Paper Hearts

My boyfriend doesn’t acknowledge Valentine’s day. This isn’t a surprise. He didn’t acknowledge Christmas either. When I sent out christmas cards I sent him an empty envelope with the words ‘if only you believe in christmas’ scrawled on the inside. Anniversaries are just as unlikely to be celebrated. Although he at least remembers when he asked me out. I was asleep at the time and genuinely thought I’d dreamt the conversation.

You might think that my 21st birthday would be reason enough to celebrate. No. Although that didn’t stop him eating my cake.

Valentine’s day is one of those odd celebrations where nobody knows what to do. I still have a card from when I was 16. It was anonymous and even to this day I have no idea who it was from. This year, it will most likely pass unnoticed. The boy will be in the gym, or on the water. In the house our two single men will probably make some comment about having only each other. The two other girls will hopefully enjoy some surprise from their significant others. I’ll not worry about it.

I made this paper heart the other week. The paper itself is from a book, undoubtedly some of you will disapprove of me chopping a book up. It’s a heart to Matilda, my bicycle. You can read about my unfortunate collision between her and a curb.  However, the heart is more of an apology that I’m buying a new bike, one which I can cycle from Lands End to John O’Groats on.

The inspiration for my heart came from this blog here, themed on mexican folk art. I saw the picture and just knew that I wanted to make my own.The flowery paper stitched onto the heart is from a shower curtain shown in the H&M catalogue. The whole thing is hand stitched, no glue or tape required.

What will you do for valentine’s day?

I’m looking forward to the critique my blog blogfest, hosted by Teralyn at A Writer’s Journey, tomorrow.

Marketing for Literature

Do you read the ‘classics’? Personally I have difficultly even understanding what exactly the ‘classics’ are.  Every time I read an article that references to them I’m struck by all the names that I don’t recognise.

I’m guessing, that if you do read them, you read a lot of them. If you’re not normally a ‘classics’ reader, like me, then you might have read a few particularly the very well-known and popular books like Pride and Prejudice.

If you do read such books is it because you grew up reading them? Did your parents read them? Who influenced you to read them? Do you read them because you feel you should? If you don’t read them why not? It would be hard to argue that they aren’t interesting, or aren’t well written. Maybe sometimes they are more challenging to read, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

My theory is that you don’t read them, because there isn’t the same marketing behind them. There is little money to make from books that are available free.

Out of the guardian’s list of 100 greatest books I’ve read:

24. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll

25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott

34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde

54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh

61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger

64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee

74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller (read up to chapter 5, but I was terribly bored so stopped)

97. Atonement Ian McEwan

98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman

(Note how many of these also have films made of them?)

And out of  a list compiled by writers I’ve read only 4. 2 of which I studied in school.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870)

The Odyssey by Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC)

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817)

“This list of the 100 best books of all time was prepared by Norwegian Book Clubs. They asked 100 authors from 54 countries around the world to nominate the ten books which have had the most decisive impact on the cultural history of the world, and left a mark on the authors’ own thinking. Don Quixote was named as the top book in history but otherwise no ranking was provided”

The top 100 books of all time | Books | guardian.co.uk.

Most of the list I haven’t even heard of. It’s not even that I don’t read much, I’ve always got a book on the go and always have had. Most of the books are out of copyright and you can downloaded them from the internet for free. The reason I haven’t read them is simple, I just haven’t been excited by them yet.

What about yourself?

Other articles  of interest:

Classic literature: ‘Boring’ or relevant? | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Top 100 Classic Literature.

Review: Paying the Virgin’s Price

Here’s a book that Orwell would have most likely suggested got no attention but I enjoyed it and think it deserves a mention.

Paying the Virgin’s Price by Christine Merrill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the only one of the series I have read and it will most likely stay that way unless I see one ridiculously cheap somewhere. I did enjoy the book. It was a quick and easy read and felt like it had more plot and was better written than the previous Mills and Boon books I’ve read (although I haven’t read many so this might be an over generalisation). The most disappointing part of the book was that it all seemed too easy for them. There was a lack of conflict. I think that the end of the book dragged on a little. It should have had the plot wrapped up before the two main characters became ‘happy ever after’. The sex I felt was good, until near the end when it seemed to end abruptly. The secondary characters were all one-dimensional, apart from maybe the Gypsy, however as I hadn’t been expecting them to have much depth I wasn’t particularly disappointed.

More Reviews

Review: Confessions of a Book Reviewer by George Orwell (Essay)

Orwell suggests, in his essay, that a book reviewer ought to write long (over 1000 word) reviews about the few books that matter and ignore the rest. Of course, he is talking about professional full-time reviewers; he suggests that a regular review as a person who reviews over 100 books a year.

A thousand word review sounds like hard work. And then in a way it doesn’t. When I was doing my academic writing module we completed a thousand word critique of an article, mine was on sustainable energy, and that seemed a really short length. The problem with fiction however is that you still want the story to surprise. I’m always uncertain about how much depth I should go into. I don’t want to replace the story. Certainly if someone told me the entire story before I read it for myself I might get upset and feel I was missing out.

If you were to write a thousand word review how would you go about it?

Accidents with Matilda

There’s a hole in my knee. It’s my own fault and my stupidity. If I’d oiled my bike chain earlier then it probably wouldn’t have come off. If it hadn’t come off then I wouldn’t have slowed down to an almost stop, underestimated the height of the pavement, and hence fallen off.

My first concern was that I’d hit my face. After untangling myself from the bike, I cautiously touched my face. Although covered in grit I was intact. A white van slowed down to see if I needed help. I waved him on. I saw no point causing a fuss. I propped the bike against a lamppost. Her name is Matilda and she is pretty in purple. I replaced her chain.

It was only then I realised that the pair of black tights covered only one of my legs. On the other leg, the tights had miraculously changed texture, become almost crunchy at the torn edges. Blood was pouring down my leg from my knee to my boot.

I ruined a spare strap top that I kept in my bag by holding it tight against my knee, to stop the bleeding, whilst I called my boyfriend for help. Luckily, he was home. I told him I might need a very large plaster or maybe a few. He promptly jumped on his bike (unnamed) and came to my rescue.

Once the bleeding had slowed, I started walking up the hill home. I wheeled Matilda past a group of girls who didn’t seem to notice that I was oozing blood. Walking was slow. Without worrying too much I got back on my bike and started peddling. The knee continued bleeding but considerably slower than it had been. I promised myself if it got much worse I’d stop. What harm was there in losing a little blood if it meant I’d get home and could sort it out properly. I met the boyfriend on the cycle path and he agreed that cycling the last bit of the journey, washing and grit freeing my knee before sticking it back together would be a good idea. It was only another 5 minutes until we arrived home.

He also swore that before I got back on the bike again, I would have bought a helmet. He was true to his word and marched me to the bike shop. My helmet’s black with pink bits on it.

Seems like I’m taking a forced break from the training for cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats. Whilst everybody else wraps up in warm jumpers and trousers, I’ve been spending my week in short skirts and bare legs shivering. At least I’ve got my helmet now!

Do you cycle, and if so, do you wear a helmet?

Addicted to the Pen

A Fox’s tangerine dream and first time pastry

What happens when you play with food.

Do you know how to make pastry?

Naively, I imagined that everybody knew how and could, at least to a reasonable standard, make pastry. It’s a simple, vital part of cooking. I often avoid making it as I have tiny, squidgy, warm hands, but sometimes there is a distinct need from tarts or pies and so I force my hands under the cold tap to freeze.

I don’t remember learning to make pastry. Just like I don’t remember learning to bake a cake.

And yet, this evening I’m going to eat pastry made by a housemate of mine for the first time. How you get to 21 years of age without making pastry, I have no idea. I shouldn’t be surprised, this is the same boy who baked his first cake under my supervision – his cakes are now consistently the best I’ve tasted – better than my own. The other two men of the house baked their first cakes whilst at university. They are more than capable of cooking, not one of them is a bad cook. They just have hardly any experience. Nobody taught them.

Occasionally, on a Sunday, I cook a full roast dinner. They consider this truly amazing. I laugh at them; they are all extraordinary clever. They don’t discuss what grades they got at A-level, they discuss which side of 3 percent they got below a hundred. Academically they’re in a different league to me. More importantly, they could all cook a good roast dinner if they ever thought they could try.

The stereotype of a university student involves too much pizza, quick meals made in the microwave, pasta and takeaways. Recently I upset my mother by telling her that I eat better at university than I ever did at home. Here, we eat a proper hot meal every night. We cook most things from scratch. Our bread is home-made. We often cover the 5 fruit and veg need in one meal. The men consume so much food it is crazy. However, with six of us, each person has to cook only once a week. This means we’re all willing to put in the extra time and care that’s required. If a recipe says suitable for six, we double it. I wouldn’t describe any of us as large.

We will all graduate being able to manipulate equations and numbers, things like quantum mechanics seemingly not that confusing after all but absolutely useless to real life. Luckily, we’ll all be able to bake a cake and make a pie as well. I pity those ‘stereotypical’ students – you can’t eat quantum mechanics and there’s nothing like a homemade quiche.

 

I’m currently reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. She makes me crave for summer foods, salads fresh bright tomatoes and olives. The book took a little while to get into, but now I’m addicted to the idea of an Italian summer I can’t put it down.

Review: Hand of Isis

Hand of Isis by Jo Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Hand of Isis is the story of Cleopatra told through the eyes of her loving sister Charmian. It spans Cleopatra’s life from her birth and childhood to her death.

Some people won’t like the sex scenes and the candid way sex was part of the story. However, I found it refreshing. Additionally, including homosexual and bisexual characters made it feel representative of people generally. I loved Charmian’s candid approach towards sex.

A significant part of the story involves the Egyptian gods and Jo Grahams slightly odd way of dealing with faith and dead. This will alienate some readers, however I found it an interesting angle to take and felt it added something to the story. It raises some questions about the role of religion in understanding and dealing with death, and asks questions about our abilities to accept people with different beliefs to our own.

My complaints about the book are mostly a feeling that the pacing was inconsistent, meaning my attention was lost at times. Normally this type of book compels me to complete reading it quickly; however, I put it down for days at a time and eventually finished it in little over a month. It seemed to jump focus. Towards the middle, I felt told about Cleopatra’s activities and character, and not shown them. The relationship between the sisters was weaker in the second half, which was unfortunate as this was a major strength of the book in the first half.

This was a book I didn’t quite know what to think about. My opinion of it changed so much depending on my mood. Sometimes I genuinely didn’t think it was very good. Yet somehow, I couldn’t forget about it. It was almost as if it was haunting me, making me read until the end. I didn’t want to read the end. I’m not too clued up about the history of Cleopatra. I’ve never watched a film about her and this is the first book about her I’ve read. I did however know she would die. I didn’t want her to die. Maybe it was the conflicting emotions that made me dislike the book at times. Sometimes I loved it. I could relate to the characters which seeing as they lived over 2000 years ago and had a very different standing in life, not to mention living in a different continent and society, seems like an achievement. The vivid descriptions made me want to know more about Alexandrian society and the scientific and engineering inventions mentioned.

I look forward to reading more of Jo Graham’s work, but I’m going to wait a while until I do.

View all my reviews

The Wrestle

This began as a comment to Cynthia McGean’s post here, but grew as I was writing it.

“Did you read it?”

“Yes”

“What did you think?”

“Maybe you ought to sit down.”

This is how my most trusted reader and I began yesterday after I’d given him a few of my latest chapters. It’s similar every time.

“Well…”

“It’s very you.”

By this point, I already know he means it’s slightly quirky, grammatically a disaster and the plots gone for a stroll around the park. He pauses and then he states one item at a time, as if he’s made an infinitely long list of problems.

“I like ___ but what’s the point of it?”

“Why that”

“How does that relate to anything?”

“How is it going to end?”

“You don’t explain this, or that, or actually the entire of this section?”

“Do you even know what you mean?”

And at each question I’m forced to defend. Forced to fight. To argue.

“I like the bit with the goat and the bottle,” he finally muses.

I smile.

There’s still potential.

Scared of Words