I keep waiting for winter to start. I mean, properly start. I'm living in a state of perpetual expectancy and it's spoiling an otherwise hassle-free winter. Not to mention, as much as I like the lack of snow and ice, I don't feel comforted thinking about why. We've had so many warm days, days when it's even gone above 0 (though generally it's been freezing, just very dry). It is Not a Good Sign.

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I had my appointment with the allergy doctor last week, forgot to mention. What are they called? I mean, do they have a fancy name, like "dermatologist"?

I didn't learn anything new, but had some things confirmed. They did those allergy tests up my arms, and confirmed that I'm allergic to dust, grass, pollen, weeds, ragweed, dogs and cats. The ragweed not so much - it's what I think of as a common Canadian allergy because of the kinds of trees they have here. The main ones are dust, grass, dogs and cats - dogs more than cats, I think. Considering that Adam's parent's house is dust-free, the hyper-allergenic dog seems the likely culprit. I know I started getting hayfever (I call it hayfever even though I should say "allergic reaction" just cause, I dunno, I'm Australian?) on Christmas after I had to hold the dog by the collar when some visitors came. The doctor was of the opinion that there's no such thing as a non-allergenic dog, that you can be allergic to anything.

He might think I'm a bit of an idiot for not wanting to get rid of the cats, but they're important to me. Fortunately (for his opinion of me) I didn't tell him I have no intention of keeping the windows closed in summer either! We don't have air conditioning and to be honest I don't like it anyway, even though opening the windows only works if there's a cool breeze. But the cats haven't been giving me any problems really, not lately, though I can't snuggle them.

So I have medication, for allergies and asthma - I have a bit of asthma and he did manage to scare me with talk of lung scarring and permanently reducing the - strength? Capacity? of my lungs over time. I wonder how much of it is really caused by shallow breathing? Seriously. I have my ventolin, and now I have another puffer that has cortizone steroid in it for healing my lungs, if I have to use the puffer more than 3 times in a week, or before I visit Adam's parents. I honestly can't see me needing it. Oh and a nasal spray - now this has helped with my sinuses, post-cold. And I'm sure all this medication will be helpful come spring and summer, but I still have a hard time taking my allergies seriously! Maybe I'm just stupid and stubborn and don't want to make any big changes or anything. Maybe it's just from growing up on a farm and having to do farm work despite getting hayfever and other allergies? Food for thought.

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I got to see Sherlock Holmes on Sunday!! No, not with Adam, don't get your hopes up - he had a reprieve! I went with a friend from work. It was great, I loved it - beautifully filmed, very funny, and Robert Downey Jr exuded charisma - and Jude Law was really good too.

If you ever get the chance, I really recommend the BBC series Murder Rooms - or what I always think of as the Dr Bell series. It was on the ABC in 2000/2001 so it's not that old. It's about Dr Bell and Mr Doyle, based on the real-life Dr Bell who inspired the character Sherlock Holmes - he was Doyle's tutor at Edinburgh University and did forensic work on the side; in fact, he pretty much invented forensic work and crime scene investigation. It was an excellent series.

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I picked up just a few books over the last week:




Finding Nouf by Zoë Ferraris - I've been wanting this book for ages, since I saw it on Goodreads. I finished this last night, it's a "literary detective novel", a murder mystery, set in Saudi Arabia. I really enjoyed it but don't hold your breath for a review any time soon, it's gonna take me a while because I'm still behind!

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa - this was recommended by my Goodreads friend Boof (The Book Whisperer). It's set in Palestine around the time of the creation of Israel. I'm really looking forward to reading it.

The Other Book by Philip Womack - this was recommended to me ages ago by someone on Goodreads and now I can't find who! None of my friends there have read it, except for one who "lost interest" - doesn't sound good does it! But, I know there was a reason why it's been on my Amazon wish-list for so long, and who knows, it may be a great book?

Sisters in War: a Story of Love, Family and Survival in the New Iraq by Christina Asquith - yet another title picked up from A Striped Armchair. I have so many great non-fiction titles on my shelves (they get their own special book case, though they do have to share it with memoirs!) but I am way behind in reading them. Every year I tell myself: read more non-fiction. Crossing my fingers for better results this year!

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My sister Renée is arriving on Valentine's Day - this Sunday! We had to buy an air mattress because Adam's parents got rid of the fold-up bed that worked so well when my best friend stayed with us a couple of years ago, but they're handy things to have around anyway.

I can't believe it's been four years - four years! - since I last saw my family.

More ridiculous news. So I heard the court ruled that Men At Work have to pay back royalties for "Land Down Under" - I hope they had some pretty convincing evidence because I don't buy it.

More ridiculous? The IOC asked the Australian Olympic team to take down the big flag of the boxing kangaroo in Vancouver because, get this, it's against their policy regarding the use of registered trademarks as being "too commercial"!!

The AOC (Australian Olympic Committee) owns the rights to the flag, which is our national sporting flag and an image that we've been using for over a hundred years. So yes, it is a registered trademark. An Olympic one!! They use it at every Games.

I was proud to hear the Aussies say they wouldn't take it down until they'd received a direct order to, and that they weren't taking it seriously and all, but I'm also really pissed at the hypocrisy of it.

I would love to see fewer registered trademarks. McDonalds, for one. All those credit card companies and anything else that squeezes a tenuous connection between sport and some product we don't actually need but have been told we want.

How can they have the gall to want to ban the boxing kangaroo - symbol of our fighting spirit - and yet allow golden arches and other similar crap to decorate every venue?! The boxing kangaroo isn't selling a consumer item, especially not one as unhealthy as McDonalds. (They're playing an ad here featuring a Canadian winter Olympian eating a McDonalds burger at the airport when this annoying girl comes over to her and starts gushing about McDonalds, terrible ad; the funny thing is that you never once see the athlete putting the food in her mouth, and she looks like she hates herself for being in the ad. Can't blame her.) As everyone knows, the IOC shamelessly makes deals with commercial companies and it's hard to find an even more widely watched that's more heavily smothered with advertising.

I just heard on CBC radio that the company that owns the rights to the Kookaburra song is suing Men At Work for plagiarism for "Land Down Under" (for back royalties, in other words).

I don't hear it. They have completely different tunes! Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit of a stretch?

"Land Down Under" is one of my daggy old favourites - I used to sing it at kareoke in Japan! I like the excuse to include it today. Bunch o'dags! Where the hell did they film the desert scenes? Doesn't look anything like Australia!





There weren't any good clips of the Kookaburra song sorry. There was one atrocious one of an American singing it completely wrong! And worse. So I'll spare you. But I suspect you know it anyway.

I am just in the middle of making pizza and need to do dishes too so we have something to eat off (story of my life), so I'm squeezing this post in. Half finished. February isn't looking much better than January, to be honest. I don't even have reviews yet for the last four!

Hopefully this weekend .... but that's what I always tell myself!

JANUARY BOOKS

Books Read: 11
Books Read to Date: 11 (duh)
Books Read for "2010 TBR Challenge": 1 - The Spell Book of Listen Taylor
Most Enjoyed: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali - though I don't know if "enjoyed" is really the right word to use! And Jane Bites Back was lots of fun, as was Succubus Blues.
Least Enjoyed: The Corrections and Cassandra's Conflict
Currently Reading: Here Be Dragons (for the TBR challenge) and Finding Nouf - still haven't finished The City of Dreaming Books. I have a poor excuse: it's really heavy!
Upcoming Book club Read: Catch-22 - haven't started yet. Have to keep reminding myself that Feb's a short month!


Hale, Shannon: Princess Academy

Ford, Michael Thomas: Jane Bites Back

Moriarty, Jaclyn: The Spell Book of Listen Taylor (this is actually I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes, renamed and re-released for a YA audience - it's originally written for adults so it's a bit weird - so that knocks off another TBR book! 2 for 1! Good start)

Hardy, Thomas: Jude the Obscure

Alleyn, Fredrica: Cassandra’s Conflict

Jinks, Catherine: Evil Genius

Guhrke, Laura Lee: The Marriage Bed

Franzen, Jonathan: The Corrections

Mead, Richelle: Succubus Blues

Lukyanenko, Sergei: The Night Watch

Courtemanche, Gil: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

Hope my Aussie friends and family had a good Australia Day on Tuesday - I actually forgot on the day but a few friends remembered, I was so surprised that they would even know the date! I looked up who won the Hottest 100 but of course I don't know the band. I saw that Flight of the Concords had a song in though! That's funny.

My cold arrived. Today my sinuses are congested and my ears are blocked; it really hurts. I've been taking pseudoephedrine for it but it's not really working - bought the wrong brand perhaps? These are Advil ones and they're doing bugger-all. I also picked up Oil of Oregano, which friends at work recommended - toxic in large doses and tastes awful (it burns your mouth it's so strong!), but supposed to do wonders. Still chugging down the Cold-FX and someone else gave me echinacea (sp?) and, what was it, something to do with olives? And Strepsils of course.

But at least the cold is just in my throat and nose. So it's been a bit of a shitty week but mostly I'm just exhausted all the time, and can't sleep well because I can't breathe properly or my throat hurts. But it'll pass.

It's freezing outside but we're having a freakish winter - it's only snowed about three times so far and not very much at that - and on Thursday we twice had very brief, very sudden freak snow storms that came and went without leaving much evidence behind. Global warming, it's here to stay!

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Picked up a few new books this week but didn't go overboard:



Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: the Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women by Sally Armstrong - I've been wanting to read this since it first came out but I've been waiting for the paperback. My last post about reading more books from around the world (setting or author or both) reminded me to look for this to see if the paperback was out, and I'm thrilled that it is!

My Life in France by Julia Child - we watched the movie last weekend and I loved it, mostly the parts about Julia, she really made me laugh! I found her so endearing I wanted to read her story for myself. I don't like movie tie-in covers but you often can't find any other editions when the films come out.

The Most Beautiful Book in the World and Other Stories by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt - what can I say but that I bought this for the cover? Well, actually, it's more that the cover caught my eye and then the blurb intrigued me. I'm easy that way ;)



Ecstasy Unveiled by Larissa Ione - the fourth book in her Demonica series. I enjoyed the first three, they're well-written and with a heavy Fantasy leaning, but I haven't been reading many romance books lately so I don't know when I'll get around to it.

The Scarletti Curse by Christine Feehan - yes I know, her books are as tacky as the covers. Her writing is almost always terrible, her characters all the same, her plots almost identical. But I keep reading them. This is a separate book from her Carpathian series but seems to be the book to read before reading Dark Symphony, the 10th book, and I need to read that one before I read Dark Celebration, which is a kind of reunion story, and I need to read that one before I can read Dark Possession and all the "new" ones! Exhausting I know. I had to hunt this one down on Amazon because the bookshops never have it. It's sure to be bad, but so bad it's good, know what I mean?

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Now I have to write 6 book reviews that have been piling up for over a week. I don't know if my stuffy head can really handle it but I don't want to fall too far behind!

We book nerds love our lists. Sad, but true. Well, here's a new one for you ...

Eva at A Striped Armchair has a brilliant new post showing - complete with snazzy maps - the countries she travelled to in 2009 ... through books! Which turns out to be 92, by the way (cripes she reads a lot!). It's such a great idea though, I thought I'd see where I went - either setting or where an author's from - though I don't have the time or expertise to create the cool maps Eva did! (Seriously, click on the link and check it out. She has some great recommendations too.)

Since I read quite a bit of genre fiction, I have a pretty short list, but there is some genre fiction mixed in here too. I may have missed a few by simply forgetting where they were set, but not many. This is good motivation, for me to see the results and try to beat it this year: to aim for more reading experiences from across the globe than before, books that take me to new places and new experiences, in fiction and non-fiction. I just haven't worked out how to cram in all these personal reading challenges!

I need more room, badly. It's getting so squishy, and I keep staring at the various bookcases wondering if there was some magic combination for getting more room out of them. What will I do when that last little spot has gone? Like most addicts, I'm simply not thinking about the consequences of my addiction.

So I did have to put the empty ink cartridges back into the stupid Canon printer in order for the scanner to work. There's really no ink in them so I'm not sure how long this reprieve will last - I need to ditch the stupid thing and buy a plain old scanner; no way am I going to buy expensive ink for a printer we don't use anymore, just so I can scan book covers! What a scam.

This is what I've picked up since my last post of this nature:




War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy - yes yes, I know I already have a copy, but it's like the Last Cavalier thing - or rather it's not, see this is the new translation, and the other one's the original translation, and they're both so pretty, can't you see I need both??

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - I love these new mass market paperback editions Penguin has put out! It's a collection of 12 short stories, and I thought "It's about time I read some Sherlock Holmes!"

Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford - this was one of those whimsical, spure-of-the-moment buys. I've already read it - review is here - and it's a piece of silly fun if you're in the mood.

The Year of Disappearances by Susan Hubbard - I loved the first book, The Society of S, and I've been meaning to pick this up for ages but keep forgetting.




Quantum of Solace by Ian Fleming - the only book of James Bond short stories - I was thrilled to find a copy in good condition at the second-hand bookshop I frequent (the messy, dusty one). I also found:

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - a couple of friends have said this is good, most recently jawastew, so I stopped dithering and bought it when I saw it, thankfully immaculate, in the same dusty and messy second-hand bookshop.

In the Winter Dark by Tim Winton - I loved Cloudstreet when I read it years ago, and That Eye The Sky though I never actually finished it before I left for Japan (same thing happened to 1984!) - whenever I see one of his books lately I've been buying them because I want to read more Australian fiction and his books tend to have that flavour that I crave (I don't even know what this one's about!). Crossing my fingers his books haven't also been vandalised by American publishers! It is Picador though...

The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj - this is a new release that caught my eye, a lovely hardcover about a boy who emigrates from Trinidad to Toronto - to Regent Park, in fact, an infamous part of town. I'm very interested in reading a book set in a city I'm familiar with, and about a segment of the population that is so often dismissed and ignored. Regent Park is full of council flats (undergoing a massive reconstruction) and poor immigrants, very close to the CBD and historical Cabbagetown where Margaret Atwood lives. It's also where I tutor on Mondays. I'm looking forward to reading this one.




Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead - ever since this came out I've had not the slightest bit of interest in reading it, mostly because, reading the blurb, the premise sounded boring. But lately I've found friends on Goodreads who absolutely love it, and I'm reading Succubus Blues, one of her adult novels, and really enjoying it, so I decided to give it a chance.

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin - I don't know if you have heard of this book but I certainly hadn't. I was browsing in Chapters and this slim, unassuming book was tucked away amongst bigger ones in the Fiction section. The title caught my eye, and I love the cover. It seems like is has a possibly engineered secrecy around its origins, which is either contrived or true, but I'm curious about a book that seems irreverent but which Ursula K le Guin loved.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale - seriously, who didn't love the movie? Well everyone keeps telling me the book is better, and I was paying for the Fleming and McEwan books when I saw this copy, half hidden in a mountainous pile of books that looked like the merest movement would start an avalanche (in which case, Catch Me If You Can would disappear forever), so I gingerly excavated it and bought it before someone else did. Score!

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews - I want to be clear: I have never read and never had any desire to read, a VC Andrews book - or one of her posthumous spin-offs written by people cashing in on her name. Mostly, it's the hideously tacky covers. She must easily take the cake in hideous covers. Now, it's also true that I've been half-heartedly warned off this book by kiwiria, but I just have to know what all the fuss is about. Can it really be that horrible? I have to read it now, to know!

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I have discovered something rather low and nasty-tasting on my beloved Goodreads. When you like a review, you can vote for it, which really just means you like it. However, votes on your reviews accumulate and you end up being ranked, both in your own country and world-wide.

Well, in the American ranking, some people are "ganging up" on one poor woman by voting for this other guy who, on his profile, says (and I quote) "Vote for me! STOP the Book Huntress!" (the "Book Huntress" being the moniker under which this other reviewer reviews mostly romance). Here, you can see for yourself. Also, I believe they do this with at least one other person as well.

This leaves such a bad taste in your mouth like you wouldn't believe. This group of people did it before, until the silly man accidentally deleted his account and now he has to start again (which is quite hilarious). They are an incredibly elitist, snobby, cliquey bunch too, who have lots of in-jokes going on and make you feel like you've gate-crashed their exclusive party if you want to comment on the actual review.

It's just so mean-spirited and low and stupid and high-schoolish and snobby, and not at all what Goodreads is about. There. I've had my rant. Did not make me feel better. Speaking of...


... That itchy-bacteria-in-the-throat feeling is back with a vengeance today. I feel about as crappy as I did on Thursday, so I couldn't go to the gym. No energy. Had one of Adam's Toxic Cocktails plus ColdFX. Hope my body fights it off before it becomes a full-blown cold.

Wow, it's been over ten days since my last post; I haven't been this bad since... well I'm not sure, probably since I first got a LJ blog and didn't know what to talk about! My blog silence has been a pure result of sheer exhaustion and lack of time, which I will now try to make up for with another long, cluttered post!

I'm home today, it being Friday, because of said exhaustion and that impending-cold feeling in my throat. Yesterday at work I felt horrendous, and I didn't start to feel better till I was home with Adam and he said "You're not going to work tomorrow." Knowing I could stay home and rest really helped! I always feel guilty though. Guilty because you know how people are, when someone's sick, and people make snide comments; guilty because I can take a day off (work not being very demanding), but Adam can't and he sorely needs to as well; and guilty just because, because it's a preventive day off which is better than pushing on, getting really sick, and needing five days off instead of one, but harder to justify to yourself because of said guilt. And so we go around in circles.

I have had the chance to finish a couple of books though :D


Today's Adam's last day working for the temp agency - he was given a contract, same position, same Ministry (Health), different unit at a different address. He was essentially put on contract so he could apply for this analyst position they really want him to have, so we'll see how that works out. He's been training his replacement and should have an easy day of it today, since he's just going to be there to field questions, that kind of thing.

Oh right, so I did see my doctor and I did get a puffer, and they're getting me an appointment to have allergy testing and an asthma test - I got home yesterday after 5 to find a barely understandable message on the phone, saying that my appointment was for 2:15! Thursday! Wow, thanks for the notice!! I had to call back today and refrained from sounding narky, but honestly, you don't call someone a few hours before, while they're at work to tell them about an afternoon appointment! I was not terribly impressed. So. We'll see.

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I have been very good at not buying books this month; it may be part and parcel of my dejected feeling, that winter blues feeling, that lack of enthusiasm you get when the world looks so bleak. Or it may simply be that not much is out that interests me. But I was surprised, when I grabbed the books to bring to the study, how many of them there were! I managed to acquire 10 books in the last 11 days without even realising it!

Unfortunately, my scanner is being a real bitch today - seems to think it's being used by another user or application or something when it's quite clearly not! so I'm not sure what to do except try again tomorrow and cross my fingers, and hope to hell it's not one of those sneaky ploys to force us to buy ink - we don't use it as a printer, haven't in a loooooong time. I just use the scanner, which has now decided to be difficult. It's a Canon Pixma MP170 "all in one" in case you're thinking of getting one. My advice: don't.


Good news is, my sister Renee (ha! and you thought you knew all my siblings!) is coming to stay next month for about three weeks! It's a crappy time of year but she's a figure skater in her spare time so it does make sense for her. Gives us something to look forward to :D

Though, it's been "unseasonably warm" lately - hitting the positives even - and so far we've only had snow, what, 3 times? and not very much either. It's a very unusual winter so far.

I've had a new, entirely unwelcome development in my health.

On Christmas Day, you remember we were out at Adam's parents place (making a gingerbread house!). Now, just to set the scene, because his mum has a lot of allergies and is highly sensitive to pretty much everything, they have a very clean, immaculate, spotless kind of house, his dad is almost obsessed with keeping the air conditioning and furnace set-up clean and dry and mould-free, they have a non-allergenic dog (it has hair, not fur - no shedding or dander) and they don't use many chemical-based cleaning products.

We don't visit very often because of various factors, but I had noticed that over the course of last year I was getting a bit of hayfever when at their house. It seemed to get worse each time, until Christmas when I had quite the allergic reaction. Now, don't forget I live with three cats who shed plenty, plus our house is old and it's hard to keep it dust-free. In fact, it gets very dusty. But I only have a bad case of hayfever when I have to vacuum (it stirs all the dust and cat hair up) or when one of the cats jumps on my lap to snuggle.

The thing is, the last hour we were there on Christmas (we were there for most of the day), I started to get trouble breathing. It cleared up after we left and was gone by the next morning.

Then, last Sunday - the 3rd - we were out there again for the entire day. I started sneezing and getting itchy skin, but it didn't progress too much. What happened instead was that after lunch I started to have trouble breathing. By the time we left around 4:30, I was wheezing and really struggling.

You're thinking, Ah, she's got asthma. Yeah. Where the bloody hell did that come from? And what in their oh-so-clean and dust-free house was triggering it?

Then. Then, on Thursday night, I woke up at midnight because I was coughing in my sleep, and I couldn't stop. There was something - or rather, nothing - at the base of my throat that was compelling me to cough. I couldn't clear my airway of phlegm either (I had noticed that I've been getting increasingly "phlegmy" in the mornings lately), and lying down just seemed to make it worse. Looks like the coughing brought on a really bad asthma attack that kept me up for another hour. I ended up taking a Benadryl in the hopes that it would help whatever was triggering the coughing (and it knocks me out big time, which I don't like), but it was so painful to breathe. Adam put a pot of water on to boil and got me to breathe in the steam to soothe my lungs - I remember my mum doing the same thing for my brother when he suddenly had his first asthma attack when he was little, like six, to calm him down while she called the doctor.

The next morning my throat was still raw. My chest felt bruised. I made a doctor's appointment for Monday and we'll see how that goes. I am not at all happy at suddenly getting asthma, something that I have never had in my life before. Two of my siblings had it as kids but grew out of it, as did Adam. It kinda scares me - I don't think people who get it as adults grow out of it, and it seems unpredictable. I was nervous going to bed last night.

Anyway, that's my health news.

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I haven't posted my newly acquired books in a while, so this is a bit of a catch-up post. Most of these I picked up from one of my second-hand bookshops.




Dr No by Ian Fleming - One day I will have all the James Bond books, just you watch. I would love to have the new Penguin hardcover collection, the ones with the retro covers, but they're a bit pricey. At the moment I'm just grabbing whatever second-hand copies I can find, so none of them match, but that's okay.

The Last Cavalier by Alexandre Dumas - Okay, so I know I already have a copy of this book (the North American edition, the one on the right with the famous "Napoleon crossing the Alps" painting on the cover - a dramatic painting, made funny by the fact that in truth he crossed the Alps huddled on a donkey!), but I LOVE this cover and I just had to have it. It's the same translator, but it was such a rare, random find (I think it's the UK edition) that I couldn't let it fall into someone else's hands!

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - Roxane (edroxy) reviewed this on Goodreads not long ago, and finally prompted me to read it. Well, I've got a copy now, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading it. Still, having it on my shelf/in my personal library is the important thing!

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon - This is one of the books for this month's Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Club reads - I wasn't going to bother but I saw a copy at the second-hand bookshop and decided to get it anyway. Probably won't get around to reading it this month, but I find the Club is a great way to get recs, especially for sci-fi which I'm still a bit wary of.



The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer - I have nearly all Heyer's romance and historical fiction books (none of her detective ones), but this is one I've never been able to find, to buy, until now. It's one of my favourites too, and now that I have it I've decided on a new goal for 2010: to re-read all my Heyer books! I used to re-read them all the time but not since I went to Japan, after uni, except for Beauvallet a couple of years ago. So, that's my goal.

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson - Years ago my sister Tara gave me Boating for Beginners and I really enjoyed it. Winterson is a very unique writer and I even picked up a sale copy of a YA novel, Tanglewreck, which I didn't even realise was the same author at the time! Silly I know.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - At uni we read Nights at the Circus and I absolutely loved it and have never been able to forget it (another book I really must re-read). I have Carter's book of fairy tales (a stunning edition) and then I found a copy of her most famous work (it is, isn't it?) the other day. I don't know anything about it but all I need to know is that it's Angela Carter!



The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan - This YA novel was also recommended to me recently by Roxane (edroxy) - she reads the most interesting books, some of which I have/have read already, some of which I grab as soon as I see them because of her reviews (like Palimpsest). I had seen this in Chapters before but the cover turned me off. After Roxane's review though I went back and got a copy.

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks - A friend on Goodreads recommended Jinks' recent novel, The Reformed Vampire Support Group, to me but I'm waiting on the paperback. When I reviewed Beautiful Creatures on genrereviews, an anonymous commenter recommended Evil Genius, a book I hadn't heard of before, as a book to get me out of my YA slump. I'm nearly halfway through it (it's quite thick) and it's not grabbing me as much as I'd hoped. We'll see.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale - This is a popular children's book (the 9 - 12 age range) that came up as this month's book club read on one of the groups on Goodreads. I've already finished it (my first book for January!) but I haven't written the review yet.

Under the Dome by Stephen King - I'm not a King fan, per se, but the premise of this novel is the kind of thing I love (similar to the YA novel Gone). Still, I was going to wait till the paperback, but I got a 40% discount on it at Chapters which was a bit hard to resist. It is grossly thick and heavy though, being over 1000 pages long, but friends have said it made them love King all over again, or made them brand-new fans. Promising.


I just spent an hour reorganising some of my shelves, trying to get my sci-fi together - they've grown over the last two years! - and even the urban fantasy. Challenging, for want of space. But at least it looks neat!

I've got my list for 2009 together, and had a bit of fun putting together some numbers for you - actually, some are a bit scary. And I've given out some "awards" too, which are hard for me to do - about as hard as giving ratings in the first place. But first...

You've probably seen this before, but I came across this fairly recent edition of a book by C.S. Lewis in a secondhand bookshop today and naturally the cover caught my eye.

Look familiar?

The symbolism of the apple is tiresomely old isn't it. Ah the crispy, juicy temptation of truth, knowledge and self-awareness, all wrapped up in a shiny red or green skin ...


BOOKS READ IN 2009

It's so weird to look back and see the books you read at the beginning of the year - I would have sworn I'd read those the previous year! It feels so far away now.

Year End Statistics:

Total # of Books Read: 170
Most # of Books Read in a Month: 19 (June)
Least # of Books Read in a Month: 9 (December)
Total # of Books I own, end of 2009: 1595
Total # of Books I own, unread by end of 2009: 568
% of My Books That Are Unread: 35.6% (I am crap at maths, percentages especially, so please correct me if I'm wrong!)
# of Review Copies Read: 18 (many were ARCs, but not all of them arrived before the release date, so I just call them review copies)

"IT TAKES THE CAKE" Awards:

Best Dystopian World:
(I love the contradiction in those words!) This is a tough one. It's a toss-up between Janet McNaughton's The Secret Under My Skin, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.

Best Book to Recommend to Your Mum:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. This was such a lovely, "afternoon tea" kind of read, a delightful post-war story told through letters. I highly enjoyed it.

Book I Wish I'd Read When Younger:
This is where we delve into the Young Adult "genre", such as it is (it's not, of course, an actual genre, but it's conveniently used as such). I often say in a review "I wish I'd read this when I was a teen, I probably would have really loved it." Doesn't help if they weren't published at the time though! Anyway, as much as I loved Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars, I do think I would have enjoyed it more had I been younger. There are a few others, but I can only pick one.

Best Vampire Book:
I have to give this award to The Society of S by Susan Hubbard - another book that took me by surprise. I was totally engrossed, and it's not your usual vampire story at all.

Most Fun Romance:
I loved Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwyn Cready - it was an impulse buy and I thought I'd hate it, but it had me laughing and I still sometimes think of the characters, all these months later.

Classic that Surprised Me the Most:
I was very surprised by I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, actually - mostly because I was expecting something dry and dull and waffling. They were fun short stories that touched on some very interesting philosophical questions, without boring the pants off me.

Non-fiction to Write Home About:
I didn't read much non-fiction this year, but there were a couple of stand-outs, most notably Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. If you read any non-fiction book this year, make it this one.

Most Enjoyed Book of the Year:
Why do I do this to myself? I hate putting books in competition with each other! However, I've set myself the task of picking one that especially blew me away, and it would have to be Lawrence Hills' The Book of Negroes (outside Canada, the title is Someone Knows My Name, if you're looking for it).

Another favourite from 2009 was Jessica Z. by Shawn Klomparens.

Crappiest Book of the Year:
This is of the books I read in 2009, that were published in 2009. It's an unfair award to give out, and you just know it's going to go to something in the Romance genre don't you. Well, you're not wrong.

The award goes to Rita Herron's Dark Hunger - I don't write narky reviews, as a rule, but I come close with this one. It was one of the worst written books I've read all year, which is saying a lot, because there were quite a few disappointing reads.

Another crappy read was Laura Whitcomb's The Fetch. What a yawn-fest!

Notable Mentions:
There was a lot of flotsam, but also some real gems that didn't get popular attention. I have to recommend Dust of 100 Dogs and The Undrowned Child, both new releases in YA this year.

Other loved books in '09 include:
Ten Thousand Lovers
Perfect Chemistry
Frenchman's Creek
Indiscretion
Carpe Diem
Speak
Sister Wife
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo


( THE LIST )

I am sooooo late with this post! I have had NO time, even though I cannot account for my time, and it's taken me forever to write up the final reviews for 2009. But done! I am tired though, so this'll be quick. Ooh but wait,

This is your toilet break.
Regular programming will resume shortly...

I have to gush about my new boots!! I can't get over how much I love them! I got them just in time too - it's been snowing lately, not heaps, but enough. It's amazing how much difference it makes, if your feet are warm and dry and cosy! I feel like putting up my fists to the sky and snarling, "Bring it on! I'm ready for whatever you wanna throw at me!" They're giving my legs quite the extra workout, which I believe is also exercising my back as well, because they're quite heavy. But I feel so utterly safe in them! I might even survive this winter!

Oh and ever since I got them I've been noticing other people wearing them too - it's quite funny, like we're all in this silent Sorel club: we spy on each other's boots but pretend we haven't noticed 'cause we'd all secretly like to be the only ones wearing them! People at work have been gushing over them too, as I'm on my way out. I've seriously never owned shoes of any kind before that have got people so excited. It's quite the novelty!


Also, the Space channel was playing a Doctor Who special episodes marathon on Saturday and I managed to watch most of "The End of Time". Have to say, it was hard to follow because I've missed so much. Also have to say, as fun as it was and as much as I enjoyed it, Doctor Who has really changed. Do I sound old? I mean, he actually threw a wobbly! It did fit the story, since it seemed like after all the shit he's put up with over the years, this was "the straw that broke the camels back". But still. And Timothy Dalton? I really have missed a lot. I thought the Doctor was the last Time Lord, end of story? (of that one, anyway) Got so much to catch up on.

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December Books

Oh what a slow, dreary month! Even with the anticipation of Christmas, I couldn't get too happy, not with winter coming on fast. I couldn't concentrate on anything, I just wanted to sit and stare stupidly at the telly. I also found it hard to write the reviews, it was just too much like work!

# Books Read: 9
# Books Read to Date: 170
Most Enjoyed: Little Bee and The Scarlet Pimpernel
Least Enjoyed: Fallen and Beautiful Creatures

- this was also my YA slump month. YA was exactly the kind of book genre I needed, but it all just annoyed me.

Gray, Ava: Skin Game
Davidson, Andrew: The Gargoyle
Kate, Lauren: Fallen
Orczy, Baroness Emmuska: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Garcia, Kami & Margaret Stohl: Beautiful Creatures
Clevin, Jørgen: Rasmus
Kery, Beth: Paradise Rules
Zamyatin, Yevgeny: We
Cleave, Chris: Little Bee

Sorry, no mini-reviews this time! Too tired...
*yawn*
*snore*

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, got some time off work/school and relaxed or had a party or whatever you felt like doing!

Adam gave me two books for Christmas,



and a gorgeous jigsaw puzzle - I'm a bit of a jigsaw puzzle nerd, if you didn't already know ;)

And we had lots of fun making a Gingerbread House! Never made one before, but it was pretty straight forward. I used my regular gingerbread recipe but doubled, and we made templates for the walls and roof and used them to cut out the shapes before baking them, which we did the night before.

On Christmas, yesterday, we took it all out to Adam's parent's place and put it all together using Royal Icing. And lots of lollies. We may have gone a bit overboard, but it was so much fun!

(it was hard to get good photos, so pardon the quality!)





The finished house, before we started eating it:





I was impressed at how well it stuck together, and how quickly - and then it was really easy to take a chunk of roof off, to eat. We'll have to do it next year too - maybe we'll try more artistic decoration? Maybe not.

We also brought my standard - chocolate truffles (coated in chocolate) - and a new addition: chocolate-dipped strawberries. Very yummy. What with all the chocolate and the gingerbread house, we had dessert covered.

I got an elegant new coat for Christmas, and so did Adam. We scored some handy gift cards too, for the cinema and Vistek (a professional photo shop - we need a 1 terabyte drive thingy to plug into the computer to store all our photos on; they're RAW, or NEF files, and take up lots of room, so this card will really help out!) and a few other places.

I did get an allergic reaction to something in the house, but I have no idea what. They have a non-allergenic dog, and Adam's mum has severe allergies to animals, plants and flowers, food, so it's weird that I'd get hayfever but she's fine. It gave me a touch of asthma too - I don't get/have asthma, but I described the feeling of my windpipe narrowing and have to draw really deep breaths and still feeling short of breath, and Adam said it was asthma. Scary. But I woke up feeling fine this morning. Strange.

The only other bummer this Christmas was not getting to talk to my family back home. It's a 14-hour time difference, which makes it hard, but I said I'd connect on Skype on their Xmas morning, but they were never online :( and I had to go to bed, I was so knackered. Not sure what happened there. Ah well. I did get to talk to my sister the other day and meet my new little niece, Tamsyn. Skype is very cool!

What did you do for Christmas? Get any cool gifts?

Christmas has crept up on me so quickly! Can't believe it's here already! I got the last part of Adam's present yesterday, and my new winter boots! I'm so in love with these boots!


Just look at the traction on those things!!

Sorel is a Canadian company (I believe the shoes are made in Asia these days, a la Doc Martens and Blundstones and everyone else), and they're supposed to last for years. They're waterproof, and have this scrummy lining that you can take out. Makes me actually almost look forward to going out into the cold! I also got mittens - the kind with fingerless gloves inside and the mitten part can fold back - made of 100% marino wool, and a new beanie - plus I'm getting a new coat for Christmas, so I shall be prepared! The only thing missing is thermals (long johns); mine don't fit me anymore :(

Tell you what though, Canadians are crazy. Maybe it's just Torontonians, but you wouldn't believe how many people I saw yesterday, out on the street, with no gloves, no beanie, exposed skin on their feet, rips in their jeans, just a jacket on. Some of them were too fashionably dressed to want to spoil the look with a beanie, and maybe some were just too stupid. All I know was that I felt like I had frostbite, and I was wearing my serious North Face coat (minus the lining, silly me), woolly Explorer socks and a beanie - should have put on my scarf, and I didn't have any gloves which was part of my trip. But I was freezing!

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I only bought two books last week, Under the Dome by Stephen King and Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead - even with a 40% discount on the King book, I still spent over $40, so I couldn't justify buying more. Under the Dome is a mammoth book that hurt my shoulders carrying home, but I love the premise. If it hadn't been discounted I wouldn't have bothered with the hardcover - and there's nowhere for it on my shelves, it's just sitting on my desk, slowly being covered by crap.

Actually, I feel a bit booked-out. There's nothing I'm dying to have these days. It could be seasonal blues making me feel a bit apathetic, I don't know. Kind of like how I'm struggling to finish books. I've only read four books this month so far. I haven't even been watching more TV or anything - well I watched Twilight the other night, because I finally bought a copy, but that's it.

BUT, I have joined a challenge on Goodreads, the "2010 TBR Challenge" - to read 12 books that have been languishing on my shelves, unread, for a while, in 12 months. This is my list:

1. Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
2. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
3. Dracula by Bram Stoker
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
5. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
6. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. Immortal by Traci L Slatton
8. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The Wild Swans by Peg Kerr
11. The Spellbook of Listen Taylor by Jaclyn Moriarty
12. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

I have until the 31st to change any or add alternates (for those that you absolutely cannot finish) but I'm not going to bother, because I try not to encourage myself to leave books unfinished and I need to read these anyway.

It was hard to pick them, I'll tell you that. I don't do challenges very often because I hate the feeling of being forced to read a book, but I've been thinking I need motivation. And there's even a prize! My competitiveness, such as it is, is making itself felt.

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This week I learnt that "oatmeal" means porridge. I did not know that. I did not know what oatmeal was, but I did not realise it meant porridge. Why do they call it oatmeal?

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I think I may have mentioned that they tore down the rotting balcony a couple of months ago. Well they came back and ripped off the hideous fake-stone facing too. It already looks so much better! We've gone from being the ugliest house on the street to being just another house that needs work.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



You can see that the neighbour's have already done their balcony. We won't get ours till next year sometime, so it looks unlikely that we'll be able to grow any herbs or lettuce next summer :(

I've just eaten a packet of Twisties for dessert, that my sister Fer sent me - God they were good! Maybe it's just as well I can't buy them whenever I want ;)

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I'm way behind on wishing people a happy birthday - mostly because I've only been able to manage one post a week. Pathetic I know. So I'll just recap :)

Happy Birthday for tomorrow, Fer!

Happy Birthday for the 9th, extongardener , aka Mum!

Happy Birthday for the 3rd, make_meabird !

Happy Birthday for the 4th, windandtherain !

Happy Birthday for tomorrow, literaturevixen !

Happy Birthday for the 20th, bookish_nerd !

Happy Birthday for the 23rd, onetrooluff and reading_is_life !

Happy Birthday for the 29th, eclipse_writer !



I'm sorry I couldn't give you the individual posts you deserve, but I hope you had/have a great birthday!!

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I think I have pepper up my nose. It's really driving me crazy.

Okay, am I seriously the only person who thinks Christopher Marsterson, from Malcolm in the Middle, looks just like Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother and Dr Horrible)??


(and come on, I know he's gay, but Harris is still really yummy!)

(Perhaps another reason why I've only been writing one post a week lately is because utter shite comes out when I write more! Life it quite dull at the moment.)

Do you ever sit down to write a post and completely forget everything you meant to say? I know there was stuff I was going to talk about but it's completely fled my head!

And do you ever want to make a post just so you can use a new icon that you absolutely love? Yeah that's part of it too! I have no idea who created this one but it makes me giggle. Spider-man is such a dag! :D

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We had our first snow this week - nothing like what everyone around us got (Toronto is in a weird weather patch because of the lakes - actually, all the towns and cities around are, but they're all different weird patches!). It snowed and then rained and we had loads of slush and giant slushy puddles and it was crappy. Then it froze into ice overnight which was even crappier. Luckily it also snowed a bit more and the snow gave it traction (plus it had frozen into footprint shapes which also helps). It's been really cold ever since - like -21 with the wind chill (wind chill is the worst, it goes right through your clothes and makes your face numb. Plus I don't have any gloves.

But I got the gas fireplace going (which involves unscrewing the glass face and fiddling with knobs and, because it doesn't work terribly well, getting out the matches to light the pilot light. Sounds dodgy I know, but I haven't blown us up yet) and even though our bedroom is freezing, the bookroom is pretty snuggly!

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This week I bought:



New editions of Wicked and Son of a Witch are out and I finally decided to read the first one. I've heard rave reviews and hated-it reviews so I was undecided until recently. I actually borrowed the audiobook of Son of a Witch from the library in the summer but while I liked the story I hated Maguire's reading style, so I stopped after a few chapters. I want to read it but thought I should start with Wicked - but I need to read The Wizard of Oz first. I do have a copy, and it should be a fairly quick read, but I don't know when I'll get to it.

Boneshaker was recommended by jawastew and a few others. It's kinda steampunk sci-fi and sounds really interesting (plus the typeface is a sepia-brown - very interesting!)

Ah, Fallen. You can tell I bought it for the cover, can't you. I've already finished it, actually. Should find time to write the review tomorrow (or it'll never get done).



Queen of Song and Souls is the final book in a romantic-fantasy quartet. (They have such airy-fairy covers too - very wishy-washy 70s cheese!) I really enjoyed the first two, though they had their annoying moments - really I was in the perfect zone for the story. Now the last two books are out and I've picked up both, but I'm worried I won't enjoy them as much because I've really struggled with romance-type books lately. I've just read too many duds this year.

Mystic and Rider is the first book in the Twelve Houses series. I love Shinn's Samaria books - Archangel etc. - and the few others I've read. A friend on Goodreads recommend Twelve Houses and told me where to start, and I was pleased to find it. Not sure when I'll get started on it though.


I'm currently reading The City of Dreaming Books - this one's going to take me a while - and I'm just starting The Scarlet Pimpernel. I still haven't touched the three books I started in November - or was it October? yes, October - and haven't finished yet. Shame on me. Such a bad habit. And yeah, I'm seriously out of room on my bookshelves. I'm having to mix genres in order to cram them in!

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My gift from the Advent Calendar this week was a book called 500 Cupcakes. You can guess what I'll be making tomorrow! Only problem is - where do I start??

Here we are, finally. Late to the party but I get there eventually ;) Hope everyone had a nice week and an even better weekend?

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New books this week (bought yesterday after donating blood):





Jude the Obscure is the January read for the Classics book club - it's a book I've always been too scared to read after seeing the movie when I was at uni: it's a really depressing story (the movie was excellent, but that doesn't make the story itself any less tragic. It certainly sticks with you though). I feel better knowing I'll have a "support group" - plus I loved Tess of the d'Urbevilles so I know something of what to expect in terms of Hardy's prose.

Beautiful Creatures is a book I simply wanted to read because the cover is so gorgeous. YA gets some stunning covers these days don't they? Like these:



There are lots more, I just picked these as recent examples. I don't have any of these books, by the way. But I do like the covers. YA books when I was a teenager in the early 90s had pretty daggy covers. Uninspiring, often dull, too realistic. YA Fantasy covers weren't any better.

Books Read in November

Books Read: 12
Books Read to Date: 161
Most Enjoyed: Ten Thousand Lovers
Least Enjoyed: Night's Cold Kiss

This was a very quiet month for me, reading-wise. Actually, everything-wise! I generally found it hard to concentrate and really dig into a book, and I have too many unfinished books sitting on my desk. Ah well, such is life.

As usual, these are organised by date read, and links go to reviews on giraffedays.

Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel (Fiction: 373 pages) 5/5 stars
A wondrous story about an Israeli-Canadian uni student in Israel in the 70s who falls in love with a man who interrogates Palestinian prisoners for a living.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (YA Dystopian Fiction: 391 pages) 4/5 stars
The Hunger Games trilogy continues with this second book - enjoyable but my problems with Katniss' narration are still there.

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs (Urban Fantasy: 288 pages) 4/5 stars
The first book in the Mercy Thompson series introduces us to Mercy, a woman who shifts into a coyote, and the werewolves and vampires and other paranormal folk who populate her neighbourhood. The local werewolf Alpha's daughter is kidnapped and Mercy gets involved in finding her. Good story, reminiscent of Bitten, but I still prefer the latter.

The Pages by Murray Bail (Fiction: 199 pages) 4/5 stars
Eucalyptus is one of the loves of my life so it was always going to be hard to follow it up. I still love the prose but the story here was disappointingly bland.

Me and My Shadow by Katie MacAlister (Paranormal Romance: 330 pages) 3/5 stars
The third book in the Silver Dragons series was all plot, very little romance. A lot of these so-called Paranormal Romance authors are leaning more and more towards Urban Fantasy. Fun, but I had forgotten so much of book 2 that it was slow going for a while, trying to remember what was going on.

Intertwined by Gena Showalter (YA Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance: 440 pages) 4/5 stars
Showalter has written a lot of adult Romance and Paranormal Romance - here she breaks into the YA market with a story of a boy, Aden, who has four souls trapped inside him since birth - each has a different ability. After a strong start it turns into a very crowded romance, with lots of teenage hormones running wild. I've over-rated it with four stars but it seems fair, since it did entertain me.

The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce (YA Fantasy: 238 pages) 4/5 stars
The first book in a trilogy that's kind of old now, this fairy-tale-like story is simple but sweet and the start of something that could be very interesting.

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan (Fiction/Short Stories: 354 pages) 4/5 stars
Five stories of varying length about the tragic lives of children in several different African countries. This debut book shows Akpan's potential but he's far from a polished author yet. The confidence is there but he's still experimenting.

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway (Classics: 218 pages) 3/5 stars
My second reading, for a book club meeting I ended up not being able to go to. The story of a group of loud, heavy-drinking ex-pats living in Paris who go to Spain to see the bull-fighting. Ah the good old days! It was easier reading it this time around because I knew not to expect a happy ending.

Night’s Cold Kiss by Tracey O'Hara (Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance: 332 pages) 2 stars
Similar set-up to the Night Huntress books but ultimately disappointing. Had a lot of promise, and I did enjoy it, but it struggled to hold me and I found the main characters lacked chemistry.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce (YA Science Fiction: 311 pages) 4/5 stars
A very fun, funny story about a twelve year old boy whose growth spurt and beard often get him mistaken for a 30-odd year old man, taking advantage of this quirk by entering a competition to visit a space theme park in China as a father, with his classmate Florida posing as his daughter. Everything goes well until the real attraction, an actual rocket, takes them into space and they mess up their instructions because the children are fighting over who gets to press the green button. If you enjoy Roald Dahl, you'll enjoy this.

Liar by Justine Larbalestier (YA Fiction: 371 pages) 4/5 stars
A very clever story about a girl who lies - a lot. But the lies are to hide a secret she's determined to reveal to us, her special audience. Only, can you trust her truth? I loved Micah, but the jolting structure to her story made it a bit hard to get into the flow at times (because "flow" was a bit lacking). Still, I recommend it.

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At the moment, I'm reading The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, and Skin Game by Ava Gray. What are you reading? What was the best book you read in November?

I need to post my November book list but I still have 2 reviews to write and no time to really sit down and do it properly! My reviews have been really rushed of late. I'm always thinking, hours later, "Damn!" because I forgot something REALLY BIG that had been on my mind all through the book - how do you forget all that? Anyway.

It's coming!

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This is joy to my ears - Adam and I are always ranting about this, although it's usually those people on the subway who try to push their way onto the train before anyone can get off that gets us going. The bit about people getting off escalators or going through doors and then just stopping is the thing that really nearly sets me off, aside from the "standing in front of the train doors when there are loads of people trying to get off" thing. I'm sure you've all encountered this a time too many:




Thank you Rick!

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This is our Advent Calendar at work - Norwegian style! (This wasn't taken with the good SLR camera, as you can tell)




The five of us share this basement room, doing membership renewals. (That's my workstation, there on the right.) We each bought five gifts on a budget of $20, one for each day of December until Christmas, so we each get five gifts too. Each day the next person opens one. Two had already been opened when I took this photo today, but it still looks pretty! It's great fun and so nice to look up and see them all there.



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Um, so since I'm wasting time here I'll add in a couple more shots:



Determined to squeeze themselves in! Yes, it's a 3-cat armchair!




Gaia making sure Leon is clean.

Speaking of Gaia, guess what the silly twit has been doing lately? She's become obsessed with trying to catch her own shadow! She sits on the laundry floor tiles and bats at the shadow of her own head! Told you she was a twit!

Better see to tea - I'm doing roast chicken and I burnt my finger on the steam trapped inside the bag when I last checked on it. Ouch!

I've been struggling to keep up with LJ lately - long breaks between posts and the book reviews just keep piling up. Even worse? I skim through my fList and see all sorts of interesting stuff is happening, great books are being read, friends are making me laugh, and so on. I will try harder for December, promise!

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I have a bit of a book haul for the last week, not a lot, but some:





I know, the third Walter Moers book I've bought and I haven't read any of them - yet. The City of Dreaming Books was enthusiastically recommended by kiwiria - I just needed an excuse really - and I found it on Chapters online, they were selling it for a little over $7: I'd be stupid to pass that up! It's a big hardcover and the cover style matches the other two I have.

I've already read Night's Cold Kiss and Liar. I had to order Stray too 'cause I could never find it in the shops, not even when their catalogue said they had it.

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So. Yes. I turned 30 today. The big 3-0. I'm usually pretty quiet about my birthdays but I've told pretty much everyone about this one! Of course I don't feel any different. Well, not physically. Mentally, not sure. Just determined not to do anything clichéd.

We went out for dinner on Saturday night, to an Indian restaurant called Dhaba on King Street West. It was a lovely place, very tasteful modern decor - chocolate brown and cream, with these leather chairs that were so comfy I didn't want to get up. The food was very good too.

Then we went to the cinema just up the street to see New Moon. Adam's a picky movie-watcher, and he's hard to predict. I think his favourite film is The Big Labowski. He hates sci-fi and fantasy and things like that, but he doesn't mind romance if the story's good - we both love Love Actually so there you go. But it's my birthday and he always says he'll see whatever I want to see, and I really wanted to see this.

For a 6:50 showing on a Saturday night, it wasn't at all packed, but then it was playing in two cinemas simultaneously. The crowd was a mix of ages of both genders - Adam was worried he'd be the only man. There wasn't any heckling, except for a bunch of girls at the far back who giggled incessantly. Ah but the movie, the movie was really good, much better than the first one I thought. They kept close to the book and Adam had no trouble following it, though he asked lots of questions about vampires afterwards. Yes, he actually liked it! It's probably the Big Screen effect - if we'd watched it on DVD at home he would have got bored and left the room I'm sure. There's something very intimate about watching a story play out on a giant screen in a darkened room with no (almost no) distractions. Which is why, with these movies especially, I always feel like I wish there was no one else around, like I want to watch it all by myself. I think that feeling is why those girls were giggling - embarrassment. People get easily embarrassed by their own, often poorly understood feelings.

My parents got me an old boxset of the Earthsea trilogy from the 70s (yes I know it's not a trilogy anymore but it was at the time). They have the classic old Puffin covers:



They also sent me a beautiful Japanese black lacquered plate with raised sides like a bowl and gold leaves - they just spent a few weeks there, again. I always wanted one when I was there but I never did get one, could never find one I really loved, but this, this one is gorgeous.

Adam has been giving me several gifts over the last few days. The first was a surprise, it's hard to explain. He gave it to me at the restaurant and I cried! It's this adorable little stuffed giraffe, the kind of thing I never would have expected Adam to buy. It's often the pretty, non-practical things that really get to me. So now I have a mascot for my book blog :D He also got me the second series of Hamish Macbeth and had one of my photos printed up big. There's something else he's excited to give me tonight, when we get home from tutoring.

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Maria did something like this for her 30th the other month, and asked if I'd do it too, so I will - and besides, 30 is a milestone, isn't it, and ought to be marked? But I'll put it under a cut 'cause 30 years of someone's life is bound to make for a long post!

( 30 Years of Me )

Adam's doing a portrait photo session in the garage today - he rented this giant light and stuff because the construction lights he already had just aren't enough - so I had to move our downstairs neighbour's car because she broke her leg. Adam couldn't because he doesn't drive manual. I was a bit nervous because it's someone else's car and because I've never had to use a gear stick with my right hand before, but actually that part was surprisingly easy. The funny thing was, I couldn't start the car! Adam had to run back for instructions: put the clutch in before turning the key.

It's been so many years since I've driven a manual, I'd completely forgotten! Didn't help that Adam, who drives automatics, advised I put the brake in to start the car. I felt like such a complete twit! Fancy forgetting a thing like that.

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This post has been a week in coming, I've just been too tired to write it after working on a computer all day.

So yes, Body Worlds. Bloody fantastic! Excellent exhibition, this one focusing on the heart, so all the full-body plastinated bodies were in athletic poses, like this:



(I tried uploading an image using the URL, and boy does it work! Instantaneous too. I can't control the size though, so it's big. Not sure what happens if that web page no longer exists?)

This photo looks like a regular someone took it - it's a crappy photo - which I find surprising because they have a strict no-camera policy and only professional photographers can take photos after filling out lots of paperwork. But anyway, it helps me out! For this body, they had removed all his internal organs so you could see the front of his spine, as well as musculature. They keep the private lives (and tragedies) of the donors private, but you can't help but wonder what happened to these people who all appear to have died young and healthy.

We went on a Sunday and it was a real family day, with kids and babies and small children. The fourteen-year-old girls were the only ones giggling at the penises, of course, but even they found it educational, which is the point. I often heard them talking about how a teacher-or-other had been teaching them about [insert hard-to-pronounce medical term here] but they didn't really understand it until now, when they're seeing the real thing (more or less) in context.

I went with a friend from OISE, and her seven-year-old son came too (it was either this or the Santa Parade that was on the same day, but he said the parade was too boring!). It's so fantastic for kids - for all of us - to get a chance to see the human body, demystified and stripped bare of all the symbolism that we give it, and presented without all the elitist medical jargon that alienates us from our own bodies (seriously, House is fun but who really understands what they're saying?).




This one was in a big glass case and apart from a tiny portion of his leg touching the hurdle, he appeared to be completely unsupported. No idea how they did that. There are no strings or wires or anything, he's just hanging in the air. It's almost as amazing as the process and end result itself!

This was my favourite one:



He's on ice skates, and the platform turned slowly in a circle. I was a bit nervous walking around it because of how his arm sticks out - what if you bumped it?

They also had a display of foetuses, which had actually been preserved since before 1920. They had test tubes of foetuses, one for each of the first 12 weeks, when all the real cell development occurs (after which it becomes a recognisable baby and just gets bigger). They really are tiny!! And then larger ones for each month after that.

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Ooh, okay, that brings me to my next piece of news: my second-oldest sister, Tara, is pregnant! Yes no one was more surprised than she was! They hadn't planned it and they were a bit shocked but it's grown on them and they're getting used to the idea. It's one of those things, isn't it: left to planning, you might never have one because it never seems like the right time. Sometimes it's better for fate, circumstance, whatever it is, to take the decision out of your hands.

She's only 9 weeks (I'm thinking of the miniscule 9th week foetus I saw at the exhibition!) so they don't know what the gender is yet. It is a tough time for them - she has a lot of work to do at this time of year and it's hard to get anything done when all you feel like is sleeping; plus they have to move and now they're looking for a house to buy. I'm so happy we're finally having babies in my family! Even though it'll be over a year before I get to see them.

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On less happy news, we've had to change the date of our wedding. We had it all set up and ready to go for New Year's Eve next year, we put in our paperwork with the government (whatever that department is - department of births, deaths and marriages?) and booked a celebrant - now we don't even have an actual date! It's all because of the plane tickets, and bloody Aeroplan. It's complicated and I don't pretend to understand it, except that you have to get the return ticket separately and because of limited seating and the holiday season, chances are you can't get a ticket home at all. I'm not sure if this link will work (if the info will stay), but the beige squares shows you when seats are available, and the red squares are when we wanted seats. As you can see, it was never going to happen!

So now we're looking at late February - still summer but not as nice - and I'm not sure if anyone'll be able to come and we came close to just cancelling it altogether. But, but the point is to celebrate our love and commitment to each other (while getting in a holiday and the chance to see my family after FIVE YEARS!!), and if we don't do it in 2011 (new date), we'll never get around to it. We need something to look forward to, as well. So I'm sure it'll work out, cross my fingers touch wood.

They are finally - finally - ripping down the old sagging balcony. We woke up this morning to find a strange man on our balcony! We sleep with the blind up so the early morning sun can wake us up so we had to quickly close it (and there's nothing more depressing than closed curtains during daylight - oh, except for watching TV during the day). It's not too noisy but I'm glad Adam has his white sheet up over the study window, the one he's been using as a backdrop for photography - it lets the sun through but means neither I nor the contractors will get embarrassed seeing each other!

I had promised myself to be good this week but that lasted as long as, well, five minutes. Especially 'cause it's November and Chapters emailed me four 25% off coupons - well, I have to use them don't I?

This week's purchases are:







kiwiria recommended The Demon King well before it was actually released, so it's taken me a while to get hold of it. Everyone seems to love it though! I also got Blood Bound, the second Mercy Thompson book, but I forgot to add an image here. Oh dear. Nine books? Oh dear.

I've already finished Me and My Shadow and I'm halfway through Intertwined. I've read the first story in Say You're One of Them (which is also the shortest). Interpreter of Maladies and The Turn of the Screw are also short story collections.

I've never read the latter - I really didn't like Lady Chatterley's Lover when I had to read it for uni so it put me off James (also, because I saw bits of Portrait of a Lady and even the few scenes that I watched depressed me). But I didn't even know what "The Turn of the Screw" was about before I picked it up this week - yeah I know, for an English major and an English teacher, it's amazing what I haven't read. Yet.

A friend on Goodreads recommended Life As We Knew It - it's post-apocalyptic YA, a genre I love. So, lots of books to be excited about!

What books have you picked up recently? What are you currently reading?

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We're having dinner at a friend's place tonight, and tomorrow morning I'm going to see the Body Worlds exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre - I'm really excited because I've been wanting to see this since it first toured back when I lived in Japan. I watched a DVD on it, a kind of behind-the-scenes how-they-do-it thing; it's fascinating.

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Oh, I almost forget! (How on Earth could I forget? But that's what the edit button is for!!)

Michael Smith went to HOBART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He's a wonderful, low-key celebrity chef who had 2 shows on the Food network. One is filmed at his gorgeous house on PEI where he makes traditional food, and the other is called Chef Abroad - he goes all over the world meeting people and learning about the food they cook and grow and catch and it's a fantastic show.

So in last night's episode he went to Hobart, to Mures!!! and went fishing for crayfish (lobster), oysters and abalone. It was so funny - funny to both hear Smith try to pronounce "Travalla" because he'd never heard of it before, and to hear the accents of everyone else. I've become so used to hearing Canadian and American accents over the last four years that the Aussie accent sounds almost exaggerated now. But I still love it. I was bouncing on the couch and holding Adam's hand and grinning. To see home!! To hear a Canadian chef visit my home!! LOVE that guy!


The Hobart waterfront, or part of it, with Mures seafood restaurant there with the red roof. My brother used to work there.