2012 eclectic reader challenge: december - classic

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my last book for the Challenge, and I chose it as my classic because I really wanted to finish with something good. And really, there was no way I was not going to like this book.

Anne of Green Gables is one of my all-time favourites - but since I had read it before, in the spirit of the challenge, I decided to read Anne of Avonlea. LM Montgomery didn't let me down.

This book instantly transports me back to girlhood, when my "bosom-friend" Emily and I used to re-enact Anne and Diana's adventures as 12 year olds. We were BESOTTED with this story. We had all the movies. We made raspberry cordial (non-alcoholic! Readers of the book will get this!) and we pretended to have puffed-sleeves and picnics.

Needless to say, as I read this, I could see perfectly in my mind every scene played out. The characters to me are as familiar as old friends.

I loved every minute, and I still have an image of Anne stuck in a storm, having fallen through a hen-house roof, balancing on a barrel with an umbrella over her head!

Anne of The Island is already beside my bed!

View all my reviews

2012 eclectic reader challenge: february - mystery.

This was just not my cup of tea. The story relies heavily on the reader's ability to follow conversation that is highly colloquial and jargonistic. There is very little description, and often characters are introduced without preamble or explanation. I found this book like listening in to a phone conversation between two strangers without knowing any background (and not really caring). 


I know it's a multi-award winning book, but honestly, it just didn't hold my attention, and reading it became a chore.


Not for me. I gave it 1 / 5 stars on Goodreads.

Join in!

perfect

All I want for christmas...

Kindred spirits Russell and Brian are selling their version of this blog in book-form over at Amazon... ;)

right up my alley

I'll read anything.

ANYTHING.

When people ask me what I like to read, or to recommend them a book, I actually find it really hard, because I'll give anything a whirl! I suppose I like sagas, literary fiction, and suspense the most, but honestly: I'll read anything anyone recommends!

So when Shelleyrae tweeted her 2012 Eclectic Reader Challenge, I knew this was the one for me! :)

The challenge is to:

"Select, read and review a book from each genre listed below during the year for a total of 12 books.

*  You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance.

*  Where a book is identified by more than one genre eg historical romance, it may only count for either the historical fiction or romantic fiction genres – not both.

Genres

1. Literary Fiction
2. Crime/Mystery Fiction
3. Romantic Fiction
4. Historical Fiction
5. Young Adult
6. Fantasy
7. Science Fiction
8. Non Fiction
9. Horror
10. Thriller /Suspense
11. Classic
12. Your favourite genre

• Each time you read and review a book as part of this challenge, make sure you identify it by adding either a direct statement  and /or the challenge image badge to the post.

• Share your review with other challenge participants by adding a new comment to this page with a direct link to your review."

I'm gonna choose as I go, so any recommendations you have - don't hesitate to comment! Maybe you could join in...? ;)

 

where do you read?

No house should be without a few really good places to read. Here are a few spots at my house.

Where's your favourite reading spot?

hey darklyss? what do you think of...?

I don't write book reviews, as a rule. I have written about books I've read on this blog, but usually I write my opinion in a short paragraph or so.

I do this for a number of reasons:

a) I am a time-poor Mum of a toddler, with a casual job, a full life, and a big book addiction!
b) I don't have time to read lengthy reviews, and I assume there are others like me who don't either!
c) I can usually say what I think about a book in a few minutes thusly:

"I liked it/hated it. I liked it because ***. I didn't like it because ***. If you like ***, you'll probably like this one too."


That's all I usually want to know when I read a book review. Call me overly simplistic, but if I wanted to know in copious detail about the themes/characters/plot - I might as well read the book! (And make up my own mind!)
d) The fourth reason - in all honesty - is that I don't think I write that well, nor do I think that my opinion is necessarily gospel! Just cause I loved it, doesn't mean you will! And if I hated it - I'd want you to read it anyway, and make your own mind up!

What do you think? Do you write/read book reviews? Do you feel like they affect your opinion of a book, or what you read?

Here's Darryl Campbell's view on reviewing books:

Darryl Campbell has a few suggestions on how book reviewers can sound more esoteric

And some pointers by John Pinsky:

How Not To Write a Book Review: What a hatchet job on John Keats teaches us.

What do you think?

2011 man booker long list announced

In case you missed the memo, here's this year's 2011 Man Booker Prize long list so (if like me you've read NONE of them *blush*) you can start reading:

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail)
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The winner will receive £50,000 and each of the six shortlisted authors (TBA Sept 6th) including the winner, will receive £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their book.

how do u describe a colour?

So I just found this on the book TARDIS - this is one of the coolest books I've seen.



I opened this, and thought: "Wha...?!" Every page is black...




:S Wha...?



This is a book of colours for VISION IMPAIRED kids!!! Is that not the coolest thing?! The writing is in print AND Braille! It describes what the colours FEEL like, then the next page appears blank, but have raised 'pictures' on them to feel! I turned them into the light so I could photograph a couple:


















I LOVE THIS. And books SHOULD be for everyone. ESPECIALLY picture books! :)

- Posted on the road from my iPhone

bravo: read your mills & boon on the bus with pride!

Just read a brilliant article over at www.heroesandheartbreakers.com entitled "Eff You!: Romance Novels are NOT Porn for Women!" by Evangeline HOLLAND.

This Guy’s Not Exactly the Playboy Bunny, but You Get the Point—Are We All Hopped Up on Sex?

"Most of the jabs directed at the romance genre by non-romance readers have to do with sex—romance writers are frustrated housewives, romance readers are sex-crazed, the books create unrealistic expectations, et cetera et cetera. In turn, most of us have been largely conditioned to hide our clinch covers, splay our fingers across such titles as Bedded by the Sheikh or The Prince’s Virgin Seduction, and passionately argue that the blurb focusing on the hero’s lusty ways and the heroine’s quivering loins are not the sole focus of the book—we’re reading them for, well, the romance!

The main joke at our—and the genre’s—expense is that romance novels are “porn for women,” and at that I call foul.

Everywhere we turn, sex and women’s bodies are displayed for the gratification of the male gaze. Playboy and its various entities have become embedded in pop culture, magazines like Cosmo recycle countless articles on how to become a sex goddess for your man, and visiting a strip club with your man or your girlfriends is seen as the height of sophistication.

Ultimately, the glaring, blatant message society sends is that male sexual desire, and the satisfaction of it, is supposed to be the main focus of “love and other indoor sports” (© Judy Blume).

No wonder romance novels are so mocked, derided, and jeered at!

Thrill by Jackie Collins

When I first discovered romance novels at the tender age of 17, I was shocked that this funny, entertaining book I was reading actually had sex written in its pages! Color me naive (my onetime experience with Jackie Collins at 10 notwithstanding), but I sailed along blissfully in the waves of kisses only or maybe even just smoldering looks and touches in the books of Ann Rinaldi andFrances Temple. To see such graphic descriptions in the printed word was jaw-dropping...titillating...freaking awesome...and I grabbed for more.

Sure, the sex in Catherine Coulter’s novels can be of a questionable quality, but I cherish the hilarious eroticism of The Courtship, which opens with the hero, Spenser, stumbling upon the heroine, Helen, giving Alexandra Sherbrooke a lecture in discipline. Even better was the fact that Helen was a very tall, Rubenesque woman, and not only was she proud of her stature (and she was very intelligent), but Spenser loved that about her. The combination of an intelligent heroine, a humorous, if anachronistic take on BSDM in the Regency, and funny sex was eye-opening for my teenage incarnation. I received the sex talk from my parents early on, read any article or book on sexuality from cover to cover, and of course, discussed things with my friends, but in the pages of a romance novel I could explore the sensations aroused by my tumultuous and admittedly confusing hormones in a safe space.

The Courtship by Catherine Coulter

From there I browsed my library stacks, pulling out the books with interesting spines (and titles—I quickly cracked the romance novel title code), experiencing a variety of sexual positions, a variety of kisses, and a variety of sensual touches, in the bodies, so to speak, of a variety of women. In these pages I saw short women, tall women, women with large breasts, women with small breasts, boyish bodies, curvy bodies, brown women, white women, black women, brunettes, red-heads, brown-eyed, green-eyed—just women who had bodies and experiences and personalities like normal, everyday women, who got to enjoy sex in a powerful and affirming way.

Now that I’m ten years older and a trifle more experienced, I still find the sex in romance novels, in all their fantastical, outrageous, virgin-orgasms-her-first-time way, continues to be a safe and private space. While I do read romances for a number of reasons, and sometimes roll my eyes when I see yet another clinch cover on a story that is so much more than its sensuality level, I appreciate the sex in romance novels and what it means for its writers and readers. So if romance novels are “porn for women,” I feel we have the right to own, explore, and cherish our sexuality (and the HEA is the cherry on top!)."

My favourite 'chewing gum' for the record!
Read it: It's brilliant.

Can I say here and now that there is NOTHING wrong with a good old Mills & Boon! Just as much as there is nothing wrong with reading for a bit of harmless escapism! (To use one of my favourite quotes from my favourite childhood movies National Velvet: "What's wrong with folly?")

Sure it's not going to nourish your soul and broaden you mind like Kafka, Chomsky or Rushdie - but we mustn't forget the importance of reading for FUN, ENTERTAINMENT and ENJOYMENT! :)

And to quote from my primary school librarian:

"Some books are like chewing gum, and some are like hearty meals. There's nothing wrong with either if you enjoy them in moderation!"

new books & wild woolley wether

Today I did one of my favourite jobs: Shopping for new books for the bookmobile :)

Of course I was on the lookout for WTF books!

Such as this one:



...yep, I hav no idea what it's about either.

And this kids' book, which is about some poor dude (I don't know who), who is caring for 12 babies in a tiny apartment (I don't know why), and how frazzled he gets trying to entertain/keep track of them all. (???)







But I just HAD to grab this one ;)



And this was my lunch date today...



He looked alot warmer than I felt - Brrr!



Ahhh - it's a tough job. But SOMEONE's gotta do it! ;)

a superficial journey of self-whatevery

I dont really know what I expected from this book. And so I don't really know why I was disappointed. What I didn't expect was it to be 'Eat Pray Love' meets 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'.

I know, I know - the title should have tipped me off.

I think she acurately sums it up in the quote:
"My life in India had been a mass of contradictions; one minute I was beyond materialism and sleeping on an inch-thick mattress, the next I was dropping 130 pounds in Amethyst. One minute I was sipping coconut juice between classes and discussing yoga sutras, the next I was swigging Pinot Grigio"

Must admit I skimmed a fair bit of the end. I didn't learn anything. I didn't relate to any of the characters. I don't really know what the point of this book is. I'm not sure Lucy Edge does either.

Read more of my reviews and become my friend on GoodReads! :)

childhood friends

After the death this year of Elizabeth Taylor, I dug up my old dog-eared copy of National Velvet ready to read it to my daughter, which I always dreamed I would. Miss K is only 1 year old, but I figure, there's no harm in being prepared, and maybe re-reading it again, for the hundredth time, just to refresh my memory... :)

Books I am dying to read to Miss K - in no particlar order:

1) The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgenson-Burnett
2) Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
3) National Velvet - Enid Bagnold
4) Matilda - Roald Dahl
5) The BFG - Roald Dahl
6) Hairy MacClary from Donaldson's Dairy - Lynley Dodd
7) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
8) Thing - Robin Klein
9) The Lorax - Dr Seuss

What books do you love/would you love to read to your kids?

I think one of the reasons that I am so passionate about kids literacy, is that one of my earliest, clearest memories, is when I realised I could read.

I remember it so well, I can transport myself back there instantly. I was the only one up in the house, it was about 6am. I was on the couch with a blanket and a book - "The Cat in The Hat" by Dr Seuss. This book had been read to me many times, but I distinctly remember the exact moment where I thought "Oh my god... that says 'and we did not like it, not one little bit'... I can understand those words! That's 'cat', those squiggles mean 'cat'! And those ones, and those ones, and those ones...! Oh my god... I can READ THAT!" And I read the whole book aloud from cover to cover.

Isn't that a cool memory?! :)

Do you remember your first favourite book? Or when you learnt to read?

save my page

Have u ever found something weird in a book? In our library we find weird things people use as book marks all the time. Infact we have a whole drawer in lost property full of photos that people have left in books as book marks.

'Pommie Sarah' told me that she once found a piece of BACON in a book in the mobile library. Creative, but I tend to recommend book marks of the non-perishable variety. And less greasy.

Here's a site dedicated to weird book-finds:   http://www.thingsinbooks.com/

And look what these people found: http://www.flickr.com/groups/thingsfoundinbooks/

preferred reading beverages

For me there's nothing that goes better with a good book than a cup of tea. But my choice of beverage does depend alot on the type of book I'm reading. For example:

- a glass of red wine with Chick lit
- sencha while reading Amy Tan or Banana Yoshimoto
- hot chocolate while reading in bed
- white wine while reading in the bath
- coffee while reading in a cafe
- Pimms while reading Jilly Cooper
- cola while reading in a park
- a pot of green tea while reading in our garden
- milk and bikkies while reading with my daughter

Do you change your refreshment depending on the book/situation?

shelf-help

Our house is full of books. We love our books. Sometimes though, I dont feel like our random stacking on boring wooden shelves does them justice. I was thinking about book storage/presentation/display today, which lead me to google some interesting shelving ideas...

WOW. There's some cool shelves out there! Do a search yourself... go on... :)

I don't think I've even scratched the surface here - as far as cool shelves go.

Then I've seen magazines where random stacks of book appear in designer rooms. Looks great, but might be a pain if you find you want the book on the bottom of the pile. Which I'm sure I would.

One thing I have seen though, which I totally love, and which totally appeals to the obsessive compulsive side of me, is books used to inject colour into rooms, or books shelved according to colour.

Inspired? Me too.

japanese book are kawaii (cute)

When you buy books in Japan, the stores cover them in these brown paper covers, and I LOVE IT! I wish they did it here! You see lots of japanese ppl reading on the train, and all their books have these nifty covers, or nice fabric ones you can buy. Can you guess what book I bought in this pic? ***

The only problem is, in Japan books are so cute and tiny - so none of their standard sized book covers fit books we buy over here! :( I want teeny Japanese books!

***(Answer: The Otaku Encyclopedia!)