Friday First Paragraphs - 1

Though I originally found this little meme on Bibliophile by the sea's blog, I've decided to make it a Friday feature, purely because I like the alliteration.  There won't necessarily be one every week, it all depends what's happening in real life and what I'm reading at the time.

But here's the first of my Friday First Paragraph's...


This book was picked up at the weekend from a high street bookstore just hours after I vowed not to buy any more books until I'd cleared some room on my TBR shelves.

I know very little about it, and it's purchase was an experiment in buying something I'd not heard about, seen blogged or recommended and from an author I'd not read before, so something a little out of my comfort zone.  I was relieved to see afterwards it has very positive reviews on Amazon, so I'm feeling OK about it.

The Universe versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence.  

They finally stopped me at Dover as I was trying to get back into the country. I was half expecting it, but it still came as kind of a shock when the barrier stayed down. It's funny how some things can be so mixed up like that. Having come this far I'd started to think that I might make it the whole way home after all. It would have been nice to have been able to explain things to my mother. You know: before anyone else had to get involved.

It was 1 a.m., and and it was raining. I'd rolled Mr Peterson's car up to the booth in the 'Nothing to Declare' lane, where a single customs officer was on duty. His weight rested on his elbows, his chin was cupped in his hands, and, but for this crude arrangement of scaffolding, his whole body looked ready to fall like a sack of potatoes to the floor. The graveyard shift - dreary dull from dusk till dawn - and for a few heartbeats it seemed that the customs officer lacked the willpower necessary to rotate his eyeballs and check my credentials. But then the moment collapsed. His gaze shifted; his eyes widened. He signalled for me to wait and spoke into his walkie-talkie, rapidly and with obvious agitation. That was the instance I knew for sure. I found out later that my picture had been circulated in every major port from Aberdeen to Plymouth. With that and the TV appeals, I never stood a chance.

What I remember next is kind of muddled and strange, but I'll try to describe it for you as best I can.

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.

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Publisher:  Atlantic Books,

Not yet available in paperback in the UK. ASIN (Amazon Standard ID Number): B00A25NLOU

Released in the UK this year for the Kindle, it popped up on Amazon as one of those 'Other customers also bought' books when I was looking for references for my review of Advent by James Treadwell. It's generally well thought of on Amazon and Goodreads, and the plot appealed to my love of books and bookshops, so I thought why not?

I found it really enjoyable, highly entertaining, engaging and hard to put down.

Out of work web designer Clay finds a job in a dusty old bookstore with a mysterious set of books and customers. Curious about the goings on, which clearly aren't normal, he embarks on a quest to find out more about the bookstore, his employer and what these people are up to. Using modern technology Clay and his friends and associates attempt to solve a 500 year old mystery at the heart of the bookstore.

It was laugh out loud funny, the characters were interesting, the puzzle of the books was engaging. The bookstore was so well described it was pretty much a character in the book.

What I liked most - the puzzle, the mystery, the bookstore itself, the humour. The epilogue-y bit at the end, I love a good epilogue.

What I liked least - how short it is, or at least how short it felt. It took me only a day or so to read, and I could have happily spent some more time there.

Favourite Quotes: there were a few good ones, but this is the one that induced the outburst of mirth that made me grateful I was on my own: "Don't forget your ruler on your first day of cult "   I could also quote the entire last paragraph or two, but that would give away too much.

Highly recommended, and if you choose to read it I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Strategy for bookshop shopping?

What's your strategy for shopping in a bookshop?

It's rare these days that I get to roam in a bookshop browsing for new things, when I do get to one I find that I spend most of my time looking for authors I am familiar with. Which means I don't get to expand my reading much.

One of the benefits of the book club has been to open my eyes to new genres and authors.

Occasionally I will go to amazon if a favoured author has a new release, and might be tempted into looking at the 'other customers also bought' books.

Mr B's book spas are another brilliant way of finding new books I would never have looked at otherwise, knowing that it's safe to do so because the books I am presented with have been selected with my personal tastes in mind.

But I struggle to walk into a high street bookshop and randomly look through books until I find some I think I'll like. I never know where to start.

Do you go in with an idea of what you're looking for?

Do you go in looking for authors you're familiar with? Or for books you've seen on a review somewhere?

Do you look mainly at the table with the 3for2 stickers?

Do you look at titles/covers first then decide to read the blurb? or do you just go to the new releases section and read through until you've selected the one(s) you want?

I don't have anymore bookshelf space left, but I never feel like I have enough books anyway. I love my kindle, but there's something about a real book that just feels better.

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.