Category Archives: Reading/Books

twentysix: what i did today

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The crazy weather was set to continue this weekend. The weather was warning that we were going to have rain and snow last night but instead it was a bit of rain and sleet. According to my phone we had an 100% chance of snow around midnight and it was still sleeting. Any snow that we had was gone by this morning. Even as I write this post outside it’s chucking it down so clearly it’s warmer out there – I’ve got bare feet and am not reaching for the slippers so that’s got to be a sign too! I guess unless we have another cold snap it’s going to get warmer from here onwards. (Woah I think we just had some hail!)

This morning Our Sidekick and Chris were both out doing different things and I was heading out too. I’d seen on Facebook at the end of last week that there was a new book club that had sprung up. I had got in touch with the guy who’s organising it and decided to go along – they were meeting at The Ship pub which I’d been to on Thursday for the S&B. It’s called Bedford Books Connections. The book this time was Dune by Frank Herbert. When I was growing up we had a computer game of Dune – I can’t say it was anything amazing but it introduced me to the whole story of Dune – or as I found out by starting the book this week that I actually missed chunks of the story out. We also spoke about what books to do next and we’ve decided to do Dracula by Bram Stoker next which should be interesting – I think a lot of it is linked to Whitby and The Abbey there. Part of the Book Club is to share linked material as well so maybe a film, or in my case for Dune, the game. So maybe writing about The Abbey and Whitby might be handy – although I’m not sure I’ve ever been to Whitby – I will need to ask Mum and Dad about that one (Chris – that might be a choice for a holiday some time!)

Nuntium - Found by accident. #bedford #michellecrowther

When I walk from a specific car park to the hight street in town, there’s an alleyway I often use – it’s quite gloomy and I’m never 100% sure i’m safe so I walk as fast as I can. But I got a pleasant surprise when I walked along the alleyway today  - it’s been painted a creamy white colour and there are lights up on the walls to light up the whole alley way and there’s these amazing pieces of art on the wall. I started to read it but it takes some effort especially as it’s backwards and often in other fonts. I guess if i was really clever I could try and mirror it or something to read it but that would be too clever! There’s also this plaque – clearly if the art went up in July I don’t walk through the alleyway very often any more because this was the first time I saw it. “Nuntium” is Latin for a message or annoucement. I think I might have to go and read the wall in more detail – maybe drag the boys with me too!

Nuntium by Michelle Crowther
While coming out of the alleyway, I had a chat to Chris and he was heading over to my parents house to sort out some bits so I caught the bus there, while waiting for the bus to arrive at the stop in town I popped into the Oxfam Bookshop – oh dear what a mistake to make! I ended up purchasing The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes and another one but I can’t remember the title (it’s all the way downstairs and I’m being lazy – sorry lol!)

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse - Reading at the bus stop
For Christmas, Chris got the box set of the Doctor Who specials (David Tennant ones). Our Sidekick had been watching the episode when Matt Smith’s incarnation meets Richard Nixon. I had to explain who Richard Nixonwas, who did The Doctor mean when he says “say hello to David Frost” (I knew this mainly because of the film Frost/Nixon) and then who the little girl was. We decided to go back to David Tennant’s incarnation so me and Our Sidekick ran upstairs to where Chris was working knelt on the floor and said please like twenty times each then explained why. We watched

Doctor Who - The Complete Specials - David Tennant!!!

eight: onehundredwords #72

100 Words Challenge for Grown Ups

I haven’t taken part in 100 Words since about August (I had to look at my old posts to work it out!). I’ve decided that with 2013 – I’m going to try and join in some more.

You can get more information and join in here.

The prompt for this week is …you said you’d do WHAT?….

There goes my weekend. Maybe if I canceled my plans tonight I could still be free for the weekend.

I dialled Sophia’s number and waited for the call to connect, my stomach tied itself I’m a knot.

“Sophia it’s me” I started “The dragon has just handed me extra work. I think I can be free tomorrow if I work this evening”

You said you’d do WHAT?” Sophia was upset and rightly so “It’s my birthday weekend. You knew we had plans, can’t you tell her to stick it?”

“And risk my job? Sophia I am so sorry. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow”

364: Resolutions and Goals

Each year people make resolutions. They decide to quit smoking, to stop biting their nails, to drink less alcohol (usually while under the influence of a NYE hangover) or they decide to loose those stubborn ten pounds that won’t go away.

But what about me? Well I don’t make resolutions. I hated that first post-Christmas English lesson when the teacher decides that it’s a great idea to get people to write resolutions, mainly because I broke them within the first week. Give up chocolate – well I think my upper school diet consisted of chocolate and cheese toastie pizza things from the canteen or the interesting attempt at a chicken burger. (Probably explains the start of my current waistline lol).

I imagine that if I had someone to physically drag me to the gym and refuse to let me out until I’d achieved that days goal then I’d be skinnier – no guarantee I’d be happier but we can put the idea out there – could I be skinnier and happier? Yes more than likely I could but id have to quit eating junk, chocolate and cake.

Last January I kind of gave in and set a goal rather than a resolution. I love reading but needed a goal or a deadline to achieve something other wise I end up with 20 books on the go and none completely read. I challenge myself to read a classic and get bored and go back to other “newer” writers.

Well it’s the 29th December. I’m on book 27 of 30 and I’m writing this blog post rather than getting on reading. I know I know. I won’t achieve a goal by procrastinating doing something else but I seem to have become the worst person at achieving goals and the best at procrastination. Why focus on a task 100% when I can multitask and have no focus.

Now Reading (Book 1 - 24ish to go!) #2012 #nowreading

So yeah I am kicking myself in the butt I scheduling this for a Saturday which is uncharacteristic of me in the hope that you my lovely reader will come out of the woodwork and tell me that I can do it. I just have to focus and maybe you can tell me about the goal that I can kick you in the butt about. We can be butt kicking buddies together. So lets do it. Bring on book 27 – it’s The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien by the way. Let me know if you’ve read it too.

284: #WednesdayWonderings

We live in a world where we have a bunch of information at our fingertips – we unlock our phones and Google to our hearts content, but what about all those random questions, why was I looking and what did I find out.

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Fisheye app for iPhone – I post a lot of pictures to Instagram and wanted to play about with a fisheye lens but wondered if there was an app for that. The first app I tried was rubbish the second was £1.49 and decided that I wouldn’t buy it especially as I’d just cleared like 3 photography apps off my phone because I wasn’t using them.

Heathcliff musical – I’m currently reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and vaguely remembered my Dad buying a CD for my Mum after she’d been to see Cliff Richard in some performance. Well him with a friend or two wrote and starred in a musical called Heathcliff and it revolved around the character of Heathcliff and his life. It’s only while reading Wuthering Heights that I’ve realised how little we actually know about Heathcliff as the reader. Emily carefully gives us just enough information to create this rugged and rough character but doesn’t give us too much and lose the enigma that is Heathcliff.

Chapter 7 “my dinner goes up in smoke” – I posted a picture on Instagram and was looking at other pictures with similar tags and this appeared in a picture. I was looking to find out what book it was from. I think it comes from The Lightning Thief that then became Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Doctor Who 11th Hour - My friend Angelika is catching up on Doctor Who via Netflix at the moment, so while she was watching The Eleventh Hour episode (Rory and Amy’s first proper episode) she posted on my FB wall about how excited she was and how she liked the new doctor and wanted to know what his name was. Well I had a mental moment and couldn’t remember if it was Matt Smith or David Tennant. Okay before you demand my fan girl status back I was like 99% sure that it was Matt Smith but there was a tiny bit of doubt that I had to get rid of. Now I know and will remember.

Soap taste after temporary filling - A while back I had a hole in my tooth and got a filing – didn’t really think any more of it – sometimes my teeth are a bit sensitive but it usually combines with whatever I’m eating or how harshly I attempted to clean (or beat up) my teeth the night before! I went for my check up yesterday and told my dentist that I thought my tooth was decaying around my filing and could he take a look. So he had a look and a poke and said “Yes, your filing is loose – I’ll take it out and put in a temporary one” so he took it out with some tweezers (oh dear!) and then said “The hole in there is actually quite big, I suggest that we take out your tooth” Great okay last time I had an extraction I sat in the chair in tears and bit the dentist’s finger because I’d really had enough as I’m not 100% sure I was given enough anaesthetic (That was my old dentist – I am with my third dentist!). So back to the filing – I’m given a temporary filing to plug the hole and I have to book a date for an extraction. So that’s next week. I might cry. I might need the following day off work but that depends on how I feel. Anyway so following my dentist appointment all I could taste this soapy taste – it was really gross.

Losing my Boyfriend to World of Warcraft – Our Sidekick downloaded Minecraft at the weekend and this song kept coming into my head. It’s by All Caps

Piano in St. Pancras – I walked through St Pancras and could hear a piano being played and thought I was going a bit mad but there next to the lift is a graffitied piano and two lads were playing it. I wanted to sit down and play Für Elise but I had to catch the train. I found more information here.

St John’s ambulance history – we had a meeting on Tuesday and as we drove past the local St John’s Ambulance base we ended up having a whole conversation about how the St Johns Ambulance came about.

Chemicals in cigarettes – on Monday after getting back from London me, JD and Our Sidekick were sat at The Fountain and somehow what chemicals there were in cigarettes came up. There’s things like formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and tar. They were just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

12 Grimmauld Place actual location – having met Mel and Jelly at Platform 9 and 3/4s in Kings Cross Station on Monday I quickly googled to see if there was an actual address used for Grimmauld Place continuing the Harry Potter theme – according to my results there could be any number of addresses in London used as 12 Grimmauld Place. I found on Living The Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) that the address is New Square, Camden. Apparently chunks of Westminster Tube station are used as the Ministry of Magic but I didn’t know that until I started writing this post today.

Hummingbird Bakery – I was trying to think of all the tourist things to do in London to take Mel and Jelly to then I decided that if we were close we should go for an afternoon piece of cake however turns out we were kind of in the wrong area of London for Hummingbird Bakery we were in Covent Garden area and I think HB is closer to Kensington – oh well that’ll be a trip for next time.

 

Image from here. Text my own.

242: The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

On Saturday I couldn’t go to Bedford Park Run as Chris had the car and I hadn’t woken up in time to walk there (or catch the bus via town). I caught up with blog reading and found this on Kellypuff’s blog. She posted this list (found here).

Reading at the bus stop

I didn’t discover The Gilmore Girls until recently when repeats of episodes appeared in the schedules on the TV Guide – so I’ve only seen a couple of episodes but really lilke it. Someone has compiled a list of all book/movie references Rory makes and issued a reading challenge.

So here we go – the bolded ones I’ve already read. Where applicable the ones in italic are in progress. (I got to the bottom of the list and was surprised at how few I’d actually read!)

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury1984 by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (TBR) – read
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – started and not finished
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (TBR)
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (TBR)
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

098: Review: March

Review 2012

March

Books Read
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse Book 1)
Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Interrupted by Rachel Coker
The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club by Wanda E. Brunstetter

Films Watched
The Hunger Games

Month in Bullets

  • My blog turned 5! The celebrations didn’t go quite to plan but I still had two fab guest posts from Rickie and Mrs GLW – it’s a starting point anyway! Maybe I have a month long blog birthday or something as the other posts appear.
  • My first birthday present arrived – and I did a little dance. I’ve been watching Hairy Bikers latest series and after every episode I’m like “I want to make that! NOW!” I’d added the cookery book (that accompanies the series) and it arrived on Friday 30th. I finished work early and there it was waiting for me in the porch.
  • Me, Mum and her BFF are going to see the Hairy Bikers on tour when they are in Cambridge in November – I’m so excited and it’s not even my birthday yet lol.
  • We’ve been living and breathing The Fountain in our house. We were working towards the opening which happens today. I blogged about the opening at a very late/early hour  this morning when I should have been sleeping (it was like Christmas – it was too exciting to sleep!)
  • I’ve got a new notebook that I am hoping will keep me more organised and will keep my blog posts up to date and things like that. Let’s see how it goes.
  • Lent is almost over and Easter is coming – I keep meaning to catch up with 40Acts as well.

075: Book Review

The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club
by Wanda E. Brunstetter

 

The Half-Stitched Quliting Club

4 out of 5

Amish widow Emma Yoder’s first quilt class brings the most unlikely people together. There’s Star, a young woman yearning for stability; Pam and Stuart Johnston, a struggling couple at odds in their marriage; Paul Ramirez, a widower hoping to find solace in finishing a quilt; Jan Sweet, a rough and tough biker doing some creative community service; and Ruby Lee Williams, a preacher’s wife looking for relaxation when parish problems mount. But as these beginning quilters learn to transform scraps of material into beauty, their fragmented lives begin to take new shape with the helping hands of each other and the healing hand of God.

I really liked this story – at first it was a little hard to get into but around half way through it picked up and I couldn’t put it down. The point of view of the story flicks between the seven main characters (I think it comes from an eighth person at one point but I’m not entirely sure). I found this was good because it mean that you go two or more peoples view of one conversation – at one point it’s a husband and wife’s (Pam and Stuart) opinion on an argument that they have.

Emma is such a lovely character and reminds me so much of my Grandma – this probably helps me relate to Star as well as Star loses her Grandma before the story starts and I lost my Grandma back in 2008 and also I was a bit of a rock chick when I was at school and university (Although I’ve mellowed out lots now!) Emma has the idea of the quilt class and when the people come together she begins to question if that’s what she’s supposed to be doing. When that fear comes to her she looks for the plan God has for her and the bigger picture – she gets over her fear to serve God. This can be one of the hardest things when we hand over our lives to God and give him the reins! (Don’t we just know it at the moment!) I wanted to be part of Emma’s quilting class – I can imagine learning to make quilts by being taught by the Amish people must be seriously amazing.

I loved the way in which all the ends were tied up at the end of the story – I’d tell you all about them but that would ruin the story! (Spoilers sweetie!)

You can find the paperback edition on Amazon UK here or the Kindle version here.

 

I received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) on my Kindle from Barbour Publishing via NetGalley. All the opinions are mine.

054: I Love Lists Thursday

Lists Journal
 

Last week my new toy arrived. I’m on my second book so far and so this week we have two lists – first the books I have read on my sparkly new Kindle followed by my wishlist. Lots of pictures this week.

 

Read/In Progress

Extremely Loud and Incredible Close

Got but haven’t started

(My version has a really boring cover! This cover is better!)

 

Wish List of Sorts


 

011: The Fault *Not* in Our Stars

I would class myself as a Nerdfighter – if you don’t know what a Nerdfighter is please look here.

So John Green who is one half of VlogBrothers is an author. He writes Young Adult (YA) books which are probably technically out of my age bracket (I’m 25 – am I supposed to still read Young Adult Fiction?!).

I love Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska is kinda sad and not what I expected but I still enjoyed it all the same. Will Grayson, Will Grayson was my first John Green book that I bought pretty much straight after release (I think within the week of release was when I purchased it). I even blogged about An Abundance of Katherines back in 2009.

Yesterday I received my confirmation email from Amazon UK my copy of “The Fault in Our Stars” has been despatched and should be with me by Saturday. That gives me until then to finish up some of the 6 books that I currently have on the go. I have to finish at least one to be on track with the goal of 25 books read in 2012. Anyway back to the confirmation email…..How exciting – then again I’ve started seeing tweets appear today – the pre-ordered special signed copies aren’t signed.

Thankfully this video appeared yesterday to correct it in a way but I want to ask – What are Amazon doing? Surely there was some form of lack of communication between the publisher and Amazon right – but apparently it seems to be Amazon Europe who are so far affected by it.

So time will tell – will mine be signed? I’m thinking no given that my two Twitter friends who also pre-ordered have both received unsigned copies.

(On another note this is quite funny)

EDIT: When I got in from work yesterday, my copy was there waiting for me. It had a signed copy sticky label on the front cover and when I opened it there was the signature – I got mine from Amazon UK and it arrived signed.

The Friday Read: No 20

The Friday Read

The Book You Plan To Read Next

There is a whole pile of books that I plan to read next – whether I’ll actually manage to read them is a whole other thing.

The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Started didn’t finish)
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (Started didn’t finish)
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

and many more that could be the next one….Either way I’ve challenged Our Sidekick to read each day. His English Teacher is encouraging him to read more each day to widen his vocabulary and bring up his reading age to what it should be when he leaves school. Well to do that for every minute he reads a book outside of school I will match – so on Tuesday after Parents Evening we sat and read for like 15 minutes it was awesome (and our house was so quiet!)