The Not Really Resolutions 2011 - The Conclusion!

Well it’s been a whole year.

Last year I set myself some Not Really Resolutions. This is also known as the Wimp’s Guide to Resolutions. It means that they’re not really resolutions – because then if you didn’t achieve them you’d feel like a failure – but they’re more just things you’d quite like to achieve in a year. Much less pressure.

I’ve been providing you with scintillating updates throughout the year but now is time for the final round up and a little bit of my thoughts on each one.

1. Run a 5km race – Ran the Race for Life in July 2011. This one was a big deal because running was most certainly not my thing but through training for the race I discovered that I actually really love running.

What I do not love however is the injuries that I get from running. After the race I was in so much pain that I could barely walk and then once the goal had passed I found that the drive to go out and run was no longer there. This has meant that I’ve barely run since the race apart from some attempts here and there. I would really like to carry on running but I also really need to determine whether my injuries can either be avoided altogether, are the kind of injuries that can be managed successfully or are the kind of injuries which mean that running just isn’t for me.

2. Crochet a Ripple Blanket – Made a total of 3 Ripple blankets. Well and truly achieved. I put this on the list because when I come up against things I can’t master, I have a tendency to conveniently forget about them and give up trying. By having this on the list I knew that it would force me to crack on with it. It did take me a stupidly long time to get a hang of (and I’ve no idea why) but once I’d cracked it I was off and away with a blanket for myself made, a blanket for a friend's baby made and a blanket for my Dad and his wife made.

The Yarn Fairy blanket is my favourite. Mainly because it’s mine. But also because it was made with yarn that was given to me by super kind people. At the beginning of the year I was in pretty dire financial straits and without these people giving me these awesome birthday presents I didn’t think I’d be able to see this one through.

(Also my Dad and his wife did indeed love the Ripply Beast which was their Christmas present.)

3. Back up all my photos on to CD – I’m glad I had this on there because not long after I’d completed it, my laptop had a complete nervous breakdown and gave up on life for a while. Luckily everything was recovered but during my anxious wait I was very pleased, and only about 46% smug, that I had set up a little system to keep all my photos backed up. Yes an external hard drive would be easier but I’m not spending the money on one I’m afraid – far more exciting things to buy. I have a little system and once a month I make sure everything is backed up. I’d go into it but you would probably declare me the saddest of all human creatures so I will try and retain a little dignity.

4. Paint my plastic toad – Done. I know it seems like a stupid thing to put on a list but if you knew me you’d know that unless things get written down, they simply will not get done and I will sit and procrastinate and find other things to do and then bemoan the fact that I never got this one small thing done. I love froglet and he lives by my fireplace in my new room. Which reminds me, I should probably put on my list for 2012 that I need to dust him – he’s bloody filthy at the moment.

5. Go to the cinema on my own – Done. This was an odd one to put on there really. Mainly because I really don’t go to the cinema at all, never mind on my own. But it was more about an exercise in confidence and being comfortable and ok to do things like that on my own. Normally I think I’m a pretty independent person but I could do with a little kick up the bum sometimes and this provided me with it.

6. Complete Project 365 – Done! Hurray. You can view the set of photos here. This was a really interesting not really resolution and I’m so pleased that I took the plunge and did it. It is most definitely harder than it looks. Although that depends on how much pressure you put on yourself and what kind of theme (if any) you want to go for. I would imagine if you take “serious” arty photos you would struggle early on but because I was simply documenting my life I was much easier on myself. Sometimes not a lot happens in your life and you need to take photos of the cats – that’s fine!

What has been so much fun for me though is looking back at it and seeing the little tiny insignificant things that happened in my life. Things that I would probably have forgotten about if I hadn’t taken a photo of that day and left a note to remind myself. I can see what I’ve done in a year, when I’ve gone to see The Person (not as much as I’d like. Sad face.) things that have happened along the way. I’m really really pleased I did it.

I’ve decided not to do it again this year, I kind of feel like I’ve done it now and don’t need to do it again (although I wouldn’t rule it out in the future). But it has inspired one of my new resolutions that I’ll be talking about later in the week.

7. Make an album/scrapbook of my 2010 trip to France. – As predicted I didn’t get this finished. Boo. I think I really should have started it much earlier than I did because it got abandoned amongst crafting for Christmas and was left by the wayside. But I did make a start on it and I’m pleased because, again, if it hadn’t have been on the list I can guarantee that I wouldn’t even have got that far. It’ll be finished by the end of 2011 no worries!

8. Go over to Belfast to see my family – Done. Again I’m pleased I had this one on there. I know it shouldn’t be a resolution to go and see your family but I’m ok with being honest and saying that we’re really not a close family so it did kind of need putting on there to make sure I made the effort. It did the job and I reconnected with my cousins which was lovely. Sometimes it’s easy to pass the buck and say “Well so and so hasn’t rung/text/visited” when you really have to ask yourself if you’ve done all you can. Now I know that I have.

9. Read 12 Classics throughout the year – Done. So so so pleased I put this on the list because it’s been really brilliant and I’ve read and learned more than I ever would have done normally. It’s taught me not to judge a book by its cover and that sometimes it’s ok to say “Actually that book is a load of codswallop” and feel good about the fact that you can say that because you’ve read it and are entitled to your opinion instead of those who just repeat what they’ve heard other people say.

10. Cross stitch one Christmas card each month – Done! I can’t remember how many I ended up with in the end - I think it was about 18 cards so it was well smashed. It meant that I was able to give all those people I felt deserved one a special card which was the point. It was good to spread it out over the year instead of having a mad panic right at the end of the year, which meant that I was freed up to crochet blankets, embroider bags and make Christmas wreaths for presents, instead of cross-stitching cards. It also meant that I could choose some designs that needed a little bit more effort, rather than picking those that would only take a day or so to get finished.


So there we have it. 9 out of 10 completed. I count that as a success. And I don’t have to feel bad that I didn’t do all 10 because they weren’t really resolutions were they?!

Tune in at some point in the future (I won’t say this week because I’m not certain that my blogging mojo has returned yet) for my Not Really Resolutions of 2012!

Not Really Resolutions 2011 – Update 6

Time for an update my pretties. I know the last update was in September, but I’ve managed to tick a couple off the list since then. Exciting times I know.

1. Run a 5km race – All done, done and done. I would absolutely love to do more running and would love to add running a 10km race to this list but my continuing shin splint on my left leg seems determined to scupper my chances of running further than 5km. Ah well. I shall keep trying. Anyway, see this post  to see all about how I ran a 5km race.

2. Crochet a ripple blanket – Two blankets completed and hopefully by the end of the year I will have completed three of them. Ripple well and truly conquered. (Yarn Fairy Blanket, Jungle Ripple Blanket and Ripply Beast Blanket.)

3. Back up all my photos on to CD – Done and done. It’s fun to be super-organised.

4. Paint my plastic frog – Done and done

5. Go to the cinema on my own – A new one crossed off the list! Hurray. Just when I thought it was never going to happen, I got let down by a friend and had to spend the day in London on my own. I feel proud because not only did I finally complete this resolution but I did it in el capital. I know how to do it in style baby. Read all about it here

6. Complete Project 365 – Woo we’re at 3?? photos –the end is in sight! Have I mentioned a gazillion times already how much I hate the fact that it’s dark and I can’t take any decent photos? Well it’s true. It sucks. I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved and hated doing this all at the same time, but I guess it’ll get its own post in 2012 when it’s all finished. Feel free to check out my Flickr photostream for the evidence.

7. Make an album/scrapbook of my 2010 trip to France – I get increasingly worried that this is going to be the Resolution That Got Away. I so badly want to get it done but unfortunately we’re now entering in to the peak of Christmas crafting and smoke is starting to come out of my ears and I just don’t think it’s going to happen. I will try my best to keep the faith though, I promise. But hey, at least I started it didn’t I?! (See this post for more details.)

8. Go over to Belfast to visit my family – Woop! Another one bites the dust! Done, done and done at the end of October and you can read all about it here.

9. Read 12 classics throughout the year. – Oh. Yeah. Three resolutions crossed off in this update. Don’t feel bad to be around such brilliance. This has been one of my favourite resolutions, I’m so incredibly glad that I set myself this challenge because it has been so very interesting and eye-opening. You can expect to see this one again next year because there’s no shortage of Classics out there for me to read. You can read my thoughts on this particular resolution here, which contains links to the reviews for each Classic I read. Try to contain your excitement.

10. Cross stitch one Christmas card each month – Ack I could go for another one and have four whole resolutions crossed off in one update but I’m going to remain pedantic here. Far be it from me to be accused of cheating. Now I have now currently got 16 cross-stitched Christmas cards which means that I have surpassed my total of 12. But technically I’ve said in this resolution that I will make one cross-stitched card each month and as we’re still only in November I feel that it wouldn’t be fair to cross this one off the list yet. Read all about how it's gone here.

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What was that you say?

What? This face?

Oh yes. This is my smug face.

Only 3 things left to cross off my list. Hurray.

And the other face?

Yeah that’s the side of my face that I’ll be laughing out of when I don’t manage to make the stupid scrapbook/photo album of France by 31st December 2011.

All about how I read 12 Classics in 2011

So I feel like I’m allowed to be a bit smug at the moment because I’ve totally managed to cross something off my Not Really Resolutions list. Namely that I would read 12 Classics this year.

The debate as to what constitutes a Classic continues to rage on, both in my head and with the people that I talk to about it but I have decided to take a stance that it’s not up to me to decide what makes a Classic, I’m leaving it firmly in the hands of the publishers and if they call it a Classic then far be it from me to argue with them.

So here they are in all their glory. Yes you are right there are only 11 in this pile but that’s because I read Treasure Island on my phone remember? (See yet another argument against eReaders – I wouldn’t have been able to take a cool picture like this one if I’d read them all in eBook form!)

The final twelve

- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

- Midnight's Children

- The Moonstone

- The Picture of Dorian Gray

- Wuthering Heights

- Tess of the d'Urbervilles

- Things Fall Apart

- Go Tell it on the Mountain

- Treasure Island

- The Great Gatsby

- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

- The Dud Avocado

So I figured that really I should do a bit of reflecting on my list and see what I thought of them all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a literary dunce, I do my fair share of reading and I try to read quality stuff, but I decided to undertake this because I didn’t feel like I was getting enough of the heavyweight stuff in my diet. Think of this as the literary version of getting more fibre in my system.

I feel the list is pretty representative of all that’s out there under the banner of Classic at the moment – there’s some old stuff, some more modern stuff, and a bit of obscure stuff thrown in for measure.

(I apologise for the overuse of the word “stuff” in this post but my brain is fried now and it’s either less eloquent blogging or no blogging at all at the moment.)

As a very wide and sweeping generalisation I would say that I think I’m a fan of the older Classics than the Modern Classics, the Classic Classics, or CCs, if you will. They seem to be much more character and plot driven than Modern Classics (MCs) which tend to be a little more abstract and thematic, requiring the reader to work much harder to discover what the bloody hell it is they’re banging on about it.

So yes, basically I like the CCs that are a little easier on the brain, hence negating the whole concept of this idea in the first place.

But that has in turn thrown up kind of an interesting observation. If someone said to me they were reading a CC I think I would probably be very impressed and nod my head sagely and think how terribly clever they are. Having now read a few of these CCs I think I would be slightly less impressed because really I know that you’re just reading an earlier version of Marian Keyes. The myth has been blown people.

And the people who say that they’re reading a MC – well I know that there’s more than the slight probability that they’re erring on the pretentious side. And if not, they’re simply too clever and intelligent to want to converse with me.

There have been a few surprises along the way – namely Wuthering Heights which I read, waiting to be bowled over by the tragic love story....I’m still waiting. I just cannot see what the fuss is about that book. And then I picked up Tess of the d’Urbervilles almost shaking in my boots such were the awful things that I’ve heard about Hardy and it actually turned out to be one of my favourites of the bunch, it almost broke my heart.

My Dad’s wife had snipped out a brief article from a Sunday paper a while ago that said that there is some ridiculous percentage of people who have books on the bookshelves purely for the reason that they look good to other people. Never fear, I have kept these books for the purposes of the photoshoot for this blogpost and some of them will not be staying with me, much as I would like to keep them to point at them and say “LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM EVERYONE.” However, I am ruthless with the books I read and anything that didn’t really really really get me will not be staying. What’s the point in me filling my shelves with books I’m never going to read again?

The article also said that people will lie about reading Classics. I can also confirm this is true. The reason why is totally beyond me. Because they’re jerks?

So.

The favourites?
The Moonstone – I really loved this and The Woman in White is on my Christmas list if anyone happens to be taking note.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles – I’m flexing my muscles and I reckon I’m ready to take on another Hardy. Yes he isn’t the cheeriest of chaps but he can’t half tell a story.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – One word. Charming. But it’s fluff.

The not so much favourites?
Midnight’s Children – This still makes me shudder when I think about it. Begone with you confusing pretentious book.

Wuthering Heights – A victim of hype? Maybe I expected too much?

The Great Gatsby – Erm.....I don’t geddit. Sorry.

The surprises?
Treasure Island – How this was aimed at small children I don’t know. And it apparently was, it was originally serialised in a children’s magazine between 1881-82 (thank you Wikipedia) and hats off to those kiddlywinks because this was kind of boring at times. But then it would be oh my goodness so incredibly exciting that I almost couldn’t bear it. I still couldn’t really tell you if I liked it or not.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Proof that you don’t need to write a tome to write something that’s incredibly affecting.

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If you missed out on all the fun that has been the reviews of each of these Classics (and let me tell you, it was quite a treat, go and feast your eyes on the literally 1s of comments) then you can find them all by clicking on the Not Really Resolutions of 2011 page.

I am most definitely going to carry this on into 2012 because it’s been an interesting little treat for my brain. Also I’ve been going mad all year buying Classics so I now have a shelf full of them and need to get through them.

Now I really must go and rest my gigantanormous brain down somewhere.

Three Classics for the Price of One

Hello. Have you missed me?

Apologies for the fact that I have been off radar. Almost 2 weeks since my last post? Bad Girl. I’ve been majorly snowed under at work recently and my crafty Gantt Chart, whilst good at keeping me organised has also meant that my nose has been to the grindstone and there’s been no time for anything else. Plus there was a wee jaunt to Belfast thrown in for good measure.

Anyway I’m coming back with possibly the worst post ever because it’s going to be about books and we all know that you hate the book reviews but it’s ok, this is going to be quick and snappy and bright and breezy because I have three Classics to review and rather than do them all in separate posts and lose the few readers I have left I thought I would squizz you through them nice and quickly.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Oh how my hopes were high. I mean this guy is up there with all those books that you feel everyone has read but you. Well I’m here to tell you not to feel bad about not having read it.

I think it’s a case of hype. The Classics I’ve most enjoyed on this jaunt have been the ones I’ve known little about, the big guns have done very little for me and this was no exception. I’m inclined to blame myself and just say that I’m not smart enough, I’m not getting the big major themes out of it, I’m not attuned into the symbolism. Maybe it’s just that I’m not American and living in the 1920s so it doesn’t feel like a big deal? I don’t know but it didn’t do much for me.

That said, it’s not a bad book at all, I would say to read it but try and drive all expectations out of your head. This book was in my Penguin Banned Books Collection because it was apparently banned in the US for obscenity. I must have missed it....

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson

A while ago when I asked for you guys to recommend some Classics to me, a couple of people mentioned this book. When I went to Persephone Books on my recent trip to London I knew I had to pick up a copy.

This is immensely readable and lovable. All the characters are warm and everyone is wrapped up nicely with a bow at the end. It won’t change your life, it won’t tax your brain, but it will make you a slightly happier person by the end of it.

It is incredibly funny in some places and there is absolutely 100% no way you could not read this book and end up loving Miss Pettigrew by the end and cheering like a mad woman inside your head for everything to turn out ok for her.

And the best thing about this book? It’s set over one day so obviously isn’t going to take you much time to read at all. (Ooh just like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – although a little more lighthearted.)

The Dud Avocado – Elaine Dundy

I feel there should be some kind of English essay I should be writing where I compare and contrast the heroine of this book, Sally Jay, with Miss Pettigrew. But I’d never make my brain work that hard. I had picked up a copy of this book a while ago because it’s been released by Virago in their Modern Classics range with a spiffy little cover. I couldn’t afford it at the time so imagine how pleased I was when I discovered this copy being given away at work. Bonus.

Sally Jay is an American living in Paris in the 1950s, she’s been sent there for 2 years by her Uncle on the proviso that she go out and find herself. She is exasperatingly naive at times, flighty and actually quite difficult to like. But she’s impossible not to love and as you follow her life through Paris in an almost non-existent plot that chops and changes as she floats from adventure to (mis)adventure you are left simply shaking your head at her antics.

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See? That didn’t hurt too much did it.

Guess what?

The Dud Avocado would be the 12^th Classic that I’ve read this year.

Oooh I can hear the tick of a pen against a list....

Not Really Resolutions - Update 5

So here we are in September and I thought it was about time to update and see how I’m progressing with my Not Really Resolutions 2011 since I last updated in July.

1.       Run a 5km race. – Done and done! Woo! Read all about it here.

2.       Crochet a ripple blanket. – Not only done but I’ve done TWO of the freaking things. Get me get me get me get me get me get me. The Yarn Fairy blanket  and the Jungle Ripple blanket are now living in the real world instead of my head.

3.       Back up photos on to CD – Done and done. And I’m being a good girl and continuing to keep my system up to date.

4.       Paint my frog – Done and done.

5.       Go to the cinema on my own. – Yeah why did I include this one? It’s not so much that I haven’t done it as that I haven’t been to the cinema at all this year. At least I don’t think I have. I’m not a cinema-goer at all, why did I include this?!

6.       Project 365 – Continuing apace. Although it takes me ages to upload my photos because I don’t have internet access at the moment. I tend to save it all up and have a manic mammoth session in a local coffee shop, using their wireless internet. That way I can get everything done and only have to pay for one cup of tea. (If I take longer than an hour I feel like I need to get a 2^nd drink).

7.       Make album/scrapbook of my France 2010 holiday – It has been started but that’s pretty much all I can say about it because it keeps getting moved to the bottom of the crafting pile. It’s now been included in my super geeky Gantt Chart so here’s hoping that motivates me to just get on with it. It wouldn’t take that long at all if I just got my head in gear.

8.       Travel to Belfast to see my family. It’s booked! I’m going over towards the end of October for a long weekend. Hurray!

9.       Read 12 classics. This is coming along nicely. I have read 9 by now so I’m on schedule. The trouble at the moment is that I’m finding it hard to find the time to read anything because I’m trying to make as much as possible for Christmas. But I’ll do it. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads.

10.   Cross stitch one Christmas Card per month. I won’t lie. You can tell which cards were cross stitched at the beginning of the year. They’re the really nice ones that are all elaborate and beautiful. The closer it gets to Christmas the more simple and plain they are becoming until eventually they’re just basically back stitch...However this one will definitely be completed seeing as I’m determined to cross stitch one card each fortnight until we get to Christmas. I can’t guarantee that everyone will get a cross-stitched Christmas card but the people I really like will get one.

So in conclusion? We’re all good! It looks like I might just be successful on this one. If only I hadn’t put that stupid cinema thing in there....

Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

I’m pretty sure you don’t get more Classic than Treasure Island, I’m guessing that if we played some kind of Family Fortunes game where you asked 100 people to name as many Classics as they could in 1 minute, Treasure Island would come pretty high up the list.

And what better way to read this Classic than to do it on piece of modern technology?

Culture Friend let me know that there was a free Kindle App that you could download on to your Android phone and it comes with some Classics free of charge, Pride & Prejudice, Treasure Island and Aesop’s Fables. Done and done I say.*

So for anyone who, like me, didn’t really know what Treasure Island was about, here’s a brief synopsis that doesn’t give away the ending...

The story is narrated by Jim Hawkins, whose family own the inn to which ex-pirate Billy Bones rocks up one day. Turns out he’s in hiding from a load of other pirates because he has a map which shows the location of the treasure of Captain Flint, who is now dead.

Bones eventually dies and Jim gets hold of the map, taking it to Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawny who decide to organise a mission to go and find the treasure.

A crew is gathered together and the Hispaniola sets sail from Bristol to the Carribbean. One of the crew members is the cook Long John Silver – Jim overhears him planning to organise a mutiny which is going to take place when they arrive on the island.

From there on in we have to-ing and fro-ing and intrigue and changing loyalties as everyone races to find the treasure. But I won’t spoil the ending and tell you who, or even if they do, find the treasure.

This was kind of a tough one to read. It seemed to go through periods of being really exciting and I would avidly read through the pages like a mad woman, but then it would go through serious lulls where it felt stodgy and confusing and I didn’t really know what the hell was happening. It’s beyond me how this is a children’s book you know.

The language obviously doesn’t help things and at times I was left scratching my head, thinking “What the hell is he on about?!” And there are also a couple of plot details which require you to suspend your belief. For example, Billy Bones has warned Jim about a pirate with a wooden leg – upon meeting Long John Silver you’d think he’d put two and two together, but when he does meet him, despite having misgivings he decides that it couldn’t possibly be the same pirate. Yes because there are bound to have been more than one pirate with a wooden leg knocking about you moron.

And the ending is kind of weak. There is a serious case of let’s-tie-it-all-up-with-a-nice-bow going on here. But I think we should let him off that. Not entirely sure why but I’m going to.

This is a proper boy’s book though – if you could write a story that was just like this but updated a little, it would encourage boys to read in droves, I believe the word swashbuckling may be of use here.

I’m guessing there are important themes I should be picking up on here. Long John Silver is a tricksy little character with more faces than a dice – is he trustworthy? Is he likeable? There’s a whole discussion to be had about morality I think but you know me, I don’t have the brain power to do that here.

It’s not my favourite of the Classics that I’ve read but I’m glad I’ve done so.

Welcome to the ranks Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver.


*Just in case you were wondering it actually wasn’t that bad reading on my phone although there’s a glare issue that you wouldn’t get with a real life Kindle. But you can change the size of text, change the font, and change the background colour to find something that suits you. You can bookmark pages so you don’t lose your place and there’s a handy little bar at the bottom which lets you know exactly how far you are through the book. In short – I like it! But I’m very unlikely to purchase actual real-life books for it, there are far too many real life ones to be read!

August Book Review

I've had a good month. Mostly down to a couple of long train journeys, a couple of short books and one book in particular that I really, really, really struggled to put down.

Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht
One of those books that appears to be everywhere at the moment, appearing on this list and the other. Think I got it half price with an offer in Grazia magazine.

Part fairy tale and part real life it actually made it hard to decide how I felt about this book. I think I would have liked it more had it been pure fantasy or completely real, being betwixt and between didn't really do it for me.

Nevertheless it has all the beautiful hallmarks of a fairy tale story and it's worth picking up.

Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
I'm sure you know by now how much I loved One Day when I read it a couple of years ago. If you don't - I did. (In fact I'm glad I did these reviews, this means I can prove I read it before everyone's jumped on the band wagon.)

Having seen a review on Nose in a Book I wanted to pick this up and when I found it on offer in WH Smiths I decided it was a sign I should buy it.

Oh how I laughed. I laughed in public and I laughed in private and I may even have snorted once or twice. I loved it. And luckily for me, the review I've just linked to is much better than anything I could have written so I'll send you over there.

I have to say though, I saw the book a week or so after I'd finished reading it and could not have been more disappointed if I tried. It was just so so not good, every bit of essence that made the book hilarious was missed out and it was just such a shame. It's impossible for me to say if I would have liked the film if I hadn't read  the book, probably, who knows? I can say that it's made me pretty nervy about going to see One Day at the cinema.

Pavane - Keith Roberts
I picked this guy up at work because it had the most fabulously retro front cover ever. I seriously couldn't resist it. Sci-fi isn't normally my kind of thing to be honest but I decided to give this one a whirl. I have since done a bit of 'research' (i.e. looking on Wikpedia) and have discovered that this book is kind of a big deal in the sci-fi world. One might even call it a 'classic' - but don't worry I won't be counting it as one of mine (until I get to the end of the year and I'm not on track for completing my mission.)

Yeeeeeaaah. Can't say my stance on sci-fi has changed much. This book imagines what would have happened if Elizabeth I had died and Catholics ruled the world. If I was a Catholic I might be a little bit tetchy about this book - the result is basically that the Catholic church has prohibited invention of any kind, meaning that when we start the book in the 1960s England is a place of steam trains and semaphore.

The book consists of a few stand alone chapters which slightly interweave with each other but it feels disjointed and was just kinda boring to be honest.

Wilt on High - Tom Sharpe
I've read a Tom Sharpe before and this was exactly what how I remembered the first one. Fun.

Think Evelyn Waugh meets the Carry On films and you have Tom Sharpe. They're a little bit rude, little bit comedy of errors, little bit smutty and a lot funny. Just a good, easy, fun read, would definitely recommend for a little light relief.

This book is the third in a series featuring Wilt. I haven't read the other two but it didn't matter at all, there are a few references to previous goings on but all they've made me want to do is go out and find the other two books.

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Book of the Month?

Starter for Ten without doubt

July Book Review

Good lord. What have I been up to this month? Clearly not a lot because I’ve managed to read 5 books. Fear not, I’m not some voracious reading machine, these are all very easy reads. I’ve even managed to squeeze in 2 classics, but these weren’t great tomes either. Ahh shame, I was starting to feel good about myself for a moment then.


What was on the list this month?

In my Sister’s Shoes – Sinead Moriarty

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe

Letters from Father Christmas – JRR Tolkein

Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin

The Importance of Being Seven (44 Scotland Street series) – Alexander McCall Smith

In my Sister’s Shoes – Sinead Moriarty.
Not the sort of book I’d pick up at all but Mum nearly begged me to read it saying that it was really funny. Poor Mum, she must be spending too much time on her own now that she’s retired, this really wasn’t that funny at all. I think I laughed out loud once and really I was being kind.

I can’t even be bothered to summarise what happens in it. Usual chick lit stuff. Poorly developed characters. Poorly developed plot. I don’t think Marian Keyes needs to be quaking in her boots.

Letters from Father Christmas – JRR Tolkein
Hands up if you love a bit of heartwarming reading. This is the guy for you. I picked him up for £2 in a clearance outlet and am so pleased I did. JRR Tolkein sent letters every year from Father Christmas to his children, telling them tales of the North Pole and the antics of his friend the North Polar Bear and the evil gnomes. The book contains photographed copies of the actual letters and the lovely drawings that he also used to send.

If you don’t feel a little tug on your heartstrings when you read the last letter sent to his daughter then you’re not human.

It’s one of those books that you don’t really need and indeed when I finished it I thought “Well what will I do with this now?” Answer. Keep it. You will read it again, you might even read it to your children.

By the way did anyone else get letters from Father Christmas? I have two in a box somewhere that I received, oh to be so young that you don’t recognise your own Dad’s handwriting.

The Importance of Being Seven – Alexander McCall SmithI know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love Alexander McCall Smith. Love him love him. Although oddly can’t love the No1 Ladies Detective Agency which is weird I know. But I especially love the 44 Scotland Street series and each time a new book comes out I do my very very utmost to be patient and wait for it to come out in paperback.

If you see any of these pick them up and read them, I know these characters so well it’s like putting on an old pair of slippers, and the fact that it’s serialised in a newspaper means that the chapters are so short they are easy to dip in and out of.

Love love and love a bit more.

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Book of the month?

The Importance of Being Seven. Mr McCall Smith I love you. And I see that the latest Courduroy Mansions book is out in paperback, excuse me while I make my way to the bookshop....

I really need to start reading something a little more highbrow. Finding the thinnest Classics I can and reading letters from Father Christmas isn’t really expanding my horizons.

Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin

I’m coming to a bit of a conclusion when it comes to Old Classics and Modern Classics. The basic rule of thumb when it comes to my little brain is this: Old Classics I “get”. I might not always like them (sorry Wuthering Heights) but I understand what they’re trying to say to me, there’s a decent story and everything makes sense. Modern Classics have a tendency to leave me feeling distinctly stupid. They are much more abstract in the themes they deal with, so abstract in fact that they completely pass me by.


This is the 3rd book that I would probably terms as a Modern Classic (the others being Midnight’s Children *shudder* and Things Fall Apart) and this one, like the others (although not so much with Things Fall Apart) has left me scratching my head a little bit. So much so that I actually felt compelled to conduct some research into the book because I was so sure that I wasn’t “getting” it and was missing some bold point.

I actually don’t think I was (although the references to homosexuality completely passed me by, I just thought he looked up to him as an older boy, god I’m an innocent) but people are unanimously adamant that this is a seminal piece of American literature I just read. And I don’t really think that racism is the main theme of the book, which could be expected, having been written by an African-American writer in the 1950s. Race is a sub-theme within the book, it’s there, bubbling under the surface and there are occasional references to it but it’s not a great big club that Baldwin’s smacking you over the head with. Religion is the order of the day it would seem.

Semi-autobiographical, the book takes place over the period of 1 day, the main protagonist being John, a young boy whose father, Gabriel, is a preacher in the church. John has been told he is destined to follow his father but harbours no wishes to do so and has an almost all-consuming hatred for his father who is the most un-Christian preacher you could come across, liberally beating his children and wife.

Whilst everyone is gathered in the church, we hear the background stories of Gabriel, his sister Florence, and John’s mother, Elizabeth, in their own voices and begin to understand a little of the forces and dynamics at play in each of their lives. Gabriel is a gigantic huge twat it turns out – knocking some girl up before stealing from his first wife to send her away to have the baby. However his life as a preacher gives him the perfect excuse to “do as I say not do as I do.” Hypocrite. Florence is the least religious of them all, has some kind of moral compass, but has had a rough deal in life and Elizabeth has had an equally tough time.

This is all marvellous and I enjoyed reading these background stories, understanding a little more how and why everyone was interacting with each other in the way that they did, and then the book in the final part goes totally haywire.

John undergoes a hysterical conversion to God and has various dreams and visions that made little or no sense to me.

And then the book ended.

I hate books that do that. I felt cheated, I didn’t understand, is John’s conversion real or is he doing it to get back at Gabriel and act as a check on his vile behaviour? If it’s real then why has it happened? We don’t know what’s happening in John’s head when he experiences God, we’re too busy focusing on the lives of Gabriel, Florence and Elizabeth.

I don’t really know what I thought of this one. I think, if it’s impossible I’m just ambivalent to it. Maybe it would strike more of a chord with me if I was American and had more of a feel for the culture and the time in which it was written? Maybe he’s just not the author for me. Whilst I wouldn’t tell people not to read it, I’m not desperately looking for hands to thrust my copy into either.

Final verdict? Odd.

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(Get me! I’m ahead of schedule, this, my friends is Classic Number 8. And there’s another Modern Classic on the way – The Great Gatsby? Step on up.)

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

I know. I’m a machine aren’t I? Here I am, worried that I won’t be able to stick to my deadline of reading 12 classics in a year and here I go and finish number 7 before we’re halfway through July. I’m nothing if not efficient.
When I decided I wanted to do this challenge, I had an image in my head. That image was of a box set of books that my Mum had got me from the Book Man ages ago. It’s a set of 10 books that have all been banned in various countries at one time or another, for various reasons. This is a Penguin collection and it quite clearly states Penguin Classics on the side so who am I to argue?

Trouble is, I had no idea where this box set had gone to. When I moved out of the flat and in with Dorothy, an awful lot of my books had to go into storage a.k.a. my Dad’s house. They were shifting things around in their house at the time and everything was all of a jumble and I couldn’t find my beloved box set.

Until I started living there and had time to rummage and finally laid my grubby hands on them. I think it’s safe to say these are all what you would probably term Modern Classics. I don’t want to start off a grand debate on whether a classic is Pride & Prejudice territory or Midnight’s Children territory – I’m going with the publishers on this one.*

Anyway, so there I am, deciding what to read next (and praying for a teeny book rather than a hefty tome) and up pops this post from Nose in a Book about Chinua Achebe. And in my box set there resided “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. And it’s about 150 pages long. Decision made.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the main difference between Old Classics and Modern Classics is a question of making your brain work a little bit harder. Modern Classics tend to be just that bit more complicated with hidden meanings and themes running throughout whereas the Old Classics feel more concerned with writing a good story with good prose.

For 150 pages Achebe packs a lot in. Okonkwo is great warrior in his village of Umuofia. To say he has anger issues would be underplaying his character – he beats his wives and is responsible for the death of a boy he has virtually adopted. However, when he accidentally kills a fellow clansmen he is extradited for 7 years, in which time missionaries and colonialism sweep in to change the lives of the villagers.

He is a proud man and is incapable of dealing with the change this brings and the book draws to a climactic conclusion that could leave you a little disappointed.

The power and beauty in this book is the simplicity of its writing. I don’t mean by that that it’s not clever, it’s just very to the point, the lives of the villagers are ruled by proverbs and when you’re reading Things Fall Apart you feel like you’re reading one of Aesop’s Fables or a book with old fairy tales in it.

And to prove t hat simple does not equal ugly, check out these couple of paragraphs;

“At last the rain came. It was sudden and tremendous. For two or three moons the sun had been gathering strength till it seemed to breathe a breath of fire on the earth. All the grass had long been scorched brown, and the sands felt like live coals to the feet. Evergreen trees wore a dusty coat of brown. The birds were silenced in the forests, and the world lay panting under the live, vibrating heat. And then came the clap of thunder. It was an angry, metallic and thirsty clap, unlike the deep and liquid rumbling of the rainy season...Palm trees swayed as the wind combed their leaves into flying crests like strange and fantastic coiffure.

When the rain finally came, it was in large, solid drops of frozen water which the people called ‘the nuts of the water of heaven’....The earth came quickly to life and the birds in the forests fluttered around and chirped merrily. ..As the rain began to fall more soberly and in smaller liquid drops, children sought for shelter, and all were happy, refreshed and thankful.”

Aren’t you just there and part of it? Lovely.

Achebe takes you in to the lives of these villagers. The book feels like it’s not going anywhere, but in fact you’re just learning about their lives – learning about their customs – how they deal with justice, death, marriage, birth and all that life brings in between.

Okonkwo sees the missionaries as a threat to this life. They come and denounce the Gods that they follow and some people are converted. When Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, converts to Christianity, Okonkwo washes his hands of him, feeling he’s betrayed his life and way of living.

The colonial governors and officials are a step further along – people who don’t understand their way of life and don’t wish to, merely looking to change their customs to the “right” ones, as they see them.

I know the book is supposed to leave you feeling outraged at colonialism – how dare these people come in and ruin whole villages – but I think I felt a little differently. To me the book represents Okonkwo’s total inability to deal with change and the unknown. As much as the colonial governors make no effort to understand how things work in Umuofia, Okonkwo is so filled with rage that he will not attempt to converse with them either and is instead intent on waging war.

This is not a post extolling the virtues of colonialism by any means but I don’t think that the issue is quite as black and white as it’s supposed to be. At the end of the book, there is reference to a book The Commissioner is writing which is going to be called ‘The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger’ and I’m guessing this could be a reference to Joseph Conrad’s book – Heart of Darkness, which is mentioned in the post over at Nose in a Book.

This is where Achebe has excelled where so many fail – he’s written a book that’s easy to read but yet provokes your mind into turning issues around and around and upside down. You don’t need vast tracts or points rammed down your throat, Achebe makes them subtle but they reverberate in your head long after you’ve turned the last page.

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*Also. Remember me saying how I’d never heard of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich until my Dad recommended it along with some other people? When I uncovered my box set, guess who was in there?!

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

When I decided I would read 12 classics this year, this is the kind of book I had in mind. Serious heavy classic stuff. Tess has been sitting on my bookshelf for absolutely ages and I’d managed to studiously ignore it for the first 5 months of the year. It just seemed a little too heavyweight. Plus whenever you mention Thomas Hardy people tend to groan and go “Oh my god he’s soooooooooo awful. He’s so depressing. He’s so grim.”

But June came along and I decided it was time to man up. Besides if this resolution has taught me one thing it’s that these classics are never quite what they seem.

It came close to the wire with this one, I finished it on 29th June, meaning that I’m still on track for reading 12 in a year. It wasn’t the easiest read I’ve had in places and there were times when I wanted to sigh and ask “Really? How much more can she take?!” but I love love loved this book.

First up. Hello tragic love story. Heathcliff schmeathcliff. Angel and Tess’s love story is far greater and more powerful than Heathcliff and Kathy. Their love is the kind of all consuming, can’t do without each other love that I was expecting from Wuthering Heights.

But the key word we have to remember here is tragedy. Tragedy all the way. I can see why people think Hardy is depressing, Tess’s story is almost unbearably sad and sometimes the book feels as if it’s one continuous list of shitty things that happen to her. I probably wouldn’t recommend it if you were perhaps feeling a little low (although you could draw comfort from the fact that no matter how bad your life is at least it isn’t as bad as Tess’s). But behind all the awfulness is just beautiful writing. Hardy is descriptive and you able to fully immerse yourself in the scenes he creates for you.

For instance, how about this sentence,

“The drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm served to chill its effervescence to stagnation.”

Or this one,

“The pair were, in truth, but the ashes of their former flames.”

Gorgeous.

It’s probably not the one to read if you have feminist leanings, you’ll be crawling the walls with temper by the end of it. The subjugation of women is rife in it....or is it? You could also argue that Tess was the original independent woman – carrying on in the face of adversity, not asking for help when she could have done and getting her stiff upper lip in place. But nevertheless, she is nothing without her love, as she writes to him at one point;

“I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not be your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine.”

Tess seems to lurch from one crisis to the other and just when you think her happiness is finally secured, it is snatched away from her and she is plunged into despair once more.

At times it was a little rough, hence why it took me a whole month to plough through, but towards the end I found myself turning the pages faster and faster as I willed Angel to come back to her and followed him through the countryside on his search to be reunited with his one true love.

Don’t worry, I haven’t just given away the ending. And I won’t. But if you have read Tess of the d’Urbervilles I just need to quickly say something to you,

“Oh my god I did not see that coming!”

I really didn’t. It’s not often that endings catch me unawares but this one sure as hell did, leaving me desperately searching for someone else who’d read it to say “Oh my god. What just happened?!”

Is it a happy ending? I think we know enough about Hardy to know that no it probably isn’t. But is it? All I can say is that Tess is happy at the end.

One word. Beautiful.

June Book Review

I remember the days when I used to read loads. Where have they gone to? What am I doing now that stops me from reading as much as I used to? Maybe I am reading as much as I did last year, it just doesn’t feel like it?


Either way, there’s only 2 books up for review this month. Hurray.

Needles & Pearls – Gil McNeil
I read the first book in this series a while back. I hope my review didn’t come off as disparaging because it wasn’t meant to, it’s just that there’s not too much I can say about this kind of book. I could relay the plot to you but if I did that then it wouldn’t be worth you reading it and I’m not saying that’s it not worth reading, it’s a really lovely book, I just can’t say much about it.

McNeil has succeeded where so many fail – she’s written characters that are likeable. Ok, they’re a little one dimensional but they’re likeable and sometimes all you want from a book is a little entertainment and light reading. These books hit the spot and I have to say, that having finished this one I kind of wanted to know when the next one would be available to read.

The Testament of Gideon Mack – James Robertson
This guy's been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and I thought it was time he had his turn in the limelight. You know when you read a book and you can’t believe you let it sit on the shelf for so long? This is how I felt about this one.

The Testament of Gideon Mack begins with a foreword from a publisher, who explains the back story – Mack was a priest in a small village in Scotland who fell into the Black Jaws, a local river, disappeared for 3 days and emerged a changed man, claiming that he’d been hanging out with the devil. Then he went into the hills and was never seen again. Shortly afterwards a manuscript was found which details his life and how he came to meet the Devil – hence his testament.

It’s odd to read a book when you already know how it ends but Robertson has managed to create a character which is engaging but at the same time a bit of a loser in life. He’s also managed to deal with some tricky questions about religion and belief but with a sleight of hand that doesn’t weigh down on you.

Mack is a Minister who doesn’t know if he believes in God – is this a problem? Is it impossible that he met and spent time with the Devil? In the end it’s up to you to decide what happened but in a sense that’s not the real question – if he believed that it happened then surely that’s all that’s important.

This book also contains one of my favourite quotes ever and chimed in with something I say all the time;

“My time in Leith had taught me that it was possible to be a Christian without involving Christ very much.”

Loved it.

Also finished this month (by the skin of my teeth) my 6th classic of the year – Tess of the d’Urbervilles – but that’s getting a post all of its own.

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Book of the month?

The Testament of Gideon Mack. It’s a difficult task to write a book that’s enjoyable to read but also makes you question difficult topics. Hats off to Mr Robinson.

May Book Review

Book me up people. I feel like it’s been longer than a month since I did one of these.


Wuthering Heights took up a lot of this month – if you missed my stellar review then pop here.

On the agenda this month?

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards

I felt a kind of overwhelming disappointment with this book. I guess that’s what happens when you read a book that everyone has raved about. I didn’t really know what it was about, I just heard lots of people saying it was good and saw lots of copies lying about the place. Culture Friend kindly lent me her copy and I got on it as soon as possible – mainly because I’ve been in a book debt to her for a very very long time, if I finished this book I would officially be all square with her.

Basically a woman gives birth to twins. Her husband delivers the baby and upon seeing that the daughter is Down’s Syndrome he gives her to a nurse to be put into a home before the wife sees her. The wife is told that the daughter died shortly after being born. The nurse doesn’t take the baby to the home and instead runs away with her to raise her by herself.

The book follows both families, told in alternate chapters, as the children grow up and move on with their lives. The couple’s marriage starts to fall apart – wifey can’t get over the death of her daughter and hubby struggles with the enormity of the secret he’s keeping.

It was just a bit blah. I felt like it didn’t really get under the skin of any of the characters, instead painting with broad brush strokes. I like a bit of meat, I like to know how they’re feeling and why they’re feeling that way and this book just didn’t really dig deep enough for me.

Plus I seem to struggle with books that try to cope with large expanses of time in a relatively short book. Give me a tome that I’m going to have problems carrying and I’ll be totally happy, but give me something that covers the same time span that I can fit in my handbag and, unless the writer is supremely talented, it’s not going to work for me. At the end I had the feeling I was just reading to finish my book debt, rather than because I really cared about the book.

I wouldn’t go as far to say “Don’t read it” but maybe I would say “Don’t buy it” see if you can nick someone else’s copy.

The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood.

I’m not normally a one book girl. Usually there’s a couple on the go – one at home and one that lives at work (I read on my lunch breaks and...you know...when people leave me alone in the office). But occasionally there comes along a book that totally consumes me and there’s no room for anyone else.

This is one of those books.

I think I’m going to struggle to convey how much I enjoyed this book and I’m already pretty certain that it’s going to be the Book of the Year, I can’t see how anything’s going to beat it to be honest.

Year of the Flood takes you to a parallel universe, where everything seems at once familiar and yet strange. Some kind of plague has wiped everyone out, leaving Toby and Ren to tell the story of how the world got to this point. The world is a mildly terrifying place – the CorpSeCorp are a terrifying security force in charge of law enforcement, people live within compounds, like the Healthwyze compound where suspect vitamins are made and distributed. The ‘pleebs’ are the run down areas of town, occupied by outlets of Secretburger (the secret being that you don’t know what meat the burgers are made out of) and ruled by mobs. In the fields folic green rabbits and rakunks and there are liobams – lion/lamb splices.

Toby and Ren are members of The Gardeners, a cult that believe in the good of God and his earth – think super hippies and you’d be on the right path. They live on their Edencliff Rooftop Garden.

We start the story after the plague has hit – Toby is stuck in the AnooYoo Spa where she worked and Ren is stuck in the Sticky Zone, a safe room in the Scales and Tails club where she works. Year 25 is the year of the flood and we then go back and start from Year 1 and hear the story of the world from Toby and Ren in turn, before we catch up in Year 25 and their attempts to escape from the places they’re trapped in.

It is amazing. I gobbled it up like a greedy book reader. I could have read forever. I was angry when the story ended because I could have read about them forever. In a way this book contrasts nicely with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – both don’t contain great amounts of detail, but Atwood handles it supremely better than Edwards. Whereas Edwards’ lack of detail left me not caring about any of the character, Atwood left me begging for more.

And more is on its way. When I discovered that Atwood had published a book called Oryx and Crake a few years before, which features The Gardeners and a lot of the same characters, I was ordering it quicker than you can say Greedy Book Reader. What better recommendation could you get?

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Book of the month?

Erm....The Year of the Flood obvs.

And whilst we're on the subject of monthly reviews...I've decided to drop the Photo Scavenger Hunt. It was just getting too complicated, I have enough trouble finding a photograph each day without putting more pressure on myself! Plus compiling the posts was just becoming an annoyance - once the annoyance/pleasure balance gets thrown out like that I think it's best to drop it. I don't want things to become a chore.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

If you are desperate to read Wuthering Heights there’s kind of a major plot revelation in this post. Sorry but there was no way I could explain how I felt about this book without revealing it and if you haven’t read it, you’ll be as shocked as I was.

Pretty much the only reason that I set myself the task of reading more Classics this year was purely because, well....I didn’t feel I’d read enough Classics. You know, people would talk about a book and I would have to just smile emptily and either fake it or admit that I hadn’t read it.

Even so, you hear enough about some Classics to have a vague idea of what they’re about and the main themes and storyline.

Like Wuthering Heights.

Erm....not so much.

So I started off reading Wuthering Heights with the sound of Kate Bush in my head and a vague knowledge that there’s Heathcliff and Cathy and they love each other but life is in some way difficult and the story is going to be about their turbulent time together.

Yeah. No-one tells you that Cathy bloody dies halfway through the book do they?!

We start off on a bit of a slow burn. Mr Lockwood is a tenant at Thrushcross Grange and comes across his landlord, some bloke called Heathcliff at his house (that’d be Wuthering Heights to you and me). Somewhat perturbed by the strange set up he sees there, Mr Lockwood returns to Thrushcross and gets his housekeeper, Ellen, to tell him the background.

Ellen is our narrator throughout the whole book (how come she never gets mentioned when people are bleating on about the moors?!) and starts us off from the very beginning, when Cathy’s father brings in a bedraggled orphan called Heathcliff into the family home and raises him alongside Cathy and her brother.

A side note: The family relations in this book are confusing to the max. Thank goodness my copy had a family tree in the front of it because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue who was who or what was what.

I won’t go into the whole plotline here, that’s why God invented Wikipedia. So you can read more there.
So there I am reading away, not really feeling the book to be honest. It’s one of those classics that requires concentration, which I’m not always brilliant at. But I’m sticking with it, even though I’m finding it hard to sympathise with any of the characters (seriously, Cathy’s just kind of a bitch and Heathcliff has some serious rage issues) when all of a sudden Cathy has a child (I must have missed the ever so subtle hints that she was pregnant, despite flicking back through the pages to find out where they were) and then BOOM she dies. What?! There’s still another book to go!

At this point I got in a bit of sulk with Wuthering Heights and put it to one side. I wasn’t really feeling the groove anyway and all of a sudden there was this curve ball into the mix and I didn’t know what to do. Plus there were Royal Weddings and Bank Holidays and stuff. But I knew I couldn’t give up and I had to make a concerted effort to get this finished by the end of the month if I was to stand a chance of completing my challenge.

The second half of the book is really all about Cathy and Heathcliff’s children, and Cathy’s nephew, Hareton, whom Heathcliff keeps cowed and deprived of his birthright of Wuthering Heights. (Hareton’s father, also Cathy’s brother, gambled the mortgage away to Heathcliff. Told you it was confusing.)

Cathy and Edgar’s child is helpfully called Cathy and she takes after her mother in her headstrong ways. Edgar tries hard to keep her away from Heathcliff but he eventually gets his grubby mitts on her, literally locking her up in Wuthering Heights and forcing her to marry his sickly, frail and totally irritating son, Linton.

In short the second half of the book is far more interesting than the first – the characters are more engaging, the plot is more interesting and it made me want to go back to the beginning of the book and read the first few chapters again, to better understand the situation that Mr Lockwood walks into when we first see Wuthering Heights.

I guess the book is about love. The inconvenience of love. The all consuming nature of love. Heathcliff and Cathy have that kind of destructive relationship that many people have either had themselves or know of someone else who’s had it. Heathcliff is the guy that you know you should stay away from, but for some reason, you can’t leave him alone, even though every bit of sense is telling you to stay away from him. Little Cathy shows the same destructive streak as her mother in his insistence on visiting Linton (before Heathcliff forces her to marry him). She says of her visits,

“...the rest of my visits were dreary and trouble – now, with his selfishness and spite; and now with his sufferings; but I’ve learnt to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the latter.”

I nearly said out loud, “Why do you keep going back to bloody see him then you mentalcase?!”

The generations of the Linton and Earnshaw families seem doomed to perpetuate the mistakes of the previous generations. Hareton is treated by Heathcliff in the same way that Cathy treated Heathcliff when he was growing up in Wuthering Heights. Linton is as weak and ineffectual as his Uncle Edgar. To be honest, you can’t help but begin to despair of them all until the end of the book when Mr Lockwood returns to the area to discover that both Linton and Heathcliff have died, thus releasing everyone of the ties that bind them and allowing Cathy and Hareton to declare their love for one another.

Yeah you’re right. They are cousins. Don’t judge. This is an old book.

To be honest, my head is still a bit of a whirl when it comes to this book. I couldn’t tell you if I liked it or I didn’t, mainly because I’m still having to readjust my expectations and come to terms with the reality of this book rather than the Cathy and Heathcliff twaddle that everyone else seems to talk about. I’m starting to think that no-one has actually read the book and everyone’s faking it and just keeps talking about the same two people in the hope that no-one rumbles them.

But yeah, loving this challenge. Bring on the next one.

(It’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I’m not being easy on myself.)

April's Book Review

Argh! I'm late! I hate being late. Hate it hate it hate it. But it's not my fault. I took all those days off work and I was punished because my internet at home is crap to non-existent. Throw in a Royal Wedding tea party and The Person coming to see me for the bank holiday and my schedule got thrown well and completely out. Nightmare.

But never fear, I will just have to borrow some of the days in May instead, I'm sure it'll forgive me.

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
I am attracted to books that are mahoosive. I won't lie, if there are two books that are the same price but one is bigger than the other, more often than not I will pick the fatter book. I know, I'm a terrible person. Anyway I didn't buy this book but borrowed it from my Dad's wife. It was described as a "rich tapestry" which also attracted me, I love characters, I love feeling like I really know people within a story.

This book was an odd one. It was just kind of dull. And very.....very.....slow......paced.

Marion and Shiva are twins born in Ethiopia. Their mother dies in childbirth and their father abandons them and they are brought up by Drs in a hospital. Shiva does a "bad thing"  to Marion (I won't give away what the bad thing is nut you'll see it coming from a mile away and it will creep towards you at a snail's pace.) and Marion eventually moves away to America and Shiva makes up for the "bad thing" and oh look, there's their Dad.

Yeah I didn't think much to this one.

Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie
Another one borrowed from the library of Dad. I saw this reviewed on Lucy's blog and thought I'd give it a go.

You know me, I love my North and this book is a celebration of that. I agree with Lucy, it is very north-west focused but to be fair he does make a disclaimer about that at the beginning and it worked pretty well for me because the north-west is my favourite too.

I loved beyond all everything when he was talking about Manchester and the environs - I got excited when he talked about the Factory Records office because I was remembering being in there at uni (it was then a club called Paradise Factory) and getting lost in it's twists and turns, just like he did back in the day. I was with him when he travelled by tram to Bury market...you get the drift.

Would you find it funny if you were from the South? I'm sure you would, some of you must have a sense of humour (jokes!) but I feel like this is a love letter from The North to its inhabitants and maybe it holds a special something for us.

And he didn't even go to Hull. I'm trying not to be sad about that.

Handle with Care - Jodi Picoult
Another borrowed one - this is the last of the Jodi Picoult's that I borrowed from Culture Friend, I have officially almost cleared my Book Debt with her.

This is actually one of the better ones I've read of Picoult's. It's about a young girl called Willow with brittle bone syndrome (I can't be bothered to try and correctly spell the official medical term right now) whose mother decides to sue her obstetrician (also her best friend) for not alerting her and her husband to the possibility of their child having the condition.

The story is told in a series of letters to Willow from her mother, her father, her older sister and the obstetrician.

It's good, it's engaging and it's an interesting story and I happily got lost in it. There is a big shock ending which leaves you scratching your head a bit. And then you remember the ending to My Sister's Keeper and you think "Really Jodi? Again?!"

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Book of the month: Pie and Prejudice: In Search of the North.

Duck babies

It’s been a long time since Duck Rescue 2009 (some would say as long as 2 years) but since then I’ve been fairly proprietorial of the lake and any feathered creatures that may reside on it.

That’s why I was so excited about the baby moorhens last year and I spent quite a lot of time checking up on them and making sure that they were well, watching them grow up into big boy and big girl moorhens. I was even there to capture their first experiences of snow and ice.

Alas last year there were no mallard babies. Just the moorhens, and whilst I was happy to watch over them, they were kind of ugly and weird looking and I missed the cute fluffy black and yellowness that you get with ducklings. I wondered if it maybe wouldn’t happen, maybe the Mallards knew that the lake wasn’t a good place to have babies?

It was sad thought.

For some reason I woke up on Friday in an outrageously good mood. Don’t get me wrong, all Fridays are good and I would like to extend my thanks to whoever gave them to us, but for some reason on this Friday I woke up and felt good.

Maybe it was the weather, I think it might be physically impossible to be in a bad mood at this time of year. It’s not too hot so you can’t get in a tizz with yourself and everywhere is just colourful and bursting with life. I’ll stop there because I’m starting to not really sound like myself and instead like someone rather annoying.

Whatever it was it was great to feel that way and at lunchtime I decided I would celebrate this Friday by going and getting a sandwich from my favourite place in town and sitting in Queen’s Gardens and reading my book and eating it. This sounds idyllic and for the most part it is – you just need to have the ability to block out the sight of pasty white man chests everywhere and have eyes in the back of your head to watch out for footballs coming at you from all angles (Queen’s Gardens is right next to a sixth form college).

I ate my sandwich, read some of my latest classic (Wuthering Heights baby!) and felt happy with myself.

But actually. I didn’t know happiness until the moment I turned around to face the lake and saw....

Motherfreaking ducklings!!

Not 1, not 2, not 5, not 7 but TEN of them. Fluffy. Yellow. Ducklings. And they have a Mum and a Dad. A perfect little duck family. Possibly a Mormon duck family judging by the number of offspring (I need to stop obsessing about Mormons).

These guys are amazing. Not only are they cute but they are independent little blighters, perfectly happy to go swimming off on their own, never straying too far away from Mum, but happy enough to grub about on their own and tackle some stray bread that was floating about.

I squeaked. I clapped my hands. I took photos (yes the water really is that green. I have no idea why, they only cleaned them out a couple of months ago). I rang people to let them know. I told everyone I came across in the building when I got back into work. It’s safe to say they made me happy.

But you do realise that this now means I have assumed responsibility of them. Those ducks are MY ducks and I will be keeping an overly close eye on them for the rest of spring, counting them daily and getting antsy whenever loud young people come too close to them. And I’m going to have the RSPCA on speed dial just in case.

Happy Spring everyone.

March Book Review

Whilst my reading of the Classics is skipping along merrily, my reading of anything else seems to have ground to almost a complete halt.

I couldn’t even tell you why this is – I guess there’s been quite a lot of stitchery going on at the moment, maybe that’s kept me busy, who knows?

Anyhoo March’s line-up looks something like this:

1. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
2. Divas Don’t Knit - Gil McNeil
3. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Divas Don’t Knit was sent to me by the marvellous Clare and came at a more than brilliant time. I needed a break from Classic-ing out all over the place and nothing says “Break” more than “chick-lit about wool”.

In a nutshell?

Woman’s husband dies, her and her children move to the seaside and she takes over the running of a wool shop. As you do. Everything all turns out well. The end.

I’m not being disparaging here – just relating the basic facts of the story, and in fact, as these sorts of books go, this was pretty good. Engaging, funny, it ticked all the right boxes for me at that point in time. And I even have the second book to move on to when I need another break from the heavier stuff I’ve been reading.

The Help has been on my bookshelf for a criminally long time and I have been meaning to read it, especially as reviews seemed to pour in from everywhere with people raving about it.

Sometimes, with a book it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is that grabs you and draws you in – is it the characters? The storyline? The background? Or an amalgamation of everything? The story itself was interesting and the characters were...ok...but for me it was more the subject Kathryn Stockett had decided to tackle – namely the issue of racism in 1960s Mississippi.

The Help is told by 3 people – Aibileen and Minny – both servants working for high society ladies, and Miss Skeeter – part of the group of high society ladies, but one with a conscience.

Miss Skeeter sets out to write down the stories as told by The Help around her small town – Aibileen and Minny are two of the contributors and persuade others to take part. The story revolves around this basic plotline, whilst providing an insight into the lives of these three women.

I am struggling to say more about it, I did really enjoy it and thoroughly concur with all the other people who have said that they liked it but I am finding it incredibly difficult to pin down and tell you the things I really liked. What I did find myself doing was putting the book down every so often and just reminding myself that this wasn’t that long ago. We’re not talking about a hundred years ago, we’re talking a couple of generations. I can’t even begin to understand how people could think and behave in such abhorrent ways.

What I like is that Stockett doesn’t over-simplify a situation which it would have been all too easy to do so. She, if you will excuse a poor taste pun, doesn’t put things in black and white – there are shades of grey in between and no character is one dimensional – it would have been easy to slot people into caricatures and deal with the subject that way instead.

I did feel the ending was a little disappointing. I don’t always need things tied up with a pretty little bow and this certainly isn’t one of those, but nor do I love endings which just stop abruptly, as I feel this did. It was as if she had imposed a word limit and, upon approaching it, just stopped writing.

Well worth picking up.

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Book of the month? Well I did love The Help but I’m afraid The Moonstone holds a special place in my heart.