The Blog Post to End All Blog Posts Part 3: Wishes

I can’t be certain that I won’t pick this blog up again one day, but for now I will echo the sentiments of the wonderful Mr. G (who, like me, gets nostalgic when the year changes):

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

The Blog Post to End All Blog Posts Part 2: Christmas ramblings

This year as Christmas approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about the shade side of the Season. There’s a lot that I’m leaving behind at the end of this year, and a lot that I’m looking forward to in the new year, and I guess this has made me reflective. All of the media messages regarding Christmas amount to the same thing: it’s the most wonderful time of the year/you’ll have a fantastic time with your family/it brings us all together. But what if it doesn’t?


Christmas, if you push aside the commercialism and frantic rush for presents, is a time of year that keeps us honest. It can be a time for sharing and love and warmth, but the shade side is this: if you’re lonely, you feel your loneliness at Christmas; if you have trouble getting on with your family, you have to face the tension at Christmas; if you’re scared or doubtful or apprehensive about the future, the time of ‘celebration’ draws out the fear and doubt and apprehension.

I’ve been exploring these thoughts through various media. Here’s what I’ve been tuned in to:

Music: Kate Miller-Heidke’s ‘The Day After Christmas’. (I saw her live last year and she said something to the effect of: “This is a song about a time of year when you’re supposed to be happy, but if you’re not then everything sucks so much more.”)

TV: West Wing’s Christmas episodes (one from each Season). The Christmas episodes of West Wing are always poignant, exploring familial difficulties and personal setbacks.

Movie: Love Actually. I don’t think that requires explanation.

So what does this have to do with books? Only this: I haven’t yet found a book to read which explores the shade side of Christmas. The only one which springs to mind is A Christmas Carol, but Dickens and I have tried getting on before and we have Artistic Differences. So I’m putting the question out there: can anybody think of a shade-side-of-Christmas book for me to read?

The Blog Post to End All Blog Posts Part 1: Wrapping up

I learned last week that I’ve been awarded a scholarship do my Masters, beginning in January. This is wonderful news, primarily because it means philosophy will be my full-time occupation. It does mean, however, that books won’t play as large a role in my life anymore. I’ll still be an avid reader, but I won’t be a literature student and I won’t be working at the bookshop very much. I’ve decided that means it’s time to stop keeping this wonderful blog and to focus on other things.

Here’s a few parting bookish thoughts, in The Blog Post to End All Blog Posts, a Farewell in Three Parts.

Here’s some links and thoughts on some of my favourite subjects:

Neil – a wonderful interview of Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer can be found here to listen to free or download for a tiny tiny fee.

Jane – a friend recently convinced me to give Northanger Abbey another go. It’s the first Jane Austen I ever read and my least favourite. I’m beginning to realise that last time I read it (at fifteen), much of the wonderful metafiction was simply over my head.

Laura – adopt a critic. Read Laura Miller’s bookish thoughts over at Salon.

Re-re-reblog

I shan't write a proper blog post because the universe might just implode, but Naja reblogged about my reblogging about her reblogging about my blog about graphic novels, and you can read it (that is, the first one in that list) here.

Sometimes when Naja talks about literature, I feel like she's plucked the thoughts right out of my brain and articulated them in ways I couldn't possibly. This is one of those times.

Reblogging

This is how awesome thinking comes about. Collaboration.

The fascinating, wonderful Naja linked to my previous post about graphic novels via Tumblr. I met Naja in the course of my English degree. She kept cropping up in my classes, in those delicious English classes about children's lit and fairy tales which felt like cheating because it wasn't work to study these things, not really, it was fun.

Anyway, here's something Naja says in her blog about my blog which, by the way, you can read right here:

Novels are only just a majority in my favourites collection, and sometimes I feel like a bad lit student for it, because I have such a short attention span and I much prefer WHAM POW PICTURES! to some weird snooty elite.

It's certainly not the most interesting thing she has to say (you really should read the whole blog) but I'm quoting it here because I relate to it. I have very little patience for long books, for wordy books, for overly literary books or for classics. I almost quit literature at uni after having to read Wuthering Heights in first semester, first year, but lucky for me I took a class on fantasy the following semester and fell back in love with books.

All this made me think about another blog I recently read, incidentally by Doc-in-Boots, the academic who runs all those classes on children's lit and fairy tales which Naja and I attended.

Graphic novels and 'the gang'

If you watch Australian TV, you may have noticed that Jennifer Byrne is suddenly everywhere (just this week she was a guest on both The 7pm Project and Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation). Sometimes I watch her First Tuesday Book Club, sometimes I don't. When I do, I usually find myself annoyed by the invariably literary nature of the books deemed worthy of the First Tuesday treatment, but I suppose one must make concessions for the fact that the audience of the show probably consists mostly of 'literature' readers.

A couple of weeks ago the ABC ran a special on Graphic Novels, presented by Jennifer Byrne. Why, I ask you? Why Jennifer Byrne? The woman may read a lot for her job, but this scarcely qualifies her to make informed comments on graphic novels. Her lack of grounding in the medium showed (to me, anyway), and much of the show seemed devoted to determining whether graphic novels have (or deserve) literary legitimacy. Which is somewhat beside the point. The audience that enjoys graphic novels knows that something doesn't have to meet the narrow definition of 'literature' to be good, to be worth reading, to be insightful and enjoyable and thought-provoking.

There was one part of the show I enjoyed- the part where the fabulous Eddie Campbell told it like it is. This is from the transcript:

JENNIFER BYRNE: I mean, this is part of - Sophie isn't the only one - there is talk of, finally, a focus on graphic novels as a serious form. Is it true or is it just...

EDDIE CAMPBELL: That's just what I hear. I hear that we've finally been accepted by the culture at large but at the same time, we still get... If this was true, I would be invited here... I'd be invited on shows for being an interesting personality but we still get invited everywhere as a gang.

JENNIFER BYRNE: The gang of...?

EDDIE CAMPBELL: We'll do something different this week. Get me a gang of graphic novelists.

Of course, he was right. The smugness of the First Tuesday attitude shows in the fact that graphic novels aren't considered worthy texts for the book club, and need to be presented in a separate 'special'.

You can view the special or read the transcript here.

Home Love

I have been living in my new place for four months now, and I still absolutely love it. Last week, I put Megan Morton's Home Love on my coffee table (I rotate my coffee table books about once a week) and, upon flicking through, realised how much of my inspiration for decoration came from this book.

It's a beautiful book, full of decoration and furnishing ideas which are practical enough to actually use. Here are a few snapshots of ways I used Megan Morton's ideas:

A feature wall of handbags in my bedroom, pictures hung with the edges touching, and on-display shelving for the kitchen. Another idea I'll be sure to use next month is hanging Christmas baubles from a chandeleir. I just happen to have a chandeleir in the centre of my house, and I think it will look quite festive and lovely!

Of course, my place isn't quite as polished as any of the beautiful homes photographed in Home Love, but that's the beauty of it. The ideas translate, they can be used in ordinary homes.

View on fishpond:

The fading art of readership

Laura Miller writes here about why we should make less fuss about writers and more about readers. Readers, she says, are an endangered species. Here's a quote for good measure:

Yet while there's no shortage of good novels out there, there is a shortage of readers for these books. Even authors who achieve ... publication by a major house will, for the most part, soon learn this dispiriting truth: Hardly anyone will read their books and next to no one will buy them.

On a somewhat related point, the Honours thesis I wrote this year had quite a bit to say about reading practices. In the course of my everyday conversations ("Hey Christina, how's the thesis going?" "Great! I'm looking at readership practices at the moment and [some unbelievably boring and complex philosophical aspect] is fascinating!") I was astonished to discover that most people take readership for granted. Reading is considered the most passive activity in the writing-editing-producing-reading process. It's just something that happens to people that sit down with a book.

Over the course of the year, I became a passionate supporter of the sophisticated reader. I don't mean that some people get lots out of a book because they have the knack for mining literature for little bits of gold. I mean that reading, any instance of reading, is an incredibly complex, sophisticated exercise in using one's imagination, interpreting language use, searching for cultural cues and negotiating author/reader authority.

Neil Gaiman in a Tardis - Esoteric much?

I couldn't resist sharing this, even though to properly get it you need to be a geek of four sorts: A Doctor Who geek, a Neil Gaiman geek, an internet geek and a philosophy geek.

Pretty clothes *sigh*

I love beautiful clothes, and I love beautiful books. So, naturally, I love beautiful books about beautiful clothes. I don't think I will ever quite understand why I adore clothing so much, but that doesn't stop me from trying. I think one of the reasons I read about style is because I'm attempting to understand why it's so important to me.

Two books I absolutely must have are released this week.

Dreaming of Chanel is a follow-on from Dreaming of Dior, which I blogged about here. It contains gorgeous fashion illustrations of vintage pieces. I could spend hours gawking at them.

A Life in Frocks, by Sydney Author Kelly Doust, is the most beautifully produced new release I have seen in years. The cover image below doesn't do it justice. Really. Every page is printed in two colours (black chapter text and red headers), with colour fashion illustrations scattered throughout (printed onto the page, not on separate plates). The paper has a beautiful texture. My favourite touch is that when you peek at the naked book beneath the dust jacket, you find colour illustrations of cute lingerie.

Kelly Doust writes:

Over the years clothes have comforted me, given me confidence, lured love interests, made me invisible, secured jobs, aged me and given back my youth. ... It's a testament to their immense power that clothes can be so many things.

If you know someone who loves clothes as much as I do, think about getting them one of these books for  Christmas.

View on fishpond: A Life in Frocks

All hallow's read

Neil Gaiman had an idea on his blog. Lots of people liked it and reblogged it, and it became A Thing.

Now I'm joining the bandwagon and encouraging you: give someone a scary book this Halloween. Because Neil's right. There aren't enough book-giving traditions.

There's even a website: allhallowsread.com

I'm going to start by giving this one to my nephew:

Literature and technology

The ill-fated matchmaking and meddling of Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse, for example, was seamlessly updated to include cellphones in the 1995 movie "Clueless." Of course, an Emma transposed to 2010 would have a field day with Facebook, nudging acquaintances to friend each other and forming little groups like "People Who Have Heard Quite Enough in Praise of Jane Fairfax," to the dismay of Mr. Knightley.

Which classic literary characters would embrace modern technology? Read Laura Miller's musings on the topic here.

Collected thoughts

I have exactly  one week left of Honours...

In the meantime, here's a link to a recent interview of Neil Gaiman. One thing he said about comics caught my eye: "It is not a genre. It is simply a medium."


Meanwhile, I've been browsing through a book called Jane Austen: Antipodean Views when my brain can't handle any more study (and sometimes when it can) and was struck by the insight of Tim Flannery, which actually stands out amongst the writings of English Professors, teachers and celebrities:

One of the most significant evolutionary forces currently acting is sexual selection. Women are much more selective than men, and the sort of trade-offs and carefully calculated estimations of worth of men in various capacities elucidated by Austen is, in some ways, as fine an evolutionary study as Darwin's, though it is admittedly only a single-species perspective.

Austen also investigates that eternal battleground between the mind and the genes that is humanity's unique affliction. Because the choices women are forced to make in this area are so much more onerous than men's, Austen's insights are piquant indeed.

Unfortunately I can't link you to the book. I believe it's out of print.


Something else that's been in my procrastinatory thoughts is how my concept of having 'read a book' is changing as a result of my studies. I used to think that to have read a book I had to begin at page one and read it all the way through. While that still applies to fiction, I just don't think that way about non-fiction anymore. I can say, without a guilty conscience, that I have 'read' a non-fiction book as long as I feel I've read all the interesting and relevant bits.

Don't tell me I'm cheating. I am maximising my time.

Notes on a Bill Bryson

Laura Miller wrote in her review of Bill Bryson's latest book, At Home, that the book is ultimately "a bit pointless, but damn if it isn't a lot of fun all the same."

I've only read two of Bryson's books--Shakespeare and Mother Tongue-- but the assessment sounds fair to me. Bryson has an obvious joy in learning, and he shares this with his readers by presenting facts and histories in ways which are a delight to read. Shakespeare is a biography of William Shakespeare, far more entertaining than any biography has the right to be.

I recall laughing all the way through Mother Tongue, which is surprising when you consider that the subject of the book is the history of the English language. Take this excerpt from the chapter on swearing:

English is unusual in including the impossible and the pleasurable in its litany of profanities. It is a strange and little-noted idiosyncrasy of our tongue that when we wish to express extreme fury we entreat the object of our rage to undertake an anatomical impossibility or, stranger still, to engage in the one activity that is bound to give him more pleasure than almost anything else.

Which reminds me: it's about time I read more of Bill Bryson's books.


View on fishpond:    

Ignorance is no armour

Last week was Banned Books Week. Read about it here. I was somewhat bemused (perhaps even proud) to discovere here that Sandman was the most contested graphic novel of the last year. Last year, Ellen Hopkins wrote a poem which made me shiver:

"Sticks and stones do break bones, and ignorance is no armour."

This is particularly pertinent when you consider that To Kill a Mockingbird was on the list of the 10 most challenged books this year. One of the reasons given was 'racism'. Excuse me?

Your friendly neighbourhood e-bookstore

There's an article here about the impact of e-books on author royalties. It bothers me a little that the article focuses mainly on 'literary fiction', but let's set that aside for a moment. The following sentences caught my attention:

Unlike traditional bookstores, where a browsing customer might discover an unknown book set out on a table, e-bookstores generally aren't set up to allow readers to discover unknown authors, agents say. Brand-name authors with big marketing budgets behind them are having the greatest success thus far in the digital marketplace.

Actually, not all 'traditional' bookstores are 'set up to allow readers to discover unknown authors. The bookstores set up for this are usually small (local) independent bookstores. E-bookstores aren't local, and at this early stage most aren't independent. E-books are mostly sold via the websites of well-known, established bookstores. I'd like to see an online equivalent of a local independent bookstore; an e-bookstore which displays little-known titles and has a unique layout. Has anyone seen one? I'd like to hear about it if you have.

Call me optimistic, but I think that in time the book industry will grow into this new phase and we'll see the emergence of such stores online.

Sketches from an incredible imagination

It's no secret that I think Shaun Tan is one of the finest illustrators alive today. Just this week I finally received my copy of his latest release- The Bird King and Other Sketches. It full of gorgeous urban fantasy sketches. It's not yet available for purchase online. Here's an idea- support your local independent bookstore and order it in!

Now I'm counting down the weeks until the end of November- that's when my copy of the AWESOMELY DELUXE BOX OF THE ARRIVAL GOODNESS arrives. It comes with a limited edition print and a 'making of' sketchbook. Check out the details here. Probably a good one to pre-order. Again, support your local independent!

Um... squee?

Allow me to indulge my feminist and geek sensibilities all at once for a moment. Being proud of my geekdom, I am of course familiar with the term 'fanboy'. For those who aren't, here are a couple of definitions:

Wikipedia- Fanboy is a term used to describe a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist.

 The Urban Dictionary- Fanboy: A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces.

I was thinking about the term 'fanboy' the other day, and began to wonder if there was a 'girl' version of the term. Lo and behold, there is. I can't help noticing, however, that the definitions of 'fanboy' and 'fangirl' seem a little uneven. Note, from the very same sources:

Wikipedia- The term fangirl can be used to describe a female member of a fandom community (counterpart to the masculine "fanboy"). Fangirls may be more devoted to emotional and romantic aspects of their fandom, especially (relation-)shipping. However, it is commonly used in a derogatory sense to describe a girl's obsession with something, most commonly a male teen idol or an aspect of Japanese pop culture. Fangirl behavior can vary in intensity. On one end of the scale are those that, while harboring a crush on a particular actor or character, are perfectly capable of understanding that the fulfilment of the crush is never going to happen. On the other end are the girls who are said to be obsessive in their claims on a fictional character, even fighting with other fangirls over who 'owns' the character in question.

The Urban Dictionary- Fangirl: A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor.

Uh... rabid? Excuse me, give me my term back! I'm a girl, and I'm a fan of lots of things.

I hereby declare myself a non-rabid, non-hormone-driven, passionate, geeky fangirl of the following:

• Neil Gaiman (including, but not limited to, the Sandman comics)
• The Princess Bride (yeah, that's me in the t-shirt)
• The Obernewtyn Chronicles
• The Lord of the Rings films
• Robin Hobb's fantasy worlds
• Narnia

Don't you dare diss my fangirldom.

Author/Fan

I had an idea back here about the rebirth of the author: I think authors are taking a new place within their fan communities and no longer stand as authoritative figures over them. Thanks to the internet, of course. If you follow your favourite writer online, tell me you haven't noticed that the author/fan boundary seems to be getting blurred.

Author Lynn Flewelling has a book coming out soon inspired by fan artwork. This, I think, is collaboration at its best. There's a blog on the topic here.

I was discussing a related concept with my thesis supervisor last week: sometimes, it seems, the fanbase has more say in 'what goes' in a fictional world than the actual writer does (think Star Trek). This seems to happen most with extraordinarily geeky fanbases. (Actually, on a sidenote, cult TV shows are beginning to cash in on this, enlisting famous author-fans to write episodes, such as Neil Gaiman's upcoming Dr Who episode.) The fanbase's authority does depend, however, on whether the fans worship the story or the writer. Joss Whedon, I think, is an example of the latter. Incidentally, a transcript of his keynote session at the Melbourne Writer's Festival is available here.

Abandoned books

Shelfari tells me I've read 32 books this year, and that I'm currently reading another 7. This is exactly the kind of thing I use Shelfari for. There are lots of book-related social networking sites. Too many, in fact, because there isn't yet a standard- the site that 'everyone' uses. (Monopolies aren't nice, but for social networking they're kind of necessary. Who wants to use a social networking site unless their friends are using it too?) I joined Shelfari for two reasons: it's an easy way to keep track of what I've read and am reading, and it allows me to put a lovely bookshelf on my blog.

The fact that I've read 32 books this year is good. I have a vague goal this year to read an average of a book a week, so 32 means I'm on track. (I'm slightly behind if you count the number of weeks exactly, but don't forget I have a thesis due at the end of October and will have lots of time for reading in November and December!)

The fact that I'm 'currently reading' 7 books is not so good. I've never been the kind of reader who worries about abandoning a book halfway through. If it's not interesting enough to keep me reading, then I'm quite happy to move on to something else and forget I ever started it. What's concerning is that these 7 books don't fit that description. They're all good books, and I intended to finish them.

Here they are:

• Magician by Raymond Feist- I. will. read. this. I've been meaning to get round to it for years. I've only just started, so there's hope yet.
• Would You Eat Your Cat by Jeremy Stangroom- a great intro to philosophy ethics. This one I'm reading section by section.
• 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Goldstein- an engaging novel involving the world of academia I hope to get myself into. It just doesn't have the "What happens next??" factor.
• The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud- I loved the first book in the series, The Amulet of Samarkand, but I should have taken the hint when it took me over a year to get onto the second book. I'm just not interested enough.
• Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner- I adore this book! Why on Earth haven't I finished it!?
• Do Travel Writers Go To Hell? by Thomas B. Khonstamm- the premise of the book is engaging, but the prose is about as sparkling as you might expect from a travel writer (i.e. not at all), so I may give up on this one.
• The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell- This book is brilliant! I will get on to 20th Century philosophy one day, I swear!

So, the boiled-down analysis of what makes me stop reading a book? Either it's divided into sections, in which case I've read whole sections and simply failed to read others, or the plot simply hasn't captured enough interest. I just don't feel the need to discover what is on the next page.

On writing a thesis

At the risk of sounding like an (albeit extremely intermittent) broken record, I still don’t have internet. It is on its way though, so for blogging purposes, I’M BACK.

I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t read much in the last few months. A copy of Raymond Feist’s Magician has moved about in my home (bedside table, coffee table, desk) for the past two months, trying desperately to get my attention, and so far I’ve only read ten pages or so. I have read enough to appreciate Feist’s language and to know I’ll enjoy the book once I finally find the time to read it.

The reason I haven’t been reading is that I’ve been busy writing a minor thesis. The topic is truth in fiction. Which is not as grandiose as it sounds. The question is this: how do we know what is true within the world of a story? I’ve been focusing on two wonderful texts- William Goldman’s The Princess Bride and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.

I wrote about The Princess Bride here. I once promised to tell you about The Bloody Chamber, so I suppose it’s time to make good on that promise. The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short stories, most of which are re-imaginings of fairytales. Reading it takes a bit of effort. The language is incredibly rich- you won’t find any light-hearted entertainment here. What you will find instead: gothic themes, breathtaking imagery, magic, strong women, violence, sex, otherworldliness. Every story has a different pace and tone. It’s a beautiful book, and Carter’s storytelling is masterful.

Writing the thesis has been a lot of work, but I can’t help feeling I’m incredibly lucky. I get to write about the nature of fiction and Inigo Montoya and fairytales full-time. I love it, I truly do. This is how it came about: roughly a year ago, I walked into the office of an academic at my university and ventured my ideas for an Honours thesis. She asked if I had any texts in mind and I cautiously- very cautiously- said: “Well, I’m thinking I’d like to use The Princess Bride.” She actually took me seriously, and here I am.

This week, the same academic wrote on her blog:

‘I love working with fairy tales. So even on days when I'm tired and grouchy because I've been ploughing through marking and paperwork, there is a little voice in the back of my head, saying over and over again: "You have a career where you spend your time thinking about cats in boots, glass slippers, magic blue boxes, prince charming and falling stars."’

Those outside academia rarely think of academics as people who live and breathe their passion, who do what they do because they love it. Yet these are the traits I observe in the academics I see every day. And these are exactly the reasons I’ve decided to continue with philosophy. I adore it so much I couldn’t possibly give it up.

So, in summary, I’m sorry I don’t have any book reviews for you, I’ve been too busy revelling in my full-time occupation.

There really is joy in pursuing what one loves.

NEEEEEEIL! (and also some links)

Just over a week ago I attended 'Graphic', a convention run by the Sydney Opera House. Neil Gaiman was present.

For those of you who weren't lucky enough to attend, here's a video of the reading Neil did on the Saturday night. His reading voice is just divine, but don't take my word for it. Check out the video.

I attended a panel discussion with Neil, Shaun Tan and Eddie Campbell the following day, and got to ask Neil a question I've been pondering a while. It was a wonderful weekend. =D

Now I'm back to study, and have found myself quite motivated to write by this rather old TIME interview of Neil and Joss Whedon (by none other than Lev Grossman).

In some unrelated thoughts, I've been thinking about how having an ereader changes my reading experience. Just this morning, a friend mentioned that he'd found an underlined sentence in a book I've loaned him. I've always been very aware of books as physical objects. I don't just read them, I use them. I love the portability of ebooks, but I do occasionally miss the ability to mark a page with a ticket stub or write my thoughts in the margins. And voila, I logged onto one of my favourite blogs today and found this link, in which Sam Jordison discusses books-as-archives.

Happy birthday!

I still have no internet at home. Grr. I promise I have not forgotten you. As I logged on to share a few particularly wonderful links, I realised that this is my 100th post on this blog.

In honour of this birthday, I decided to make a list of my favourite posts so far:

Fantasy and philosophy - An exploration of why I adore fantasy fiction and studying philosophy. I honestly think this is my best post to date. It says an awful lot about my passions.

Lost in Austen - A review of the BBC show of the same name, with some theorizing regarding Darcy-mania thrown in.

Princesses and pornstars - The world needs more awareness of contemporary feminists like Emily Maguire, and here I tell you why.

This is my favourite book in all the world - What are your favourite books? Here I discuss mine, though this list has had an addition since.

The one about cover art - Because beautiful things are lovely to look at. Indulge yourself in some book porn.

Would the real Sherlock Holmes please stand up? - Some thoughts on the famous detective and the weird things we do with classic characters.

Have a browse through, these posts are oldies but goodies! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. =)

I think I'm just a little bit evil...

I still have no internet at home, but I couldn't resist sharing these recently discovered book gems:

A couple of years ago I purchased Great Lies to Tell Small Kids by Andy Riley, who is best known as the author of The Bunny Suicides. Each page of the book contains a hilariously mean lie, coupled with a funny cartoon. Highlights include 'Milk feels pain' and 'If you grab the edge of your chair and pull as hard as you can you'll lift yourself into the air'.

This evening a coworker of mine, JS, brought a book to the counter, chuckling. Imagine my delight when I discovered that it was a follow-up, Loads More Lies to Tell Small Kids. (My favourite lie: 'When you change channels on the TV the presenter you were just watching dies instantly.') The following conversation ensued:

Me: Oooh, I have the first one! I have to get this!
JS: That's really bad, you know.
Me: What's bad?
JS: Your need to purchase things you see.
Me: I have the first one. I love it!
JS: Maybe I should order a copy for myself then.

I can't help it. I find the idea of telling outrageous lies to small children hilariously funny.

In the meantime, I am concerned that my coworkers are going to start worrying about me, because I have the following two books on hold for myself: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and Would You Eat Your Cat? by Jeremy Stangroom. The answer, if you're wondering, is no. I wouldn't. While the titles may make me look like an obsessive carnivore, Eating Animals is actually about vegetarianism, and Would You Eat Your Cat? is a brilliant intro to ethical theory which uses interesting ethical dilemmas. A philosophically sound introduction to an area as complex as ethics is a rare find, so I recommend the book highly to anyone with an interest in ethics.

A wonderful thing

I'm not quite back to blogging as normal, as I still don't have the internet at home. I have my fingers crossed for next week.

In the meantime, here comes another handful of stray bookish thoughts drifting across Christina's mind:

One of the most wonderful things about reading is that sometimes, sometimes, you are hanging out with a friend, and mention something you've read, and they know what you are talking about. Suddenly, you have just that much more common history, that many more esoteric references. This happened to me last week, and it was an absolute delight, but I'll get back to that.

Common interests in reading and film have always been important to me, but over the last few years I've become increasingly distrusting of other people's ability to judge my tastes. I have books recommended to me often. Friends, relatives and customers all think they know exactly what I want to read (usually, they think I want to read whatever they happen to enjoy reading). I don't very often come across people whose recommendations I trust. (V, I love you for your unfalteringly good suggestions!)

Last week I attended a philosophy conference in Sydney with a few friends. I've begun to think of the whole week as an exchange of ideas. The philosophical debates went back and forth, and I enjoyed that, but I equally enjoyed the conversations about the books, films and TV shows we loved. We exchanged must-sees and must-reads. For the first time in a long time, I'm actually looking forward to tackling some fiction that has been recommended to me.

That's what friendship is for.

I remember exchanging 'homework' with friends in high school- "I'll watch this if you read that..." I really must get back into the habit. Perhaps I'll even end up less niched.

An office!

As you will recall, I moved house last weekend. I don't have internet in the new place yet, so please forgive me if this blog flies under the radar over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I will be enjoying having my own library/office/study area! Finally! The place is still a work-in-progress (pictures to go on the walls; a couple of pieces of furniture still need to be moved in) but my office is pretty much done. =D

Before:

After:

A bit of news and some wonderful links

For those of you who, a couple of posts ago, said "Huh? Who's Neil Gaiman?", I have this piece of news: Mr. G is now the only author to be awarded both the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for the same book. The medals are awarded in the UK and the US respectively, for the best children's book of the year. This year's winner for both was The Graveyard Book. You can read more here.

The picture shown here is one of my favourite illustrations from the book.

FYI, he has been the recipient of numerous awards in the past, including the World Fantasy Award (the first author to receive it for a comic) and the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Also, I thought it about time that I shared a wonderful ebook link I've found: make sure you check out Inkmesh. It's a search engine for ebooks. It's invaluable for finding those ebooks which are difficult to track down- last night I finally found L.M. Montgomery's Emily trilogy in an electronic format. It also lists prices and available formats alongside each site which supplies the ebook, cutting down on time-consuming online searches.

It's so useful, in fact, that I've added it to my page of (Actually) Useful book links.

Mostly brainless

I've just finished reading Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's trilogy in four parts. Perhaps one day I'll move on to the fifth book, Mostly Harmless, but it's about Arthur's daughter and I have a general aversion to books containing revisited characters, especially if they've gone on to have children. I don't care to imagine their lives post-adventure; I like to leave my characters free in the big wide world with endless possibilities before them. (I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but this was my biggest problem with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.)

Whilst I'm sure Adams will have treated this altogether differently, I'm not sure whether I want to read the book. So, in the meantime, I'm searching for something to read next.

As I was packing my photo albums the other day, I flicked through one and came across a quotation from one of my favourite books, Emily Climbs: "To love is easy, and therefore common -- but to UNDERSTAND -- how rare it is!"

I started thinking about it. If there's one piece of advice this media-saturated world gives us, it's BE YOURSELF! I am myself. I am myself everywhere I go, but how often do I come across someone who actually sees me? It's one thing to 'be' yourself, it's quite another to have friends who know and understand that self. I'm blessed to have a few such friendships.

All this gave me an itch to read L.M. Montgomery's Emily trilogy again, but the books are packed away. Right now, with thesis-writing and house-moving upon me, I need two things from a book:

1. Brainless. I do occasionally read chick lit, but it doesn't give me the sucked-in, switched-off feeling I need, because I tend to over-analyse it. What I need is lad lit.

2. An ebook. Because pretty much everything I own is in boxes, but my ereader is still out.

I think I'll go download me some Nick Hornby.

The one where I gush about Neil Gaiman and think about the rebirth of the author

So if you don't already know that I'm a Neil Gaiman fan, welcome to my blog for the very first time. Those of you that have been here before will understand that when I bought tickets yesterday to seem him in Sydney in August I was BESIDE MYSELF. At work yesterday, I kept saying "I'm going to see Neil Gaiman!" to anyone who would listen (and quite a few people who wouldn't).

I'm not the sort to be star-struck. I think Neil is probably the only person on the planet who could send me into a fluster. I've already started stressing about what I will say if, for some reason, I have the opportunity to shake his hand at one of the events I'm attending. A man as talented as Mr. Gaiman hears strangers tell him how much they appreciate his work all the time.

If you haven't heard of him before, you'll have to take my word for it. His writing talent and his imagination are awe-inspiring, and he has a cult following of over a million fans worldwide. His creativity is matched only by a kind of intellectual rigour rarely found outside academia. When you read a work by Neil Gaiman, you know you are in the presence of a keen awareness of mythology and tales most of us have long forgotten. I think it's telling that a quote from his Sandman comics was recently misattributed to Shakespeare. I'd like to gush some more but I won't, because a.) I would probably bore you and b.) Charlie Orr has already said it anyway.

Instead, I'll just mention that I've been thinking a lot lately about the similarities between William Goldman's The Princess Bride and Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

Neil has said in interviews that Stardust was partly inspired by The Princess Bride- or by a lack of book similar to The Princess Bride. Both are fairy tales sold primarily to an adult audience, and they have a similar humour about them. Both were made into films with plotlines more romanticised than those in the original books.

There is, however, one significant difference: The Princess Bride is metafictional. Goldman continually interrupts the story to say what he thinks of it, and this is part of the story. He talks about his wife and son, their reactions to the text and the process of abridging the original text of The Princess Bride. This is all part of the fiction, though Goldman mixes in enough truth to confuse the reader a little.

I've been thinking about this because I'm writing my Honours thesis on a certain philosophical problem regarding fiction, and I'm using metafiction (specifically The Princess Bride) to illuminate the problem. It occurred to me the other day that while Stardust the text isn't metafictional, it was created in a postmodern world where we have access to authors' opinions of their work. Fans interact with Neil all the time, on Twitter or on his blog. They ask him questions about his work and his life and he answers them (though I've never seen him offer an authoritarian interpretation of one of his works).

It's a joy to read, mostly because it's well-written and he's such a nice guy. And it makes me wonder. There are lots of authors with blogs these days. How does this affect they way we see their work? Roland Barthes famously told us that the author is dead. Could it be that when authors enter our online communities and interact directly with the fans of their work, the author is reborn? Not as a authoritative figure, but as a member of the community discussing the work he happened to create.

Books that aren't overrated

As someone who enjoys fiction of the cult variety more than mainstream novels, I'm always wary of books recommended to me as 'must reads'. More often than not, when I read a universally acclaimed book I find myself disappointed. Every so often, though, somebody does convince me to read something generally acclaimed and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I've read a few of these lately, so in honour of these books I present to you:

Christina's list of books that aren't overrated.

1. The children's book:
The Finn Family Moomintroll is a gorgeous children's book by Finnish author Tove Jansson. The Moomin books are huge in Europe, and utterly charming.

2. The crime novel:

As discussed elsewhere in this blog, I've started reading the Sherlock Holmes books and have found them much more enjoyable than I expected. Who'd have thunk the famous detective would be so delightfully eccentric?

3. The science fiction series:

I'm currently working my way through Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the trilogy in four parts- plus the other one). I was so sure these books would turn out to be overrated. They're not. They. Are. So. Funny. I keep attracting funny looks on public transport by (literally) laughing out loud whilst reading them on my ereader.

4. The romance:
How can you go past Pride and Prejudice? Yet so many people do- they assume this book is a sappy romance and pass it over. The men I know who have been brave enough to read it have loved its glittering satire. Go on, read it. I dare you.

When my desk goes, I go

You may remember from this post that I am awfully attached to my desk. Until this week, I didn't realise quite how much. It's a nice big desk, about two metres wide, with a return (a bit that juts out) on the left hand side which houses my laptop, dictionary and notebooks. (As pictured. I insisted on these paint colours when we moved in seven or eight years ago- now I can't wait to see the back of them!) Even though the desk is mostly used for study now, I still think of it as my 'writing desk'.

I mentioned earlier that I am soon to move. This is good: I am leaving behind my shoebox of a bedroom for significantly more space, including my own office area. I'm essentially going to be a boarder, so I have taken advantage of the fact that the space is already available and have started moving boxes over, bit by bit. My thought was that I would move in gradually, and eventually change home addresses once most of my things were in the new place. A casual, relaxed move.

It's not to be.

This week, I realised that my desk is too large to easily transport, so I'm going to need a few helping hands and will actually have to set a date for moving it. Then I realised that I can't bear to stay in my old place once my desk has moved. I simply cannot be without my beautiful desk, with all its space for thinking, writing and imagining.

So. The move date is set for the 27th. In the meantime, I promise I will blog about actual books soon.

22 boxes

I'm moving house in about a month, so naturally I've started packing. I started with my books, mainly because once I've cleared the books out of my room there will be much more space to move around and pack everything else! So far I've packed 22 boxes of books. There are another four or five boxes' worth that I can't afford to pack just now...

Yes, they are labelled by category. This is because I hope to have help unpacking and organizing them at the other end (HA, that means you!). I need it, because otherwise I will waste an entire week pouring over books I'd forgotten I had.

I already got distracted by my picture books whilst packing. (I collect picture books. I also collect perfume bottles and handbags. Contrary to popular belief, I do not collect shoes. I just happen to have quite a few of them.)

Language and the self

I’m a bit of an anglophile, much to the bewilderment of my parents, who brought me up to be keenly aware of my Finnish heritage. My interest in all things English, however, stems from a deeply-rooted conviction that culturally, I am a product of England as much as I am of Australia or Finland.

I ardently believe that language, far from being a simple tool for communication, is one of the strongest forces in shaping our consciousness. Even though Finnish was my first language, my whole education has been conducted in English. I first encountered the alphabet, that magical cluster of characters with the capacity to create worlds, in English. My obsession with the English language began then.

The folk tales I heard as a child came to me via England (did those adult storytellers ever really understand the power of Red Riding Hood’s cape or Cinderella’s shoe?). My dragons are dragons of flight and fire, they are not the Scandinavian crawling wyrms. The legends I read in primary school were English (are there any stories as wonderful as the Arthurian legends?). The fantasy I grew up on was written by Oxfordians. My sense of humour, even, is quite English (think Gaiman, Pratchett, Adams). In high school, I studied Shakespeare in three separate disciplines. The turns of phrase employed by the English, with their delightfully extensive vocabularies, have always made me proud to speak their language.

How can I begin to unravel this bundle of influences? How can I explain how King Arthur’s court shaped my impressions of the world more strongly than anything I ever saw on TV? How can I account for the fact that my imagination soared in response to black letters marching across the pages?

I’m not sure I can unravel it, and I don’t really want to. If you took away the influence of English, what was left wouldn’t be me anymore. I couldn’t tell you why it’s so important to me, it just seemed apparent from the start that the English language is one of the parameters of my universe. I am defined by this language and this literary heritage, by my responses to it and my passion for it, and I like it that way.

Briefly

You know by now that I admire the work of book critic Laura Miller.

This month, she wrote on why men don't read books, and on bad writing and what it's good for. Check it.

Sony Reader Touch - my new toy

My Sony Reader (Model PRS 600) arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago. I was terribly excited about receiving it, but completely unprepared for the resulting love affair. I know, I know! I am a book lover! This blog is, after all, entitled 'Paper and Ink and Glue'. But I want to be honest with you, and the truth is that I adore my ereader.

IF YOU READ THIS BOOK THE WORLD WILL END

The Hypothetical Library is a blog by cover artist Charlie Orr. The project is fascinating: he asks authors to give a title and a description of a book they could write, but never will write, and then designs the covers and posts them.

When I first came across The Hypothetical Library, I thought 'That reminds me of the libary in the Dreaming, from the Sandman comics.' This library contains not just every book ever written, but also every book ever intended. It's one of my favourite things about the Sandman series. (Click on the image to see what I mean.)

As it turns out, I was right: The Hypothetical Library was actually partly inspired by the library in the Dreaming.

Now, Orr has actually designed a book for Neil Gaiman (with audio and e-book versions to come). The book is entitled If You Read this Book the World Will End. It looks as if the world actually would end, too. You can view the post here.

Would the real Sherlock Holmes please stand up?

I posted here about how the book is not always better than the film, and how I enjoyed the recent Sherlock Holmes film. I've since had several friends mention to me that they were disappointed with the film, in virtue of the characters being so different from those written by Conan Doyle. 'That's fair enough,' I thought, 'You have to draw the line somewhere. You don't get to go around claiming a film is based on a book if it doesn't even use the same story or characters.'

After all, everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes was a reserved private detective who spent his time smoking a pipe whilst sitting in a wingbacked chair, the picture of civility. It's all incredibly sedate and English. Right?

Robert Downey Jr., on the other hand, plays him as:

• a detective consulted by police
• eccentric
• energetic
• alcoholic (when without work)
• brash
• a prizefighter

Imagine my surprise when I started reading the Sherlock Holmes books and found that Holmes actually is all of these things! With one exception- in the books, Holmes has a cocaine habit when out of work. We can safely assume that the cocaine was substituted with alcohol in the film for the purposes of winning the sympathy of modern audiences (at the time, cocaine use was considered a vice, but not a terrible one).

Shouldn't the Sherlock Holmes fans be praising Guy Ritchie for presenting the rich, endearing true nature of Holmes to the world? (Not to mention for turning an English cliche into a fresh adventure story?)

Something of a filler

It occurred to me that I should alert you to the fact that posts this month are (and will be) few and mostly likely not very substantial. This is because the final two weeks of the semester are upon me. I know my priorities. =)

In the meantime, I was sneaking in some Black Books last night and noticed something of a resemblance between two of my favourite book-related people:

If you haven't seen any of Black Books and you are in possession of a sense of humour, I suggest you do yourself a favour and watch some. And by possessing a sense of humour, I mean that you have laughed at one of the following:

a.) The Princess Bride

b.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

c.) Something by Terry Pratchett and/or Douglas Adams

Edit: A friend has pointed out that I failed to note that the dashing gentleman on the left is Dylan Moran of Black Books, and the charming one on the right is Mr. Neil Gaiman.

A book for mum

Belinda Alexandra's White Gardenia is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It has everything: history, romance, drama. It follows Anya, the daughter of a Russian aristocrat, displaced from birth. She flees her home on the Chinese-Russian border and grows into womanhood amidst the glitzy world of Shanghai nightclubs, only to again be be chased away by the circumstances of history. Once again a refugee, she must find a new homeland.

Alexandra is an Australian author and her historical detail is both accurate and fascinating. From the publisher's website:

"White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia."

I highly recommend it, for yourself as well as mum.

View on fishpond: White Gardenia Books Alive Edition

Austenbook

Elizabeth Bennet became a fan of Pemberly.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is suprised and hopeful.


...You get the idea, but it doesn't really work with the formatting of my blog. Which is all the more reason to check out the Austenbook page for yourself. What a delightful way to spend ten minutes!

Links links links

Books are a passion of mine. If you've read this blog before, you know that. My passion, however, isn't just for my own reading. It extends to other people. My favourite thing about my job (I work in a bookstore) is helping customers find books they will enjoy. I love matching a person to a book, I love it when other people enjoy what they're reading, I love other people's passion for books.

To that end, I've posted a couple of pages of links on this blog. You'll see the tabs above- Where to buy books and (Actually) Useful book links. These aren't links to other book blogs or to pages that I happen to enjoy reading, they are links to websites which I find indispensible to my own literary life. I've posted them because they're useful, fantastic for anyone with an interest in books. I'd love it if you had a look.

Sex tips?

It always puzzles me somewhat when people laugh feminism off as the pointless preoccupation of bra-burners and hairy women. Sure, bras turned out to be kind of useful and some of us like our legs hairless, but that doesn't mean the ideals of feminism are beside the point. (I blogged about the continuing need for feminism here.)

Then, every so often, something comes along which reminds me of the depth of ignorance behind such callousness. This time it was a book entitled Sex Tips for Husbands and Wives from 1894. This book is part of a recent trend for republishing books which predate the 1960s (i.e. second wave feminism) and contain advice on relationships and families. The idea is that the books, with their outdated values and prudish suggestions, are supposed to be funny.

It's kind of nice, in a way, that the old-fashioned, often sexist, advice seems absurd enough to be funny. It shows we've come a long way. But this book crossed the line. It's publisher, Summersdale, advertises the book with the following excerpt:

"While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured... One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: give little, give seldom and, above all, give grudgingly… Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices."


Which might seem funny, until you remember that second wave feminism wasn't all hype. This book, when first published in 1894, was for real. Sex actually was "at best revolting and at worse rather painful" for many women, and this was considered natural.
 
Am I really supposed to find that funny?