We read...

To know we are not alone. ~C.S. Lewis~

Friday, July 10, 2009

Now monthly on the First Friday (of course)

Friday Firsts* Copy/paste the question and button.
* leave a comment and link to your post.
* Join in with the intermittent puzzle, (look for the answer the following FF). First correct answer = 1 pt.    A prize will go out on FF 1st anniversary ! (track your progress on my sidebar)…

When was the first time you thought ‘I can do that’ and put pen to paper for your first work of fiction? Care to share yours I’d love to read some new stories.

When I first read Tolkien I was so taken by the other-worldliness of Middle Earth I thought I’d like to create my own world. I had great ideas for the most wonderful leading man (based way too closely  on Strider) and a grand quest theme. It did not take long to work out that Tolkien possessed a genius that few people have and that the great novel just was not in me (I was about 13/14).

It took another 35 years for me to actually have the skills to write and the knowledge that I am not a writer. I’ve heard enough authors talk to know that their inner life needs expression, they have a compulsion to write. I understand it because I get antsy when I’ve been deprived of creative time. I think I need to make jewellery and beads and cards in the same way as a writer needs to write.

That’s not to say I didn’t absolutely love my creative writing classes and the process of writing, I did. But I know that anyone who can say ‘one day’ about putting those stories I’ve got floating around in my head down on paper is not an author. What about you have you managed to take the step from reader to writer?

Puzzel: On a cold day in April what time were the clocks striking

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.

DSC_0021Anyway 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 DSC_0025
  • 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

DSC_0024

  • 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 quartosDSC_0023

  • 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)

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  • * 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 DSC_0027 this shelf beckons…

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

hosted by MizB @ Should be Reading.
* Grab your current read & let it fall open.
* Share 2 “teaser” sentences, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
* Share the title of the book… remember...
**************************avoid spoilers please****************************

Mel is a strong 16 year old fleeing from schoolyard tormentors…

Cars stop for me at the Salisbury Road crossing, and I almost cry with gratitude. It feels as if the drivers are being incredibly kind to me, as if they know my leg and head are stinging from the stones and my knees are wobbling, and they’re stopping to help me escape, and maybe block the way if Brenner comes after me again.

p12 The Best Thing,  as always Margo Lanagan is outstanding.

Musing Mondays (BIG)Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library company…

Buddy borrowing Becca asks…Who, if anyone usually accompanies you to the library? Is it somewhere you go alone? Or is it a regular outing with family or friends? Which do you prefer?

Hmmm library company…? I can think of one person with whom I’d share a library trip (having been there several times with my buddy borrower) but actually not that many other people. I talk a lot (ask anyone who knows me) and I get too distracted doing that to concentrate on book blurbs, so my borrowing is not all that successful with a friend. I prefer alone.

When the tin lids were little I'd have lots of company but the visit was for them so it didn’t matter if I was distracted as I wasn’t really trying to find something for me. When I think about it those were my fav times in the library… with my kids, getting them fired up about books. My son would always take longer so that gave me time to read some books to my girls and exchange them on the spot for new ones. 

The library and my kids what great memories…

Monday, July 6, 2009

So here’s what I’m going to do…

There has been some very sketchy contributions on WeRead lately, you all know why, nothing I do has helped me get back to reading/commenting on everyone’s interesting blogs (that I love btw) and I’m starting to put too much guilt-pressure on myself to keep up …

So here’s what I’m going to do:

  1. stop worrying.
  2. go monthly (instead of weekly) for things like Friday Firsts and Top 3.
  3. read more/comment less (so I’ll be lurking a lot).
  4. focus on my fav memes – Musing Monday & BTT (I hope Becca’s okay there’s no Musing up yet and she’s never late).
  5. stop worrying.

Eventually I’ll do those reviews, make those comments, get back into the blogosphere with gusto and I know you’ll all still be there and I am NOT going to obsess any more (I’m not, I’m not, I’m NOT!).

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

2008 BookFreaks

May
Atonement - Ian McEwan

June
Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

July
The Book Theif - Marcus Zusak

August
P.S. I Love You - Cecilia Ahern

September
The Mist - Stephen King
Black Juice - Margo Lanagan

October
Cloudstreet - Tim Winton

November
The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

December
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

where did Tuesday go?

I can’t quite seem to get back to normal, it’s frustrating and I miss the blogosphere. I haven’t visited anyone lately except Just One More Page, on Monday. I actually sat down just now to write my MM post a bit late and then I realised it is Wednesday! surely Wednesday’s too late but where did Tuesday go?!?

So I decided to catch up a bit by showing off my purchases (& my reason for buying them) on my birthday-treat shopping day to the Blue Dragon my new favourite  second-hand bookshop. The shop owner is, I’ve been told, a librarian and she did very well not to shush us as we buzzed around her shop like kids in a lolly-shop.

The shop doesn’t have that sometimes yucky second-handishness, you know where you look at a book and wonder if someone’s been reading it on the loo, it’s more library-meets-new-bookshop with second-hand prices. All my purchases were in excellent condition some of them look like new. Next time i go I’m going to TRY and part with some of my treasures because of course she buys too and that way the bottom line is even smaller (I’ve never been able to part with a book voluntarily - we’ll just have to see about this plan!)

here’s what I got…

  • One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez       (the fantastic title)
  • The Historian Elizabeth Kostova                                           (the blurb)                             
  • The Best Thing Margo Lanagan                                               (Margo Lanagan is my fav aussie writer)
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger                      (the nagging – Becca! I’ve read it and she was right to nag)
  • Persuading Aristotle Peter Thompson                                     (I desire to be persuasive)
  • The Return of Merlin Deepak Chopra                                   (the author’s gorgeous name)

100 years historian best thing TimeTravellersWife unbearable pa return of merlin

And on the same day, in the post, arrived this book written by a distant rellie & dedicated to closer rellies (MGM’s cousins Roger and Jan)…

reunion

  • Reunion Andrea Goldsmith.

I’d call that a good day!