Odd dip into Koontz territory

I am not a massive Dean Koontz fan.  I am a big fan of the horror(/thriller?) genre (hello!! homosexual here!) but somehow Koontz never really did it for me.  David and I tend to pop him into the same basket as James Herbert, or Ramsay Campbell.  He is certainly not of the same calibre as Stephen King or Clive Barker (or Poe or Lovecraft for that matter) of that I was never in any doubt.
 
I've always found that Koontz always came at the supernatural from a very base level - the whole "if it's different then it's evil" kind of attitude.  Small town minds from small town folk who like their colloquial little ways to remain unchallenged and their traditions unchanging, filled with their worries and fears that there is always somewhere else, somewhere foreign, something alien out there which could destroy everything if it gains a toehold into their lives.  I just felt he was too old school and never really scary enough for my liking.  

"Goosebumps for grown ups," I said to David before I started reading what I thought was a one-off book about an apocalypse that the Barbican library was promoting in it's latest display featuring popular horror writers throughout the ages (yup, you guessed it, all of the books in the display are now on the list - well, they're popular, quick turnaround titles and were chosen by librarians... all of the elements that allow them to be included are there!).

After a few chapters it becomes clear that Dean has been writing a series.  In truth, I probably already had heard of it before as my cousin is a big fan of this particular genre and devours similar series quite regularly via her kindle.  I vaguely remember her telling me about how she was enjoying a series about a man who can see dead people and keeps in touch with Elvis.

I didn't think this book was terrible.  It was typical Koontz work in that it is filled with cliches and yet still manages to weave in some weird science and Nikola Tesla to boot that makes it worth your while reading it until the end.  It will not tax you.

Having come in at book 5 and I will now go back and read some of his earlier segments so I won't go into too much detail about the series now, suffice to say that the book is about a man, Odd Thomas, who comes from a small town and who has a unique ability to see dead people.  Odd can communicate with them, although the spirits have to convey their words via a bizarre game of charades every time....  Koontz, having clearly exhausted this as a plot direction has introduced Odd, along with his traveling companion to a house where very strange things are going on indeed.

Every now and then as I was reading I would stumble into a spoiler from the previous books, and I was quite fascinated to see how adept Koontz is in massaging the series narrative into the main plot, giving just the right amount so fans of the series would be sated with their regular dose of Oddness and newcomers could still enjoy the book as a standalone story.  Prolific writer that he is, I now see that Koontz is more than just a hack when it comes to churning out his many many works.

I've got the first three books on order now.  They'll take me a day or two to read each one (as I said, they're really not that taxing) so I look forward to getting to know this character a little better.  I'm sure it would have helped carry me through the more formulaic parts of this particular work, which you can get from here if in the UK, or here if you're reading in the US.

Both sources are selling for penny + postage so clearly this is one of those throwaway titles that won't date very well (it is filled with so many popular references that will become meaningless within a decade or so for any future readers) so I highly recommend that you borrow these from a friend or a local library if you can to avoid the clutter.

Gaiman is Pure Gold

That's about all I need to say, really.  That, and go read his latest book.

Another new addition to the list via the local libraries "Hot Pick" table, David and I devoured this book over the course of a week and managed to return it the following Sunday without any trouble whatsoever.

It is, simply put, a gorgeous fairy tale of a story - but in this work, Gaiman does what he does with most of his books - he manages to weave the fairyness into the modernity with such ease you actually start to SEE the story unfolding before you like you were the main protagonist within it.  Not that he is writing a screenplay, in fact, most of Gaiman's vision is just way too elaborate to ever truly be captured as a series of photographic images - his works require massive canvasses with multiple layers applied with detailed brush work - whole exhibition halls would fill up with image upon image upon image that you would spend days wandering about and even then you wouldn't be able to see them all.

So I've loved Gaiman probably from before I started reading John Constantine comics (many, many years ago for all those non-geeky folk out there who have no idea who John Constantine is).  I think the first actually novel that made me truly fall in love with this Gaiman's work was Coraline - but of course so many of his works have become movies (some of them even quite good considering my earlier comments about how impossible it is to truly do his work justice via this medium) but there is something truly magical about his writing that just makes me want to gush like the fan that I have now become.

Clive Barker once made me gush like this.  I'm hoping he will one day again (soon I am hoping as I hear a new novel is being published as I type) but for the moment, Gaiman is King of the fantastical mixed with the mundane, the bizarre world seeping into the ordinary via the lost collective memories, now long since forgotten, allowing us to briefly glimpses the realms much much larger than any of us currently can imagine ever existing within.

For EU customers, order The Ocean At the End of the Lane from Amazon EU here.
For US customers, order it from Amazon US here.

Or borrow it from your local library, you'll find it on the "Hot Picks" table :-)

Books Read:   10

Winter is coming - I'm still reading, and it's from the list (well, the amended list anyway)

So that was Summer eh?

As I come in from the drizzle I realise that it has been some time since I actually wrote an entry, in this or any blog.  My life has, of late, been filled with all things work.  I even had to give up Facebook for a while there.  Sadly, I also had to give up reading.

I'm not sure if the "work project", as we'll call it, actually allows me to postpone the timing of this little reading project or whether I should just cancel the whole thing and just start reading any old book that crosses my path.  Either way, I probably won't stop blogging about it.  I will try to read 100 books though, before April next year.  I think it's possible, especially now as the darkness descends upon us.  Winter is coming, and it's probably time to finish those George R R Martin books (now hereby decreed added to "the list" because of necessity - the televised series has actually passed the place I got up to in the book!).

I've found another addendum to the list, a regular one that is give by our local library in Watford.  I love this place, it's a pretty darn fine library to have on your doorstep and one of the positives about moving house is that we'll probably move closer to it.  I've always wanted to be close enough to a large enough selection of books.  Anyway, I've decided that any item that is marked as a "hot pick" is allowed on the list automatically.  These are books that are (a) popular (b) reasonably short and (c) only allowed a 1 week loan.  I have technically found a way of getting around this problem (by using the libraries automated return system one can simply re-borrow the book approximately 2 seconds after returning it) but I've also found another way of getting around this short loan period which is just to read the books very quickly.  As quickly as possible. 

Last week I borrowed Ian Banks' latest (and last, very sad to have to say) book - it really was fantastic and I will be sure to write a review about this beauty before long.

This week I borrowed a couple of books and I'm now well into the second one, so maybe next week I'll go for three of them and see if I can manage that for a few weeks.  I've kind of lost count of how many books I've read so far, I'm sure a few will come back me, I know I didn't review all of the ones that I had read before I stopped and started spending every spare moment working (or simply relaxing and spending some time with our boy Zack, whose year with us is coming to an end now), but I wouldn't be surprised if I've still got about 80 books to read in just under six months if I'm to read 100 as I had originally planned to.  

Anyway, it's late, I need to sleep because I'm about to change my shift again and start to work normal hours so my mornings won't be sleep filled but caffeine filled instead.  I'll get to that review shortly.... Neil Gaiman.... yeah.... that was probably the one that broke the ice.  A "hot pick" at the library - David spotted it as I was off paying my late fees at the library for all the books that I'd stopped reading because work was taking up all of my time.  He read it in a day and I took about three but we managed to return the following week without need for a sneaky re-borrow.

But I digress again.  It's late, I need to sleep.  It was good though, that Gaiman book.  REAL good - nay, pretty much excellent.

More on that later.

First Full Moon Report

Full moon update!

Here I am about to go to bed and read a little bit more of Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe.  Thursday is science day, after all.  I started reading Stephen Hawkings in the first week of the challenge, and now that I am done with his dense tome, I need something else.  Thankfully there are many many pictures in Cox's version.  And explanatory diagrams.  Note that Hawkings didn't have any pictures, it's just that his pictures didn't actually make it any easier to understand what he was trying to say.  With Cox, you can almost hear his soft Lancashire Lilt as you read the text, and you can see his pretty face, and then you picture him dancing to Things Can Only Get Better and suddenly you have to reread the page from the beginning again.  Clearly I'm easily distracted when it comes to science books.  Jokes aside, I do like his book.

I really wanted to have finished 10 books by the time I got to the full moon.  There was no chance I was going to finish Dickens' Copperfield or Steve Jobs biography over the weekend but I needed something new to read on Monday and I picked up Beryl Bainbridge's The Bottle Factory Outing which she wrote in 1974.  It was Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Prize.

At less than 200 pages long I felt this would be a doddle to finish in a day... but I was wrong.  Not a doddle.  Actually I thought it might be down to Mondayitis that I just could not concentrate on the prose, but David has just called me from Cornwall (he's been at a conference) and he's just started it, 50 pages in, and he too is finding it difficult to get into the rhythm of it.  Certainly by 100 pages (where I got to by Monday night) you are well acquainted with the characters enough to begin to enjoy the read, but there is a point at the beginning where it is all a bit muddled, as if Beryl wants us all to pay very close attention to what she is saying, else we might as well just pack up and leave if we aren't going to concentrate.

For DAvid it may be that he has just finished The Snow Child.  We gushed a bit about that one on the phone for a while there. I did so much enjoy Eowyn Ivey's novel.  And to think this is her first novel.  Wonderful stuff.  But I digress.....

So I didn't get to finish Bainbridge's book on Monday, and Tuesday was Cloud Atlas day.  I very much am enjoying reading this, but I got to within 100 pages of the end of it and I just could not read any further.... I was so tired!  I was practically falling asleep trying to read on. I stopped.  So Tuesday, no luck, still the book remains unfinished and still I had only finished nine books!

Then yesterday I cracked a book in a day.  I picked up James Carnac's The Autobiography of Jack The Ripper.  Clearly this is a work of fiction, but it is packaged as if it is a real manuscript.  Whatever, given that it supposedly dates back to the early twenties it is probably one of the very first novels to be written about an actual serial killer who has no motive to kill his victims other than he enjoys it.  Oddly enough, found amongst the personal papers of the creator of Larry the Lamb.  Perhaps he had a dark side?  Who knows.  It was published last year, although it came to light a few years previously.  I found it quite enjoyable, but then I do like a bit of a murder mystery thriller.  Funny, really, as to why Jack the Ripper became so famous.  I guess it has something to do with him being one of the first serial killers, although if you read Colin Wilson's excellent treatise on the subject you'll find that there were others, previously, although they were quite rare.

So I managed my 10 books by the Full Moon.  AND I am well into 7 more.  At this rate, I will have no problem completing the challenge.  Mind you, I've still got that Dickens to get through.... and another 89 books as well!!

Days Left:    335

Books Read:   10

On the challenge of reading the wrong Dickens.....or Ficken Dickens Schmicken!

So the challenge continues.....

I've noted that others are becoming inspired and starting to read their own lists. Australia has a massive bookstore called Dymocks, it became a chain in 1986 but I first noticed it in Melbourne around 1995. They have published their own list, and it's a kind of cool list indeed, of 101 most popular books as chosen by their customers.
 
+kym brown  and our daughter have started their own reading quests. I'm hoping that they will, from time to time, blog and tell us all about them. I will certainly provide some links here.
Last Tuesday was, indeed, Cloud Atlas day. Wow. The book truly is different and yet very similar to the movie. It does highlight how friggin' ace those Warchowski siblings are to be able to turn it into a filmic experience. Yeah, they added bits, massive bits that weren't in the book, but I'm long over the whole "You must replicate this book exactly" feelings that I used to have as a child. I remember explaining this to my daughter around the Harry Potter Three movie.

Movies are different entities, they need to be treated as such by the viewers. For a start, they use pictures to convey a message, and not words. You think that this is obvious until you really start to think about what that actually means. A 5 page detailed description of a setting can be snapped in a few seconds in a movie, but how difficult is it to convey a person contemplating a momentous decision involving internal dialogue? So I never judge a movie adaptation based on the book that it was based on. I always give it plenty of room to be it's own story.
 
On Wednesday, I finished Piers Morgan's diaries. The years 2001 - 2004. It was a struggle, not because they were dull, they're not (although, in places where he discussed football (soccer to the non-European crowd) I would literally skim) but they are quite detailed entries and I found I'd lose my concentration if I actually sped read them. I was also incredibly tired by Wednesday - far too many late nights and early mornings. So methodically I pushed through these years.
 
By 2001 onwards was particularly interesting especially after 9/11. Suddenly Piers started acting and behaving pretty much as David and I had during the lead up to the war on terror. It really was a very crazy time and Bush and Blair were such blatant liars with their desire to move the war into Iraq. I remember pointing out that it really wouldn't solve anything at the time, that they would never find WMD, that it was all about oil. I don't feel vindicated that I was right about all of this. Piers didn't either. We just felt sad. Sad that the world could actually be manipulated in this way. Sad that folks like Bush and Blair could do this to the world so easily, and even marching 1 million strong against it would just be ignored.

So I end up realising that Piers and I would get along pretty well at a dinner party. We'd annoy the crap out of stale stuffy conservative folk with their circular arguments. Mind you, that would be a dinner party that we had both gatecrashed.... probably after a pub crawl... or perhaps it would be a conversation overhead in a restaurant as there are not that many stuffy conservative dinner parties that I'm likely to be invited to anytime soon.
 
On Thursday I finished Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time. Well I feel good in that I have finished this. I mean, I can now say I've read it. Yes, I've read the words, no I didn't quite understand about a third of it. Actually, probably about half of it. There were times I was thinking "What is he on about" and then suddenly I'd be like "Aha, of course, I know this". My intense love of Science Fiction helped me to get through this. I still laugh because I honestly thought this would be 1,000 pages long, the way folks have gone on about it. Most people don't read it to the end. I did. Yay me.

On Friday, I finished Eowyn Ivey's A Snow Child. I just loved this book. Easy to read, but not simple in any way. I truly loved her characterisations, her ability to get me teary, especially during the first half of the book. As the story continued I found myself far more emotionally stable... but then she got me at the end. It is based on an old Russian fairy tale, and it beautifully encapsulates this into a real flesh and blood drama. I HIGHLY recommend this one. Brilliant stuff
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Then yesterday I continued reading Dickens. Another 50 pages. I read 50 pages last Saturday so at this rate it will take me about 3 months to finish it!! It's not that Dickens is hard to read, but the plot is kind of all over the place, with intense characterisations of minor characters that just don't seem to actually be really very necessary. It's a little bit gratuitous... nay... it is a LOT so. All my actor luvey friends (the older ones, the ones that worked with Olivier and his ilk.... most of them are dead now come to think of it.) All of them used to go on and on about Dickens and how wonderful he was. Well, at 100 pages into David Copperfield with about 800 to go... I fear that I may have picked up the wrong one. But on the list it is, and so continue reading it I will.

Mind you, it wouldn't be a challenge if it wasn't at least a little bit challenging, and the whole point of taking on a challenge is trying to overcome the possibility that you may actually fail in the end. I'm sure we won't, we'll read all night for the last few months if we need to, or at least I will, David has now read 7 books AND he started about a week after I did. Here is his latest review on The Godfather. He thoroughly enjoyed that one. I'm starting it on Friday as I need another Friday book after finishing Ivey's fairytale.
Today, it's clearing up the backyard, going shopping and reading a bit (a lot) more of Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. I'm enjoying it, but again I wonder how long it will take to actually finish it.  I chose these big books to read on the weekend because I figured I would have more time to actually read them. Turns out that isn't the case when the sun starts to shine. I should have guessed, really
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Days Left:    339

Books Read:   9

Being distracted from Buchan by Rob Bell

I'll admit that I picked up this book because it was slim.  At just over 100 pages I was certain to be able to complete it today.  I wanted a short book because yesterday I struggled with continuing to read Steve Jobs biography and at the rate I am reading it, it will take me about 6 days to do so.  So I wanted something short, something I could get through in half a day.  I figured John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps would be just the ticket.  However I hadn't quite figured that I would be a little distracted today.  Mainly because I had pre-booked tickets to see Rob Bell at the launch of his latest book.

This also meant that David and I had to have an impromptu meal at Carluccio's Islington branch prior to the event, so it all ended up eating into our reading time as well (David is currently reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather).

After the event, mainly because Rob ended up being an excellent orator (not that anyone was surprised by that as it's kind of why we went in the first place) I didn't really want to do all that much reading on the way home, because there were things to discuss, like just what Rob Bell thought his philosophy actually was about and how far he's come from the evangelical pastor to the man with a Buddhist-like desire to really see the world for what it is: a wondrous miraculous sparkling mass of energy.  He still wants to see it through Christian tinted glasses, but hey, it's where he's come from.  We can forgive him that much.  Many other Christians are much harder to forgive.

Moving onto to Buchan's book, I can see why it is on The Observer's list of 100 influential books.  It is probably the precursor to just about every spy thriller ever written after 1915.  To sum it up in under a paragraph, the main protagonist discoveris a secret that so dangerous that he must run in order to stay alive. If he stops running, those that want to silence him for what he has learnt will catch him and kill him.  Thankfully he has a military background and is rather good at regional accents.  He also has learnt more than just a little conversational German, and given that all those chasing him speak this language it comes in very handy indeed.

I haven't quite finished the book, I'll do that in the next hour once I've published this and crawled into bed.  However I will finish it today, so check it off the list I must.  

Tomorrow is Cloud Atlas day.  Yay!!

Days Left:    345

Books Read:   6

On why I will NEVER see Margaret Thatcher as a feminist icon

It's Saturday, Margaret Thatcher has been dead for nearly a week now and people are still getting their knickers in a twist about whether or not it is okay to hate somebody vehemently after they have died.  Simply put, the  answer is: "Yes".  If you hate them when they are alive (hopefully because of what they stand for, not because of who they are...) then by all means don't stop doing so just because they got old, feeble and eventually carked it.  I mean, seriously.... get a grip people!  Hitler and Pinochet were horrible contemptible beings, there really isn't any doubt about that.  It's okay to speak ill of them even though they are now dead.  The same applies to Margaret Thatcher, vile woman that she was.  I know some folks see her as a feminist icon, which always makes me laugh very loudly and deliberately so whenever I hear it.  I mean, Thatcher absolutely hated feminism almost as much as she hated homosexuality.

Thatcher with her mate

On Wednesday I read two years in the life of Piers Morgan, 1999 - 2000.  It was fairly dull couple of years for him.  Not much happened.  You know, just Paula Yates dying and Concorde crashing.  He got a bit excited about Concorde crashing, mainly because he thought that some celebrities may have been on board, but then he learnt it was "just full of ruddy Germans".  Even he thought he was a bit of a tit for exclaiming something like that across the news room floor.  I have 4 more years to go.  At least 2001 will get a little more interesting.  Hopefully will finish up next week.
On Thursday I continued my sojourn into the mind of Stephen Hawkings.  I sometimes read the journal Nature - the front few pages that summarise the scientific articles although sometimes I read the scientific articles.  When I do, my head starts to spin and although the words are English, the placement of them next to one another make no sense to me and my mind starts to wander.  All credit must go to Mr Hawkings then for being able to write something that actually makes sense when he is talking about the beginnings of our universe.  I have another 50 pages to go on this tome and I will need another whole day in order to process them, so I'm hoping that I  will get to finishing this book next week.

Friday I continued reading Eowyn Ivey's the Snow Child.  I do love a good read and a well written yarn and this is definitely that.  I found myself welling up after every few pages.  Yup, it's a weepy one.  I had planned on finishing this one, I should really have been able to, but instead I ended up going to bed quite tired and unable to focus on the pages after more than a few minutes.  I have recently undertaken to learn the Office 2010 software packages to expert level, as well as how to use Adobe In-Design as a professional operator, so on top of the usual hours of work, home life and everything else that a normal week brings, I have thrown about 10 hours of training time into my weekly schedule.  It does leave me a little tired by the end of the week.

This morning I woke up and after a few coffees I finished Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman.   Wow.  I love this woman.  I started reading this book a couple of weeks back, you can read my review here and also here. She truly is the kind of person who I want to have around for dinner, as a friend and in general, the kind of feminist that just makes perfect sense in this day and age.  Greer's version of feminism gave us Margaret Thatcher whereas Moran's gives us Lady Gaga.  You'll have to read the book to see where the difference lies, but I'd happily fight the good fight standing next to Moran.  And I think that's the main point: Caitlin would be happy to have me standing next to her whilst Greer would have consigned me to somewhere at the back of her mob, out of sight. After all, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from telling her that I find her views on transsexualism terribly old fashioned and rather offensive.

David has finished Caitlin's too and although if you're in our circles you will have received a notification from either of us, you can also find his beautifully illustrative review here. I urge you all to read it, he makes me proud the way he constructs his prose so eloquently.  






So what next to read on a Saturday?  I'm due for another library visit tomorrow... maybe I will find something there?  I am leaning towards something substantial, something nice 'n' chunky to really curl up with on a Saturday... an Austen or a Dickens maybe?  I will let you know, I'm yet to choose.

Days Left:    347

Books Read:   5

Kerouac.... and being caught in a bad bromance

It's Tuesday, which is Cloud Atlas day... and the reading is progressing nicely, thank you very much.  I didn't get to read as much as I liked, but I'll have another go in a minute - Zack is cooking dinner and this means that after the ironing and the dishes have been done, I have time to sit here and tap away at my keyboard.

I don't really need to update you all anymore on Cloud Atlas, so I figured it might be a good opportunity to discuss another book from the list, one that I have read previously.  My eyes have trawled down my "original" list and I reach #64 On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

I read this book in my second year at Drama School.  I was very much into discovering my sexuality back then, and so many folks had talked about this book being THE book about bromance - a term that back in 1989 had not yet been invented, or, if it had, certainly had not been widely used in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

I have very fond memories of this book.  It was said (by the author himself) that Kerouac wrote it in approximately three weeks after taking LSD.  In fact, it was due to this rumour that LSD was for a while being touted as some kind of writer's wunder-drug.  This rumour has now been discredited, of course, with the writer's notebooks and letters proving that it was indeed a project that had spanned many years prior to its publication.

The homoeroticism contained within the book (now commonly described as 'bromance') was something that interested me greatly back when I was first reading it.  Some say that Kerouac wasn't actually a homosexual but in my mind he probably was at least bisexual.  Most likely Kerouac, like many gay folk today (+David and myself included), looked about himself and saw what was considered to be a "homosexual" at that time and decided that it wasn't him. Stereotypes have a tendency to do that and certainly amongst the gay community (if there truly is such a thing) there is often a blatant attempt at trying to be shocking or overtly feminine.  Back in 1950 this was possibly even more likely to be the case.  Men who wanted to remain men, even though they were attracted to men sexually, would have felt a little alienated, .

Or maybe not.  Personally, I felt such a strong rapport with the character of Sal and his relationship with Dean Moriarty, there was so much that resonated between them that reminded me of my own teenage years and the friendships that I had with quite a few young men - purely platonic, of course, but now that I look back and knowing what I know about myself now, it is almost laughable to think that I wasn't aware at the time what was really going on.

Days Left:    351

Books Read:   4

Tulisa and her amazing ability to turn sour grapes into boxed wine

I'm in a quandary.  If I'm too harsh on Tulisa and slag off her autobiography (which I started reading a week ago) then I'll end coming across as nothing but a bitch.  What's more, now that I've read it all the way to the end, and subsequently learnt about how she was not only blessed to be related to the right people so as to end up being a member of N-Dubz, she also ended up getting being lucky enough to land a spot as a judge on the X-Factor, has released a solo album and is about to begin writing her first novel and concentrate on her acting career, so to moan about the silver spoon that seems to have been shovelling sugar into her pretty little gob all this time would just end up sounding a little too much like sour grapes.

Well it does and then it doesn't.  I don't begrudge her the opportunities that came her way, nor the people that looked out for her and guided her along her path(s).  She comes across as incredibly naive at times, but then she is very young still.  She also comes across as quite a sassy broad.  The way she took on the ex-boyfriend who tried to make squillions from their private intimate sex (headjob) tape is to be applauded!  I Certainly wish we'd see that a bit more often!  Also, she came from a difficult background and a very poor one to boot. 

With regard to all her "bad" choices, well, give a young thing loads of dosh and no boundaries and they start doing stuff that will get them into hot water.  I don't think I would have really acted any differently (in fact, I didn't - I may not have had as much money as Tulisa but I certainly got some amazing opportunities offered to me at a very young age - and I would hardly call myself 'responsible' the way I dealt with life at... say.... age 21.... ) but I might have been a little less naive.... not sure there are those that remember me back then who would agree with me regarding that but they can always leave a comment of disagreement I suppose....

So I'm happy for her - honestly, I am.  I just watched a couple of her videos and, yes, I understand that "Young" went straight to number 1 in the UK (the UK sometimes sends the strangest songs to that top spot) and I also hear that her album which she released on my birthday last year didn't do so well and was generally panned by the critics but really it doesn't matter, she's got a fabulous job, will continue to have a great career and is unlikely to fail anytime soon at anything in the long run.  And shoud she one day fall, and I mean truly fall, at some point later in her life... well, she'll hopefully have the sense to have a healthy stash of cash to see her through.  And a gay friend.  Every clever girl has a gay friend to keep her company.

Of course, I also want +David to read her novel and if I slag it off, well, he'll just lose interest.

Och, did I say novel?  I meant autobiography..... of course.... I'm telling the truth.... honest! 

Days Left:    352

Books Read:   4

So I finished two books today.  Admittedly they were both easy reads, and I'd started Judy Finigan's Eloise last Sunday, and I probably would have been able to finish it in a day if we hadn't been driving all over Wiltshire and Buckinghamshire.

I cannot say that this was one of my favourite reads.  I love ghost stories, I'm quite into Cornwall and I've always been relatively fond of Judy (and Richard, her husband) through their various television shows.  It is a first novel, remember that.  I thought that the mystery would actually be a little bit more mysterious than it actually ended up being.

Now I mystery with many twists and turns may not be to everyone's liking, I will admit, and the writing flowed very well although it is hardly complicated in style.  The characters were all very well drawn and I certainly could picture them all pretty easily within moments of them first appearing.  Of course Judy was playing the main character, and her husband was naturally played by Richard (I'm pretty certain that 99% of readers who know this celebrity couple did the same whilst reading this book, much to Richard's chagrin  no doubt, as the character of Chris is best described as being a bit of a tosser).

Judy herself says her book is heavily influenced by Daphne Du Maurier, amongst others.  She does add that she in no way feels that her ability to write matches that of the famous author.  I agree.  It's not terrible, that's for certain, although I'm not sure I'd describe it as haunting as others seem to.  Yes, there is a spirit involved... but hmmmmn.... Wuthering Heights is haunting.... Rebecca is haunting..... Eloise is haunted

UPDATE 14/04/13:  You can read David's review of Eloise here

 Bob

A good friend of ours lent David and I this book a while ago.  She mentioned that she kind of read it in a day, that it was a pretty easy read but she really enjoyed it.  She quite likes cats.  David and I are not particularly fond of moggies (we both hail from Australia, we both love birds and birdwatching and we've seen the damage that one cat can do - cat's, especially ones that have no bells on their collars, can cause great harm.

James Bowen, being a man who also hails from Australia, is well aware of this.  I think this is why he named Bob after the psycho killer from Twin Peaks.  

I really wanted to start reading David Copperfield today (a real book for a Sunday... 900+ pages of very small single line spaced print) but David had mentioned that we really needed to return this book back to our friend and so I began reading today in between moving boxes around in our roof (currently, the majority of our books are stored in boxes in the roof and one of our projects is to actually record these books in a database so that we can find them... when they need to be found, of course).

I enjoyed this book - an easy read, a rollicking yarn.  I intimately know the places that the author frequented, both as a busker and as a big issue seller.  I am happy for this man to have been able to turn his life around, from recovering junkie to, well, I'm not sure what he is now. He just recently updated the book and re-released it for children and there is talk that a movie will be made.  I hope so.  The man was clearly chosen by this cat to be lifted out of the life with no future to, well, a life with a future.  Why?  Only Bob knows that.

One thing that is clear from reading this book - if you ever end up homeless, you're better off having an animal with you.  Yes, it's another mouth to feed, but it's also a way to make you visible.  I certainly fell in love with one big issue seller whose patch was just outside Euston Station.  He always had a small dog with him and when his dog died, he was so forlorn, I started to just randomly give him a fiver or a tenner and then tell him to keep the magazine to sell on to another punter.  He's moved on now, not sure where, am hoping to a better place.  Nobody wrote a book about him as far as I'm aware, but I hope he's working somewhere and that he's got another companion to keep him warm at night.

UPDATE (14/04/13):  You can David's review of Bob here

Days Left:    353

Books Read:   3

Oh, and David has started a blog which I will periodically link up to my blog pages, depending on which book he is reading from the list.  He has taken on the challenge, which won't really be a challenge for him as he is one of the fastest readers I know.  I may be three books ahead now, but that won't be for long, of that I am completely certain...! 

On why I don't go to Titty Bars... and my final list!

Today I continued reading Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman.  This is a hilarious jaunt through the author's life and her own personal views on femininity and what it means to the modern lady.  She is very witty and I tend to agree with her thoughts on just about everything, which is a little odd as I am a man.  I am, however, a gay man, and perhaps this is why I am able.  Maybe it's because feminism is really nothing more than humanism.  You know, being a human being who tries not to hurt anyone and is generally quite tolerant of the diversity that surrounds us.
My favourite chapter has to be about the Titty bars, or "Strip Clubs" as they are otherwise known.  Now I don't frequent such establishments, seriously, I don't.  I have been to many a gay bar and there have sometimes been strippers present.  Most of the time this has been a joyous occasion.  The men are happy to receive the adulation given to them by the crowd and the crowd is happy to see a man get his kit off.  No one is harmed and everyone is happy.

Once, in Australia, I did end up in a straight strip joint.  I attended this place with my lover, my brother and some other members of my family.  Now the reason we actually attended was because aforementioned family members actually worked there (I hastily add that one worked on the door and another behind the bar - none of my family members were actually stripping!).  We thought it would be a laugh.  It really wasn't.

My brother and I even had a little dance organised for us.  Again, I thought this would be quite amusing.  It really really wasn't.  I was a little drunk at the time, but pretty soon after the event (actually, pretty soon after it started) I felt quite horrible indeed.  I'll admit I was very impressed when the lady began to make her boobs dance - she had amazing control of her pectoral muscles - but then suddenly she spread her legs wide... and I had to look away.  I spent the rest of the dance looking at my brothers face.  (He felt obliged to continue watching, of course, purely because he didn't want to hurt the lady's feelings...).

I agree with Caitlin so strongly about these places.  Honestly, they should be banned.  She mentions that in Iceland that they actually have been banned.  Good on the Icelanders!  These places are cold, and pretty ugly to boot.  Men are not loving these women who jiggle their snatches before their hungry eyes... and the women who do so are definitely not loving the punters.  I even heard that these ladies actually pay to be able to perform there.  If they don't get enough men giving them cash for their little shows they end up out of pocket as a result.  What an absolute disgrace!!!

Moran is correct.  The biggest clue about these places is the lack of gay men.  If a place doesn't have any gay men attending, it is not a place worth going to.  If you want a classy sex 
joint, go to a Burlesque bar.  This is where all the gay men go, and the straight men who actually like women.

 The New List

I have finally come up with a list.  I won't be changing this list now (honest!!!!).  Mainly because there are so many lists out there and there are so many books.  I like reading, I love books and I'm quite partial to having a list.  Anyway, funnily enough my list is now of 143 books in total.

Now I'm not saying I'm going to read 143 books before Ostara 2014, although I will definitely try to do that.  What I am absolutely certain is that I will finish at least 100 of them.  I've already finished one, and tomorrow I'm pretty sure it's going to be two.  I'm actually really looking forward to finishing Judy Finnegan's book, I want to know what happened to Eloise.

Lanark	Alasdair Gray
Football!  Bloody Hell	Alex Ferguson
The Count of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas
Wise Children	Angela Carter
Lovely Bones	Anne Sebold
The Way We Live Now	Anthony Trollope
Memoirs Of A Geisha	Arthur Golden
Time Traveller's Wife	Audrey Niffenegger
Secret Diary Of A Call Girl	Belle de Jour
Sybil	Benjamin Disraeli
The Bottle Factory Outing	Beryl Bainbridge
Bradley Wiggins: An Autobiography	Bradley Wiggins
American Psycho	Bret Easton Ellis
Wonders Of The Universe	Brian Cox
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe	C. S. Lewis
How To Be A Woman	Caitlin Moran
David Copperfield	Charles Dickens
Great Expectations	Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre	Charlotte Bronte
Things Fall Apart	Chinua Achebe
My Animals And Other Family	Clare Balding
The Rainbow	D. H. Lawrence
Over The Moon: My Autobiography	David Essex
Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell
One Day	David Nicholls
Mr Stink	David Walliams
Ratburger	David Walliams
Fifty Shades of Grey	E. L. James
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance	Edmund de Waal
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont	Elizabeth Taylor
Artemis Fowl	Eoin Colfer
The Snow Child	Eowyn Ivey
Men Without Women	Ernest Hemingway
The Riddle of the Sands	Erskine Childers
Scoop	Evelyn Waugh
Wise Blood	Flannery O'Connor
The Good Soldier	Ford Madox Ford
The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frank Skinner	Frank Skinner
The Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoevsky
Daniel Deronda	George Eliot
The Diary of a Nobody	George Grossmith
Gone Girl	Gillian Flynn
The Quiet American	Graham Greene
The Tin Drum	Gunter Grass
Madame Bovary	Gustave Flaubert
Bridget Jone's Diary	Helen Fielding
Tom Jones	Henry Fielding
The Portrait of a Lady	Henry James
Bring Up The Bodies	Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall	Hilary Mantel
The Black Sheep	Honore De Balzac
Atonement	Ian McEwan
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller	Italo Calvino
The Casual Vacancy	J. K. Rowling
The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien
Waiting for the Barbarians	J.M. Coetzee
The Story Of Tracy Beaker	Jacqueline Wilson
A Street Cat Named Bob	James Bowen
The Autobiography Of Jack The Ripper	James Carnac
La Confidential	James Ellroy
Ulysses	James Joyce
12th Of Never	James Patterson
Emma	Jane Austen
Pride And Prejudice	Jane Austen
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney
Kane And Abel	Jeffrey Archer
Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In the 1950s	Jennifer Worth
Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K. Jerome
Riders	Jilly Cooper
My Sister's Keeper	Jodi Picoult
The Thirty-Nine Steps	John Buchan
Pilgrim's Progress	John Bunyan
USA	John Dos Passos
Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus	John Gray
Looking For Alaska	John Green
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	John Le Carre
Me Before You	Jojo Moyes
The Hundred-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared	Jonas Jonasson
Nostromo	Joseph Conrad
Catch-22	Joseph Heller
Eloise	Judy Finnigan
The Snail And The Whale	Julia Donaldson
Being Jordan	Katie Price
An Artist of the Floating World	Kazuo Ishiguro
The Pillars Of The Earth	Ken Follet
A Thousand Splendid Sons	Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini
Lucky Jim	Kingsley Amis
Tristram Shandy	Laurence Sterne
Anna Karenina	Leo Tolstoy
Little Women	Louisa May Alcott
Journey to the End of the Night	Louis-Ferdinand Celine
In Search of Lost Time	Marcel Proust
Housekeeping	Marilynne Robinson
The Godfather	Mario Puzo
Money	Martin Amis
World War Z	Max Brooks
The Princess Diaries	Meg Cabot
Life And Laughing	Michael McIntyre
Don Quixote	Miguel De Cervantes
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting	Milan Kundera
Is It Just Me?	Miranda Hart
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Muriel Spark
The Pursuit Of Love	Nancy Mitford
The Scarlet Letter	Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Executioner's Song	Norman Mailer
The New York Trilogy	Paul Auster
Still Standing: The Savage Years	Paul O'Grady
American Pastoral	Philip Roth
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale	Phillip K Dick
Dangerous Liaisons	Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
The Inside	Piers Morgan
The Periodic Table	Primo Levi
The Big Sleep	Raymond Chandler
George's Marvellous Medicine	Roald Dahl
The BFG	Roald Dahl
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde	Robert Louis Stevenson
My Booky Wook	Russell Brand
Haroun and the Sea af Stories	Salman Rushdie
Malone Dies	Samuel Beckett
Clarissa	Samuel Richardson
Herzog	Saul Bellow
Running My Life	Seb Coe
Confessions Of A Shopaholic	Sophie Kinsella
The Charterhouse of Parma	Stendhal
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky
Brief History Of Time	Stephen Hawkin
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo	Stieg Larsson
Entwined With You	Sylvia Day
Mort	Terry Pratchett
Far From The Madding Crowd	Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure	Thomas Hardy
Nightmare Abbey	Thomas Love Peacock
Song of Solomon	Toni Morrison
Honest: My Story So Far	Tulisa Contostavlos
A Bend in the River	V. S. Naipaul
Mrs Dalloway	Virginia Woolf
Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov
Austerlitz	W. G. Sebald
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography	Walter Isaacson
As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner
Vanity Fair	William Makepeace Thackeray

Days Left:    354

Books Read:   1