autumnal akika

Human Smoke: the Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilisation

2012-01-10T16:54:00.000+02:00

This is, quite possibly, the single most depressing book that I have ever read. So much death and destruction could have been prevented. The book is also fascinating. I was already fairly cynical when it came to politicians, but having read this I will be even more cynical about their motives, their aims and even their humanity.

The book presents relevant information chronologically across both Allied and Axis powers. The deceit, war-mongering and lack of humanity were shocking despite the amount of WWII literature I've already read. Apparently I'm also idealistic enough to expect the 'good' side to behave better than the 'bad' side, but history is written by the victors and this book shows just how well it can be done.

This book forms part of the Non-fiction Non-memoir challenge as well as the What's in a Name challenge, where it represents the book with something seen in the sky (which is smoke).

Jane Austen: a life

2012-01-10T16:41:00.001+02:00

This is the best biography of Austen that I've read, to date. All the facts are presented clearly, with the usual amount of speculation and guesswork, given that we know so very little. This was fascinating, depressing and inspiring all at once. I found that the majority of the speculation was based in reality and, most importantly, it was based on research of the period in question. The way things were done during the Georgian and Regency periods contrast rather sharply with the following Victorian era, particularly in the area of 'refinement'. Austen comes alive in this book, as does most of the family. More time is spent discussing the information that we do have, than lamenting the lost letters, etc.

I thoroughly recommend this to anyone interested in Austen or her work.

This forms part of the non-fiction non-memoir challenge, which does actually allow biographies

(just not memoirs or autobiographies).

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

2012-01-01T17:11:00.001+02:00

I saw the movie many years ago and had no idea it was based on a book until fairly recently. Since then it has been on my to-read list and formed part of my birthday gift from Confluence and Hodgestar. Now that I've read it, I'd really like to see the movie again. This is my second book of the year and is my first in the New Author challenge.

I was concerned about how the story would be told because I remember from the movie an awful lot of moving back and forth in time. The novel does this wonderfully. I will suggest that you pay attention to the dates because there is a fair amount of switching around even between the 80s and the past. The characters were very much alive and jumping off the page. The relationships were real particularly the most important two - the one between Ruth and Idgie and the one between Mrs Threadgoode and Evelyn. Some of the more important plot points I didn't remember, but I enjoyed rediscovering them.

It appears that Fannie Flagg (who apparently changed her name from Patricia Neal ... I grant you Fannie Flagg is more memorable, but it's not the name I would have chosen) has written a number of other novels, which I look forward to reading.

Saint Peter's Fair

2012-01-01T11:24:00.000+02:00

My first book of the new year! The only challenge that this one counts towards is my 2012 GoodReads challenge, to read 245 books in 2012. I aimed for 156 (3 per week) in 2011 and made it to 242, so I think aiming to up my total by 3 in 2012 is perfectly possible.

Saint Peter's Fair is the fourth book of the Cadfael Chronicles, set in Shrewsbury during the Nineteen Year Winter in the 12th century (Not to be confused with darkoutthere's LARP by the same name, inspired by the Cadfael books and excessively fun if you haven't played in it already (and, really, even if you have!)). The book is split into five sections, which is rare in these books, the eve of the fair, the first, second and third days of the fair and after the fair. Events focus on young Emma, a wealthy merchant's niece, come to the fair from Bristol. Another focus of the novel is the unrest from the town, as it had recently been attacked by King Stephen, after declaring for Empress Maud (see One corpse too many, book two in the series). The town is aggrieved that for three days of high business, all income goes to the Abbey and they feel that the Abbey should part with some of that income in order to restore the town's defences etc.

This is a fascinating and enjoyable murder mystery, with a hint of espionage thrown in from all quarters, and well up to Pargeter's usual high standard.

The First Deadly Sin

2011-12-16T15:09:00.000+02:00

I first read this many years ago, but since I absconded from the cottage with The third deadly sin, I thought I would collect the lot of them. In this one, Edward X Delaney is still married to Barbara, though she spends almost the entire novel in the hospital suffering her last illness. He's also the Captain of the 251st precinct, which is right next door to him. He decides to retire to spend time with his wife while she recovers (which she doesn't, sadly) but is convinced to turn this into an extended leave of absence and further to spend this time running an unofficial investigation at the behest of the Commissioner and a few others. Politics abound behind the scenes. Thankfully Delaney is utterly uninterested in politics, so we manage to avoid most of it.

Again, the narrative is beautifully interwoven between Delaney and the killer, which allows a reader to experience both view points and to appreciate the effect that each is having on the other. There's a fair amount of philosophising, mostly done by Celia Montfort - a woman that is ostensibly the killer's girlfriend, but about whom there is almost no information available at all. Though, to be fair, we know as much about her, her brother and her manservant as the killer does. Delaney also spends a fair bit of time philosophising, but given that his wife's condition is rapidly deteriorating, I'm willing to forgive his dwelling on the meaning of life, etc.

The ending is rather depressing and I'm not sure that it's entirely realistic. I suspect that a serious break with reality is required for it to occur and I thought it well-written and believable, though I do wonder about it's likelihood now that I'm finished reading.

The Awakening

2011-12-15T17:01:00.003+02:00

This is the first audiobook I listened to from books should be free. It's the story of Edna, a woman who finds herself constricted in the acceptable roles of wife and mother that were open to women in the late 19th century. The book was highly controversial when it was published in 1899 and ruined the rest of Chopin's writing career.

It's beautifully written with a lyrical style that makes listening to it a pleasure. I have to say, though, that the main character is not particularly likeable. There were many moments where I just wanted to slap her and tell her to stop being so self-centred and think of someone other than herself for a change. Of course, being a woman her choices were limited at the time. And yet, that did not manage to stop her from doing whatever she felt like, whenever she felt like it.

In a review I read, someone described the ending as a surprise. I can't say the same - it was quite obvious to me from quite early on. Unlike that person, I was not left feeling very pleased with the book. I would have preferred for there to be consequences. I would have liked to see Edna decide how she wished to live (which was apparently in a whimsical way where everyone attended to her fancies while she did as she pleased) and then to try and live like that in Louisiana at the turn of the 20th century. I would have liked to see what would happen if her husband decided he'd been patient and permissive enough. I would have liked to know what the results of her spending so much time - and plenty of it alone - with a known womaniser/adulterer would have been.

This is definitely worth reading and it certainly gives a sense of the limitations of life for ladies of leisure at that time. It doesn't deal with what I think are the more interesting questions relating to that topic, but we can't have everything.

The Third Deadly Sin

2011-12-15T15:51:00.004+02:00

I read this many years ago. Seeing it at the cottage when I had nothing to read (prior to the trip to the Simon's Town Library sale, obviously) I decided to reread it and, since I enjoyed the series, to abscond with it. Since I recognised it as being one of Dad's unwanted books that were variously placed at the cottage or used book stores (or my shelves), I felt that would be perfectly acceptable. Besides I don't think anyone else reads the books down there.

Anyway, this book features Edward X Delaney, who used to be a police chief and has a thing about sandwiches. The book made me hungry, with all its talk of food. Delaney is approached by an old friend who needs his help solving a series of apparently unrelated murders committed by one person. That would be Zoe Kohler, having adventures, which as far as I can tell involves dressing up like a hooker and murdering the men that pick her up. The police's attempts to find her are fascinating and really do show the value of painstaking, methodical work as opposed to the intuitive behaviour of Poirot (for example) - but that's at least partly the difference between having suspects and not having suspects.

Sanders writes well, though I don't enjoy all his work. This is one that I can recommend without reserve. It is both a police procedural, following the investigation through Delaney, who has the advantage of being able to step outside the strict lines of protocol, being retired. At the same time the book traces the journey of the killer and how the investigation impacts on her life and her kills.

Sanditon

2011-12-12T12:02:00.000+02:00

I've never bothered with Sanditon because Austen didn't finish it and, really, no one could manage to complete it properly. I found this at the Simon's Town Library sale and couldn't resist, since it was cheap and right in front of me. Apparently this version is the one that was completed by a woman who sometimes calls herself Marie Dobbs and sometimes Ann Telscombe and quite possibly other things as well. Austen wrote the first eleven chapters before her illness caused her to be too weak to continue.

In the first eleven chapters we are introduced to Charlotte Heywood, likely to be the heroine, who is taken out of her home environment to Sanditon, a seaside resort, through a chance encounter with Mr and Mrs Parker. Mr Parker's relatives - an excessively meddlesome (Miss Diana Parker) and hypochondriac (Miss Parker and Mr Arthur Parker) family - come to visit and we meet his friends - the wealthy and autocratic Lady Denham, her repulsive relations Sir Edward and Miss Denham and her companion-niece Miss Brereton - in the neighbourhood.

The first eleven chapters are short, but there are all of Austen's hallmarks in the characters presented. The existence and likely arrival of other characters (the wealthy Miss Lambe from the West Indies, Mr Sidney Parker, the girls school) is mentioned and there things ended for many years.

This continuation is attempted to be in Austen's style and to have a plot similar to all her others (marriage after misunderstandings/difficulties for worthy couple). Unfortunately the other lady is not Austen and it shows. The plot is a simple romance with plenty of misdirection and meddling. There is none of Austen's brilliance and there is a shocking lack of character development. The heroine comes across as rather unintelligent and very priggish. Few of the characters are terribly likeable and most of the plotting is blazingly obvious.

It was a fun read, but unless you wish to read everything ever written that's remotely related to Austen, I wouldn't recommend it.

Original Sin

2011-12-12T11:39:00.000+02:00

The 9th Adam Dalgliesh, this one is actually set mostly in London, which is fairly rare for the series. The setting is a firm of publishers, who have suffered from natural deaths, a suicide, a number of malicious pranks and, finally, a murder. And things don't stop there, a number of other murders follow on, generally involving attempts at being disguised as either suicides or accidents.

This is an excellent novel, with one major setback. I did not find the motive convincing. The motive is essentially an extremely long-term attempt at vengeance and, while I'm sure such things do occur, I thought it lacking. I did think the manner of attaining vengeance well-thought out and very well-planned, however. The final twist was rather depressing, particularly given the fact that I think the intention is for the reader to sympathise with the murderer (which may be why I found the motive troubling). I thought some of the characters behaved in ways that were very out-of-character (third-police-officer-whose-name-I-forget in particular), which rather spoils my enjoyment of the book, as I find it very jarring to be thinking "but that makes no sense - they wouldn't do that", though it may well illustrate my inability to understand human behaviour rather than anything else.

Cargo of Eagles

2011-12-12T11:16:00.000+02:00

I've read one other Margery Allingham, Police at the Funeral, which I enjoyed very much. This one was also enjoyable, but not quite as good. Perhaps I've just had enough of those secret agent style books with spies and international intrigue and the Cold War and so on. In which case I should take a break from those books. This has some fantastic parts and is well worth reading, however. Particularly if you enjoy mystery stories. There were certain aspects that, while important for the story, are terribly dated and rather unnecessary, in my opinion, such as the idea that young people on motorcycles are automatically violent or criminal or less-than-respectable.

Simon's Town Library

2011-12-12T11:07:00.000+02:00

As always, when going to the cottage, there's the danger that I just won't bother to come back. Consequently I was gone a lot longer than intended. And while there, I discovered that the Simon's Town Library has a book sale every Saturday from 9-12. A room of books, donated by dying and downsizing retirees, at the end of the peninsula (sort of) where no one ever goes. As you might imagine we picked up quite a haul and I have piles to review now. Also, if you're ever down there for any reason on a Saturday morning, stop in. They deserve the support and have some wonderful items!

Lacey Top

2011-12-01T18:17:00.000+02:00

This took forever to make, but was well worth it. A word of advice, however, don't start learning something new (a) with something complicated or (b) while studying. Which is part of why you're not getting a picture of the back - I messed up the lace pattern on that panel. I would have liked this to be a bit longer - I feel like I spend all my time pulling it down, but it may just be that I'm getting a bit plump now that I'm not walking over to Hiddingh every day. Lace is really easy, and I would happily make more lacey things. I really like the edging, even if it does require you to sew. I made the neck edging a little big, so it doesn't really sit flat and I put in a little lace detail because I could. I'm really pleased with how this turned out, but I'd knit an extra set and a half or so of the lace pattern at the beginning to make it longer, if I made it again.

The pattern is here.

The ABC Murders

2011-12-01T17:09:00.000+02:00

The 13th Hercule Poirot book, I quite enjoy this one. It really is quite ingenious in many ways. I like the idea of the murders - A name A surname in A town, followed by B name B surname in B town and so on. It would be quite interesting to have a serial killer working in that way (though X and Z may prove difficult, it'll have to be an international killer). Despite all appearances, however, this is not your ordinary serial killer. This is someone smart enough to hide a very personal, ordinary murder under the guise of a serial killer. I quite enjoyed the psychological assessment - exactly what one would expect from the time, and yet so amusing and quaint from a contemporary perspective. It does make one wonder what our 'cutting-edge' theories will appear to be in fifty or seventy-five years time. I particularly liked the murderer's attempt to frame an appropriately initialed man, though I found the characterisation of that man unbelievable.

Definitely an enjoyable holiday read.

The Body in the Library

2011-12-01T16:50:00.000+02:00

Miss Marple number three. Miss Marple's dear friends, Colonel and Mrs Bantry, wake up one morning to find the (dead) body of a young blonde in their library. Naturally the village begins to talk and of course they all think that it must be a woman that Colonel Bantry was carrying on with. Cue Miss Marple, on a quiet crusade to clear his name. Out of a fair number of missing girls, the woman is identified as a young dancer from a nearby hotel/resort by a relative she was staying and working with. A couple of days later a burnt car with the body of another girl is discovered, confusing everything.

Naturally Miss Marple saves the day, explaining all those odd little twists and turns that are really very simple, once you know what happened.

At Bertram's Hotel

2011-12-01T16:35:00.000+02:00

This is the 11th Miss Marple, and I have to say that I don't think very highly of it. The story has fantastic potential, with plenty of sub-plots and sub-sub-plots to keep you confused and unsure what's significant and what's not. Like much of Agatha Christie, it relies heavily on a fair amount of coincidence, which tends to annoy me. Unfortunately, this book simply does not live up to what one expects. The execution is poor and the pacing is problematic.

Miss Marple: the Complete Short Stories

2011-12-01T16:26:00.000+02:00

I love this collection. I could read it every week! I'm particularly fond of the first set, generally known as the Tuesday Club Murders or Thirteen Problems. These short stories are a great introduction to Miss Marple and the way in which she goes about solving crimes (the well-known village parallel). The writing is particularly evocative and you can clearly picture a white-haired woman carefully counting stitches in the corner, listening to everything being said and quietly solving the mystery without anyone noticing.

They Do It With Mirrors

2011-12-01T16:12:00.000+02:00

Due to lack of internet, I am horribly behind in my blogging, so expect a massive spate in the next week or so. Also, we'll be at the cottage this weekend, which will involve piles of reading and knitting and so on, so I'll have even more to catch up on when I get back... Lately I've been rereading a bunch of books, notably Agatha Christie's, because all the books I want to read are waiting in the wings for 2012 and the mass of challenges. You'd think that would give me less to review, but apparently I haven't reviewed most of these.

This is the 6th Miss Marple and one of my favourites. There's a slight hint of what she may have been like as a young girl and we get to see her outside of St Mary Mead, which is always good. She meets up with an old friend, who is worried about her sister, Carrie-Louise. She has been manipulated into inviting Miss Marple to visit her and, unsurprisingly, a murder occurs. This really is one of Christie's more ingenious plots and, knowing what happens, it's really interesting to reread it and see all the little clues and details that point in the right direction.

This is highly recommended to anyone who enjoys that sort of mystery.

Whoops

2011-11-27T18:25:00.000+02:00

I tripped, I fell, I signed up for three more challenges. Of course, since I'm endeavouring to spend all those birthday presents I received on books (which I succeeded in today, as far as the Exclusive Books gift vouchers go), I think it's acceptable.

First up is the non-fiction, non-memoir challenge. This requires one to read non-fiction books that are not memoirs or any form of biography, really. I expect this to be easy, because I expect to continue to have access to the UCT Library. And even if I don't, I do really enjoy non-fiction, so that's okay. Of course, I also enjoy memoirs, so I'm going to start off with just ten, and see how far I get.

Next up is the war through the generations challenge, which is focusing on World War I in 2012. I shall start at 1-3 books, and see how interesting I really find it. I know I said I'd like to read more about it after reading about how it (possibly) affected Tolkien, but I'm not sure how I'll feel about it outside of that context.

And finally (I hope), I've signed up for the serial killer challenge. This, like religion, is one of those aspects of human nature that really fascinates me. So I'm looking forward to this. It doesn't seem to have any sort of level system, so I'm just going to read at random and enjoy this one.

The Romans

2011-11-23T15:15:00.000+02:00

This has been sitting on my shelf for a while, and the only reason that I picked it up to read the other day, is the Reading Round Rome challenge, which I have now started. Six more books to go!

This is an interesting introduction to Ancient Rome. It recognises that it cannot cover everything, but highlights the main points in the development and demise of the civilisation. It certainly whet my appetite for more. Unfortunately, while it admits that there were seamier, repellent aspects to Ancient Rome, it mostly glosses over them. I shall have to discover those somewhere else. This book was rather heavy on Roman law and Stoicism, the military and the Senate, but didn't really tell me very much about what life was like for the average Roman on a day-to-day basis through the years, both in the city itself and in the provinces. How did the Roman Catholic religion come to be seen as a different form of Christianity than that of Byzantium or Africa? There are so many questions that this book raises (intentionally or otherwise) that I'm not sure I'll be able to limit my Roman reading to 7 books...

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time

2011-11-23T14:52:00.000+02:00

This is a very interesting read. It's really quite a fascinating look at political matters, the way people live in other, less westernised countries and, most importantly, the lengths that people will go to in order to help themselves. All they need is the resources, which are so very hard to come by. Greg Mortenson, however, makes sure that they get them.

This book is partly about the development and work of the Central Asia Institute (much to my disappointment, this doesn't fit the requirements of my Middle Eastern challenge as a result) and the work they do. It's also partly about Greg Mortenson - who he is, why he is the way he is and so on. It's not really a biography, though it's certainly biographical. It's a weird mix of things. It's definitely worth reading, though it can be heavy-going in places.

The Lighthouse

2011-11-23T14:40:00.000+02:00

Another fantastic PD James, in other setting that, sadly, doesn't really exist. I'd really like to go to some of the places in these books, they're so remote and evocative. Of course, that may just be the writing.

I was rather concerned by the cavalier mention of SARS in this book, without much explanation. I know what it is and contemporary readers will have known what it is, but will readers in ten years time know what it is? I was particularly concerned by Emma's premonition that 'something bad' would happen to Dalgliesh. I'm sure things like that really do happen sometimes, but it really doesn't make me think that a particular piece of fiction is realistic. Unsurprisingly, it makes me think just the opposite. And that the author in question isn't very good at foreshadowing, which is not the case with James.

The mystery itself is very good and there are no shortage of suspects, despite the restrictions imposed by the location. The beginning was very good, and though you don't learn who the victim is until the murder happens (unless the back-of-book synopsis is very different on your copy than mine), it was rather obvious who it would be and I was very pleased as the person was shown to be a most unlikable character. The solution is not immediately obvious, though there are hints (and, obviously, clues) to the solution throughout.

Emma

2011-11-20T15:55:00.000+02:00

This beautiful item was a birthday gift from a couple of friends of mine. It is absolutely wonderful! SJW had found the first four issues online, but I refused to read it until I could read it in full, which is what is collected in this beautiful volume. It tells the story of Emma without deviating from the novel too obviously. There are a few points that weren't mentioned, that I would have liked to see in, such as the fact that Mrs Bates was the widow of the previous vicar of Highbury. The lack of John Knightley and the children's second visit was a bit annoying, but worked very well. Like most movie adaptations, one has to accept that an adaptation does things differently. Particularly in the way that backstory is dealt with, which I think this did very well. The way they kept referring to Mr Elton as the rector annoyed me, but I suspect it's due to the language differences between the UK and the US. I must admit that the US spelling did not bother me in the slightest.

The art was not brilliant, but managed to capture the style of the characters and the feeling of the book. I would've preferred it to be a little less cartoony and a little more realistic, but that's simply a matter of individual taste. I occasionally had a little difficulty distinguishing the men from each other, particularly in the case of the Knightley brothers, but I imagine they would look quite similar.

If you enjoy Austen and graphic novels, then this is a must! I shall have to locate the others in the series, so far Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.

The Clocks

2011-11-20T15:37:00.000+02:00

I've read this before, but I was in the mood for something light and entertaining and couldn't remember exactly what happened. I have to say that there are some monumental, and extremely unlikely coincidences in this book. I found the obligatory mention of Cold War spying and defection unnecessary, except in a way to get the protagonist into the story, which could have been managed far more skilfully by someone as capable as Christie. I have to say that I found the solution, which only Poirot managed to figure out, elegant and well thought out. This isn't one of her best, but it's still a quick read that's fun and entertaining, without requiring too much thought.

Devices and Desires

2011-11-18T11:54:00.000+02:00

I really enjoy PD James. She writes very well. She recently (at the age of 92) wrote a sequel to Pride and Prejudice that involves Wickham's murder, which I'd like to read. This, however, is an older book that I found in a used bookshop the other day. It's one of the Adam Dalgliesh series, which is always good.

I have to say, however, I found this book disappointing. Dalgliesh, admittedly never the entire focus of the book, usually has a greater part in it. I didn't feel that that detracted from the book, as it was interesting to see him on the outside of the murder inquiry, looking in - a detached perspective that was able to cut both ways, as police officer and as witness or even suspect. What disappointed me, I think, is that it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. That's the problem with being brilliant -a good book by other standards is only mediocre. I found the aspect of terrorism relating to the nuclear power stations unnecessary and irrelevant, though amusing. Perhaps it was less so when the book was written, around the time that the Cold War ended. I have to say that I found the solution interesting, but I didn't find the motive particularly believable. I certainly didn't find some of the attitudes present particularly believable given the time it was set, but I was only a child at the time. It's perfectly possible that there really were women whose lives were as banal and empty as some of the attitudes and assumptions indicate. I can't imagine any woman in the late 80s or early 90s really being "a dried up spinster" whose life is entirely wrapped up in "keeping house" for her brother. I certainly can't imagine that anyone would actually believe that. But James clearly thought that would be believable, so it must have been at least partially accurate.

All in all, this was a well-written book, well worth reading. It's not quite up to James's usual standard, but given how high that is, this still manages to be a good read.

Towards Zero

2011-11-17T19:35:00.000+02:00

I really enjoyed this. Sometimes Agatha Christie's can get a bit repetitive and are less enjoyable, but this was one of her best - right up there with The murder of Roger Ackroyd. I enjoy the character of Superintendent Battle, and the rest of the characterisation in this was just as good. I particularly liked the fact that any of the characters could have been the murderer. It makes it that much more satisfying a mystery. There were also a fair number of unrelated matters, snippets out of the characters' ordinary lives that helped make the story believable and more satisfying. Particularly as they were given without comment or anything relating them to the later bit they were to do with. At the same time, it still managed to be a quick, light read.

All in all, I'd certainly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.

Mushroom Pasta

2011-11-16T14:54:00.000+02:00

I like mushrooms and I like pasta. I particularly like them together. I didn't always, but I think mushrooms are one of those acquired tastes. And I suspect I would've liked pasta a lot sooner if it hadn't always involved a tomato-based sauce, which I don't particularly like.

This recipe is actually to create an asparagus sauce, but I use it for mushrooms, or whatever else I feel like making. Even better, this is one of those sauces that is quick, so you can make it while your pasta is boiling.

First, chop up your vegetables. I always make my mushroom pieces nice and big because they shrink once they've cooked a bit. Then, boil a cup of milk. Keep an eye on it, because it's really annoying when it boils over. Once the milk is boiling, add in your vegetables and some stock powder or a crumbled up stock cube. Simmer that for a while, around ten minutes or so, stirring now and then. While that's busy, mix together 1T oil and 2t flour into a paste. Once you've finished simmering the sauce, add the paste, bring to the boil (again) and allow it to thicken, while stirring. Once it's at a consistency you like, serve with pasta.

Fibonacci Meret

2011-11-15T16:06:00.000+02:00

A meret is a 'mystery beret'. I don't know why it's a mystery, that's something you should ask the woman who created the pattern, which is over here. It's not truly Fibonacci, though, as I ran out of the pale blue yarn and so finished the thing in purple. You probably can't see the different colours in the pictures, as it's hard enough to see them in real life and with the sun on the balcony, I'll be surprised if you can even tell that the hat isn't white!

This is ridiculously easy to make! I knit most of the thing on my circular US8s, because they're my shortest and I hate knitting across double pointed needles. I did eventually need to switch over to my US7 dpns, after I started decreasing to the crown. I should've done the ribbing on smaller needles as it's a little loose, but I really didn't want to ... mostly because I started off that way and had to restart about five times because I kept messing up the ribbing across the needles. I may make some more of these as gifts.

Geographical Challenges

2011-11-15T09:54:00.000+02:00

This looks like being a particularly interesting challenge. There are no levels or targets set, the intention is simply to read about the Middle East. If you're wondering what is meant by "Middle East", have a look at the info post over here, which includes a bunch of books as well.

The Middle East is a particularly interesting area archaeologically, as well as historically, so I really do like the idea of reading up about it. I'm fairly sure that my knowledge of the area is shocking, so I'm really looking forward to this. While I'm tempted to set myself an amount to read, I'm going to resist the temptation.

Another geographic challenge I'm going to do is Reading Round Rome. One of the best things about this challenge is that I can start it now! I will just have to read seven books, instead of six. How simple is that?

Something that attracts me to both of these challenges is that they include non-fiction as well as fiction, which thrills me as I love non-fiction. I'm also terribly interested in history and religion and all that, both of which these challenges will have in abundance!

What's in a Name?

2011-11-15T09:18:00.000+02:00

This is another challenge. It looks like an awful lot of fun and I cannot wait for 2012 so that I can start reading my challenge books! There's no indication that novels are preferred for this challenge, which makes me glad that I didn't start one of my new books yesterday, for it will be perfect for this!

A book that contains a topographical feature in the title. For this, I plan to read Island Magic by Elizabeth Goudge. Island, being the land-form in question, of course. I've read a fair amount of Goudge and enjoy her, but this has been sitting on my shelf a while. Now I'll have a particular reason to bring it down.
A book that contains something you'd see in the sky in the title. For this category I will be reading Human Smoke: the Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilisation by Nicholson Baker. Smoke is a thing you would see in the sky, and I was planning to read this a little sooner than January (it's the book I bought yesterday), but I shall have to wait. If I can't wait, there's always DH Lawrence's The Rainbow.
A book with a creepy crawly in the title. For this, I will read Gogga Brown: South Africa's Hermit Naturalist by MR Drennan. For those non-South African's among you, a gogga, is an insect of an indeterminate nature. So, really, perfect for this item on the challenge!
A book with a type of house in the title. For this I will read Dickens' Bleak House. This is a multi-challenge book, as it features in one of the classics challenges. I do however have quite a few other books in other challenges that would fit this (The Story of an African Farm, The House of Mirth, Great House, etc), so I might change my mind.
A book with something you'd find in your bag in the title. I may go for Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter for this one, as it is a multi-challenge book, being featured in my new author challenge. Or, perhaps, Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List, also part of the new author challenge. There are many options, but I have not decided.
A book with something you'd find on the calendar in the title. Perhaps Eliot's Middlemarch, as one would find March on the calendar. Perhaps I will even read it in March, for greater amusement. That's also part of the classics challenge, so that's a good choice. Other options are rather thin on the ground at the moment, excluding rereads, so we shall have to wait and see if something more appropriate (or amusing) presents itself.

Call After Midnight

2011-11-13T10:12:00.000+02:00

This is not part of the Rizzoli and Isles series, but is one of Gerritsen's stand-alone books. I have to say I was not particularly impressed. This is a fairly standard spy thriller with obligatory romantic sub-plot and, really, not up to Gerritsen's usual standard. It's a fun, quick read that is fairly well written and doesn't require much brain power and that's about the best that can be said about it.

Booties

2011-11-10T12:35:00.000+02:00

I like to knit. It's fairly mindless and keeps my hands busy while I'm watching tv or reading (or studying, which, for the record, is not the time to teach yourself lace). I like to knit baby things because they're easy, quick and absolutely adorable. I recently joined Ravelry, because it's got piles of patterns in one place and I can track what I'm making and so on (next on my list is a bag for all my knitting stuff).

I'm really good at the knitting part, I'm not so good at the finishing off part. This is just about the first thing I've finished properly, seamed and ends woven in and all. I'm very proud of these little booties! You can find the pattern here, if you're inclined towards them yourself. I haven't decided who these are for yet, but that doesn't matter. I can see piles of them in my future because they're so quick and easy!

The Heretic's Apprentice

2011-11-09T20:21:00.000+02:00

This is the only Cadfael mystery I've ever had to restart because I just couldn't get into it the first time. I suspect the reasoning for that was that it was around the time I was reading about the Inquisition and there's really only so much religious intolerance I can handle. I didn't even make it to the murder the first time!

This time, I finished it and enjoyed every moment of it. Given the amount of so-called heresies abounding at the time (and, really, ever since such a thing was invented), I really don't think there was any way to avoid covering the topic in at least one of the Cadfael novels. I think she did it very well, personally.

On top of that, there's a murder, which may or may not be related. There's a love story, which is not uncommon, Cadfael has a weak spot for young love. There's also dissension amongst both monks and lay folk regarding what constitutes heresy as well as what constitutes an acceptable use of one's own wit, which may or may not be dependent on one's sex and station in life. And, there's plenty of information about the crafts of the time, in this case the creation of vellum, which was skin that was used as paper (for lack of a simpler way of explaining it). I'm really glad I went back and finished this one, it was definitely worth it!

The Hermit of Eyton Forest

2011-11-09T16:08:00.000+02:00

A Brother Cadfael mystery. I had planned to keep this for my Lethal Location challenge next year, but it turns out this was published in 1988.

This really is a very good example of what I enjoy about the series. There's plenty of real life history in the background, with King Stephen and the Empress Maud battling, in this particular novel they're currently fighting over Oxford. (On a side note, we had a lovely LARP set in this period of time, based on the fight between the King and the Empress, which was inspired by this series.) Plenty of good detecting with a healthy sprinkling of clues that let the reader work it out for themselves, if they're so inclined.

This particular novel is loosely centred on Richard, who's father is now dead. He's the 10-year-old heir to a large chunk of land and his only living relative is his domineering grandmother, who wants to marry him off to more land. Luckily for him he's safe in the keeping of the abbot. And then, a hermit arrives, Richard makes friends with the hermit's errand boy and an abbey guest is murdered. Chaos ensues. Luckily Brother Cadfael is there to solve the mystery, with the help of the sherriff, Hugh Beringar, and thankfully unencumbered by any notion of duty to the law. He can act in whatever way he sees as right. And given this is the 12th century, legal and right aren't always the same thing.

As always, the supporting characters are well-drawn and engaging, as is the mystery. Most importantly, Cadfael isn't annoyingly right all the time and none of the Holy Brethren are without fault (though some are more faulty than others, of course). In short, this is a quick, fun read that's still good despite being fluffy.

The Will and the Deed

2011-11-08T18:09:00.000+02:00

This was published as Where There's a Will in the US, for reasons that escape me, given how many other works there are with that title. And, really, what is wrong with the original title that it needs to be translated into another English? Unfortunately this was first published in 1960, or I'd have kept it back for next year's Vintage Mystery challenge. I know you're wondering how this fits with either of my VM challenges, so I will tell you. This would have been a Lethal Location book. It starts off with the poor dying diva in Vienna. Once she's dead, the rest of them get into a private plane to fly back to England where they will read the will and so on. But their plane has to make an emergency landing, which strands them in a snowbound valley in a German-speaking country. Given that they were close to Zurich, they're most likely somewhere in Switzerland. They're going to be stuck there for days, possibly longer. They might as well read the will.

And so the fun begins. And by fun I mean the horror of the will not containing the bequests it was expected to and the ensuing murder and speculation. Especially given the fact that the local police force is snowbound out of the village. It's a fairly standard murder mystery, but it's well-written (when is Ellis Peters anything else?), well-timed and manages to keep one guessing. I had my suspicions from the start, but I could never be completely sure until the end. In my books, that makes this a great mystery read.

Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle Earth

2011-11-07T21:14:00.000+02:00

This is an amazing book. I've never really read much about the First World War. Anyone who's so much as glanced at my non-fiction shelves or GoodReads stats will note a decided preponderance of works relating to the Second World War, but nothing on the First. Everything I know about the First World War is due to Sue Harsant, who taught me history in high school (and I shall never forget her complaining after an exam/test/assignment that we should not simply say Ferdinand, because she might think we were referring to Ferdinand the Bull who went traipsing through the daisies. Her very dry sense of humour delighted myself and Tiina Napoleon at the time).

Anyway, the point of that long aside was that this is the first work I've ever read about the First World War and so was my first glimpse into the horrors of trench warfare. I had an intellectual understanding that it was a horrific thing, but I didn't understand. I still don't, thankfully, but now I have a greater idea of what about it was so horrific. Of what it was like to be there, what happened to people on the ground. On the one hand it makes me glad for the 'advances' of mechanised warfare. At the same time, those same supposed advances terrify me. No longer does individual kill individual, now machine destroys machine and life from afar. I know they had machine guns and bombs and so on, but on the whole they could at least see who they were killing. The horror of war, and the facts of war - the facts being that you are killing individuals that are really no different from yourself - were up close and personal. They no longer are.

At the same time as this works as a general introduction (for me) to the First World War (because you can be sure I'm going to be looking for more on the subject now), it also works really well as a biographical work on Tolkien. Specifically with regard to the effect that his experiences in the war and in the Battle of the Somme particularly must have had on his writing. You cannot go through an experience of that sort without undergoing profound changes. There's a fair amount of speculation on the author's part because Tolkien was extremely reticent regarding those experiences. That speculation is backed up by fairly solid reasoning (in my completely uncritical opinion) and while I'm of the opinion that you can never know exactly how things influenced the creative process, you can work out a fair amount, especially when it's something as significant as this.

If you're interested in either the First World War or Tolkien, I'd recommend this.

Yet more challenges!

2011-11-06T13:42:00.000+02:00

The hard part about this challenge, was choosing my theme. Books written before 1960, not a problem. At least two authors, not a problem. Mystery books, not a problem. Picking a theme, a problem! So, because I can't decide, I have decided to do two of the themes!

The first theme I picked was Colourful Crime - 8 books that have a colour in the title. The second theme was Lethal Locations - 8 books about places. I think this'll be fun and I find myself wondering if I have any books I haven't read yet that fit the descriptions.

Lethal Locations:

The Secret of Spiggy Holes by Enid Blyton (1940). As the title suggests, this book is all about Spiggy Holes and what happens there. And children's mystery stories are still mystery stories.
The Secret Mountain by Enid Blyton (1941). This one is about a mountain.

I have plenty of others if you include books I've already read, but I don't really want to do that, so I'll have to be on the look out for these.

Next up is the Medieval Challenge. Twelve books across four categories. I have chosen a provisional list of:

Beowulf (literature).
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (literature).
The Confessions by St Augustine of Hippo (biography).
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (allegory).
The Mabinogion (literature).
Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory (romance).
The Nibelungenlied (literature).
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (philosophy). This is a multi-challenge book and is featured on the classics challenge and the new author challenge as well.
The Poetic Edda (literature).
The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (literature).
The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (allegory).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (romance).

Of course, my ability to do this hinges on my ability to find English translations of the works. Now I just need to remember to sign up on December 30th.

Next up is the Library challenge. I have three local libraries at the moment, though that might change next year. At the moment my libraries are the UCT Library, the Vredehoek library and the Central Cape Town Library.

Either way, I'm aiming for Level 4, 37+ library books, none of which are rereads.

Closely associated (it uses the same picture so I haven't included a separate one for it), is the Banned/Challenged challenge. Looking at the lists of books, I'm going to read:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This is a reread, but again a book I haven't read since high school.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. This is a multi-challenge book also featured on the new author challenge.
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. Another book I read in high school and haven't read since then.
Animal Farm by George Orwell. It's ridiculous that I haven't read this yet. This is a multi-challenge book as Orwell is part of my new author challenge.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Another book I read in school. Apparently I went to an awesome school that made us read lots of apparently controversial works. Who knew?
1984 by George Orwell. This is a multi-challenge book. In addition to Orwell being a new author, this is part of my classics challenge.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Beloved by Toni Morrison.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Seriously? This is a challenged book? It's a multi-challenge book, at any rate, being part of my classics challenge.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles.
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. This is a multi-challenge work, being featured in the medieval challenge above.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. This is a multi-challenge item, because Edith Wharton is one of my new authors.
A Room with a View by EM Forster.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Another multi-challenge work, this is part of the classics challenge.
Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally. Another from the new author challenge.
The Portrait of a Lady by Thomas Hardy. Also from the new author challenge. I think I'm only going to post more titles now if they're already part of another challenge or I already own them, or I'll be here all day.
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence.

I guess I'm going to sign up for 37+ and I'll just have to remember to check if the book I'm reading counts as one of them.

Lastly (for today anyway), is this library challenge, which will have main monthly challenges and mini-challenges. And you have to read 12 library books (at least), so just one a month. Seems easy enough.

2012 New Author Challenge

2011-11-06T12:03:00.000+02:00

Hey look, another challenge! I'm planning to read 15 new-to-me authors in 2012. Given that the challenge mentions novels, I'm going to aim for 15 new-to-me fiction authors, since I'll probably have three times that many in non-fiction. I expect I'll probably read more, but I want to keep all my challenges fairly small (except for the GoodReads total number of books one). So let's see if there are any on my shelves that are new-to-me authors that I can prepare for.

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. This is part of one of my classics challenges. It still counts though, as I've never read Hardy.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I didn't manage to work this into the aforementioned classics challenges, so I shall read it here.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. That's 2 multi-challenge books so far.
1984 by George Orwell. Like I said, it's shocking that I haven't read it (or any other Orwell, for that matter), so that's 3 multi-challenge books.
The Prince by Machiavelli. 4 multi-challenge books.
Utopia by Thomas More. That's 5 multi-challenge books in total. I think that's okay.
Procession of the Dead by DB Shan. I don't know what this is about, but I vaguely remember buying it at an Exclusive Books sale sometime in the last year.
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.
Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
The Portrait of a Lady and/or The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
The Shell House by Linda Newberry.
Kine by AR Lloyd
Hood by Stephen R Lawhead.
England, their England by AG Macdonnell.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. I tried to fit this into the classics challenges, but it didn't happen.
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.
20 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I can't believe I haven't read this yet either. I couldn't find a way to fit it into the classics challenges, so it goes here.
Great House by Kate Thompson.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. Another one that I couldn't get into the classics challenges.
The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone by Tennessee Williams.
The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner.
A Secret Alchemy by Emma Darwin.
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell.
The Invisible Man by HG Wells.
The Totem by David Morrell.
Winifred Foley. I have Back to the Forest, but I want the first book in the series before I read it.
Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.

Right. Well. Given I have 31 new-to-me authors, whose books are currently sitting on my shelves, I guess I'm going to up that challenge to 50 new-to-me fiction authors in 2012.

2012 Classics Challenges

2011-11-06T10:18:00.000+02:00

I do like my reading challenges, and I like reading classics. So these seem like a perfect choice for me.

For the first challenge, I need to read seven classics in 2012, of which only 3 may be rereads.

Herewith, my list of classics and why I'm choosing to read them.

1. Villette by Charlotte Bronte.

I recently 'inherited' my grandmother's Bronte collection, which belonged to her father. Inherit is a funny word though, because she's still very much alive, but I don't know what else to call it. Anyway, the only Bronte I've ever finished was Jane Eyre, and the only other one I've tried to read is Wuthering Heights. I hear this is a good one and that it was Charlotte Bronte's last, so hopefully it'll be a good read.

2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

The only Dickens I've ever finished was Great Expectations (unless you count the radio play of A Christmas Carol) and I wasn't terribly impressed. I've heard good things about Bleak House though, and I plan to one day watch the movie, so hopefully it'll be a good read.

3. Middlemarch by George Eliot

I started this, but didn't finish it because I lost interest. Sometimes I find that if I go back to a book a year or two later, it's far more interesting. Eliot writes very well, and this is the favourite book of some friends of mine, so hopefully I'll finish it this time.

4. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence

I've only read Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was good, but rather too full of philosophical exposition that was no doubt interesting at the time but boring a hundred or so years later. But a friend of mine loves Lawrence, and this is sitting on my shelf, so I will read it in 2012.

5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Once again, a book I've started but not finished. Everyone raves about this book, so there must be something more to it. So I'll try again and perhaps this time I'll fall in love.

6. The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas

The sequel to The Three Musketeers, which I enjoyed greatly (even if it's not as good as the first movie version I saw and never will be, sadly) it's been sitting on my shelf for ages and I'm yet to read it. So 2012 is the year!

7. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

We got this free with a bunch of other books we bought. I picked it because I hadn't read it yet and I've heard good things about it (it's a classic for a reason, after all). I haven't shown any inclination to actually read it yet and don't know anything about it except that it's set in the US and has something to do with black people (though I might be confusing it with something else), which indicates a shocking lack of knowledge on my part.

The second challenge has slightly more stringent rules regarding what you read.

1. A 19th Century classic. I have chosen The Talisman by Walter Scott. I've only read a couple of Scott's novels and I enjoyed them both, so it seems like a good idea to knock another one off my enormous to-read pile.

2. A 20th Century classic. I have chosen 1984 by George Orwell, because I haven't read it yet and that's just shocking.

3. A classic to reread. I have chosen not to choose something specific for this item. Whichever one I reread first will be it. I predict that it will be something by Austen simply because I'm currently in the middle of Lord of the Rings (again) and books started before 1 January 2012 don't count towards this challenge.

4. A classic play. Oh dear. I hate plays. That's not true. I hate reading plays. It's a requirement for the challenge, however, so I will have to choose one. I have picked The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde. I'm not sure where I'll find it, since I don't buy plays because I don't like to read them, but I'm sure that would be in any halfway decent library (except my own). The reason for my choice is that I was recently in a LARP based on this and it was lots of fun. So now I shall read it and have a greater understanding of the events of the LARP.

5. A classic mystery/horror/crime. This is a tough one. Finding something that could pass for this that I haven't read that is already on my shelves (a challenge I've set for myself, except for the play) is difficult. I have settled on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Another book I started but didn't finish. I don't know exactly what happens but (possible spoilers) I gather there's something about the spirit and a connection to the portrait and it affects his ageing, so he stays perpetually young, which sounds like a mystery to me.

6. A classic romance. Is this a romance in the Austen-style or the Tolkien-style? Either way I have picked Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy because I've been trying to find a way to work it into this list since I discovered it's 19th century, not 20th, and the first line on the back of the book says it 'concerns the love affairs'. So it must be a romance, right?

7. A classic that has been translated into English. Not wanting to pick another Dumas (variety is another challenge I've set for myself) I finally found The Prince by Machiavelli. So I will read that, since I seem to be biased towards authors from the UK and the US.

8. A classic award winner. After much rooting around on wikipedia, I've discovered that most literary awards are fairly recent things. So this one will be a reread, but since I haven't read it since high school, I think that's acceptable. The winner is Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, which one the Pulitzer Prize in 1937.

9. A classic set in a country that I will likely never visit. This looked to be rather difficult, given that my collection tends very heavily to the UK and US, both of which I've been to. However, countries that never existed count, so it was a simple decision to pick Thomas More's Utopia. I did consider Tolkien, but I am trying to choose things I haven't read before and this is something I've been meaning to read for a while now.

Well, that's 16 books to read next year... I suspect I'll be signing up for more challenges as I find them though.

Courgette Cookies

2011-11-05T17:00:00.000+02:00

This is a recipe from the Riverford Farm Cook Book, one of my favourites. It's kind of like a carrot cake, only with courgettes. If you're from the States or otherwise weird, you would call these zucchini. We also call them baby marrows - being an archaeologist and having excavated cemeteries, baby marrow means something else entirely, so I'm going to stick with courgettes. And when I say cookies, I mean cupcakes, not biscuits (again, clarification for the Americans).

Ingredients:

120g softened butter (they recommend unsalted, I don't bother)
1/2c oil (they recommend sunflower, I use whatever I have)
1/2c sugar (they recommend castor sugar, which I use if I have, otherwise I just use ordinary white/golden brown sugar)
1c soft brown sugar (also called treacle sugar)
3 eggs
2 3/4c cake flour
2t baking powder
4T cocoa
450g courgettes
1t vanilla extract (I usually just pour in some vanilla essence, today I'm actually using extract because I bought some for something else entirely)

First, peel and grate the courgettes. Or find someone to do that for you - there are few things I hate more than grating, so that's what I do. Then put those aside. Next, sift your dry ingredients into a bowl and put that aside as well. Cream together your butter, oil and sugar. Gradually add in the eggs and milk. Fold in the dry ingredients, then the courgettes and vanilla. Don't forget, food always tastes better if it's been tasted along the way, so taste, taste, taste!

Once you're satisfied, spoon the mixture into cookie cups and cook at about 190C for about 15 minutes, until the skewer comes out clean.

Once they've cooled down, it's time for icing (or frosting, in the States). I like vanilla icing with courgette cookies. Take some butter, some milk, some vanilla essence and some icing sugar. Mix them together until you have the right consistency and ice away.

Quiche

2011-11-05T14:02:00.000+02:00

I like quiche. Not only is it a great word (the online OED tells me it originated from a French word in the 1920s), it tastes really good. There is a problem with quiche, however. It's expensive. The solution, therefore, is to make my own. It turns out that making quiche is really easy. For some reason none of my cookbooks have quiche recipes in them, which I feel is a failing on their part, and I had to wait for Fresh Living magazine to come along and tell me how to do it.

So, you cook your filling - today I'm roasting butternut and mushrooms. If you wouldn't eat something raw, cook it first. Next up, you take some puff pastry and line a tart tin. You put baking beans in on top and bake that for 10 minutes.

Once that's done, you remove the beans and let them cool off somewhere (some of them will stick to the pastry, it's annoying but not life-threatening), stick your cooked filling in, add anything else you want, today that's spinach and leeks. Then you scramble a couple of eggs with some milk and salt and pepper and pour that over, so that it fills the tart up. That, you bake a bit longer, probably around half an hour, until it's firm and then you eat it.

Simple, quick and oh so yummy!

Yoga for Real Life

2011-01-26T10:40:00.000+02:00

I do like my yoga books. I bought this after I started doing Kundalini Yoga. Most of the yoga practiced here focuses on the asanas, the postures. Kundalini is different in that the focus there is on moving with the breath. The major focuses of Kundalini are breath and mantra. Doing Kundalini is almost like a moving meditation. And, regardless of how easy it sounds, it really isn't. Because in Kundalini they like to repeat a move (in time with the breath) for long periods of time. In this book, the recommendation is to start with about 5 minutes for each practice and build your way up to half an hour.

The thing I really like about this book is that it talks about integrating yoga into your life. So that it's not just about the time you spend on your mat. If you're interested in yoga, this is an interesting read.

The Nine Tailors

2011-01-26T09:54:00.000+02:00

This is a great book. I knew nothing about change ringing (I still know very little), not even that it existed. I do wonder if it's a completely lost art or if there are still places where it happens. As a murder mystery this is a great read, though I will admit to finding certain aspects of it blindingly obvious. Other aspects kept me guessing. The coded message was fantastic and once the message was decoded I had a fair (though not complete) idea of what it meant, but I would never have been able to solve the code myself. I definitely recommend this to people who enjoy mysteries. It's a little dated, being set between the wars, but it doesn't suffer for it.

In the Teeth of the Evidence

2011-01-21T10:52:00.000+02:00

This is a set of short stories. The first two, featuring Lord Peter Wimsey are pretty good. The next five or six feature a travelling salesman named Montague Egg. They're enjoyable but nothing special. The rest of them feature no one in particular and are frequently nothing more than misdirection masquerading as a mystery. It was a fun, quick read, but not something I'd recommend.

Busman's Honeymoon

2011-01-20T11:03:00.000+02:00

My first Dorothy Sayers, the last of her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I really enjoyed this. The characters were engaging and I actually cared about what happened to most of them (even the annoying ones that I didn't particularly like).

I can't say how I would react to moving to my new home and finding a corpse in the cellar (of course, South African homes don't really have cellars, so the chances are miniscule), but I imagine I'd have some interest in knowing how and why it came to be there. I don't think I'd be quite as cavalier about it as Lord Peter, but since this is set just before the second world war one can imagine that things were very different then. Anyway, this is a wonderfully written book with an excellent plot. Highly recommended

Death at the Dolphin

2011-01-19T15:53:00.000+02:00

This is my first Ngaio Marsh (who is, along with about a dozen other women, the Queen of Crime). I was not particularly impressed. I don't read murder mysteries so that I can read half a book before someone dies. All it says to me is that the writer is not particularly good at mysteries and so can't write an entire book centred around the murder. The lead up was interesting, though in my opinion out of place in a murder mystery. Sometimes the lead up to the murder contains a few red herrings and some information relevant to catching the killer. What I most particularly didn't like was the fact that, as in Sherlock Holmes stories, all the important evidence is kept from the reader. What that says to me is that the author is afraid that the reader will be able to work it out for themselves too quickly, and that the author should therefore not be writing mysteries.

I enjoyed this, but I wouldn't recommend it and I'm not particularly interested in others by this author.

The Raphael Affair

2011-01-19T13:55:00.000+02:00

This is a very interesting book. It ends up as a murder mystery, though it's really about art theft and forgery and so on. I really enjoyed it. I liked most of the main characters, particularly the two that I gather continue the series. It's also a nice break from the usual murder mysteries in that it's neither set in the US nor the UK (it's set in Italy) and one gets a completely different kind of government influence on the investigators. Also, being set on continental Europe there's occasional travel to other countries, including Switzerland and the UK. This was a quick, fun read and I'd be interested in reading more in the series.

Yoga for Pain Relief

2011-01-18T11:44:00.000+02:00

This is a fantastic book. If you suffer from chronic pain and enjoy yoga you should read it. Probably, you should read it even if you don't enjoy yoga. I don't really have much else to say...

I will say, though, that it's harder than it seems to put the information into practice. I'm pretty good about doing my yoga, but when I'm sore I tend to skip classes and I don't really want to do yoga. I'd certainly be more inclined to do yoga at home than in a class at those times. The hard part is getting the brain to move past pain and into a place where you can do something about it. I really enjoy seeing the various variations on poses that can make it easier for someone that's hurting. The variety of props and the way they're used is a departure from normal yoga books.

In short: if you're suffering, read it.

The Bullet Trick

2011-01-17T20:42:00.000+02:00

Another book for Dad. This is about a magician, rather down on his luck. At one engagement he ends up with an envelope he shouldn't have, in order to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. He sends the envelope to a safe place before heading off to his next engagement, a stint in Germany. While there he learns that the person he was keeping the envelope for died later that night. Unsurprisingly, the person who originally had the envelope is now looking for him. On top of all that, he thinks he's responsible for the murder of an unnamed person

The book is following him about Glasgow, intercut with flashbacks to his time in London (where he got the envelope) and Germany. A bullet trick is a trick performed by magicians that I understand is rather standard. This is an interesting book. I probably wouldn't have chosen it for myself, but it's worth reading because it's a departure from the usual types of murder mysteries.

Six Graves to Munich

2011-01-17T20:39:00.000+02:00

This was written by Mario Puzo, best known for the Godfather. It was written a long time ago under another name. I bought it for Dad's birthday, and I think it was a good choice. It's set in the early 60s. The main character was an American intelligence agent tortured and (apparently) murdered by Nazis. He survived and is now determined to wreak revenge upon the seven men responsible for this. One of the driving forces of his revenge is the murder of his pregnant wife. The book is filled with flashbacks to both the time of his torture and his recovery, as well as a chapter on his childhood and how he ended up where he did. His sidekick, a young prostitute that he picks up, also has her share of flashbacks and so on.

This is an interesting book that's well worth reading. I didn't think it particularly graphic, but I'm not particularly squeamish, most of the time. The worst part was actually reading about what had happened to the sidekick (Rosie? Sophie? Something like that).

Entombed

2011-01-08T18:08:00.000+02:00

This book was originally meant to be part of Dad's birthday present. Then I read it. I like to give Dad books because he enjoys reading. In my opinion he suffers from the same malady of most of the rest of the population - he reads too slowly (I've heard it argued I read too fast, but I'm not buying it). What this means is that I like to give him books that he'll enjoy but that he wouldn't necessarily have thought to buy himself.

This, however, is a book he'd have bought himself. Like many of the other books I (and he) enjoy, this is a fairly standard murder mystery. Well, it's not a terribly standard murder mystery at all, given that generally when dealing with skeletons that were murdered 25 years ago the lead character is a forensic or physical anthropologist not a lawyer. Anyway, the point is that it's a fairly standard form of mystery writing and so not what I want to give him for his birthday (though I do think he should consider adding Linda Fairstein to his collection).

The protagonist is Alexandra Cooper, who is a lawyer for the New York District Attorney (or the Manhattan one, if they're separated like that). She works with Mercer, who seems to be an African American cop who moved from homicide to dealing with rape or vice or the special victims unit (this is number seven in the series, okay, the details are a little fuzzy) because he's good at giving victims (and surviving relatives for that matter) compassion and comfort. Her other sidekick is Mike, who is a homicide detective. They wander about New York (City, mostly, as far as I can tell) solving crimes and saving the world, or something ... I'm trying very hard not to give out more about the plot than I can help but if you like murder mysteries and Poe (who's generally credited with inventing the first detective for Murders in the Rue Morgue) then you should read this book.

The Panda's Thumb

2011-01-06T11:35:00.000+02:00

I love Stephen Jay Gould. I really do. I'd probably love him more if he hadn't died so early. He takes complicated subject matter and writes about it in such a way that it seems like the simplest thing you've ever read. This book is a collection of essays about natural history, just like most of his books are. This is the first collection of his essays that I've read (I've only read two other books of his, which is absolutely shocking!).

There's not really much you can say about his work - it's easiest just to say: read it yourself. Not only does he say everything far better than I ever could, it's totally worth it and you could never regret reading anything he's written (and if you could, then I don't really want to know you).

A Return to Love

2011-01-06T10:44:00.000+02:00

This book is based on A Course in Miracles. Given the essentially Christian culture in which the book was written, it takes a Christian viewpoint, but uses the usual Christian touchstones as symbols, so God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the resurrection and the crucifixion are common terms scattered throughout the book but their meaning is not the conventional Christian meaning – for example, God is used interchangeably with love, joy and the light.

The basic premise is that the ego has caused us to live in a world of illusions, caused by fear-based thinking. By focusing on God's will instead, the illusions disappear leaving only the perfection of love behind. In order for us to be able to see the world in this way, we need to pray to the Holy Spirit for miracles – these miracles are changes in the way that we perceive things and will enable us to see the core of perfect love inside every being. It will also enable us to enter situations from the basis of love, rather than fear. A variety of situations are covered, ranging from how to view your career and find total fulfilment in it to the illusions that ruin your relationship with your body, other individuals and people in general.

These Happy Golden Years

2010-12-21T16:17:00.000+02:00

The second last in the series, this is the book where Laura grows up. She starts off at fifteen, teaching school and then, as a result of being away from home, her relationship with Almanzo Wilder begins. The book ends with their marriage, when Laura is eighteen. The book is different to others in the series because Laura's essentially an adult and her life is different as a result. I don't know that it works as a children's story as well as the others in the series, but it's a good milestone.

The Long Winter

2010-12-21T16:08:00.000+02:00

A whole book where only a few months pass by is rather a departure for Laura Ingalls Wilder. Still, one can't complain because it really is riveting, if rather depressing. I can imagine that many people would have starved to death, if the weather didn't get them first. Of course, that kind of harsh reality isn't really appropriate for a children's book, so of course everyone survives in the book. I'd be surprised if that really happened. The idea of facing such a harsh environment with so little in the way of resources really does invoke admiration and a certain amount of thankfulness that I live when I do.

On the Banks of Plum Creek

2010-12-21T15:56:00.000+02:00

I'm not sure where Plum Creek is, except for the rather general direction of Minnesota, but it sounds delightful. I'm sure the reality was a lot harder than it seems simply from reading this book. Still, it seems like an adventurous kind of life, though a hard one. Like all her books, this is well-written and one can't tell where fact leaves off and fiction begins.

Sister

2010-12-21T15:49:00.000+02:00

A fun book, somewhat similar to those by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I can't help but feel sorry for the main character, despite not particularly like her very much. I would have preferred it it the book had been written by someone closer to the action and not the grand-daughter of a girl not even born. Similarly I would've preferred a bit more resolution to the story, it felt as though it just stopped arbitrarily, as well as if the blurb on the back of the book had had more resemblance to what the book was actually about.

Death Comes Like a Thief

2010-12-21T15:44:00.000+02:00

Meh. This is a run-of-the-mill murder story that, frankly, doesn't make much sense. The few character that one has any knowledge of seem more like cardboard caricatures than anything else. I spent most of the book wanting to slap the main character. If there's no other choice, it's an okay read, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Jack the Ripper

2010-12-21T15:28:00.000+02:00

A fairly old book, this has as plausible an explanation as any I've read (and I've read a few). I'm not completely convinced, though I think the explanation put forward here is possibly the most well-researched and well-thought out of any. There are parts of it I agree with, such as the murderer only stopping because he died. There are also parts I disagree with completely, such as the idea that the murderer's first attempts were as successful as his later ones. No researcher seems to take any practice into account. I cannot believe that he did not make some mistakes when he first began to kill. A must-read for anyone interested.

Dissolution

2010-12-19T11:50:00.000+02:00

The first in a series of novels about Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer during the Reformation. In this book, he travels to a monastery where one of Lord Cromwell's men has been murdered. As the man was there to convince the abbot to voluntarily close the monastery suspects abound. It's a complicated plot that really is quite fascinating. It's also interesting to see the subject of the dissolution of the monasteries from a variety of viewpoints.

One can both lament all the good work that the monasteries did with the poor, the sick and in education, as well as understanding that the majority of them had strayed, were accumulating vast amounts of property and wealth as well as behaving in ways that monks should not. Some kind of reformation was necessary, I do not know that it should have been so drastic. Of course, at a time when loyalty to anyone other than the king amounted to treason there really wasn't much choice.

Coming on the heels of A Trail of Blood, which only briefly touched on the subject, one could almost feel that they were meant to go together. This is highly recommended.

A Trail of Blood

2010-12-19T09:39:00.000+02:00

Set during the reign of Henry VIII, this is a story that seeks to explain the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. The two princes, Edward and Richard, went to live in the Tower of London when their father, Edward IV, died. For whatever reason the crowning of their uncle as regent was postponed. Finally the uncle was crowned Richard III. His Tudor successors later claimed that he had murdered the princes in order to ascend to the throne. There has never been any conclusive proof regarding what happened to the two princes.

This novel claims that the reason the coronation of Richard as regent was postponed was because the two princes (and consequently their sister, the mother of Henry VIII) were found to be illegitimate. Richard III kept the boys in the Tower to protect them, as he had sworn to do. The story explains why they felt the need to escape and how Edward was killed in the attempt. The rest of the novel is spent uncovering the movement and final location (really quite obvious from the beginning) of Richard, Duke of York.

The aim of the protagonists is to unearth a Yorkist claimant to the throne, ostensibly to succeed Henry VIII (who had no son at the time) but really to put an end to the Reformation and what they saw as a corrupt regime with dubious claims to royalty. The aim of the author is to solve the mystery in as plausible a manner as possible. I think he succeeds, though some of the events and coincidences are a little far-fetched. I'm interested in finding more by the author, particularly the non-fiction related to this period.

A Sudden Death at the Norfolk Cafe

2010-12-18T10:30:00.000+02:00

Generally, I'm a sucker for books with nuns (or monks, for that matter). I'm not sure how I felt about this one. It was an enjoyable story and I'll be looking out for the others in the series. It wasn't a good mystery because the reader knew everything that was going on. It was fun to watch the characters involved solve their pieces of the puzzle and bring it all together though.

It was the religious aspect that I had a problem with, but I suspect that that was mainly because this is a contemporary book with nuns. No cellphones or email, so it's presumably set in the early nineties when it was written. Possibly the way the nuns interact with the outside world is fairly accurate. I do wonder just how much research the author did. For a start, the order doesn't seem to be mentioned, possibly this is a fictional order to suit the purposes of the author. It's hard to tell given the myriad orders that actually exist.

This is a fun story and, while I probably wouldn't recommend it to most people that I know, if you like more old-fashioned detective stories, with less of the violence and sex that is so common these days, then you'll probably enjoy this.

Shakespeare's Language

2010-12-17T20:30:00.000+02:00

This book was very interesting. I picked it up at the Hout Bay Library sale for the excessive amount of R5 (it was the most expensive book I bought that day, that sale was incredible!). I'm not really sure what I expected, but this was fascinating.

Essentially it looks at a bunch of Shakespeare's plays (not all of them) and talks about the language that he used, what it meant and what patterns there are. There's a lot of talk about the frequency of words in certain plays and how what he touches on in one play is developed fully in another. It was very interesting to read about the concepts that seem to underline particular plays and the ways that Shakespeare used language in order to get the ideas across in various ways.

If you have any interest in the way people use language, you should read this book.

The Richest Man in Babylon

2010-12-17T18:16:00.000+02:00

I got paid to read this book. I would never have read it otherwise and I think I might have preferred that. Do people really need to be told that the only way to accumulate money is to spend less than they earn? Really? Isn't that just plain old common sense? Along with things like taking advice only from people who are qualified to give it and so on. Essentially this is a book of common sense regarding the accumulation of money for people who don't have any common sense of their own.

The Screwtape Letters

2010-12-14T17:37:00.000+02:00

This was a most amusing book that manages to make you laugh and think at the same time. I felt very sorry for poor Wormwood, though I didn't need Screwtape to tell me he was seriously screwing up. I'm tempted to say that the last letter in the book was the best of the lot.

Though I don't believe in demons or devils or whatever it is that they're supposed to be, I find myself questioned my motivations more now than I did before. As much as this is a work of fiction there is a certain amount of truth underneath, as in all CS Lewis's work.

Highly recommended.

Fatherland

2010-12-14T12:34:00.000+02:00

This was not quite what I was expecting from a 'Hitler won the war' novel. It's a detective story, and a very good one at that, with Hitler's Final Solution (the complete extermination of the Jews) at its centre. I was expecting something along the lines of what it would have been like for a variety of people living in such a world, which would really amount to short stories. What I got was the story of a man with doubts about the whole thing finding out what kind of world he lived in.

I would have been interested in an exploration of how it affected the US and the UK, as well as other places. Particularly given the map at the front of the book that showed western Europe as not being part of the Greater German Empire. I was impressed by the use made of the son, though I did find the ending a little unsatisfying. I should have liked an epilogue that told the story of what happened afterwards, once the report was out.

I found the use of President Kennedy for the US president rather confusing. At first I thought it meant JFK hadn't been assassinated, then I realised it was only 1964. Then I found it wasn't JFK at all, but some other Kennedy. This apparent supporter of Hitler had been the US ambassador to Britain during WWII. I'd like to find out more about him, if he was a real person (and wikipedia says he is).

The plot as a whole - Heydrich cleaning up those who know about the Final Solution once it had been done - was certainly plausible. I've always wondered (well, ever since I've known) why Hitler never put the orders in writing or put his name to them. Some argue he didn't know about it, which I think is completely implausible. Here, the suggestion is that even he found it barbaric, which I think is the most unlikely statement in the book. If Hitler found the wholesale slaughter of people barbaric it would never have happened. Of course, the fact that those slaughtered were considered less than people probably made it easier for those responsible. It still doesn't answer the question of why the order was not given in writing with Hitler's signature at the bottom.

The Mystery of the Blue Train

2010-12-13T17:50:00.000+02:00

I really am horribly behind in reviews. No sooner do I get one done than I have another book added to the list. But I shall persevere.

This is another Poirot. It's quite a good one. However, I've either read it before (entirely possible, it's hard to keep Christie's straight), or I'm getting really good at seeing her plots (having read over 50 of them, some multiple times, that's also entirely possible). Essentially this is a jewel theft (complicated by forgers and so on), with a murder thrown in (that's what we're concerned with, even though it's only done to facilitate the theft). And, of course, there's Poirot, there's a girl, there's a love interest with the main suspect and the actual murderer. Nothing out of the common way here, except for the mention of St Mary Mead, where Miss Marple lives, in a book about Poirot. That bit was a little confusing.

The Wind in the Willows

2010-12-13T12:43:00.000+02:00

For some reason I never read this as a child. I think that if I had I would've enjoyed it a lot more. I found it very difficult to enjoy this simply because it makes no sense in so many ways. Animals seem to co-exist peacefully with each other, regardless of food preferences, which is something that I'm willing to forgive. That's pretty much a requirement for this kind of story. Where I lose the suspension of disbelief is where you suddenly get an interaction with humans - not only is the toad put in jail, but he is of the right size to disguise himself as an adult human. I can only think with horror of a toad that size.

All in all, I have to say that this was disappointing in many ways and I really do wish that I'd read it as a child so that I would have the memory of it to help sustain my suspension of disbelief.

Challenges...

2010-12-10T10:02:00.000+02:00

The Hout Bay Library had a fantastic book sale this last week. I went twice and got two enormous bags of books for very little. The problem with this, is a certain lack of shelf space in my house. So that was challenge number one. Rearranging the shelves so that all my books fit was a feat of amazingness that I still can't quite believe I managed. I'd show you pictures, but bookshelf rearranging is exhausting and I can't quite get enough energy to take any pictures.

Challenge number two is for next year. 52 books in 52 weeks. Since, along with my rearranging, I put a numbered sticker at each book I own and haven't yet read, I think I need to aim for 104 books in 52 weeks. And even then I'll still have books left over. Assuming I don't buy any next year (what are the chances? Seriously). I currently have 116 books in my to-read 'pile' ... Maybe I should be aiming for 156 books in 52 weeks. 3 books a week? I might be able to manage that... Maybe. Well, we'll see how we go.

Challenge number three... Is to not have any unwritten reviews by Christmas. I currently have a list of my backlog and I'll be getting to them... Eventually. Really.

The End of the Affair

2010-11-29T15:42:00.000+02:00

I'm not sure that this was the best book to read after Cold Mountain, but that's what I did. This book was less depressing, though I must say that I rather suspected the ending. I was wrong about the path that lead to the end, however. I was not expecting a sudden pact with a god that one didn't truly believe in. I was not expecting the truth of just why Sarah wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing. I thought she had cancer or something and was seeing some kind of kooky healer. The religious undertones to the book completely surprised me.

I have to say that I was very pleased to be wrong about the journey to get to the end. It's not often that this kind of story can surprise you, though that might have been less true when it was written.

Now, what I really want to know is whether or not this book should be considered a classic. Read it and tell me what you think.

Cold Mountain

2010-11-24T12:23:00.000+02:00

This is a very sad book. Set during the American civil war, Cold Mountain follows the story of Inman, a Confederate deserter trying to get home, and Ada, a woman with no idea how to survive on her farm.

I personally found the sections about Inman to be on the less interesting side. It does get a bit more interesting once he starts running into the Home Guard, who are on the lookout for deserters. I suspect that says more about me than about Frazier's skill as an author. I much preferred the chapters that dealt with Ada's struggles, particularly after the introduction of Ruby. I adore the character of Ruby. I can relate most easily to the abstract academic life of Ada. Ruby, on the other hand, is earthy, superstitious and entirely focused on survival. The contrast between the two of them is fantastic.

Personally, I could have done without the semi-happy ending of the epilogue. I think ending with Inman dying in Ada's arms would have been perfectly appropriate, if rather depressing.

Cranford

2010-11-24T12:00:00.000+02:00

This is possibly the most boring book I've ever read. It is completely plotless. It's essentially about a town in which the majority of the residents are older women. There is one marriage and far more deaths.

I cannot understand how the BBC has made three adaptations of this. Who on earth would want to watch something where nothing really happens? How did this book attain the status of a classic? It's less interesting than the Vicar of Wakefield and that's saying something.

If you've read this book and enjoyed it enough to want to read it again or see an adaptation of it, please let me know why.

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

2010-11-16T06:37:00.000+02:00

I was not terribly impressed with this book. It was enjoyable in a way, but I think the fact that I only managed to finish it because it was all I had to do on a plane is not exactly complimentary. I think, though, that it's supposed to be rather removed from reality.

This is a story of two children who travel to Italy, where their mother is living with her lover. Their intention is to stop the divorce and have her return home. They do succeed, though by the end of the novel one can only wonder whether or not that's a good thing. I think this is an interesting commentary on the reality of life versus the fantasy. Fanny and her lover are enjoying an idyllic honeymoon (for want of a better word) waiting for the divorce to go through so that they can marry. And then Fanny's two younger children arrive, determined to convince her that she's making a mistake. The actions of the children, Caddie in particular, are the centrepoint of the novel.

Though the children do eventually succeed in breaking the relationship between the two adults I think that says more about their relationship than the children. Their relationship is not able to survive the reality of children. Children, moreover, that are wilful, angry and hurt. Rob's complete inability to understand that Fanny is both woman and mother and that he will not always be the most important thing in her universe is what finally breaks their relationship. I think, however, that the true success in this book is when Caddie realises that no matter what happens she will still be herself. In that moment she has truly grown up, despite only being about eleven. The knowledge that she can only depend on herself for her happiness and the completeness of her life makes her more mature at the end of the book than any other character, particularly the adults.

The Tao of Pooh

2010-10-22T11:34:00.000+02:00

I like the idea of Taoism. It seems like the kind of way I'd like to live my life. Reading the Tao Te Ching tends to frustrate me. This, however, is a beautifully simple explanation of what exactly Taoism is all about. I'd like to be able to talk on and on about how inspiring it is and so on, but really the simplest way to do that is this: read the book.

The Essence of Buddha: the Path to Enlightenment

2010-10-21T15:24:00.000+02:00

A nice counter balance to all the Christianity I've been imbibing. Christianity fascinates me because I live in a Judeo-Christian culture. Of course, other religions and other ways of seeing the world interest me too, but they often seem comparably unintelligible because I simply don't have the cultural background that enables proper understanding.

Will one book make the difference? No. But it will help. This book is a succinct, clear account of what it means to be Buddhist. Most importantly (from my perspective anyway) it includes practical ways to go about putting Buddhism into practice in your own life.

This book seems very simplistic to me. Perhaps that's because my knowledge of Buddhism is limited. I have the idea that Buddhism is complex and cannot (and shouldn't) be explained so easily. This may just be a result of the Judeo-Christian culture in which I live, which has extraordinarily complicated relationships between the various 'churches', all of whom interpret the underlying message in a slightly different way. On the other hand, I heartily approve simplifying both message and language. We seem to have a desire for complicated things and making things more complicated than they need to be. This is anything but.

On the strength of this, I think it's safe to say that Buddhism as a religion is not for me. Buddhism as a philosophy maybe. And what's the difference between the two? Religion is about faith, belief and worship. Philosophy is a way of living. The Buddhist ideal of a daily meditation practice and self-reflection appeals to my contemplative nature. The rest of it not so much.

The Problem of Pain

2010-10-18T09:22:00.000+02:00

This was not quite what I was expecting. Lewis made that clear in his introduction, so I was aware once I started to read that I was getting something else. I was expecting a treatise on methods of coping with pain - emotional, physical, acute, chronic - with some reference to Christianity as Lewis was a Christian and wrote from that standpoint.

This is a book that seeks to answer the question as to why pain exists, given the Christian notion of an all-powerful god that is goodness personified. As I'm not Christian (though if anyone were to persuade me, it would be Lewis) I had to suspend disbelief while reading this book. It is not possible to simply wiggle a little and make what Lewis says fit your worldview. One has to suspend disbelief, read the totality of what he says and then see if what he says makes sense with whatever it is that you believe.

His argument is interesting and it's certainly one that I've never before considered. I'm not even going to try to summarise what he says. Mostly because he says it so much better and more clearly than I ever could and partly because I'm still letting it settle into my mind and find its place there.

I can only recommend this to Christians, or people who wonder what a Christian argument explaining pain and suffering is. If you're not interested in that, this isn't the book for you.

Mary Tudor: England's First Queen

2010-10-17T13:27:00.000+02:00

History has vilified her as Bloody Mary. Why? Because she burnt over 300 heretics in her reign. She tried to stem the tide of Protestantism in England, to return the country to the Catholicism that reigned at her birth and until her father's lust (for both power and women) got the better of him. Unable to produce an heir, the crown returned to a Protestant (Queen Elizabeth I) and Mary was consequently vilified on religious grounds.

I had always thought that Elizabeth was the first queen of England and that her sister Mary was Mary Queen of Scots. How little I knew! Mary Tudor was a phenomenal woman. She lived in interesting times. To have your entire family turned against you for your beliefs - beliefs that they shared until very recently - must be extremely disorienting for anyone. She handled herself extremely well. I am impressed by her complete belief and the way that she was willing to stand by her belief and not simply renounce it for another, milder version of the same faith as so many others did. Unlike Elizabeth, she was not willing to pretend to comply with the religious dictates of her family and the law. She was prepared to die for what she believed. History would have been far kinder to her if she had.

This is a story of a remarkable woman. I admire her greatly for her unwavering determination to do what she believed was right. I may not agree with what she believed, or what she did, but I admire the courage that she showed at a time when she was abandoned by all who should have supported her. This is a woman who did much for the equality of women and the rights of women at a time when the notion was never even considered. This is a highly recommended biography.

Pascal's Wager: the Man Who Played Dice with God

2010-10-16T13:15:00.000+02:00

This is not really a book about Pascal's Wager, so much as it's a book about Blaise Pascal. It was particularly interesting to read this while The Three Musketeers was fresh in my mind, as the two overlap in time, with Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII (who was apparently homosexual) and Anne of Austria being prominent figures in both.

Anyway, this book considers Pascal's life from birth to death. It considers his rational and scientific research, and the varying success thereof, both as it relates to contemporary times and as it related to the time in which he lived. It also considers the religious atmosphere of seventeenth century France. I found Jansenism, and consequently Augustinism, as rather frightening extremes of Catholic belief. I was highly amused at the way the Catholic Church wiggled around the question of heresy, as declaring Jansenism heretical really is the same as declaring Augustinism heretical. But questions of Catholic belief are not relevant here.

What is relevant is that Pascal subscribed to Jansenism. Somehow, from that religious standpoint he formulated his well-known wager. Connor makes the point that the wager is only really useful in the context of the 'rules' of the 'game' in which it was made, which I found very interesting. What I particularly found interesting is that considering Augustinist, and consequently Jansenist, belief in efficacious grace, the wager should never have been made. Which brings up the question of what Pascal actually believed, as opposed to what he thought he believed.

This is a fascinating biography of a remarkable man - both in terms of science and theology and in terms of the relationship between them in the seventeenth century. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these subjects.

The Passion of Therese of Lisieux

2010-10-14T19:03:00.000+02:00

This is the story of the final part of Therese of Lisieux's life. I don't pretend to understand the Christian term 'passion', which seems to mean 'suffering leading up to death'. That's certainly what this book is about. I have an autobiography of Saint Therese on my list of books to read, but this deals purely with the onset of symptoms of the tuberculosis that led to her death.

This is an interesting read, particularly because I had no idea who Saint Therese was or why she was important (or even that she was actually a canonised saint). I was also rather ignorant as to the progression and final stages of pulmonary tuberculosis, that it can spread to the intestines (which apparently causes gangrene and is most unpleasant) or even that there were multiple varieties of tuberculosis (I shall have to google phthisical tuberculosis - apparently phthisis is a medical term for 'wasting away' and so it has the same meaning as 'consumption' and other terms no longer used for tuberculosis, one definition has it as meaning 'pulmonary tuberculosis'!).

I personally found Saint Therese rather irritating in her desire to die, to be a martyr. Isn't she supposed to wish to live so as to work for her god? Apparently, that only applies if you consider the Christian heaven to be a place of rest. Saint Therese considered that she would be able to do her work far better in heaven and so was anxious to be there. I'm not sure how I feel about her, but I consider her 'little way' to be something of great interest. As far as I can tell, it entails being completely dependent on and trusting in god, such that you give yourself up into god. As you might imagine I see quite a few parallels to what she says with what Bernadette Roberts said in her book. It's likely I'm seeing things that aren't there, but there are certain phrases that Saint Therese uses in describing her experiences that struck me all the more forcefully for the previous reading.

As someone interested in what makes people themselves, this is an interesting book. I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone that wasn't interested in Saints, Religion or the Way Religion Effects People.

The Experience of No-Self

2010-10-14T13:25:00.000+02:00

Oh. Well. This is one of those books. I shall have to read it again, later, to glean more from it. I'm left with a profound sense of something that I can't explain. A peace and certainty that I rarely experience (though it's frequent at the end of a yoga class).

I don't agree with everything that Roberts says, mostly because she's a Christian (presumably Catholic, since Wikipedia tells me she used to be a Carmelite nun) and I am (mostly) atheist. She does not appear to be one of those rabid Christians that believe theirs is the only way, in fact she says a number of things that I imagine orthodox Christians (probably particularly if they're Catholic) would consider heresy. I do, however, consider myself contemplative, as she does, though not in the strict Christian tradition of contemplation. This book talks about (what appears to be) the final journey of the contemplative, using her Christian belief as an explanatory framework. Had I had her experience (and I'm, presumably, working on that as a contemplative) and written on it, I would have written the same basic things, but from an atheistic viewpoint.

Of course, I do wonder if I can be truly contemplative and an atheist at the same time. The fact is, I have no choice. I am an atheist. I've never come across a single religious thing that I can actually believe. I can pretend to believe, but only for a short time. The pretence consumes to much energy for me to keep it going. At the same time, I do yoga, I meditate I read all these religious texts. I'm searching for something to believe. I don't think I'll find it, but I will find myself (or my no-self) and the truth while I'm looking.

The reading of this book is an experience in and of itself. This is a book that should be read time and time again as one progresses through the various stages of life. I do not recommend it for anyone that isn't contemplative.

The Three Musketeers

2010-10-14T10:37:00.000+02:00

My first encounter with The Three Musketeers was the 1993 Disney movie, which I adored and can still mostly recite, I watched it so many times. I was thrilled to finally have my own copy of the book and devoured it. I was sorely disappointed with what I found, for the movie drastically simplified the plot and made virtually all the characters (Milady particularly) more sympathetic.

King Louis is jealous of the Duke of Buckingham because he believes that Queen Anne is endeavouring to conduct an affair with him. Cardinal Richelieu is jealous of Buckingham because he is in love with the Queen. d'Artagnan's father was not a musketeer. Rochefort is not completely evil and, actually, turns out to be fairly decent despite being one of the Cardinal's men. The Cardinal himself is not evil. The musketeers are not disbanded. Milady is evil, extremely evil. Athos tried to hang her and the two believe each other to be dead. Lord de Winter prevents Milady from reaching Buckingham. Buckingham is assassinated (part of the Cardinal's plan that Milady undertook in case she could not convince him to end the war, which she had no chance to perform because of her brother-in-law). Constance is married and not a lady-in-waiting. She is murdered by Milady. Milady's history is far more heinous than the movie would lead you to believe. The Cardinal is not trying to depose the King. Aramis wishes to enter the (Catholic) Church, Porthos is a buffoon. Buckingham is not planning to invade La Rochelle, he's planning to relieve the Protestants that are under siege from the French Catholics. There are a lot of other characters, and a lot more complications.

On this second reading, I enjoyed the book more. I do not particularly like the style of writing, but I suspect that's an artefact of the translation rather than Dumas, as I have not had the same problem with other books of his. It's an intriguing story, exceedingly complex, with rich characters. How faithfully the book captures the personalities of the people that actually existed (Cardinal Richelieu, Anne of Austria, King Louis XIII, the Duke of Buckingham) I do not know, but it makes them interesting characters that take part believably. None of the main characters (with the possible exception of Milady) is purely good or evil. All are flawed in some way. All are complex and believable, even the curious character that is Milady.

This is a book that's worth reading, though it may need to be read multiple times to appreciate all the detail.

Just One Click

2010-10-11T20:33:00.000+02:00

I've added a bunch of little boxes down the side of the blog. All these link to a network of sites where you can donate a book, donate food, donate a mammogram, donate pet food/care, donate child health care, protect rainforest habitat. All worthy causes, though of course my main interest is in the donating of books (why then, is the animal one at the top? Because it has a picture of a kitten). I come here everyday, but most of you get this in your feed reader. Please take the time to donate a book (and whatever else is closest to your heart) at least once.

A Novena for Murder

2010-10-11T11:22:00.000+02:00

My favourite kind of murder mystery, one that involves nuns. This is a rather pedestrian mystery, but it's fun nonetheless. The characters are believable, even the ones that one doesn't particularly like. The police are believable and, most importantly, not complete idiots. There's nothing worse than a murder mystery where one has to 'take over' the investigation because the police are twits. It's not often that that happens in real life, I don't know why it's so ubiquitous in murder mysteries.

While I did say that the mystery itself is rather pedestrian, it also manages to be complex and unpleasant, as all good mysteries that result in murder should be. Perhaps it's only pedestrian because I read far too many books of this sort.

Anyway, it's a fun read and I'll be keeping an eye out for others in the Sister Mary Helen series and by this author (a nun herself) in general.

No Women in Holy Orders? The Women Deacons of the Early Church

2010-10-11T10:44:00.000+02:00

This is a fascinating book. I had no idea that the whole thing about allowing women to be ordained had its basis in something historical. Now I do. Wijngaards makes it very clear that the early church ordained women as deacons. He deals clearly and succinctly with the arguments of those scholars that believe that these women were merely blessed. Personally, I would go a step further and show how ridiculous these arguments are by replacing the word 'women' with 'men'.

Having read this book, I simply cannot understand how anyone can object to the ordination of women on anything other than sexist grounds. A sexism that has no place in the world in which we live and in which the (Catholic) church is trying to survive. Wijngaards makes the point wonderfully when he says that there will come a time when people are no longer willing to support an institution that excludes them in a prejudiced manner (read the book for the actual quote, the way he puts it is far better).

Which brings me to a point that I feel should not be ignored. There is clear and damning evidence that the Catholic church has, among other heinous acts, condoned and covered up the sexual abuse of minors by priests (and presumably others, but 'priests' is a useful catch-all term) for the better part of the last thousand years. The current Pope - the infallible representative of the Catholic god on earth - is personally responsible for this. How can anyone remain Catholic in the face of this? Denial and ignorance play a role, I'm sure. As far as I can tell, the only way to remain Catholic in the face of this is to accept that what the church has done is perfectly acceptable in god's eyes. If you don't, you deny the infallibility of the Pope and, presumably, violate a bunch of other stuff that is required of you to be Catholic. I can't help feeling that in the face of the greater question (why on earth are there still Catholics?), the question of the ordination of women is largely irrelevant.

Hidden Children of the Holocaust

2010-10-09T17:20:00.000+02:00

This book is about the lower echelons of the Catholic clergy during the Nazi occupation of Belgium in World War II. While the higher levels kept quiet, the parish priests and nuns hid thousands of Jewish children and saved their lives.

Vromen undertook this research as a sociological study and the book reads somewhat like a thesis. She has interviewed one priest, a number of nuns, a number of hidden children and a couple of members of the secular resistance movement responsible for getting the children from their families to the institutions that hid them.

I am left feeling depressed and uplifted at the same time. Nazis and nuns are two of my greatest fascinations, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this study. What I'm left with is a sense that armed resistance receives too much acclaim in comparison with other forms. The people who just did a few tiny things - carrying messages or providing food - were just as courageous as those who chose a more militant form of resistance. But what about all those others who chose not to resist, neither actively nor passively. Did they collaborate or embrace Nazi ideology? Did they merely think of themselves as neutral? Which begs the question, how can you remain neutral in the face of such inhuman behaviour? More interestingly, how would I have behaved? There's no way to know without finding myself in a position that I hope the world never sees again. I suspect, though, that as survivors die memory will fade and such horrors may again be committed. The extreme religious right of the United States and their vilification of Muslims give me cause for concern. The eternal conflict in the Middle East gives me cause for concern. Every continent shows some form of intolerance and oppression of humanity. I can only do what little I can to ensure that we do not forget.

Howards End

2010-10-09T16:35:00.000+02:00

This is one of those classic books that people talk about vaguely as being significant for some or other reason and something that, really, everyone should have read, presumably while at school. Considering the vast amount of classic literature one is expected to absorb while at school it's a miracle one finds the time for anything else. While searching for images of the book cover (which is not this one, but this one is pretty and I couldn't find mine) I discovered that the movie stars Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson (who I loved together in Remains of the Day) and Helena Bonham-Carter. I shall have to see it now.

Anyway, this book is about class struggle and other social things in turn of the century England. It's exceptionally well written and I'll be on the lookout for other works by Forster in my charity-shop scouring. His writing is evocative and there's an underlying sense of camaraderie that's difficult to explain.

As far as I can tell the class struggle is between rich and poor and where one's social responsibility lies. You have the vulgar, wealthy Wilcox family, concerned only with themselves and their accumulation of wealth and power. There are the Schlegel sisters, academic, concerned and determined to help anyone they deem worthy. Then there are the Basts, proud, downtrodden and victims of prevailing social norms. Mix them altogether and one gets a book reminiscent of Austen at her best.

This is a quiet story. The thing that remains strongest with me is the Tolkienesque (is that really fair, considering Forster predates Tolkien?) description of Howards End and surroundings, the sturdiness of the land and the depressing, ever present removal of humanity from any consciousness of it. At the same time, this is one of those books that provokes subtle shifts in your subconscious without your permission or your notice. Read it, it's worth it.

Sybil

2010-10-07T12:14:00.000+02:00

I first read this book in high school. I've had vague memories of it and a desire to reread it ever since. I am aware that there are arguments against its being factual. I'm also aware that there are arguments against the study that found it to be largely fictional. As far as I'm concerned, the only way to solve the problem is for the files to be unsealed and for the case to be studied by multiple experts. I know that there are many experts who do not consider dissociative identity disorder (DID - formerly multiple personality disorder, MPD) to be real. I understand that the majority of cases are found in the US. Either way, this book was written as a true account and that's how I'm going to treat it (mostly).

Sybil is the story of a woman with DID. She has sixteen separate personalities. Quite frankly I don't consider all sixteen to be either complete personalities or completely separate, but that may be simply due to the constraints of the book. Perhaps if I had met them myself, I would have found them to be separate personalities. The reason for Sybil's personalities appears to be the abuse she suffered at the hands of a diagnosed but untreated schizophrenic mother. At one point in the book the abuse suffered by Sybil, and other children, at the hands of the mother is recounted. The abuse, however, is not dwelt on, which I feel is a good thing. It's important to understand the causes, but there's no need to portray it graphically. There are, however, places where I feel that either the causes were not explained well enough, or the cause is simply unbelievable. Two personalities appear simply because a doctor walked away from a two- or three-year old and sent her back to her abusive home? There's either something I don't understand, or there's something missing from this explanation.

The focus of the book is Sybil's psychoanalysis with Dr Wilbur. I have to say that, on many levels, I object to Dr Wilbur. She does not maintain any objective distance from her patient, in fact she befriends a number of the personalities. Possibly this was necessary as the case was exceedingly complex and groundbreaking. I do feel though, that her professional integrity is damaged by this. There is some suggestion that Dr Wilbur manipulated Sybil into believing she had DID when she didn't and I can only feel that it's strengthened by Dr Wilbur's inability to maintain professional distance. Also, she's a Freudian psychoanalyst and I deeply distrust Freudian anything.

At the end of the book, Sybil is reintegrated. She's a whole, single person, though the personalities do in some measure still exist within the confines of her mind. I feel that this whole process is treated far too superficially. Either that, or the entire was superficial because the disorder didn't exist to begin with. I can't decide. Either way, I felt the end of the book was lacking because of this and there is a sense that the happy ending is contrived.

This is a deeply moving story, regardless of whether or not it's true. It gives one the ability to imagine the fear that someone suffering from DID must feel when they come back to themselves and find that they've lost time. It's well written and easy to read, despite a proliferation of technical terms. This is a book that I recommend regardless of the veracity of the account.

The Wild Gourmets

2010-10-05T10:57:00.000+02:00

When the apocalypse comes, this is the book I'll grab and take with me into the wasteland that was the world. Unsurprisingly I picked this up at an Exclusive Books sale. It's a fantastic book, though I've not made a single recipe from it or, in fact, used it at all.

Ever wanted to know how to make a tent or catch a rabbit (sorry Phillygirl) or generally do those things that there's no real need for in this day and age? This book will tell you how. It includes a variety of recipes to cook with your foraged and hunted food. If I ever do serious camping, this is the book that I'll take with me.

My one objection to it as a survival guide is that it relies on nearby farmers for dairy products and suchlike, which you won't be able to get when the zombies come. Also, it's a British book and, unsurprisingly, is geared towards foraging your way around England. Not much use when you're on the other end of Africa, but it's still a fantastic book.

The Year of Magical Thinking

2010-10-05T09:52:00.000+02:00

I read this book a few years ago and found it interesting. In the wake of actually experiencing grief myself I thought it might be worth rereading.

It's a good book, well written. I think, however, that while her experiences may be analogous to mine (the cognitive deficits, the denial, the avoiding of reminders, etc.) the simple fact that she had so much else to deal with, with her daughter's illness, makes the story somewhat inaccessible.

It's a fascinating insight into the way her mind dealt with the sudden loss of her husband. Some of her experiences are similar to mine and, no doubt, every other grieving person on the planet. But the simple fact that her situation is not mine - I do not have an ill daughter, I can not rely on a life's worth of work to buoy me up while I grieve, I need to work - means that what she went through is not particularly comforting to me.

This is a good book and you should probably read it. Just don't read it while you're grieving, because it's not the comfort they suggest it is.

Little Town on the Prairie

2010-10-04T19:23:00.000+02:00

This is the seventh book in this series and so far, though I've not read all the previous six, it's my favourite. Laura, author and main character ages from 14 at the beginning of the book to very nearly 16 at the end. Calm, sedate Mary goes off to the school for the blind in Iowa and while her family might miss her, it doesn't really affect the rest of the book.

This is the book that takes a step away from the intense focus on the immediate Ingalls family and starts to really interact with others. Laura and younger sister Carrie attend the local school and form friendships with other children there. The family again spends the winter in town, though this is a far milder winter than the previous one they experienced (see The Long Winter), and as a result they are far more social. At least part of this may be due to the fact that there are far more families in the area than there were the previous year.

Anyway, it's a classic series that you really should read. It's also worth reading from an adult perspective, in my opinion, if you enjoy historical stories.

Coming Out Asperger: Diagnosis, Disclosure and Self-Confidence

2010-10-04T18:24:00.000+02:00

This is one of those academic style books, that has a variety of papers/articles, though it doesn't seem to be aimed at an academic audience. Being fairly academic myself, I appreciate the format because it enables me to get a variety of opinions and perspectives on this issue.

Of course, the majority of viewpoints seem to be starting from the worst-possible outcome as a result of disclosure and there doesn't seem to be terribly much attention paid to the middle-ground. I think that the ones who say that it's best to deal with disclosure on a one-on-one basis are probably right. The difference between 'hard' and 'soft' disclosure doesn't really make much sense to me, but I do agree that different degrees of disclosure are appropriate in differing settings and cases.

On the whole, this is a useful book, though it does tend to focus more on disclosure in situations where it becomes a necessity rather than a choice.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

2010-10-03T15:09:00.000+02:00

I love books about language. This is a particularly good one. The focus of this book is punctuation. There are examples of rules (though this is not a rule-book or style-guide) and errors, as well as a variety of rants on an apparent inability to use punctuation properly and the apathy with which most people seem to view this inability.

I think it might be time to free my inner punctuation-Nazi. This book is a call-to-arms for all language-lovers. The way in which we communicate is being degraded daily. As Confucius said, "If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant."

Good Tempered Food

2010-10-03T12:30:00.000+02:00

I picked this up (at an Exclusive Books sale, what a surprise!) because I have this image of myself in my head. It's an image of a highly domesticated woman who spends hours in her kitchen and garden, being domestic. It's not who I usually am, but every now and then I manage it. This book helps.

There are a multitude of recipes in here that I'd love to try, but just haven't gotten around to. There are others that I'm waiting to make until I've got my first million (ten clementines to make jelly? Really?). And there are others that I've made many times already. Poor Man's Potatoes. Greek Potatoes. Caraway Rolls. That chocolate dessert, the name of which escapes me right now.

If you love to cook and (even only occasionally) have the time to spend over it, then this is a book for you.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

2010-10-03T11:55:00.000+02:00

I watched the first episode of the tv show based on this novel. At least, I watched part of the first episode, I don't remember if I saw it end. I must admit that from what I remember of the tv show as compared to this book, I definitely prefer the book. Goodness, what a surprise! There are very few cases where I actually prefer a movie or television adaptation to the book.

Having the protagonist be a serial killer is not usual in crime novels. Particularly ones that focus on the investigation and the team of police involved. It makes a nice change to see things through a double lens. It also allows one to experience murder through the eyes of a killer without it being the murder perpetrated by the guy that the police are trying to catch. I like to get both perspectives, but don't particularly like having knowledge about the 'bad guy' that the police/investigators don't have. It just frustrates me. Having one of the cops be a serial killer vigilante seems to solve that problem nicely.

I can't say that I didn't see the twist at the end coming, but it was enjoyably done and well-written. I don't know what the rest of the series is like, but I'll be keeping an eye out for them. This is definitely one that I'd recommend, though I imagine that it would be a different read if I'd watched enough of the tv show to know exactly what was going to happen all the way through.

Seven Cities of Gold

2010-09-25T16:27:00.000+02:00

I borrowed this from Confluence recently. It's a beautifully written book with a lyrical quality that one doesn't often find in prose.

I jumped straight in to the story, skipping the explanatory note at the beginning. Possibly I would have found the story easier to understand in terms of geopolitical stuff if I had read it first. Also, I would have liked for this book to have had a map so that I had a clearer idea of the geography and whereabouts events were taking place. As it is I found the story fairly easy to follow without it, though there were a number of questions I had.

This is not the sort of book that ties everything up neatly for the reader. This is the sort of book that leaves you with questions. Nagging thoughts that simmer in the back of your brain as you try to work out just what exactly it is that things are supposed to mean and whether or not you got all the nuances that you were supposed to.

If you don't like to think about things, especially those complicated things that make people uncomfortable, then this is not a book you should read.

Postmortem

2010-09-25T13:58:00.000+02:00

A long time ago I read one or two of Cornwell's novels and wasn't particularly impressed. They reminded me a good deal of Kathy Reichs' novels. Occasionally Reichs' novels are worth reading, but on the whole they're extremely repetitive and I don't find I care at all about the characters.

This time, however, I've come away with a far better feeling for Cornwell's writing. I'm still not sure how I feel about having a medical examiner be the main character - a similar problem to Reichs' work, as well as Tess Gerritsen and a multitude of tv shows. Medical examiners, crime scene techs, lawyers, all these people are not detectives. They have their own jobs to do and they do them. I'm fairly sure that in real life these people rarely try their hand at police work on an active investigation. Which is part of the reason that I tend not to read these sorts of crime novels. I'm going to be making an exception for some of Cornwell's others though.

There's a very simple reason for this. The characters are engaging and believable. I care about them. I'm interested in what happens to them. Even the ones that I might not particularly like (actually, barring the niece I don't think I actually like any of them). Cornwell writes well and, more importantly, she writes engaging mysteries and doesn't screw up the science (reason number one that I can't watch any of those ridiculous tv shows without yelling at them or giving up in disgust). Another thing I particularly enjoyed about this book is the complete lack of Agatha Christieness. The bad guy is not someone that we've met. We don't know anything about him. While those sorts of books have their place and I really enjoy them, they're not always very realistic. In most cases of serial murder there's almost no chance that the bad guy is someone involved in the investigation, though those do make for fascinating stories. There's a realism to Cornwell's conception of crime that I really enjoy.

The Two Towers

2010-09-25T00:22:00.000+02:00

I love this book. It's my favourite part (I know, I said the same about Fellowship and I'll probably say it again for RotK). One of the most interesting things about it is, in the words of a truly awful song, 'there's no beginning, there'll be no end' ('Love is All Around' by Wet Wet Wet, if you're wondering). This is the middle of the story and there is no real beginning and no real end - those are in the other books. This dives right in to the adventure and makes no attempt to tie the ends off. It does, in fact, end off on a cliffhanger.

I am particularly fond of the last chapter, The Choices of Master Samwise. It's such a fascinating insight into the relationship between Sam and Frodo from Sam's perspective. It's also interesting to see the way in which Sam considers his choices and eventually decides what it is that he's supposed to do. There's something poignant about the whole chapter, as Sam grieves and then finds his strength. His confusion is so real and the whole section is incredibly moving.

I'm also extremely fond of anything that involves Eowyn. She's the single major female character in the entire volume. I love Eowyn. She loves and she despairs. She's bound by the culture and the time period in which she lives and yet she manages still to be headstrong and independent. I love watching her character develop. Even though, in this book, one merely glimpses her a few times, one can feel her strength and her desperation behind the scenes and from what people say about her. At least, I think you can, I may be projecting because I've read it so many times I know the characters better than I know myself.

Of course, the heroes of Gondor and Rohan appear here for the first time. Faramir and Eomer. Both are honest, law-abiding men. And yet they're not afraid to bend the laws of their countries (and, really, as heir-apparent in both cases they're probably two of the few who can). These are strong, confident men who trust in their judgement. They believe that they can tell the truth of your intentions and what is best and right to do. They will not take the easy path. They will always do what they believe is right. These are the kind of men that you want to have as your leaders.

My extra super favouritest thing about this book? Merry and Pippin in Fangorn Forest with the ents. I love Treebeard's speeches. I love the contrast of the tiny, quick hobbits with the enormous, deliberating ents. I love love love the scene where the party from Helm's Deep arrives on the edge of the ruin of Isengard and is greeted by the hobbits. The reaction of the Fellowship members and Theoden, with Gandalf amused in the background is something that I read two or three times every time.

I could probably write a ten page essay on the things I love about this book, but I won't. I'll just leave you with the highlights.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

2010-09-23T13:17:00.000+02:00

It seems wrong, somehow to say that I really enjoyed a book about the Nazis. Somehow, it seems like it's an endorsement of their ideology and the things they did. I don't agree with them about anything, but I find them fascinating. I'm an archaeologist because I'm interested in people and people are easier to deal with when they're dead (apparently this is different for kittens). I have an abiding interest in World War II and Nazi Germany, for which I blame my high school history teacher, Sue Harsant. Nazis fascinate me because they took the treatment of other human beings to an extreme. I don't understand how they did the things they did. I don't know how some of them turned a blind eye to the things that were going on. I hope that if I keep reading, I'll figure it out.

I'm also interested in reading some alternative histories. There were so many points during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis and during the war, where everything could have been ended so much more quickly. Where everything could have gone on for so much longer. Where quite a different result could have come about. I'd like to know what people think might have happened in those cases. I hope that it will give me some insight into the ways in which these people thought and why things happened the way they did.

This book is a fantastically detailed history of, as it says, the rise and fall of the Nazis in Germany. This book was originally published in 1960 and it shows. There's a slight hint of sexism, but given that almost no women played important roles in this conflict, I can forgive that as a product of its time. There's a severe anti-Nazi, anti-Hitler thread to the book, and given what they did I can forgive that. I would have preferred the book to be slightly more objective, but given the incredible access to sources that Shirer had, as well as the fact that he was on hand as a journalist at many of the events chronicled I'm willing to forgive his subjectivity. He can't view this as one completely objective for the simple fact that he was there, he experienced it. I will also note a fair amount of scorn for the blindness of other leading politicians and say that he was just as biased against them as against the Nazis (well, maybe not quite, but a bit). I could have done with less of the "good christian men" motif - many Nazis considered themselves good christian men as well and as someone who thinks that organised religion is responsible for a great deal of the worlds ills having it so regularly referred to was rather grating. Also, it needed a map. You can never have too many maps and this book had none.

If you're not interested in WWII or the Nazis or any of that, don't bother. If you are, this is a must-read.

WH Auden

2010-09-21T11:05:00.000+02:00

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

2010-09-16T10:06:00.000+02:00

This book first came to my notice when my one and only not-normal aunt (her words) recommended it to me. The copy I have belongs to my sister, a gift to her one christmas, possibly from me (it's so hard to remember, but I strongly suspect that it was so). I enjoyed this book, though I gather that others haven't. It's a history of detection in England and the detective novel. It's a biography of Mr Whicher and the Kent family. It's also a fascinating mystery about a murdered child.

If you only like the kinds of mysteries where everything is accounted for and 'solved' at the end, then this is not a book you should read. While, technically, the crime was solved when someone confessed, there were still unanswered questions and unexplained facts. There are ways to account for this, but one does not come away from this book feeling that the mystery has been solved satisfactorily. In many ways the book is rather depressing as one vicariously views the British media and public ruin the lives of both the family involved and the detectives trying to solve the case.

An interesting book. I enjoyed it, but I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

The Sinner

2010-09-14T11:29:00.000+02:00

My first Tess Gerritsen. I've been trying to find the first in her Rizzoli & Isles series (The Surgeon), but I haven't managed, so I gave in and read this one because it involved nuns and we all know I'm a sucker for stories with nuns. This was an interesting book, both because it was unexpected and because it was typical. There were some twists that were obvious and it didn't take me too long to cotton on to who the killer was (in that I figured it out the second or third time we saw him). The motivations, however, were far more interesting and not something that I could ever come up with.

This is a recommended read. I'll be looking out for both others in the Rizzoli & Isles series as well as other books by this author. I might even watch the tv show.