Coffee Time – Okay?

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It’s coffee time – go make yourself one of these and then read my weekly collection of things I’ve been into.

I’m off to London next week for a meeting and have a little time to kill (thank you awkward train times) so I’m going to fit in some serious sightseeing; first stop the British Museum – I’ve never visited before which makes me feel very guilty and uncultured.

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I must see the Rosetta Stone, that much I know already – I have A History of the World in 100 objects; which is a book based on the most important objects in the Museum which I’ll be feverishly reading over the weekend.

I included this photograph because, well, it’s Banksy and London. That’s it.

photo credit: Trois Têtes (TT) via photopin cc

The Women’s prize for fiction, previously the Orange Prize, longlist was announced yesterday,  of course, Hilary Mantel is nominated – she’s pretty much won every award in the country universe recently. The longlist has given me a lot of inspiration for my TB (to buy list) especially Zadie Smith’s NW and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.

I joined Tumblr a few weeks ago – I swore that I would not let it drag me into vicious internet circles of looking at Harry Potter memes and Gilmore Girl GIFs and I can honestly say that I’ve broken that promise. A lot.

Harry Potter from Tumblr

I’ll leave you with this…

“When someone asks if I like coffee”

When someone asks if I like coffee

Review – Care of Wooden Floors

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Care of Wooden Floors, is Will Wiles’s début novel first published in March 2012. Oskar, famous for composing ‘Variations on Tram Timetables’, asks an old university friend to house-sit while he is in L.A., ironing out the details of a divorce from his American wife. To Oskar ‘A room is not just a room. A room is a manifestation of a state of mind, the product of an intelligence. Either conscious or unconscious. We make our rooms, and then our rooms make us.’

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His friend, who remains anonymous, is a downtrodden, council copywriter eager to escape London for a few weeks. Wine split on the floor during the first night, sets in motion a calamitous chain of events.

The book is perfectly written and full of dark humour; everyday routine, chores and items become a thing of beauty in Wiles’s hands. The first few pages stand out as a very honest and compelling account of feeling alien in a foreign country.

The address, unless it has been incorrectly taken down – was it 70 or 17? – corresponds to an apartment building in a completely unfamiliar foreign city some thirty kilometres from this airport, and the taxi rank is the sinew that links me to it – shelter, a promise of food and comfort – unless I am cheated or robbed or murdered, or some baroque combination of those three.

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I do feel that the elaborate, intricate text is detrimental to the plot –  at times I couldn’t see where the book was going; it comes together at the end but, I felt that,  I could have given up reading it a few times.

Although I didn’t warm to the characters, I did find them compelling; Oskar’s friend quite often appeared cowardly and unwilling to take responsibility for his actions which were almost slap stick in their nature. Oskar is ever-present through a series of notes: which instruct, rebuke and annoy his friend.

 If you’re looking for a fast paced novel with clearly defined direction – this isn’t the book for you but I would recommend the Care of Wooden Floors for the beautiful writing alone.

Book Haul: West Egg

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A collection of books that I’ve bought over the last week.

I had been on the brink of buying this copy of The Great Gatsby for about two weeks. It’s a special edition, published in 2010, to mark the 70th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s death.

The Great Gatsby

Originally I decided against it, because I already own a paperback and e-book version. But, aided by payday, I thought –what the hell: The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite books, ever, and this edition is just so beautiful; its 1920s Art Deco design is, pretty much, my dream cover.

There’s a detachable bookmark in the back; with my favourite quote from the book;

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

I got this copy of Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles at Waterstones – I first saw it last year, on a book shop display table, and thought it looked really interesting.

I got The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as part of my Penguin Modern Classics project (I’m reading them all).

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

I got The Archived after noticing a lot of Booktubers and book bloggers mentioning it. I haven’t started it but it seems an interesting twist on the typical dystopian YA novel.

John Updike’s, Rabbit, Run is also a Penguin Modern Classic – I’ve started reading it; the writing is pretty much perfect, but I’m finding it quite cold so far.

If you can’t tell already; I love The Great Gatsby!  I got a notebook so I can make notes on the modern classics as I’m reading. I fell in love with this straight away – it’s meant to a travel-notebook, but it works for anything.

The Great Gatsby Styles Notebook

Travel Notebook

That’s everything. A Weekend of reading, I think.

Book Haul

Coffee Time: Rabbit, Run

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I really enjoyed my first coffee time post; a random collection of ideas and things (I’m ever so succinct today) so let’s do it again;

BBC Radio 4 has adapted Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere – originally a television series, which aired on the BBC in 1996 (it was later expanded into a book), set in ‘London Below’ which is inhabited by: angels and all types of mythical creatures.  The cast list is crazy – I mean mindblowingly crazy; Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, Christopher Lee and Anthony Head! Or as the producer/director said in an interview “then Christopher Lee said yes, and we all nearly fainted”.

photo credit: Laurie Pink via photopin cc

I’m trying to track down book cover posters for my flat – I’ve had a look at vintage ones: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye and On The Road.

photo credit: flos puella via photopin cc

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, comes to mind as a recent cover which is very beautiful; but I’m at a loss to think of any other modern books which really stand out – so I’m wondering; are book covers not as good as they used to be?

I mentioned in the last coffee time that I wanted to start a new project; reading all the Penguin Modern Classics and I’ve started! The first book is John Updike’s Rabbit, Run – oh boy is it amazing – the writing is truly something else. The review/thoughts on, will be up by the weekend.

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Like the whole of the internet, it seems, I’ve watched and loved the Amanda Palmer TED talk.

30 Before 30: Little Miss Sunshine

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A side effect of being the grand old age of 25; is mentally compiling lists of things I want to do before turning the Big Three-O. Otherwise known as 30 before 30. I figured I need to write them down make a blog post, before starting to cross things off – lest they fall into the vicious cycle of: being instantly forgotten, remembered two years later and instantly forgotten again. Here are the first four…

Stand in a field of poppies – as a child I was obsessed with (The Wonderful) Wizard of Oz which has the famous field of poppies-sleep-scene.

photo credit: Jill Clardy via photopin cc

Solve a Rubik’s Cube –  without. Cheating. Wikipedia says there are 43, 252, 003, 274, 489, 856, 000 potential positions on a Rubik’s cube.  I’ll be making a start. Right about now.

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To see the Northern Lights – because science is beautiful and Northern Lights –  with charged particles and atoms in the thermosphere are proof.

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Visit America – where to start with this one – I’d like everything about my trip to be like the Little Miss Sunshine film minus death and drugs. I want to go to: Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. I want to see: the Liberty Bell, The Empire State  Building and The Declaration of Independence. I want to stay in a motel and eat In-N-Out Burger.

photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry via photopin cc

I’ll post my next four soon.

Thoughts on The Fault in Our Stars: “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up”

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The Fault in Our Stars, follows Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with terminal cancer – we join the book as she reluctantly attends a support group during which she meets Augustus Waters: an intellectual, athletic 17-year-old boy – the story develops as the pair fall in love. I don’t really know where to start with this review, or as Augustus would say “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations”,  the book had such a big impact on me.

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If you spend time on YouTube you may be familiar with the Author, John Green, who vlogs with his brother Hank and makes, all kinds of, amazing and beautiful things online.

I found the characters in The Fault in Our Stars: compelling, realistic, well-developed and likeable. The interactions between them, especially when they’re in everyday scenarios like: having picnics, dinner and playing video games, are incredibly touching. The protagonist Hazel Grace is intelligent, sarcastic and observant. Here she is talking about her favourite, fictional, book An Imperial Affliction;

 “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal.”

The dialogue is witty and quick-paced; definitely not how I or my friends spoke at 16 but not inauthentic in a way I sometimes find when reading young adult fiction;

“Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.” 

There has been a bit of criticism of the book online – the Daily Mail questioned whether cancer should be addressed in a book written for teenagers; to me, this is beyond stupid – but a side effect of ignorance is writing for the Daily Mail.

The idea that teenagers should be sheltered from topics such as death or grief only serves to underestimate them. I’ve also, annoyingly, read some reviews which refer to this as a book about dying or cancer, for me it very clearly isn’t – it’s a book about life, (which isn’t always fair) love and friendship.

Coffee Time

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Get a coffee, tea, diet coke, whatever – this post is a collective, random list of the things I’ve been thinking about but don’t really add up to an individual blog post.

I’m thinking of starting a new project, a big project – I really want to read all the Penguin Modern Classics. I’m still thinking how much time I would give myself, two – three years probably (there are at least a 150). How I would read them; for any books I don’t own I would buy the actual modern classics editions, but as I already own a few that are on the list; I wouldn’t repurchase those (because that’s slightly ridiculous and also expensive).

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photo credit: Leigh Harries via photopin cc

I ate a Wonka Bar on Saturday – it was nice, I guess, but could never, ever have lived up to my expectations built from watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory compulsively when I was growing up. So if you enjoy the taste of disappointment then give one a try.

I saw Warm Bodies last week, it’s an adaptation of a book written by Isaac Marion, I was very worried about this film – it’s billed as a paranormal romantic zombie comedy (yes you read that right). The synopsis is that after a zombie apocalypse, the protagonist R, saves a girl Julie (instead of eating her) and slowly starts to become human again. It’s funny in an unassuming way, Nicholas Holt is so good and the soundtrack is amazing.

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Editions of books: or more specifically the compulsion to buy a book you already own because it’s a different, new or better edition. On Saturday I very nearly bought this edition of The Great Gatsby because it’s both shiny and gold and I’m both fickle and easily influenced – common sense did prevail – I already own the book twice, Kindle and Paperback.

Review – Dominion, by C.J. Sansom

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I’ve always been fascinated by alternative history novels – they tread a very fine line; a reinterpretation mixed with just enough imagination and truth to make them plausible.

Dominion

In C.J. Sansom’s Dominion; the Second World War as we know it never happened –  instead there was the brief ‘Dunkirk Campaign’ – after making peace with Hitler in 1940, Neville Chamberlain is succeeded by Lord Halifax not Winston Churchill (who appears in the book).

The book is set in Britain during 1952; the Gestapo operate from Senate House whilst Nazism slowly creeps through the country. Though Germany itself is struggling; it’s been fighting the Soviet Union for 11 years and the Nazi Party is on the brink of collapse.

You aren’t asked to take a leap of faith; the book is incredibly well researched, Sansom, describes it as “recognisably the early 50s, but warped and twisted and impoverished, its worst aspects exaggerated”.

The characters are far from black and white. I found the protagonist, David Fitzgerald, a civil servant working in the Dominions office, who is secretly spying for The Resistance detached and cold. Gunther Hoth, the Gestapo policeman hunting David and his friend, Frank Muncaster, is a complex character; he is intelligent and, at times, fair but this makes his actions and views even more repulsive and shocking.

There are no traditional heroes and villains; characters are warped by nationalism or fail to act because of pacifism. They operate out of fear, grief, love and hate.

 I’ve already recommended this book to a lot of friends – always a good sign.

I Should Still…

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Reading 10 Things I Wish Weren’t Replaced By Modern Technology, writing in a notebook every day, which I haven’t done since I was 16,  and,  reading a hardback book  have made me reminisce about things that use to make me happy but I stopped doing without realising.

When you have a Kindle the book v., e-book debate is something you have often, especially when you work for a library.  I’ve stuck resolutely to the argument that the words are the most important aspect and the format of them is irrelevant but I’ve wavered in the last few weeks; reading a hardback has reminded me that memories of reading are tied up with the real physical thing and that’s good amazing.

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My copies of Harry Potter: The Philosopher’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets, which I’ve had since I was 12, remind me of summer, friends, and the anticipation of waiting for the next one to come out – they’re the books I waited in the massive crowds of people at midnight to get. My copy of Northern Lights I was given for my 20th birthday, will always have a handwritten message in, it reminds me of Nice and beaches made of pebbles.

I restarted writing in a notebook on 1 January – it has had a bigger impact on me than I imagined: it’s therapeutic – but there is nothing like seeing what has made your day awesome or rubbish, written in black and white, to drive home what you do and do not like. I got a second notebook especially for this blog, customized with my favourite quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower a bit excessive, perhaps…

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I can’t drive, which is a pain, but it means that I walk a lot – the upside is that there’s no better way to listen to music than walking with your headphones in. I’ve listened to all my favourite albums this way, Fleet Foxes, For Emma Forever Ago, High Violet and Puzzle.

Now through a lack of time;  I walk, just to get to places.  I’m lucky to live next to one of the most beautiful parks in the country –  so on Saturday I went for a long walk,  took some photographs and listened to The Lumineers album  -  my hands got so cold, I could barely grip the camera,  but it was the best day of the week.