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It's Monday! What are you reading?

2012-01-22T23:28:00.000-08:00

It’s Monday! What are you reading? Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I’m still reading 1Q84 for the readalong, and I’ve made it all the way to page 114. It’s … slow going. I’m hoping to get into it a bit more tomorrow - it’s Patrick’s first day back at kindy and my last day on holiday so I”ll have the morning to get some reading done.

I also started Waiting by Ha Jin, which is my January diversity read. Well, better late than never, yes?

Next up … hrm. Good question. Not sure yet. J

Billie's Kiss review

2012-01-20T21:20:00.000-08:00

The Tempest is my absolute all-time favourite Shakespeare play. I love the setting, and the concept of it and basically everything it chooses to be.

I’ve owned Billie’s Kiss by Elizabeth Knox for a few years (won it on the Trade Me book quiz actually – lol) and decided this year I’d give it a smack, finally. Also I’m trying to read more of my own books but that’s another story ….

Anyway. It’s Spring, 1903. Billie Paxton is travelling to a remote island with her sister and brother-in-law where he’s set to take up a position as curator for the local lord.

However, things don’t exactly go to plan when the ship explodes. Billie survives because she jumps ship before the explosion, although she can’t say later why she jumped, and Henry her brother-in-law survives but Billie’s sister and Henry’s wife Edith drowns.

So begins Billie’s new life on the island of Kissack and Skilling under a very black cloud.

She negotiates her new life under the suspicious gaze of Murdo Hesketh, a fellow passenger on the ship.

I keep going back and forth. I loved The Vintner’s Luck, which remains one of my favourite books, and I liked Billie’s Kiss – a lot – but I think love is too strong a word. I kept waiting for … something, and I still couldn’t tell you what I was waiting for.

There are a lot of scenes in which nothing exactly happens, although the subtext is rife, and then there are several action-driven sequences which kind of go … I’m not even sure.

I will say, though, that I loved Billie as a character. She’s complex, independent and fearless and the absolute opposite of a shrinking violet.

My feelings for Murdo Hesketh were more complicated – mostly by the fact that he suspected Billie of sabotage for longer than he should have in face of the evidence presented.

If I were opening a box of Roses chocolates, let’s say this is the one with strawberry filling. Never a favourite, but still tasty in its own way.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2012-01-15T22:12:00.000-08:00

It’s Monday – what are YOU reading? Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

At the moment I’m mostly reading 1Q84 still for the readalong with Care and Kailana. I’ve stalled a bit on page 53, which is no fault of the book itself but rather of the fact I over-exerted myself on Friday and my poor battered body is still paying for it – lol.

So my concentration is a little bit shot as well. However, I’m planning on getting back into 1Q84 in as big a way as I can this week.

In the meantime, for a little light relief, I’m re-reading Half-blood Prince. I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter over the past year or so and I’ve been working my way up to this one for a few months because of how sad it made me last time. Once I’ve read it I’ll watch the movie, then do the same for Deathly Hallows.

So. What are you reading this week?

General random update

2012-01-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

I’m on holiday. I haven’t had a proper holiday since … last February.

Traditionally, I take the bulk of my leave around the Oscars, because I always take that Monday off anyway so build the rest of my time off around it. Yes, really.

Then I usually have two to three weeks off later in the year, depending on how much leave I have to take.

Of course last year most of my leave plans post-February were jossed because of events outside of my control.

I had a couple of weeks off when I had surgery, and a week or so when Mum died in July but apart from that, nothing.

So I’ve been hanging out for these three weeks since I put the request in – lol.

Patrick’s off from kindy as well so we’re both kind of hanging out. He wants me to build him a car out of cardboard boxes. I can’t see that going well for me, but he’s four so will hopefully be easy to please – lol.

Other than that, I’ve been surfing and reading; doing some cross stitching, watching the odd movie and catching up on some TV programmes.

At the moment – and I’m aware that I’m more than a bit behind – it’s The Borgias, and I have two episodes of season 1 to go. I’m finding it rather fun in a strange, slightly depraved sort of way. After that I have season 2 of Downton Abbey and season 1 of Game of Thrones to work my way through.

Hopefully by the time I’ve come to the end of those, the terrible summer programming has given way to something with a bit more substance.

Hopefully.

I’m working on a Hairy Maclary cross-stitch for Patrick’s birthday in May and while the pattern is lovely, I should have switched out the fabric and maybe the cottons. The fabric is awful – it’s 14ct aida and very stiff. 14ct isn’t my favourite to work on usually – I prefer 16 or 18 because for me it gives a slightly finer finish but I haven’t worked from a kit for so long that I forgot. The cottons, at least, are DMC so I can replace them if I run out but the colour names given (“pepper grey”, “anthracite grey”, “garlic cream” [garlic cream for goodness’ sake – what is that]) are ambiguous at best.

Hopefully I’ve matched them all pretty well but if I haven’t … well. That’ll be our little secret. :p

I finished Billie’s Kiss by Elizabeth Knox yesterday, which turned out to be my third finish for 2012 although I had started my previous two finishes as December 2011 wound down. I’ve counted them anyway – lol.

Elizabeth Knox is one of my favourite writers and I need to sort my always rambly feelings in order to write a review.

I started IQ84 today for the readalong with Care, but only got about 19 pages in before I dozed off. That’s what being on holiday with a four year old does for you. Heh.

It’s baking hot and dry here at the moment, and as I understand it we’re nearly the only part of the country not being excessively rained upon. I’m no heat-seeker so have been spending the bulk of it inside and forgetting that the heat pump also has air-conditioning. Oops.

I’m not going back to work till January 25 so I have another two weeks off, basically.

Nice.

The Windup Girl - review

2012-01-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

In a distant, dystopic future, food is at a premium and human life is balanced on the very edge of survival.

Anderson Lake – undercover man for AgriGen, a somewhat shadowed US company, is working at an algae factory in the Thai Kingdom, trying to track down the source of the Thais’ all-important – and pure – seedbank.

Anderson’s days are filled with the factory, and with carefully investigating and asking questions, trying to locate the seedbank. Things are going – slowly, but not badly – until he meets Emiko, the Windup Girl.

Emiko is one of the New People: genetically engineered with certain traits by the Japanese. Ditched in the Thai Kingdom by her former owner, she’s making a living of sorts as a prostitute, catering to those with a taste for the exotic and bizarre.

This rather bleak future is the background for Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut novel, The Windup Girl.

There are other key players as well – Anderson’s corrupt assistant at the factory, Hock Seng. The incorruptible official Jaidee – known as the Tiger – who is the scourge of bribetakers everywhere.

The story, by and large, though, belongs to Anderson and Emiko. Anderson isn’t exactly what I’d call a sympathetic character. He’s a company man through and through, nearly until the end. The only humanising influence in his life is Emiko who is not – for all intents and purposes – actually human.

She’s regarded with suspicion by nearly everyone and the Thai Kingdom regards Windups as little more than genetic mistakes, good for nothing but recycling.

Emiko fights hard against her genetic heritage – the rather doglike obedience that has been introduced into her DNA; against her telltale tick-tock Windup movements that betray her origin, and especially against her soul-crushing job as a prostitute in a very dissolute bar.

Anderson’s fascination gives her hope to reach for something better, but it also has devastating consequences for both of them.

Emiko … Emiko is just haunting. I felt so much sympathy for her, and frustration when her innate obedience forced her to do things that did nothing but degrade her. When she breaks her programming and fights back, she does it in spectacular – and bloody fashion.

I couldn’t like Anderson. I suppose he was supposed to be some kind of anti-hero but really … mostly he’s unpleasant. Emiko does give him back some of his humanity but not enough in the end to redeem him as a character.

Perhaps because of the somewhat grim nature of the future Bacigalupi has created, there are very few sympathetic characters – and they’re the ones who tend to be punished.

However, having said that, there are some bright moments, and some characters are allowed redemption – or at the very least, peace.

The Windup Girl is a very thinky, dense novel; packed with ideas and terrifying what-ifs.

Good stuff.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2012-01-02T00:13:00.001-08:00

I haven't done this meme for ages!!! Hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/
Right now, I'm working my way through The Wind-up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I'm about half way through and I have to say, it's a very interesting read. Rather grim, and dystopic but very good.

I'm also still plucking away (slowly) at the van Gogh biography that's the same size as my head - lol.

I've just rearranged my bookcases and the one neares my bed is my TBR for the year. Hopefully. It's largely unchanged from last year, so we'll just have to see how well that goes ...

Also on the agenda is IQ84, which I'm planning to start on Saturday for a co-read with http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com. It's a BIG book, but I'm on holiday until January 25 so ... bring it on! :D :D

Happy new year ...

2011-12-31T23:17:00.000-08:00

... that's all I have, really. I hope 2012 is a good one :-)

This is what I spent today doing.

Before:

After:

Far more orderly and the nightmare corner of junk and boxes I had is gone. Well, some of it's just shifted but I think I've done enough for a mallowpuff today. There's books, CDs, DVDs and some magazines on those shelves. Noice.

:D

Classic!

2011-12-28T00:43:00.000-08:00

When I started my blog here, I did it because I had a plan to read a classic novel once a month for the following year.

I managed, I believe, seven out of the 12 books, which really wasn’t too bad. Of course, the blogging itself led me to a much wider community that I certainly wasn’t expecting to find.

Which is wandering off-point a bit, but as sporadic as I’ve been with blogging, it’s comforting to know that you’re all “out there” somewhere. J

Anyway. In 2010 I had a go at reviving that personal challenge, with a bit of a diversity reading challenge. I read … one and ¾ books. I think.

However, I see that as no impediment to have another go. I’ve gone for – I hope – a fairly broad mix, even though I’ve interpreted ‘classic’ fairly loosely.

My list:

January: Waiting by Ha Jin

February: Persuasion by Jane Austen

March: Anna Karenina by Leonard Tolstoy

April: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

May: The Matriarch by Witi Ihimaera

June: Orlando by Virginia Woolf

July: The Sparrow/Children of God by Maria Doria Russell (re-read)

August: Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

September: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigiro

October: Travels With Myself and Another by Martha Gelhorn

November: The Woman in White by Wilke Collins

December: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Yo, 2011 Imma let you finish

2011-12-26T00:15:00.001-08:00

… actually, you know what? Just fuck off. You’ve been a shit year, thanks very much. Or, you know – thanks for nothing.

Anyway.

This happened, in April: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/just-add.html

Good times were had by all.

The year tripped along. My mother – who had had heart valve replacement surgery last year – wasn’t doing well. She was in and out of hospital, and struggling. She finally went into a home after being admitted to hospital in June (on my 40^th birthday actually) with a massive infection.

The last member of my Dad’s family – my aunty Alice – died not very much later than that (which I found out by virtue of reading the death notices on the page I was checking at work that night) and then my mother died in early July: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2011/07/things-and-life.html

So … yeah. I mean, the rest of the year was … okay. But, honestly, I’m just so ready for 2011 to be over.

Even though the world is going to end in 2012. ;p

I’ve read 54 books this year (funnily enough I slowed down after I started watching Merlin/mainlining Merlin long!fic. I need to redress that balance). My goal for next year is to read 75. It’s realistic, I think.

I’m also contemplating re-running the Kiwi YA challenge that I failed so hard on. Oh, and someone on Twitter during one of the #spbkchats said someone should run a challenge for NZ Women writers. Apparently there’s an Aussie challenge. So …………….. watch this space ;)

Here’s the list of my books, if you like:

1 Ash by Malinda Lo

2 The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

3 Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox

4 Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

5 King of the Murgos by David Eddings

6 Quillblade: Voyages of the Flying Dragon Bk1 by Ben Chandler

7 My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

8 Murder at the Laurels by Lesley Cookman

9 Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox

10 The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

11 The Screwed-up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson

12 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

13 The Raven’s Heart by Jesse Blackadder

14 Genesis by Bernard Beckett

15 True Grit by Charles Portis

16 August by Bernard Beckett

17 The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson

18 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling

19 Rosebush by Michele Jaffe

20 The 10pm Question by Kate De Goldi

21 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling

22 The Two Towers by J R R Tolkien

23 Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King

24 Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

25 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J K Rowling

26 The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie

27 City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

28 The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

29 Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

30 A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

31 The Larnachs by Owen Marshall

32 Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

33 The Windup Bird Chronicle by Harukai Murakami

34 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J K Rowling

35 The Shattering by Karen Healey

36 City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

37 Ebony Hill by Anna Mackenzie

38 Elfland by Freda Warrington

39 The Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling

40 Finder’s Shore by Anna MacKenzie

41 A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

42 The Devotion of Suspect X

43 The Return of the King by J R R Tolkien

44 The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

45 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre

46 Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

47 Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Heard

48 Autumn by David Moody

49 Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

50 The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce

51 Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

52 Kraken by China Mieville

53 The Accident by Linwood Barclay

54 Snuff by Mr Sir Terry Pratchett

Not many of those books have reviews because I kind of let that slide for a bit, but I want to get back into the swing of blogging, as much as I was ever in the swing of it so … we’ll see.

I also started having movie nights on Sunday – just me, a movie and some cross stitching (and, usually, a cat or three).

As far as my shocking memory can recall, this is the list of the movies (in no particular order):

A Single Man
The Runaways
Inception
Murder by Death
Centurion
Designing Woman
The Picture of Dorian Grey
Sucker Punch
The Last Station
The Ghost Writer
Romeo + Juliet
The Tempest
The Oxford Murders
Key Largo
Jurassic Park
Lolita

It’s a mixed bag, yes? The Romeo+Juliet is the Baz Luhrmann one and the Tempest is the one with Helen Mirren as Prospero. (LOVED.)

But it’s nice, you know? Park up on a Sunday night with a movie, some stitching … yeah.

Roll on 2012. I’m ready.

Kraken co-review

2011-12-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Jodie from http://bookgazing.dreamwidth.org/ and I had such fun last year reading The City & The City together by China Mieville, that we went back for a second go, with his novel Kraken.

Warning: the following review contains spoilers, fangirl squee and shameless requests for fic.

As Jodie put it: “yep we are engaged in slashing the work of a much worshipped experimental sci-fi writer. We rock :)”

Let’s do this.

Maree: I thought we could start by talking in general about how Kraken subverts the norm of giant-monster books. I'm thinking of things like Relic (though, disclaimer, I haven't read Relic) wherein there's an expert - usually a gorgeous woman - who teams up with, say, a handsome
FBI agent and they run around the city shooting things and shagging.

And this ... is not that.

First, Billy is such an everyman. I mean he has the job of looking after the giant squid, but he's fairly ordinary. Until ... he's not. I found Billy's reaction to his not-ordinariness interesting. Like,
after a very short while, he's okay with it and actually starts using it ... but I'm getting off-track.

So - Billy. What do we think?

Jodie: Even bigger disclaimer, I don’t think I’ve ever read any other giant monster hunt books although I’ve seen a few films that feature that kind of story line. But I totally recognise the ‘handsome dude/ sexahy and learned lady’ team trope from oh I don’t know a billion other genres (most popular right now, the historical mystery involving some kind of creepy cult). Let me say that I am incredibly glad that ‘Kraken’ is not that. I’m not sure I’d enjoy two weeks of crawling through a 481 large page version of ‘National Treasure’, even though that film is a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

It’s not like Mieville is above tropes and well worn pathways. He gives us a well used heroic type in Billy. Like you say he’s the everyman, who then turns out to be the special snowflake of destiny. Except Billy’s specialness eventually turns out to be so, I don’t know, mundane, almost (athough what he can do is still pretty impressive) that it kind of messes with the familiar ‘everyday hero’ type of fantasy and sci-fi. He starts out thinking he’s a regular curator, is then told he’s the kraken prophet given visions by an ancient arthropod god, only to find out that in fact he’s the bottle prophet, linked to…sure an ancient angel of memory, but specifically one that’s created from jars and has been reduced to a tiny sculpture by the end of the novel.

Even, when he’s finally saving the world, he has to laugh at the ridiculous loophole that being the bottle prophet gifts to him as he stops an apocalypse with semantics, a twisting of words, a reducing the mythical kraken god to something very ordinary.
That kind of trickery reminds me a lot of Terry Pratchett’s books where heroes and heroines often win with a clever twist of logic, that is tied up with ‘head magic’ which reconfigures the world through words and convincing. I thought it was so clever.

So, Billy, yeah I started out really unimpressed with his character creation. He seemed to have no real connections, or past and initially felt like a vessel for Mieville to pour clever ideas into. By the end of the book, both he and Mieville’s world felt like they’d been on a journey of development from ideas and details to true reality and turned into something the reader could care about. How did you feel about him by the end of the book?
Maree: It is rather mundane in the end isn't it? After all the magic and the knack; there's a loophole.

Mmm ... at first, I didn't really have an opinion on Billy because he's kind of a cypher. He's reactive and kind of passive, and, like you say; has no real connections. He obviously has no family, and his only real relationship outside of work is with Leon and, by extension,
Marge.

It's interesting that it's the search for the kraken that makes Billy start FORGING connections. There's Dane the Awesome of course, but also the Londonmancers and - to a much lesser extent - the police.

He starts to flesh out as a character when he starts to believe in - not in the kraken-as-prophet so much; but in ... the magical underworld?

Can we talk about the police? I'm really ambivalent on the police in this and I'm trying to work out why …

Jodie: 'It's interesting that it's the search for the kraken that makes Billy start FORGING connections.'

I love this idea, like Billy gets his very own apocalypse so that he can make friends and become more of a connected person :)

We can totally talk about the police! I like Collingswood, but like is absolutely the wrong word. I find her endlessly interesting. It's not just the knack that first sparked my interest (although the magic in this book is really original), but the way that she's such an imperfect knacker and she knows it. I'm so used to seeing the all powerful wizard character, or the comic bumbling wizard who never the less probably saves the world and Collingswood the self-assured, irreverant, swearing, medium ability knacker is so different.

However I don't think the force are exactly fabulous examples of what we all hope from the police. Let’s just say they don't appear to have been on any kind of sensitivity course.They’re pretty inactive and seem to appear less and less as the book goes on. I guess that’s because they're struggling with the case....
Maree: Yes! Kraken is as much - or more - of Billy's journey as it is about the impending apocalypse.

Collingswood was great; but I wanted a little more character development for her, I think? I loved her attitude, and her imperfect knack and her kind of ... ass-kicking competence, if that makes any sense.

Her boss turned out to be slightly useless and as for Vardy ... it's almost like Mieville would almost forget they were there and then jam them back in again - lol.

Could you imagine Collingswood on a sensitivity course???

I want to talk about Dane, but I want to talk about Dane A LOT, so before we get to his awesomeness, can we talk about the things that creeped us the fuck out?

Starting, of course, with Tattoo .... the thought of which still makes me shudder a bit.
After finishing the book I figured Vardy was pushed into the background so we'd get a huge impact when his evil plan was revealed. In that moment where Billy works it out and finds Vardy, all those moments where Vardy disappears with a gleam in his eye take on so much more significance. But it does also feel like Mieville is like, I need a shocking ending...who would no one suspect...oh how about Vardy the guy we haven't seen for ages. That's just speculation though.

But her boss, yeah I'm not sure what happened there. I guess the way her boss, Baron, crumbles allows Collingswood more agency and to take her rightful place as lead officer. I would have liked a little more character development as well, maybe some more about her life outside the story would have helped? I did like the way she doubts though - she has a worry, then kind of goes 'fuck that, no time for that' and picks up her surly, quipping persona again. It's not like she uses that personality to fake it in the police and mask who she really is. She really is that Landan geezer type of lady, but she definitely sometimes squashes things down and goes out harder than she maybe feels. Does that make sense?

Creepy things: The Tattoo is mental right? I really loved when Paul escaped and we got to learn more about him, because that made the whole 'man trapped in skin of other man' thing extra freaky. I felt for Paul when he was that nameless, handcuffed man, but I was so involved in his story once we got a little bit more detail. I've never seen an author write 'man trapped as tattoo' before, have you? And I thought it was so inventive to have other people transformed into machines (also very disturbing) in the workshop.

We've got to talk about Goss and Subby, if we're talking creepy things right? Aren't they disturbing?
Maree: Generally, I'm not a big fan of minor character suddenly revealed as evil mastermind, but it sort of makes sense here, especially with the way Vardy is described in the first few chapters, which I JUST remembered. By the end of the book, though, I'd kind of forgotten that
and on first reading went ... 'Huh', because it can be kind of a lazy plot-point.

Vardy is definitely absent more than he's present as the book progresses, which does dovetail rather nicely.

The Tattoo thing is highly original - and creepy in the badwrong way. I love that we get to know the guy as well, and that he forms a kind of strange bond with Marge - both people who got drawn into the magic underworld - for want of a better term - more or less against their
will. The radio men - that's haunting for some reason. Moreso than Tattoo, for me. Not sure why.

Goss and Subby ... now there's a force of nature. Or, well, a force of evil, really. Like there's a certain ... purity? to their evil. I mean, they have no redeeming qualities. At all. And Goss EATS PEOPLE because he can.

They're obviously some kind of spiritual/demonic force, but I love how that backstory isn't explained - they're just there, and menacing which makes it all 100% more creepy and skin-shivery.

Aside from Awesome Dane, I think my favourite character was Wati. I loved how mundane some of his interactions were - from things like pez dispensers and Kirk dolls - because he was organinsing a strike while everyone else was waiting for the apocalypse. A STRIKE.

I ... have no point other than that - lol
Jodie: Yeah I'm not quite sure how to feel about Vardy's part in the ending, because of the Mieville wrote it. Is he really skillfully leading us down the wrong path, by removing Vardy from the story so much, or does he just need that final unguessable twist and hey, turns out it's Vardy? Like you said the way he acts at the beginning seems to argue for the first interpretation, the way his life is explained (he had a cult and lost it, now he's mad that he can't unknow that his cult's apocalypse was wrong, but every time he's asked to infiltrate a cult for just a few days he almost believes again). I think there's a moment about 3/4 in where he suddenly has to go, because he's 'on to something' that made me pause. Still...maybe we are undecided on this point?

I love Wati and the strike too. It's not the kind of thing you see in novels about sci-fi, or fantasy, even like urban fantasy with its combination of real life and magical happenings is surprisingly low on explicit moments of social protest. It reminded me a little bit of the 'Undead, but not Unpeople' protest in Pratchett's 'Reaper Man'. Actually quite a lot of this book reminded me of a more sweary Pratchett - Collingswood's weird sense of humour in what seem like totally horrific circumstances, some of the sci-fi details like the strike and the chameleon guy, which are so odd and out there, but also kind of adorable, the importance of myth creation and just the general tone which goes into humour and quiet story telling...what do you think?

I think Wati is probably one of the most well developed characters in 'Kraken', because like Dane (the Dane squee fest is coming soon, right?) he has a back story, connections and passions. I guess it makes sense that Billy doesn't seem to have all those things (although obviously he's passionate about science and his work at the museum) given what we know about how his real origins (born to someone human that we never meet) are kind of subsumed by the origins the museum's angel of memory believes in (the story he makes up about being the product of a 'gone wrong' first attempt at test tube birth). He's sort of birthed from a myth he makes real himself and as a result I guess it makes sense that his story in 'Kraken' keeps from describing anything that isn't relevant to that myth. Wait, does that make sense, do you think, or have I gone off on a weird ramble?

The woman who has been turned into a phone is the absolute creepiest, missing a soul creature that The Tattoo creates for me, but yes the radio people! They're just stripped of their humanity and when I first heard about the workshop I shuddered, because ugh. One of the most disturbing elements of crime novels is when a victim is taken away to be 'worked on', tortured and pulled apart and I guess that even though in this novel lots of the people who become machines supposedly go there willingly, that kind of idea echoes in this part of the Tattoo's enterprise.

Ugh Goss and Subby, the bit where he folds the guy in on himself. And the part where he eats Leon and you're like 'what just happened, surely there must be more to Leon's story than this, he'll be back' but he never is, he's just snuffed out. I really admire stories that do that, no backsies on death thing, even if they are pretty hard to take. Which I guess leads us nicely onto Dane the big goddamn (tragic) hero that he is...

Maree: I'm not sure either. I'm inclined to tilt towards clever, because Mieville IS clever and I want to believe - lol. But the jury is definitely still out on that one.

Wati and his strike is very Pratchett, I agree. I've only read about 10 Discworld novels (I'm slowly working my way through) and that whole ... magic in the mundane? thing is vintage Pratchett (as near as I can tell). Like Collingswood who - on the surface - is a somewhat irreverent cop, but there's clearly more because of her knack which is so very imperfect but so very Collingswood at the same time. And yes - Wati is very three-dimensional, if you'll excuse the pun - lol. He has almost no corporeal form at all, yet he's possibly the most well-realised character of the book.

Billy, in a way, (I think) remains a bit of a cypher. He has knack he didn't know about; like you say he was born from a myth in a way - and in the end he IS the myth, or the kraken, or the god, in a very real way and - that reminds me; I wanted to see more of the angel of memory because if you want a tragic figure ... I mean; getting smaller and smaller until it's really just this little, pathetic collection of bones ...

Okay. LET THE DANE-SQUEE BEGIN.

Jodie: (Ooo I love that last part of your e-mail, about the tragic smaller and smaller bottle figure, but am no longer resist the urge to squee, so...)

OMG DANE! I love Dane. He is a rogue soldier for the church of kraken for krakens sake - how was I ever going to resist? He really believes in his terribly strange faith and has feeeelings about the way to treat a kraken. And he has so much great back story, complete with stories about his sweet, ex-soldier of fortune grand dad. One of my favourite bits was when Dane told the story about his granddad asking him to pick his favourite saint - so oddly sweet and...full of male feelings.

We are agreed that Dane and Billy are total slash fodder right? And that Dane is ripped?;)

Maree: DANE!! Lol I think we contained our squee pretty well. How much do we
LOVE DANE???

He's so ... solid in his kraken-faith, once we realise he's actually on Billy's side and not a creepy cult stalker type.

You know he's totally built and can kill you five different ways with a toothpick ... uhm. I may be projecting, but he's definitely bamf and he believes in Billy so much and I can't NOT slash them, you know? Honestly I'm THISCLOSE to writing fic because they're so, so perfect for each other in a lot of ways.

And when Billy is like ... we're going to save him, and doesn't even hesitate ... yeah. I don't care what anyone says. That's true love.

Jodie: True, true love. (I feel like we need some appropriate slash gif here, but the best I could come up with was this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/blindfish/merlin1.jpg

OMG write the fic! I would read it, you would draw all these people into Mieville's weird world, they would get the book and then they would gaze around in confusion. 'Where have you brought us Maree? Why...why is that guy's back talking?!'

I expected to find Dane's faith kind of distancing as a girl with very few personal connections to religion (and one who thinks worshipping a squid god is one of the many definitions of weird), but like you say his faith is so set. And not in the typical obsessive, creepy way we tend to see in religious fanatic characters, even though he does some pretty extreme things for his cause (turning into a squid at the end and dying, was out there, but still so kind of heroic). Interesting that he's a warrior/worshipper of the old style, like a crusader but without the urge to convert...Idk how did you feel about Dane and his religion?

Maree: BOYFRIENDS. And I'm talking about both Billy and Dane and Gwaine and
Merlin - lol.

I was raised Catholic so I'm pretty comfortable with religious imagery. I love that Dane's ... I mean, he's a fanatic, in a way, he's definitely one of the faithful but he's not batshit crazy, if that makes sense. Like, his faith is one of his bedrocks and he never, ever questions it, which makes him just that much more awesome and bamf, somehow.

Because normally, the religious nutters in books are, well … nutters. But there's something pure about Dane's faith. He's what I imagine old-school crusaders (er, apart from the whole needing to convert the evil Jews thing obv) were like: he's a TRUE soldier of his lord. And his faith in Billy ... like, he's just THERE for Billy all the time and I can't describe the joy of it. And even BILLY knows how much Dane is there for him and I just. I NEED FIC OKAY.
Jodie: Yes one piece really isn’t enough. I wonder who we could pull in to write us more... Oh hi http://renay.dreamwidth.org/ renay! (YAY, RENAY - Maree)

In conclusion Dane is hot, Kraken is fantastic and it’s a good job neither of us has any regular slash averse sci-fi fanboy readers ;) Do we agree to meet back next year to hopefully continue our unabashed Mieville squeeing?

Your conclusions are correct. Slash-averse sci-fi fanboy readers don’t know what they’re missing :-)

Yessss. We have a date with Iron Council in March.

And in conclusion:

Reading, cross stitching and movies ...

2011-12-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

... and other things, most likely. I really should get back to reviewing books on here; it's become a bit of a weekly mind-dump. But then, I suppose, that's one of the functions of a blog. Hrm.

I guess you're stuck with my ramblings until I can be arsed writing reviews again. Sorry about that. :D

The good news is I have been reading. Little bit slow lately, but I have been reading. I just finished Kraken, and will be doing a co-review of it with Jodie from http://bookgazing.dreamwidth.org/ ... once we can stop dissecting all the things that are wrong with Merlin, that is. So there'll be a review of that. Stay tuned. ;)

So, some, or all of you might know that one of my more intermittent hobbies is cross stitching. I used to - mostly - make gifts for others, but lately I've turned to some old, unfinished WIPs of my own to try and get them finished.

I'm working a kind of half-assed rotation: http://crossstitch.about.com/od/glossa2/g/rotationdefinit.htm and I have these three projects on the go at the moment:

The one on the far left is my focus-piece, meaning I work on that one in between rounds of the others. If that makes sense -lol. At the moment I'm mainly working on them on Saturday nights when my friend and I have our TV/movie-watching dates, and on Sunday nights which is movie-night for me.

It's relaxing and makes me feel productive - lol.

Anyway, here's a list of the movies I've watched so far on Sunday nights:

A Single Man
The Runaways
Inception
Murder by Death
Centurion
Designing Woman
The Picture of Dorian Grey
Sucker Punch
The Last Station
The Ghost Writer
Romeo + Juliet
The Tempest

It's a nice way to end the weekend - watching a movie and doing a little stitching.

As for reading; right now I'm reading a Van Gogh biography that's the same size as my head, and Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell. Both very good books, but I need something to lighten the load a little bit - lol.

So. How's everyone? What's going on with you? :D

Nano and things

2011-10-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

I'm nano-ing this year. For those of you going ... what? All is explained at the website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm there. Or something - lol.

I was reading The Honourable Schoolboy but started to get a bit bogged down and it was slow going, so I've abandoned it for now. I'm still picking at the Iliad, though.

So now I'm reading Kraken by China Mieville. It's another co-read with Jodie from http://bookgazing.dreamwidth.org/127713.html - we read Mieville's The City & The City (BREACH) together last year and had fun. Kraken is about a giant squid that goes missing, which - you can't really go wrong can you with a book like that. PLUS it has an awesome purple cover, and ... I haven't had enough sleep, clearly.

Anyways. Readathon was fun, yes? I'm thinking of maybe being a reader for the next one but then I get conflicted because Readathon is always short of cheerleaders but I'd love to do one where I just ... read, and eat. I shall ponder.

Readathon mini-challenge

2011-10-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

*\o/*!!! I'm only cheering this year, and it's 1am here so I'll be leaving some comments on my readers' list and then going to bed - lol.

BUT I wanted to do the first meme anyway:

1)Where are you reading (cheering) from today? - My living room/Middle Earth :D
2)Three random facts about me… - I turned 40 this year, we have 10 cats and I bloody hate getting caught in the rain.
3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours? - No books, but I have readers H-J to cheer for for Team Fruitloops #cheerfroot on twitter :-)
4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)? I'd like to get around as many blogs as I can ...
5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time? Have fun! And switch off your word verification <3 :D *\o/*

Readathon! Vlog! Food p*rn! Oh my!

2011-10-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

Um

2011-10-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

Hi.

I've just sat here for the past 20 minutes not typing anything. Go me?

Um um um.

Oh!! Readathon this weekend!

Are you reading? Are you cheering? Are you saying ... what? http://24hourreadathon.com/ is where you need to be for all your information. I'm cheering this year. I've tried doing both in the past and it always goes south, so I'm just cheering. Plus there's always way more readers than cheerleaders so ... I don't have a good way to end that sentence. /o\

I've hit fifty books read for the year which is some sort of milestone yes?

I watched the 2009 film of Dorian Grey last night. It was ... interesting. Unfortunately, at the crucial moment, the portrait rather reminded me of the caretaker from the Harry Potter films ...

This is not a post ...

2011-10-10T01:51:00.000-07:00

... I mean, it was meant to be but I don't really have anything to post about. So here, have a gratuitous picture of Patrick instead:

I'm still struck by wonder, sometimes. I mean look at him ...

I'm reading, and I'm keeping up my Sunday night movie thing that I started a few weeks ago. I'm reading The Iliad, and The Honourable Schoolboy. I watched Centurion which is one of those EVERYBODY DIES movies, which I've decided that I hate. Urgh. Michael Fassbender was running around early Britain as a Roman soldier, being tracked by the Pict, or something. But. Everybody dies. (Except Michael Fassbender. I don't even know.)

I've made my real-life friend watch Sherlock, and we're two episodes in :-) We've started gathering at her house of a Saturday night with DVD, snacks and cross-stitching in hand. It's rather fun and after Sherlock, we're going to rewatch the first series of Downton Abbey.

Oh, hey, look it's sort of a post after all!

poke poke Is this thing on?

2011-10-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

Heee. I've already used that pic over on the #spbkchat blog (which is here by the way, let's not pass up the chance for a little bit of self-promotion: http://spbkchat.blogspot.com/) But meerkats are funny and make me smile and I'm too lazy to find another pic, so here you are. ;p

Now, let's see ... since last time, I've finished three books - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre (fantastic but slightly confusing); Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (preferred American Gods but it's still good. I mean. Gaiman) and Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Heard (loved. LOVED.)

I went to What's Your Number, which made me somewhat ragey with the slut-shaming and the prevalent 1950s attitude that's in ALL THE ROMANTIC COMEDIES RIGHT NOW but Martin Freeman was in it for five minutes for no good reason, so there was that.

Anyway.

What's good is this: http://24hourreadathon.com/ Readathon!! In a few short weeks! I've taken the sensible route this time (lol) and I've just signed up to be a cheerleader, not a reader as well. Cheerleading is fun, it helps you lose weight and helps old ladies across the road. Well. It's definitely the first thing, and you should sign up because there are always way more readers than cheerleaders and readathon readers need all the *\o/* they can get! :D http://24hourreadathon.com/2011/09/25/cheerleader-sign-ups-october-11-read-a-thon/

I will - probably - do a food porn vlog still because how could I not? It's readathon!

Minireadathon

2011-09-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

I can't remember how they started, exactly, but periodically Nat from http://www.inspringitisthedawn.com/ and I indulge in a mini-readathon.

Basically it means read as much as you can/want over about 12 hours, and tweet about it periodically. There are other regulars, or semi-regulars who join in, and it's fun.

It's all about reading, catching up and sharing what you're reading.

We're having another one tomorrow, of a sort. If you feel like spending your Sunday (or Saturday, depending on where you are) reading, or if you have time for an hour or two, join in! :-)

Reading and things

2011-09-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

I'm sure some people remember this from ... the start of last year. And possibly this: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-january-do-you-know-where-your.html (NB: he looks like this now >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>)

Anyway. I was possibly the slowest read-along-er ever but I finally finished Return of the King today, loaded up with a cold, and a four year old who was alternately excited about his new telescope and howling because he knocked his noggin on the coffee table.

In between the natural chaos that a four year old brings, I travelled to Mount Doom with Frodo and Sam, and to Gondor and to Rivendell and the Shire ...

There's something about LOTR that makes me ... nostalgic? every time I read it. Partly because I first read it at 14 and partly because the trilogy itself is nostalgic - so many references to the glory days of Middle Earth, which makes that teeny tiny space inside that you never, ever acknowledge ache just a little bit.

ROTK is my favourite of the series, with the last line from Sam "Well, I'm back," summing up so very very much. And. Just. Still love it.

I'm also reading The Emerald Atlas, Book 1 of The Books of Beginning. Should hopefully finish that this weekend too. I'm enjoying it - a lot - but the tagline "Be the first to read the book that will define a generation!" (it's a review copy I got through work) is a little bit ... ... desperate?

Everyone everywhere will be looking for the new Harry Potter now that all the books and all the movies are done, but ... don't do that. Let your book stand on its own and be its own awesome self. It's better that way. :-)

Didn't go to the movies this week; there wasn't really anything on I wanted to see; plus I have a cold. Well, mostly I have the blocked nose from hell which is making me tired and thirsty all the time.

So no vlog this week - the last thing people need is to watch me sniffing for 10 minutes. Maybe vlog next week ...

RIP VI and other stuff

2011-09-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

That angel makes me think of Blink, my favourite Dr Who episode. *Shiver*.

RIP time again already! I haven't signed up (yet - lol) but I do love Carl's challenges: http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/r-eaders-i-mbibing-p-eril-vi#more-3880

(Aside: It's entirely possible I completed Once Upon a Time this year without noticing. Hrm.)

So I shall do what I always do. I will dither. I will make an unrealistic list of books and ... possibly do a vlog. Who knows?

Anyway. I read One Day by David Nicholls this week and I was .... ... underwhelmed. I mean, it was fine, the story was interesting but I found the characters really unengaging and a bit two-dimensional. Especially Dexter. I honestly kept waiting for him to stop acting like a dropkick and deal with his drinking and it sort of ... didn't happen. I'm genuinely puzzled by all the fuss over it, but maybe that's just me being picky.

For now I'm re-reading Return of the King, which is a very, very long hangover from the LOTR readalong of early last year. *ahem*. Aside from that, I don't know what's next, as ROTK is very much a pick-up/put-down book for me because I've read it so many times.

I did start reading A Study in Scarlet again, after many years. Anyone who knows me will know I've developed a slightly unhealthy obsession with the BBC's updated Sherlock, so I've decided to go back to the source material.

On Thursday I went to see Hanna, and it was amazing. I wasn't sure at all what to expect - it's about a 16 year old girl who's been raised in isolation by her father to be an assassin but it's fantastic. Saoirse Ronan is amazing and the soundtrack - by The Chemical Brothers - is fantastic. As soon as I'm financially stable (ie payday) I'm buying the soundtrack.

My plan for the rest of Sunday is to tuck up on the couch and read. Ah ... Sundays ...

A post about nothing

2011-08-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

Have some penguins. I have no idea where that pictures is from, by the way. I just like it. :-)

I was mentally going over my week, but nothing outstanding or extraordinary happened. I went to work, I came home. Went to see Crazy Stupid Love on Thursday, which was a bit 'eh' for me. Too much Steve Carrell and not enough Emma Stone. Also Ryan Gosling is kind of funny-looking.

Other than that, it was business as usual. Except I seem to have caught Patrick's cold, which is fun times.

I finished a book this week, which I always celebrate as a major achievement - lol. Anyway, I read The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino - a thriller set in Japan. It was an interesting read, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending - whether I liked it or not.

So now I'm in that strange gray area, where I don't know what I want to read next ...

2011-08-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Finished a couple of books last week - A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin and Finder's Shore by Anna Mackenzie.

LOVED A Game of Thrones. Seriously good stuff, honestly.

I liked Finder's Shore - third book in the Sea-wreck Stranger trilogy but I always wanted those books to be a little bit longer. They're all about 220 pages each and I think the worldbuilding and backstories would have benefited from being a little bit longer. Also all of the conflicts were resolved super-quick which made for slightly unsatisfying reading.

I enjoyed the series, I just wanted a bit more depth.

A Game of Thrones on the other hand, is nothing BUT depth and I love it. I'm not ready to take on A Clash of Kings yet - I still feel a little bit like I need to lie down in a dark room bathing my temples with lavendar - lol. There's just so much in the book - a workmate of mine called it a soap opera and it sort of is, but you know, with swords. And incest. And dragons. Which make everything better.

I met Nicky aka @stormfilled yesterday - she's touring New Zealand and having a great time. We went to Zookeepers - a local restaurant for hot chocolate and ended up there for dinner as well because we were talking so long - lol. Twas a great night.

We were going to go for coffee and bookshopping this morning, but Nicky's laundry queue at her motel had other ideas. So this afternoon we went to the local museum and art gallery, to see the tuataras, which I've blogged about before: http://daysmeanmore.blogspot.com/2010/11/november-catch-up.html (well, sort of). And oh ... it's been less than a year since we visited the museum - I thought it had been two! Time flies :-)

They were out in force today, because it was sunny, and it's always awesome, seeing dinosaurs in action. Well, sort of action. We roamed the museum, which has definitely undergone an upgrade since I was last there, and had coffee. Twas a good afternoon, and it was awesome meeting someone from my twitter feed in real life. :-)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-08-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

Your meme is here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I had hoped to finish A Game of Thrones by today, but I have about 100 pages to go. I'm still loving it but I don't think I"ll plunge right into A Clash of Kings just yet. It makes me want to lie down in a dark room with lavendar to bathe my temples - lol.

Next up, I think, might be The Poisonwood Bible. I'm not sure. We went to the library on Saturday and yes, I know, ban, but I promised Patrick we'd take him to the children's library and Jeremy said he didn't need to get any books, so what's a girl to do?

Exactly.

I've had The Poisonwood Bible for a while, and it's from my TBR so I shall try and be good. :-)

Happy reading.

Dad's chair

2011-08-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

The chair in the photo belonged to my Dad. It was his office chair years ago when he worked for the Railways. I think he brought it home with him when he retired.

Mum kept it after she moved to her flat, and we used to prop Patrick in there to feed him when we'd visit Mum at lunchtime. It doesn't look it from that photo but it's actually pretty good for feeding a baby. (Not a newborn, obviously, but a baby able to sit propped up).

Hilites used to sleep on that chair, and as you can see, it's been well appropriated by our other cats (Piper and Misty in this photo). We ended up with the chair because no one else seemed to want it and I have memories tied to it. And, okay, it's kind of ugly but I couldn't stand the thought of it going into the garage sale.

So here it is - the Chair. With bonus extra cats.

Things and ... things ;p

2011-08-10T04:03:00.000-07:00

I have random things colliding in my head, and since this is my space, I'm going to share them with the interwebz. ;p

I went to Rise of the Planet of the Apes last Thursday after work. It wasn't bad. Certainly no Planet of the Apes, circa Charlton Heston but it was better than the remake with Mark Wahlberg. (I'm sorry, Tim Burton, I love you. But Planet of the Apes was a mistake.)

Anyway, I went on my own about 4pm (was parolled from work early because of working overtime a couple of days before that) and there were hardly any people there. Just the way I like it - lol. Except when I want to be in a theatre full of people, like for Harry Potter. I love movies, and it's something I want to dig more into, if that makes sense. My backlog of unread Empire magazines would agree with me ;p

I managed to get through reading Order of the Phoenix - it's not my favourite Harry Potter - it's too long, for one thing and it's a little ... indulgent? I mean, I understand that teenage boys can be angry but seriously OotP gives me a headache.

Anyway. Recently I also finished The Shattering by Karen Healey, which was fantastic. I'd do a review for it, because it's a Kiwi YA novel, and I still have my challenge in the back of my mind, but ... eh. I can't be arsed. It's really good, though. You should read it if you come across it. :D

I also read Elfland by Freda Warrington, which I loved. I randomly remembered, when I saw the book in the library, how much I loved The Court of the Midnight King, which is an alternate history/fantasy novel set during the reign of ... Richard II? III? Anyway, I loved it. Elfland was really good too, but I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing a penis described as a 'wand'.

I came home from work early yesterday, because I thought I was going to pass out at my desk. Somewhat embarrassingly, it was simply exhaustion: I went to bed, crashed for a few hours, and felt rather better. That'll teach me to think I can go to bed at midnight, get up at 7, work an 8 hour day and be there for Patrick at the end of it all ... I'm not Superwoman, who knew?

So when I got over what I call my Jane Austen vapours, I picked up A Game of Thrones. And. Like. Why didn't I know? I mean, I'm not even quarter of the way in but holy shit. Holy shit. I'm loving it. Loving loving loving it.

You know how every single fantasy novel ever gets compared to Lord of the Rings for no good reason? Like ... for me, Lord of the Rings is in a class all of its own. Yet, the comparisons happen over and over again and by now they're just ... tired. But. A Game of Thrones is the first fantasy novel I've read where the comparison is valid. And I'm so very late to the party.

All I want to do is lie down on my couch with a cat or seven and snacks in arm's reach and read. I love that feeling.

Randomness of the day: I checked my cellphone at lunchtime. (That's not the randomness, obviously.) I had a text from my brother and sister in law saying they had the share of the money from the garage sale of Mum's things. I had no idea the garage sale had even been held. I'm fine with it; I got what I wanted of Mum's things before the funeral, so it's not that I'm upset about that. I'm ... amused that I heard about it after the fact. And slightly surprised that my share was $200. Nice, no? And yes. This is how my family communicates. When we communicate - lol.

Work tomorrow, and lunch for a co-worker who's going on maternity leave. Then I'm going to Cowboys and Aliens. :D

... Wow. tl;dr I went to the new Apes movie and had a Jane Austen moment. Read some books, got a little money.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-08-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I finally finished Order of the Phoenix. I struggle with that one because it's not my favourite Harry Potter and it's just so damn long! I just bought them all in Bloomsbury's lovely new imprint, so I've been treating myself to a re-read.

I like to take a break between Harrys, so I'm deciding right now what to read next.

I'm having a self-imposed library amnesty for the month of August, which is designed to make me read from my own bookshelves for a while. So far I've taken all my books back and haven't got any new ones out.

It also helped that I was mired in finishing OotP - lol.

Anyway. I've pulled three books from the bookshelf, and they're hanging out on my nightstand, along with Return of the King, which I've been meaning to re-read since ... last year. Erm.

The other books are Game of Thrones by George R R Martin, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and The Children's Book by A S Byatt. So ... one of those.

Oh! And my at-work breaktime read this week is Finder's Shore by Anna Mackenzie - book three in the Sea Wreck Stranger trilogy, and a Kiwi YA novel ... my poor challenge D: http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ (I need to work on that).

Happy reading!

Era two?

2011-08-07T02:01:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about making a radical change. Shifting to wordpress, changing my blog name, my twitter name ... basically everything that people have come to associate with me (I'm assuming) during four years of blogging.

Then I actually had a decent night's sleep. (Long story. Suffice it to say that Patrick started morning kindy the week after I started working days permanently ... we're all tired and I'm not a morning person.)

I thought about what it would really mean - to me - to give this blog up and ultimately discovered I couldn't do it.

This has been my "home" for nearly four years and it turns out I'm a sentamentalist. Who knew? ;P

So. Anyway. This is a very roundabout and rambly way of saying that I'm not going anywhere, I guess? And also that I'm hoping to get back into regular blogging/reviewing from this week.

Hoping - lol.

Thank you, everyone, by the way, for your kind words about Mum, and about blogging/tweeting. I haven't replied to all the comments but I wanted you to know I read them all, and appreciate them very much.

Forward, yes?

Things and life

2011-07-24T01:53:00.000-07:00

That's my mother, to your left. Just after she graduated from nursing school, I believe. She was rather pretty in her heyday, don't you think?

And a couple of other pix - me with Mum a few years ago, and Mum with Patrick last year, reading to him. :-)

She died on July 4. I don't want to talk too much about that here, really, but it's a sad, strange and surreal thing, losing your mother.

Especially since she was always such a vivid and energetic woman, right up until she had heart-valve replacement surgery last year. The surgery seemed to steal something vital from her that just never came back.

I have been reading, I just haven't been blogging. I'm not sure whether that's really going to change in the near future or not. I'm perfectly okay with not reviewing what I'm reading at the moment. I love being a books blogger, even though I'm really only ever on the fringes of the community, but right now ... right now it's not on my list of Things That Matter, if that makes sense.

My hours at work changed, and I'm working days five days a week as opposed to two days/five nights that I was doing.

Work has changed in more than one way, but it's a little convoluted to explain. After two weeks of it, though, I'm settling in okay. I just have to get used getting up earlier in the morning - lol.

I had a peek back on my blog, and I haven't posted a review since May. H'm. I need to think on this a bit. I want to keep the blog going, but the question now is how?

*adopts thinky pose*

Some things

2011-06-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

Lol I had a whole post in my head, I would swear I did. I wonder where it went ...

Anyway.

Thing the first: As some of you may or may not know I'm reading along with Care of http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com/ for Nat's Murakami challenge - http://murakamichallenge.blogspot.com/ - we're reading The Windup Bird Chronicle.

I can say that Care is well ahead of me at this stage and that I have just read one of the grossest things I have ever read in a book. Apart from that it's good. Engaging and quirky and smart which I like because it's engaging my dusty brain cells - lol.

Next month is a readalong of The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simmons with Marg of http://readingadventures.blogspot.com/ and Bree at http://1girl2manybooks.wordpress.com/

Good times!!! :D :D :D

In August I'm toying with doing an Austen in August thing. Mostly because I want to re-read Persuasion - lol. I'll muse on that one, though.

I also want to have a month where I only read from my own shelves - so a kind of four-week amnesty on library books. Mmmmaybe. :D

I tumbl, and vlog

2011-06-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

I started a tumblr. Tis here: http://janesdays.tumblr.com/

There's no content as yet, and it's designed to be a weight loss/reading type deal. I'm joining Amanda's-formerly-of-the-zen-leaf 52-52-52 challenge - 52 books, and 52 pounds in 52 weeks. I'm a little late joining because I wanted to get my first week's food sorted first, but my plan is to make the best start I can on Monday. :D

And now, a vlog. (Sidenote: yes, I did call my own tumblr jane says on there rather than janesdays. I don't know what to tell you ...)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-05-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a week or four since I did this - I had about nine or 10 days where I didn't pick up a book at all but I'm back into the reading swing of things again now.

Your meme is here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

On the pile, as it were, this week are The Demi-monde: Winter by Ron Rees, Tender Morsels by Margot Langan and The Larnachs by Owen Marshall.

I have all three started, and The Larnachs is my 'at-work' read during break times, so it's just a matter of finding time for the other two - lol.

Happy reading! :-)

The Silent Land review

2011-05-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

Jake and Zoe are celebrating their 10-year marriage with a skiing holiday in the Pyrenees.

They're out on the slopes when an avalanche strikes, burying them both in the snow.

They dig out, and head back to their hotel in the village, only to find it completely abandoned. They're freaked out at first, naturally, especially because they don't seem to be able to leave the village. Every time they try, they end up back at the hotel.

Jake and Zoe come to the same revelation at different times _ that they died in the avalanche, and are in some kind of afterlife.

I love Graham Joyce. I possibly mentioned this last year when I read Memoirs of a Master Forger, but I love him. He writes these amazing, short novels that are just. Incredible reads. He packs so much in and nothing is wasted.

The Silent Land is no exception. Jake and Zoe's initial puzzlement over their situation, and their inevitable acceptance of the inevitable unfolds in such a way that you feel like you're right there along with them. The pacing is perfect and the revelations, while not surprising for readers I don't think, evolve naturally for Jake and Zoe. Joyce doesn't assume he's springing any surprises on us, but at the same time, when Jake and Zoe reach the same conclusions, you feel deeply for them.

They're deeply flawed, deeply human, and very much in love.

Jake and Zoe find themselves reflecting on the nature of love and of loss, as they both recall the loss of their respective fathers, and how very different the afterlife is.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

However, and perhaps most heartbreakingly, it turns out that only one of them is actually dead ...

City of Fallen Angels review

2011-05-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that no one writes trilogies any more? Every single series seems to be at least four or five books. Back in my day ... wait, never mind. Just get off my lawn.

Anyway. The Mortal Instruments series started out as a trilogy, and things were wrapped up fairly neatly _ I thought _ at the end of book three.

However, that hasn't stopped Cassandra Clare from starting a prequel series to The Mortal Instruments, and adding to the series itself with City of Fallen Angels.

I digress.

City of Fallen Angels is pretty good. I had some issues with the original trilogy but writing-wise Clare seems to have hit her stride a bit, and it's very readable. It took me a day or so, and it was partly because it was easier to just keep reading than to put it down, but part of it was definitely I wanted to know what happened next.

Clary is training to be a Shadowhunter, she believes she has the most awesome boyfriend ever in Jace and all the things seem to be going well. Until Jace seems to withdraw from Clary, and Shadowhunters start turning up dead.

Well, you can't have everything, now, can you?

So there's fighting, and more worldbuilding, and a fair amount of explaining. (I read this a few weeks ago so forgive the sketchy review), and everything SEEMS to be all right in the end ... stay tuned.

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay

Life, and things

2011-04-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

So it's back to work on Monday. It's been kind of strange being off like this.

I was meant to take leave, starting week after next, but instead I took this week and last week as annual leave, because I have a lot that I still need to use up.

It hasn't felt like a 'holiday' as such, because mostly it's been about recovery. Not that I feel as though I've had a lot to recover from as such _ the wonders of laprascopic surgery, I guess _ but I have been getting randomly tired in the middle of the day sometimes, which is frustrating.

The rest of me feels fine, and I have many, many painkillers left over. I tend to bounce back pretty fast, so the tiredness thing (apparently a lingering after-effect of anasthetic) is kind of frustrating. But if that's the worst I have to deal with? I'll take it.

I still can't pick Patrick up _ I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting for two weeks post-surgery and he's nearly four, so not exactly a lightweight. He's rolled with the whole thing pretty well, though, and we've both been home because kindy has been closed for the school holidays.

So we're both back into it on Monday - lol.

Reading-wise ... after my book-fest in the hospital, I've finished two books since I've been home _ Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I've reviewed here, and City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare _ which is a work review book, so I need to do that review before I do this review. (That sounds strange. If they're review books from work I write two reviews _ a slightly more ... formal? one for work, and my usual fangirly/flaily/incoherent one for here).

I'm trying to get back into what I would call a 'normal' routine. Part of that is going back to work, and trying to beat down my lazy gene - lol. We'll see how that goes ...

Tigana review

2011-04-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

NB: This re-read was inspired by Memory's readalong at http://xicanti.livejournal.com/ Er ... I didn't really partcipate in the readalong. But I DID read the book :-)

Erm, possibly spoilers?

I apologise in advance. I don’t expect this review to be coherent, or insightful.

Tigana is one of my favourite books, ever, and I don’t even try to be objective when it comes to my favourites. J

Anyway.

Tigana is that rare thing – a stand-alone fantasy novel.

It’s set in a medieval-style world, ruled by two Tyrants – invaders and occupiers of the provinces of the area known as the Palm.

There’s an uneasy sort of balance, with the Tyrants – Alberico and Brandin – having control of four each of the provinces, with one maintaining a kind of unsteady independence.

Sigh. There’s so much in Tigana that it’s going to be hard to know what to leave out.

Okay.

Focus.

The province known as Lower Corte is the meanest and poorest of all the provinces – because its being punished for a great loss.

And that’s what Tigana is really about, for me. It’s about the extremes of loss. (Aside: You know how The Lord of the Rings references the past all the time? I'm not making a comparison, but for me, Tigana had a very similar sort of feel. It's nostalgia, but it's lanced through with incredible pain. Aside over.)

During his first invasion of the Palm, the Tyrant Brandin lost his son, Stevan. In his grief and rage, he punished the province of Tigana as harshly as he could – by removing the very memory of it from the land itself.

The only people who remember Tigana at all – or can even hear its name – are those who were born there.

Alessan – last remaining prince of Tigana – has been working for nearly 20 years, seeking those people out, waiting for the right time to strike back at Brandin and reclaim his rightful place in the world.

Tigana is one of those deep-thinking books, that you occasionally have to put down – even though you don’t want to – because you have to digest what’s going on. There are layers, and layers, and layers.

There’s the profound loss of Tigana, and the rootlessness of the people left behind. There’s the loss of Brandin – who is a Tyrant, and a cold evil bastard yes, but his grief for his son is deep and real.

There’s the many and varied losses of the people Alessan gathers to help him regain their home – even of the youngest members of the quest, Devin and Catriana, who are too young to remember Tigana, but can hear the name, because they were both born there.

The loss that breaks my heart the most is that of Dianora – a member of Brandin’s saishan (harem) who does remember Tigana, and who vows to make Brandin pay for her loss. However, Dianora reckons without her own treacherous heart.

Sigh. I’ve made it sound like one long sob-fest, and it’s really not. It’s amazing and as near to perfect as it can be without making you go blind from staring at the sun for too long.

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-04-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

Back to normal(ish)!

I finished Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay today. It's a re-read but it's one of my favourite books, and it was great to re-visit :-)

Also on the pile this week, are Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith, and, finally, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I've started both of them, so it's just a matter of which one gets picked up first - probably Strangers on a Train, because it's shorter - lol.

Happy reading!

Just add ...

2011-04-23T04:45:00.000-07:00

... well then.

I suppose I should start with my recent health whatsits and go from there.

Uhm. Last week-ish I went home early from work with a bad backache that I put down to lugging a box of paper upstairs for the printer.

Not so, and next day I was battling a gallstone attack. All I had in the way of pain relief was ibuprofen, which would work short-term, but then the pain would come back. Normally, for attacks, I had codiene, but of course, I'd run out.

So Wednesday was no fun, and then it was Thursday. Now, for me, gallstone pain was always a heavy kind of ache that felt like someone had placed a hefty weight just under my ribs, that they moved around for shits and giggles.

The pain I felt on Thursday morning, in my left side, was sharp. So, for me, not gallstone pain. Jeremy took me to A&E (ER) and that's where the fun really began.

After being poked for a bit by a lovely doctor, I had painkillers and blood tests, and a long-ish wait. I sent Jeremy and Patrick home - no point all of us sitting there looking at each other while I waited for the test results. (I'm skimming a bit because this is a ridiculously long story already - lol).

So I dozed and nurses brought me water, and the doctor poked more holes in my arms (she was lovely but insisted on doing her own bloodwork. Honestly, for that, give me a nurse any day) while I waited for the results.

Which were ... somewhat unexpected. I had pancreatitis. The doc had mentioned it as a possibility but it pretty much slipped out of my head until she very cheerfully told me that yes, I did have pancreatitis.

Oh.

What happened was that one of my teenie eenie gallstones (I have them in a specimen jar. They were WEE) had travelled down my bile duct towards the pancreas, thereby giving me pancreatitis.

What this meant was I had to be admitted. There's something in the blood (I think - please excuse my shaky anatomy - lol) called amylase. My amylase numbers were high, and they had to come down before the docs could do what they needed to get rid of the pancreatitis: take out my gallbladder.

The plan was for me to have the operation on the Monday. So there I was, stuck in the hospital from Thursday, so what's a girl to do?

Read a lot - lol. I read five books over the course of the time I was there:

Harry Potter 2 & 3
The Two Towers (yes, I finally finished it - lol)
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
Full Dark No Stars

I'm ... not going to write reviews for those. I have six or seven books I should review but it's really not going to happen. I'm a bit too far behind. So whatever book I finish next, I'm just going to pick up from there.

Anyway. Fast-forward to Monday. I was pretty grumpy by then, having been nil-by-mouth for several hours already. I was sort of slotted to have my surgery in the morning, but because of the list I was on, it was a case of when there was a space available. And the girl in the bed next to me had a burst appendix.

So.

Monday afternoon, it happened. And honestly, it felt like I blinked. The anaethetist gave me something to relax, then knocked me out and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. Little dizzy, and spaced on morphine, but that was about as bad as it got. (Unlike the poor girl next to me who struggled with pain and vomiting before and after her surgery. I felt bad for her.)

Next day, the doc and his minions/lackeys came around, and I was declared fit to travel. Yes! Home!!!

And that's where I've been since - lol. I got a prescription for painkillers, but the pain seems to have largely disappeared (yay). So I've been trying to take it as easy as I can, which sometimes isn't that easy with a nearly four-year-old running around, but Jeremy's been helping as much as he can.

So. That's, uh, the saga I guess?

This is also a way of me starting to ... integrate? the blog a bit more. I want to post more than just book reviews and book-related things. But we'll see how that goes - lol.

Readathon - final meme

2011-04-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

It's over for another year!

Final meme:
1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
From about 5pm-ish my time. I had a moment. For about three hours.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
Um. H'm. I only read one book - lol. But twas a good one - The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie. Short, too. I started on Chamber of Secrets, so I'll say Harry Potter because they're easy to read.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
The only thing is what I said earlier: to maybe put up the cheerleader sign-up post a bit earlier, in order for pimpage to happen. Otherwise, awesome as always :-)

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
All of the things :D

5. How many books did you read?
One

6. What were the names of the books you read?
The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie

8. Which did you enjoy least?
N/A

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
Enjoy! It's meant to be fun for the Cheerleaders too. :-)

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
Very likely but I think just as a cheerleader. It got a bit chaotic trying to do all the things :-)

Bring on October!!! *\o/*

Readathon mini-challenge

2011-04-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

This hour's mini challenge is from here: http://vampsrus.blogspot.com/2011/04/hour-15-mini-challenge.html

I chose I Will Survive, for Lord Voldemort. Originally performed, of course, by Gloria Gaynor

For your entertainment, the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert version:

Readathon mid-event meme:

2011-04-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

1. What are you reading right now?
I'm about to start Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

2. How many books have you read so far?
One - The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna McKenzie

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
The Anansi Boys, if I make it that far

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?
I thought about it, but in the end, no

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
Nearly four-year-old son, so yes. I just try to let the hurricane wash over me - lol

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
Nothing so far, but there's 12 hours to go ...

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
The only thing I would suggest is to maybe put the cheerleader sign-up post up a bit earlier. Readathon is always short of cheerleaders, and if the sign-up post is a little earlier - say, a couple of weeks out - then there's more time for pimpage! Otherwise, no. Loving it as always :D

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?
Nothing so far

9. Are you getting tired yet?
Not yet ...

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?
Have fun!! And this little guy: *\o/* makes a great addition to a cheerleading comment :-)

Readathon mini-challenge

2011-04-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Oops I was supposed to re-create the cover for this mini-challenge! Instead, I went with creative re-interpreting.

The Sea-wrecked Stranger, by Anna McKenzie. (The stranger is played by Spotty Wot. He's a method actor.)

Readathon - a little bit about me ...

2011-04-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

Hour 1, officially. And ... I fell asleep on the couch - lol. Anyways, six things about me ...

1)Where are you reading from today?
Invercargill, New Zealand

2)Three random facts about me…
Is there anything left you all don't already know about me ... I can't think of anything right now

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
Four

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
Nope. Finishing a book would be nice, considering I already fell asleep ...

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?
Relax, and have fun!

Readathon vlog

2011-04-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

And we're off! I"m starting a little early because of my timezone, so here is a vlog for you all:

Once Upon a Time list/vlog

2011-04-02T03:29:00.000-07:00

NB: I got the South Pacific Book Chat hashtag wrong. It's #spbkchat :-)

Er. Enjoy? (it's a little rambly and there are bonus accidental cat cameos)

To Have or Have Not review

2011-03-30T01:37:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure: To Have and Have Not became a did not finish for me.

I was about 50 pages before the end of the book, pretty well on track, but story-wise I suddenly ran into a brick wall, and it couldn't be done. Have you ever had that happen?

I wasn't exactly enjoying the book before that, but it was readable enough, and I wanted to get it done in time for my review today for http://classics.rebeccareid.com/ but all of a sudden, it took a turn that I didn't understand. I don't mind unexpected turns in books. In fact, I like them a lot. But when it's a turn I don't understand, then I lose my way a bit. Well, more than a bit, here.

Ever since I read A Moveable Feast - and loved it - http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2008/09/moveable-feast-by-ernest-hemingway.html I've been wanting to read Hemingway's novels.

Having battled my way through two thirds of To Have and Have Not, now I'm not so sure.

Anyway. Harry Morgan is a boat captain who runs smuggled goods between Cuba and the United States. As the book opens, he's just turned down a job of smuggling people rather than goods. As he finishes his meal in the cafe they met, the men who wanted to hire him are gunned down in the street.

From there ... okay, To Have and Have Not is probably one of the most disjointed novels I've read. Or two-thirds read. It jumps around points of view, from first person Harry, to third person Harry, to third person other characters, back to Harry ...

Apparently Hemingway revised the novel several times, and it's easy to see in its choppy narrative and barely-there plot.

The lost generation could, perhaps have not found this one again. ;)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-03-28T01:33:00.000-07:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I'm still working on Tigana, ostensibly for http://xicanti.livejournal.com/'s readalong but ... I"m just reading the book and not actually taking part in the readalong. Sigh.

I have read Tigana before and hands down it's one of my favourite novels. I think I may be enjoying it more second time around.

Also on the pile this week is To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway, for the http://classics.rebeccareid.com/

How's your week going? What are you reading?

Readathon!

2011-03-12T02:30:00.000-08:00

The 24 hour readathon is on April 9! Are you reading? Sign up here: http://24hourreadathon.com/ Are you cheerleading? Hosting a mini-challenge? (Sign-ups for those will be along soon, according to the blog). And if not ... why not?

If you don't already know - and if you do - the readathon is awesome. It's basically a weekend (24 hours, I know, but time zones) of reading and cheering and eating and flailing.

Way back in 2008, the late, great Dewey started the 24 hour readathon. Dewey was big on community-building in the books blogosphere - she also instigated the Weekly Geeks: http://www.weeklygeeks.com/ and many, many, many other things. Other bloggers knew her better but, for me, she was the one who drew me into the books blogging community and made me feel a part of it.

I always fail at the readathon. Always. I read maybe one chapter of a book, but I sign up to read anyway. And to cheerlead, which I fail slightly less at, because readathon is about all of us getting together and making connections across the blogosphere as it is about reading.

You know you want to ... ;)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-03-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I've had a productive week, for me. I finished True Grit by Charles Portis and August by Bernard Beckett. Now I'm reading The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. The latter two books are by Kiwi authors but don't count for the Kiwi YA challenge as they're not YA novels.

The Scarecrow is a bit of a classic, though I've never read it before, and opens with the famous (in New Zealand anyway) line "The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut." I'm only 30 or so pages in, but so far so good.

The other book I'm eyeing this week is Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn. Reading The Raven's Heart last week put me in the mood for some royal historical non-fiction. It's a bit of a doorstop, though, so we'll see how I go.

What are you reading?

Short reviews

2011-03-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

Somehow I got six books behind with my blog reviews. So these are ~~going~~ meant to be short-shorts.

The Screwed-up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson:
This was kindly sent to me by Chris of http://www.dreamstuffbooks.com/blog/ Charlie is a 17-year-old misfit: he's too tall, too skinny, and he's worried about the size of his penis. (Actually Charlie is REALLY focused on his penis. Never having been a 17 year old boy, I can't say whether it's normal but I kind of felt like I needed to wash my hands after reading the book). Charlie stumbles and bumbles along, picking through the minefield of high school and his over bearing father. When a new boy starts at Charlie's school, and joins Charlie's soccer team, things really start to look up.

The Screwed-up Life of Charlie the Second is funny and insightful without being mawkish or sentimental. Charlie's kind of an asshole, but he is a 17 year old boy, so I suppose that's sort of a given. Being an openly gay 17 year old boy is never going to be an easy ride, and Charlie has a habit of making things more difficult for himself than they need to be. But with a little help from his friends, and family, things might not be as bad as Charlie thinks they are.

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This really deserves a longer post and a review of its own but ... six books. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a series of letters written from the mother of a boy who killed nine people in a school shooting.

She's writing them to her ex-husband, and the letters range from musings about parenthood - and their own failures with Kevin - to Kevin's upbringing, to family and beyond.

Eva is unsparing and unflinching as she examines Kevin's life up to - and including - the shooting.

We Talk About Kevin is a harrowing read, no question. But it's a thought-provoking and compelling one as well; especially reflecting on the nature of motherhood, and what it can really take from you.

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

The Raven's Heart by Jesse Blackadder

Alice Blackadder has spent her formative years in disguise as a boy, her family hounded into obscurity by the more powerful Hume clan. She and her father have been living in hiding for many years, until they return to Scotland from France with Mary Queen of Scots, and court shenanigans ensue.

Jesse Blackadder reached into her own family history for the source material for the story, and it's an interesting read, although I found the first person, present-tense style of the narration a bit jarring. Get past that, however, and you have a solid historical novel. Plus it had the added advantage of making me want to read everything ever about Mary Queen of Scots.

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay!

Genesis by Bernard Beckett
This is a http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ read. Genesis is 142 pages of philosophical science fiction, and there's a lot going on for such a short book.

Anaximander is applying for a place at the prestigious Academy; an application that takes the form of a gruelling, four-hour examination. Her chosen topic is the life of Adam Forde, a long-dead hero of Anax's, who was, in a lot of ways, the catalyst for the society Anax is living in now.

Genesis is packed to the gills with ideas and philosophy, and the whole book takes place over the course of Anax's examination, with flashbacks to key events in Adam Forde's life.

The dystopic, futuristic and Platonic society that Anax lives in, and that Adam Forde's time was moving towards - is barely hinted at; just sketches through Anax's eyes as she takes the Academy examination. There's more going on than Anax realises , and Genesis packs an unexpectedly emotional punch.

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

True Grit by Charles Portis

I always seem to do this the wrong way around with adaptations. I actually saw the Coen Brothers' True Grit before I read the book. It's a faithful adaptation, though, and the Coens do an excellent job of making Mattie the front-and-centre voice of the film.

Anyway, the book. Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross is on a mission. Her father has been murdered, and no one is on the trail of his killer, Frank Chaney, who has escaped into the Indian Territories.

Mattie - a single-minded, somewhat prim and humourless but smart - girl enlists the help of Federal Marshall Rooster Cogburn, a man she believes has 'grit'. Along with a flashy Texan ranger, the three set off into the Territories on Chaney's trail.

Mattie's voice in True Grit is strong, clear and never, ever wavers. The story itself is commonplace enough, but the narrative is so compelling that it doesn't matter as Mattie tells the tale of riding into the wilds in search of revenge or justice - whichever comes first.

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

August by Bernard Beckett

Tristan and Grace - relative strangers - are in a car accident. Their car rolls, and they find themselves trapped upside down in the car on a nameless cliffside.

At first glance, they appear to be prostitute and client, but Grace and Tristan have a much more complex relationship, and a sort of shared history that comes out over the course of the night as they wait to either be rescued - or to die.

Like Genesis, August is a deeply philosophical novel, although more dystopic than science fiction. Actually, I wasn't expecting the dystopic element, but it made the story that much richer.

Tristan and Grace tell each other their stories - how they both came to be in the car on this night, on this cliffside - and there's a lot of suffering in both their backgrounds. The crash might be their last night, ever, and Tristan and Grace have a lot of baggage to work through. Sigh. This is an inadequate description of an awesome book, but I'm about tapped out on reviews. Six. Books. O.O

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

NZ Book Month mini-challenge

2011-02-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Kiwi YA challenge here: http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ is still running for the length of 2011, and sign-ups are open all year round.

For those of you, though, for whom a year is a long time, I'm re-running the NZ Book Month mini-challenge that I ran in 2009. It's exactly the same, so I'm linking back to that post: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/09/business-time.html it's more open, in that it includes Kiwi-made movies and music. Please to be ignoring the "October" as NZ Book Month was rescheduled to March.

Go forth. Celebrate the awesomeness that is Kiwi literature. Let me know how you get on in the comments, or on twitter:
http://twitter.com/justaddbooks OR
http://twitter.com/kiwiyachallenge

Let me get you started with a Kiwi video:

The Changeover: review

2011-02-26T02:26:00.000-08:00

Laura Chant is a relatively ordinary 14 year old girl, living in a quiet suburb of Christchurch, going to school, and negotiating life with her mother and little brother.

Only Laura’s not quite as ordinary as most girls her age. She has premonitions occasionally – flashes of insights about impending disasters. They’re rare, and Laura can never pinpoint exactly what’s going to go wrong, so when she gets a strong premonition one morning and tells her mother, her fears are dismissed.

Laura can’t put her finger on why she’s experiencing such a heavy feeling of dread, but she knows something bad is going to happen.

The new senior at school - Sorenson “Sorry” Carlisle is an enigma to everyone, but Laura’s convinced he’s a witch – he’s never said as much, but Laura feels like it’s just something she knows about him.

When Laura’s little brother Jacko has a more than unsettling encounter with mysterious Carmody Braque, Laura finds herself needing help to bring Jacko back from the brink of death after Braque stamps his hand with a mysterious looking stamp.

As Jacko becomes sicker and sicker, in desperation Laura turns to Sorry and his mysterious mother and grandmother to help bring her little brother back from the brink of death.

The Changeover is a short novel, but it does pack quite the supernatural punch. Laura is a spirited protagonist, who stops at nothing to save her little brother’s life. There are overtones of romance with Sorry (a very strange character) and Laura, and the … witchiness? Is really well handled as well, being fairly detailed for a book that’s under 290 pages.

Margaret Mahy won the Carnegie Medal in 1984 for The Changeover. It’s a spooky, atmospheric and tense tale, with a lot of detail packed in.

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox

2011-02-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox

SPOILERS

Dreamquake picks up immediately after the end of Dreamhunter. The Rainbow Opera is in chaos after Laura Hame releases a terrible dream to unsuspecting dreamers: a nightmare of being buried alive that her father has been employed by the Ministry of the Interior to show to convicts.

Keeping the secret drove Tziga to take desperate action, and to reach out to Laura to expose the truth of what had been happening.

Grace Tiebold – Laura’s aunt and the erstwhile star of that night’s dreaming at the Rainbow Opera – is taken into custody, believed – at first – to be the source of the nightmare, Laura disappears and chaos ensues.

No one – apart from convicted felons – was ever supposed to see Tziga Hame’s dream, and the Minister of the Interior Cas Doran finds himself with a very, very big problem on his hands.

Dreamhunter is an amazing kind of … trip through dreams, and an alternative view of New Zealand that’s incredibly creative. Dreamquake takes the worldbuilding from Dreamhunter and pretty much shatters it into tiny, tiny pieces.

My favourite part of Dreamquake is still the relationship between cousins Rose and Laura, but Laura and Nown also own a tiny piece of my heart.

It’s hard for me to explain exactly what happens in Dreamquake without rambling on and on until I make no sense, or flailing until there’s an embarrassed silence around here …

…

*crickets*

I cannot think of a single thing about Dreamquake that I didn’t like – from the continuing strength of Laura and Rose’s relationship, to Sandy’s jealousy and guilt over hiding Laura’s letter to Nown, to Nown himself, who pretty much broke my heart in the last few pages.

The fact that Knox so carefully built up this world in Dreamhunter and then – seemingly without hesitation – was what really made the story for me in the end. She tears down her careful constructs one after the other until you’re left exhausted, emotionally wrung out, but ultimately satisfied with the result.

10/10 Could not be improved on, even by angel dust and a basket of kittens

Short reviews

2011-02-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

Quillblade: Voyages of the Flying Dragon Vol 1 by Ben Chandler

Lenis and Missy are twins – and slaves. They’re working aboard the airship the Hiryu, which belongs to the Emperor. When the captain of the airship steals it out from under the Emperor’s nose, Lenis and Missy find themselves on a completely unexpected adventure.

And when Lenis starts getting messages from the Blue Dragon _ one of the last totems against the demons threatening to engulf everything _ begging him to save her daughter, the airship, the captain and crew and the twins find themselves on an entirely different kind of quest.

Quillblade is a readable YA steampunk novel, that doesn’t flinch or spare its targeted audience from the more unpleasant aspects of life. Having said that, it also has moments of transcendent joy, and Bestias, which may be my new favourite fictional characters after Phillip Pullman’s Daemons.

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme

I loved this so much. It’s basically a sort of meandering memoir of Julia Child and her husband Paul’s life in France during the 1950s.

In about 2004, Julia sat down with her nephew Alex to pull together many, many years of photos and correspondence to bring the book to life, and My Life in France is the rambling, charming, engaging result.

It describes, in the course of the book, the process of getting Julia’s seminal cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking published, and a thousand and one details of what can only be described as an extraordinary life.

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

Murder at the Laurels by Lesley Cookman

I found this an odd little crime novel. It’s the fourth in a series that I’m not familiar with, and references previous novels, so I was confused (although, of course, that confusion was on me), but I found the whole thing slightly … futile.

Libby Sarjeant is an artist, living in Steeple Martin. She gets caught up in the death of an elderly woman at a rest home, the aunt of a friend of hers.

For me, Murder at the Laurels sort of … meandered about. Libby and her friend Fran spend a lot of time dithering and waffling. And … they don’t really actually seem to solve the case. The police do.

I’m failing to see the point.

5/10 A very nice day

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-02-07T00:08:00.000-08:00

Your meme is here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

At the moment I'm making fairly quick work of Dreamquake, by Elizabeth Knox, the sequel to Dreamhunter - both for my own challenge: http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/

I loved Dreamhunter and Dreamquake is also excellent.

I finished, over the weekend, My Life in France, by Julia Child, and Murder at the Laurels by Lesley Cookman, a rather odd little murder mystery novel.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read after Dreamquake; possibly True Grit, as I'm going to the movie tomorrow night.

Happy reading!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-01-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I'm still picking away at Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay but I suspect it might have to go back to the library largely unread. I'm enjoying it but it's a large, dense book that demands rather more time than I have at the moment, I fear.

I picked up My Life in Paris by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme and it's far more my speed right now. It's basically a collection of reminiscinces (ouch spelling) by Child about her years in France and it's a lovely, light read.

What are YOU reading?

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

2011-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

There are two Will Graysons.

Well, I'm pretty sure there are lots of Will Graysons but for the purposes of this book there are two.

The first Will Grayson is in high school in Chicago, and has just reconnected with his best friend – the very large, very fabulous and very gay Tiny Cooper. Tiny is planning a musical based on his own life, and Will – who has two simple rules for living – Don't care too much and Shut up - finds himself reluctantly dragged in to help.

Will prefers to be a passive sidelines observer, but with Tiny as a best friend, it soon proves to be impossible.

The other Will Grayson is living a very different life. Different town; different school, he battles daily with depression and the only human contact he really has is with his friend Maura – who he doesn't seem to like very much – and Isaac, a boy he chats to online that he has a major crush on.

By a series of strange coincidences, the two Will Graysons meet after the first one gets ditched by Tiny and Jane – the girl that Will is crushing on – at a club, and the second travels to Chicago under the impression he's finally going to meet Isaac.

However, nothing really goes to plan.

Will Grayson one is pissed that his friends ditched him, and Will Grayson two is devastated when he finds out that Isaac is nothing more than a cruel trick played on him by Maura.

(Side note: When I read that, I swear my brain went "NNNNNNOOOOOO" in slow motion.)

That's a terrible summary – lol.

The Wills tell their stories in alternating chapters, and it takes a little bit to get used to the way the second Will never capitalises anything, but it fits with his depression and feelings of smallness in the world.

Of course, when he meets Tiny, his whole world tilts upside down. They begin dating, despite living in different towns, and the first Will finally owns up to his own feelings about Jane, a friend of Tiny's.

I loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I loved it pretty much beyond reason. Both Wills are very well-realised and my heart broke more than once for the second Will, especially after his friend betrayed him so badly.

I wanted to smack the first Will around the head a little for sometimes being dense, but he's there for his friends when it counts, and as for Tiny ...

... how much did I love Tiny? To distraction. Tiny Cooper is larger than life and so very much himself that as much as I felt myself holding my breath for the Wills (Will two especially), Tiny felt like a long, welcome exhale of breath.

Green and Levithan's writing is so sharp and so clear, and there are so many quotable sections that I'd end up violating copyright.

I have to quote this bit, though, because it's just so insightful and so painful that it's impossible not to put it ... everywhere:

"i think the idea of a 'mental health day' is something completely invented by people who have no idea what it's like to have bad mental health. The idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. Mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying 'i don't want to deal with things today' and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.”

That passage in particular struck a deep chord with me as it summarises Will two’s struggles and how much he feels like they isolate him from the world around him.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson was one of those books that I didn’t want to stop reading, possibly ever and now I need to read all of the things that Green and Levithan have written.

I have read Nick and Norahs’ Infinite Playlist, and Naomi and Ely’s No-Kiss List both of which Levithan co-wrote with Rachel Cohn, but this was my first anything by Green – clearly a grievous oversight on my part.

10/10 Could not be improved on, even by angel dust and a basket of kittens

The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

2011-01-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

The Fall is del Toro and Hogan's second novel in The Strain trilogy. It picks up from where the first novel - er, The Strain - left off, with a small band of human survivors valiantly battling against the vampire menace that's now threatening the whole world.

Dr Ephraim Goodweather (sidenote: I love the names in this. I really, really do), formerly of the CDC and now a rogue on the run has banded together with a small motley crew of humans to try and ward off the coming darkness.

It's a pretty bleak situation for the humans as vampires just spread like a virus throughout New York and, presumably, the rest of the world.

I like this series. I like it a whole lot. Because it's bleak and there really is very, very little hope, even though Eph and co keep striving against the Master (a rogue Ancient vampire who's responsible for unleashing the plague, as it were), doing their best to keep a little light shining.

del Toro's unusual creative point-of-view is all over The Strain and The Fall, and it's backed up by a solid structure, all of which served to make me want to keep reading.

It is a little bleak and unrelenting, and there are some terribly heartbreaking elements to The Fall, which truly made me wonder whether the humans were going to prevail.

I'm still wondering, actually ...

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox

2011-01-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

My first http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ finish. I'm aiming for 12 books :-)

Dreamhunter is set in an alternative New Zealand. Actually, in an alternative Southland, which always gives me a kick, because that's my province. :D

Anyway. In this New Zealand, dreams can be "caught" and shared. Only certain people can become dreamhunters - those able to enter the mysterious Place, catch dreams, and bring them back out to share. The dreams are shared either at dream palaces like the Rainbow Opera, or, depending on the dream, at hospitals, prisons ...

Laura and Rose are cousins the same age, as close as sisters. Rose's mother and Laura's father are famous and powerful Dreamhunters in their own rights.

Laura and Rose, at 15, are set to Try over the long summer - a yearly ritual whereby boys and girls of a certain age discover whether they have Dreamhunter potential. If they do, they step into the Place. If not, they carry on with their ordinary lives.

Rose is sure that she will be successful, leave school and embark on a stellar career as a Dreamhunter. Laura - used to living in her cousin's shadow and quite happy there - is less confident, but doesn't want to be left behind.

However, when it comes to the girls' Try, it's Rose that gets left behind, as Laura is the only one of them able to enter the Place ...

I have read Dreamhunter before, and I love it. The idea behind it - the dreamscape of the Place, and the image of the Rainbow Opera ... the imagery is fantastic, and there's just enough of a dark undercurrent under the whole concept to give a pleasant little chill up the spine.

Laura and Rose are fantastically realised as characters, and their relationship is one of my favourite things about the book - especially Rose, who comes out of her disappointing Try even stronger, and resolves to help Laura any way she can.

Laura - who starts out in the book (for me) a little vague and wishy-washy, does start to ... colour in a bit? Especially after her father - who does mysterious work for the Government - disappears and is presumed dead.

There are so many layers to Dreamhunter that I could go on and on about: there's the dreamhunting itself, and the way it gets used by the Government; the family dynamic between Laura, Rose and their respective parents, the deeper mysteries of the Place ... I'm getting rambly, like always when I'm talking about a book that I love.

I haven't read the sequel - Dreamquake - yet, but it's on my list very, very soon. Dreamhunter ends on a hell of a cliffhanger, and I need to know what happens next.

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-01-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Monday again! How does that keep happening? As always, your meme is here:
http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I've had a fairly productive 2011 so far - I've finished three books already: Ash, by Malinda Lo, The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, and Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox, which was my first read for my very own challenge: http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ (sign-ups are open all year. It's super-easy - come play!)

Er, so, on the agenda for this week I have How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu, and The Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer Bradley.

Happy reading!

Ash by Malinda Lo

2011-01-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

Ash opens with a funeral. Ash's mother has just died, and she is being buried according to the ancient rites and rituals that have generally fallen out of favour.

Ash is just a young girl, and flounders without her mother. She visits her grave every night, unaware of being watched.

Ash's world is a prosaic one, but there's another, secret world overlaying that, that humans have largely separated from.

But it's that world that will prove a threat to Ash in the long run.

Sigh. That summary feels a little bit inaccurate, but there's not much more of substance I can grasp on to.

Ash is one of those books, where you read the whole thing and kind of think "but where's the story?"

It's well-written, and the premise is excellent: it's a re-telling of Cinderella, wherein Ash is Cinderella, and her handsome prince is actually the King's Huntress, which is a more than welcome twist to the tale.

I enjoyed Ash while I was reading it, because as I said, the writing is very good. But it felt like there was no ... point to hang the story on. Ash sort of went from one crisis to another and another, until the rather cinema-like climax at the end.

There is, I believe, a companion novel coming, and I liked Lo's writing enough to look forward to it, but now that I've finished Ash, and I'm reflecting on it, I didn't like it as much as I thought I did.

So:

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay! - because the writing IS strong. I just wanted a better story, with a stronger core.

Short reviews and my top five of 2010

2011-01-01T15:13:00.000-08:00

Somehow I ended up being backed up by about seven books. I'm still not sure how that happened.

My final total for 2010 was 44 books, which I'm aiming to at least double. In fact, I think one of the challenges I joined for 2011 is related to that but more on challenges in a later post.

Given that I have only read 44 books, here are my top five, in no particular order:
1) Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness - the final book in the Chaos Walking trilogy. Perfection, Mr Ness. Now, what are you working on next?
2) The City & The City by China Mieville - Well aren't you a clever author then Mr Mieville? Yes you are. (Disclaimer: sleep and coffee-deprived blogging)
3) Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey - Kiwi YA at its very, very best.
4) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - Heartbreaking.
5) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson - Smart mystery.

Okay. Short reviews:

Juno of Taris and Fierce September by Fleur Beale:
Kiwi YA dystopic novels about a young girl living in a biodome with 500 other people; sent away when it looked like the world was going to crumble around them. Juno is rebellious and outspoken, questioning everything. The world of Taris is a kind of careful, not always benevolent dictatorship, but the dome is failing ...
A very readable duo of books, and I'm hoping there's more in the Juno series :-)

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

Enchanter's End Game and Guardian of the West by David Eddings:

Mr Eddings, I still have nothing but much love for you <3

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham:

When Peter Harris's wife's younger brother Mizzy comes to stay, Peter knows that his world is going to be turned upside down. Mizzy is young, charming - and a drug addict. It's a recipe for disaster waiting to happen. By Nightfall is good, but there's something at the core of it that left me slightly cold.

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay!

The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter:

Detective Chief Inspector Morse finds himself in hospital with a perforated ulcer. When someone visiting another patient drops off a self-published book about a 19th-century murder, Morse finds himself intrigued - and bored enough to do a little investigating of his own. It's a good premise, but The Wench is Dead didn't quite live up to its summary for me.

6/10 Leaving work 30 minutes early

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie:

When Luka's father falls ill, Luka travels to the magic lands, searching for a cure. Everything there is something from a story his father has told him, and Luka finds himself on a quest with a very disparate group. Luka has a certain charm to it, but once again, there's something lacking at the core of it for me - a certain warmth.

7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay!

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie:
I've read this so many times - lol. Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of a very old, very rich man, whom no one liked. It's a classic locked-room mystery, and there is a lot of blood. Perfect Christmas reading!

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-12-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

Monday seems to come around faster and faster, doesn't it?

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas, and that there was much reading done :-)

For myself, I finished Guardian of the West by David Eddings, and Hercule Poirot's Christmas, by Agatha Christie. Both re-reads, but both very enjoyable.

On the slate this week we have Fierce September, by Fleur Beale. It's the sequel to Juno of Taris and I'm reading it now because it's due back at the library on January 1. Good stuff so far.

Also King of the Murgos, book 2 of the Mallorean; The Mists of Avalon, which is my half-assed online book club's read for December/January; Quillblade by Ben Chandler; The Two Towers (I'm getting bloody-minded about finishing LOTR again - lol) and The Fall, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, which is my break time at work read. :-)

Obviously this will take longer than a week, but that's what my night stand looks like. How's yours this week?

More challenges? Don't mind if I do ...

2010-12-25T14:20:00.000-08:00

.... er. But at least one of them is mine? That counts, right?

Anyway. First up is the Haruki Murakami challenge, hosted here: http://www.inspringitisthedawn.com/2010/12/haruki-murakami-reading-challenge-2011.html

I've never read Murakami, and I've opted for the easiest level: one book. I think I'm co-reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle with Care from http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com/ - in June, I believe. :-)

My own challenge is a Kiwi YA challenge, which I'm hosting over here: http://kiwiyachallenge.blogspot.com/ Sign-ups are open throughout 2011, and the challenge runs all year. So, you know ... *gently nudges readers to the challenge*. It's going to be a good one, I hope.

I'm also still hosting the NZ Book mini-challenge in March, which will look exactly like this again: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/09/business-time.html so if you can't commit to a year; you could read a Kiwi novel in March, right? :DDDDDDDD

Holiday swap

2010-12-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Edited and corrected!

My holiday swap person was the lovely Heather from http://www.capriciousreader.com For some reason, I missed the card she sent. AND the lovely, lovely "bookworms" made out of yarn that Heather made for me.

I'm so sorry, Heather - I can't believe I missed that. I LOVE the parcel! <3

I got a collection of bookmarks (I love getting bookmarks, because I lose them so easily!) and two books - Mistress of the Art of Death, which I've been wanting to read for a while, and Mr Rosenblaum Dreams in English, which was one of Heather's favourite reads of the year, so I'm excited for both of them!

Thank you Heather at http://www.capriciousreader.com/ - I love everything!

Care is Awesome

2010-12-21T00:38:00.000-08:00

Back in the dim dark recesses of 2009, I hosted a mini-challenge, based around all things Kiwi.

Rashly, forgetting that I have no organisational skills whatsoever, I said I'd send out jaffas (chocolate orange goodness) to participants. And then ... I didn't. And I still haven't, and I feel bad about it.

Anyways. Fast forward a bit, and Care from http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com/ said she'd send me some altoids. I love them, but you can't get them here. And ... I failed to send jaffas. Consistently. For a year.

And because Care is Awesome, and a better person than me, she sent me the altoids anyway. And some kind of teeny tiny wafers that I've never even SEEN before, and a couple of other lovely goodies. Thank you, Care - you really are awesome. :D :D :D

Behold, also, her superior wrapping skills:

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-12-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I had a reasonably productive week. Well, weekend. Tanabata of http://www.inspringitisthedawn.com/ and I had a bit of an informal mini readathon on twitter, where we spent yesterday reading as much as possible within a 12-hour period. I finished The Wench is Dead by Colin Dexter, and Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie.

Before that, on Saturday, I finished By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. Two days, three books. Pretty good, for me.

On the pile this week, I still have The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, which I haven't picked up in a while, but I'm determined to finish; In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; Guardians of the West by David Eddings (#teamsilk); uh ... The Two Towers (still, yes, I know) and Quillblade by Ben Chandler. Oh! And The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

That's way more than I can read in a week, but that's what my nightstand looks like ;)

Happy reading!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-12-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

So I still have The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote on the pile, but I've been getting a little bogged down with them both lately, and I had to pull out of the Trollope Classics Circuit tour, which I felt badly about, but couldn't finish it in time.

I am enjoying both books, but I need a small break. So over the weekend I picked up Juno of Taris by Fleur Beale, and enjoyed it enough to stay up until 3am reading, and finished it. :-)

Also on the pile is The Two Towers (yes, still - hush), and Quillblade by Ben Chandler.

Happy reading!

When I was very young ...

2010-12-11T00:49:00.000-08:00

... I got a "working" telephone for Christmas. I was no more than three or four, and it was part of Santa's sack that got left at the end of our beds sometime during the night.

It's probably my first Christmas memory, and it's so vivid because I remember playing with the phone - that had a real ringtone! - at an insanely early hour of the day.

It got me thinking - as I frantically turned topics for this post over in my head - what Patrick's first Christmas memory will be. Mine was of playing with what was to become a much-loved toy (I thought that phone was the best thing ever - because it rang like a real phone) that had been delivered to me by the jolly old man from the North Pole.

Christmas - for me - is a jumble of impressions mostly: going with my Dad to choose presents for my mother and my sister; decorating the tree with the same ornaments year after year; going to midnight mass and having milo and cheese sandwiches afterwards; arguing over board games or card games with my brothers and sisters; turkey dinners in the middle of the afternoon and paper hats askew as the day wore on.

So I do treasure that first, clear memory, of playing with that toy in the middle of the night that was pretty much guaranteed to wake up my sisters, but it was just so magical and new, I couldn't help myself. And now that Patrick's three, I'm hoping that I (and Santa of course) can impart a little bit of that magic to him.

I Shall Wear Midnight

2010-12-05T02:31:00.000-08:00

I Shall Wear Midnight is the fourth book by Mr Sir Terry Pratchett featuring young witch Tiffany Aching.

I'm still slowly but surely working my way through the Discworld novels, and before this one, I hadn't encountered Miss Aching before, but I will certainly be looking up the rest of the novels featuring the redoubtable young witch.

I Shall Wear Midnight is set on the Chalk, and Tiffany is the resident witch for the area. She deals with common ailments, illnesses - and the Wee Free Men - the Nac Mac Feegle - as best as she can. Because she's the witch.

After the death of the old Baron - which Tiffany finds herself accused of causing - she travels to Ankh-Morpork to bring back the new Baron - an old childhood friend.

Things for Tiffany are relatively straightforward on the Chalk - she's the witch, which means she has a certain position to maintain.

However, something is coming for the witches ...

Mr Sir Terry Pratchett has a very deft touch, and he weaves together elements like the sheer absurdity of the Nac Mac Feegle and the darker elements so well that there's nothing jarring in it at all. Tiffany is a wonderfully realised character, and now I need to seek out the rest of her books.

10/10 Could not be improved on, even by angel dust and a basket of kittens

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-11-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

Meme here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

Well, my holiday is nearly over, and as always, I haven't read half as much as I would like to have. However, I have been in the presence of a superhero, an astronaut, a frog and a robot, so I think that's a fair trade. :)

Anyway. I'm about halfway through In Cold Blood, but ... you know that feeling, when you're reading a book and you suddenly feel like you're slogging through it rather than reading? Yeah. I kind of hit that wall.

I'm not sure why, because the book itself is interesting, and very descriptive, but something just suddenly clanged for me on Saturday, so I've shelved it for now, and started The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, which will be reviewed here on uh ... *checks email for date* December 14 for http://classics.rebeccareid.com/

I'm only 50 pages in, but so far, so good ...

I also started By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham today. :-)

Happy reading!

More challenges than is deemed healthy

2010-11-28T02:31:00.000-08:00

I always promise myself I'm not going to do it. And this year I did pretty well. In that I only signed up for a few challenges and ... failed them all, I think. Although I may have accidentally finished http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/'s RIP challenge without realising it. It's possible.

However, in the past few days, I've found myself lurking here: http://novelchallenges.blogspot.com/ which is never a good idea, because my brain immediately goes OH MY GOD SHINY GIVE IT TO ME I WANT ITTTTTTTT about pretty much every challenge ... ever.

Which, of course, leads to sign-ups. Somehow, that's inevitable.

I was going to limit myself to five, but then I remembered Once Upon a Time and RIP. And http://www.inspringitisthedawn.com/ is doing a Murakami challenge at some point. If I stuck to five, that's three slots gone already, and that's just not fair to the challenges! (Yes. This is how my mind works.)

So, without further ado, I have signed up for these:

http://onetwotheme.blogspot.com/ - I still need to pick my themes, but it appeals to the part of me that wants to learn about everything ever.

http://whatsinaname4.blogspot.com/ - It's like a treasure hunt!!! :D

http://feministclassics.wordpress.com/ - Technically speaking, not a challenge, but a kind of reading group. But I had to Sign Things, so therefore it's a challenge.

http://glbt-reading.blogspot.com/2010/11/glbt-challenge-2011.html - I failed this so hardcore ... last year? Sigh. However, that hasn't stopped me from signing up again...

http://bareadingchallenges.blogspot.com/p/off-shelf-challenge.html - I was thinking of doing something along the lines of this anyway. I counted yesterday, and I have 120 books on my TBR bookcase by my bed. I've decided to do level three - "making a dint", which is 30 books, but I'm hoping to read at least 50 (ambitious, for a woman who hasn't even cracked 40 books this year) from those shelves.

Also, March 2011 is NZ Book Month: http://nzbookmonth.co.nz/ and I'll be hosting a mini-challenge again, like I did last October: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/09/business-time.html So ... clear your calendars, brush up on your slang, and look up some Kiwis ;)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo review

2010-11-24T02:09:00.001-08:00

I've had this one on my reading radar for a while, and the wait was totally worth it. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a thriller with a definite difference, and that's a very, very good thing.

It opens with a mystery that's years old _ in the 1960s, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a small isolated community. Nearing the end of his life, her uncle Henrik Vanger, a Swedish industrialist, hires investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist _ recently dragged through the courts by a wearying libel case _ to find out the truth about Harriet once and for all.

He takes the case, and heads to Hederby, the same small, isolated community that Harriet Vanger disappeared from in the 1960s, with the covering story that he's ghost-writing Henrik Vanger's autobiography.

Woven among Mikael's tale, is that of Lisbeth Salander, a 24 year old hacker, private investigator, and the titular girl with the dragon tattoo. She's hired, at first, to do a background check on Blomkvist, and ends up working with him on the Vanger case, when Blomkvist finds he needs to delve deeper into the family's history than he thought.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo isn't an easy read, but it's a rewarding one. Less of an edge-of-your-seat thriller, and more of a slow burn - Blomkvist and Salander don't meet until something like two-thirds of the way through the book - it demands your attention and then holds on to it all the way to the end.

Blomkvist is a little world-weary and suitably cynical for a middle-aged investigative journalist, and a well-rounded main character for a thriller, but the really interesting character here is Salander. She's a self-protective enigma who has suffered tragedy in her past, and she deals with and controls her environment in unexpected ways.

It's a work-out for the braincells, and not necessarily just because of the twists and turns the story takes, but the way Larsson has set everything out so carefully - the structure of the novel is amazing, and I'm excited to read the second book in the trilogy.

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-11-21T21:57:00.000-08:00

Your meme is here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I finally finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I loved. Review to come.

This week - my last full week of holiday - I have In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, I Shall Wear Midnight by Mr Sir Terry Pratchett and The Way We Live now by Anthony Trollope on the pile.

Happy reading!

Book buying ban update

2010-11-21T01:22:00.000-08:00

So back in August I blogged about a book-buying ban: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-non-buying-of-books.html I figured that I wouldn't make it entirely until the end of the year without breaking it, because ... I'm weak-willed - lol. But what I did do, when I happened to buy a book (which wasn't really that often) was not think "oh, well, I might as well give that up because I failed," but went "Okay, bought a book. BACK TO THE BAN." And that ... sort of actually worked?

I've bought ... one? new book since August - Stephen King's latest, Full Dark, No Stars, and the rest have been from secondhand bookstores, or the library's withdrawn pile. I counted, and I've bought 11 books since instituting the ban. Given that before that I was nearly buying a book a week, that's not too bad. The most expensive was the Stephen King, of course, given that it was new, and the cheapest were probably the withdrawn books from the library that go for about 50c - $1.

As you can see from the picture, I'm a magpie when it comes to books and reading. I go for things that catch my eye at the time ... which might also explain my overflowing bookcases - lol.

I'm carrying on with the ban until the end of the year, like I said. And I don't regard the fact that I broke it ... more than once as a fail so much as ... a learning curve? Yeah. Let's call it that.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-11-14T20:13:00.000-08:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I'm still reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's interesting and smart, and I'm enjoying it a lot, but it's one of those books that you need to sit down with for an extended period and I haven't seemed to be able to find that lately - lol.

Otherwise my nightstand to-read pile is the same as last week: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-monday-what-are-you-reading.html and up next is In Cold Blood, which I need to finish before December so I can read The Way We Live Now for the Classics Circuit book tour.

Books and cats and piles, oh my

2010-11-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

So, you know how you get these brilliant ideas at stupid times of the day sometimes? Okay, I didn't quite have this idea at 11.30pm on a Sunday night, but that's when I executed it.

Previously, I had a sort-of TBR pile precariously balanced on a spare nightstand. On Saturday it suddenly occurred to me that what I should do is put my TBR in the bookcase nearest the bed so it was a) not precarious and b) closer at hand.

The above is what happened. It took me an hour and a half, and made my fingers itch to re-arrange my other bookcases, but I managed to talk myself out of that ... for now ...

Also, there's a whole new pile of books on that nightstand. Sigh. I need another bookcase.

I know my TBR pile (my immediate TBR pile I should say) isn't half as impressive as some others, but it's big enough. There's roughly 100 books on that bookcase, library books included, and for me, with how slow I'm reading at the moment, that's a comfortable number.

I'm planning on nabbing Chris's (http://www.dreamstuffbooks.com/blog/) 50x50 idea, (http://chrisa511.tumblr.com/tagged/50x50) but scaling it down to 20x20, and featuring my TBR pile in that somehow. I have about 12 things on my list so far, so I just need another eight, and I'll be blogging about it over here: http://daysmeanmore.blogspot.com/ I thought of starting a new blog, or getting a tumblr for it, but that blog is already there, and the last thing I need is another online time-sucker - lol.

So my plan is to work my way through that bookcase, and incorporate into my forthcoming 20x20 project. Doable, yes? :D

Oryx and Crake review

2010-11-14T01:45:00.001-08:00

Spoilers maybe?

It's the future, and humanity has basically disappeared.

The only one left – to his own knowledge – is a man calling himself Snowman, who was once known as Jimmy. Snowman has the care of what he calls Crake's Children: a group of near-humans who were created by the aforementioned Crake, before humanity lost its battle for survival.

Snowman isn't exactly happy to have the charge of the Children. Back when he was just Jimmy, he was friends with Crake, and blames himself partly for not seeing what was coming in time to stop it. He's also punishing himself for what happened to Oryx – the female corner of their triangle. Oryx is in love with Crake, and Jimmy is in love with Oryx.

Oryx has the kind of terrible, exploited childhood that would make anyone feel bad or sorry for her, and Jimmy takes on that role eagerly; wanting to find a way to "fix" her – except Oryx – who is a wonderfully self-contained character – doesn't appear to want to be fixed, which frustrates Jimmy.

Oryx and Crake is a powerful story about the somewhat casually destructive nature of the human race, and the possibly terrifying consequences of that destruction. It's also about consumerism and how – in this future – everything is a commodity and up for sale – until it isn't.

Snowman doesn't really have any outstanding qualities – he's (understandably) permanently sour, he doesn't like the fact that Crake left him in charge of his creations, and he knows that he has to do something drastic, or he's going to starve to death under the Childrens' benevolent indifference. He's sort of an everyman, and since he's the only man – apart from Crake's Children – then he kind of has carte blanche to act however he likes.

The fact that he sticks with the Children and acts reasonably decent to them (overall) shows that there's a little bit of Jimmy left inside the leftover human that Snowman has become.

I've read Oryx and Crake before, and it's just as powerful the second time around. Maybe more so, because I had forgotten so much of it.

It's also interesting re-reading it after reading The Year of the Flood, which is the companion novel. Oryx and Crake is all from Snowman's point of view, so we only have his narrative for what happened, whereas Year of the Flood tells the story from multiple points of view and broadens the spectrum, if you like.

Now, of course, Year of the Flood is back on my TBR. It's somewhere near the bottom for now, but it's on there ...

9/10 So good, you'd take it to meet your Mum

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-11-07T04:02:00.000-08:00

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I've actually had a pretty good couple of reading weeks. I finished something like four or five books (and most of those were the Belgariad - lol) and now I'm re-reading Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood, which I'm loving all over again.

I'm on holiday now until December 1, so I'm at least hoping to get a lot of reading done. :)

Here is my holiday TBR - I've kept it relatively simple:

So I'm reading Oryx & Crake, and I have The Passage, Wolf Hall, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a whodunit set in ancient Egpyt called Tutenkhamen something and In Cold Blood, which is my #diversityclassic read for November.

Just for kicks, here's my library pile at the moment as well:

There's even a couple of non-fiction books in there, which is a bit unusual for me. I hope I have time for them before they have to go back to the library.

Happy reading everyone!

How did that happen?

2010-11-06T03:44:00.001-07:00

Somehow I have seven books on my read list that I haven't done blog reviews for. That's ... so very much not going to happen.

So welcome to the first ever edition of Maree's super-short book reviews. One paragraph, or your money back. 3o day guarantee.

1): Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare: I was lukewarm mostly on The Mortal Instruments- http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/city-of-bones-by-cassandra-clare-review.html & http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/short-review-books-2-and-3-of-mortal.html and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed Clockwork Angel a lot more. Clare's starting to settle in, I think, and it's a fascinating read - very atmospheric and olde Londony and all that jazz. - 7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay!

2): Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson: This deserves a full review. It really does, but I just don't have time right now to do it justice. Speak is brilliant. Brilliant and moving and heartbreaking, and basically everyone should read it. Melinda starts her new school year as a complete social outcast. Something happened at a party over the summer that Melinda is unwilling - and unable - to talk about. Melinda's struggle with what happened to her, and high school itself with its carefully delineated cliques is so vividly realised. It's a short book, but I had to stop reading a couple of times, because it's just so raw. - 10/10 Could not be improved on, even by angel dust and a basket of kittens

3): The Belgariad: I'm just going to throw these all into the same short-short - lol. I used to eat up series like The Belgariad as a teen, and it's been many, many years since I revisited. But thanks to #teamsilk on twitter, I've been taking a trip down memory lane and going on an old-school fantasy quest. (This isn't really so much a short review as ... nostalgia - lol). Next up: The Mallorean ... #teamsilk - 8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

4): American Gods: I can cheat! I've already reviewed this one, and my opinion hasn't changed :D http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2008/04/american-gods-review.html 8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

5): Hell House by Richard Matheson: I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I really want to read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, to see how well it compares. Hell House is your classic haunted house plot, but I'm shaky on whether Matheson really pulled it off - his characters are a bit flat; especially the one guy who's supposed to be the most talented psychic of them all - and the big ending ... isn't. BUT it is well-written and it is spooky. So ... - 7/10 Someone else cooks dinner – yay!

This is totally cheating, but at least I'm all caught up now. :D

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2010-10-24T02:00:00.001-07:00

Your meme is here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I'm having a re-read week this week, by the looks of things.

I'm reading American Gods – and I'm finally ¾ of the way through – still The Two Towers and now, thanks to a Twitter conversation – I've picked up the Belgariad again.

I started re-reading The Belgariad last year, when David Eddings died: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2009/06/thank-you-mr-eddings.html and ... I got through Pawn of Prophecy – lol. I've read them so many times that I can easily pick up from book two and carry on from there, so that's what I'm doing. :-)

Last week I finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare, and presumably reviews will be forthcoming.

So I'm spending this week with some old friends. Entirely by accident, but it's certainly not a bad thing. :-)

Happy reading!

Madame Bovary

2010-10-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – possible spoilers

Madame Bovary was book one on my #diversityclassics reading list that I started last month. I was slightly intimidated, never having read Flaubert, but spending a few weekends at my mother's while she recovered from heart surgery, and not having access to the internet while I was there, was very conducive to reading.

I had very few distractions (apart from my mother of course) and finished the book over the course of two weekends.

Just sitting down and reading for several hours is, of course, a bit foreign to me now, so I savoured the experience, along with the book.

Madame Bovary is about the life of Emma Bovary in 19^th century rural France.

Emma is a dreamer and a romantic, finding that real life is a harsh place to be, so she hides, in her affairs and her dreams and her shopping.

All of these things, ultimately, lead to Emma's downfall.

As does, it has to be said, being a young woman in rural 19^th century France. Emma is passed with hardly a thought from her father to her husband, and instantly regrets her marriage.

She's an incurable romantic and seeks out affairs and material trappings to try and make her life seem a little less bleak.

For me, the overall tone of Madame Bovary is suffocating. Emma's life gets smaller, and smaller until the very end when she can't bear it any more, and I had to keep stopping to take little breaths as Flaubert wove a claustrophobic world around his central character.

I loved Madame Bovary, although the translation I have – by Geoffrey Wall for Penguin Classics – is a little bit choppy which could pull me out of the story a little but. But Emma as a character – as sad and doomed as she was – and the story itself are so strong that it wasn't long before I was drawn back in to Emma's tragic, suffocated life.

I think the biggest tragedy, for me, is that there really isn't another life for Emma. I kept trying to think – in my 21^st century girl kind of way – that she had options, that she could have ... and that was always as far as I got.

Emma's options were truly limited. And yes, ultimately she was a victim of her own somewhat overwrought imagination, but even so it's hard not to feel sorry for her as she tries to fill her empty spaces with ridiculous affairs and purchase after purchase.

I found her husband and her lovers to be a little bit ... blurry? I couldn't quite get hold of them all that well as characters, which – if it was intentional – was very clever on Flaubert's part. It makes Emma's story and her struggles that much more painful to read, because she was so very front and centre.

The other character that did stand out was the chemist, with his strange ideas and his platitudes. He's unlikable, but certainly memorable, with his picky, pettifogging ways.

I'm not sure if I would ever re-read Madame Bovary – it's fairly draining, but I'm glad that I have read it now ... if that even makes sense.

Book two of the #diversityclassics challenge for October was supposed to be The Matriarch by Witi Ihimaera. But somehow I've let most of October slide without picking it up, so I'm moving straight on to November's book – In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

8/10 That movie that you've watched 100 times and you never get tired of

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