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.

Found

There is a book which my dad and I have Arguments over. (This isn't too surprising, since my dad and I have arguments over a lot of things. Arguing with each other is one of our Favourite Pastimes. This particular arument, however, is a Recurring Argument.) The Argument is entirely my fault, but don't tell my dad I said that.

Here's the thing: my dad owns a book entitled The Complete Evaporated History of the World Since the Dawn of Time. It was published in 1984, and I adore it. I use it for reference, you see, because unlike every other book of history I have ever read, I have Excellent Recall of Everything in This Book. I can quote it verbatim. It helps me keep history in order inside my head.

My dad rarely looks at said book, and so a couple of years ago the Natural Order of Things caused the book to become appropriated to my own collection. It has lived on my bookshelf ever since.

My dad doesn't like this, since the book is His and he suspects that I intend to take it with me when I move out (he's not wrong there). This is how the Arguments came about.

BUT NOW! Praise be, I have discovered the wonder of online shopping. In particular, YOU CAN BUY OUT OF PRINT BOOKS ONLINE! I've ordered myself a copy of The Book for the Princely Sum of $12. So now, all that's left is for me to share some quotes with you, my dear readers, so you too can agonise over the fact that you do not own this gem:


"We know all about the Egyptians because they wrote their history on the wall in a secret language. Unforunately, they then forgot the language, so it was all a bit of a waste."

"Julius Ceasar invented a new sort of calendar, which was exatly the same length as a year. This may not sound very clever, by there has to be a first time for everything."

"A small problem arose over a loosely-worded commandment which said THOU SHALT NOT KILL."

"The Inquisition came down heavily against materialism. ... Thus proper civilisation came to America, while crass materialism was shipped back to Spain."

"When the French heard about the American revolution, they said 'Ah-ha' in French, and decided that they would like to revolve too."



P.S. Please disregard the Inappropriate Capital Letters in this post. I'm just in That Sort of Mood.

Speaking of quotations...

"Words are loaded pistols."

-Jean-Paul Sartre

"Great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors."

-Milan Kundera

If you love quotations as much as I do, check out Advanced Banter, one of the best quote collections I've seen for a long time.

The joys of a new notebook

I've mentioned my love of notebooks before, but I don't think I made it quite clear how much I love notebooks! In the absence of a diary, my notebooks are the quiet carriers of my day to day thoughts and inspirations. I use notebooks for everything.

I have notebooks for:

• Lists (what to pack, what to do today, people to call, things that are bugging me, things to buy, etc.) - these are my mongrel notebooks, the ugliest, most functional ones which end up with random addresses, phone numbers, mathematical calculations and automatically allocated internet passwords scrawled into them.


• Ambitions - well, I only have one of these. I write down my most important ambitions, just for a place to keep them. (Go to Egypt; Learn to bake bread; Become a good essayist; etc.) This one is a lovely, cloth bound notebook with a silk tie. It lives on my desk.


• Thoughts on books - of course. The larger kind of notebook, pretty but functional.


• Random venting - for those times I wish I kept a diary. I hope that when I'm gone, somebody does me the service of burning these because most of the time, I only write down the things that aren't worth remembering. This is the only use I have for large notebooks.


• Quotations - I have a quotation fetish. I collect them. And for this, I reserve the tiniest, most beautiful notebooks I own.

Paperblanks makes gorgeous notebooks. I also picked up one today by a new Australian brand called Rasberry- keep an eye out for them.

The strangest thing about my notebook obsession is that I never finish using one. The last quarter or so is always blank. I think this is because they're so personal, so attached to my day-to-day life that when I move to a new place mentally, I can't stand to keep using the same old notebooks.

No two I own are the same.