You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Stuff’ category.
So the reading slump that I have been in for as long as I can remember is still with me and sees no signs of abating. I’m working on the basis that it’s best not to force the issue which is why my lovely brand new copy of Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch is sitting untouched on my desk. I’ve been looking forward to this coming out ever since I read Rivers of London when I was ill earlier this year and got a copy as soon as I could largely to make Silvery Dude speechless with envy (and I succeeded in that at least). But now I’m actually scared to pick it up in case it’s not powerful enough to overcome The Slump. Quite sad really.
Anyway, Moon over Soho isn’t the only book I’m managing not to read at the moment, there are several others:
- Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr – this is a re-read of the first three Nazi-era crime novels, designed to prepare me for picking up the sequels which the Book God now has and thoroughly recommends. Progress so far: 8.5%
- The Thirties: An Intimate History by Juliet Gardiner – continuing my mild obsession with the period between the two World Wars. Progress so far: 13%
- The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones – reading this as a memorial to DWJ but also as part of the Once Upon a Time challenge. Progress so far: 34%
- Snow White and the Seven Samurai by Tom Holt – funny, fantasy stuff so ideal for OUAT but stalled. Progress so far: 16%
- How Not to Grow Up by Richard Herring – memoir by one of my favourite funny people. Progress so far: 36%
A bit depressing really but not insurmountable and you never know, although I didn’t read much over Easter weekend we have another Bank Holiday next weekend, and once I’ve feasted upon the delights of the Royal Wedding on Friday morning I may just curl up in a chair with something good to read and The Slump may be defeated.
Oh and the picture at the top of the post is “Pavonia” by Frederic Leighton which is being used as the poster image for an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum which the Book God and I went to on Saturday afternoon – The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900. Well worth a visit if you are in London and enjoy beautiful things.
I’ve been fairly quiet recently, partly due to stressful stuff at work (more of that on another occasion perhaps) but mostly because I have had a really nasty, horrible, debilitating cold for a few weeks and am only just beginning to feel that I’m properly recovering. I managed to struggle through one review last week and that took so much out of me that I had to go and lie down in a darkened room. Or something.
When I was first developing said cold, two weeks ago today in fact, I really didn’t feel like doing very much, couldn’t settle to TV or reading anything that required huge amounts of concentration and anything with more than one syllables was definitely out of the question.
But I was bored and had to do something in between medication and naps, and decided that graphic novels were just the thing.
Started with Amphigorey by one of my heroes Edward Gorey. This is a collection of (I think) fifteen of Gorey’s works and was ideal because the ratio of pictures to words was high (or do I mean low – more of the former than the latter, anyway) and of course Gorey’s wonderfully gothic sensibility is just the ticket when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Loved it as much as I knew I would.
I then moved on to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (I actually wanted to call him the Ancient Manager, which is how I feel at the moment), and this was great fun in a very different way. The poem is one of my favourites (though over the years I’ve singularly failed to memorise it, though not for want of trying) and I have loved Hunt Emerson’s cartoons in Fortean Times which I have subscribed to for years. And the image of the albatross with a rubber-suckered arrow stuck on his head still tickles me.
So picture books good for early stages of a cold. When I actually gave in, stopped struggling in to work and flumped, I at least didn’t have a headache and could read more words I actually read more over that few days than I had in the weeks before so every cloud has a silver lining. But more of those later.
So here we are in the first weekend of February and it’s been nearly a month since I actually posted anything about stuff I’ve read or am reading. In fact it’s been very quiet around here in terms of anything substantial and this is something that has to change.
So why the quietness?
- technology – I got an iPad before Christmas and an iPhone a week or so ago and now spend my commuting time playing about with them, especially as I am now on Twitter (button on the sidebar if you want to follow my inane ramblings and grumpy-old-womanish stuff);
- heavy workload – I had the whole of Christmas off and suffered for it as soon as I got back to work on 4 Jan – and in so many ways I’m still suffering for it;
- general lack of backbone – as evidenced by failing to get anywhere with either the Sci-fi Experience or Virago Reading Week despite both best intentions and something vaguely resembling a plan (though I still have 3 weeks to make an impact on the former) – although to be fair all of the books I haven’t been reading have been within the permitted rules of the TBR Dare;
- my birthday – my real one at the end of January which involved eating and cocktails and spending time with lovely people and talking about books (just not reading them…..)
But none of this should have prevented me from reading, and as I said to Silvery Dude only the other day, if you really want to do something you’ll make time for it. Which just proves that (a) I talk a lot of nonsense and (b) I don’t practise what I preach – though that’s the prerogative of being an older sister (don’t do what I do, do what I say).
But I have plans.
I will:
- write the one book and two film review posts outstanding from January;
- go through my “I’ve started so I’ll finish” bookpile and weed out the ones I’m not in the mood for at the moment;
- post about the really nice books I got for my birthday
- start reading regularly again
So watch this space, something might actually happen!
Yes, astonishingly enough the Bride is four today. Feels both extremely pleasant and very strange all at once, as I confess I’m surprised that I’ve kept going in some respects. I’m putting that down to not feeling pressure to blog every day and of course to my lovely readers out there with their own fabulous blogs and their always interesting comments.
The book blogging community is absolutely the best.
I will find myself some real cake (or equivalent) later to celebrate!
And will try to catch up with the (admittedly only one) outstanding review at some point soon.
Am I brave enough to take the dare? Oh yes indeed, I am up for this one.
Details are here and I am committed to start this on 1 January 2011 along with everyone else. I think I can manage this as any books I get for Christmas (and I will be getting books, don’t you worry about that) will already be on my TBR pile, and I plan to stop on 31 January which is my birthday, in the expectation that other books will arrive on that day too which I may want to read as soon as I get my hands on them.
I seem to have an awful lot of reading going on at the moment; some of these books have been sitting on my table for months (if not longer) and I will at some point have to decide whether I am going to persevere or give up, but not just yet, I think:
- The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell – “‘I am normal, my wife is normal, but my daughters are each more foolish than the other‘ bewailed Lord Redesdale, father of the Mitford girls. Part of my Mitford obsession as mentioned briefly here.
- The Sicilian Vespers by Steven Runciman – “On 30 March 1282, as the bells of Palermo were ringing for Vespers, the Sicilian townsfolk, crying ‘Death to the French’, slaughtered the garrison and administration of their Angevin King.”
- Bone Song by John Meaney – “Tristopolis. Death’s City. Countless dead lie in the miles of catacombs beneath its streets.” Zombies and stuff in noir crime story.
- The Women of Muriel Spark and Muriel Spark – reading these as background to the great abandoned but about to be resurrected Reading Muriel Project
- Growing by Leonard Woolf – an autobiography of the years 1904 to 1911, set aside for some reason I can’t quite fathom
- The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti – to be dipped into, prose is very, very lush.
- Jigs and Reels by Joanne Harris – forgot all about this one, must finish it as I’ve enjoyed the stories I’ve read so far
- Small Avalanches by Joyce Carol Oates – another dipper
- O, Beloved Kids by Rudyard Kipling – Kipling’s letters to his children, which was intended to kick-start a Kipling fest after I visited his house in the summer; still something I want to do…..
And sad to say I’m still reading some of the books on this list, namely:
- Foreign Devils on the Silk Road by Peter Hopkirk – as recommended by the Book God after an excellent lecture on engaging with China which we attended at the British Museum
- The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks – vaguely unsettling what to do if they were real guide-book
- The Virago Book of the Joy of Shopping, edited by Jill Foulston – which called out to me by name when shopping in Blackwell’s on the Charing Cross Road for a present for Silvery Dude
So today was a bit of a respite from the touristy stuff; having spent a chunk of yesterday in the car heading from South Ayrshire to Peebles, it was good to do something different, and a shopping spree was in order.
No pictures of me actually doing any shopping – not pretty at the best of times – but nice things purchased, including shoes (of course), shirts for the Book God, a few small things for home, some foody things we can’t get in London (well not without great planning and major expeditions) and a lime green merino wool scarf (of which I am already inordinately fond).
But the fun part was visiting The Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells, a really fabulous bookshop featured in Cornflower Books a while ago. Really lovely shop and excellent cafe (especially loved the cupcakes). So if you are in the area you really must visit.
Now relaxing after the rigours of the day.
Wonder what’s for dinner……..
Time once again to mop my fevered brow as work has come to an end for three weeks at least and I am now on holiday. Which explains why it has been so quiet around here recently and as I tried to get myself in a good place with work responsibilities so that I could go off with as clear a conscience as possible.
And three Cosmopolitans in a nice hotel bar with one of my best friends on my last day certainly started me off on the right foot.
So apologies for not visiting blogs, not leaving comments (which I’m usually rubbish at anyway) and not posting recently. Will aim to clear my review backlog before I go, and will be taking my trusty laptop away with me so hope to blog my hols as I did last year.
And of course there is the book bag, which contains (in no particular order):
- Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy (a Silvery Dude recommendation)
- The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams
- The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
- Bone Song by John Meaney
- Snow White and the Seven Samurai by Tom Holt
- Bury Her Deep by Catriona McPherson
- The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
Which, when you add the book I’m currently reading (which is The Fleet Street Murders by Charles Finch) looks like a reasonable haul.
Hit the road tomorrow; Derbyshire here we come!
So we’re now almost at the middle of September and it seems like a good time to take stock of my reading year and think about what’s coming up over the next few months, partly triggered by my starting to think of the books to take on holiday with me when I head off for 3 weeks at the beginning of October.
And of course the fact that I haven’t blogged for a while shows that my mind has been elsewhere – a mixture of work and domestic stuff which has kind of got in the way of my best laid plans.
So I am behind with my reviews – only two books behind to be fair, but that shows that I haven’t really been doing that much reading ; the whole standing on the train thing and working at home more than I have over recent months interfering with my reading routine which revolves around my daily commute. But they will be finished and posted over the next couple of days.
I had fully intended to take part in the read-a-long of The Handmaid’s Tale which Trish has been hosting here, but halfway through and I haven’t read a word despite my best intentions, so stepping back gracefully from that one. In fact I’ve decided to drop all of my remaining challenges as well, so the sidebar should be looking pretty clear shortly. Not seeing this as failure but an acknowledgment that my current workload and lifestyle just isn’t suited to directed reading. I may even make 2011 a challenge-free year but we’ll see how things go between now and the end of December; that may be a step too far!
Which brings me to one of my favourite challenges: RIP V, hosted by Carl. Again, we’re two weeks into this and I haven’t even started to make up a reading list for it; so not going to formally sign up but may find myself reading books that fit, and if I do I will blog appropriately. I am naturally drawn to creepy stuff at this time of year so it’s more than likely that I will end up taking part, but we’ll see.
This reads like a slightly downbeat post which it isn’t meant to be at all. I’m enjoying very much the book I’m currently reading (Candia McWilliam’s What to Look for in Winter) though goodness only knows how I’m going to write about something so gloriously complex and moving (but I’m definitely up for having a go).
So, no plans but just picking up whatever takes my fancy, which should be fun.
So it’s a sunny if windy day here in London after a week of heat and humidity which I always find difficult to handle. And my usual summer grumpiness has arrived slightly earlier this year (I usually wait until August to feel annoyed with heat and my favourite people not being around and travelling on crowded public transport and all that jazz) but is not as intense as in previous years so I may just get through this OK (fingers crossed).
So my thoughts are turning to what I might read over July and August.
The latter is usually Crime Month and I will certainly be reading that sort of thing, but I had the thought that I might do some re-reading of old favourites in tandem with the murder/mayhem thing. Said thought was triggered by purchasing books for friends, a practice I’ve started in preference to lending things to people as (a) it takes the pressure off (no hurry to read the thing just to get it back to the owner) and (b) I don’t get twitchy wondering what’s happened to my precious, precious books.
I recently got Espedair Street by Iain Banks for Silvery Dude and Fifth Business by Robertson Davies for another good friend, the Semi-Scandinavian. So that’s two for the re-read pile, plus I want to read the sequence of four novels by AS Byatt that starts with The Virgin in the Garden, plus I want to re-read all my Laurie Colwin books (especially Family Happiness) and suddenly this look like it might be fun.
But I’m not giving any hostages to fortune so no lists will be posted, and you’ll just have to watch this space……..
I also have a small stack of reviews to catch up on (hurrah, actually managed to finish some books), so hopefully activity on the blog will pick up over the next wee while.
Bride of the Book God 