The Months of February and March in Books

As mentioned previously, the month of March was a complete fizzer on the book reading front.  I managed one item in total, so have added it in with the three from February.  I also managed to forget to mention a small non-fiction item that I read in January, so I'll pop that in as well.

Here they are:

Fiction:

I repeat some of my favourite authors  this month.  P.G.Wodehouse, Sue Grafton and Terry Pratchett were the fictional authors of choice.


Leave it to Psmith
Set at Blandings, this is the story of Psmith, a young man who has fallen on hard times. For reference the P is silent and a good introduction to the nature of young Psmith.

Another formula yarn, revolving around money (lack of it) and love.  Peppered with lots of great dialogue and descriptions, it introduces you nicely to the world of Blandings and the ninth Earl of Emsworth's family group.
There is a great deal of humour around the absurd happenings involving the Earl's secretary - Baxter - and the terrace flower pots.

A great read.  There are 33 reviews at Amazon.com and the average rating is 5/5 stars.  That sums it up nicely.



T is for Trespass
A fascinating, but chilling story set around the themes of identity theft and elder abuse.  Kinsey becomes involved when one of her irascible neighbours has a fall and requires nursing care.The nurse turns out to be anything but what she seems.

It's rather frightening to think that there may be real people out in our communities for whom lying and deception of this kind are second nature and 'normal'.

Another well written story in the Kinsey Milhone series.



Nation
This is the latest Young Adult work from Terry Pratchett.
The setting is the aftermath of a tsunami on a small island known to the lead character, Mau, as the Nation.  Into the Nation comes a young European girl and together they begin to rebuild a community of survivors.
It explores some bigger issues like religious belief and what goes into making a civilization, but within an entertaining context.
Highly recommended, even if you are not a huge Pratchett fan.

Non-Fiction:

Bertrand Russell in 90 Minutes

I cannot honestly recommend this title.
As it stands, three months later, if you asked me any questions about Bertrand Russell's philosophy or private life, I would be at a loss to give a coherent response.
In fairness, it is a small book and no doubt I am not the most philosophically minded reader to have flipped open its pages.  However, I would like to think that I have the ability to retain information, and clearly this shortened primer just didn't have what it takes to make that information interesting enough to stick with me.



Losing My Virginity
I have an older copy of this autobiography at home.  It ends just after the notorious British Airways dirty tricks campaign.  It has probably been updated yet again, as that was some ten-odd years ago now.

I must confess at the outset that Richard Branson just doesn't flick my switch.  Clearly he's a very in-your-face type of business man, and that's what makes people love or loathe him.  Personally I like low-key.  However, it was interesting to read his basic business philosophy as it was woven through his 'life-to-date'.  You get a little bit of personal stuff, mixed in with some of his business and personal adventures.
If you’re interested in what makes such an energetic man tick, then it's worth borrowing from the library.  Oh, and if the recounting of things around the dirty tricks campaign is a fair assessment of what BA were up to, then as a business person I can tell you that it probably goes to show the worst possible ethics you could ever display in an attempt to retain a virtual monopoly.  Unfortunately we will probably never really know the extent to which they took their shenanigans.

***

That's all for now.  I will have one or two items from April next month.  Maybe more if I stop writing this and get out my huge bedside pile of books instead.

Angel Proclamation

So I have been doing some cross-stitching in the last little while, just not a lot.

Angel Proclamation was brought out of retirement for a change of scenery, and then was promptly highlighted on by Miss Oh Waily.  This was successfully cleaned off, thank goodness, but it hasn't returned to the scroll frame yet.  I'm in internal discussion with myself over what the next thing to do will be.  Should I return to Noah's Ark, or Fantasy Tryptich or stick with Angel Proclamation.

Worse yet, should I start something else?!

Decisions, decisions, decisions.



Edit: Must remember to give things their correct titles.  I got stuck in Angel Procession mode when I should have been Proclaiming.  Not too great since they are by different artists !!  :-(

Miss Oh Waily Update

Just thought I would share a few new photographs.

As of tomorrow I will be 20 months old.
I have a vocabulary of about 40 baby signs, and a verbal vocabulary of nearly that in partial words.
For example:  "Pa" = "Patches" (toy bear); "Sha" = Santa (don't ask why Mum hasn't put away the Christmas santas yet); "Hah" = Ham, etc.
Now all I'm waiting for is the second syllable to arrive.  I think it must have missed it's bus.

I like painting, and wiping my hands on Mummy when she's not paying enough attention.  I like Hi-5, which is slightly worrying, but useful when Mum and Dad need peace to make dinner.  I like ham, cheese and crackers.  In fact Mum & Dad are beginning to wonder if they should invest in a cracker factory.  Sadly cracker rationing has been implemented in order that other yummy snacks like grapes and bananas can get a look in.
I'm pretty darn clever with my alphabet jigsaw and can happily place all of them in the right holes.  I understand that P is for Patches (see above), T is for Teddy, D is for Daddy, M is for Mummy, B is for Benny (smallest canine) and that each of them must wear their letter on their chests (or back, in Benny's case) before it is put into the appropriate slot.

I did my first intentional forward roll a couple of days ago (on Mum & Dad's bed) and I have nearly all of my teeth - only the bottom canines and all of the back molars to come.  I like going to daycare for a couple of hours twice a week, so much so that I barely take notice of when Mum leaves.

And that's a short summary of where I'm at.  So here are some photographs for you.

Where Should You Be Living?

According to the Facebook quiz of the same name, I should be domiciled in Rome.

Unfortunately Mr OWW seems to be destined for San Francisco.  I'm sure he'll get used to the commute.  ;-)

Booknotes

There has been another gaping hole in my life recently, to go along with the lack of blog entries.
Little or no reading has been partaken in for the past month.

Still, I am now attempting to remedy that situation and while at the library the other night picked up a few Booknotes, the quarterly journal of the New Zealand Book Council. I was hoping to find some inspiration for my ongoing reading, but what I got was a series of interesting articles about writing, reading, reviewing and things to do with creative written arts in general. Included is a section called "The School Library", which will turn out to be quite handy for Miss Oh Waily's next possible reading entertainment.

What I actually wanted to share with you were one or two opinions from the first issue that passed over my bedside table.

The first paragraph, from Linley Boniface's essay A Wall of Books Around The Borders Of My Bed, stirred up a good deal of conflict for me.  Regular readers will know that I have set myself the challenge of reading all of the Booker and Pulitzer prize-winning novels as well as the BBC Top 200.  Known around the OhWaily blog as the Booklitzer Challenge 200.  And as I have bemoaned in some of the reviews of these books, I have found more than one to be hard work and more a labour of persistence than of love.  Here's the quote for you to consider:

I am an unashamedly unadventurous and intolerant reader: if a writer fails to deliver immediately, there are no second chances.  Friends will give a book 30 or even 100 pages to prove itself, which strikes me as madness.  Why plough doggedly through an indifferent book, when you know you'll die leaving so many great books unread?

The emphasis on the last question is mine.  And the cause of my conflict.  Should I 'plough doggedly' through the Booklitzer 200 because someone, somewhere thought they were the best books to be read in that given year?  Should I just give in and chuck them back on the pile having given them their 30 or 100 pages of grace?

How do I know, like reading The Siege of Krishnapur, that it may take half the book to get to the really interesting and gripping bit?  How do I expand my taste and understanding of the wide world of literature if I don't plough through some of these harder works?  Or am I just fooling myself and wasting my minimal free time on indifferent books?

The second excerpt is from Tim Corballis' piece The Writing We Don't Hear.  Most of this went over my head as it is a comparative piece about how we understand and 'listen' to music versus how we do the equivalent 'listening' to what we are reading.  Eventually this led to ideas on ...the possibilities of  'contrapuntal' writing...
But the crucial point in this essay is a section of the penultimate paragraph.

To think in terms of structure is to forget, for a time, the reader's need to understand - either that or to count on another sort of understanding.  It is to require more and different work from the reader.  Are readers allergic to such work - to literary difficulty itself?  If so, then this is a counterproductive allergy, and one that I think writers should be brave enough to challenge.

So, here we find the alternative view.  Different structural approaches to writing a novel should not be off-putting to the reader, if the reader wishes to be challenged by literature.

Is this a little high-minded?  Or is the other view a little too low-brow?  Personally I don't mind the odd challenge, but sometimes it feels like surviving the challenge brings no real reward.

Feedback on this issue is most welcome.  In the meantime, I have another two Booker winners piled up on the bedside table, so I haven't caved in immediately.