the daily archive for November 30, 2014.
Ooh, I thought I was being SO clever, posting my reading plans for the month earlier today and totally forgetting that Carl’s Sci-fi Experience now starts in December and runs until my birthday (31st January in case you’re interested and that has got to be the earliest hint I’ve ever given!)
So hasty thinking has taken place and I’m going to (try to) read the following as a minimum for the experience that isn’t a challenge (and they also comply with the TBR DDD as they are already all on the stacks chez Bride):
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K le Guin – because she was interviewed in the first episode of the excellent BBC series Tomorrow’s Worlds and I am ashamed, ashamed I say, to admit that if I have ever read any of her work I have long, long forgotten it…..
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – because it is a classic and my great friend Silvery Dude was reduced to a blubbering wreck reading it (I may possibly be using poetic licence there)….
- The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan – because I love short stories and I sought this out after the amazing experience of hearing Neil Gaiman read his entry in the collection Orange at an event earlier in the year which I seem not to have written about at all….
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge – because it’s one of the Book God’s favourites and he has been trying to get me to read it since we started living together 20 years ago and I think it’s about time…
Exciting! I also have the urge to watch 2010 again (I love that movie and will punch anyone who disagrees, OK?)
So this has been a very strange reading week. I had an overnight business trip at the beginning of the week which is often good for reading and I was well prepared, dragging my copy of the Book That Shall Not Be Named (which I’m still struggling to engage with fully) figuring that an evening on my own in the hotel and a 2 hours plus train journey back to London would make me read it. Of course, I also had the Kindle app on my phone and was distracted by zombies so how wrong was I?
Then I got hit with the dreaded lurgy and was basically off work for the rest of the week (and only really starting to feel well today if I’m honest). Day One I had a headache of such enormous proportions (amongst other symptoms I’m too delicate to elaborate on here) that I couldn’t read.
DISASTER.
However the remaining days of illness and convalescence were easier and being housebound and sofa-ridden I managed to read three whole novels and finish a book of short stores.
Clouds. Silver linings. It’s a cliche for a reason.
And now we’re nearly in December and despite the failure that was my WWI reading plan for this month I’m going to tempt fate and pull together a book list for the run up to Christmas. I’m sure I’ll add to this as I remember other titles but my starters are:
- The Last of the Spirits by Chris Priestley
- Christmas Tales of Terror also by Chris Priestley
- Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon
- 12 Days of Winter by Stuart MacBride
- The Mistletoe Bride by Kate Mosse
I’ve already had my most successful reading year for ages so I’m fairly relaxed about all of this. Do you have any special reading plans for December?
Bride of the Book God 