Is it too early to plan your Christmas book list?

I’m a sucker for books, everyone I know gets it.  If you're here reading, maybe you are too.  As a child I always got book tokens, and would happily receive them this year too, if anyone were so inclined.  Yet those who buy for me don’t often buy me book related items for birthdays and Christmas, even when I have a wish list full of books.  Last year I had to say 'Buy me books!'.

A friend of mine runs Christmas UK website and last night/this morning he posted lots of photos on facebook and his website of Selfridges Christmas displays, it's one of his that I've included above.  I love that they’re using books this year in so many of their displays, and that is really my inspiration for my dream Christmas present…

I should like to receive a hamper containing a good bottle of wine/champagne, some chocolates and whole hoard of good books.  I'm working on deciding what books to have on my list right now.

Have you got a Christmas book list yet?

Confessions of a returning blogger.

I'm back online, back in the UK, back to blogging (I hope), and back to reading.

You can blame this new post on a goodreads reviewer who mentioned reading aloud...

Confessions of a reader:

When alone I sometimes like to read aloud.  There, I said it.

When I do read aloud, I try to speak in the accent of the character.  So when reading The Color Purple I tried a southern american accent.  It's easier with some than others.  The Color Purple for example is particularly easy as it's written as it would be spoken.

I have no delusions about my vocal ability, or that I get all the nuances between Celie in The Color Purple and Sookie Stackhouse in the Southern Vampire series for example, but I kind of enjoy it, and find it sometimes helps me immerse myself in the story or character.

Sometimes I sound dreadful, and then I stop, as that's no help at all.  For instance I know my Irish accent it awful, and my Scottish drifts into Scouse after a little while.

Anyway there you have it.  Do you do it too?

My Life in Books 2013

A little earlier than planned - see post 'Best Laid Plans'...

I saw this Mad-Libs style meme earlier this year when I started my blog and loved it so much... Each year Pop Culture Nerd makes up new sentence starters and you complete the sentence using the book titles you've read that year.

Here's my 2013 list: 

My to-do list looks like The Ministry of Fear (Graham Greene)

If a peeping Tom peeked into my bedroom, he'd [take a trip] Down the Rabbit Hole (Juan Pablo Villalobos)

If Martians meet me, they'd think [they'd met] The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Catherynne M Valente)

My doctor is always telling me [to eat] Quesadillas (Juan Pablo Villalobos)

The weirdest thing that happened to me this past week [was a visit to] Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)

I often daydream about Whiskey Beach (Nora Roberts)

The US government shut down makes me [think they've done] The Vanishing Act (Mette Jakobsen)

If I win the lottery I'd [go to] The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman)

My superpower is Nightfall [Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg)

I knew I was a book lover when [I saw] The Light Between Oceans (ML Stedman)

My blogging experience has been Calculated In Death (JD Robb)

You can find my 2012 list here

A little something to make you smile...

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that it is International Book Week.  I don't know if it is or not, but I thought 'why not?'

To join in grab the nearest book to you, go to page 52, and copy out the sixth sentence.  Don't mention the book title.

So I grabbed the nearest book and thumbed through the pages looking for page 52.  In my book page 52 features a picture of a dog with a human boys head. There is no text, so I went to the next available page containing text and found the sixth sentence....

Wait for it....

It's pretty special....

"So that's it?"

Made me smile at least...

Where in the literary world are you?

Today I am on a small island off the coast of Wales.  I have made some unusually talented new friends while investigating my late Grandfathers life and murder.



Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Share - 25 signs you're addicted to books

I saw this shared by Litlovers on facebook, and had to share it here.

I guess I named my blog right after all!  There's only about three signs that don't completely and utterly suit me.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/signs-youre-addicted-to-books-reading

Top Ten Tuesday # 1

It's Top Ten Tuesday time...

I'm having an official go at the meme featured on The Broke and the Bookish, and this week the TTT list is a 'Rewind' week, which gives me the chance to catch up on some old great TTT lists...

They've been doing it for a while, so there's plenty of choice. So... I'm going to try and do two this time, and I'll eventually catch up.

 

List one: The Top Ten Books I HAD to buy, but are still sitting on the shelf unread.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - bought for an OU course I didn't do in the end.

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde. I'm a big fan of Mr Fforde, and have read all the previous books. I was a little put off as the last in the series wasn't up to his usual standard.

The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw - a recommendation by Mr B's, I bought it in the hardcover version and it's almost too pretty to read, I'm scared I might damage it.

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson - A TV book club book, everyone was raving about it.

1984 by George Orwell - One of those books you're supposed to read but I just haven't been inspired to read it yet.

The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger - I challenged my facebook friends to tell me about the books they loved and I would try them. I started it but got tired of the 'goddamns'.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Another Mr B's recommendation, it appealed at the time, but not now for some reason.

The Somnambulist by Essie Fox - Another TV Book Club book. Bought a year or two ago I think, around the same time as Before I Go To Sleep, and the upcoming Girl Reading. I was looking for titles to read, and bought a few. A friend said she hated it, and so it's sat there waiting.

Girl Reading by Katie Ward, see number 9. I was a little put off with it being a series of short stories.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Another one of those books everyone says you should read, but I can't bring myself to.

List two:  The Top Ten most vivid books/world settings

The Seven Kingdoms, from the Song of Ice and Fire series (aka Game of Thrones).

Cities of Camorr, Val Terrar etc... from the Gentlemen Bastards Series by Scott Lynch. Particularly Camorr from the first book The Lies of Locke Lamora (review). Camor is a Venice like city in a Renaissance like era with strange ancient alien glass skyscrapers. So vivid I could almost feel the hangmans wind!

The Universe in Hitchhikers Guide, by Douglas Adams.  Need I say more?

Panem from the Hunger Games trilogy.  Every detail was incredibly vivid.  You felt right in the middle of things, almost like you could touch the trees of district 12, and see the weirdness of the Capitol and it's residents.

New York City in 2058-60 - from the In Death series by JD Robb.  After 36 books in the series it should be fairly vivid, or there's something going wrong somewhere.

BookWorld from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. A world beyond the written page complete with committee meetings, body doubles enabling the Imaginotransference device, footnoterphone communications between Jurisfiction agents.

City of Reading in the Nursery Crime Series, also by Jasper Fforde. A world where nursery rhyme characters live as PDR's (Persons of Dubious Reality), and Detective Jack Spratt has to solve the murder of Humpty Dumpty, the disappearance of Goldilocks, catch the Gingerbread man (who is really fast).

Room by Emma Donoghue - The entire world exists of a single room.  The narrator thinks this is normal, but the sense of isolation and that feeling of being trapped comes across well.

Nightfall by Isaac Asmiov & Robert Silverberg. I read this twenty years ago, and it's still so fresh. I see this world and feel their awe every time I look up at a sky full of stars.

Narnia by CS Lewis. All the books really, but especially the books featuring the Pevensie children.  As I child I desperately bemoaned the fact that we had built in wardrobes.  I so wanted to meet Aslan.

Friday Favourites (aka Top Ten Tuesday)

Sorry for the confusing title.  I'm a bit behind the rest of the world... I just found another little meme that has me quite entertained at The Broke and the Bookish. Next week it'll be a different top ten, and I liked this one so here it is... my Top Ten Tuesday (on Friday).

Top Ten books I read before starting this blog.

They're not necessarily my favourite ten books ever, or even necessarily fabulously written, and they're not in any particular order of preference. For reasons that are entirely personal they are the top ten books that mean something to me...

1. Five Fall Into Adventure - #9 in The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. A Christmas gift from my late Uncle S, when I was nearly 6. The first proper book I remember reading that wasn't a ladybird book assigned by my school.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - The book that made me realise the classics don't have to be the dull difficult books that they seemed to be in school.

3. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - The book that made me want to read Jane Eyre, and incidentally introduced me to the wonderful world of Thursday Next.

4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Beautiful, wonderful, I loved it. I don't remember much about it though, maybe time for a re-read.

5. Nightfall by Isaac Asimov. I'm not sure if I read the short story by Asimov, or the adapted novel with Robert Silverberg. Probably the latter. Either way - I think about it every time I see a sky full of stars.

6. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively - My first ghost story, I don't remember much except that I loved it. I gave it to my niece for Christmas last year and she liked it too, though she's more a part-time reader if you know what I mean.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - I studied this at school and though I knew it was a good book then, I hated school, and by association I hated this book for years. I wanted to re-read it, and the copy sat on the shelf for another year before I picked it up again, wondering if those old school feelings would return. They didn't, and I LOVED it. If I'm honest then I should say that I'm a little bit in love with Atticus Finch.

8. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier - I struggled with Rebecca before abandoning it, and feared the worst when this was chosen for book club. But it was great! I really enjoyed it. It's proof to me that you don't need to like a character to enjoy their story.

9. My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult - I'd read a lot of Jodi Picoult around the time I read this one, and thought I had her all figured out. I got most of it right, but not all. If you've seen the film with Cameron Diaz - don't compare the two as the book is SO MUCH BETTER. The book ending is much more dramatic than the film, the film kind of wimped out on the ending.

10. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak - Just magic! It was my suggestion that month, and one of those rare books that was universally loved by everyone. Death as the narrator was an inspired decision. The teddy bear for an allied soldier, Max's story for Liesel, 50,000 souls in one day, the smell of the sound of footsteps. Pure Gold.

My life in books (2012)

I found this meme going the rounds on a blog post from Pop Culture Nerd and thought it looked like fun.

It goes like this:

Finish a series of sentences about yourself using book titles you’ve read in a year.  I didn’t want to wait 8 months to do this for 2013, so I thought I’d look back at the books I read in 2012 and see what I could come up with.  I must confess a couple were from earlier than 2012, but couldn’t find anything that would fit otherwise.  I’ll do it properly next year.

Here are the results:

Describe Yourself: The Woman In Black

How do you feel: The Howling Miller

Describe where you currently live: Two Caravans

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Your favorite form of transport: Stardust

Your best friend is: My Cousin Rachel

You and your friends are: Spying in High Heels

What’s the weather like: An Ice Cold Grave

Favourite time of day: Dark Matter

If your life was: Very Good Jeeves

What is life to you: Happy Ever After

Your fear: Catching Fire

What is the best advice you have to give: Finding the Dream

Thought for the Day: The Perfect Hope

How I would like to die: Immortal in Death

My soul’s present condition: Neverwhere

Bookshelf Porn

Not that sort of Porn.  This sort of Porn...

Ooohhh!

I found this site through a long chain of blogs that I'm afraid I have lost track of now, but maybe the name, or just the lovely lovely pictures stuck in my mind.

This is for those of us who dream of designer bookshelves, walls of books you need a ladder on wheels to navigate.

At the moment I am living in temporary accommodation and my room is 6 foot by 8 foot, I have to box up a book once I've read it, and store them in the loft (or attic if you prefer).  I ache for proper shelves, so these pictures make me shiver with delicious anticipation.  Oh to be able to display my books, and even take a loved one off the shelf to re-read.