Kate and Pansy Think about Taking Over the World

But What About the Book?

2009-07-17T02:41:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed it. It was light, fluffy and surprisingly poignant. And I am very curious how the book club feel about it. Nugent explores the feeling of being socially adrift and how nerds attempt to create a social system that works and makes sense. I, not surprisingly, very much understood this sense that social rules and who was popular and who was liked made no sense to me. I remember feeling very much isolated and the strong desire to find a community of like-minded souls. And this book left me with the question, is this how everyone feels? Or is it just the way nerds feel? Or do nerds feel it more acutely? Or perhaps, nerds take agency and try to make a new, better society, with their rules and their hierarchies and secretly don’t understand why people don’t join with them in their utopia.

Why was it poignant? I loved the bits about Nugent’s nerd-past. And I think in exploring his past, he comes back to my central question of why do nerds pick their order and is their sense of social dissonance universal? I think I am a bit like Nugent, very self-absorbed and seeing things from my own perspective. He assumes that people are nerds for the same reasons he was. That they played d&d for his reasons. When he goes back and talks to his friend, he realises that isn’t so. The nerdish pursuits and the nerd community was serving different functions for his friends. In some ways the little community of social rejects provided its own escape for kids who had a whole lot of confusion and instability in their lives. That he didn’t have this same need becomes apparent when he takes the opportunity to shed his nerdom and hang with the cool crowd. I can fully understand why he did that. His motives make complete sense. But his actions had a horrible cost. It wasn’t enough that he betrayed the people who were there for him in the lean years but that he had to falsely accuse another and sever that person’s connection to the nerd world too (which suddenly reminds me of a story in werewolf comic—they walk by night—but that is an aside too far). He is judas and I am glad he feels the guilt even now.

I am an American Nerd

2009-07-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

After a couple of attempts, I realised I need to have two posts about the book. The first will be a complete navel-gazing recitation of my historical nerdiness. The second and probably much more on subject post will look at the book and some of the questions it has left me with. That I am genuinely looking for answers to.

I like to think of nerdiness as a continuum. And while I most certainly know nerdier people (I knew undergrads I knew who would plan their evening meal so that it wouldn’t interfere with watching reruns of Star Trek where the game was to name the episode before the opening titles came up and then discuss how the teleplay differed from the novelisation of the episode), it would be wrong for me to deny my past.

I was raised by a NASA engineer who used to bring home films of clear air turbulence experiments and have the whole family watch.

When I was 11, I read Shakespeare. Two years later, I organised my friends into digested productions of Macbeth. I am not sure I have ever really solved how to stage the scene where Macduff walks in with Macbeth’s head tucked under his arm (though my was I impressed when I saw how the Reduced Shakespeare Company solved that problem).

In 1979, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. Last year, on a visit to my brother, I was reunited with my original boxed basic set, my advanced d&d player’s guide and monster’s manual and my set of dice. I think the twenty-sided is currently sitting on the tv. I was saddened by the news of Gary Gygax’s death.

The first computer language I learned to programme in was Fortran Four. I was working for NASA as a SHARP(summer hire apprentice research programme) on the X-29 forward swept wing project. My mentor tried to convince me that when I went to university I should major in maths because a) it was a great way to meet guys and b) it was a ‘mickey mouse’ major.

Did I mention I was a mathlete? That the first boy I kissed (Farley Stewart who went on to do computer science at UCSD—where they wrote Pascal) was the captain of the mathlete team. We both played in the same dungeon. I was also on the mock trials team, captain of the Academic Decatholon, four years in marching band, student representative on the school board, hated by the general school population and a geek pin-up. I’ve dated a lot of nerds. They like that I read science fiction. And I had breasts.

I may also have written fanfic, been involved in on-line role playing games based on a popular fantasy series, been a regular at the Renn Faire, considered joining the SCA, started blogging over five years ago and have a picture of myself with the crew of DS-9. I have, however, never been to a star trek convention or ComiCon or GenCon even if I have looked up the dates and times for one or more of those events.

I’d like to leave the subject of geek music untouched.

All in all, I fully expect to have a different experience in reading this book than other people. But go on, surprise me.

2008-12-01T02:17:00.000-08:00

Well, my hope of blogging all the books I read this year has fallen by the wayside. Who knows what I read in a year? I now won't be able to report.

Anyway, according to the gp, I was depressed. And I am now on generic prozac. And a slightly elevated dosage. And actually, I feel fabulous. Life seems like a grand adventure. I suspect I have been depressed for years. At least two. Maybe longer. Maybe I am permanently depressed in my natural unchemically altered state. I don't know. But I think it helps explain the lack of blogging.

Because I have recently wanted to blog. About CSI:Miami. Today, I just wanted to mutter that now it is December, I figure I should send my paycheck straight to Amazon. Is their a more dangerous site out there? How many amazon boxes will my house collect this year?

I also went to Toys R Us yesterday. This didn't happen. But I can picture it happening. Easily.

I have been reading (as always). John Connelly (yes, I do read Michael Connelly too) which is a bit like a crime novel with a little bit of Stephen King mixed in. I think I rather like it. And well, I have been indulging in my complete and total guilty pleasure, regency romances. Ah....

Julia Quinn. She is fab. Read two. Cried over both. I am such a sucker.

Now rereading The Stand because it is 30 years old. Not as old as me. But still.

2008-09-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

More Books!

So I read Everybody Worth Knowing by the woman who wrote The Devil Wears Prada (which I also read, years ago). Why'd I read? It came free with a magazine and I bought it thinking I was getting the free mystery. What can I say, its about impossibly rich new yorkers and working every minute of the day. And finding true love.

I also read The Outcast by Sadie Jones. Why did I read it? because I convinced my mother to buy it when she was looking for books to buy. What can I say. Period details. bits of brutality. Oh yes, and finding true love. Because people do that when they are fifteen.

Then I read Fame Fatale. Because I wasn't sure I had read it before. I had. Its a typical Wendy Holden. Heroine working under miserable conditions, horribly partner. Truly horrible female lead who is all about materialism and bad fame. Then you find true love.

Read Louise Bagshawe too. I am obviously rebelling against the lit fic I have been reading. Horrible sister. Downtrodden heroine working heroically in today's world. And then you find true love.

I promise I am reading a proper book at the moment.

2008-09-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

What have I been reading, other than the fabulous Brief Wondrous Life? Well, I can tell from my bookshelf that I read Straight Talking (free chick lit with a magazine) at some point and then immediately forgot about it. Speaking of which, I have now had enough of Harlan Corben. Read Gone For Good, had to big up book to remember title, characters, plot. And well, I am tired of it. I've read three stories of his now. Really liked the first. But I can't remember any of them individually and they all seem to follow the same narrative arc and with the same narrative twitches. Love, separation, crime committed in the past, Some one isn't who you think it is. The bad guys get killed in a divine providence kind of way, often there is a minor character of a Jersey crime family and we have had two reunited children too! Don't think I will read anymore.

Read another Tess Gerriston. The Apprentice. Which occurs in time before The Body Double. I enjoyed the novel. I like how its a bit of a literary CSI. Lots of explanation of the tech and forensics. Good villain. However, I could live without the clunky romance and well it builds nicely and then bam! its over. I kept thinking how can she finish this novel in the pages that are left and well she does it with a Hamlet ending. One villain dead (we never find out who he is, why he does what he does, how he hooked up with the other guy). Heroine saves herself and well the baddy ends up with his just desserts. Must admit I will read more but I may be looking to see if this is a pattern.

Read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Which surprised me. Old Country and The Road are both quite stark in style and language. This wasn't. It was verbose and bloody and well, I think keeping with the milieu. But much as I haven't watched Ride with the Devil (and I love Ang Lee), I don't think nineteenth century blood thirsty American complete with mud does much for me.

Which may come as a surprise when I talk about my classic for the year, Huck Finn. Loved it honestly. Loved Jim. Thought Tom Sawyer was a twit. Loved the language and Huck's gradual conscious awakening. And I can cross one more 'great work' off my list.

2008-09-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

(cross-posted on the bookies--where it did have formatting).
Wow. No tears this time for a book of such brilliance it humbles me even as I watch in awe as Diaz manages to weave so many different currents, different, worlds, different universes together in a narrative both original and yet part of so much great literature. This is a work of genius. At first, I had a hard time imagining someone teaching creative writing at MIT. What kind of a (schizophrenic) person could do that?!? Having finished Wao, I now have no problem imagining Diaz holding his own with the geeks while writing (and I suspect reading) fiction. I think this is a book that could be read several times, and each time, the reader would learn more, see something new, appreciate it in a different light. Diaz speaks in so many languages like Spanish, the new footnote style of David Wallace Foster, incorporating the style of magic realism used by Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa. And I am not even mention the comic book/graphic novel references, all the rpging terms scattered about or the hip hop. Each a language telling the reader that little bit more, adding another layer to the compelling story of a family and its curse. I think I am most impressed at Diaz’s calling out to the literary canon(like a rap artist). Years ago, rocks were soft, dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in an American High School in a small town and actually I was 15, sophomore year, the year you have to do American Literature. More a lot of people that meant The Scarlet Letter. I was college prep. In our classes it was Thorton Wilder and Emerson and Thoreau (On Civil Disobedience not Walden) and a little bit of Hemingway. Specifically, The Old Man and the Sea and the Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. You think Diaz just picked his title out of then air? He’s running with the giants and I like him a whole lot more than Papa. Wao, like Mr. Macomber, takes life in his own hands, find happiness, if only for a brief time (fyi, Wao’s happiness is of a longer duration that safari participant Francis) Then final year, we had to read a lot (looking back on it now) including Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And that is what I recall in Oscar’s last words. In his life, it is not “the horror” he sees, but “the beauty”. For all the tragedy and unhappiness of the life of his family, Oscar finds love. But it isn’t just Oscar’s story that captivates me, its all those women: his sister, his mother, his abuela. Great story telling. But more. A book that illuminates on every page. Though I am not sure I am going to give it to my mother to read.

2008-08-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

Other crime book: The Bone Garden by Tess Gerriston. It got slated by readers on amazon but I thought it was okay.

2008-08-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Got to keep bloggin on books or who knows where we will end up. I am sure there should be another crime novel in there somewhere but I can't remember what it was. I did also read Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. I quite liked it. Cyberpunk meets detective noir. I am not sure all of what happened. Or why some people did somethings. But it did read a little like a 25th century Big Nowhere. And we know how I feel about that.

Oh a completely different note, I am contemplating joining the Women's Institute. Do you think they read cyberpunk?

2008-08-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Don't blog for a month. Forget all the books I read. I know I read two Harlan Corben. And I enjoyed them. But I can only remember the plot of one and I have no idea what the title of either was. I don't know that this is a good thing in a book.

I did read Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams of My Father and I'll cross-post what I wrote about it.

I also have read Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day so now I think I will try and get the library to get me When We Were Orphans and The Unconsoled. I also read No Country for Old Men. I think I preferred the movie but my what is a sparse novel, a bit like The Road. Oh and I read Diary of a Nobody because my podmate loves it. I thought it was okay. I am planning on doing Huck Finn for my classic of the summer. But that is it for me for today.

2008-07-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Me and the Canon.

More confessions of a reader, I am afraid.

I don’t know when I fell in love with books. I do remember as a child learning to read and needing to sound the words out loud. I was fascinated and jealous that adults could silently read the paper and I thought this was a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I also remember being six and forgetting to bring my library book to school on Monday (it was about the Easter Bunny and how Easter Eggs ended up different colours). Because I didn’t return the book, I wasn’t allowed to check out a new one. I cried. I told the teacher and the librarian that I knew where the book was (I did!) but to no avail. No new book for me that week. Strangely, though I remember the trauma, I still manage to keep out my library books for too long. Which could be a question(or two) for fellow readers. Do you have a library car? Do you return your books on time? Do you have a favourite library?

Some other time maybe I’ll blog about my childhood reading, lifelong love of Enid Blyton, how my brother denied me books, and my occasional interaction with comic books. The only important result of it was, I spent a lot of time at school having to read a lot of the western canon, though not necessarily the books that most other people my age did (not my choice, I think we had a renegade English teacher for four years). What do I mean? That for American Lit, instead of doing The Scarlet Letter, like other fifteen year olds, we did Thorton Wilder’s Our Town and Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience. We did do Hemingway. I was underwhelmed.

We did Marlowe’s Faustus as a warm-up for a whole six months of Shakespeare. I did The Epic of Gilgamesh for the mythology six months and lots and lots of poetry. Final year we did bits of The Cantebury Tales (and got tested on our ability to translate middle English), Ibsen (I loved The Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler), Crime and Punishment(which as far as I was concerned was the Tell-tale Heart only much, much longer), some Becket, Dante’s Inferno, Heart of Darkness and who knows what else. Somehow, I successfully argued that Kurt Vonnegut was a serious Author and got to do an in-depth study of him (as my brief infatuation with DH Lawrence was wearing off). [this is also where I like to point out that a) I went an american comprehensive high school in a small rural town and b)I’d match my American education with any here in the British Isles, not that I am sensitive or anything, mind you].

But it meant I arrived at university not needing to do any more English Lit, unlike most American students. I spent several years living with English majors and reading some of their books before seriously keeping company with and English major and well we ended up very close to getting married, arguing over books and playing that great game of trying to think up authors in the canon that no one else at the party has read (I swear this is an honest to goodness post-grad English student party game. I swear).

Despite this, or because of this, there are all sorts of ‘great books’ I haven’t read. Or authors I have read one book of and sworn never again (are you paying attention Misters Dostoyesky, Hemingway, and Dickens?). Me and the canon aren’t as well acquainted as if I had been male, raised in the 30’s and educated in St. John’s. Or face it, just educated at St. John’s (and my familiarity with plays by Machiavelli are entirely down to those political theory classes—again that substandard American public education system). So several years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I resolved to read one ‘classic’ a year. Some I like. That new translation of The Illiad (in verse form). Edith Wharton (starting with House of Mirth), Henry James. Less, not as successful (Mr. White Whale I am talking about you and you madwoman, Madame Bovary).
And its that time again, time to read a ‘classic’. I keep losing Conrad’s Nostromo (I had a similar problem with both 100 years of Solitude and Midnight’s Children—neither wowed me. Rather read Morrison’s Song of Solomn). Think I might try Middlemarch despite almost universally hating all 19th century literature. So, I will end with another question for my fellow readers, what is your favourite ‘classic’?

oh and if my library ever stops taking industrial action, I will be ordering in those Cormac McCarthy books and mr. Ishiguro.

2008-07-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

You know, I used to funny. And witty. And entertaining. Now I couldn’t type to save my life. But I used to send my opinions out to the blogsphere and well, it was amusing!

I’ve just been reading old blogposts. In part so I can remember what my top 10 films list looks like (for the record its:
Chinatown
Yojimbo
Miller’s Crossing
Matewan
The Big Sleep
Philadelphia Story
Heathers
Valley Girl
FightClub
The Killing
And well I was amusing. Admittedly, all I did was talk about Vegas, alcohol, CSI, alcohol, say disparaging things about my child (and now that would be children). But I gave the appearance of having a life! That wasn’t completely composed of a)not eating; b)playing Age of Mythology while c) waiting for my plants to grow in Plant Tycoon. Look at me now. Maybe I will try and be a bit more inspired.

Anyway, I have read a bunch. In particular a double volume of Jenny Coglan of Finding Addison and Amanda’s Wedding. I needed to buy a cheap book because the H weasled out of taking me out to a nice serious grown up lunch so that he could work in his office. I don’t know why he isn’t a slacker like me. Alas, I think I read Finding Addison once before from the library but can’t really remember. So, no, I don’t think I would recommend her work. I also read Harlan Corben’s Don’t Look Back, which I also can’t remember but thought that I enjoyed quite a bit.

On the non-fic side of things I did Blood River which may have convinced me that I don’t want to go and work in Africa doing something worthy but also Under the Banner of Heaven. Crazy Mormons!
I ploughed my through Mary Queen of Scotland and the Western Isles by Margaret George. Someone gave me her Autobiography of Henry VIII when I graduated high school and I really enjoyed it. But I didn’t like Cleopatra and I didn’t really like this. Though I did spend a bit of time on wikipedia afterwards. I could update some more but as I don’t know how to blog below the fold, I am quitting now.

2008-06-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

More books!
I was in the library/computer room/music room this morning writing out cheques to pay for childcare when I looked over and noticed a book on the shelves and realised I had read it but not blogged about it. So I have no idea where The Ladies of Grace Adieu goes in narrativeof reading for a year. Now I loved Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell and I enjoyed the Ladies even though I rarely do collections of short stories. Jonathon Strange is one of the books/authors I came across thanks to blogs and Crooked Timber in particular. They were doing a seminar on Jonathon Strange and I thought I should read it. I actually find Crooked Timber quite good at finding books for the H. I got sent to George R.R. Martin by them (and if you find a Northern Ireland physicist reading some of the song of fire and ice it is all because of me and Crooked and look publishers, you want to increase your readership, well that is where you start) and also Mieville. Martin hasn't done a seminar on Crooked. But I am so in awe of Mieville--academic! thinker! and noted author! and on the left! It is amazing I am not consumer as a small pile of envy right here and now. Of course, I would also like to plot and narrate like Martin. Oh, so much writing envy and what do I spend my spare time doing? Playing Age of Mythology!?!?

Also this week, I went to the library and checked out more books (after returning all that Stephenson). Read Wendy Holden's Filthy Rich. Which didn't have the unreconsistituted villain of typical Holden novels and well the main couple were still in love by the end but otherwise is pretty much the same old formula. And the Wag will obviously be getting future novels of her own. I did have one particular bone to pick. The rich American couple took out the rustic aristo for sushi in london. His first experience of sushi. But they took him to Yo! Now I love yo. I love the whole conveyer belt bit of it and the sparkling water jets. However, i think any self-respecting rich American in London would have gone to Nobu before being caught dead in Yo! So that part read completely false and like something a middle class chattering class would eat and not serious New York banker. I mean really!

2008-06-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

Book update time.

So I finished the second and third volumes of the Barock Cycle, The Confusion and The System of the World. I think I liked The Confusion best of the lot because it was only in that volume I started to like Jack Shaftoe and well, there was quite a bit of Eliza in it too and I like Eliza a lot. Not as much as Daniel Waterhouse who is just a wonderful character. And I do think it is an amazing work. I now know so much more about the politics of early science and the beginnings of the slave trade. I do which Louis XIV would have come to a bad end, but I suppose that wasn't something I could realistically expect.

I also went to Portugal and stayed at Club Med Da Balaiai. Which was amazingly child friendly. Took child number two. The Blessing stayed with the grandparents and got bought a hand beaded £40 pair of sandals. I am planning on stealing them at the end of the summer because some people's feet will continue to grow and mine will remain the same. But having a week off meant that I read a few other things, like How to be Good, which was okay but nothing spectaccular if you ask me and then The Body Double (It came free with a woman's magazine) which was much better than I expected and The Echo. I suppose I was a bit disappointed with The Echo and I love Walters. Now reading a book about the Congo. I think I have a romantic idea of Africa.

2008-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Wine and Music (and books)

I had to link to this.

Not that I am drinking at the moment. I have started a diet. A long bataan death march diet. The cambridge diet. So far I have lost about a pound for every day I have been on it. But I do think about food.

I also read William Boyd's Restless which had a connection to Iran (again) and I enjoyed, particularly how the mother got out of a difficult situation in New Mexico and I liked the somewhat ambiguous ending but not the suicide. Didn't buy that. Finished a pratchett novel and am almost done with the second book of the barock cycle.

2008-04-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

The Return of Snooker Blogging
Yes, I saw Ronnie's, I didn't see Ali's. Guess Ronnie can't go an dbuy that Bentley convertible now.

2008-04-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took so long. I forgot my email and password for a while. I only have two passwords I use with any frequency (alright three if we count the family password, four if we include work and five if we include the work password I wrote down because it was a variation of my original (maybe four words I would normally use). Alright, I no longer access my Egg account because I have absolutely no idea what the password might be. I would like to be chipped. Then I would like to be scanned. Then I could stop having to use passwords and pin codes. Because I can’t remember them all. Somebody want to pretend to be me? I hope you have a good memory.

Two Posts in one Month!

Anyway, I have read a couple more books. Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I haven’t read any of her stuff since The Accidental Tourist so long ago. But I really liked this. Maybe because I am an adopted child (from another country—though we never had arrival day in my house) but I also really liked the Iranian elements. We read (at my instigation and my mother’s urging) Reading Lolita in Tehran for the book club I was attending. And so I am doing lots of thinking about dissidents Iranians and the Islamic revolution. Which also touches upon the other book I finished last night (but I can’t remember the title and will have to blog about it later. I am giving my mother Digging to America when she arrived in July. I do hope she likes Life of Pi.

Oh, and now I remember, I also just read Wintersmith. I love Pratchett. I will make no apology for it. I am currently rereading Moving Pictures because I am waiting for the library to bring me more of the Baroque Cycle. I like the little blue men (sort of) and absolutely love the witches. Glad I am not one. But I would like to meet Death and go on my summer holidays to Uberwald and join the Watch and yes, I have a secret crush on the Patrician and a little bit of a yen for Winter.

2008-04-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

Time for blogging again. If only because I really am trying to keep an accurate account of what I read in a 52 week.

First off is The Yacoubian Building. Which I enjoyed. I don’t think I read enough ‘foreign’ lit. (Does anyone else feel this way?). I know there are all these authors out there writing great books but not in English and chances are I am missing them all. I liked the characters a lot. I liked the complexity of society it showed and also the corruption and what it all ended up doing to people. I am not sure there was quite enough poetic justice for me. I was saddened by the murder. A lot. But read it.

Then it was holiday time. And so I took a giant book with me to America. A giant book with little print. Neil Stephenson’s Quicksilver. It lasted me the entire holiday. I didn’t like the middle part so much. I don’t care about Jack Shaftoe. Eliza and her hatred of slavery is another matter. But my do I love Daniel Waterhouse. And do I love the descriptions of the early Royal Society. I just can’t understand why it won the Arthur C. Clarke. Cuz it seems like straight historical fiction to me. I don’t love enough to buy the other two parts of the cycle. But I am going to the library tomorrow to order them in. More big books with little print!

Towards the end of Quicksilver, I got a bit ground down by the density of it all (and my is it a dense book. With lots of characters and lots of writing styles. I could have lived without the fake restoration plays) and so I got on my flight with an airport paperback. The Ruins. Look, I had picked up the book in an airport before and been intrigued because it was written by the guy who did A Simple Plan. Now, I haven’t read that novel but I loved the film. Though it traumatised me. Maybe not as much as Requiem for a Dream. But I am haunted by it and not with happy warm feelings either. I was just horrified by the end. So the guy writes a horror film. About Ruins. (and while I was stateside the film came out so I was seeing adds). I don’t do horror films. They scare me too much. But I spent a lot of my teenage years reading Stephen King (and I have the hardbacks to prove it—I was also traumatised by Ghost Story back then. The novel not the film but that is another story). So I read The Ruins on the plane back. Blah. Nothing special. I knew the plants were trouble from the get go. And I wanted a better ruin. With something lurking underneath that was direction those damn plants. I was surprised everyone died. But I wouldn’t recommend it or stay up to watch the film on sci-fi (while I do want to see 30 Days of Night).

So last week I read The Road. Which is beautifully written. Really a work of craftsmanship. But bleak. Oh so bleak. I don’t know how I feel about the end. And surely something could grow? In special soil. In a barn. Under lights powered by the last diesel? Or am I grasping at straws. Because I am growing potatoes in my back garden come the collapse of the global economy and I don’t even like potatoes (but I don’t think I can grow rice, despite the fact that I live in a swamp).

Why I am back

2008-03-10T03:22:00.000-07:00

Because it is all about me. And what I want. And I kind of would like to keep a record of what I read in 365 days. I have no idea how many books I go through in a year. I think I read pretty voraciously. And across all sorts of fiction genres (for some reason I don't do a lot of non-fic). Now that I back at work (and am now officially back to all work all the time) I am taking the train every day and reading lots again. I've read some great things this year too. But I can no longer be sure what I did finish in January so I think I am going to start this record at the first of March. What has passed through my hands?

First, Half of a Yellow Sun. Which I loved. When I read The Kite Runner a few years back, I could be often found weeping on the train with the book in my hands. I didn't weep over Yellow Sun though I think I found it sadder and more effective. The despair and hardship were so much more believable in not being so brutal and awful. And it almost inspires me to read some non-fic. I was fascinated by the novel and wanted to know more about Nigeria and Biafra which I can only remember as little blips on my consciousness as a child. I think I am currently having a fascination with Africa. Whether it is rooted in my biological mother living in Kenya for more years than I can count, I don't know. But I do wish I knew more about the continent and I do wish to visit and perhaps even live there for a year or two to break myself out of my decadent western lifestyle. But perhaps Africa doesn't really offer the salvation I want. Perhaps it is just a place.

A friend gave me Life of Pi back in August when we went off to the Farnham Estate to escape our children and spend lots of time with oils and water and warmth. It took me this long to get around to reading it. I finished it last Thursday and I was blown away by it. Now, I admit I wasn't blow away until the very end. I thought it was just okay in the first part. I found the second part interesting enough though a bit, may I say, Moby Dick in talking about how to catch fish and turtles, how to butcher them and the whole surviving at sea. i did love the conversation with the tiger when he thinks he is about to die. But the ending! The conversation with the Japanese claims adjusters. Suddenly it reveals an entire different side to the novel and a different way of looking at what has just taken place! I am still mulling it over in my head, days later and am still admiring the skill that accomplished that. Sunday, in The Observer, there is a piece on who should win the next booker of booker and this novel is mentioned strongly as a possibility. I am telling everyone to read it.

'I'm Back (I think)'

2008-03-10T03:13:00.000-07:00

So I am sure you have missed me. I did have the child. End of May. On a Tuesday. Because surgeons don't like to schedule c-sections on a bank holiday Monday. He is fabulous. Happy, social and only now starting to toy with the forces of destruction. Of course we nearly killed him, his second night home. His big sister, the blessing tried to drown him in the bath. Alright, she only dropped him, but still there was frantic calls to the out of hours doctors, a rush up to Belfast and I now know the Royal Hospital for Sick Children far better than I ever wanted to. Its a great facility. The Blessing Mk II has been three times now. I know where to park, when the lift stops working and how to keep the original blessing entertained in the waiting room.

In 48 hours I take the whole family on a great adventure, vacation! We are road tripping through half of the US. Flying to Las Vegas. Going to the Grand Canyon, visiting my favorite relative in Salt Lake City (where High School Musical was filmed) before seeing the 'rents in Rapid City. I may keep you informed of all the fun and adventures. I may not survive. I suspect this trip will have far fewer strippers than previous trips.

2007-02-22T02:49:00.000-08:00

I know I said I would blog but, but, but....

I can remember watching this at the time on the BBC and just being amazed at how he almost didn't wait for the white to stop moving before making the next shot. Never a big Ronnie fan. And I would definitely question his emotional suitability for the games these days but when he played like this, he was snooker.

2006-12-08T01:38:00.000-08:00

Announcing a Hiatus
Not that this blog has been a hotbed of activity for a while now, but I am trying to rationally think about aspects of my life and well, as I am currently quite exhausted with the whole process of working and don't think that will change anytime soon, I figure I out to be honest about it.

I'm with child. Which shouldn't surprise really anyone who reads this. And well, I figure that until I am back from the hospital and a couple weeks into recovery (probably early June), I am not likely to blog. I did briefly think of trying to blog as a record of the pregnancy when I first found out, giving full details of the naseau and my general grumpiness around people drinking wine and eating unpasteurised cheese at the same time! But I haven't and well I don't know that I will.

Pregnancy has given us the option to raise a lot of issues with the Blessing, who has been desperate for a baby. Even before I knew, she wanted to know how you knew you were pregnant and even better once women's cycles were explained to her, how old you were when the cycle stopped and crucially, how old was I? She asked last weekend how the baby got out of the tummy. I don't think she was impressed with the answer; all she said was, "hmmm."

She also quite emphatically wants a baby sister. When we suggested she might get a baby brother, she replied "I'd kill him." Last night she elaborated, "I'd kill him. I'd choke him. Then I'd get a baby sister." I am now starting to regret letting her watch CSI with me.

Otherwise, we are all agog in the house over polonium 210 (I am just so relieved that the H hasn't tried to buy it over the internet like his radioactive rocks). My boss's sister would regularly stay at the hotel (her company uses it for all their stays in London. I suppose I would be worrying about cancer around now if I worked for them.

See you in the summer!

2006-11-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

Two Years!?! I need this device now. After a relatively nit-free year last year. They are back. And we are once again waging warfare.

2006-10-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

I love snooker. I may not love Ronnie O'Sullivan and well John just beat Matthew. But I still love snooker.

2006-10-24T04:28:00.000-07:00

The Blessing is currently obsessed with murder. Her own. She wants to know if we would be sad if someone murdered her. I know, I know, its all my fault for letting her watch CSI. This morning, listening to Radio 2 (or radio poo as she likes to call it) we heard the news bulletin and a story about the arrest of a man for abducting a girl in Wrexham. The Blessing was all, "Its a girl that's been murdeted." I answer, "No, she went missing and is back and safe and well." "No, she was murdered in North Wales. The police are involved." My child, future journalist for The Daily Mail.

2006-10-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

So I am doing my morning commute. On the train. Reading. I get through about a novel a week. And this means I buy too many books. I own too many books and I am constantly needing new books. Speaking completely and tangently, does anyone know of who is cool and happening and worth reading in the Sci-Fi world these days? I need to think about buying books for the H for christmas and well, he liked the China Mieville I made him read. He liked Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrel. He is enjoying George RRRR Martin's song of fire and ice series and he now refers to Margaret Atwood as that female Sci-Fi writer. Anyone have a suggestion? At all? It could even be little know neglected classics. Yes, he loves the whole Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica thing too.

Anyway, I am currently reading Julian Barnes' Author and George. And enjoying it. But I particularly like a bit this morning,
"Wine Growers had Rioted in Beziers, where the Towb Hall had been Sacked and Burnt by the Peasants."

And I thought, plus ca change. 100 years ago, wine riots in the D'Oc. And still they are unhappy. And blowing things up. And protesting.

I like the French.