Gift of Books

I found a book called Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen a while back and the cover kind of suggested I might like it and I did. Full of magic it was a lovely, lovely story with a bit of romance and happily ever after thrown in for good measure.

So when I saw The Sugar Queen I had to get it. It has been in my book pile for a while awaiting it's turn and that came today and will be a fairly short one I think because I can't put it down...

One of the characters in the book has a magical blessing - she is blessed with books. It started as a child when bored and a book of card games appeared - and followed her around till she understood it was hers. If she had a need a book would appear. Having just dumped her man because he admitted to being unfaithful, she has a book called Finding Forgiveness following her around. And then it gets joined by a second book called Old Love, New Directions. She is busily trying to ignore both of them but they crop up in odd places, except the bathroom because apparently books are like cats and hate water.... (wonder if wreck this journal ever found her?)

Anyway, this is a minor bit of a lovely book and this character isn't even the main character so I hope I have tempted you.... I love the idea of the gift of books... Imagine always knowing which book would help you right now, this second, no matter your need. Be it bored and looking for adventure, creative inspiration, self-help or any of a million other needs. Imagine that book always arriving the second you need it... What a lovely gift to have.

Books are a gift anyway. If there is one thing I would love to pass on to my kids, it would be a love of books. When I first visited F's house, I was quite pleased to see a well thumbed book on his coffee table. What I didn't know was that it had been in his possession for over a decade and he still hadn't finished it... Since being with me however I have slowly trapped him in a web of books and he isn't complaining!

I often leave books in the bathroom (currently Alice Through the Looking Glass) and I have found him reading all sorts of unlikely things. I have had him reading Maeve Binchy and poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah (a very modern black poet).

I already know that on my next list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, other authors will receive the treatment that Charles de Lint is currently receiving. Sheri S. Tepper writes modern feminist fantasy and although I have all her more recent books, I don't have all her earlier ones even though I could pick them up cheaply second hand from amazon. Another is Sharon Shinn with her interesting romances set on a fantasy world where a grand social science experiment has been undertaken....

What books would you give as a gift to others? What books would you give me?

Charles de Lint II

I have recently ordered a few books by him that my bookstore never stocked and I am beginning to understand a few things about him better...

This is a man who has a story and when e has it, he has to let it out. The story is allowed to be itself. It isn't shortened or lengthened to make it fit a publishers desire. Because of this his stories are often published by different publishers.

The ones I have read previously are full length adult books. They fall into two types, early works and later works. As he has developed, his full length adult books have become more complex and often are now told from multiple viewpoints.

It seems that full length adult works are not so much where he has been recently. He has been exploring writing for young adults. The main difference in these books are that the main characters are younger and they live the lives of younger people. The stories themselves are just as engaging....

So story length... Some stories are just short. They get published in all sorts of odd places but as a respected author with a little money behind him now, he is able to be true to the stories themselves. Many of the shorter ones are first published in chapbooks with beautiful (I imagine) artwork to accompany them and eventually they are gathered into a collection.

Some stories make short books such as most of the ones I have read recently. They are beautiful....

I guess if you have some idea of what you are getting it helps...

Soooo..... (not exhaustive!)

Early adult books
Longer
Moonheart
Greenmantle
Yarrow
The Little Country

Shorter
Wolf Moon
Jack of Kinrowan (contains two shorter stories)
The Dreaming Place

Collections
Triskell Tales

Young Adult Books
Longer
The Blue Girl
Little Grrrl Lost

Shorter
Dingo

Later Adult Books
Longer
Forests of the Heart
Memory and Dream
Someplace to be Flying

Shorter
Not sure! Have a lot of the later stuff to get...

Collections
Not sure... I think most of his later short stories are waiting being put into collections...

There are some collections but I am not sure which ones are later and earlier... (probably a mixture...)
Moonlight and Vines
Dreams Underfoot
The Ivory and the Horn

Pretty Postals

Today I posted a little pressie. I wrapped it up and placed it in a white box and sealed it up with some silver pipe insulation tape and took it to the post office. The lady behind the counter admired the tape so I told her what it was. She then thought I was very original but I can't really take the credit.... It was Caspiana that first bought taping to me....

When I got home I told F about this and it brought to mind some happenings from the other week, when he posted the parcels of jewellery to my family. I had wrapped them in different cards, a holographic silver one, a holographic blue one and a pink pearlescent one. He had taken them to the post office during the week for me.

Apparently when he was served it was by a young man who was astounded by the multi-coloured parcels. F quickly made it clear that they wern't his... I had wrapped them for the enjoyment of my family but I had completely forgotten all the people that would see them as they travelled on their way....

Imagine a long day at a sorting machine watching white and brown packages whizz by with maybe the odd grey one and then! All of a sudden! A glimmering sparkling parcel comes through! Or even just one with coloured writing...

Our actions can impact many, many people we never meet and who would never know us. A chance happening, a pretty thing that brings a smile....

Paulo Coelho's latest book is all about the impact our decisions have on others, in unforeseen ways. It was a dark book and the premise seemed to be that nasty people committing nasty actions generally have nasty chance happenings associated with them. I am not sure about that... Maybe it is true... It was an interesting book but it was a little bit of a departure. This book interested me but it didn't lift me up which is something he is so good at. I guess this book would be of most inspiration to those new to the idea that materialism, power and celebrity are superficial things...

I think most of Paulo Coelho's books are like carrots and this one is more like a stick....

Retelling the Story

I know I have told my story on my blog before but I have an urge to tell it again. I think I left out most of the most important parts. I don't think I will feel that I have told it properly until I have. I think this part of my story is central to understanding me as a person. It is not who I am but these events shaped me and caused my direction to change and their ripples have traveled throughout my life. I am not looking for pity. I am not a victim. This is an old me that I honour. I am somewhere else now.

I went to a highly Christian school. Many of the staff had been missionaries and religion and ethics was central to everything they taught. Apparently all the children there were Christian. I am not convinced by this. I think some were sent there because their parents wanted them to have an English education somewhere where the girls would be almost cloistered away. I had a very protected childhood. The world was Christian and had ethics and Christians never did anything bad, did they?

I didn't fit. At some point I remember thinking that emotions and acting emotionally was too painful and difficult. I decided that the only way to make decisions was to follow the path of least hurt. Everything I did was based on a emotional assessment of how to proceed while hurting the least number of people in the smallest way. This led me to stand up to bullies for others but not necessarily myself. You see my own hurts somehow took a back seat. I stopped letting myself feel. I don't know how old I was, maybe 12, maybe 14, who knows?

My soul started to die and at 14 I became ill with Glandular Fever, for the first time. I was a robot. I think this was when the sadness that a doctor called depression first entered my life. It was the first time I was prescribed anti-depressants. They never have worked for me. My sadness is a thing of intellect and emotion rather than chemistry.

I started to come out of myself as my life moved on and took me away from that cotoon wool school. Life there hadn't really prepared me for life outside though. There is no logic to people being nasty or bad so it just didn't fit in my head.

I left home and started work. Still dreadfully naive and young but I probably didn't give the appearance of this. An older man at work decided he wanted to go out with me and pursued me. I eventually agreed because I didn't really have a reason to keep saying no. He was 14 years older than me and proceeded to reorganise my life. Before I knew it I was living in his house, paying him rent that included bills, but nervous of using the phone and running up the phone bill. He was pretty well off and you might think I would have benefitted but I can't actually remember him buying me a single thing or ever offering to do anything other than go halves when we were out.

Eventually things started to deteriorate and I dumped him but I had to spend a few more days living there. During this time I had to go away on a jolly. It was hot and we had a free bar and were expected to stay up late and take advantage of this. The next day we travelled back and by the time I got there I was so tired and dehydrated that you could have pushed me over with a pin.

My Ex took advantage of this situation and raped me. I may not have stood up for myself. Some people would probably dispute the use of the term rape. But inside my head, I did not want it, I never agreed to it and it destroyed my carefully built naive little world. The me that was ended that night.

I moved on and things appeared normal. I had moved to start my studies but rather than being friends with lots of men, I made few male friends. My attitude towards men changed. I let myself be taken advantage of and went out with unsuitable men. I drank to much. It wasn't very long before the glandular fever reared it's ugly head again. Eventually I had to drop out of Uni. my ability to hold myself together slowly decreased. I started taking drugs. I became more ill and left Uni.

One day I finally fell apart. I called my parents and told them some stuff, I can't remember what. They came and picked me up and took me home. They took me to the Doctor's and I was referred to a Psychiatrist. I had counselling and a nice little prescription of Temazepam (which I never took) just in case the mental pain got to much. My 21st birthday ranks as being one of the worst of my life.

I was a blank slate waiting to be re-written. My old moralistic, ethical, Christian world view had failed. It couldn't survive in the face of reality. I am a Libra. I am a logical, analytical scientist. I have to have a mental framework for things to fit in and mine had been destroyed. I had to rebuild mine from scratch.

I started reading. So many different books. A bit of this, a bit of that. I returned to the city where my best friend was a Wiccan who lived with her Wiccan sister and her Wiccan Mother. They fed me books. My counsellors recommended books. Everyone seemed to be feeding me books. I read and took the bits which felt right and connected with me. I built a new framework for my soul. This one isn't rigid, it can bend with life and it is always growing.

Those first months it grew faster than at any other time....

Living Magically and Stepping into the Magic
The Man who Planted Trees
Feel the Fear
The Road Less Travelled
Hedgewitch
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Flat Rock Journal: A Day in the Ozarks
Walking to Mercury and The Fifth Sacred Thing (Fantasy by Starhawk!)
The books of Sheri S Tepper
The books of Carlos Castenada
The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet

and so many others... (of course some more than others - not sure what I took from Carlos Casteneda exactly *laugh*)

Now there was also the books of Paulo Coelho, at this time just The Alchemist, The Pilgrimmage and The Valkyries. Like all the books above they were early participants in my quest to put myself back together and as I such I have an overwhelming fondness for all of these. And there authors of course. I do however feel that books do begin to take on a life separate from the writer....

I am not that naive girl who would go out with anyone who pursued her.
I am not that girl who hid in alcohol and drugs.
I am not that girl who had an interesting attitude to men.
I am not the girl whose mind tortures her.
I am not a victim.
I am not a sickly person.

But all of these people live on inside me, somewhere, as do all the books I have ever read.

Detritus

Today has been a quiet day of bits and bobs. F has pretty much worked all weekend, except Friday evening, Saturday evening and Saturday night. I shall get to see him tomorrow as I go to bed...

Part of me knows I should take Little Dog for a walk but I am a bit wary right now. On Friday S and I took her for a run and we threw that ball a fair bit. It seems though that she doesn't know when to stop as she got way too overheated. When we got back she seemed fine at first but began to get a bit wobbly. I had to put her in the shower and hose her down and she quickly recovered. In the future I will have a really good reason to be stern with S about running her too much....

It has been a warm sort of a day although not as hot as last week and I obviously can't take her out midday or in the afternoon.... Do I want to take her out now? Can I get myself out of the house? Not sure. Will update tomorrow *laugh*

So I caught up on my postcrossing. I had a load of cards to scan that I had received and a load of cards to send out and scan. Then I wrote those letters to my Aunt, Sister and Mother to go with their jewellery and packaged them all up. I also spoke to my Mum and Dad and sorted my Great Aunt's birthday card. Then there were the orange swap cards to package up... Most of this stuff won't be sent till next weekend because it needs weighing.

I also have so many things that I am waiting to get where they are supposed to go... A present for a friend, the card to Belarus which hasn't arrived after 38 days (I am sending a second hoping this one makes it), my ATC swap cards from the True North Mandala swap (I so want to see them!), The Chalres de Lint books which were despatched Friday and the two Keri Smith books (missus WTJ) that were despatched today and then of course WTJ itself...

I ordered WTJ from Amazon initially but had several other long order books in the same order. The despatch date was 18th June. When I realised this I split the order down but it was too late - they had sold out and needed to reorder. I waited and waited and hoped they would give me a nice update on my despatch date, but no. I hunted for it in Truro yesterday and Waterstones informed me thatthey had had it on order since April and it was not in stock at their wholesalers either.... Hearing this I realised Amazon wasn't going to come up with the goods and went for an Amazon marketplace copy which should be here for next weekend - and cost less - and is still a pristine new copy (I hope). Getting this book has so far been a saga and it isn't over yet...

I have so many projects to start and get stuck into but it is so easy to forget how long even the simplest bits take - like packaging and writing notes to go with things. Sometimes I try to pack too much in and other times I mess about, wasting time, doing what I could do in half an hour in two.... I also have a huge pile of books to get read and this latest lot of ordering isn't going to help with that!

Truth to tell I am stuck on my current book - Paulo Coelho's Winner Stands Alone. I am not liking any of the characters and I am not feeling the plot. It is darker than previous books I think and by going darker, I am finding him less inspiring and uplifting. I read the book and I feel tired and that is so unlike me. I will get to the end because I trust this author to have a point to all of it....

It is a nice evening, I think it would do me and the Little one good to get out before bed. I know she is missing F as well...

Charles de Lint

OK, I know this may not be of interest to most of you but I wanted to write about this....

Charles de Lint is an author who writes mostly fantasy books. His characters live in our world but their lives are linked to a magical other world in some way. Often set in the city of Newford his stories weave a gentle spell....

I avidly devoured every book of his my bookshop stocked and then he fell silent. His books vanished. I began looking on Amazon and discovered that this wasn't true. he had been very prolific in fact. I also found his website and began to realise I was missing out on a lot.

Charles de Lint is a folk musician and loves art as well. He often writes short stories which he has published as chapbooks with art to go with them. These little books are not surprisingly, more expensive than the books generally stocked in my bookshop and a little more specialised.

The stories in these books slowly make their way into collections or they get grouped with other stories about a character and grouped in one book. Consequently working out what you have and haven't read can take a little time.

Working out what you can afford to buy is rather easier. As many editions are rare and stories in one form may have appeared in a cheaper less collectible form, prices vary a lot. The most expensive one I have found is a story called Paperjack in an unknown binding which is going for £534.09 on Amazon. The interesting thing is that this story appears in one of his collections!

I used to own quite a few of his books but had lent them to a boyfriends sister and when we split I lost contact and was unlikely to travel tog et them back. Some of these books I have replaced but not all.

This morning I have gone through his list of published works.... I have discounted books I own, or own in another form as well as the five I have just ordered and this is what I have found...

21 books that are easily affordable
1 in Flemish
3 over a £100
4 between £50 and £100
7 between £20 and £50
2 that are very rare and completely unavailable at present
1 that I could not find even registered on amazon

This gives a total of 39 books!

There are 30 books I either own or own the stories in another form so don't need to buy.

I am glad I added in that little proviso to my target of owning and reading all his books... the one that gives me a get out clause for the expensive one.

Maybe if I become rich one day, I will get to read all his stories....

Return of the Sun

Today the gloomy morning matched my mood heading to work. The day however did brighten and so did everything else to. I can't say work is a happy place for me right now, although everyone is trying painfully hard. It all feels a bit shiny and brittle. It wasn't too bad though once we got into it and it all settled down....

This morning I made use of my new paycheck to do some hunting on Amazon. I was after Wreck this Journal and a new Charles de Lint book. However both books were available with offers for two others by the same author... So I have a little bevy of arty books and an enchanted fairy circle on their way to me. Joy! *grin*

Wreck the Journal is the book being followed by The Next Chapter book group starting in a week's time. There are a lot of people taking part and I can't wait to get my books in the post.... Go take a look at what we get up to sometime. I will post more about my progress with this on my creative blog.

Somehow while I was at work today my kitchen changed from magnolia to yellow. Although I miss F on the evenings and nights and weekends when he has to work, there are some benefits. I have decided that this still counts towards my 101 things, it is just an example of delegation *grin*.

Little Dog found herself being wiped out the door as soon as I got home. We went down by the river. The path faces towards the sun and it was baking hot despite the strong winds that made the trees rustle so much the leaves sounded like an ocean.

Butterflies basked on the path. The stagnant pool with millions of tadpoles had changed since last time, there was still tadpoles but they were fewer and fatter. I even saw one where little legs had just started to grow. The hedgerows are full of the white flowers of the Umbellifer family, probably cow parsley, and ferns were unfurling.

I had hoped to let Little Dog swim in the pool we discovered under the trees but it had dried up too much. It was an expanse of mud with a stagnant puddle or two. I think Little Dog was disappointed....

She didn't mind too much though. She trotted around happily sniffing things. She reminds me of a horse, quite a classy horse, or maybe a pony. She has quite a collected little trot and it is so precise and upright.

And now it is the weekend and the sun is set to shine all through it....

Interview with a Yogini

The lovely Eco Yogini completed an interview on her blog. It seems that it is a chain interview! So now I have my lovely interview questions written by herself and I have to offer this service to anyone else out there... These are the rules...

* leave me a comment with your email address saying: “interview me”
* I will e-mail you five questions of my choice
* you can then answer the questions on your blog {with a link back to my blog}
* you should also post these rules, along with an offer to interview anyone else who emails you, wanting to be interviewed
* anyone who asks to be interviewed should be sent 5 questions to answer on their blog
* it would be nice if the questions were individualized for each blogger

1) Books... as an avid reader, are there habits that drive you absolutely bonkers? How do you feel about spine bending, page bending, bookmarks, coffee stains etc? Have you ever lent out a book that when it was returned you were so disappointed with its' state?

I am generally a pretty relaxed book owner. I personally break the spine of all my paperbacks but I never break the spine of someone else's book, that would be rude! I do however hate bent pages and coffee stains. I have never lent a book that returned in a bad way but I have lent books that never made their way home. Some of the most shocking treatment of books has been in my own hands... There was the one I dropped in the bath and many of the books in my collection are currently suffering a little from damp... *sigh*


2) Being Wiccan / Pagan, do you feel there is a difference between North American and European Wicca?

Definitely! I think Wicca and Paganism at their best are somewhat linked to the land. The folk beliefs across Europe were many and varied and often linked to the place that they were practiced. Two men became interested in preserving as much of this as possible, Crowley and Williamson. Crowley found Wicca but Williamson found the beliefs of the little people, often lacking in education and still linked to a specific place.

These folk beliefs still survive in many ways across Europe. Traditions, superstitions and beliefs have stayed in families and villages and are still related to places. Where they are being revived, they are still generally in the memory of the oldest surviving people. Paganism is still there underlying much of what we do. Some places it is further from the surface but in others, like Cornwall, that connection to the land and pagan traditions is still very, very present.

As Paganism and Wicca become more socially acceptable the things preserved in places like this are flowing back out again. It is all right here to pick back up. There are ancient churches by holy wells, on top of hills, on beaches, by rivers, in woods. These holy places are still full of.... There are pagan traditions being practiced openly by mixed groups containing *shock horror* Christians, those traditional haters of all things witch. Just as I have accepted that Christianity is my heritage, so many Christians are accepting that pagan traditions are their heritage.

Wicca and Paganism are not endemic religions to North America. The religions of the Native Americans are the folk beliefs linked to the land there, not European beliefs. As such it is often apparent when reading about such Pagan beliefs in American, that Shamanism is a strong thread, which is as it should be. The Wicca of the New Forest that Crowley found could not have had within it's lexicon the spirits of the desert...

I am not a Wiccan, I am a witch. It sometimes feels that the word witch is one that Wiccans feel only they should be able to use. Truth is a witch is both, possibly more what I am as Wicca has striven to develop it's own identity. I sometimes feel that this attitude towards those non-Wiccan witches is more prevalent amongst North American Wiccans, who have perhaps lost their instinctual understanding of the connection between witch and Wicca as they have become more connected to their new land and it's sacred power.

My personal belief is that faith is in the heart and religion is.... somewhere else and may or may not include faith. Everyone's true faith is different and this diversity should be accepted and celebrated, as long as the underlying tenents are not damaging to society - I could not for instance condone a faith that included ritual cannibalism....

Sorry this answer got a bit long and sorry if my personal views have offended anyone out there.


3) As a creative soul, where do you wish in your innermost heart, for your art to take you? Imagine the world 60 years from now, where is your art, and where would you most like for it to be?

I guess what I want is to live in a beautiful home with beautiful and functional things that have soul. I also want to spread a little of this around to friends and family (and maybe have a little of the creative soul in my home to... *laugh*). I would quite like to write a book one day, on something, no idea what.

I guess my dearest thought is that I could buy some land and build a house and a forest garden. I would want to take the best of technology and of tradition. For instance my Mum only has a small fridge, she doesn't need a big one because she has a pantry. Why don't modern homes have pantries? I like technology but I want to make it work for me. Another example, i love long hot baths and end up wastefully adding extra water. I once saw a picture of a chap watching the sun set in an old tin bath with some extra pipe work added and a fire underneath it so water was continuously heated.

Gardens are so important these days, for water conservation and food. I saw on TV a programme with a forest garden. Trees were grown for food and forage with bushes and plants inbetween. Grain was not grown. I think it was something like one acre supporting 10 people with 10 days maintenance and 30 days harvesting per year. Without constant uprooting and applications of chemicals, fertility increased and the it was beautiful and semi-wild looking.

I want to be growing old there in 60 years time. With grandchildren and children also enjoying what we began.


4) What is your first/favourite memory of magic/fantastical world?

In a book or otherwise? I remember playing my best friend. We were having a private picnic in the field behind her house. I remember we were playing the one upmanship game of all the special things we could do. The game ended when I claimed I could make all the crumbs vanish from my plate. I threw it in the air and magically they all vanished. I remember that we were both impressed. *laugh*

I guess in a book though my first fantasy image I adored was the idea of the wood between the worlds in C S Lewis' The Magician's Nephew. A wood that went on forever with little pools of water between the trees that could take yo to other worlds. I guess I loved the possibility of the place... And it's dreamy nature.


5) What would be the most perfect wedding for you, if money and family dramas weren't an issue?

Oh I could spend a loooong time talking about this one. I want to either get married just me and him with a couple of witnesses on a beach somewhere or have it just be a fantastic day that caters to the needs of my guests, all of them.

I would want everyobdy to have a good day. Not for it to be about photographers and schedules. I would want for everyone to be able to stay nearby and not have to rush off home. I would want S to send invites to all the children so that it was his day too. I would want for there to be a church wedding with me in a red dress made by Denise Stracey with a ivory crochet long jacket over the top for in the church and a fake fur ivory bolero jacket for the when the evning grows cold. I would make swarovski crystal jewellery for my neice and I to wear with our dresses and my nephew and S would be page teenagers in grey suits with red ties made by Denise and ivory shirts and crystal cufflinks. F would be similarly attired.

As we were signing the register all the children from within the church and in the mobile creche would gather round the doors and blow bubbles at us as we left the church. Rose petals would be distributed at the church gate to scatter in the sun. There would be no standing around for photographs as we would have several photographers photographing things as they naturally happen or small groups...

We would all leave with everyone bundled into coaches. We would have an English tea party in the sun with various activities for the children such as a treasure hunt. Then to marquees for feasting in the evening. It wouldn't be a formal sit down meal more of a buffet. The top table would actually be four square tables so that F and I would be heads of our table of friends, my folks would be head of a table of friends and family but also sat next to us and then F's folks on the other side with friends and family on their table to.

The children would all be on their own table with S at the head and after the three top tables they would eat next and then all go off and have some fun somewhere else so they didn't have to listen to speeches.

Roses would be a theme as would crystal mimicing the pattern of stones in my engagement ring. There would be a tier of the cake that was persian rose cake. There would be a rose petal salad and lamb coated in spices including rose. There would be mint and rose tea as well as coffee and normal tea. I would carry a small bunch of old fashioned red roses and the tables would have rose petals on them and the glasses would be decorated with crystals. All the stationery would be made with handmade paper containing rose petals too.

There would be much alcohol and music but also quiet places for people to sit comfortably and talk. Children would have play areas. It wouldn't be full of family friends and family I barely know or hardly see. They would all be there but so would all my friends, old and new, from all around the world. Come to party and celebrate. The only group photo would be one as they all stand together having just arrived, stood as a crowd with upraised glasses (containing rose flavoured beverages) and a photographer looking down...

*sigh* the chances of me affording that are slim so I am working on running away to a nice beach instead...

Books, Books, Books.....

What author do you own the most books by? I tend to buy as many books as possible by my favourite authors so this is much less about who has written the most and who has written the most. i would say Anne McCaffery. I started reading her many , many years ago and although I like her more recent books less, she has been very prolific....

What books do you own the most copies of? Copies of books? Why? I guess it would have to be a dictionary though... I have more than one of them.

Did it bother you that those questions ended in prepositions? No. Language changes and evolves. Some of the old grammar has become a little out dated I think...

With which fictional character are you secretly in love? Most recently... Edward but their have been others....

Which books have you read the most frequently? Anything by Charles de Lint. Raymond Feist's, Magician. The Winding Stair by Joan Aiken. Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynne Joans. Anne McCaffery's Dragon books.

What was your favourite book when you were ten? Um.... There was some lovely horsey books in my classes little library. I have no idea what they were called..... Well actually I have just been hunting on Amazon and I think it was The Palio: The Wildest Horse race in the World by Maguerite Henry. I also think Sea Star sounds familiar. I also loved My Friend Flicker and a series of books about a girl called Ginny and her red arab stallion.

What is the worst book you've read in the past year? I once started to read a romance but somehow they had managed to print the unedited version. It was awful. The grammar and spelling were so bad it made it unreadable.

What is the best book you've read in the past year? Best> How do you compare apples, pears and strawberries? I have loved The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and also the Time Traveler's Wife. Apart from that there are all my favourites.... I have also loved some children's fiction... The Spook's Apprentice, the Septimus Heap books.... I could go on...

Which book would you most like to see made into a film? Nooooo don't do it! All the richness of the book is lost when it is made into a film. Have you ever read a book that has come out of a film? They are dull and lifeless things...

Which book would you least like to see made into a film? I agree with Mel... Leave them all alone!

What is the most low-brow book you've read as an adult? I do have a liking for tacky romances - there is nothing high brow about them... *grin*

What is the most difficult book you've ever read? Difficult? In what way? H G Wells heavier stuff is tricky to read, very old fashioned language.... I am with Mel on Lord of the Flies - in fact we have previously discussed it! I loathe it. Horrid book.

What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you have ever seen? Not seen any obscure ones....

Do you prefer the French or the Russians? Definitely the Russians! I am English, I couldn't possibly admit to liking the French! *laugh*

Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer? Not read any Milton or Chaucer so has to be Shakespeare....

What is the biggest gap in your reading? None! I read what I fancy reading!

Favourite Novel? eek! how about favourite bookcase?

Poem? The Voyage of the Arctic Tern by Hugh Montgomery. This book deserves a bigger audience. It is a story of ghosts and treasure and pirates based in Plymouth partly. I left in the bathroom and even F read it. Not many long poems would appeal to young boys of late primary age but this one... Gripping story!

Work of non-fiction? I have a set of encyclopedias that are about 100 years old. They badly need refurbishment and are sat at my parents in a cupboard... The pictures are beautiful..... They are fascinating books....

Most influential novel you've read? Influential? On who? On me? No idea.... They all influence me in some way....

Most overrated author? I have to say Phillip Pullman. I didn't enjoy His dark Materials as much as I thought I would. They strike me as being the sorts of childrens classics chosen by adults and appeal to a few very bright literary inclined children... Sorry....

Which less widely read novel would you recommend? I think the books of times gone by should not be forgotten... There are so many little gems new and old but rushing on to find the next best thing means so many so many greats are forgotten. Like Cynthia Harnett for instance - lovely historical childrens books.

What are you reading right now? Re-reading Wind in the Willows... Have a pile of books to read at the mo... Oh, also reading growing fruit an Royal Horticultural Society book.

Charles de Lint

I first found him when I was about 14 I think. I breathed books and Moonheart appeared in the sci-fi / fantasy section in local bookshops. I loved it. It combined the magical world of faeries and other creatures with our world. I loved the way he bought magic and mystery into the common every day settings of modern life.

I bought every book of his that appeared in the shop and I had a nice little collection. When I was 19 I dated a chap from the north of England for a while and I lent his sister my collection. We split up and my books never made their way home. I have re-purchased some of his books but others are still missing.

His books became harder to find as book shops began to reclassify his work. Sometimes they were no longer in the sci fi / fantasy section. Sometimes they weren't there at all. Moving to Cornwall took away my access to huge bookshops and specialist sci fi / fantasy bookshops. I no longer saw his books at all really.

One day I looked him up on Amazon and was horrified and overjoyed to discover that this author I adored hadn't stopped writing, if anything he had been extremely prolific. My bookshops had never stocked all of his books. In fact he has published 65 books to date. I am so far behind!

Looking at his titles though a few more things become obvious. He writes horror, thriller and fantasy. He writes short stories, novellas and full length stories. He writes for adults, young adults and teens.

Having achieved his own following he is able to write short stories and have them published as little chap books with fantastical illustrations. His short stories slowly get gathered over the years into collections. Some of his earlier shorter stories have been gathered into books I own.

His chap books have a specialist collectors market and as such the ones amazon even lists are often over £100. Collections of his earliest writings are again collectors items and command high prices.

I have found 35 of his books on Amazon that are available and I don't have and would very much like. Of those on my list, three are over £100 (one is £170!) and another 5 are over £50. This leaves 28 books within my budget(ish)! As quite a few of these are older paperbacks, they are reasonably priced...

Imagine being such an author though that you can write best sellers and also small fantastically illustrated art editions... He is a folk musician and his stories are full of music. He draws on folklore from all over the world and from many different cultures and they are all magic....

Heaven

I haven't done a lot today but I did finish another book. It was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It is a fantastic book but I would hesitate to recomend it because some might fight the subject difficult.

The book focuses on Suzie and unusually for a lead character, she is dead. She watches her family, friends, first (and only) love and her murderer from her heaven. The most difficult thing is how she died, she fell into the hands of a paedophile. Now I know this sounds unpleasant and potentially horrific but the book just isn't either of those things.

Alice writes with such honesty and sensitivity and although nothing is left out it is not written to shock. The book is all about acceptance and the healing power of time I suppose. It was gripping and interesting and all the characters were likeable and human (except the obvious one, who was just human).

Another thing is that she has managed to talk about death and heaven without being religous or mentioning God or angels once. This heaven could belong to so many different religions. That is quite some achievement! Nothing riles so many people up so easily as messing with issues of faith...

It did make me cry - but then a lot of things make me cry. I cry at happy films. I cry at sad films. I cry at books as well....

I can now appreciate why the BBC placed it on their list of 100 greatest books and I hope the other books I have chosen to read are this good and interesting.

Love!

I'm in love! With a new man in my life.

His name is Edward and he is gorgeous!

I remember the day oh so well, when I told F I was no longer in love with him. I realised very quickly I had to continue to say what i had to say before the look in his eyes could grow. I explained that I was no longer in that heady emotional state of being in love, which you can so easily fall out of too. My feelings for him had altered into that other love, the one that just is and will always be. He relaxed as he realised that I hadn't meant to say something so offputting to begin with and it was only my normal clumsiness with words.... He understood what I meant.

The new love in my life lives in a book. Well four books really. So far. Oh and a film to. The Twilight books have impinged on me over the last few days in various ways so when I saw them lined up on a shelf with discout stickers attached, I knew I was meant to buy them.

Reading them it is clear that the idea of love being put forward in this book is taht of soul mates. What makes Edward so special is that he is the soul mate many women might consider designing if they could do so while in their teenage years and have him be super-human. He could never be real and even if he could be real, he could never be my soul mate, for I have already found him. i shall however dally with him a little as i read the books and then he shall be gone, as I move on...

One of the pieces of synchronicity that brought these books to me was hearing some poor young chap on the radio have his message read out. The gist of what it said was that his girlfriend had just dumped him saying why can't you be more like Edward. She must have been very young, to believe for an instant that anyone could be as perfect as Edward or that she was perfect enough to have someone like Edward be her soul mate.

Brida by Paulo Coelho, which I have just finished reading, also has much to say on soulmates. According to the book, sometimes when soulmates meet for the first time, there is a flash of light in the eyes that allows them to recognise each other. Apparently you do not need magical training to recognise this, when you meet. It is curious how many people who have one of those sorts of relationships comment on the eyes and that first shared look when they met. Others of course may take longer to recognise what they mean to each other.

F has no pretentions really. He is a bloke and he just is. He doesn't think like I do at all. He doesn't really believe in magic but he has no problem with my description of how I think magic works and accepts this easily but has no interest in it himself. For all my desire to learn i am often reminded how much wiser he is sometimes, just because he is.

I was meeting a female friend, out with her man and his work colleagues. I had never met the colleagues before. As I walked in i saw a man at the bar and our eyes met and there was something. It spooked me and I spent the rest of the evening running away from him, mostly, even though we turned out to be in the same group. Later on in time, I asked him why he had been so persistent. Mostly he replies that he was drunk and had no idea what he was doing. Sometimes he gives a different answer. Sometimes he tells me there was a light in my eyes, a light of life. How he could see this in a dark club when I was running away from him, I have no idea, except of course I do. I know exactly.

I also know I am one lucky lady. The grass will never be greener for me. He knows this too. This means he can happily let me be a little in love with Edward, because I am forever his.

100 Books

My Uncle posted this on facebook and I am rather fascinated by it. There are so many books on it I would like to read... 28 definates for me...

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here – I’m not sure how they came up with this strange list – does anyone know?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible - I reckon we probably got through a very high percentage at school
7 Wuthering Heights
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X (well two of the three anyway)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – we did a few at school Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Nights Dream
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (why have I never read the Hobbit?)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (started it many moons ago but got bored)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 15
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X (oh how I hated this at school)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (I am reading his one on Oz right now - care of a work mate and we were discussing the loan of this one only yesterday...)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton X
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks -
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute X
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo



23 books doesn't seem to bad until you consider that I have read the ones that appeal to me most already.... I have however bought Cloud Atlas and Atonement and they are waiting in my book reading wings....

I have just placed an amazon order for the lovely bones, the kite runner and the time traveller's wife. They had been grouped together to give lots of lovely discount and cost just over £4 each, including postage!

Some of the others I will look for secondhand as I am sure they are old enough to be about. I would like to read Alice through the looking glass, the Hobbit and Little Women. I already have a bible, a complete works of Shakespeare, a complete works of Jane Austen, the great gatsby and Oliver Twist so I think I have plenty to be getting on with...