If you use a circular saw blade as a book mark I’ll waive the overdue fees.

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week’s question…
What items have you ever used as a bookmark? What is the most unusual item you’ve ever used or seen used?

Does everyone know know this blog Forgotten bookmarks? A whole blog about things that people use for bookmarks and leave behind when they sell their books (gasp) to a rare book dealer (how do I get that job?!). It’s a great blog my favourite post was this one about a 6" saw blade marking a page in Inside Every Woman, what a crack-up!

As for me I’ll use anything to mark my spot, empty cafe sugar sachets, chip packets, bobby pins, date due slips, a piece torn from a newspaper/magazine, pens, post-its, receipts, jewellery, tools, cutlery (just yesterday I was forced to use a dessert spoon). All of this is ridiculous because I have 4.ooo bookmarks – all gorgeous – that somehow are just never in the right place when I put down my book.

how about you how do you mark your place?

a whole new world at my fingertips

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week a BTT question about BTT…

What’s your favourite part of Booking Through Thursday? Why do you participate (or not)?

You must pop over to BTT this weeks it's snowing! So pretty wish we had some snow here - wrong hemisphere, just heat haze here

I got into blogging for a number of different reasons one of which was to sort out my reading into some kind of order. What I didn’t expect was the pleasure I would find in just being part of a new community – who knew there was a whole world of people at my fingertips (excuse the pun).

I really enjoy the thinking part of answering BTT questions, have I lied about reading a book? why do I do that?; just what are the 15 books that will always stick with me …and why? etc. Sometimes the questions don’t move me to answer but I get a lot of entertainment reading what everyone else has to say.

That’s the best bit for me - everyone’s responses – it is amazing just how varied we all are and yet so often I find an answer that makes me feel ‘normal’, the ‘same’ and makes me sigh and say to myself “see someone else does that too!”

classic characters

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. A meaty question this week…

Do you think any current author is of the same calibre as Dickens, Austen, Bronte, or any of the classic authors? If so, who, and why do you think so? If not, why not? What books from this era might be read 100 years from now?

The meaty bit about this question is defining 'calibre'. Dickens, Austen Bronte, those pedestal gods of ‘good’ literature, cast a long shadow. If by calibre you mean their way with language, the way they engage with and confront their culture and ideology, their status as part of the cannon then no because the old boys club of the cannon is hard to breach.

On the other hand if you’re talking about an author's way with language, engagement with and confrontation of their culture and ideology, and total disregarding the cannon…then yes! of course there are writers today who are up to the challenge.

My picks for those authors in the same league as Bronte, Austen & Dickens? Arundhati Roy, Tracy Chevalier, Margaret Attwood, Geraldine Brooks, Tim Winton, Markus Zusak, Ian McEwan…there’s seven authors just off the top of my head without even stopping to think too hard - wonderful work that will still be read a hundred years from now and hopefully contributing to a new cannon!

What about you, who do you think of as a classically great writer? - go on add to mt TBR I dare you :)

life IS too short

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

I'm bit late but nevertheless yesterday's question was an interesting one so I'm playing belatedly, this week’s question is…

Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?

Really life IS too short and Mt TBR too high to force yourself to read something you’re not enjoying. When I finished my degree (actually while I was slogging it out during my degree) I promised myself to never again endure the torture of great books waiting on Mt TBR while I punished myself with mediocre.
As always this declaration has an exception in the case of bookclub. If we’ve got a book I’m not enjoying I will persevere (most often but not always) so that I can be an informed part of the discussion. Actually so I can bang on about how much I didn’t like it – with examples!

It’s all about them

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.
Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

I’m not a big bio fan I must admit and I don’t mind if it’s an autobiography of a biography – it’s the person that attracts me. The last bio I read was Freda: a biography of Freda Whitlam. She interested me because she is a member of my church, sister to a past Prime Minister and has lead a very interesting life. I also know the author, Noelene Martin, so I was very curious to read both about Freda's life and sample Noelene’s writing skills.

I’ve read Michael J Fox’s first (Lucky Man) and his second (Always Looking Up) is on my Christmas reading list. I love the intimacy of the first hand autobiography so I’d probably choose an autobiography over a biography, unless the writer of the biography interested me in their own right – as Noelene did.

how about you…bio or autobio, or neither?

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

this week the question is: If you could ask your favorite author (alive or dead) one question … who would you ask, and what would the question be?

This is a no brainer for me, I'd be asking Edith Wharton 'what were you thinking!'

****************The Age of Innocence Spoiler alert***********************

why doesn't Newland go up to see Ellen at the end of The Age of Innocence?

We wade through all that drama, their lives intersecting, the will I/won't I, all the sexual tension and THEN he finally has his chance with her and he doesn't even go up to her! really!!!

I've read this book twice and the ending many times. I've had a go at wrting an ending I could live with myself (it was a task set in a creative writng class at uni) and I admit that I couldn't do it and maintain the character's integrity but, hey I'm NOT Edith Wharton! I'm absolutely convinced she could have pulled off a meeting and happy-ever-after for Ellen and Newland.

So that's what I 'd be asking her.

stand back I’m on a mission!

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week’s question…

What’s the funniest book you’ve read recently?

Well there you go another reason to blog find the gaps in your reading.

It’s amazing to realise I can’t think of a single book that I’ve read recently that made me really laugh. My stand-out memory of a great laugh was years ago reading Spike Milligan’s war books  - laughed till I cried even on the train (smidge embarrassing).

So it is now my mission to read everyone else’s BTT post to make a list of books that made others laugh and they are going to the top of Mt TBR!

pop quiz

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

Try this quick quiz…

Reading something frivolous? Or something serious? Serious

Paperbacks? Or hardcovers? Paperbacks

Fiction? Or Nonfiction? Fiction

Poetry? Or Prose? Prose

Biographies? Or Autobiographies? neither

History? Or Historical Fiction? both

Series? Or Stand-alones? both (series for fantasy especially)

Classics? Or best-sellers? classics

Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose? none of these, but I do like quirky or lyrical prose

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? plot please

Long books? Or Short? both

Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated? usually non

Borrowed? Or Owned? owned

New? Or Used? both

I know it’s Friday but…

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments.

Following up from last week’s question ...Do you keep all your unread books together, like books in a waiting room? Or are they scattered throughout your shelves, mingling like party-goers waiting for the host to come along?

So I’m late…again…but to be fair I thought it was Thursday! As you can see from last weeks BBT post my bedroom is also my TBR waiting-room. New books arrive and usually go to the top of the pile on my bedside bookshelf, often pushing one/some off the bottom and onto a shelf further away, but still insight of my bed.

This is called, in my own twisted way, moving to the back of the bus. Sometimes I feel sorry for those moved to the back of the bus and sometimes I’ll retrieve one for reading purely on the basis that it was once a treasure.

Since I’ve been slack in the looking for work department my book buying has slowed down (a bit, really it has, honest) so I haven’t moved any to the back of the bus for a while. Also, since I finished uni, I’ve been reading off the ‘one-day-books’ pile, so it’s easy to keep all my unreads in my bedroom the problem is the shelves that they move to once read are chockers and MGM has vetoed new shelves!

No! not another book…I’m not listening

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week's proposition ...

Is from The Toddled Dredge (via K for Kat). Here’s what she said:

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ “

I’m coming late to BTT this week as someone had my camera just when I wanted to use it, isn’t it always the way? Your stuff sits round idle for months and then when you loan it out you find you need it too.

Anyway here is by bedside TBR. It once sat in a neat pile on my bedside table but it became to ungainly and kept toppling off the edge. I wanted to keep them close and the only shelves that would fit was a CD stacker bit it works.

Bedside table is now reserved for my current reads (see side bar).

 On the Shelf

• The Girl with the Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier
• Exploring English Ronald Horan
• Long Way Round Ewan McGreggor
• Blooming English Kate Burridge
• When he leaves Kari Quinn
• The Other Boleyn Girl Philippa Gregory
• The Boleyn Inheritance Philippa Gregory
• Harlequin Bernard Cornwell
• The Dragon at Noonday Edith Pargeter
• Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert

• recommended by others (RBO)
• * Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil
• Gaimaon
• * The Eyre Affair Jasper FForde
• Started but not finished
• * Mrs Dalloway Virginia Wolfe
• * Tales of the Unexpected Roald Dahl
• * Kiss Kiss Roald Dahl
• * Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil John Berenot

Balancing precariously on top: the quartos

• Reunion Andrea Goldsmith
• The Historian Elizabeth Kostova
• The Return of Merlin Deepak Chopra
• The Devil's Brood Sharon Penman
• Character (bible study work book)
• Seven Ancient Wonders (quarto RBO)

• * The Politics Aristotle
• * Persuading Aristotle Peter Thompson
• * One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• * The Unbearable Likeness of Being Milan Kundera
• * The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follet

As if 27 books beside the bed is not enough at the foot of the bed this shelf beckons…

only fifteen?!!!

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week's question ...

This question inspired from Shelley’s blog, and what a great question it is too! “This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

So here goes 15 books in no particular order that will stay with, I’ve got the timer going, 15 minutes starting now…

1. To kill a mockingbird (always my go-to book)
2.The Bookthief
3. The Great Gatsby
4. The Lord of the Flies
5. The Lord of the Rings
6. The Crystal Cave
7. The Lymond Chronicles (okay, I know, not one book but Lymond is inside my head complete and gorgeous)
8. The Year of Wonders
9. Dune
Am panicking now because I don’t want to forget something special before I'm out of time!
10. Rebecca
11. Here be Dragons
12. Sense and Sensibility
13. The Belgariad
14. The Potter’s Field
Last one... oh oh which other of my loved ones makes the grade….
15. Watership Down

this was fun, I love thinking about my treasured reads but I’m sure I’ve left some off the list and they’ll be all ‘boo hoo you don't love me anymore’ – really I’m not that weird but I am convinced that inanimate objects have feelings.

What about you, what are your first fifteen favourites? Bye now I’m off to read everyone else’ s over at BTT (to see what I forgot).

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week's question ...

Which is worse?
Finding a book you love and then hating everything else you try by that author, or
Reading a completely disappointing book by an author that you love?

I don't mind hating everything else I try by an author after one good read. I am well able to put the book down after giving it a fair go and moving on to another (there’s not enough time to be wasting it on a book I don’t enjoy as my good friend Renae says). If a second or third book disappoints too then I may try one more or I may just put the one good read down to a fluke and consider myself lucky to have had one good read.

On the other hand I'm devastated if a loved author has an off day, to the point that I might not actually admit it, even to myself. I had this disaster with Mary Stewart. At the risk of offending her many fans I must admit that Stormy Petrel and Rose Cottage offered only vestiges of her former glory. I know she was in her 80s when she wrote them and I tried so very hard to like them but to be honest they were feathers compared to the gold of her Merlin series and earlier romance/crime fiction.

I read them with my Mum, we were both fans, out of loyalty but we decided if there were any more to come from Stewart's pen we'd probably not read them - it was like loosing a friend.

p.s. Hello Emily this is for you

BTT is a long running bookish meme. To join in pop over and read the 100's of interesting comments. This week's question courtesy of Barbara

It does seem like modern fiction just “tells the story” without much symbolism. Is symbolism an older literary device, like excessive description, that is not used much any more? Do you think there was as much symbolism as English teachers seemed to think? What are some examples of symbolism from your reading?

This is a really interesting question (BTT's always are). It might be one of those right brain vs left brain things, some readers just don't see the multiple layers that language offers; there's nothing wrong with that at all. The problem develops when one type of reader says 'my way or the highway', as criticism for either seeing too much or too little in any given narrative.

Reading is a subjective contextual experience. There's no harm in reading reading Aniaml Farm as a commentary on Stalin and WWII, or as prophecy, or as a great romp where pork is king. As to the question of whether symbolism is an older device - nup I don't think so. As long as words are set to paper there'll be readers looking beneath them for the hidden/symbolic. A psychoanalytical reading, for example, of any text will reveal hidden symbolism of even the most modern text.

Readers will find whatever they need to find (whether it was intended by the author or not). I agree with Roland Barthes - the author is dead - the miunte s/he writes "The "end".

This week's BTT question is an old one revisited which is good because I wasn't doing BTT 2 years ago so it's all new to me!
Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…
Are you currently reading more than one book? If so, how many books are you currently reading? Is this normal for you? Where do you keep your current reads?


I have always been a one-book-at-a-time devotee. My thinking was that I wanted to give my whole heart and soul to each read and I found that diffucult if I had more than one on the go. I say WAS becasue my reading habits were changed perforce by uni. It took me six years to get my degree and the amount of reading required demanded concurrent reading.

Although I'm no longer writing essays and reading primary texts along side secondary criticism I find emersing myself in multiple reads possible. This is good because I do like to have more than one book to show off at the "what I read last month" part of BookFreaks (my bookclub). Especially as some members (Becca) have little OCD problem and bring anintimidatingly huge pile of recent reads.

I keep my current read with me at all times (Becca's not along in the OCD department), it's usually my bookFreaks book. The others are on my bedside table (BST), I dip into each according to my mood. At the moment my BST reading consists of The Devil's Brood = I've gone to bed early to escape the world and I'm in the mood for a nice long read (It's HUGE so it'll be on my current read pile for quite a while); Tales of the Unexpected = I'm tired or short story mood; and for those outside the square moods I've started Mrs Dalloway.

I'd rather read the book

BTT’s question this week is inspired by Tami :

What book do you think should be made into a movie? And do you have any suggestions for the producers?

Or, What book do you think should NEVER be made into a movie?

Some books just read like the movie, I can see the actors & scenes sometimes even the fade to black. And I don't like it, I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I'm not a fan of the whole making-a-book-into-a-movie-thing. I don't condemn all book/movie transitions - I could appreciate Peter Jackson's vision and the scope of the LOtR series even though I was loath to see the first one because of my devotion to Tolkien's art.

I just have this idea of what everything/one looks like and it is rarely the same as what I see on screen especially when the liberties are taken in the name of artistic licence - I'm a fundamentalist at heart.

I was put off Seven Ancient Wonders because of the screen-playishness (will give it another go however it's on the reading list for bookclub) and I just knew that Dan Brown would make it in Hollywood as I was reading The Da Vinci Code (didn't stop with this one though). I hope they never have a go at Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles no actor alive would measure up to my image of Francis Crawford of Lymond.

plans for a busy retirement

last week’s question We’ve all seen the lists, we’ve all thought, “I should really read that someday,” but for all of us, there are still books on “The List” that we haven’t actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they’re fabulous. Even though we know that we’ll like them. Or that we’ll learn from them. Or just that they’re supposed to be worthy. We just … haven’t gotten around to them yet.

I'm coming to the party a bit late but I keep bumping into this fascinating question as I spider my way through the wonderful world of blogs. Everyone's answers are so interesting that I thought I'd join in too.

Like many other passionate readers i've discovered in my blog reading my TBR list is a long one. This is my retirement list - they all require my undivided attention and right now my attention is not just divided it's diced up like an onion for frying.

1. Tolstoy's War & Peace and Anna Karenina
2. Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment
3. Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discipline & Punish: the birth of the prison
4. Goethe's Faust
5. Wolfe's Mrs Dalloway
6. Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Satanic verses
7. McCullough's Masters of Rome series

gotta go now... must start reading!