How Reading Mirrors Life Events...

Until the last few days I was on a bit of a roll, reading wise. Then some stuff happened, about which I won't whine because a) there's no point and b) you're probably all getting sick of me being vague about the thing I'm not going into detail about which has been affecting our family for a couple of years. So yes, stuff happened and suffice to say the past couple of days has been rough. My reading has kind of gone to hell. 

By which I don't mean that I'm not reading. Oh no. Instead, I've started a lot of books. I'm currently midway through/in the first chapter of a grand total of six books. It's probably fairly obvious I'm concentrating on none of them. The most logical of the books I'm currently reading is Little Women, which you probably know I tend to return to year after year and especially during times of stress. Because I know it so well it doesn't matter that I pick it up and put it down and in fact I started it this week two thirds of the way through from a previous reading a couple of months ago. It generally makes me feel better, and it is still working its' magic, it's just that my state of mind is too fragmented to really settle into anything. 

Yesterday, after a particularly brilliant (note the heavy sarcasm) morning during which Benji somehow managed to chuck himself head first out of his cot - seriously, he must have done a somersault over the bars because he ended up lying with his feet away from the cot - during his 'nap' time and nearly gave me a heart attack, I picked up The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, needing something to do while sitting on the floor outside his room desperately listening to make sure he didn't do it again, and hoping it would be soothing. It is so far I have to say. I'm not sure what it is about the Brontes but they have an ability to soothe even while their books are generally not about the most soothing of subjects. Also, it's short, and it's the Oxford World Classics edition, which has lots of extra material, as well as Charlotte Bronte's unfinished novel, Emma at the end, so the fragments suited my fragmented mood. 

I'm also halfway through The Girl who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (dammit why can I never get the titles of this series right without looking?!) by Catherynne M. Valente, which is so far as brilliant as the previous two and also good for unsettled reading because it's in short chapters, and is generally quite Alice in Wonderland ish and makes you feel a bit trippy anyway. So yes. Then I did that thing where you read a book till you're about halfway through and are really into it, and then somehow manage to get distracted by something shiny (hi, Little Women!) and put it down with Eating for Britain by Simon Majumdar, which is a really interesting non-fiction look at all the 'typical British' foods. I will pick it up again because it's also in short chapters, as well as being divided into sections for each meal. Plus, it's really interesting and so distracts me from the things. 

So yeah, basically my reading it all over the place at the moment and I've probably spent more time reading and re-reading Wow! Said the Owl, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and Pilchard and the Field Mice to Benji than I have actually reading from my own books. Also today, just for good measure, I started reading How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood. So far it's really interesting, but I've nearly finished chapter one so I'll probably move on to something else in a minute....

Does anyone else have this problem where their reading is really tied up with their moods, or do you just keep going regardless? 

Non-Fiction Mini Reviews: At Large and At Small and Wishful Drinking

 I'm apparently on a bit of a non-fiction kick at the moment. I'm not sure why, but where I generally have huge trouble reading non-fiction quickly (like, it usually drags out for so long that I eventually give up), I've been devouring it in the past few weeks. I have a few more non-fiction titles on their way into the library for me so let's hope it holds out! 

At Large and At Small was my first encounter with Anne Fadiman. To be honest, really I was after Ex Libris or The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down, both of which have been on my wishlist forever, but this was the one that Kent library services had and I'd reached the point where I'd been hearing brilliance about her for so long that I just had to read something and find out whether she lived up to the hype, and oh my goodness she so does. At Large and At Small is a collection of what Fadiman calls 'familiar essays'. It turns out that familiar essays are the kind of essays I like to read, and they range in subject from butterflies, through Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Arctic explorers, to coffee and ice cream. There wasn't an essay in the collection that I didn't enjoy reading. Fadiman's style is just lovely - informative and incredibly well put together without being boring or preachy. Her writing flows beautifully and I may even have to go out and actually purchase her other two books now. This is the kind of book that I'm sad came from the library, because it means I can't keep it. I want to keep it, dammit! 

Just one example of the loveliness of At Large and At Small:
"Now, under the watchful eye of a husband so virtuous that he actually prefers low-fat frozen yogurt, I go through the motions of scooping a modest hemisphere of ice cream into a small bowl, but we both know that during the course of the evening I will simply shuttle to and from the freezer until the entirety of the pint has been transferred from carton to bowl to me."

I do this. This is me, with the exception that my husband is right there with me, pretending he's not going to help eat the entire thing....

The other non-fiction book I've currently finished is Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, which the lovely Nahree sent me as part of the Valentine's Ninja Book Swap. 

I've heard a lot about this book - a lot of people raved about how hilarious it was months/years ago and I was hopeful for it. To be honest, it was a little bit of a let down. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed reading it and it was very interesting, for example how did I have no idea that Debbie Reynolds is Carrie Fisher's mother?? But it didn't make me laugh out loud once. It didn't even really make me snigger. I smiled a few times, but that was it. It was a bit funny, but nowhere near as hilarious as the internet hype monster would have us believe. 

If you're a Star Wars fan it makes very interesting reading though, because the whole way through it there are little hints of her raging bitterness towards George Lucas. I don't get the feeling that she hates the Star Wars films as much as she hates forever being seen as Princess Leia, maybe? Anyway, that side of it was interesting. I didn't really get why it was called Wishful Drinking, though, because aside from the fact of her being an alcoholic and addict in various forms, it's not really about drinking... Anyway! It probably sounds like I hated it and I really didn't. I still want to read her second book, and I'm still pushing this on Rhys the minute he finishes Artemis Fowl. So it was good, but once he's done I think it will be going on ReaditSwapit. Whereas At Large and At Small, if I only owned a copy, would be going straight on my most sacred keeper shelf. 

A Brief Break for Illness...

Tonsilitis has reared its ugly head here, which is why it's quiet here. I have a lot of books to review, but between Rhys and I both being varying degrees of ill, keeping Benji entertained, and keeping the house vaguely tidy while being 6 months pregnant (and work, obviously), there's not a lot of concentration left for reviewing I'm afraid! 

Just in case you miss me, I've relocated my craft blog (to here) and I've been blogging there a bit, as it generally takes less concentration than talking about the awesome books I've been reading (Life After Life, Wishful Drinking, At Large and At Small and The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott - reviews of all coming soon, I promise!), so if you miss me you know where to go! :-) 

I'll be back soon, really I will. 

Valentine's Ninja Book Swap AWESOMES

So the Valentine's Ninja Book Swap happened. It was the biggest one so far thanks to the awesomeness of Twitter, and obviously that's meant it's thrown up a few new problems we'd not anticipated, but really, in light of the fact that participation levels have tripled since the Halloween Swap, not as many as expected. The very vast majority of people seem to have had a brilliant swap, which I love. It's so nice to see people 'meet' new bloggers and making new friends as well as getting some lovely stuff. 

Speaking of which, I signed up to send and receive two parcels this time, and as the second on arrived today I decided now was the time to show you all my goodies! 
**WARNING** My parcels were particularly great and you will be jealous. I'm kind of sorry, but not that sorry, because... they're great :-p 

Parcel 1, from Sheli of Sheli Reads turned up in the middle of a storm and brightened up my day immeasurably! 

Contents: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (which I'm already half way through and it's amazing!), The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, an awesome Alice in Wonderland card which I am actually in love with, 2 creme caramel tea bags, which we've tried one of and which are lovely, a bar of gorgeous chocolate, a Wuthering Heights lined notebook which I'm planning to use as a review notebooks, and mini lovehearts, refreshers and fizzers :-D I may have slightly eaten to lovehearts and refreshers and half the chocolate within about ten minutes of the parcel arriving. I regret nothing. 

And parcel 2 from lovely Nahree of Etudesque was waiting for me when I got home from work today. 

Apologies for the not great photography but I was really excited to get this post up and show you all my things :-) The note in this was sealed with gold wax (how cool!) and the books were wrapped prettily and the tea was in lovely coloured tissue paper, but I was in a rush, like I said, so you don't get a photo of the before pretties I'm afraid! Nahree wrote a really lovely note with a little contents list of what was inside, and drew hints on the front of each mystery book, which made it really fun to open! 

Here's what I got, in case you can't see:

- Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

- 'Blue eyes' black tea mix from a local to her tea shop, which I'm drinking as I write this and it is gorgeous. I may be employing her as my new tea supplier :-p 

- Ferrero Rocher chocolate, which is one of the best chocolates ever!

- Some beautiful stationery that I didn't photograph at all well, but it's cream and gold and so so pretty :-) 

- Sweethearts & Skittles, which I'm excited about. Skittles I love, but sweethearts I've never had until now and they're awesome!

- A lemon bar snack, just in case all the sweets weren't enough :-) 

Thank you so much to both of my lovely swappers, you have both made my swap amazing and actually made me feel better about the state of the world in general knowing that there are such lovely people out there!

If you took part in the swap and have blogged about it don't forget you can link up your post here and if you'd like to take part in the next swap in June and want a reminder email closer to the time, send us an email at ninjabookswap(at)outlook(dot)com! 

Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons I Love Being a Reader/Book Blogger

I love the topic for this week, and although I don't always take part in Top Ten Tuesday I couldn't resist making a list for this topic! 

In case you're not aware, Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely ladies of The Broke and the Bookish. Each week we make a top ten list based around a different bookish theme and it's a great way to find new blogs and be inspired!

There are a LOT of reasons I love being a reader, and a lot of reasons I love being a book blogger, so getting them down to ten could be tough... Here goes!

1. I love being a reader because it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing, reading transports me. I can be alone, miles from home, having the worst day ever and I know that if I have the right book with me, it will help me and comfort me almost as much as having a friend or family member there could. And if that sounds lame, I don't care because...

2. I love being a reader because it's my thing. Everybody who's known me a while know that I read a lot and own a ridiculous amount of unread books. They've started coming to me for recommendations and I love it :-) 

3. I love being a reader because it makes me smarter. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been able to answer pub quiz questions or spout obscure facts that I've read somewhere. Obviously, it's the important things in life :-p 

4. I love being a reader because I love the possibilities. I collect books like some people collect art or whatever. I love the feeling of finding a new book to read and looking through my shelves and seeing all the things I could possibly read if I wanted to, and 

5. I love being a reader because I love that I'm creating possibilities for other people. There is nothing I love more than people coming to my house and looking through my shelves and finding things they want to read that they had no idea even existed. 

6. I love being a reader because I love sharing my love of books with my son. It's amazing to me to see how his own love of stories is growing daily. He sits and 'reads' his books by himself now, turning the pages and everything, and brings me his favourites to read to him. At the moment he giggles from start to finish of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy and adores We're Going on a Bear Hunt. 

7. I love being a book blogger because I love having a space to talk about books, where nobody judges me for being a huge geek and getting really over-involved in the storyline and talking about characters as if they were real. 

8. I love being a book blogger because I have met some of my favourite people through blogging, and I never expected that to happen. 

9. I love being a book blogger because it's allowed me a space to create some brilliant things, most recently the Ninja Book Swap! Although Hanna and I are still sorting out a few  issues this latest one has thrown up, it's been an amazing success so far and it just makes me so happy that there are such lovely people in the world who want to send complete strangers pretty parcels. 

10. I love being a book blogger because I'm totally socially awkward and through the internet I'm able to talk to people (publishers, authors etc) who I would never normally think of approaching, and engage with other book bloggers with way more confidence than I would face to face. 

The Great Fables Crossover by Bill Willingham

For those who have no idea what Fables is (and if this is you, why??) the basic idea is that all of the fairytale characters you've ever heard of (and the ones you haven't) have fled their homelands during a war with an enemy known as the Adversary, and are now living in a new Fabletown, in New York. That was the premise in the beginning, anyway. A lot has happened since then. 

I was a little bit confused at the beginning of this volume, because I haven't yet started the Jack of Fables series, and so I felt a bit like I was missing some information. I do plan to get to the series at some point, but as Jack pops in and out of the main Fables storylines, I wasn't completely adrift, and I still have seven volumes of Fables to go (and I'm pretty sure there'll be at least one more before it ends next year), and two of Bill Willingham's new series, Fairest, so it might be a while!

This latest volume takes place after all the drama with the Adversary is over, after the battle of Fabletown, and it has a new (ish) villain and a cast of characters in the form of the Literals, who are embodiments of ideas and thoughts rather than fairytale characters of imagination, like most of the fables. The plot is pretty similar to a lot of the preceeding volumes; various fable characters (this time Bigby and Snow White along with a few others) set off on a mission to defeat an enemy who threatens their very existence. Things happen along the way... But somehow, despite its slightly formulaic approach, The Great Fables Crossover manages to have characters you want to read about and be unpredictable enough to keep you hooked right until the end. 

As a whole, I love this series, but I do go up and down with how much I enjoy individual volumes. Some just aren't as gripping as others, but I would say that on the whole this was one of my more favoured ones. The plot is strong and I really enjoy the way that Willingham and his collaborators weave narratives together - one of my favourite things about the Fables series is that unexpected people keep turning up and the story is continually taking unexpected turns. While I don't love it as much as I loved the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, it's definitely a very close second and a brilliant addition to my fairytale reading. Plus it goes really well with Season One of Once Upon a Time, which we're catching up with on Lovefilm at the moment!

I have a hard time writing about Fables as a series, purely because I like it so much and I want everybody to go out and read it so we can talk about it now, please? And I don't want to ruin it at all for you, so I try to talk about it without talking about specifics, which makes it difficult to talk about at all, really. All I can say is, I'd like Rose Red back now, please. Enough moping already! 

Babies, Books and Things

I've been awol for a little bit, which has partly to do with doing a lot of tweeting about the Ninja Book Swap, partly to do with doing a lot of crafting and so not having that much time to read, and partly to do with sheer laziness... This week I finished Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson, which was good and I've started writing a review of it which I will finish this week. Really I will. I also started reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath for the Classics Spin, and so far it's going better than expected. I remember liking it when I read it last in school, but I actually remember nothing else about it whatsoever, so it's kind of like reading it for the first time, and it's been easy reading so far. As some relief from mental breakdown I'm also reading The Great Fables Crossover (volume 13 in the Fables series) by Bill Willingham, which was my Valentine's/ anniversary present from Rhys, and which is, as usual with the Fables series, also really good. 

Because my sister and her boyfriend were down for the weekend, we actually got to go out by ourselves during the evening yesterday and went to the cinema for the first time in like a year. We saw The Monuments Men and it was brilliant. I don't talk about films too much here usually but this film is just amazing. If you have any interest in history or culture or just a really cool story (or George Clooney) you should definitely see it!

So the most important news is that I'm now nearly 22 weeks pregnant and a couple of weeks ago I had my 20 week scan and found out that I'm having another boy! :-) I waited till now to announce it here (and haven't got around to scanning my scan pictures in yet so there's not a picture at the moment) because we had to go back today for a rescan as they couldn't see certain important bits last time and needed to check everything was ok, but this morning the baby was very well behaved and showed them everything they needed to tick off and everything is going really well so far, except that my knee has randomly buggered up this afternoon and I can't crouch, but you know, I'm sure I'll be fine.. 

There's probably not going to be a huge amount going on here over the next week or two. I have a few posts planned and will hopefully get a review or two finished, but if you want to check out what I'm doing instead, head over to my Etsy shop or my Facebook page!