by Kay | Jan 4, 2010 | Weekly Feature |
Today’s Musing Mondays post is about New Year reading. With the New Year here already, do you have any reading resolutions or goals (challenges aside) for 2010? Perhaps a new author? Genre? Want to read more non-fiction? Write more reviews?
Besides the resolutions that I have already posted about, I do have one desire/goal for the upcoming year: to find “collectable” editions of my favourite books. I don’t mean that they have to be valuable, but I would like to own copies of my favourite books that will last me another few decades. Hardcover, first edition and preferably signed! I don’t really care if they are worth anything (and hopefully my favourites won’t be, as I am not exactly rolling in money) but I love the idea of having a book I love that I can plan on having for a while…
It is something that I have wanted to do for a while, but have never been too willing to part with my cash. But lately I have started to think of it more as an investment in my future. Also, a lot of the books I want can only be found used or in some warehouse in Kentucky – and are actually a lot cheaper than I expected!
I also want to plan out my reading time more efficiently… okay, plan my reading time, full stop. I am currently a bit of a spontaneous reader – which is great, but it also means that I never really get the opportunity to put everything on hold and just read. Could planning my reading time fix that? I don’t know… but it is worth a shot!
As for genres… I really need to read more popular science for my degree. It will be tough for me, but as I do believe that non-fiction can be amazing, I need to practice what I preach!
by Kay | Jan 2, 2010 | Reviews |
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1
Genres: Science Fiction
Source: Purchased myself
Add to Goodreads
Rating: It’s an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and his best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. At this moment, they’re hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed with the big, friendly words: DON’T PANIC.
The weekend has only just begun…
Thoughts: I had been meaning to read this book for a couple of years, but never got around to getting a copy. So when a friend finally just gave me a copy for Christmas, I knew I had no reason to wait.
There are so many things about this book that make it a classic. Besides the humour – which there is plenty of – the social commentary is extraordinarily insightful. As with the case with a lot of science fiction, the universe provides a new venue for us to examine ourselves. Adams did the same thing as most sci-fi writers – he just did it with a hell of a lot more wit.
There are so many quotes in this book that deserve a mention – and half of them you probably know without reading the book. So I thought I would share instead a quote from the letter Adams wrote to his US editor. It does an excellent job at demonstrating the quality of his humour, his ability to see straight through things to the truth, and also sets up the very British-ness of the book:
There are some changes in the script that simply don’t make sense. Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every single manifestation of HHGG ever. […] So why suddenly “Newark” instead of “Rickmansworth”? And “Bloomingdales” instead of “Marks and Spencer”? The fact that Rickmansworth is not within the continent United States doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist! American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction. […] If you feel that referring to “Marks and Spencer” might seriously freak out Americans because they haven’t heard of it […] we could either put warning stickers on the cover (“The text of this book contains references to places and institutions outside the continental United States and may cause offence to people who haven’t heard of them”) or you could, I suppose, put “Harrods”, which most people will have heard of. Or we could even take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won’t have heard of and see if they survive the experience. They probably will – when people are born they haven’t heard of anything or anywhere, but seem to get through the first few years of their lives without ill-effects.
Bottom Line? HHGG is absolutely hysterical. And like the best humour, it has a very truthful ring to it. Also, reading it will let you in on all sorts of jokes that you have been missing all these years!
DON’T PANIC about the boring cover! The new re-release is meant to be a DIY book cover. It is really kinda awesome, as it has a bunch of HHGG stickers to decorate the book with – and whatever you have left over you can paste where you like. Very very cool. (Check out the video!)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Don’t Panic DIY Covers from Crush Design on Vimeo.
by Kay | Jan 1, 2010 | Weekly Feature |
Friday Finds is hosted over at Should be Reading where bloggers are asked to explain the growing pile of books on their TBR list by answering “What great books did you hear about / discover this past week?”
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint (Amazon)
On the Day of the Dead, the Solona Music Hall is jumping. That’s where Altagracia Quintero meets John Burns, just two weeks too late.
Altagracia – her friends call her Grace – has a tattoo of Nuestra Señora de Altagracia on her shoulder, she’s got a Ford Motor Company tattoo running down her leg, and she has grease worked so deep into her hands that it’ll never wash out. Grace works at Sanchez Motorworks, customizing hot rods. Finding the line in a classic car is her calling.
Now Grace has to find the line in her own life. A few blocks around the Alverson Arms is all her world — from the little grocery store where she buys beans, tamales, and cigarettes (“cigarettes can kill you,” they tell her, but she smokes them anyway) to the record shop, to the library where Henry, a black man confined to a wheelchair, researches the mystery of life in death – but she’s got unfinished business keeping her close to home.
Grace loves John, and John loves her, and that would be wonderful, except that John, like Grace, has unfinished business – he’s haunted by the childhood death of his younger brother. He’s never stopped feeling responsible. Like Grace in her way, John is an artist, and before their relationship can find its resolution, the two of them will have to teach each other about life and love, about hot rods and Elvis Presley, and about why it’s necessary to let some things go.
I have been looking for an introduction to de Lint – and this looks like the perfect candidate. I am already in love!
by Kay | Dec 31, 2009 | List-o-pia |
2009 was a pretty great year reading-wise. I discovered a lot of new authors, new genres, and new favourites! Here are my favourite reads of 2009 – Literary Fiction, Young Adult Novels and some Fantasy:
The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong / Lover Eternal by J.R.Ward
Run by Ann Patchett / The People’s Act of Love by James Meek
Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine / Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs / The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong
Banishing Verona by Margot Livesy / The Scent of Shadows by Vicki Pettersson
So that was my Top Ten List of the year – what were your favourite reads?
by Kay | Dec 30, 2009 | Weekly Feature |
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that are being eagerly anticipated.
Dark Life by Kat Falls
Young Adult – May 1st 2010 by Scholastic Press
Set in an apocalyptic future where rising oceans have swallowed up entire regions and people live packed like sardines on the dry land left, DARK LIFE is the harrowing tale of underwater pioneers who have carved out a life for themselves in the harsh deep-sea environment, farming the seafloor in exchange for the land deed.
The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family’s homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws’ attacks on government supply ships and settlements…
… threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known.
Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier’s rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life.
As Ty gets closer to the truth, he discovers that the outlaws may not be the bloodthirsty criminals the government has portrayed them as. And that the government abandoning the territory might be the best thing for everyone, especially for someone like Ty, someone with a Dark Gift.
I am not usually a fan of post-apocalyptic books – but this one looks amazing! I used to watch a show called Ocean Girl where they characters lived on an underwater station. It was an amazing idea, and I can’t wait to read it in a novel!
Musing Mondays is held by Rebecca over at Just One More Page.
