Thanks to Margo from Margo Treehugger for the "Where Life Hands You Lemons" award award:
Thanks also to Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise has awarded me the Sisterhood award
Both of these awards ask us to:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post. 2. Nominate up to 10 blogs which show great attitude and/or gratitude! 3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post. 4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog. 5. Remember to link to the person from whom you received your award.
It is late in the weekend here, so I am going to cheat a little and name ten blogs, three for one, and seven for the other. For the Sisterhood award, I nominate my fellow Historical Tapestry girls:
Misfit is a relatively new blogger, but I have known her for a while now through a couple of forums. If you enjoy reading historical fiction in particular, then you might find her blog an interesting one to start spending time reading!
After realising that I hadn't read any of the longlisted novels for the Miles Franklin award, I was a little concerned about the upcoming longlists for other awards, like The Orange Prize and The Booker Prize. With The Orange Prize Longlist announced yesterday, my curiosity is sated, and I have actually read one (The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser)! Haven't heard of some of the others, but never mind, but Girl in a Blue Dress was already on my TBR list!
Debra Adelaide - The Household Guide to Dying
Gaynor Arnold - Girl in a Blue Dress
Lissa Evans - Their Finest Hour and a Half
Bernardine Evaristo - Blonde Roots
Ellen Feldman - Scottsboro
Laura Fish - Strange Music
V.V. Ganeshananthan - Love Marriage
Allegra Goodman - Intuition
Samantha Harvey - The Wilderness
Samantha Hunt - The Invention of Everything Else
Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
Deirdre Madden - Molly Fox’s Birthday
Toni Morrison - A Mercy
Gina Ochsner - The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
Marilynne Robinson - Home
Preeta Samarasan - Evening is the Whole Day
Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows
Curtis Sittenfeld - American Wife
Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans
Ann Weisgarber - The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
I know I can tell from just looking at him every day, but there was another sign that my baby is growing up!
Tonight we were driving to the library when he started talking about the fact that they are doing literature circles at school. Don't ask me to explain, it sounds a bit like required reading but over an extended period of time and he has to do a summary of each chapter. My next question of course was 'What book is it?'. Mister Monday by Garth Nix. I got very excited and said something along the lines of I read that a couple of years ago! It made a reading mother proud!
As for the library loot we were on the way to pick up, there was actually quite a bit again!
Emma Vol 1 by Kauru Mori - Graphic novel that Kailana put me onto recently.
Angelique in Revolt by Sergeanne Golon - next book in this series that was originally released in the 1960s
Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood - next book in the Phryne Fisher mystery series
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver- have been meaning to read this forever.
The Mysteries of Glass by Sue Gee - started reading the first couple of pages but then had to return it because someone else had requested it.
Fishing for Stars by Bryce Courtenay - got a bit further into this one before I had to return it unfinished.
Drood: A Novel by Dan Simmons - have been seeing this mentioned a bit around the place, and it is also Book at the Month at Historical Fiction Online.
I was also supposed to pick up Grave Peril by Jim Butcher but for some reason they couldn't find the book anywhere on the hold shelf. I am going to have to rerequest it again, but in the mean time some one else has it on hold too so it will be a bit longer than I would have liked to get to it!
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
I am not so much reading this book, as devouring it! I really enjoyed Garden Spells when I read it a while ago and I am very much enjoying The Sugar Queen as well. This week's teaser comes from page 189:
Ten minutes of this and their suits, coats and wingtips were soaked. This is why Faith sent Jake and Adam home with their dinner in paper bags, but with no dessert.
When I originally signed up for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, I nominated three books:
The Last Queen by C W Gortner Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland.
Unfortunately, I am still waiting for Mistress of the Sun to come in from the library, but instead I am substituting Angelique and the Sultan by Sergeanne Golon. Given that I finished that book today, I am done with this challenge!
Turn on all the lights and check under your bed. Things are about to get spooky in Trenton, New Jersey. According to legend, the Jersey Devil prowls the Pine Barrens and soars above the treetops in the dark of night. As eerie as this might seem, there are things in the Barrens that are even more frightening and dangerous. And there are monkeys. Lots of monkeys.
Wulf Grimoire is a world wanderer and an opportunist who can kill without remorse and disappear like smoke. He’s chosen Martin Munch, boy genius, as his new business partner, and he’s chosen the Barrens as his new playground.
Munch received his doctorate degree in quantum physics when he was twenty-two. He’s now twenty-four, and while his brain is large, his body hasn’t made it out of the boys’ department at Macy’s. Anyone who says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Munch. Wulf Grimoire is looking for world domination. Martin Munch would be happy if he could just get a woman naked and tied to a tree.
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has Munch on her most-wanted list for failure to appear in court. Plum is the all-American girl stuck in an uncomfortable job, succeeding on luck and tenacity. Usually she gets her man. This time she gets a monkey. She also gets a big guy named Diesel.
Diesel pops in and out of Plum’s life like birthday cake – delicious to look at and taste, not especially healthy as a steady diet, gone by the end of the week if not sooner. He’s an über bounty hunter with special skills when it comes to tracking men and pleasing women. He’s after Grimoire, and now he’s also after Munch. And if truth were told, he wouldn’t mind setting Stephanie Plum in his crosshairs.
Diesel and Plum hunt down Munch and Grimoire, following them into the Barrens, surviving cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, a hair-raising experience, sand in their underwear, and, of course . . . monkeys.
I am not 100% sure that I get the point of these between the numbers Plum novels. With Stephanie struggling to sort out her love life between Morelli and Ranger already, it seems a little superfluous to add yet another man who wants to get it on with her, but I guess that while people keep on buying them, Janet Evanovich is going to keep writing them. I do wonder if Evanovich has an ending in sight for this series or if she is just going to keep going and going and going. All that may sound a little down on the author, which may be a bit harsh, because there were definitely some amusing moments throughout this book, but I am glad that I have stopped buying the Plum books and just get them from the library.
I did laugh a couple of times, the monkeys are initially amusing. If I still had a copy of the book I might be tempted to go through and see how many times Carl the monkey gave someone the bird. It was an awful lot of times and it got very repetitive after a while.
I was glad to see that Morelli and Ranger both played small parts in this novel. In at least one of the other between the numbers novels it was as if they both had dropped off the face of the earth! Some of the dialogue is amusing, especially with Lula.
"Ranger this and Ranger that," Lula said. "Don't none of you people think for yourself? I bet you can't wipe yourself without Ranger telling you."
Tank looked at her in the rearview mirror. "I'm telling him you said that."
"I might have misspoke," Lula said.
It seems that Lula and Tank have a few issues to sort out in their relationship, which should at least allow for this book to actually sit within the series a bit more.
As to the plot, well, Stephanie is after some FTA's and as usual she is having great difficulty in picking them up. One of them has gotten himself mixed up with some people that might be a little out of the ordinary and is planning world domination from his base in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Much hilarity ensues...or a little bit at least.
Mostly this is just same old same old and yet I keep on reading them, and I can't see that changing any time soon even if they aren't books that leave me laughing until I am crying anymore.
By the way, I visiting evanovich.com for the first time in months today and it looks much better than it used to! Just thought I would throw that out there.
I am going back to work tomorrow for a rest! I have had such a great weekend! Haven't done any washing or cleaning or any of those other normal weekend tasks, but never mind. Today I went to Stitches and Craft show and managed to pick up some new ideas for making cards, as well as starting a bead bracelet that I am planning to keep building on! I can see this becoming a bit of an obsession, but we will try to keep this under control. The real highlight of the weekend was yesterday!
I mentioned that I was going to Sound Relief which was a fundraising concert for the bushfire victims in Victoria. There was also a concert happening at the same time in Sydney that also had some massive artists as well. I will try to summarise a bit!
As we were driving into the city it started raining. By the time we walked from the car to our seats we were already drenched, and because we were in the seat seven rows from the fence, we had no cover either. First priority was to buy some rain ponchos - a very attractive look I am sure you will agree! Little did we know that it was basically going to rain the whole day. Thank goodness it wasn't cold as well! (These photos are from later in the day but they show us looking a bit bedraggled! It was hard to know whether to leave them on or take them off. It was almost inevitable that every time I just about got mostly dry then it would start to rain.)Special shout out to the Channel V presenter who came out and announced that there was going to be no more rain at about 2 o'clock. She should probably stick to music!
I did attempt to take a couple of photos of my son at his first concert but I didn't realise that I had my camera on video soon, so there is a very quick picture of him, then some moving around, and then, the inside of a very soggy handbag! Whoops! I have to say that the concert experience wasn't a huge hit on the day, but today my son has done nothing but listen to Kings of Leon and talk about the concert (when he wasn't wingeing about being dragged around the craft show). Both the boys were bored pretty early on, and was over pretty early on for them. There is one picture of him looking a bit, um excited. I have to say a huge thanks to my friend, because I said to her that I would take the two of them home on the train because my son was complaining that he wasn't feeling well, but she took them back to my place instead and had a grand old time playing Buzz and SingStar. I felt a bit bad, but she said that she really only wanted to see Kings of Leon, and she offered so....
We arrived just in time to hear Jet open the concert and they were really great! Jet were one of two acts that were performing in both concerts, the other being Wolfmother. Even though the crowd was still building up, the fact that they are a Melbourne band meant that the crowd were really into them. When you are looking at the following picture of Jet, look at the sky and bear in mind that they came on stage at 12 noon.
Next up, Gabriella Cilmi, another home town act, and she did a pretty good set. I am a bit over her debut single which received massive radio airplay, but she did do a serviceable version of Whole Lotta Love. She can certainly sing.
During the day, we were crossing to the SCG where the other gig was going on so we got to see some Coldplay which was awesome. I was recording that at home, and when I was watching it today I have to say that their set was amazing, including a great version of You're the Voice featuring an Aussie favourite, John Farnham, and an unscheduled crowd run by Chris Martin during Fix You that had the security guys scurrying, but he looked like he had a great time. Unfortunately we didn't get to see that on the big screens in Melbourne but it was cool watching it back today.
Third act up and one of the highlights was Kings of Leon who were playing a sold out gig in Melbourne that night and so played relatively early in the day. They were awesome, and I will probably make an effort to go and see them if they come back again! The only disappointment was that they didn't sing Sex on Fire because it was the bushfire relief fundraiser, but I am sure that we all would have loved to have heard that.
Paul Kelly is a local legend, and he sounded great standing up on stage with his guitar and that was it. It was a complete change of pace to the other acts.
Augie March is another Melbourne band, and while I know a couple of songs, I can't say I know their music all that well. This is about where the kids gave up, but I did manage to convince them that it would be worth it to wander around to directly in front of the stage and have a look at the stage from that angle! It did look amazing to see all the people in the stands and on the ground. Absolute downpour during their set and we got wet...again!
Next up was Bliss N Eso with Paris Wells who are an Australian hip-hop band. I don't know any of their music, but they did really get the crowd going, up until the moment when they lost all sound. The crew did a great job of getting everything going again.
Another change of pace, this time from hip-hop to country and western with Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson. Kasey has such a distinctive voice, and when she sang 'The Captain' it reverberated right around the stadium. They were joined on stage by Troy Cassar-Daley, and they had a lot of fun, but I don't think the crowd was as into it as they had been for other artists!
The next artist up was Liam Finn. Now I will be honest and confess that I haven't heard anything that Liam has done before, so when we were planning when we would go and get some dinner and things we thought that this would be a good time to go, especially seeing as we didn't want to miss any of the acts that were coming up! I am not sure that we were actually right in that thinking because after singing a couple of his songs, he was joined onstage by his dad, his uncle and his mate, who are otherwise known as Neil and Tim Finn and Nick Seymour, who are otherwise known as Crowded House! We heard some of it while we were waiting downstairs in the queue for food! After all the rain we had there was a certain irony that when they sang Weather with You, the MCG was bathed in sunlight for the first time in the day! Not long after they went offstage, it rained again! They also sang You Better Be Home Soon which is one of my favourite Crowded House songs. I was trying to conserve memory on my memory card, but I ended up running out on both the card, and the camera, and ended up taking photos on my phone which I am expecting will be of very dubious quality, so here's a short (30 seconds) video.
I love Jack Johnson, and so watching him perform with just his guitar was amazing, and a bit mellow after the great excitement generated by the surprise Crowded House appearance.
Wolfmother was introduced by skate boarding legend Tony Hawkes. This was one of their first outings with a new line up and they were pretty good! They had played in Sydney earlier during the day, and the people in front of the stage were certainly enjoying themselves, but the sound was pretty average, where we were sitting at least. The highlight of their set was definitely The Joker and the Thief.
There had been a lot of hype around a special announcement that was introduced from Sydney by Toni Collette. It turned out to be a prerecorded statement by Prince William and Prince Harry. Not sure it needed to happen but the media has made a pretty big deal of it.
In the newspaper Kylie Minogue was being described as being a Special guest MC. The fact is that she didn't really introduce anyone, but she did come out and do a really good a capella version of I Still Call Australia Home. When I lived in the UK, this song used to be the theme song for Qantas, the Australian national carrier, and when it came on, it would be guaranteed to make me a bit emotional and homesick. I have posted a version of this song before here. Hearing 80000 people singing along was spine tingling.
For many people I am sure the next three acts were the highlights. They definitely were for me! Hunters and Collectors. Split Enz. Midnight Oil. All reformed especially for this gig and all sounding great! Hunters and Collectors are really my era, and they did fantastic versions of Say Goodbye, Do You See What I See, Throw Your Arms Around Me and The Holy Grail. This was probably THE highlight for me, along with Midnight Oil.
Split Enz were a bit before my time, but I did enjoy their performance, and definitely sang along to the songs I knew like I See Red, Six Months in a Leaky Boat
To close, Midnight Oil really rocked the place, in an awesome set that included songs like Beds Are Burning, Power and the Passion, King of the Mountain and Blue Sky Mine. The lead singer of the band is now our Federal minister for the Environment, Culture and the Arts, and has been in politics for a number of years now, but he has lost none of his energy when it comes to entertaining a huge crowd. It seemed fitting that the skies had finally cleared and just above the roof of an iconic sporting venue, there was a clear view of the Southern Cross star formation (this is the formation that appears on the right hand side of the Australian flag) and the moon.
I was wet for more than 12 hours (my trainers are still wet) and I don't think my handbag will ever be quite the same, but it was totally worth braving the weather, and the rush to leave the car park along with thousands of other people, to see such an awesome lineup. The reformed bands all sounded great. Over the next few days I am hoping to sit down and watch some of the acts that performed in Sydney, including at least one more reformed band (Icehouse) and what I suspect was an awesome closing set in Sydney that featured Barry Gibb (from the Bee Gees) and Olivia Newton John.
To give a quick taste of how awesome Hunters and Collectors and Midnight Oil were in their heyday, here are a couple of Youtube clips!
And one of John Farnham and Coldplay from Youtube:
I am assuming that there will be some kind of video release of Sound Relief and I am totally planning to buy it!
Today I am taking my son to his first grown up concert, and it's a good one!
Soundrelief is a fundraising event to help support the victims of the recent bushfires in Victoria. The event in Melbourne is going to be MC'd by home town girl Kylie Minogue.Amongst the bands that are playing today;
Midnight Oil (reforming for this gig) Jet Wolfmother Hunters and Collectors Split Enz (reforming for this gig) Jack Johnson
There is another concert being held in Sydney and that features some great acts as well:
Hoodoo Gurus Coldplay Icehouse
and loads of others!
And now, I am off to get organised otherwise we will be late!
Last night the longlist for this year's Miles Franklin award were announced! I am ashamed to say that I haven't read any of them, and hadn't heard of a few of them!
The Pages - Murray Bail Wanting - Richard Flanagan Addition - Toni Jordan One Foot Wrong - Sofie Laguna Ice - Louis Nowra Fugative Blue - Claire Thomas A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz The Devil’s Eye - Ian Townsend The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas Breath - Tim Winton
In fact, of all those authors I have only read one book by one of those authors and that was Tim Winton.
The Miles Franklin award is arguably the most prestigious prize awarded for Australian Fiction.
Over the last couple of months I have been terrible at acknowledging the awards that I have been given. It's not because I don't appreciate them, because I really, really do, but just that I never have had time to finish off the posts. I even started more posts going into long stories about finding the perfect awards dress, shoes and jewellery but never quite finished those either. When I receive an award I either save the post in Bloglines, or start a post here, so doing this tonight has the effect of having a bit of a clean out of drafts and saved posts, which is a bit overdue!
So here is a list of the awards that I think I have received over the last couple of months. Sorry if I have forgotten anyone.
Thank you so much to the following people for giving me blog awards:
"This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award."
Started by the blogging team at Jane Austen Today the “aim of the Excessively Diverting Blog Award is to acknowledge writing excellence in the spirit of Jane Austen’s genius in amusing and delighting readers with her irony, humor, wit, and talent for keen observation. Recipients will uphold the highest standards in the art of the sparkling banter, witty repartee, and gentle reprove.”
Yesterday afternoon at approximately 4.30pm, I went to the library and picked up all the books that were there waiting for me. A couple of hours later I was checking my account for the due dates so I could add it to my spreadsheet to help me keep track of the due dates and renewals when I noticed that there was already a couple of more books to pick up.
Today at approximately 1.30pm, I went to the library to pick up those books. An hour later, there were already two more books there ready to be picked up.
No really, my library list is definitely still under control. Maybe, just a little bit, still under control??
Today I started reading Angelique and the Sultan by Sergeanne Golon on the train. No problem there either, until you see the cover, which is, shall we say, a little sultry! A lovely 60s style sex kitten pose on a book set in the 17th century! Excellent!
This week has been a busy library week. I am so not doing well at keeping the number of books out down to a reasonable level.
This week I picked up:
TheWinter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - I've borrowed this before but not been able to read it. I hope to this time
Sin and Scandal in England by Melody Thomas - I've read a few of this authors books and liked them, but I had forgotten about them a bit.
The Winding Ways Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini - next book in the Elm Creek Quilt series
Kiss the Night Goodbye by Keri Arthur - I think there has been a bit of a mix up with this one. I don't remember requesting it, but it was there waiting for me to pick up today. The other thing is that it is the fourth book in the series, but I haven't read the first three yet, and I don't often do reading books out of order. This one will be going back to the library in the next visit.
In the Woods by Tana French - I have been aware of this book for a while now and decided to finally request it a couple of days ago based on a review of one of her later books that I saw at Lesley's Book Nook.
A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton - I have been meaning to read this series for years. Today I was browsing the audiobook aisle, and noticed that they had a number of the later books in the series available, so picked up the first book in the series to read and then I can move onto listening to those that the library does have.
3 Willows: A New Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares - Another Secret Sisterhood or something different? I guess I will find out in due course.
The scary thing is that I only went to the library a couple of hours ago, and I already have two more books there to pick up already.
I am determined that tonight I am going to finish writing up my ARRC experience, before I can't remember anything anymore, but first I need to refresh my memory of where I got up to in the last post!
The last couple of hours on Saturday afternoon were allocated for book signings, goodie room visits and Author speed dating sessions. I had decided against book signings on Saturday afternoon as I figured that most people would try to see Mary Janice Davidson and Sherrilyn Kenyan that day. The queue for the goodie room was also huge. I wasn't really 100 percent sure what to expect in the goodie room, as when I have heard them talked about in some of the overseas conferences they have sounded like loads and loads of books and other goodies. There were a few books there, but they were mainly extra copies of the books we had already received in our conference satchel. There were lots of little bits and pieces, quite a few bookmarks, some pens, badges, candles amongst other things.
By far the least attended was the author speed dating session which is I guess a bit disappointing, but then in another way it was quite good for the few of us that were in there because it was really very casual and intimate. One of the people who I was intending to catch up with over the weekend was Tez Miller and it turned out we were sitting right next to each other for most of the session! Among the authors who we heard from were:
Alison Stuart- historical romance set in 17th century. Amy Andrews - writes Mills & Boon Medical category romance Elisabeth Rose - writes for Avalon Press and Wild Rose Press, and has great covers Jess Dee - Samhain author Lexxie Couper Margaret Tanner - writes romance with Australian settings in different periods Tracey O'Hara - who showed us her awesome cover for her book that is due out later this year. Melanie Milburne - also writes category romances, and had us all giggling with stories about talking to her surgeon husband in the middle of operations. Jordana Ryan
I snuck out early as I really wanted to get Alison Stuart's books and get them signed...mission accomplished, then back to the hotel for a chat and to get ready for dinner! Now I had a plan. I had managed to get myself a bed with a couple of friends, and so the plan was to pop open the champagne whilst getting ready and then go off to dinner. That's not quite how it worked out however! The champagne didn't get opened until after I got back from dinner, but we still managed to get through it!
During the day I had had a brief chat with Kat from Book Thingo about sitting together at dinner, so I was sure that I would have at least one person I knew to talk with. I needn't have worried though, because we were sitting with Kat and her librarian, Samhain authors Jess Dee and Lexxie Couper, and several other ladies and it didn't take long a all for everyone to start chatting away. It is fair to say that we had a blast, and guaging by the noise from the other tables they were all having a blast as well.The dinner started off with some antipasto which was nice, but nothing to write home about, the main courses were either chicken or lamb. I liked the chicken but the salad/vegetables it came with were a bit strange and I am pretty sure that the beans were a bit cold when they weren't meant to be. The highlight food wise was definitely dessert, although it did seem a bit of a travesty to watch the young ladies over the other side of the table leave some of the scrumptious mini cakes from Brunettis and watch them go back to the kitchen. I think the only reason they didn't come around our side of the table was that it was going to be a bit awkward watching the five of us squabble over who was going to have which cake! I must schedule a vist to Brunettis for some full size pleasure before too long!
The conversation flowed, the wine flowed, and there was much levity to be had. Most heated discussion was around the very profound topic - who are the hottest Aussie men! Of course, Hugh Jackman got a mention, as did Jessie Spencer, Eric Bana, Adam Garcia and a few others. Unfortunately, a few of the discussions had at dinner need to stay at dinner, because, well some of them may not be exactly safe to read! LOL!
During dinner there were several awards given out. Unfortunately, we were sitting a bit towards the back, oh, and I was too busy chatting to take photos of everyone! The winners were:
Kat also won a great prize for writing the book review voted best by members of the Lounge during the lead up to the conference.
Just as we were all dispersing Kat grabbed me and said "We have to get a photo", to which I inwardly cringed, but outwardly agreed! Turns out Kat can make almost anyone look good! The photo that she has up on Flickr is probably the best photo I have seen of me for a while!
Back to the hotel where there was lots more chatting and laughing and drinking with the girls, along with some strategic planning on how we were going to tackle the signing room on Sunday!
I won't get to finish tonight, but there is not much more to tell. I will save Sunday's tale for a bit later.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
This week I am reading Living With the Dead by Kelley Armstrong, one of my favourite authors. I just love the way she writes! The teaser comes from page 285:
Throughout the fight, she kept control. And it was glorious, the purest adrenaline and chaos rush possible.
I am very excited about an upcoming author event here! Tuesday March 10 marks the start of the virtual tour by Ann Aguirre for her next release, Blue Diablo.
The tour kicks off at The Book Smugglers today, and you can see all the tour stops here! Ann will be stopping by my blog on April 10. I can't wait!
I must let my excitement show a little more than I thought when I get comments on posts here at the blog.
Tonight, I thought my son was asleep, when I came in for one final check of my email etc. I was checking away when I heard a voice from his bedroom say "Have we got any compliments yet?".
No baby. No comments either.
Goodness only knows what messages I send to that child subconsciously! LOL!
It is a public holiday here this weekend because it is Labor Day. So what do you do on a day off when you are not feeling 100%. Well, you make wrestling videos with your child! Bear in mind that the video is taken with my very old digital camera, and that the camera person is not very experienced if you watch them!
Can you tell who my favourite is out of these two wrestlers???
I never actually realised how scary it must be being a wrestler! It would have to given that there is a giant hand that comes into the ring to do the count, as evidenced by this next video:
We are getting very technically advanced now! We even have entrance music! Unfortunately it is only saved on my son's Ipod so it's not the best sound quality, but still!
We don't mention the fact that one of these wrestlers has lost his head before he even gets into the ring! And we won't talk about the fact that I really hate listening to the sound of my voice when it is recorded, even when I am not all nasally like I am today.
Later we even figured out other ways to add music, but I will spare you all the torture of those videos....for now!
I haven't uploaded video to Blogger before. It was pretty easy, but oh my goodness, it took forever to upload! Oh, and I have noticed that when I am at home with my son, I say oh my goodness a lot! If I am at work I use other words! LOL!
And to finish....the star of the show. In the background you can see how perilously overstacked my bookcases are. All the shelves are double stacked with others stacked on top as well! I really need to get a new one or two!
We can't talk about the hair either. He wants to grow an afro, and while he definitely has the hair to pull it off, I have a different opinion!
Easily the shyest Wallflower, Evangeline Jenner stands to become the wealthiest, once her inheritance comes due. Because she must first escape the clutches of her unscrupulous relatives, Evie has approached the rake Viscount St. Vincent with a most outrageous proposition: marriage!
Sebastian's reputation is so dangerous that thirty seconds alone with him will ruin any maiden's good name. Still, this bewitching chit appeared, unchaperoned, on his doorstep to offer her hand. Certainly an aristocrat with a fine eye for beauty could do far worse.
But Evie's proposal comes with a condition: no lovemaking after their wedding night. She will neverbecome just another of the dashing libertine's callously discarded broken hearts -- which means Sebastian will simply have to work harder at his seductions...or perhaps surrender his own heart for the very first time in the name of true love.
I am finding it somewhat curious that my reading patterns seem to be changing a bit. How you may ask? Well, this is a reread, and I don't really do rereads as a rule. Last year, I only reread one book and that was Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. The only reason I reread that one was because the library had it on audio book and I wanted something to listen to, so I picked that up. I didn't reread anything in 2008 or 2007, and in 2006 there was only one book - The Summer of My German Soldier, which I had originally read when I was back in high school - some twenty years before.
Every now and again in the past I have thought about rereading other books, and even a couple of times I have reborrowed a book, but in the end I never got around to reading it. At the moment, I have one book out from the library that I read and loved last year and I am intending to read again soon, and I just finished one book last week, and I am already listening to the author read it which counts as a reread.
I originally read this book about two and a half years ago, when I was madly glomming anything I could find by Lisa Kleypas. These days I have to wait for each new book from Kleypas, as there are only two books from her backlist that I haven't already read because they are a bit hard to get hold of here. I read this book in one sitting and loved it, with just a small issue in terms of the suspense subplots. This time, instead of racing through it, I took a little bit more time to savour the relationship that develops between Sebastian and Evie, and to take note of the little things in their relationship development. Whilst I still remembered the big scenes in the book (the billiard room scene and the scene where Evie makes Sebastian lose their bet for example), there were many smaller scenes that were the stepping stones to those marquee moments in the book that were worth revisiting.
Even though I think that I enjoyed different things this time around, the book itself still stood up well to the reread, and I still rated it at 4.5/5. Evie and Sebastian still go through the wringer (d'uh - the events in the book haven't changed at all!) but I didn't mind so much this time around. If there was one scene that seemed redundant this time around it was the scene between Daisy and Cam Rohan. It was a fun scene and all, but given that I have now read both of their books it didn't seem to need to be there. It is but a minor quibble though.
Now I can go back to just revisiting the 'good' bits until it is time to reread the whole book again.
I was doing okay at keeping the number of books out from the library down, but this week there has been a bit of a blowout! The number has just creeped back to over 40. I will have another book to return tomorrow but still....
The books I borrowed this week were:
Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich Ladies Who Lunch by Linda Francis Lee Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander Dawn Encounter by Jennifer Blake The Master of Verona by David Blixt A Hollow Crown by Helen Hollick The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts You're Out, Dinner's On: the Ultimate Slowcooker Book by Gina Steer
Master of Verona was one of my favourite books of last year, and is Book of the Month over at Historical Fiction Online and all the discussion has given me a yearning for rereading it! Given how rarely I do actually reread we will see if it happens or not!
The weather has changed here temporarily at least, and so I started thinking that I wouldn't mind making some stews and soup type meals, so I borrowed the slow cooker book to hopefully get some inspiration!
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!
This week's teaser comes from page 158 of Norwegian author Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses:
He ran back and threw himself onto his motorbike and immediately stamped hard on the start pedal, but damn it the motor would not start, and he tried again and again and again and then once more, and it suddenly came to life like a shot, and he bent over the handlebars and roared down the farm road and swerved on to the main road with the empty sidecar rattling on the outside in a spray of snow. Coming round that very bend was Jon, on his way home from school with his school bag under his arm, and he heard the motorcycle, and only just managed to throw himself into the ditch to avoid being run over and maybe injured for life.
Phew...long sentences! And I have to say even though I am 75 pages in I have no idea what is going on. I know who Jon is but I have no idea who 'he' is. Guess I will just have to keep reading!
Ever since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma’s stories about Briar Rose. But a promise Rebecca makes to her dying grandmother will lead her on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth of Gemma’s astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose. A journey that will lead her to unspeakable brutality and horror. But also to redemption and hope.
I added this book to the my TBR list when it was reviewed by Rhinoa last year. I am pretty sure that I have also seen it around the place, and talked to a few other people about it as well. This is a Young Adult book, a story about trying to find your identity as well as a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale but instead of the Disney version that we are so familiar with these days, this tale is set in the context of the Holocaust. It was originally published as part of Terry Windling's Fairy Tale series and I have to say that if this is an example of how good that particular series is then I will be reading more of them.
The main character is Rebecca, a young journalist who has always loved listening to her grandmother Gemma's telling of the story of Briar Rose - a version of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. Shortly before her death, Gemma askes Becca to never forget her story and this plea is reiterated when Gemma repeats over and over "I am Briar Rose" on her deathbed. The difficult thing about never forgetting Gemma's story is that no one really knows exactly who Gemma is, what her real name is, or how it was that she came to be in America.
Not long after her grandmother's death, the family finds a wooden box that they have never seen before, and inside there are a few photos and some newspaper clippings that seem to provide some clues as to those unanswered questions. Rebecca is determined to put the pieces together and so she embarks on a journey much more haunting than she could ever have imagined, and meeting new people who can provide some kind of background to her grandmothers life. She is aided in her research by her boss. If there is one weakness with this book it is in this relationship, particularly with the ending. Perhaps this was an effort to echo a fairy tale type relationship but this is one aspect that didn't work for me.
Despite the fact that it is a relatively short book, and there is a sparsity to the writing, there is depth, there is historical detail. In short, there is a really fascinating story that is well worth reading.
It was interesting that Yolen chose to use the Chelmno extermination camp as her main prison camp setting, especially seeing as there were so few people who made it out of that camp, but perhaps that is part of the reason for doing so - the pure horror of the camp cannot be avoided when you read anything about it.
I read this book for both the War Through the Generations Challenge and Bang Bang Reading Challenge and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in WWII fiction.
I am no longer as good as I used to be at writing reviews of everything I read. I have loads and loads of half written reviews sitting in draft. Some of them may see the light of day at some point, but others will languish there in draft form forever! So, it seems like a good idea to do some kind of monthly round up of the books that I have read. This month I will post both January and Februarys reads but going forward it will be just one month. I will link where I have actually posted a review. If there are any books that you would really like to hear my thoughts on, leave a comment and I will do my best to complete the reviews and post them.
The books I read in January were:
The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason 4/5 The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry 4/5 Naughty Neighbour by Janet Evanovich 4/5 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 4.5/5 The Leopard Unleashed by Elizabeth Chadwick 4/5 The Last Queen by C W Gortner 4.5/5 To Seduce a Bride by Nicole Jordan 3.5/5 Secrets of Surrender by Madeline Hunter 4.5/5
I also read one book for the Chunkster Challenge (The Founding at 527 pages), two books for the Art History challenge (Tulip Fever and Signora da Vinci), one book for the War Through the Generations challenge (Briar Rose by Jane Yolen), one for the Pub 2009 challenge (Signora da Vinci by Robin Maxwell). So far for the 100+ Reading challenge I am up to book number 19 for the year, and in the Library Challenge I have already read 14 out of the 50 books that I set as a target for the year.
I am currently reading Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn and that one fits for two challenges so I already have a bit of a head start for March. .
Today we went into the city to a community concert that was being put on by the ABC (our public broadcast service). There were two parts of the concert. In the morning there was the children's concert and in the afternoon concert which was featuring artists such as Mark Seymour, John Schumann and the Choir of Hard Knocks as well as some ABC celebrities and comedians. We didn't plan to stay for the afternoon concert, because our idea for going was really for my nephew who is just about 18 months. The characters who were going to perform at the concert were Dorothy the Dinosaur (friend of the Wiggles), Bananas in Pyjamas, The Fairies (who I had never heard of before) and a few of the Play School presenters. While we didn't stay to the end because my nephew was getting a bit cranky we were able to revisit many of our favourite kids songs. It was a bit unfortunate for my son, who at 10 is way too cool and jaded to actually have fun at an event like this and so spent most of the time being bored!
Anyway, one of the things that I have thought about before, but came up again today was how some of the words of nursery rhymes have been changed. For example, today they were singing Miss Polly had a Dolly. The words I always knew were:
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick So she phoned for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick. The doctor came with his bag and his hat and he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat.
He looked at the dolly and he shook his head. And he said, "Miss Polly put her straight to bed." He wrote on a paper for a pill, pill, pill. "I'll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill."
Apparently, nursery rhyme performers have figured out that there are no doctors around anymore who will defer payment until after treatment because the last line as performed at the concert today was "I'll be back in the morning. Yes I will, will, will".
For another example, not too long ago I was reading my nephew's nursery rhyme book and we got to Three Blind Mice. Here are the words I remember:
Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run, They all ran after the farmer's wife, Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a thing in your life, As three blind mice?
Now admittedly it is pretty gruesome, and like so many nursery rhymes is actually based on events from history, but now the words just seem really tame:
Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they spin, see how they spin, They pin the tail on the kitty cat While wearing silly party hats Have you ever seen such a thing in your life As three blind mice.
I am sure that there are plenty of other examples out there but these are just two that I know of.
As we were leaving one of the Playschool presenters, Jay Laga'aia was singing a version of this song which I really enjoyed. Like so many of our Playschool presenters, Jay is quite a versatile entertainer. He has appeared in many TV series, and even in Star Wars. This isn't Jay singing but it is still a beautiful song.
