Wordless Wednesday 111

The Girl Who...

If you have read the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest) and especially if you've seen the respective movies, you may find this tongue-in-cheek article funny: The Girl Who Fixed The Umlaut by Nora Ephron.

Many thanks to Pamsie for twitting about this! I'm still quietly chuckling to myself :-)

Read in 2009

I don't usually bother with past year reviews and new year resolutions, but I thought it'd be a good idea to put together a list of the books I've read and films I've watched over a certain period (in this case, 2009) for future reminiscing.

So, here are the books I've read between January and December 2009, grouped in three categories depending on the impression they made on me. Movies to follow.

Books I enjoyed very much and might read again sometime:

The Twilight Saga: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn and Midnight Sun - Stephenie Meyer
Chasing Daisy - Paige Toon
Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson
The Godmother - Carrie Adams
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
Stephenie Plum series: Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich
The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy

Books that I liked, but reading them once was enough:

Rumour Has It - Jill Mansell
In Death Series: Naked in Death and Glory in Death - Nora Roberts
This Charming Man - Marian Keyes
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
The Associate - John Grisham
Shame and Daughters of Shame - Jasvinder Sanghera

Books that I didn't like much or left unfinished:

One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed - Melissa Parente
Q & A - Vikas Swarup
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
Shame on You - Clara Salaman
True Blood Series: Dead Until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris

Do you ever wonder what it is that makes you like a book? Is it the quality of the writing, the believability of the characters, the excitement of the story, a combination of all three or something else entirely? If a book is part of a longer or ongoing story, does this make you more or less likely to want to read it?

Looking back at the books in my top list, I can remember the characters in each book very vividly, not just the main ones but the secondary ones too. I can remember what they looked like, what they behaved like and even some of their names, which is surprising as my memory for names is sieve-like at best. The storylines are an eclectic mix - romance, crime/thriller, chick-lit, literary fiction, comedy and mystery are all represented, so obviously I'm not loyal to one genre. The literary quality of the writing doesn't seem to be important either, otherwise Twilight wouldn't be in my top group, and Sophie's World wouldn't be in the bottom.

Interestingly enough, I seem to have got acquainted with a number of series for the first time this year - Twilight, Millennium, True Blood and In Death. Up until last year, the only series I was into were Stephanie Plum and Harry Potter. I guess my reading habits must be changing.

As for what 2010 might have in store, I'm looking forward to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (part 3 of the Millennium Trilogy coming out in paperback in April and not a day too soon), more books from the In Death series and last but by no means least, Finger Lickin' Fifteen, the next episode in the Stephanie Plum series. Roll on, 2010!

Books everywhere

A couple of years ago I started cataloguing my books on LibraryThing, a web application for storing and sharing personal book lists. Despite my noble intentions, sorting through hundreds of books takes time, and I soon gave up.

Since then, the book situation in the house has improved somewhat, not so much because I stopped buying as many books as I used to, but mainly because I discovered that some of my book selves are wide enough to take two rows of books. The upside of this arrangement is that now there are no piles of books on the sitting room floor, or the kitchen table. The downside is that it's becoming harder to remember what books I've got, as I can no longer see them at a glance.

Feeling that I was dangerously close to losing the battle of the paperbacks (some would say I'd already lost it) (I know who you are) I went back to LibraryThing and and have spent the last two days building up my online library. I have so far catalogued about 90% of my books and this is that it looks like:

At this moment, there are (at least) 528 books in the house.

111 of these are travel books and language books (text books, phrasebooks, dictionaries etc.).

38 books are cookery or baking books. Pretty impressive considering I rarely cook.

My reading list numbers 130 books. This means that 35% of the non-reference books in the house are unread.

We need a bigger house.

Or a bookcase that takes over a whole wall. Something like this should do the trick.


Failing that, I need to start giving away any books I don't want/need to keep. So far, I have relegated 4 (four) books to the charity shop pile.

I have some way to go...

Subscribing to LibraryThing is free for up to 200 books. For those of us who can't say no to the printed word, a yearly subscription costs USD 10 (£6) or you can buy a lifetime subscription from USD 25 (£15).

Fearless Fourteen

I've just finished reading Fearless Fourteen, the 14th book in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. My friend Shanny introduced me to the series a long time ago, and I loved the first couple of books so much I soon got hooked. Since then I've read every single Stephanie Plum novel. There's usually a new one coming out on paperback every June and that's my summer "must read". The books are numbered, One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to get Deadly and so on and they're best read in sequence as the relationships between the main characters keep evolving and there are new characters introduced in each book.

The series tells the story of Stephanie Plum, a lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to make ends meet after losing her job. Stephanie gets into all sorts of trouble and is usually assisted by her friend Lula and one or both of her love interests, Joe Morelli (yum) and Ranger (phwoar!). There are usually one or two mysteries, disappearances, murders and such like to solve in each book, but for me, the pleasure of Stephanie Plum novels is in the comedic value of the writing, which is witty and fast paced, with plenty of dialogue.

Here are some extracts from the latest book that will give you an idea of the style.

"Congratulations," I said to Lula. "When's the wedding?"
"I haven't decided that. June might be nice."
"That's next month."
"Yeah," Lula said. "You think it's too far away? I don't like long engagements."
"You can't go wrong with June," Connie said. "Everyone wants to get married in June."
"That's what I figure," Lula said. "I always wanted to be a June bride, but I don't want one of them schmaltzy weddings with the big white gown and all. I just want to get married real quiet." She looked at me. "What about you? Did you have a big schmaltzy wedding?"
"Yeah. And then I had an even bigger divorce."
"I remember the divorce," Connie said. "It was spectacular. It was a real accomplishment, since you'd only been married fifteen minutes."

*************************************************************

The house was impressive but felt excessively large for one person. I guess you have a big house like that, you get used to living in it, but all I could think of was keeping toilet paper in all those bathrooms.

*************************************************************

I looked up, and Mooner was in the doorway.
"The door was unlocked, so I figured you were open for business," Mooner said.
I had my hand over my heart. "You took me by surprise. Next time, yell when you come into the house."
"I was projecting my aura, but you might have been too distracted to catch it. Probably you were struggling with the feng shui in this room. Major bummer on that one." He looked across the hall. "Where's Zookamundo?"
"School."
"Again?"
"Five days a week."
"Whoa. He must be serious about it."

It's a rare book that has me laughing out loud, but Stephanie Plum novels always hit the mark. I'm on the floor right now :-)

The Reader out on DVD

You may remember that I told you about The Reader last February, when I watched it. Yesterday I saw this poster advertising the DVD and thought I'd post it as a reminder. If you didn't watch The Reader on the big screen, do pick up the DVD. Oscars wins and nominations aside, this was one of the best films of last year and it's well worth seeing. And yes, there's lots more to it than seeing Kate Winslett naked, irrespective of what the promo shots might have you think.

I have now also read the book by Bernhard Schlink that the film is based on. According to Wikipedia (fountain of all knowledge on the internet) The Reader became the first German novel to top the New York Times bestseller list, and Oprah Winfrey made it a selection of her book club in 1999. All I'll say is, I'm not surprised - it's one of the best books I've ever read. Highly recommended.

The Twilight saga

Having read Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse (the last one in 14 hours flat) my dilemma now is whether to buy Breaking Dawn in hardback or wait impatiently until it comes out in paperback. I have a personal rule of not buying hardbacks, and I've only broken it once, when the 7th Harry Potter book came out.

Will this be the second time? I think it might...

Marriage doesn't make sense

Marriage doesn't work without ideals. In fact, marriage is the most ludicrous thing, if you think about it. Which two human beings can live together happily ever after without at some point getting irritated or just bored? It's insane. It's impossible. The "love of your life" is a notion, it doesn't actually exist. If you go on holiday with your best mates in the world, at some point everyone annoys everyone else, yet it's not supposed to apply to husbands and wives. So you have to be an idealist to be married. You have to believe the magic. If you walked into marriage with your eyes open, you'd start running in the opposite direction before you got to say "I do", because on paper, marriage simply doesn't make sense.

This is an extract from The Godmother, possibly the best chick lit novel I've read since No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub. Although I don't agree with the sentiment 100%, it certainly made me think. If nothing else, it explains why so many marriages fail these days.

You can read a review of the book here.

Mma Ramotse comes to life

From L to R: Anika Noni Rose as Mma Makutsi, Jill Scott as Mma Ramotswe, Lucian Msamati as JLB Matekoni.

Apart from scrumptious chocolate eggs, there's another treat to look forward to this Easter: a 90-minute drama based on Alexander McCall-Smith's book The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which is set to be screened on BBC One around Easter (possibly on Easter Monday, although as far as I can work out the exact date hasn't been formally announced).

The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is the first in a series of 9 books that chronicle the adventures of "traditionally built" Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of the only female-owned detective agency in Botswana, and her assistant Grace Makutsi. They're not detective stories in the traditional sense of the word, as there are no murders and no serious assaults to deal with. Instead, the storylines evolve around human relationships and problems that can be solved over endless cups of red bush tea. They're the perfect "feel-good" read and have become very successful in the UK and (I believe) elsewhere in the world.

This first episode that's about to be screened was filmed entirely in Botswana. It was directed by Anthony Minghella, who won an Oscar for directing The English Patient, and was also nominated for writing the screenplay for The Talented Mr Ripley. Mma Ramotswe is played by double Grammy winning jazz and blues singer Jill Scott, and the screenplay has been co-written by Minghella and Richard Curtis, best known for Four Weddings and Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Joining Jill Scott on the series will be Dreamgirls star Anika Noni Rose in the role of Mma Makutsi. David Oyelowo (Danny from Spooks) also makes an appearance in the first episode, as philandering husband Kremlin Busang.

Many hate the idea of a favourite book being turned into a movie. I'm the exact opposite. I can't imagine anything better than the characters who have lived in the pages of a book coming to life on the big or smaller screen, particularly when care has been taken to remain true to the story's essense. With such a stardusted cast, I think we can expect a worthwhile result.

The author of the series Alexander McCall-Smith with Jill Scott as Mma Ramotswe.

What's more, following the screening of the pilot episode at Easter, filming will begin for a 13-part television series jointly funded by the BBC and US television network HBO. Even more Mma Ramotse!

This month's Condé Nast Traveller magazine features an article by Anthony Minghella written while location scouting in Botswana. The pictures that accompany the article are exactly as you'd imagine Botswana to be from "listening" to Mma Ramotswe - simply stunning.

If you've not read the books yet, I can't recommend them highly enough. Eight of them are out in paperback and the latest one has just come out in hardback, so there's plenty to keep you busy. The order they come in is this:

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Miracle at Speedy Motors

I can't wait for Easter :-)

The Kite Runner

There is a way to be good again

I bought Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner a long time ago but haven't yet got round to reading it. Tonight Loops and I watched the movie. What can I say - it's probably the most beautiful and moving film I've seen in a long time.

The next book I get a chance to read will be The Kite Runner. If it's half as good as the film, I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Growing old disgracefully

I've just finished reading Virginia Ironside's latest novel, rather imaginatively titled No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub. I bought it while browsing at my local bookstore, on the basis that I liked the sound of the first paragraph (a selection method I often use for books I know nothing about). Well, what can I say, other than it's been the first time in a long, long time that I've enjoyed a book so much *and* identified so closely with its main character. Marie Sharp is refusing to take old age lying down (quite literally, as she's thinking of giving up sex). We follow her life via her diary for almost two years, during which time she turns 60, becomes a grandmother, acquires a lodger, loses friends, grumbles about everything and ultimately, falls in love. Ironside's writing is witty, funny and engaging, and on several occasions I laughed out loud, thinking Marie really is so much like me, and I'll probably be exactly like her in 30 years or so.

To give you an idea of the style of the book, here is one of my favourite extracts:

(Marie, a Londoner through and through, has been invited to spend a weekend in the country. She's arrived and is now getting ready for dinner.)

A huge array of parties had been arranged, and, it seemed, dozens of other people were staying, and as I dressed for dinner, my heart sank. I would have to meet People from the Country. They hear you come from London and before you know it they're asking if you've been to the theatre recently. In my experience hardly anyone in London ever goes to the theatre. The theatre is full of tourists, Americans and People from the Country who think that going to the theatre is a sophisticated London thing to do. Like lectures on Chinese glazing at the Royal Academy. Most of my friends in London rarely go to the theatre or lectures, but People from the Country can tell you whether Simon Russell-Beale's performance of Hamlet at "the National", as they call it, was better than Ian McKellen's Lear at "the Vic", and, worse, take a whole evening explaining why.

Sometimes I feel like asking if they've mucked out any good pigs recently, or turned over any fields to arable. But I, unlike country people talking to Londoners, am too polite.

I *am* Marie Sharp. Not in 30 years' time, but now. OMG.

Ahhhhh chou!

Since last weekend I've had a bit of a cold which sort of receded a little during the week (although in retrospect that might have been the adrenaline of a busy working week) and has now returned with a vengeance. Ahhhh chou!! This morning I woke up with a heavy head and a sore throat, so I've decided desperate measures are required: Ι've made myself an extra large cup of tea, found a box of tissues, a packet of Strepsils and a new book (No! I don't want to join a bookclub), and promptly got back to bed.

If I feel more human later on, I'm planning to work through my stacks of books and separate out those that I've already read from those that haven't yet been touched. I reckon there are at least 50 "new" books around the house. I really ought to stop buying more, as there are now books in all of the above places:

In the bedrooom:
By the bedside table
In the magazine rack
On the shelves by the wardrobe

In the ensuite (!)
By the toilet (I know, gross but true)

In the study:
On the desk
On the bookcase
In the wardrobe

In the hallway:
On the little table where we leave the post
On the shelves in the alcove

In the kitchen:
On the counter (that's all my cookery books that live there)
On the table (books that most definitely should be somewhere else)

In the living room
All over the place

(Gosh, it looks more frightening when it's in black and white).

I've recently discovered LibraryThing, a web tool that allows you to catalogue all your books online, and I'm planning to use it to record all my unread books so I can remind myself of what's threre. I bet I've bought books twice just because I don't remember I've already got them.

I'll let you know how it goes. Should be fun.

Must read: Wasted by Mikki Goffin

I bought Wasted when it was first published back in 2001, probably after reading a review in a woman's mag, as none of my friends have any recollection of it, and it's not the kind of book I'd have picked up in a bookshop, as I find neither the title, nor the caption ("a brilliant first novel about madness, addiction and love") or the cover itself particularly inspiring. Unsurpisingly, it's sat on my "to read" pile since then, until hubby picked it up and took it with him on hols earlier in the summer. He read it so quickly and was so taken with it, that I figured I ought to give it a try. I wasn't holding out much hope, but from the first few pages onwards I was hooked and simply couldn't put it down.

Wasted tells the story of 18-year-old Abigail and Jasmine, her elder sister who's a heroin addict and schizophrenic. Abigail leaves home to go to university, where she throws herself into a student life laced with drink and drugs. As she adjusts to living in halls of residence and struggles with a lack of motivation to do any course work, Jasmine battles to stay out of mental institutions.

At the heart of the novel is the complex relationship between the two sisters; their rivalry and their dependence on each other. The book is based on some of Mikki Goffin's own real-life experiences and superficially on the relationship with her sister Lynette, who suffered from mental illness and died in 1997.

Before reading Wasted, I'd not read anything else by this author, I'd not even heard of her, but I have to say this: the book rocks. It's hilarious and touching, simultaneously funny and sad, extremely engaging and very very realistic. If you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it.

Chick lit extraordinaire

I've just finished reading Lucy in the Sky and had to tell you about it. It's Paige Toon's debut novel and it's a beautifully written, funny and heart-warming love story; easily the best chick lit I've read in a long, long time (with the possible exception of Marian Keyes's Anybody Out There, which was also brilliant, but way more depressing). Lucy in the Sky is a feel-good book, the kind you should take on hols with you, although I have to warn you, it's unputdownable. Don't let the somewhat naff synopsis put you off. After all, it's not the story per se that matters, but how you tell it - Paige Toon tells it very well indeed.

Five stars all round, and it's only £3.89 on Amazon ;-)

"Shaggy Blog Stories" for Red Nose Day

Mike at Troubled Diva has set himself the enormous task of selecting the funniest of British blog entries for inclusion in Shaggy Blog Stories, a book that will be printed and sold in support of Comic Relief.

I don't think there's anything in my own blog that qualifies, but if you're a British blogger, or know someone who could contribute a piece, please refer them to Troubled Diva.

The deadline is 6:00 pm UK time on Wednesday evening (March 14).