I AM going to learn to roll my r's. I have found several pieces of internet guidance, and will be making funny zzzhhhhh sounds all over the place until I nail it. Then I will be able to do cat impressions, and my place in the home will be safe.
(2 of my Booker books arrived. I'm onto it).
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
chilli, chilly
My chillies are ripening, finally, even as everything else passes into winter.
They're no longer lush and green but we will be able to have as much thai food as we want for the foreseeable future.
In other news, I am enjoying war and peace more than I thought anyone could enjoy war and peace, and I cracked and ordered the whole booker shortlist so that I can get on with reading them.
Anyone know where I can get a time-turner from?
Monday, 13 September 2010
Her fearful ghost story
I've plenty to tell you about patterns, but I'm on the sofa and my camera isn't.
Instead, a warning: if you loved The Time Traveler's Wife and have been saving up the treat of Niffenegger's latest, Her Fearful Symmetry (number 45), then just walk away. Pick up TTTW again and once more sob yourself silly; go for a walk; try some Russians instead - just don't commit several hours of your life to HFS because you'll find it gripping, you'll see faint shadows of the sort of insight into people that you know she's capable of, but then you'll be smothered by the heavily worn research, the creaking explanations of funny English things, and the far-fetched, un-thought-through plot. Yes, I know TTTW had as its central premise a man who accidentally travelled in time, and I know that it was so riddled with inconsistencies that you'd think it hadn't even occurred to her to look at the logic of it...but it was original, it was a vehicle for a love story, and it worked. HFS would be a hundred times better if it:
1. skipped the second twin plot;
2. got rid of the ghosts; and
3. stopped lecturing about Highgate cemetery
- but it would leave it more pamphlet than book.
I was honestly a bit gutted because I'd been so sure that I'd love it like I loved the last one, but really, I can't believe that even Audrey herself loves it.
Now, War and Peace, on the other hand....
Instead, a warning: if you loved The Time Traveler's Wife and have been saving up the treat of Niffenegger's latest, Her Fearful Symmetry (number 45), then just walk away. Pick up TTTW again and once more sob yourself silly; go for a walk; try some Russians instead - just don't commit several hours of your life to HFS because you'll find it gripping, you'll see faint shadows of the sort of insight into people that you know she's capable of, but then you'll be smothered by the heavily worn research, the creaking explanations of funny English things, and the far-fetched, un-thought-through plot. Yes, I know TTTW had as its central premise a man who accidentally travelled in time, and I know that it was so riddled with inconsistencies that you'd think it hadn't even occurred to her to look at the logic of it...but it was original, it was a vehicle for a love story, and it worked. HFS would be a hundred times better if it:
1. skipped the second twin plot;
2. got rid of the ghosts; and
3. stopped lecturing about Highgate cemetery
- but it would leave it more pamphlet than book.
I was honestly a bit gutted because I'd been so sure that I'd love it like I loved the last one, but really, I can't believe that even Audrey herself loves it.
Now, War and Peace, on the other hand....
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Patterns
Things I have done since last week:
1. Seen patterns everywhere that I'd like to make patchworks from;
2. Revelled in how easy it is to take pictures on my new phone, and how well they turn out;
3. Read numbers 47 (Frankstein) and 48 (Her fearful symmetry) and made a brave start on 49 (War and Peace) so that I can join in with dovegreyreader's Team Tolstoy.
Things I woefully have not done:
1. Got hold of the Booker shortlist, even though it was announced on Tuesday. I haven't even ordered any of them. With each further day that passes, my chances of getting them all read before the announcement diminish some more:
2. Finished my economics project. It's fine, it's fine, I still have a month. It's just less *interesting* than most of my other projects...
Sunday, 5 September 2010
You'd think I did nothing but read
Seems that quite often I end up putting off writing an update because I'm behind, or because there's a book I really want to write about but I haven't yet mentioned the one before.
So, to catch up with a list:
42 Work 2: twenty personal accounts (Fraser)
43 Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
44 What the Dog Saw (Malcolm Gladwell)
45 Testimony (Anita Shreve)
46 The Rings of Saturn (WG Sebald)
I don't want to say much about Testimony mainly because I didn't really enjoy it that much, and that disappointed me because when Shreve is good, she's great. This one, though, while it was very readable, just didn't ring even slightly true. Plenty of bad stuff happened, but there was no sense that these truly were characters who would have behaved that way. Writing by numbers, but slightly misprinted ones.
There's also not much to say about what the dog saw which is probably why I've not said much about it before now - it was probably a month ago that I took this and Testimony out of the library (technically, not a breach of the summer reading project, because I didn't *buy* them). If you liked Blink, you'll like this - it's a collection of previously published journalism about, not sure what to call it, 'interesting stuff'. I read it, thought "ooo" a few times, noted to myself the range of things that I could well be interested in if I only gave time to exploring them, and then took it back to the library. It's not changed my life.
Perhaps you can see I'm building up to something here. I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Rings of Saturn but it's a Sunday morning, I'm not feeling very alert yet, and so I can't quite do it justice. Another post will follow.
(I can tell you in the mean time, though, that Little Women is just as good as it always was, only that every time I read it more of it makes me cry, not just the obviously sad bits but all the bits where they try hard at something and it goes wrong and they learn from it and resolve to be better, nicer people. Sometimes I resolve this as little as three or four times a day.)
So, to catch up with a list:
42 Work 2: twenty personal accounts (Fraser)
43 Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
44 What the Dog Saw (Malcolm Gladwell)
45 Testimony (Anita Shreve)
46 The Rings of Saturn (WG Sebald)
I don't want to say much about Testimony mainly because I didn't really enjoy it that much, and that disappointed me because when Shreve is good, she's great. This one, though, while it was very readable, just didn't ring even slightly true. Plenty of bad stuff happened, but there was no sense that these truly were characters who would have behaved that way. Writing by numbers, but slightly misprinted ones.
There's also not much to say about what the dog saw which is probably why I've not said much about it before now - it was probably a month ago that I took this and Testimony out of the library (technically, not a breach of the summer reading project, because I didn't *buy* them). If you liked Blink, you'll like this - it's a collection of previously published journalism about, not sure what to call it, 'interesting stuff'. I read it, thought "ooo" a few times, noted to myself the range of things that I could well be interested in if I only gave time to exploring them, and then took it back to the library. It's not changed my life.
Perhaps you can see I'm building up to something here. I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Rings of Saturn but it's a Sunday morning, I'm not feeling very alert yet, and so I can't quite do it justice. Another post will follow.
(I can tell you in the mean time, though, that Little Women is just as good as it always was, only that every time I read it more of it makes me cry, not just the obviously sad bits but all the bits where they try hard at something and it goes wrong and they learn from it and resolve to be better, nicer people. Sometimes I resolve this as little as three or four times a day.)
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
New starts
More than almost anything, I love the autumn term feeling. Yesterday and today have been just as this time should be: sunny as you like but with a bite in the air in the mornings. It makes me want to rush out and buy a new pencil case, and check my shoes still fit.
Unfortunately, having a grown up job, the new term's only in my head, but you know what? It doesn't matter. I can have a pile of new resolutions, and a clean start, and if I make turkey lasagne once and it's horrible, then I never have to make it again.
(The backlog of un-written-about books is building, and I'll do some catch-up posts soon, but mainly I wanted right now to share my wonderful autumn feeling).
The only cloud is that cat has vanished, only since last night so far too soon to worry about her, but still, I'd like to have her gathered in by dark. Time to go and stand at the back door rattling the biscuits and making kissy noises, I think....
ETA: the cat came back :)
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