One Whole Year of An Armchair by the Sea!

I am a terrible procrastinator. I am also one of those people who gets wildly excited about a project, and for about a month will live and breathe that project and then totally lose interest. When I first started this blog, that's what everybody (myself included) thought it would be, but it's been a year and I'm still going strong!

I know, my graphic skills are brilliant...

Originally started back in January 2011 as a response to my frustration with never being able to remember what I'd read when people asked me to recommend something brilliant, An Armchair by the Sea (originally entitled The Tangled Web We Weave - what was I thinking?!) has been awesome in so many unexpected ways. Always an avid listmaker, I've discovered reading challenges with a vengeance, and have expanded my reading comfort zone beyond all recognition in 2011! I am hosting my first reading challenge in 2012, and I've learned lots (and still have LOTS to learn) about the babble that is HTML. In a year where I've relocated to a completely new part of the country, started a new job, moved house again, and got married, it's been amazing to have a place that's entirely my own where I can just immerse myself in books and related things and forget about the world for a while. Also, living in a rented flat, we can't paint the walls (a horror to my former self - as a teenager I changed the colour of my room approximately every six months to coincide with my mood!), so I substitute changing my blog design around and it stops me from going white-wall crazy.

By now I hope you can tell that I'm going to make a MASSIVE deal of this whole blogoversary thing. I know it's probably not that exciting to lots of people, but in lots of ways I feel like this blog has helped save me this year. 2011 has been tough in many ways and having a focus has helped immeasurably. I just want to give a shout-out to some awesome people (some of whom will have no idea who I am but hey) who helped inspire the blog and have made me smile a lot this year! Firstly Sam, whose blog, Tiny Library, was the first I ever read I think, and who was the first follower I had who wasn't related to me! Her comments back when I wasn't getting any were a big motivation, so thank you! Also, Hanna, who I think I probably mention too much but oh well. She's pretty much my reading twin - reads all the things I've been wanting to read for years, sends me unexpected presents, writes hilarious reviews, understands the mania of car boot sales, and is generally awesome! Go and read her blog and thank me later :-) Then to the blogs (other than the two already mentioned, of course) which are my favourites. These are the ones I know will inspire me to make my own blog better. They are all brilliantly well written, inspiring, and always manage to make me add to my TBR! A Literary Odyssey, Sophisticated Dorkiness, Amused, Bemused and Confused, A Room of One's Own, Dead White Guys, English Major's Narrative, Estella's Revenge, Musings of a Bookshop Girl, Roof Beam Reader, The Book Ladys Blog, Your Move, Dickens, and a couple of recent additions, Delaisse and Reading Fuelled by Tea.

Just to demonstrate the kind of effect blogging has had on my reading, these are the books I read in the past year because of blogger hype/recommendations from bloggers/RAK/Review Copies:

1. Of No Consequence by Sonia Rumzi
2. Olga: A Daughter's Tale by Marie- Therese Browne
3. The Annotated Peter Pan: The Centennial Edition by J.M Barrie
4. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
5. The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, & Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
6. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
7. You Are Next by Katia Lief
8. The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
9. Coming Up For Air by Patti Callahan Henry
10. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
11. The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek
12. The Art of Forgetting by Camille Noe Pagan
13. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
14. Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll
15. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
16. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
17. The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark
18. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
19. Bake Sale by Sara Varon
20. Happily Ever After by John Klima
21. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
22. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Legends in Exile, and Animal Farm by Bill Willingham
23. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
24. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
25. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
26. Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
27. An Autumn Crush by Milly Johnson
28. The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
29. Jane Austen Made Me Do It by Laurel Ann Natress
30. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Out of these books, ten have ended up on my 'best of 2011' list and are up for grabs (I HATE that expression!) in my giveaway!

Now I shall stop, except to say thank you to everybody who reads An Armchair by the Sea, whether you comment or not! You are very much appreciated, as demonstrated by my Blogoversary Giveaway! :-)

First Blogoversary Giveaway Extravaganza!

 

Tomorrow An Armchair by the Sea celebrates its first blogoversary. A suitably gushing and emotional post will be going up then, but as some of you will know, I love to give people bookish presents, so I thought I'd host an awesome giveaway for all you lovely people. Between now and  January 15th you can enter to win one of two amazing prizes! 

For those of you in the UK: 

A book of your choice from my Top Ten Books of 2011 list, just leave a comment with your choice of book, your email and a link to your blog if you have one below and I'll draw a winner on the 15th. 

For International readers:

A choice of either:

 Two Waldo Pancake magnetic bookmarks - I know how it ends and Read this instead of book. I got one for christmas, and they're brilliant.

An Oscar Wilde magnet - Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. 

Your choice of colour of a Go Away I'm Reading cotton tote bag. 

All of these are from my new love, Something Literary, which you should definitely go and check out! To win, just leave a comment with your choice of prize, your email and a link to your blog and I'll draw a winner on the 15th. 

Please remember to leave your email address, as if you don't I won't be able to contact you if you win!

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Books of 2011!

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

There are so many brilliant books I've read during 2011 - many more than ten, but for the interests of winding it all up in my mind and also for the purposes of my Blogoversary Giveaway, (which will be taking place around about January 8th/9th so keep an eye out), here are the top ten!

1. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I don't have a review for this, as I never got around to writing one, but I adored this book, and it's made me a die hard fan of Sarah Addison Allen. Also, the cover is very pretty:

 

2.  How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran - this is probably the most hilarious book I've read since I first read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, aged eleven. Moran is brilliant and talks about all the parts of being a woman that nobody else ever does. 

3. Howards End is On the Landing by Susan Hill - I love books about books, and this was the most absorbing one I read this year. It's a brilliant concept - for one entire year Hill only read the books that she already had in her house. I thought that I had a lot of books, but compared to her I'm an amatuer. I came away from this book with an absolutely gigantic reading list, and it also has a gorgeous cover.

4. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - I discovered this accidentally in the library, and it was my first foray into non-fantasy based graphic novels. I cannot stress enough how hilarious this book is. It's Satrapi's autobiography of growing up in Iran, told in graphic form. I got the film, too, and it's brilliant. 

5. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - 2011 seems to have been my year of reading books about Iran, but Reading Lolita in Tehran was another book about books - about Nafisi's love of books, and her experience of living in a country where they weren't readily available. Her story inspired me, and her bravery in teaching women about literature when they were hardly allowed to do anything amazed me. 

6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - I don't read YA, but so many people were talking about this and it sounded like the kind of thing I might like, and my local library had it, so I caved. I'm so glad that I did. The Hunger Games was brilliant - it made me cry which is a big achievement for a book! I'm not sure about the movie, but I reckon I'll probably give in and see it. I just hope it doesn't kill it for me. 

7. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - this really should have been at number one. It is without a doubt my absolute favourite book of 2011, if not of all time. I have never read anything quite like it before in my life. Not only was it brilliantly written and engaging, it was an absolute work of art, and as soon as I closed it I wanted to read it again. It's been out of our house doing the tour of duty at my mums' for a couple of months, and we are seriously contemplating buying another copy, so we have one to lend and still always have one in the house. If you haven't already read it, read it now and thank me later!

 8.  The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild - A childhood favourite, I re-read this book this year and loved it just as much as I did as a child. Sort of a sequel to Streatfeild's most well - known book, Ballet Shoes, this is the story of the Winter family and their exploits when they take a trip to L.A. 

9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - Circuses are awesome things. This is less magical than The Night Circus, but I loved the storyline. I have still to see the film, but I'm excited about it. 

10. Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O'Malley - a graphic novel about a girl whose soul has been stolen by a cat. If I'd read the Scott Pilgrim series this year, they would definitely be on this list, but as I didn't this one must suffice! 

All of these books will be part of my first blogoversary giveaway in early January so make sure you come back and see me then!

Les Miserables Readalong, Narnia Project and a slight pre-emptive 2011 round - up...

I remember when I was six and the year that I was six seemed to drag out forever. So much of the stuff that happened in my childhood took place in that year. I have absolutely no idea how it is that we're almost at the end of another year - I've been living in Kent for an entire year now, and I've survived! We've just moved house for the second time, to a much bigger, nicer place, and we are (hopefully) finally starting to feel really settled! The weeks seem to fly by now, and sometimes it seems like the only way to measure a month is by how many posts I've managed to write! 

All in all, I'm really pleased with how 2011 has gone... At the beginning of the year I was still fairly relaxed about the wedding planning, only working a few hours a week and living in a one bedroom flat navigating my life around my books. Now I'm living in a two bedroom flat with a reading room, working full time, and most excitingly of all, I'm married! I'm starting to feel like a proper grown up, and while that is scary it's also necessary I think. Although it's not quite the beginning of December and there is still another month of 2011 to go, as I plan to spend most of it re-reading old favourites and finishing off the few Noel Streatfeild books I have on my shelf before the year is up (all of which will be re-reads), I thought now would be as good a time as any to talk about some of my favourite books of the year, and some of the books that I wouldn't have read or bought if it weren't for blogging!

From January 9th 2012 until 14th I'm going to be hosting an awesome giveaway for my first blogoversary! For this giveaway, there will be a question you will need to answer in order to win one of the books from my list of favourites from 2011, my first year of blogging! There are a fair amount to choose from, and I'm thinking that I will pick a couple of winners - probably one from the UK and one international, just so everybody can share the excitement! I cannot stress enough how glad I am that I started keeping this blog back in January. It has had such an effect on my reading life, and has got me through some really lonely, homesick times. It has really helped to know that whatever happens there are always blogs to read, and always awesome people I can talk books (and randomness) with, and I so appreciate that :-)

These are a few of my favourites from this year that I've not had time, internet connectivity, or words to talk about before and I thought if I did it here then there would be a point of reference for people entering the giveaway. These will just be very condensed reviews, and the first up is my favourite of all,

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - About a circus which mysteriously appears without warning, I was so blown away by this book that I still have no proper words to describe it. It's magical, awe-inspiringly written and much more complex and entangled than it appears. A tale of love, magic, adventure, brutality, and so, so much more. You must read this book.

Garden Spells & The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen - Apart from Morgenstern, Sarah Addison Allen is my favourite discovery of 2011. Her books are gorgeous - fairly lightweight, full of magic, food, and feisty women, they always have happy endings without every being completely predictable. Just beautiful.

Howards End is On the Landing by Susan Hill - A non - fiction book subtitled 'my year of reading from home', Susan Hill sets out to read only the books she already owns for a year, and it's basically my favourite kind of book. Full of literary discussion, exploration and lists upon lists, I came away from this book with a headful of questions and pages and pages of lists of books I now want to read. Very well written and enjoyable.

Going Out by Scarlett Thomas - As some of you may know, this lady is one of my all - time favourite authors. The author of eight novels, for some reason her first five are extremely difficult to get hold of, however my awesome husband managed to do just that for me this year, and I've now read all of them! Going Out is about Luke, a boy who is allergic to the sun, and his best friend Julie, and what happens to them when they decide to go out. Summed up like that, it seems kind of lame, but I promise it isn't. It's daring, funny, and as always with Scarlett Thomas, very human, intelligent, and candid.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson - I read this after I watched the BBC adaptation with Jason Isaacs (which I completely loved), and I liked the book a lot. Basically a story about Jackson Brodie, an ex - police officer turned private detective who mostly investigates missing cats, and his foray into the world of real cases, I liked it because Atkinson really humanises her characters, and because the plot was very well thought out. I've recently got my hands on the second in the series, and I'm looking forward to it!

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters- the latest in the Amelia Peabody series of historical crime fiction, based around Egyptology, this confused me intially because it is published out of sequence with the rest of the story. If you like this genre and want an easy read that is hilarious and engaging, Peters is your woman! Amelia Peabody is one of my favourite heroines, because she's such an unlikely one, and such an independent woman :-)

So, that's pretty much that. Now onto yet another thing I've signed up for in 2012....

Kate is hosting a year long readalong of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables in 2012. The idea is to read small chunks of the books to a schedule with the other participants and then talk about it. I've not had much luck with French literature this year - I've DNF'd both Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, and Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I'm hoping that my enduring love for Les Miserables the musical will help sustain me through this one, wish me luck!  

Rikki's Teleidoscope is hosting the Narnia Reading Project in 2012. I love this series and am way past due for a re-read so I'm going to join in! There is no schedule, so I will just post about the books as and when I read them! To sign up, use the link above :-)



Review: - Still Alice by Lisa Genova

I’d read quite a bit about Still Alice on various people’s blogs a while back, and then I found it in the library and thought I’d give it a whirl. It was Biopsychologist and Neurologist (wow..) Lisa Genova’s debut novel, and although I was initially apprehensive about reading it because of its subject matter (Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease), I’m really glad that I did.

Alice Howland is a fifty year old Harvard psychology professor, married to another successful Harvard professor, and with three grown up children. She thinks everything is going brilliantly, when she suddenly starts to forget things. Initially small things like forgetting why something is on her to-do list, but progressing to missing a flight to Chicago, and not being able to remember what she is supposed to be lecturing about cause her to seek medical advice. When she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, Alice feels like her world is falling apart, and she and her family must learn to cope with her gradual decline.

This book was beautifully written. At the moment I tend to be looking for books to uplift me and make me happy and I didn’t think that a book about Alzheimer’s would do that, but Lisa Genova’s style was really engrossing and emotive. The structure of the book reflects Alice’s mental state; at the beginning it is very fluid and articulate, but as her disease progresses the gaps in the narrative become greater. Because it is all told from her point of view, when she cannot remember things, you hear that in the narrative. At one point, she sleeps for an entire two days, and when she reaches the point of no longer recognising her children, she assigns them titles; ‘the actress’ and ‘the mother’. I loved Alice’s strength and determination and I thought that her dignity in the face of such an undignified disease was inspirational. Because she is so intelligent and has always been so completely in control of her life, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s when she is only fifty, although always shattering, is probably more so to her than it would be to other people. Genova has given herself an extreme end of the spectrum of humanity to work with, and she portrays Alice’s point of view beautifully.

For me, though, the most interesting part of the story was the effect of Alice’s disease on her relationships with her family. Because of the kind of Alzheimer’s that she has, there is a 50% chance that each of her children will have inherited it, and one of her daughters is trying to have a baby. If she gets pregnant, then any child she had would also have the 50% chance of inheriting the disease. Alice has to tell her children that not only does she have a progressive, degenerative disease which may make her forget them completely, and for which there is no cure, but also that there is a strong chance that any or all of them may also have the disease, which could lead to their children also inheriting it. What an awful thing to have to do and Genova portrays it so strongly. Throughout this and many other scenes in the book, Alice is the pillar of strength – her husband John goes into denial about everything that is happening pretty much straight away and never really comes out of it apart from to patronize her. I have to admit that I really didn’t care much for him at all, but I think that the purpose of the character was to really show the different ways of reacting to a disease.

Still Alice really showed the strains that Alzheimer’s can put on a long and happy marriage, especially at such an early age, where the partner is often still in employment – in the case of John an employment which Alice says is his passion in a way that she never was. I got angry about the fact that throughout the book he seemed to be picking his career over Alice, but of course it is a choice. No matter how much it seems like it should be an obvious one, everybody isn’t the same, and while it may seem a no –brainer to most people, other people have different sets of priorities. To me, it just really seemed like John was used to having this super intelligent, independent, driven woman for his wife and couldn’t really cope when she changed and became incredibly dependent on him.

Despite having thought that it wouldn’t be an uplifting read, I ended the book with a little smile on my face. Without being overly sentimental or predictable, it made me feel that little bit better about the world, which is really what I’m looking for at the moment. Although I didn’t have as dramatic a reaction to it as I’ve had to books like Reading Lolita in Tehran or The Night Circus, it has made its’ quiet way onto my Best of 2011 list, and so will be up for grabs in my Blogoversary giveaway in January. Watch this space...

October Summary

October was a really quiet month on the blog, for which I apologise. I’ve been married coming up to two months now, and the time’s just flown by! As well as returning to work and the run-up to Christmas (yes, I know it’s early, but that’s what you get for working in retail!), we’ve had a family situation to deal with, and are also in the process of confirming dates etc for moving house! I’m really excited about the move, as it will mean that we’ll have a second bedroom, which I’ve been given permission to turn into a reading room! I am literally *so* excited I’ve been pretty much running round in circles since we found out. Also since the new place is on the ground floor, I’ll finally be able to get a piano, the lack of which I’ve been feeling severely for the past year! The bad news is that it may mean that our internet connection is even more sporadic than at present, which to be honest I can’t even imagine, but hopefully we’ll be able to find a way around it!

What I have managed to post this past month or so has been mostly rambling and updates rather than actual reviews, and I am so behind that I think it’s unlikely I’ll actually manage to catch up with myself before the end of the year, but I will try!

And now for the exciting news!

Drumroll........

On January 9^th An Armchair by the Sea turns one!

I actually cannot stress how much of a gigantic achievement this will be for me. I’m the kind of person who is forever getting really excited about projects and fully immersing myself in them for about a week before getting bored and giving up, so the fact that I’ve actually kept this going semi-regularly for an entire year is nothing short of a miracle. I think it may actually be the first project I feel like I’ve succeeded in since I was a little kid, and I cannot describe the awesomeness of the feeling that gives me! Obviously, I want you lovely readers to feel as awesome about this as I do, so I’m currently trying to think up something fun to celebrate with. Any suggestions or ideas will be greatly appreciated, and there will undoubtedly be an incredibly gushy, rambling post about how much I love blogging and you book bloggers nearer the time!

Anyway, back to October. I may not have blogged a lot, but here’s what I read:

1.       A Conspiracy of Violence – Susanna Gregory

2.       A River in the Sky – Elizabeth Peters

3.       Blood on the Strand – Susanna Gregory

4.       Death: The Time of Your Life – Neil Gaiman

5.       Fables: Legends in Exile – Bill Willingham

6.       Franny & Zooey – J.D Salinger

7.       Persuasion – Jane Austen

8.       Snuff – Terry Pratchett

9.       The Annotated Peter Pan; The Centenary Edition – J.M Barrie & Maria Tatar

10.   The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

11.   The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake – Aimee Bender

12.   Whip It – Shauna Cross

So all in all, a pretty good reading month! It also saw the arrival of my first ever 24 hour readathon, which I adored and will definitely be participating again in April!

From a sense of great achievement, to a bit of a disappointment.... I went to work out how I’m doing on all my various challenges, and realised that I basically suck and haven’t got anywhere near target on any of them. This being my first year of blogging and given my obsession with lists, I think that I *may* have got slightly carried away, so next year I am definitely going to take on less! There will be some posts going up during the week about some of the challenges I’m planning to participate in next year. For 2011, I’m focusing on The Graphic Novel Challenge and The Historical Fiction Challenge, as they’re the two that I’m close enough to completing to finish by the end of December!

If all goes to plan, I should have quite a lot on the blog for you guys to read this coming week, hope you have a good one! I’m going to get back to the packing.... :-/

*forgot to mention - I also joined NaNoWriMo this week. Late, I know, and with no discernible idea of what it is I actually want to write, but I'm hoping it will get me into good habits. Plus two of my younger sisters are doing it and they were shaming me!*