0 True Grit - Read it! - Wed 20 July 2011

True Grit by Charles Portis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Most enjoyable - I love Mattie's forward manner and take-no-nonsense attitude. This book even brought a tear to my eye towards the end. Highly recommended.



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0 Edgar Allan Poe is my homeboy - Fri 6 May 2011

Yes, I know. It has been a month since I posted anything on my blog, but that happens when one is on holidays (from my place of employment only, not from actual work :( ), moving house, dealing with family and generally being a misery guts! Time flies even when you're not having fun.


However, one good thing has come from the (un)joy of moving, and that is finding the material for today's post. It is a poem I wrote about five years ago expressing my undying love for Edgar Allan Poe, written in a similar poetic metre to Poe's "The Raven". I found it in a box in the cupboard. Enjoy.

An Ode to Edgar Allan Poe 


or


How I long to one day be known as the female Edgar Allan Poe of the 21st century








To this day I still remember, that dry and warm November
when I first walked to the shop to buy a book to call my own.
I was happy and excited, most whole-heartedly delighted
that my parents felt incited to give me a 10-buck loan.


I could barely quell my passion, in my young and childish fashion,
face lit red instead of ashen, looking for a 10-buck book.
Through the store I did a-wander, rabidly I tried to ponder,
with the money set to squander, round the literature I looked.


Then I saw just what I wanted, sitting there like it was haunted,
from the bookshelf, yes, it taunted, begging me to take it home.
As I picked it up I shivered, the front cover was so vivid,
a picture of a man so livid, that I knew I'd love this tome.


I could sense its ghoulish content from the cover picture's torment,
yet I knew I would but love the work I found inside its folds.
So with undignified elation, I took "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"
with me home past the train station, keeping it tight within my hold.


When at last I got to reading, yes, my dark soul, it was feeding
from the brilliant prose and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe
and I wondered if I ever, could but hope to be as clever
as him, most brilliant author that the world shall ever know.


To this day I still find pleasure, while I'm reading at my leisure
through the most macabre and chilling stories ever written down.
Though we are facing a new age where violent video games are the rage,
nothing ever can compare to Mister Poe, of most renown.

2 Little surprises - Sun 3 Apr 2011

As a Librarian, one of my main (and most favourite) tasks is cataloguing. For those not familiar with Librarianship - this basically means I grab the new books/CDs/DVDs/puzzles and decide where they'll be shelved in the Library.


Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, and given that in our modern age, a computer catalogue is used to locate books, it is my job to make sure the search fields all have the correct information and so on. I like to imagine I am a kind of book-locating super-programmer (though any I.T. boffins reading this would probably scoff) :P


One of the greatest parts about being a cataloguer, is that I get first look at a lot of library stuff - when it is still crisp and shiny, rather than grimed with the "booksnot" of many borrowers. In addition, I get to see things that many people may never come across, i.e. books on unusual topics or interesting pictures. Which leads me to sharing with you one of my recent fantastic finds.

I was cataloguing a jigsaw puzzle depicting what seemed (at the time) to be a fairly bland picture of a hay-filled cart pulled by a pair of grand old horses. At first glance it was nothing special and many a catalogued jigsaw has had such a similar country scene, however, on closer inspection, I noticed the people in the picture appeared to be Amish.


Interested in learning more, I scoured the box for information about the photograph, and discovered to my grand delight, Bill Coleman's website, which I must now share with you.


Bill Coleman is a photographer, who, for FORTY YEARS has been visiting this remote Amish community in Pennsylvania and photographing their daily way of life. The photographs are just beautiful and truly depict a fun-loving, hard-working and joyful group of people - not to mention a plethora of gorgeous country scenes. I implore you to view his photos here.


And if you're too lazy to click on the link, here's one of my favourites. Enjoy!:

4 To read or not to read - Wed 23 Mar 2011

If you couldn't already tell, I love to read. And while I might not be a particularly fast reader, I would definitely say I'm enthusiastic. 


However.


I have recently found myself, I hate to say, putting off and avoiding reading! Argh! 


The main cause for this literary lapse, is this - I am currently reading a Book Club book which I simply cannot seem to get excited about. Now, I understand that not all books can be exciting, or amazing or mind-blowingly stupendous. In reality, very few of the books I actually do enjoy reading are any of these things anyway. 


But a book must be compelling. It must make the reader want to keep going back to it, to make the reader think about the story and what might happen next even when they're off doing something completely different. 


For me, our Book Club book just doesn't have that compelling quality and I'm now worried that I may not even get it read before our next meeting (still two weeks away!). 


I'm really not sure what to do because the very reason I joined the Book Club was to make me read books I might not otherwise check out - to go that little bit beyond my sometimes narrow reading-comfort-zone and discover something new. But it's really such a struggle that it makes me feel exhausted!


To make matters worse, because I am feeling guilty about not reading the assigned book, I'm not reading anything at all! And I miss it desperately :( 


All my whining leads me to the main point of this post - Is it wrong to just give up and move on to reading something I think I'll enjoy? And if I do, what am I supposed to say at my Book Club meeting? Should I force myself to read the book in these precious few moments I have on this Earth, when really I'd rather be reading something else? Or should I just suck it up? I mean who knows - the last 400 pages might be better ...


Please post your suggestions and help me with this quandary!

1 Book Review - The Graveyard Book - Sun 13 Mar 2011

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


After hearing many a soul wax lyrical on the fabulous imagination of Neil Gaiman, I found myself drawn towards The Graveyard Book, figuring it would be an easy way to acquaint myself with his particular form of “brilliance”.

I was sadly mistaken.

The Graveyard Book is kind of like trying to stop a dog from eating crap - basically a good idea, but ultimately useless.

It follows Bod, a young boy who, after witnessing the murder of his parents in the first chapter (the highlight of the book), ends up living in a graveyard and being raised by it’s inhabitants.

The book, although clumsily tied together as a single narrative, is really a collection of short stories, the likes of which wouldn’t have been half bad if left that way - but the flimsy plot linking them together, which I’m sure was an afterthought, really detracts from what could have been some good writing.

The characters are kind of like faded water paintings, lacking any kind of substance or real colour, which is a shame given the potential for character growth and complexity that setting the story in a graveyard brings.

Although the book is aimed at a youthful audience, any 10 year old could have seen where the story was going, and no one would have been surprised by the turn of events leading to the book’s climax. Then finally, as if to punctuate the story’s generally lackluster meandering, the ending goes on for too long.

If I had to describe The Graveyard Book in one word, it would be “Meh”.

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