This Week's Posts

This week might be a little light on with my posts.  The reason being is because I'll be in hospital on Tuesday for day surgery at Greenslopes Private Hospital.  Now, it's nothing bad, just minor stuff to prevent any pain from occurring in the future (which I've been suffering with for some years now). 

So, I just thought to let you guys all know about this just in case I'm not in here posting live this week.  I'll be posting here tomorrow, but might not be until later on this week.

Until my next post, happy reading!

Pulling Into This Port - The Answers!

Okay!  A couple of days ago, I was talking about the hook to a book that keeps us here; the first line.  And then, I dropped in eight first lines with their books and authors in a jumbled mess and left you guys to it to figure out which belongs to who... so, how did you go? 

I didn't see too many attempts; so I take it you either found it too easy or didn't know any of them.  Never mind, I'll supply the answer to them now!

'They're out there.'
One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

'First, in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on a north-south axis.'
'The Spare Room' by Helen Garner

'The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.'
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

'It was a a pleasure to burn.'
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

'He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.'
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway

'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.'
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A trilogy In Four parts by Douglas Adams

'The primroses were over.'
Watership Down by Richard Adams

'Hapscomb's Texaco sat on US 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.'
The Stand by Stephen King

So, how did you go?  How many did you guess right? All eight?  Or just a few?  Now if you didn't get any of them, don't worry, it's okay, I had a few people on Facebook who didn't know any of them either... but they took a good guess too.  But the ones I have read out of these are:  'The Stand', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy - the Trilogy In Four Parts', 'Old Man and the Sea', 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', 'The Spare Room' and 'Fahrenheit 451'.  However, it's been a few years for a couple of them, so I've forgotten the first lines of them; not that I'd remember them anyway.  Well, until my next post, happy reading!

Not Just Any Port In A Storm

Okay, reading is something of a passion for everyone here.  But I've found that it's not the book cover that attracts me to read the book I've chosen, it's the opening line... the hook that pulls in my interest and makes me stay to read the rest.

So... I'm going to play a little game with you guys.  I'm putting up a list of first lines and with authors below it and the title of the books next to the authors and I'd like you guys to figure out which books they came from.  Yep, this is going to be fun as I chose some books I've read and some I haven't.

'They're out there'

'First in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on to a north-south axis.'

'The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.'

'It was a pleasure to burn.'

'He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.'

'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.'

'The primroses were over.'

'Hapscomb's Texaco sat on US 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.'


'The Spare Room' by Helen Garner 
'The Stand' by Stephen King
'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury
'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde
'One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' by Ken Kesey 
'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemmingway
'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams 
'Watership Down' by Richard Adams

Okay, I'll be here in a day or so to let you guys in on who's books fits in with which first lines... good luck! And this is just for a bit of fun!  Until my next post, happy reading! 

Neil Gaiman's Most Personal Book Ever!

Neil Gaiman is famous for some of the greatest stories and books around.  He's entertained us from all angles and through everyone's eyes; from the young to adults. 
However tonight, I've been hanging out on Google looking for some interviews for you all to look at and read when I came upon one from the Telegraph about his latest book.  This book is going to be his most personal he's ever written, and I've found the interview to it which was only written a day or so ago.

Neil Gaiman's Most Personal Book 

Until my next post, happy reading.

Most Collected Books

Collecting books is something of a weakness.  As you've all most probably read at some point, I've got quite a collection of books - nudging toward the 1,000 number mark - and I'm still somehow finding places for the books I keep on buying and acquiring from all over the place.

However, there are certain books and authors I just find an absolute pleasure to collect.  When friends and family drop around to my place - which isn't very often, and it should be more often as a few of them do like it here but it's so tiny - they find the book collection one very big attraction.  I've had people say it's a very claustrophobic experience, while others have forgotten how small my office is and just jumped in spotting a book they've not read since they there at school and pulling it off the shelf.  After they've marveled at the book they ask me where I got it, how much it was and if I've read it.  Most times, there's stories that go with the books and how I get them; and also most times I haven't read the books they're handling.  This really stumps my family as to why I have a book in the first place: why have a book if I'm not going to read it immediately?

I will read it, but not right now.  There's others to read at the moment.  

But I do have a few collections of certain authors around this tiny room.  There's Stephen King, JRR Tolkien, Robin Hobb and a couple of Richard Dawkins' books.  These authors have their own shelves and I've tried to keep them together - which is really hard - but it's worth it when a friend asks me if I have a certain book of Stephen King's and I can look at his shelf and say if I do or not.  
The funny thing is that I'm often asked if I keep my books in some kind of order.  And even though it looks quite messy, I actually do.  I make sure it's nice and tidy to look at, and I know where everything is; and once somebody knows where things are, they can see my messy madness of organisation in my bookcases... who needs the dewey system when you have the Mozette system... hehee.. but then, there's other ways of organising books too.  

So, how do you organise your books?  Do you have a big enough collection to organise into sections of subject, author or colour of the book cover?  Or is you collection in a big mess?  Or is it in an organised mess like mine?  Until my next post, happy reading.

Busy Making Other Plans

Yep.... life has been happening to me in a big way.  However, I've been reading in spits and spurts, don't worry.  
Over the weekend, I arrived home from house sitting to find one of my fish had died... and within 24 hours, the other fish also died.  So, I have an empty fish tank and no cute little fishies to feed and look at.  A sad time for me as these fish have been a part of my house for about 2 1/2 years.

But I've been reading a fair bit.  I loaned Mum my copy of 'Nosebleed' by Ged Maybury and she loved it!  She said it was hilariously funny and she loved the feel of the book.  I'm so happy she enjoyed it as much as I did.  
I've been reading 'The Imaginings' by Paul D. Dail and am up to page 200 in that book.  It's a cool book and I'm waiting with baited breath of what's going to happen next!  Right now, he's got me in a mountain cabin, in a massive storm and there's people who have just arrived to stay at the cabin.

I'm also reading 'Graveyard Shift' by Lynda Parker ... and for those who don't know it, that's my book.  I wrote and published it on Bibliotastic at Christmas 2011 and have been meaning to get myself a download of it - seeing it's free - and now I can read it at my leisure.  I've spotted a few typos in it but I can live with them... knowing I can do better next time.

Otherwise, I'm not reading anything else really.  I'm working on some art for my new bedroom suite and working on cleaning up my house for the next couple of weeks; as it's not the tidiest it's been.  So, what have you been up to?  Have you guys been reading anything interesting worth sharing?  Are you studying where you have to read certain material?  If so, let us know what kinds of books you have to read.  Until my next post, happy reading!

May Book Buys!

Man oh man! Have I been bad!  I've sinned... forgive me!  Now, last month, I only bought two books; and that was okay.  This month, I've fallen off the proverbial money/book-saving wagon worse than ever!  I bought books just because they were there!  Yeah, I did a Mount Everest on myself.  Well, except for one; I really wanted it because I actually wanted to own the copy for a long time - that particular copy - and I'm happy to say I went out to buy just that book.

Then my book-shopping just went off track in a big way!

Okay.  I'll start at the beginning - a good place to start, isn't it?  As you know, I'm house sitting.  But the place I'm sitting is 5 minutes walk from 2 shopping centres which have a variety of places where books are sold at great prices.  How could I resist but to look at them... just to enjoy the feel of them, the smell of a new book off a shelf at The Book Warehouse at Arndale.  I was only at Arndale to pick up some last minute stuff and do a bank transfer at Suncorp (I bought some stuff at a sale on a friend's Facebook sale).  Then, what did I do?  I walked right into this store and looked around and found myself staring at 'The Greatest Show on Earth' by Richard Dawkins and asking if it was last copy they had (as the cover wasn't in great condition) and the lady said yes.  So, I picked that up and looked around.  I found myself a copy of 'The Essential Jung' Selected by Anthony Storr and then found 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' by Oliver Sacks.  Within an hour, spent around $30!  Damn!  What was I thinking?  I promised myself that I wouldn't do that again; that I had enough books back at home in my little townhouse to read.

Then, yesterday, I did it again.  I went out looking for something and found it at Target and then, I walked around to their book section - just to peruse and that was going to be all! I promised myself - but I ended up picking up 'The Honey Queen' by Cathy Kelly and '1 Base, 100 Pizzas' by Rachel Carter.  Then at the Centro Newsagents, I bought a fantastic copy of 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu (translated by J.Trapp).  

Not only did I have these real, traditional books in my hot little hands this month, but I also have a couple of downloads on my iPod.  One is free; and my own publication 'Graveyard Shift' from Bibliotastic.com which I published in December 2011 - and it's still there if you'd like to have a read of it - and I thought to nab a copy of it.  Then, I scored myself a voucher from Paul D. Dail for his new book 'The Imaginings' on Smashwords; which I used here at my folks place - as I needed to be somewhere where there was wifi to be able to access it with my iPod.  
So, were you good this month?  Or did you lash out and buy up a bookstore - or break your budget like I did? - just because it was all there to be bought up?  Until my next post, happy reading.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I have loved reading non-fiction books for some time, but none as great as 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu.  I was first loaned a copy of it by a friend of mine who lived in my unit complex when she found I had lost my compass in life.  At first, I didn't have a clue what the heck she meant... but you see, I was fighting a battle at the time with a neighbour's daughter who was trying to make me move out.
This daughter had played a series of tricks and so-not-funny jokes on me over a few months, and I was at the end of my tether.  So, when my friend gave me 'The Art of War' it wasn't just a book for me to read, it was a book on strategy.

As I began the book, I found the translation was brilliantly done.  The illustrations were beautiful, and what Sun Tzu had written down was absolutely true about how to treat his men, how to work with them, talk to them and how a war should be won one battle at a time - even the small battles were important.  And you know, I was able to put some of what the book taught me into action with the neighbour's daughter.  It taught me to be Zen and very calm about things, to wait for her to finish what she was doing and then say something to her.  I learned a lot about how to fight my war with this young lady (she was in her early 20's) one battle at a time.  And in the end, she finally screwed up by putting her own foot in her mouth about a few things I wasn't supposed to hear.  This book taught me a lot of things; and it also taught me that '... a good general feeds off his enemy...' and that is exactly what I did.

Today, I bought this very book to have it in my collection.  When I saw it three weeks ago at the Centro Newsagency, I hoped it would still be there for me to buy, and I was thankful that it was.  Yes, it was expensive, but it's worth it!  And I must say, it's well worth the read too.  I'm just happy I managed to get my hands on a lovely copy of it so I can keep it for years to come.  Until my next post, happy reading.

The Digital World

I have found that the digital world has begun to take over everything.  From digital television (where our old analogue signal was turned off completely here in Queensland yesterday morning at 9am to allow for the digital signal to take over completely) to e-books, e-publishing and on-the-go blogging with ipad and ipods, the digital world is absolutely here and now.  

As of this month, I've read around 4 e-books without really realising it.  And while I was away at Brighton house sitting my brother's house, I wrote a few blogs on my iPod - not that they worked out all that great on there because my browser had a big hissy fit over the device I was writing on - but it was incredible that I could do a blog post from the comfort of my cosy bed at 1am in the morning when I found I couldn't sleep.  Pretty cool, eh?

And this is coming from a sworn traditionalist who said not 6 months ago they'd never read too many e-books.  Well, okay, I'm changing my tune just a little.  But isn't life about that?  Change that is?  I never thought in a million years I'd be writing a book review blog for millions of people to be reading across the globe on a home computer by the time I was about to turn 40.  However, here I am doing just that!  But then, I also didn't think my book collection could also nudge the 1,000 number mark either (okay, it did late last year, then I gave some away, it went under that wonderfully magic number).  

Around this time last year, I went into the settings of this blog and made this thing adaptable to smart phones, iPads and iPods... pretty cool.  And I remember letting you all know about it too.  I do hope you all remembered I did it to make 'My Reading List' available to you wherever you went, no matter where you were traveling.  You could be on a train with wi-fi and you'd be able to read up on my latest review, interview or idea about books and authors on your iPad or iPhone or Samsung device... and this blog would still be all here for you to read on the way to work, college, university or... well, anywhere else you needed to go... like an old friend who accompanies you wherever you're going.

So, yes the digital world has caught up with me - well and truly - but I'm still buying books (as you can see in the sidebar, I bought 3 yesterday at The Book Warehouse).  So, how has the digital world caught up with you?  For me, I've been making a shopping list on the app ShopShop and have been using that for the last 8 months - boy has it saved me money on paper!  And my To-Do list is also on my iPod too, so is my television guide when I do house sitting... it's an app called Zeebox which shows me which movies, shows and other great things that are on tv here in Australia.  I can also download free books off iTunes on my iPod... and here I was saying that this thing was crap when really I just had to fiddle with it more.  Until my next post, happy reading!

House Sitting Again

I'm house sitting - again!  Yep, it seems I haven't been permanently home at my townhouse for two months and I've been in and out of there like a blue-arsed fly lately.  Over the last fortnight, I've been coming to my parents' house to mind it for the first few days in the week, then taking off home to live at my house, then come back on the following Sunday... jeez, I'm really feeling burnt out; as you can well imagine.

However, this week, I've decided to stay here for the week and welcome my folks home from their holiday away.  So, I arrived here on Sunday and I'm not leaving until Friday.  This means I can kinda settle here and get used to feeding the wild birds from the back steps, watching the leaves fall from the Liquid Amber tree in the neighbour's yard, which blankets both our yards with beautiful, golden leaves all over our yards and enjoy the sun room that was built onto Mum and Dad's house a few years back in the morning. 
Yeah, seeing the days are cooler, there's nothing like sitting out the front there with a cup of tea or coffee just after breakfast and taking in a few rays while reading a book... very nice and warm, despite the traffic roaring past!

This week, it's been a little on the cooler side, though.  And seeing I'm not used to traffic driving past, I'm always up and down looking out the window at anyone who happens to coast past.  I guess I'm just being very aware and used to being in the relative safety of a unit/townhouse complex.  The one thing I have noticed with my folks' place is that they have one massive bookcase just inside the front door.  It's overflowing with reading material; and Mum's trying to find room for another bookcase around the place, but Dad's hoping she doesn't get another one soon.  Over the years, I've re-arranged this bookcase to have it in sections, and it's been good; then I've gone home knowing it's easy to navigate.  Then when I return, it's a mess time and again... I wonder how my Mum actually finds things in it, but now, I just let her rummage around in it and she does get in and finds books, but it takes time to get the one we're looking for.
For me, finding a book in my collection is easier.  If it's not in my Mt To-Be-Read, it's in my Mt Everest To-Be-Read... if not, I've put it away by section... and that's all too easy to find.  Just tell me what it's mainly about (horror, romance, childrens' book) and I can usually lay my hands on in a matter of seconds, or tell you where you can find it in the bookcases yourself.  In any case, when I'm house sitting at another house I always feel like I'm a little like a fish out of water without books around me, or my own collection in the same room with me.  Does that sound a little weird, or are there people like me out there who feel the same way when they spend time away from their collections?  Well, until my next post, happy reading!

Winter Reads Time!

Winter is just around the corner here in Australia, and the cold has visited us in the South East Corner of Queensland to give us a taste of what it's going to be like when it really hits!  But in other parts of the world, you're welcoming the Summer days... the long, hazy, lazy days of summer where the afternoons stretch good'n'long and don't ever seem to end.  

So, my question for you - my followers from all over the globe - today is:  what are you planning to read through the middle of the year?  

Me? I have some great plans.  Some include my iPod; as I scored myself a gift voucher from Paul D. Dail (have you guys entered his competition below to score yourself a free copy of his new e-book 'The Imaginings' yet?  If not, do and do so, I've got a copy of it off Smashwords and am enjoying it totally!).  Then, I thought to get my nose into 'Dandelion Wine' by Ray Bradbury to remind me of warmer days long gone.  I have other books on my Mt TBR by the office door of the likes of 'I Am Leather-Man' by Ged Maybury & Anna Venczel and 'Touchstone' by Letitia Coyne; both books I do plan to read over Winter.  

So, there's my Winter Reading Pile all organised.  I haven't named many as I love to absorb my reads more than zoom through them.  Have you got any books you'd like to get through this Winter/Summer?  Of course you do... leave a comment and let us know of them and it might lead the rest of us to find more to read as the year goes on.  Until my next post, happy reading!  

Erotic and Romantic Fiction

Romance has come a long way since the days of Mills and Boone where women bought the reasonably-sized books and read them and they were written by a handful of women and some men.  They were light romances for the ordinary housewife who would get time to sit down and read just before bed or whenever they had time to read during their busy day.

However, times have changed a lot, and so has the way romance has been written.  It's hot, sexy and very descriptive... and yes, it's meant for not only the ladies but also the men too.  So, when 'Fifty Shades of Grey' was published, it caused plenty of waves in society of its content and why it was published.  But it also brought a lot of people who read erotica out of the woodwork.
But not all erotic writings are the same.  I've read 'Fanny Hill' which was written by a man for men in the late 1800's and it was a book which was banned for many years due to its content.  However, I was given my copy by my Grandmother who had bought it for her husband in 1984 for his birthday; and it was a reprint of the unabridged edition!  And what an amazing piece it was to read!  I never thought my Grandparents would read anything that kinky; but really they are just like anyone else, they were young once too.
But Grandma had a large collection of Mills & Boone books at her house and I was amazed at how many were well-thumbed and that she often re-read a few of them because they were just good, old-fashioned romance stories that were girl-meets-boy kind of thing.  It's probably why she loved 'The Sound of Music' so much, it went along the same lines of Mills & Boone novels.

However, the typical romance novel is now a lot more descriptive.  It highlights how each person is feeling, their every move, clothing removal and everything else in between.  There's a new section of romance called Erotica and it sits alongside the typical romance section in bookstores and is taking off through e-books sales.  It's not because we're all perverts, it's because we're all wired this way.  Romance and erotica has come out of the shadows of being sinful, and become something to be read because it's good for us in a way.  For some of us, we write it - but would never tell anyone because it's something to keep quiet - while it's a big seller. 

So, do you read romance or erotic books - or are you too shy to say?  Until my next post, happy reading.