Category: Blog

Coming soon: Literary Giveaway Blog Hop (25–29 June)

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Give Away Blog Hop!

This blog hop with a literary flavour is being run by Judith of Leeswammes and I thought it looked like the perfect opportunity for my first ever giveaway.

I will be giving away at least one book, as well as some book-related bits and pieces so be sure to come back on 25 June and enter!

If you’re a fellow book blogger and you fancy joining in the fun, or you just want to find out more, you can click on the button above or follow this link: http://leeswammes.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/announcement-literary-giveaway-blog-hop-june-25-29/.

Headlines and other titles

This is probably painfully obvious already, but I am a bit rubbish at writing headlines. What’s especially bad is that I also need this skill for my day job. Ah well. There are lots of guidelines to follow, long lists of hints and tips, but in the end it comes down to imagination and, somehow, my imagination generally fails me on this front.

My favourite solution to this problem is to come up with a system, something TV shows in particular go for. The classic is the much emulated Friends “The one with…”. Other recognisable systems include the Scrubs “My…”, Big Bang Theory‘s made-up science stuff (“The spaghetti catalyst”, “The maternal capacitance”) and Life Unexpected‘s plays on its own title (“Bong intercepted”, “Rent uncollected”).

I think the one-word title is often a strong solution. The Good Wife uses this, as does Skins. But it doesn’t tend to work as well for books or articles.

Also popular with newspapers and TV show episode titles is the play on a famous catchphrase, song, film or book title, for instance Sex and the City‘s “Four women and a funeral”, Family Guy‘s “Dial Meg for murder, Veronica Mars‘ “Weapons of class destruction” and almost every episode of The Simpsons.

Slightly less successful is just using the song, film or book title verbatim (Entourage does this a lot), which displays a certain lack of imagination (not that I’m one to talk).

This is something I think about and worry about but, on a blog like this, does it matter? Particularly on a book review?

World Lupus Day 2011

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Yes, it’s that time of year again. I had forgotten all about it and then Stephen Fry kindly tweeted a reminder. In timely fashion I am struggling to write very much about World Lupus Day because my lupus is flaring a little and stealing all my words. It does that.

You see, when I talk about fatigue I don’t just mean I feel tired; there’s a whole host of fun that comes with the tiredness. I suppose it’s not unlike a bad hangover combined with lack of sleep – there’s the headache, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, double vision and, of course, the brain fog.

Brain fog? I remember the first time the rheumatologist said the words to me and I felt such huge relief. That bizarre cotton-woolly feeling of not being able to think straight, of losing words, of not being able to answer simple questions – it’s real! And I’m not the only one!

And this is why events like World Lupus Day are so important. Diagnosis is vital even in “mild cases” like mine and, of course it is life-saving in many other cases. But it’s also hugely helpful for other people to know about lupus and what it means for me and others. And a little more support for research into new treatments would also be a good thing.

To brighten up this post, here is a random old picture I took of a butterfly, because they’re the symbol of Lupus UK.

Papilio thoas

My booky weekend

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Despite not doing nearly as much reading as I had planned, I have done a lot of book-related stuff this weekend. There was book art, a book fair and lots of book-related TV and film. It’s been fun.

First up was BABE; that’s the Bristol Artists Book Event for the uninitiated. Thanks to Joanna of Ephemeral Digest for alerting me to it.

It’s a big event, with more than 100 exhibitors showing their work, which varied from book-related art, to books about art, to books that are art; along with small presses which produce pamphlets, comics, magazines and books with varied levels of artiness. This is a great event for anyone who loves printing, typography and books like me, but it’s mostly about the art. Some of which veered closer to pretentious than inspirational. Sorry. But overall I enjoyed this and it is fantastic that there are so many artists and small presses out there.

A fair bit less pretentious was the books, food and “made in Bristol” day of the Harbourside Market, which I found out about thanks to Martin of Bristol Culture (thank you Martin).

This was a little on the small side. I certainly didn’t see a whole lot of advertising for it. Maybe they were hoping that the natural footfall in that area on a weekend would be enough. There were definitely punters around but not all that many stalls. Which is a shame. A few of the book stalls were just the usual collection of literary fiction erring on the bestselling side, but there were a couple where the stall owners showed something more – carefully chosen well-designed covers, thematic arrangements, a real celebration of books. I hope it’s back again soon.

Also showing wares on the harbourside was local illustrator Tessa Farlow, from whom I bought these very cool pin badges.

Finally, thanks to the BBC Year of Books I sat down to watch TV adaptations of Christopher and his Kind, and The Crimson Petal and the White, plus a fascinating documentary about Frank L Baum. I know it’s not unusual for good TV and film to be based on books (see my other preoccupations this weekend, the films of Atomised and Thirteen at Dinner) and the BBC has for years been churning out Shakespeare and Austen interpretations, but this recent stuff does seem particularly good.

Holiday, celebrate

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At the risk of boring my lovely readers, I have now been through all of my holiday pictures, plus some taken by other people, and present to you a round-up of my trip to the USA.

We had a good look around Charlotte, North Carolina, which I had not visited before. A recent and thriving banking industry means that the city centre is very clean and new looking, even the old bits. We did meet a local who complained about how many old bits got torn down to built condos but I don’t know enough of the ins and outs to comment on that.

The Inn Uptown

Alexander Michael's Restaurant & Tavern

We also went to the nearby Great Smoky Mountains and did a bit of hiking (hard work in hot sunshine).

Contemplating

The way forwardMile High Swinging Bridge

We went to the US National White Water Center and did some rafting (great fun).

Photo by talkie_tim

And my sister got married so well done her. I was there, I performed my bridesmaidly duties including dancing as much as I could and attempting not to sing the real lyrics to that song by Cee Lo Green when a small person took a shine to dancing with me. Which was tough.

Photos by St Martin Photography (You can click on these pics to view them big.)

There were also some lovely evenings with family and friends, old and new. There were some impressive storms thanks to the big temperature changes. There were some astute observations about different races not mixing a whole lot and some less astute ones about food being a bit rubbish. But we probably just went to the wrong places. I’m sure it’s not all deep fried really.

Holiday reading

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And I’m back from two weeks in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I visited some new places to me, remembered how similar but different our cultures can be, and helped my sister to get married (I was maid of honor, I’d say “honour” but we call it chief bridesmaid on this side of the pond). But more of all that later (there’s a lot of pictures to go through). For now, let’s talk holiday reading.

I took six books with me, of which I had already started one – Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns – which I suspected my Mum would like more than me so I took it partly to pass on to her. I finished that and another book – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – on the journey out, then spent two weeks reading at the slowest pace imaginable so that I am still barely three-quarters of my way through One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I’m not sure if it’s his writing style or my mood but I just can’t get absorbed.

I am always torn, when picking holiday reading, between light easy reads and big chunky literary works that I have been putting off. This time I tried to pick some of both but the literary monopolised my time somewhat. Which way does your holiday reading lean?

New books

Despite my reading slowness, I still took advantage of our “buy whatever you like while you’re on holiday” rule to buy some new books for my shelves. Well why not? Perhaps surprisingly, half of my new buys came from the excellent (and well named) comic shop Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find. From there I picked up:

Palestine by Joe Sacco, a journalistic account of Palestine in 1991–1992 in graphic novel format.
War is Boring by David Axe, a war correspondent’s memoirs in graphic novel format.
Dollhouse: Epitaphs by Joss Whedon, which I’m saving up until I’ve finished watching the DVD boxset.

In addition, we found a huge secondhand bookstore, Book Buyers, from which my brother dragged me when I had picked up three books from one bookcase alone. I could have spent a fortune in there easily, it was a great place. What I did spend my pennies on was:

Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk, winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 1993 (I loved her second novel, The Temporary).
Disgrace by J M Coetzee, winner of the Booker Prize 1999 (gotta continue my attempt to read all the prizewinners).
The Romance Readers’ Book Club by Julie L Cannon, a lighter sounding read set in Georgia, which I thought was appropriate while I was in the vicinity.

On an aside, I should mention that by searching out these shops, plus the equally great record shop Lunchbox Records, we ended up exploring parts of the city we wouldn’t otherwise have gone near (not exactly tourist traps) that turned out to be very cool areas full of arty/indie shops and bars.

Back to sifting through those photos…

My next book

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One of my favourite things is standing at my bookshelves selecting my next book to read. I can happily stare at my books for far longer than seems reasonable, waiting for a whim to make me choose one over all of the others. But most people don’t have more than 100 unread books sat around in their house, so how do you choose your next book?

In addition to my physical TBR I also have a wishlist of another 50 or so books (from word of mouth, or authors I follow, or reviews I’ve read) and I am constantly adding stars to posts in my Google Reader that mention books I like the sound of. I can’t imagine ever running out of ideas for what to read, and consequently I don’t use services like Goodreads or Your Next Read or even Amazon recommendations. But other people are often mentioning how useful they find them. Maybe if I got through books more quickly…

I also get great pleasure from going to a bookshop without any titles in mind and just browsing until something jumps out at me. Much like my method of choosing from my own library! I am trying to reduce the TBR at the moment and have therefore not yet been to Bristol’s brand new Foyles bookshop, or indeed the almost-as-new The Last Bookshop on Park Street, but later this year I plan to do a bit of a tour of Bristol’s bookshops. Watch this space!

Growing out of it

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Back in my early twenties I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and other books by Milan Kundera and loved them. But a few years later, when I read more of his books, I struggled – I found them dull, monotonous, samey.

The same happened with other authors I’d loved during and just after my degree course: Chuck Palahniuk and Orhan Pamuk spring to mind. (Okay, no-one could call Palahniuk dull but I haven’t really enjoyed any of his books since Diary.) I had decided that I loved these authors only to change my mind shortly afterward. Did I just read all the good ones first and save the crud for later or did I grow out of these particular authors?

This has happened before of course. The first series I can remember falling in love with was Colin Dann’s Animals of Farthing Wood, shortly followed by Brian Jacques’ Redwall. I continued to buy those books as they came out well into my teens but the last few were left unread, as my interest had petered out. In my teens I loved the works of Victoria Holt/Phillippa Carr and anything in the Point Horror series but (thankfully) I grew out of those as well.

And I expected that. To grow out of those books was part of growing up. But I never expected to grow out of adult books, for there to be authors who only appealed to me for a few years of my adult life. It seems bizarre.

But then maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s more that my taste in books is in flux and I have to wait a few years for the vibe of my early 20s to hit again. Maybe when I hit 40 or 50 I’ll pick up a Kundera or Pamuk and love it. In fact, maybe when I hit middle age I can stop buying new books altogether and re-read all the ones that I have kept because I enjoyed them the first time around. As I’m something of a book hoarder, I hope so.

Hobbyist

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Bristol

When we moved to Bristol we didn’t really know anyone here, I had a mysterious as-yet undiagnosed illness that was sapping all my energy (and a fair wedge of my confidence) and we were leaving the comfort zone of our university town, with its familiar faces and watering holes. I like to think we’re friendly types but it took us a while to make friends and we had rather a lot of “just the two of us” time. One thing that helped us both continue to enjoy each other’s company without getting bored and meet new people was joining Flickr.

We had been toying with digital photography for a little while already but wanted to move on to a digital SLR and improve our skills. The examples, experience and advice on Flickr were immensely valuable but the big step was when we joined the Bristol Flickr Group (affectionately known as the BFG) and, after a few months of conversing with increasingly familiar avatars, braved a real-life meet-up. And I do mean “braved” because it was a little scary, but what we found was a wonderfully friendly group, with a range of different ages, careers and backgrounds and a slightly higher than average tendency to geekery, which suited us down to the ground.

We have made some great friends through the BFG and improved our photography skills immeasurably. The biggest step, I think, has been our rediscovery of film. Obviously, we grew up with film cameras and our parents had SLRs, but neither of us had owned a film SLR before. Thanks to charity shops, eBay and friends/family we now (mostly Tim) have several, plus a heap of film stored in the fridge. I have stepped into this world very tentatively, but this week I got my first black and white film processed and I am so so pleased with the results.

There’s more on my Flickr photostream.

Lupus fashion

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So maybe today was just a freak, and tomorrow we’ll be plunged back into wintry greyness, but it’s getting to be that time of year when I have to start covering up when I go outside to prevent all that UV from triggering a flare of my lupus symptoms.

“Covering up” entails wearing high-factor suncream and covering my head and shoulders (at this time of year, at least; in midsummer I try to hide as much skin as possible). I have an array of hats and scarves with which to achieve this and I have mostly gotten over the embarrassment of looking like a twat, or at least standing out from the crowd. What I have not yet perfected is how to wear headscarves properly. Why don’t they teach us this stuff at school?

I can do your basic piratical tied round the head with ends trailing at the back look. When I haven’t had all my hair chopped off recently I can do a decent hair in a bun with scarf tied round in a sort-of cottage loaf thing. What I can’t do is anything remotely elegant. I want to look like a 1950s film star when I put a headscarf on. Or a mysterious Arab beauty (except showing my face so not all that mysterious).

Is there anyone out there who can provide me with some much-needed guidance?

Headcover