Category: Blog

WIN a copy of Sensation by Thalma Lobel

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This competition is now closed.

Sensation

Icon Books have kindly offered me three copies of fascinating new book Sensation by Thalma Lobel to give away to you, my lovely readers. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

With Sensation, the world’s leading expert on the new science of physical intelligence, Thalma Lobel, brings us the first ever popular psychology book on “embodied cognition”: how the body profoundly affects our thoughts, emotions and decisions about everything from the people we like to the ways we work.

By sharing fascinating new findings – like how clean smells promote moral behaviour and sports teams in black jerseys are given more penalties than teams in other colours – Thalma Lobel reveals how shockingly impressionable we are to sensory input from the world around us.

Sensation is the first book to show how vulnerable we are to the unconscious influence of our senses over our minds.

Sensation

To WIN a copy of this book, just leave a comment before the end of Wednesday 1 October, and then I will pick out three random winners.

If you want to find out what I thought of Sensation, keep an eye on the blog for my review, coming shortly.

Sunday Salon: Taking a break

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The Sunday Salon

A week after getting home from a fortnight in France, it doesn’t quite feel like I never had a holiday at all, but the holiday relaxation is certainly fading fast.

As I mentioned while I was away, I didn’t get much reading done on holiday. I don’t know if that was because the books I read weren’t very absorbing, or because I was distracted by holiday stuff (Places to see! People to spend time with!) or because I’ve given myself too much reading that had to get done this year and not enough reading for fun, so that relaxing on holiday meant doing less reading. Whichever it was, I was disappointed to have only read a book and a half in two weeks. But since coming home I’ve powered through two and half books, all of which have pulled me right in and been a delight. So was it the choice of books after all, or did I need a reading break?

What about you? Do you ever need a break from reading? Does it worry you when it happens?

One of the good things about being home is that we can throw ourselves into the life of the city again. Friday night I went to see a production of Macbeth at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatre. It was innovative, using electronic music and other modern effects to heavily cut the running time and really concentrate on the themes of madness, ambition and guilt. It was strange, intense and moving. Kudos to Filter theatre company for such a bold adaptation.

I’m going to get back to reading now. Maybe I can make it three books in a week!

Holiday in France: the reporters memorial

A friend suggested I blog about this after it was almost all I talked about when summarising our holiday! It certainly made a big impression on me.

A Robert Capa Memorial des Reporters

It started with a small memorial outside a museum in Bayeux to Robert Capa, a photographer whose work Tim and I are familiar with and admire, so we were interested to see something about him but also curious what claim Bayeux had to him. We continued along the path in grounds opposite the Commonwealth war cemetery and next we came to two marble slabs that said they were the entrance to a memorial to “journalists killed all over the world since 1944”, a joint project between Bayeux and Reporters Without Borders. Which seemed like a very good idea, and I walked on expecting just a peaceful garden of some kind. I hadn’t read the text properly (I think I’d tried to understand the French rather than looking at the English) so I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

Too many names

A long, tree-sheltered footpath flanked on both sides by marble slabs listing the name of every journalist killed under the year of their death (the photo above shows only a small section). It’s simple and powerful and heartbreaking, because there are so many names, and the numbers seem to be increasing. So much so that a second path has been started.

I’m not sure why this moved me more than the thousands of graves of soldiers just over the road (which was also pretty disquieting), but somehow it did. I could argue that soldiers sign up for the possibility of death, but of course in World War Two most of them didn’t get a choice. In fact, reporters have more choice about whether or not to go to a war zone, but then not all of these deaths were in a war zone. For those who want more than a list of names, there is an online archive.

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I suppose I can relate to the reporters, to their decision to tell the truth about the world. Not that I in any way consider myself worthy to stand alongside the men and women who risk their lives to make corruption, injustice and other important news known to the world, but I admire them in a way I just can’t admire a soldier. I can be (and indeed am) sad about the massive loss of life during war, but it’s not the same thing.

I don’t understand war, how anyone could take a fight to the level of massive loss of human life, and it is only through writing, both journalism and fiction, that I can at least try to comprehend. For anyone interested in what it’s like to be a reporter on war zones and other dangerous regions, I highly recommend the work of Joe Sacco, who is honest about the draw and the thrill, as well as the need to tell the stories of the real people affected.

(Back to more cheerful things, and maybe another book review, soon I promise!)

August reading round-up

Girl Reading by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Girl Reading by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

I’m posting this a few days late as I’m on holiday, which unusually has so far decreased my reading, not increased it. I think I may be discouraged as I’ve been reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing for book club for about three weeks and it’s a huge book so I’m still barely a third of the way through. I wonder how many of us will have made it to the end when book club meets next week? Also, Tim recommended one of his books for me to read on holiday so I’m about a third of the way through that as well. Between them I’m sure I read at least as much as one normal-length book last week!

Still, this week is a quiet one with the in-laws, so I’m hoping to get plenty of uninterrupted reading time. As long as I don’t get too distracted by photographing wildlife! More on that next week once we’re home again.

 
Books read

Sun Alley by Cecilia Ştefanescu (review here)

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (re-read for book club)

Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll: the Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science by Zoe Cormier (review over at For Books’ Sake)

Faces of Love and the Poets of Shiraz by Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun and Obayd-e Zakani (review here)

Fighting on the Home Front by Kate Adie (review here)

 
Short stories read

“Yesterday” by Haruki Murakami (New Yorker, available online here)

“Picasso” by César Aria (New Yorker, available online here)

“Last meal at Whole Foods” by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh (New Yorker, available online here)

“Apple cake” by Allegra Goodman (New Yorker, available online here)

“You can find love now” by Ramona Ausubel (New Yorker, available online here)

“The waitress” by Robert Coover (New Yorker, available online here)

“The fugitive” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya (New Yorker, available online here)

“The man in the woods” by Shirley Jackson (New Yorker, available online here)

“Box sets” by Roddy Doyle (New Yorker, available online here)

“Pending vegan” by Jonathan Lethem (New Yorker, available online here)

 
Happy September!

Sunday Salon: En vacances

The Sunday Salon

This week we’ve been on holiday in Normandy with friends. Weather’s been, er, iffy but we managed to grab a couple of afternoons in the pool/on the trampoline (I love that the gîte has a trampoline!) in-between road trips. I have somehow read only half a book, despite plenty of suitable reading weather, but with 13 other people providing distractions I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised.

We figured we couldn’t come to Normandy without taking in some of the World War Two sites. We stopped by Omaha Beach and the war cemetery at Bayeux, which was on reflection a bit sad and serious for the hottest day of the week and I was near tears many times during the day, but I’m glad I went.

We also visited Fougères, which boasts the largest medieval castle in Europe and also has links to many famous writers. I really enjoyed the Circuit Litteraire. I’m not sure I enjoyed the climb to the top of the bell tower – the staircase was tall, steep and open so you could see how far there was to fall!

There have been plenty of other visits, plus barbecues, drinking, playing pool, playing in the pool and just generally having fun with friends we don’t get to see nearly enough of the rest of the year.

Also, yesterday Tim and I celebrated 12 years together. In many ways it felt appropriate to celebrate while on holiday with friends who have known us since the start of our relationship. I wonder where we’ll celebrate 24 years?

Musical interlude: the White Stripes

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“The hardest button to button” is not just a great song that reminds me of university and the friends I made there, it’s also a great video by one of the masters of music-video directing: Michel Gondry. I’m really pleased he’s come back to music videos this year (for Metronomy’s “Love letters”) after a few years’ hiatus. His creative genius works so well in this format.

But it’s also a really good song.

July reading round-up

(Leon Kaufman, 1892-1933)
(Leon Kaufman, 1892-1933)

Aren’t we having a lovely summer? Well we are here in Bristol and I hope that you are too. Not that I’ve had a lot of free time to enjoy it properly, but it’s still nice to have long sunny days. I’ve been busy helping my Mum celebrate her 60th birthday, visiting Oxford with my friend H, redecorating the living room (still a work in progress) and I even squeezed in writing an article for For Books’ Sake. Not to mention, y’know, doing my job.

Somehow, I also managed to get through several books this month (I’m halfway through two more as well), though I notice I only read three short stories. Three! This despite the New Yorker opening up its content free to all for the summer, including their wonderful short stories. I must make time to read some of them before they’re locked down to subscribers only again.

Here’s to continued summer loveliness, with added free time to enjoy it.

 

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Books read

Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey (review here)

Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson (review here)

The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an IKEA Wardrobe by Romain Puértolas (review here)

Gold by Dan Rhodes (review here)

Paintwork by Tim Maughan

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (review here)

Short stories read

“How many miles to Babylon?” by Megan Arkenberg (Lightspeed Magazine, issue 20)

“Gene wars” by Paul McAuley (Lightspeed Magazine, issue 20)

“Always true to thee, in my fashion” by Nancy Kress (Lightspeed Magazine, issue 20)

Happy summer everyone!

June reading round-up

Woman reading a book
(National Media Museum, photographer unknown)

In this month of #bookaday running into Independent Booksellers Week I certainly haven’t read a book a day or even some of a book every day, but I have visited my favourite independent bookshop: Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. Despite the towering TBR I couldn’t leave empty-handed, so Tim and I picked two books each to treat ourselves!

I’ve been busy at work and enjoying the glimpse of summer we had until the last few days, so it wasn’t my greatest or my worst month reading-wise, but to spice things up I did review a great musical at Bristol Old Vic and Germaine Greer’s talk at Bristol Festival of Ideas. I love living somewhere with events like those pretty much every night. If only I had the time, money and energy to go to them all!

Books read

Tales from the Secret Annexe by Anne Frank (review)

Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z – volumes 1 and 2 by Rick Remender and John Romita Jr (review)

In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall (review)

Sex Criminals, Volume 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky (review)

The Needle’s Eye by Margaret Drabble

Short stories read

“Father’s last escape” by Bruno Schulz (New Yorker Fiction podcast)

“St George” by Gail Godwin (Selected Shorts podcast)

“The trickle-down effect” by Annie Proulx (Selected Shorts podcast)

“Now that you’ve died” by Patrick Ness (Guardian Books podcast)

“The lone pilgrim” by Laurie Colwin (Selected Shorts podcast)

“The night bookmobile” by Audrey Niffenegger (Selected Shorts podcast)

“Home” by Jess Pineda (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

“Stolen child” by Jennifer Quintenz (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

“Still waters” by Lisa Randolph (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

“Martyoshka” by Kay Reindl (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

“Bat Girl” by Kira Snyder (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

“Crystal Brook” by Jeane Wong (Empower: Fight Like a Girl! anthology)

 

Happy summer everyone!