Devouring Stephen King: Insomnia

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"Of all the things which make up our Short-Time lives, sleep is surely the best, Ralph thought."
I didn't really realise how much I liked Insomnia until I literally couldn't stop reading it one night and turned into a big sobbing mess at around 12.30am. I had a really slow start with it (not that it's necessarily slow starting, but I took a long time to properly read it) which I thought meant that I wasn't so keen on it, but actually I think it just meant that it wasn't its time yet, and that I wanted to read, I don't know, Let The Right One In instead. 
Because, in the end, I really liked Insomnia. Ostensibly, it's all about one character, Ralph Roberts, who hasn't been sleeping well since his wife died, and he ruminates on aging, and abortion (best not to ask) and all sorts of things, until he starts seeing these auras and everything becomes very... strange. But also, completely compelling and interesting, especially to one of Stephen King's Constant Readers. Because, oh boy, Insomnia's like a pay-off book for sticking with King for so long, in that you could just avoid reading it because it seems kind of boring (I say this because this is maybe the oldest unread Stephen King book I had), but when you do, it's like you're privy to some secret treasures that you might have otherwise missed.
I'm going to cut straight to the point. This is both a Derry book and a Dark Tower book, and it's also something else all of its own, all at the same time. Purely for just being a Derry book, I love it- having read It more times than is good for one's mental health, I get a little thrill just imagining the geography of Derry again, having shivers whenever the Barrens, or Neibolt Street or 'the big storm of 1985' are mentioned, because I really get off on that kind of stuff! But then also, Insomnia has an actual part to play in the whole Dark Tower saga, and since I kind of can't get enough of that series, it's amazing to get some back story of a character who isn't really in it loads, but is completely vital to the story. And frankly, I'm completely down with constant mentions of towers, and levels, and roses, which is a good thing, because subtle? It ain't. And hardly ever is.
So, I enjoyed it mostly for those reasons, and I've been trying to think whether or not you could enjoy it without having much of a Stephen King knowledge centre, and I'm thinking... Yeah. Because the reason I stayed up reading it, and the reason I cried at the end had nothing to do with Roland, or the Tower, or It, but purely because I cared about the characters, I was genuinely worried about what was going to happen to them and OH MY GOD THAT ENDING. I probably haven't cried that much at a Stephen King book (or maybe any book) since The Dark Tower VII, and if you've read all those books, you'll know what I'm talking about. I hope. But anyway, the point is that these characters, who aren't specifically connected to any other books, are real, and true, and worth crying over, frankly. Which I think makes a good book any day.
Basically, Insomnia is the kind of book that feels really important to read if you're alllll over the Stephen King, and you need more Dark Tower goodies and you genuinely love it when he references his other books and creates this awesome self-contained universe. You're probably not going to be desperate to read it if that's not the case, but it's still worth a read if only for the damn characters that you can't help but care about. Allow yourself to be constantly surprised by Insomnia. I know I was.

Sunday Sundries...

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... is suspended for this week, cause I've got about a billion things to do and I spent all of yesterday first Christmas shopping and then trying to sort out my family's mug hoarding issues. Not. Easy. So I'll be back next week to tell you shit that happened and stuff. 
Really, though, this is all you need to know about this week:
Biggest. Achievement. Ever. And now I'm pretty happy to go back to real life and sorting out the things I let slide in November, not least of which was this lil place. December will be better guys. Probably.

"Thick plots are my specialty. If you want a thinner kind, look elsewhere."

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So there's this Advent with Atwood thing happening in the world of the blogs, and although I'm not really in the market for a lot of Atwood this December (I've got TWO challenge books left, and that's too close NOT to win) I am taking part in the readalong of The Blind Assassin readalong that's happening because I thought, if not now then when? Exactly.

I actually started reading this sometime last year, read the first mini-chapter, shrugged, and then took it back to the library when I'd had it so long that I had bought my own copy. This was a mistake (the not-reading it, not buying my own copy) for I've now read the first quarter and ohmygosh it's pretty awesome!
Yes. Yes I do. Wait, what were we talking about?
Already in this first section I'm completely glued to the book, and frankly, it would have to be good for me to want to read it when I feel as crappy as I do right now (that's pretty damn crappy, folks). And it's weird because, if someone tried to explain it to me I'd probably be like, 'that sounds weird' and move on, but actually, I'm very much into it, so far. 
Let me explain it to you, so you can go 'that sounds weird' and move on. So the book begins with the death of Laura, the sister of the narrator of some parts of the book, and also, since quite a bit of the book (I assume) is told in the past, she's shaping up to be a main character, so even though we start with her death, I'm guessing we're going to learn everything that's important about her retroactively.
Or, maybe, we're supposed to learn things about her through the book she's left behind (called, funnily enough, The Blind Assassin). Because, in this first chunk of book, there are 'extracts' from the novel that 'Laura' wrote, and it's so very interesting because, instead of taking these bits of story for what they actually are (a whole story) I find myself reading them to find more clues about what Laura was like, and who she was which, I assume, is the whole point.
Basically, so far, The Blind Assassin is hitting all my buttons- there's a mysterious and yet clearly awesome character called Laura, there are meditations of what it's like to be old that, genuinely, I can't get enough of, and there are layers of story like you wouldn't believe, mixed in with newspaper articles and old lady diary entries and kind of everything you could want from a book. And, you know, stuff like this:

"Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges ; then suddenly the beloved has arrived and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear."

It feels like it's definitely too early to say 'Atwood, you've done it again', but that's really how I feel about the first bit of this book. I sort of kind of can't wait to read the rest. But I shall, for that is the readalong way.

Sunday Sundries: Let's talk about these bloody challenges then, and also CHRISTMAS!

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It is done. I can hardly believe it, but the challenges are OVER. As I've been saying all year, I've decided to do NO MORE challenges possibly ever again, for the simple reason that I can't take them- for me they're a bad idea because the second I decide to read a book for a challenge, I lose all enthusiasm for that book, and it might as well be laced with poison and filled with pages that guarantee papercuts.

Shall I just do some linky list type things for the edification of adjudicators everywhere? Hey, why don't I? So basically I participated in 3 challenges this year, all of which STOLE MY SOUL and sucked some of the fun out of reading sometimes. Turns out, I don't like to schedule my reading/read things that are on lists that I HAVE WRITTEN MYSELF. Because I'm an idiot. Anyway.

Firstly, the Back To The Classics Challenge:

A Nineteenth Century Classic: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace ThackerayA Twentieth Century Classic: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonRe-read a Classic: Jane Eyre by Charlotte BronteA Classic Play: Othello by William ShakespeareClassic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction: Armadale by Wilkie CollinsClassic Romance: Antony and Cleopatra by William ShakespeareA Translated Classic: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoevskyClassic Award Winner: The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckClassic Set in a Country You Won't Visit: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Lookit all those books I read! Aren't I a clever. And don't even tell me that Antony and Cleopatra doesn't count as a classic romance, because I was not AT ALL interested in the Roman/Egyptian politics in that play. So there. 
Moving swiftly on, the TBR Challenge turned out to be my least favourite because, it turns out, there was a reason that I hadn't read all these books I was hoarding, and that reason was apparently because I didn't really want to. Still, it's called a challenge because it's meant to be challenging, and challenging it was:1. Watership Down by Richard Adams2. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell4. Restoration by Rose Tremain5. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson6. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro8. Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela9. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates10. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck11. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker12. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S ThompsonAnd, two reserves:13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain14. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
All I can say about this one is, at least it made me get rid of, ooh... 5 books, and it finally made me read Long Walk To Freedom which actually I'm really happy about. ALSO it started off that whole Bill Bryson thing I was having at the start of the year, so that was fun! But still. No. Bad challenges.
And then, finally, there was the Off the Shelf Challenge, which shouldn't have been at all difficult, but turned out to be extremely so. All I had to do was read 30 books that I owned before 2012, and... I just about did that. BUT NEW BOOKS AND LIBRARIES ARE SO TEMPTING DAMMIT!
1. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates2. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson4. Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson5. This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl by Paul Brannigan6. I'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates7. Watership Down by Richard Adams8. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood9. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson10. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood11. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro12. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks13. Restoration by Rose Tremain14. Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson15. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller16. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan17. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker18. The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster19. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck20. The Godfather by Mario Puzo21. Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter22. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing23. Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice24. Burton on Burton25. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist26. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama27. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson28. Small Island by Andrea Levy29. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks30. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mind you, this challenge also meant that I got rid of another 5 books, and this is not a bad thing at all. And why am I talking up challenges to you, when OMG no I can't do anymore ever again! I was slightly wavering on whether to just do this challenge again next year, but I think I might just track the books that I do read off the shelf in 2013, just as a little record for myself with no pressure! (I understand that all of this pressure is internal rather than external. Just so you know.)
So. CHALLENGES OVER FOREVER! The end. Shall I talk about myself for a tiny bit now? This week has been all about getting better- I finished my antibiotics, and, wonder of wonders, I kind of feel... ok? I mean, I don't feel the BEST EVER because I've basically not been well for the WHOLE OF DECEMBER, but I feel ok! *crosses fingers, hopes she doesn't wake up in the morning with some new ailment* I have been doing some Christmas baking this week so there are plenty of yummy things around to eat, but foolishly I agreed a while ago to work on Christmas Eve and the day after Boxing Day, so this whole Christmas thing isn't going to be able to go on FOREVER like it normally does. Which is maybe an ok thing, because I'm better with a routine, but still... it kind of sucks in that it's the first year EVER that Christmas has been like this for me.
But anyway. It's called being an adult, I guess, and there's no shame in it. Probably. The only other important thing that has happened in my life is that Frances and I had our annual Christmas watching of Gone With the Wind yesterday (if you follow me on twitter, you probably know all about it... SORRY for all the twitter spam!) and it was magical as always and oh my GOSH you really need to try this watching things simultaneously with people on the internet because it is the BEST. Or at least the best solution to certain difficulties. Oh, and ALSO I may be the only person in the history of ever who has now read A Christmas Carol (it was good, but needed more Muppets) and isn't going to review it before Christmas. Or maybe not until next Christmas. What can I say, I have a whole other thing planned for tomorrow! You'll love it!
Anyway. That's enough from me. I hope you all have a truly magical Christmas, if I don't 'see' you again before I go to lands where there is barely any internet (my respective grandmothers') and if I do... I'll probably say it again. Yay Christmas! 

Sunday Sundries: It was CHRISTMAS and now it isn't

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Hey, so, does everyone remember CHRISTMAS?! That was good, wasn't it? And now we're in that weird time between Christmas and New Year where it feels wrong to actually do anything, but not doing anything after THE MOST EXCITEMENT (I mean, not as much excitement as I had when I was a kid, but still- I was pretty excited!) feels kind of dismal, so basically, since Thursday, I've just been eating.

I'll be wearing dresses until this whole eating thing blows over.

Do you want to see the books I got for Christmas though? I know you do!
Isn't that basically the blurriest picture you've ever seen?! It got dark really early on Thursday (the day after Boxing Day, OR the present sorting out day, if you live in my house) and I wanted to get the books put away, so this is the photo I got. At least the Christmas tree is in the background, right?! Anyway... Allow me to list them for you too!
Set of Moomin books by Tove Jansson
On Writing by Stephen King (I finally own it, Alley!)
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
The Melancholy Tale of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Back Story by David Mitchell
And then also at the bottom are a couple of cookbooks and a crafty book about making animal hats, about which I am disturbingly excited.

BOOKS! And I also got a sewing machine that I'm scared of, and some other stuff and things too. And about a million pairs of socks, as always. Could have stacked them in a pile and taken a picture too, but, you know, we all have our limits.

SO. That was Christmas and it was nice. And now, as I guess we all are, I'm looking ahead to the new year and just thinking about what I'd like to be different, what I'd like to change; which is a state of mind that, I think, leads to dissatisfaction with one's current life. Which is something I try to avoid, because if I look too closely at my life (living with my parents, sharing a freaking bedroom, not having a full time job, no money... and so on) I'm bound to see the things that are wrong with it rather than the things that are good, and the things that I've done this year in particular.

Like, you know, looking after my mum when she needed me too, like I did for the majority of this year, that wasn't nothing. And finally, finally stopping eating meat after sort-of-kind-of trying to do it for so long. And getting a job, even though it is a part time one. All of these things are actual things, and not nothing, and I need to remember that, rather than going 'well, this is wrong and I hate this and everything is awful.' Because it isn't. Apart from sometimes.

This is the bit where I suppose I should do some resolutions or something, but I don't really wanna because hello, setting oneself up for a fall! Plus, I still have ongoing goals or whatever that I set on my birthday and I'm doing pretty well with them, so... Might as well just keep going! But I sort of have two resolutions that I really... not even want, but need to do, and those are

• To walk to work- I want to basically do this every day because, firstly, I could use the exercise, and secondly, it's kind of douchey to make my mum take me every day. And by 'make', I mean 'she totally didn't expect that anything else would be happening', but still. I want to do it.
• To not buy any books for 100 days (at least)- I say 100 days because that takes me up to my birthday (don't ask me why I worked out how many days into the year my birthday is. I like numbers, ok? And actually, that's only on leap years, technically. So, 99 days) I don't know that I've ever 'officially' done a book buying ban before, but oh MAN, do I need one! So this is happening. I'm going to read the books I own, the books that were so important to me that I had to BUY THEM ALL this year and all the previous years. This shit must stop.

And that's about it, really. Or at least those are the achievable things that I want to do, as opposed to the things that I would like to happen but completely don't have enough money for. Do you have any resolutions? And hey- Happy nearly new year to you!

Devouring Films: 50/50

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I realised that I probably shouldn't be watching 50/50 about 15 minutes in, when JGL's character got diagnosed with spinal cancer and I started crying. I realised I should probably turn it off when, having cried intermittently for the next hour, I started sobbing like I was crying over something that was actually happening. When actually, I suppose, I was crying about things that had already happened.

It wasn't pretty, either way.

But that's me. And I'm not saying that anyone else would just be fine with JGL pretending to have cancer, because really, it's harrowing, but I think it's that extra special bit more upsetting for anyone who has either a) had cancer themselves, or b) been a second party to the whole cancer experience. And that's because it's all so realistic- from diagnosis, to treatment, to JGL's feeling ill all. The. Time, it just really related to my second-party experience of it this year. And I don't know if it would have been any easier if I'd watched it in a few years, when it wasn't all so fresh, but... I doubt it.

But enough of my psychological scars (for now)! I think it's going to be hard for me to say anything objective about 50/50, but I will say that I think it's a pretty good film that I will probably never watch again. Which is a rare thing- usually when I think a film is good, I want to watch it more than once, but... Not this one. But this doesn't mean that I don't think anyone should watch it, just that I can't again. But you should. Probably. (See? Tricky.) A film about a 27 year old who is diagnosed with a fairly severe form of cancer is obviously (obviously!) never going to be a barrel of laughs, so I think you need to be in the right frame of mind to watch it, but not watching it isn't going to stop 27 year olds getting cancer in real life, whereas watching it might just give you a teensy idea of what that might be like. And an understanding of other people's viewpoints and experiences- isn't that exactly what books and films should strive to do? Exactly.

As for the actors, frankly I could have done without Seth Rogen's presence* (but then, I nearly always could) because this was never going to be a 'buddy comedy' and falls flat in the places where it most tries to be. JGL is, of course, magnificent, and I realise that I say this all the time, but seriously- if he hadn't been so convincing, I wouldn't have cried half as much, and he does it in a way that isn't horrible and obvious- it's like, because his character is fairly shut off from his emotions anyway, when they finally do break through it's heartbreaking. Which is, of course down to the writing as well as the acting, but... JGL does it well. Of course. Anna Kendrick is also good, and I found her really convincing as the slightly doe-eyed therapist who JGL really needs.

And I don't really think there's much more I can say. I was left completely drained by this film, and I still don't know if that's in a good way or a bad way, but I just know that I think it's pretty good/completely traumatising. And yet I still want you to watch it? I do. I think catharsis is important, I think it would be a shame to miss JGL's performance just because it might be upsetting (it's supposed to be) and apparently it's a dramadey, so... you might get some more humour out of it than I did. But either way, you will probably weep, and you know what? Maybe that's ok.

*Note: I just read about how this film came about, and... now I feel bad for saying that I could do without him in it. Since the dude who wrote the film and actually had cancer was actually his friend.... Hmm.

Devouring Books: Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

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"I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system with my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise."
Before I started reading Long Walk to Freedom, I was kicking myself ever so slightly for leaving this book, the very last of my challenge books for the year (eeee!) until last. The reasons for my doing so were fairly obvious- who ever finds a 'good time' in the year for reading a 750 page long autobiography of a politician?- but this also meant that I actually had to read the thing, in December, when obviously I should have been reading A Christmas Carol or something. I'd thrown away that option to read a book about a man who, although I really admired him, and thought he was the cutest old man, I rather feared my love of him was based on that same feeling I used to have for John Major- that of some sort of attachment formed from seeing him on the telly when I was little.
All that was before I read the book.
Because honestly? I didn't realise that 750 pages could go by so quickly. And I definitely didn't think this would be the book to make that happen, because, as much as I assumed I liked Nelson Mandela (and I mean, don't get me wrong, I was pretty sure I did, but I didn't actually know all that much about him and feared that he might have done some really bad things to go to prison: SPOILER He totally didn't) nothing I knew about him exactly SCREAMED interesting and engaging writer. So there's another thing I didn't know about Nelson Mandela.
So. Obviously this is a book about Mandela's life and struggles and his political life inside and out of prison, and of course he's had a much more interesting life than most and that's one reason why this was so readable. It literally goes right from his early days of living with his tribe and being trained up as an advisor to kings, to running away to the Big City (Johannesburg) where he became a lawyer and where he learnt how to be interested in politics, and all the way to his being put in prison pretty much for his beliefs, but also for provisionally planning some acts of sabotage against the government, as one is wont to do in such a deplorable system as apartheid. It's interesting from a historical point of view, but it's also interesting, because it's interesting. Mandela, it seems, could probably have been a writer if the whole politics thing hadn't worked out for him (which arguably it didn't, or at least didn't pay off for a long while) since this is maybe the best written memoir I've read that's actually written by its subject.
Seriously, there's not a single moment where I was bored, and I don't know why that is- maybe because of the writing, maybe because of the story, maybe because the things that Mandela spent his whole life fighting for are things I passionately believe in and I wanted to be there alongside him, living through it with him. This book is good at that because it doesn't really hold back- Mandela is as comfortable talking about his political beliefs as he is about that time he got ritually circumcised (actually, I was less comfortable with that) and he doesn't really hold back on talking about his family, only he does enough for it not to be invasive. 
One of my very favourite things about the book, and about the man himself, is that he's so extremely humble when really nobody needs him to be. I mean, he's Nelson Mandela, and if he wanted to be like 'Yeah, I was kind of awesome and here I was right' etc then nobody's going to have a problem with that! Instead, he points out all the times when he was wrong- when he foolishly believed something that someone else showed him was wrong, when he went ahead with something when he should have been restrained like this other person suggested. It's like... It feels like most politicians will never, ever admit to being wrong, whereas Mandela is willing to admit it, because he can show that he's learned from it, and not just stubbornly believed in the same things forever. And that's the kind of person who should be in charge of things, if you ask me.
So. I really liked Long Walk to Freedom, and it's really fortunate that I did, challenge-wise, or I would have FAILED and been sad. But more importantly than that, I learnt a lot and now I know more about Nelson Mandela than just 'doesn't he have a nice face!' and 'I want to hold his hand!' and 'aw, he reminds me of my childhood', and now that I know more, I actually like him more, not less, and still think all of these other things about him. So that's pretty cool.

Sunday Sundries: Let's talk about these bloody challenges then, and also CHRISTMAS!

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It is done. I can hardly believe it, but the challenges are OVER. As I've been saying all year, I've decided to do NO MORE challenges possibly ever again, for the simple reason that I can't take them- for me they're a bad idea because the second I decide to read a book for a challenge, I lose all enthusiasm for that book, and it might as well be laced with poison and filled with pages that guarantee papercuts.

Shall I just do some linky list type things for the edification of adjudicators everywhere? Hey, why don't I? So basically I participated in 3 challenges this year, all of which STOLE MY SOUL and sucked some of the fun out of reading sometimes. Turns out, I don't like to schedule my reading/read things that are on lists that I HAVE WRITTEN MYSELF. Because I'm an idiot. Anyway.

Firstly, the Back To The Classics Challenge:

A Nineteenth Century Classic: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace ThackerayA Twentieth Century Classic: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonRe-read a Classic: Jane Eyre by Charlotte BronteA Classic Play: Othello by William ShakespeareClassic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction: Armadale by Wilkie CollinsClassic Romance: Antony and Cleopatra by William ShakespeareA Translated Classic: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoevskyClassic Award Winner: The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckClassic Set in a Country You Won't Visit: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Lookit all those books I read! Aren't I a clever. And don't even tell me that Antony and Cleopatra doesn't count as a classic romance, because I was not AT ALL interested in the Roman/Egyptian politics in that play. So there. 
Moving swiftly on, the TBR Challenge turned out to be my least favourite because, it turns out, there was a reason that I hadn't read all these books I was hoarding, and that reason was apparently because I didn't really want to. Still, it's called a challenge because it's meant to be challenging, and challenging it was:1. Watership Down by Richard Adams2. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell4. Restoration by Rose Tremain5. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson6. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro8. Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela9. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates10. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck11. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker12. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S ThompsonAnd, two reserves:13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain14. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
All I can say about this one is, at least it made me get rid of, ooh... 5 books, and it finally made me read Long Walk To Freedom which actually I'm really happy about. ALSO it started off that whole Bill Bryson thing I was having at the start of the year, so that was fun! But still. No. Bad challenges.
And then, finally, there was the Off the Shelf Challenge, which shouldn't have been at all difficult, but turned out to be extremely so. All I had to do was read 30 books that I owned before 2012, and... I just about did that. BUT NEW BOOKS AND LIBRARIES ARE SO TEMPTING DAMMIT!
1. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates2. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson4. Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson5. This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl by Paul Brannigan6. I'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates7. Watership Down by Richard Adams8. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood9. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson10. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood11. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro12. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks13. Restoration by Rose Tremain14. Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson15. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller16. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan17. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker18. The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster19. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck20. The Godfather by Mario Puzo21. Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter22. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing23. Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice24. Burton on Burton25. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist26. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama27. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson28. Small Island by Andrea Levy29. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks30. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mind you, this challenge also meant that I got rid of another 5 books, and this is not a bad thing at all. And why am I talking up challenges to you, when OMG no I can't do anymore ever again! I was slightly wavering on whether to just do this challenge again next year, but I think I might just track the books that I do read off the shelf in 2013, just as a little record for myself with no pressure! (I understand that all of this pressure is internal rather than external. Just so you know.)
So. CHALLENGES OVER FOREVER! The end. Shall I talk about myself for a tiny bit now? This week has been all about getting better- I finished my antibiotics, and, wonder of wonders, I kind of feel... ok? I mean, I don't feel the BEST EVER because I've basically not been well for the WHOLE OF DECEMBER, but I feel ok! *crosses fingers, hopes she doesn't wake up in the morning with some new ailment* I have been doing some Christmas baking this week so there are plenty of yummy things around to eat, but foolishly I agreed a while ago to work on Christmas Eve and the day after Boxing Day, so this whole Christmas thing isn't going to be able to go on FOREVER like it normally does. Which is maybe an ok thing, because I'm better with a routine, but still... it kind of sucks in that it's the first year EVER that Christmas has been like this for me.
But anyway. It's called being an adult, I guess, and there's no shame in it. Probably. The only other important thing that has happened in my life is that Frances and I had our annual Christmas watching of Gone With the Wind yesterday (if you follow me on twitter, you probably know all about it... SORRY for all the twitter spam!) and it was magical as always and oh my GOSH you really need to try this watching things simultaneously with people on the internet because it is the BEST. Or at least the best solution to certain difficulties. Oh, and ALSO I may be the only person in the history of ever who has now read A Christmas Carol (it was good, but needed more Muppets) and isn't going to review it before Christmas. Or maybe not until next Christmas. What can I say, I have a whole other thing planned for tomorrow! You'll love it!
Anyway. That's enough from me. I hope you all have a truly magical Christmas, if I don't 'see' you again before I go to lands where there is barely any internet (my respective grandmothers') and if I do... I'll probably say it again. Yay Christmas! 

Sunday Sundries: It was CHRISTMAS and now it isn't

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Hey, so, does everyone remember CHRISTMAS?! That was good, wasn't it? And now we're in that weird time between Christmas and New Year where it feels wrong to actually do anything, but not doing anything after THE MOST EXCITEMENT (I mean, not as much excitement as I had when I was a kid, but still- I was pretty excited!) feels kind of dismal, so basically, since Thursday, I've just been eating.

I'll be wearing dresses until this whole eating thing blows over.

Do you want to see the books I got for Christmas though? I know you do!
Isn't that basically the blurriest picture you've ever seen?! It got dark really early on Thursday (the day after Boxing Day, OR the present sorting out day, if you live in my house) and I wanted to get the books put away, so this is the photo I got. At least the Christmas tree is in the background, right?! Anyway... Allow me to list them for you too!
Set of Moomin books by Tove Jansson
On Writing by Stephen King (I finally own it, Alley!)
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
The Melancholy Tale of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Back Story by David Mitchell
And then also at the bottom are a couple of cookbooks and a crafty book about making animal hats, about which I am disturbingly excited.

BOOKS! And I also got a sewing machine that I'm scared of, and some other stuff and things too. And about a million pairs of socks, as always. Could have stacked them in a pile and taken a picture too, but, you know, we all have our limits.

SO. That was Christmas and it was nice. And now, as I guess we all are, I'm looking ahead to the new year and just thinking about what I'd like to be different, what I'd like to change; which is a state of mind that, I think, leads to dissatisfaction with one's current life. Which is something I try to avoid, because if I look too closely at my life (living with my parents, sharing a freaking bedroom, not having a full time job, no money... and so on) I'm bound to see the things that are wrong with it rather than the things that are good, and the things that I've done this year in particular.

Like, you know, looking after my mum when she needed me too, like I did for the majority of this year, that wasn't nothing. And finally, finally stopping eating meat after sort-of-kind-of trying to do it for so long. And getting a job, even though it is a part time one. All of these things are actual things, and not nothing, and I need to remember that, rather than going 'well, this is wrong and I hate this and everything is awful.' Because it isn't. Apart from sometimes.

This is the bit where I suppose I should do some resolutions or something, but I don't really wanna because hello, setting oneself up for a fall! Plus, I still have ongoing goals or whatever that I set on my birthday and I'm doing pretty well with them, so... Might as well just keep going! But I sort of have two resolutions that I really... not even want, but need to do, and those are

• To walk to work- I want to basically do this every day because, firstly, I could use the exercise, and secondly, it's kind of douchey to make my mum take me every day. And by 'make', I mean 'she totally didn't expect that anything else would be happening', but still. I want to do it.
• To not buy any books for 100 days (at least)- I say 100 days because that takes me up to my birthday (don't ask me why I worked out how many days into the year my birthday is. I like numbers, ok? And actually, that's only on leap years, technically. So, 99 days) I don't know that I've ever 'officially' done a book buying ban before, but oh MAN, do I need one! So this is happening. I'm going to read the books I own, the books that were so important to me that I had to BUY THEM ALL this year and all the previous years. This shit must stop.

And that's about it, really. Or at least those are the achievable things that I want to do, as opposed to the things that I would like to happen but completely don't have enough money for. Do you have any resolutions? And hey- Happy nearly new year to you!

Devouring Books: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

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"I woke up on my sister's couch with a raging hangover and an urge to kill my wife."

I'm about to be not-entirely-complimentary about Gone Girl. You might want to avert your eyes. (Don't avert your eyes. You'll be fine.)
In fact, I'm not really going to be non-complimentary about Gone Girl as I'm going to be non-complimentary of my journey to reading it. I'm sure you've noticed this if you follow the same people on twitter as I do and read the same blogs and whatnot, but if you haven't... Gone Girl is kind of a big deal. It's all thrillery and twisty and turning-y and everyone is reading it, and I thought, well, why not go for something thrillery and interesting to round off the year.
I bet you're thinking that all the hype killed it for me. And it did, only not in the way that you might think. See, it's not that the book isn't good. It is, it's really good, and it is very twisty and turny and it's all the things that people said about it. What it wasn't though? Was surprising. Which was kind of a mood killer from the beginning, because there were certain things happening that didn't sound like the book other people had described, and then when other things happened, I wasn't as surprised as I should have been (i.e. not really that surprised at all) because of the way people had written about it already.
It's amazing how much you can give away, even when you avoid spoilers. I guess with a book like this, everything is a spoiler. 
That's why this isn't really a review at all, it's more of a moan- directed, I have to admit, more at myself than anyone else, because hello! If you wanted to read it, don't read lots about it, yeah? Weirdly enough, even though I was completely dubious all the time while I was reading it, Gone Girl still managed to make me suspicious in all the right ways, and I can't even think about how good it could have been if I'd read it without any previous information. But then, if I hadn't had any, then maybe I wouldn't have read it at all.Gone Girl. It's pretty good. Just don't read anything about it, but read it.

Sunday Sundries: Let's talk about these bloody challenges then, and also CHRISTMAS!

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It is done. I can hardly believe it, but the challenges are OVER. As I've been saying all year, I've decided to do NO MORE challenges possibly ever again, for the simple reason that I can't take them- for me they're a bad idea because the second I decide to read a book for a challenge, I lose all enthusiasm for that book, and it might as well be laced with poison and filled with pages that guarantee papercuts.

Shall I just do some linky list type things for the edification of adjudicators everywhere? Hey, why don't I? So basically I participated in 3 challenges this year, all of which STOLE MY SOUL and sucked some of the fun out of reading sometimes. Turns out, I don't like to schedule my reading/read things that are on lists that I HAVE WRITTEN MYSELF. Because I'm an idiot. Anyway.

Firstly, the Back To The Classics Challenge:

A Nineteenth Century Classic: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace ThackerayA Twentieth Century Classic: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonRe-read a Classic: Jane Eyre by Charlotte BronteA Classic Play: Othello by William ShakespeareClassic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction: Armadale by Wilkie CollinsClassic Romance: Antony and Cleopatra by William ShakespeareA Translated Classic: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoevskyClassic Award Winner: The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckClassic Set in a Country You Won't Visit: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Lookit all those books I read! Aren't I a clever. And don't even tell me that Antony and Cleopatra doesn't count as a classic romance, because I was not AT ALL interested in the Roman/Egyptian politics in that play. So there. 
Moving swiftly on, the TBR Challenge turned out to be my least favourite because, it turns out, there was a reason that I hadn't read all these books I was hoarding, and that reason was apparently because I didn't really want to. Still, it's called a challenge because it's meant to be challenging, and challenging it was:1. Watership Down by Richard Adams2. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell4. Restoration by Rose Tremain5. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson6. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro8. Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela9. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates10. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck11. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker12. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S ThompsonAnd, two reserves:13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain14. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
All I can say about this one is, at least it made me get rid of, ooh... 5 books, and it finally made me read Long Walk To Freedom which actually I'm really happy about. ALSO it started off that whole Bill Bryson thing I was having at the start of the year, so that was fun! But still. No. Bad challenges.
And then, finally, there was the Off the Shelf Challenge, which shouldn't have been at all difficult, but turned out to be extremely so. All I had to do was read 30 books that I owned before 2012, and... I just about did that. BUT NEW BOOKS AND LIBRARIES ARE SO TEMPTING DAMMIT!
1. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates2. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson4. Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson5. This is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl by Paul Brannigan6. I'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates7. Watership Down by Richard Adams8. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood9. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson10. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood11. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro12. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks13. Restoration by Rose Tremain14. Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson15. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller16. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan17. In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker18. The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster19. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck20. The Godfather by Mario Puzo21. Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter22. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing23. Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice24. Burton on Burton25. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist26. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama27. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson28. Small Island by Andrea Levy29. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks30. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Mind you, this challenge also meant that I got rid of another 5 books, and this is not a bad thing at all. And why am I talking up challenges to you, when OMG no I can't do anymore ever again! I was slightly wavering on whether to just do this challenge again next year, but I think I might just track the books that I do read off the shelf in 2013, just as a little record for myself with no pressure! (I understand that all of this pressure is internal rather than external. Just so you know.)
So. CHALLENGES OVER FOREVER! The end. Shall I talk about myself for a tiny bit now? This week has been all about getting better- I finished my antibiotics, and, wonder of wonders, I kind of feel... ok? I mean, I don't feel the BEST EVER because I've basically not been well for the WHOLE OF DECEMBER, but I feel ok! *crosses fingers, hopes she doesn't wake up in the morning with some new ailment* I have been doing some Christmas baking this week so there are plenty of yummy things around to eat, but foolishly I agreed a while ago to work on Christmas Eve and the day after Boxing Day, so this whole Christmas thing isn't going to be able to go on FOREVER like it normally does. Which is maybe an ok thing, because I'm better with a routine, but still... it kind of sucks in that it's the first year EVER that Christmas has been like this for me.
But anyway. It's called being an adult, I guess, and there's no shame in it. Probably. The only other important thing that has happened in my life is that Frances and I had our annual Christmas watching of Gone With the Wind yesterday (if you follow me on twitter, you probably know all about it... SORRY for all the twitter spam!) and it was magical as always and oh my GOSH you really need to try this watching things simultaneously with people on the internet because it is the BEST. Or at least the best solution to certain difficulties. Oh, and ALSO I may be the only person in the history of ever who has now read A Christmas Carol (it was good, but needed more Muppets) and isn't going to review it before Christmas. Or maybe not until next Christmas. What can I say, I have a whole other thing planned for tomorrow! You'll love it!
Anyway. That's enough from me. I hope you all have a truly magical Christmas, if I don't 'see' you again before I go to lands where there is barely any internet (my respective grandmothers') and if I do... I'll probably say it again. Yay Christmas! 

Devouring Books: The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

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What's this? A strange apparition on Christmas Eve, come to bring glad tidings of a nice book or something? Yes. That is exactly what this is.

So I've been reading The Christmas Mystery this month since, guess what, Christmas is TOMORROW! and I have to say it's been a really nice experience. I've had this book for so very long that I can't remember when or how I got it, and apart from a few half-hearted attempts to pick it up maybe a couple of Christmases, this is the first time I've actually read it. It's basically split into 24 chapters, one for each day of December leading up to Christmas, just like an advent calendar, and I believe that you're supposed to read it accordingly- a little bit of a story each day, leading up to Christmas.

So, of course, I started it on the 13th. Because I didn't know this beforehand! But you do now, so pay attention.

Much as the book is like an advent calendar itself, it's also about an advent calendar that has a story contained within it, and then (just one more, I promise) inside that story there's also a teeny advent calendar. This is all par for the Gaarder course, I have to say, but it's not made that much of a big deal of, and honestly, if you don't think about it too much, it won't bug you. Probably. The story that we're reading is about Joachim, the boy to whom the advent calendar belongs, and who eagerly awaits opening it every morning to read the story, which in turn is about this girl who follows a sheep all the way from 1940s Norway to the Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. That story is sort of kind of a history of the spreading of Christianity, whereas the original story is more one of the anticipation of Christmas and all the wonderful things there are leading up to it.

I really like it, is what I'm saying. And it's not even that I think the story is that amazing, and I definitely like the one of Joachim and his parents and the acquisition of the advent calendar better than the one inside that, but I like that there are any layers at all, but mostly? I just like the ritual of reading a chapter a day and thinking about what might happen next, just as Joachim does with his story that is also a story that I don't know the end of. Apart from the whole birth of Jesus thing that I totally assume is coming. Obviously.

So, as you may have just guessed, I haven't actually finished this one yet (since I'm writing this on the 23rd and all). But I don't so much think the end is important as the ritual of reading it is- like so many things at Christmas, doing a little bit of it each day builds up the excitement of the story, and makes it feel like a long-standing tradition, even though it isn't. At least not yet. And even though I expect the mystery to be solved tomorrow, and everything to be nicely tied up, in a way, the story doesn't matter so much as the act of reading it. Which is actually something I'm going to miss, almost as much as that teeny piece of chocolate I've been having every morning. Because I have my priorities.

So, if you see a copy of this hanging round anywhere, I can't but recommend buying it and saving it for next Christmas. Because a book that's also an advent calendar and also about an advent calendar? To me, that's like the perfect Christmas book!

Devouring Films: Bridesmaids

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Bridesmaids wins the award of the film I have watched most whilst blogging and yet have never actually talked about it here. I realise that's a really long name for an award, and yet it is the truth. The thing is, I LOVE Bridesmaids so much, and also it makes me kind of sad (I kind of AM Annie in a lot of ways, only I never had the success to begin with) and ALSO I find much of it hilarious, but it's almost like... I didn't really have an angle to write about it from, and frankly I'm a little bit tired of just going 'OMG this is so amazing I love it!' about things I love, because, even though it's true, it's also kind of boring. Like, really boring.

But. Now I finally have an angle! I was watching it last week, thoroughly enjoying myself/feeling a little uneasy as always with it, when I realised exactly what I wanted to talk about in it. And that's about girls, and friends, and the ways that girls are friends with each other. The thing is this. Annie and Lilian have been best friends forever, and Lilian announces that she's getting married and wants Annie to be her chief bridesmaid- so far, so good. At the same time, Annie's life is imploding, and has been for a while, but still she's determined to be a good bridesmaid for Lilian and make things really nice for her because she's a good friend. At Lilian's engagement party, Annie discovers that Lilian has a new friend,  Helen, and that she's rich and poised and a lot of other things that Annie isn't. Mayhem ensues.

So my thing is this. I'm kind of wondering who the worse friend is, Annie or Lilian? There are two really really good cases for each of them, to be fair. It seems like the film wants to set Annie up as the bad friend- she gives the whole wedding party food poisoning, gets them kicked off a plane so they never make it to Vegas, and has a complete freak out at the wedding shower thing, all of which are really very funny incidents and necessary to make the film what it is. So Annie accidentally, and then on purpose, ruins a few things about Lilian's wedding, and that is not very good friend behaviour.

But the things that Lilian does, or rather doesn't do? I mean, she's getting married and everything so obviously she has a lot on her plate, and I don't expect her to like babysit Annie through every disheartening experience she's having, but the thing is? Annie's life is pretty rough, and Lilian's too busy hanging out with her new friend who can afford to do a lot more fun things with her, and it does very much seem like she kind of forgets Annie in the shuffle, and it feels kind of unforgivable. The thing is, hilarious as they are, the things that Annie does to ruin things are basically entirely accidental (she didn't cook the food that poisoned them, and it was freaking Helen who like drugged her on the plane!) whereas Lilian's neglect feels a lot more purposeful and vindictive. Annie really needs her, and all she can do is complain that her wedding things aren't going perfectly. Which just really sucks.

I don't know, maybe I just sympathise with Annie more because I am her (minus the sex with Jon Hamm which, frankly, would make me feel better, I think) but it really does seem to me that Lilian is guilty of real friend neglect, whilst Annie is just guilty of... choosing bad restaurants and listening to Helen that one time on the plane. But how about YOU? Have you seen Bridesmaids? (of course you have). Do you have feelings about who is the worse friend? I really really want to hear them!

Sunday Sundries: It was CHRISTMAS and now it isn't

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Hey, so, does everyone remember CHRISTMAS?! That was good, wasn't it? And now we're in that weird time between Christmas and New Year where it feels wrong to actually do anything, but not doing anything after THE MOST EXCITEMENT (I mean, not as much excitement as I had when I was a kid, but still- I was pretty excited!) feels kind of dismal, so basically, since Thursday, I've just been eating.

I'll be wearing dresses until this whole eating thing blows over.

Do you want to see the books I got for Christmas though? I know you do!
Isn't that basically the blurriest picture you've ever seen?! It got dark really early on Thursday (the day after Boxing Day, OR the present sorting out day, if you live in my house) and I wanted to get the books put away, so this is the photo I got. At least the Christmas tree is in the background, right?! Anyway... Allow me to list them for you too!
Set of Moomin books by Tove Jansson
On Writing by Stephen King (I finally own it, Alley!)
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
The Melancholy Tale of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Back Story by David Mitchell
And then also at the bottom are a couple of cookbooks and a crafty book about making animal hats, about which I am disturbingly excited.

BOOKS! And I also got a sewing machine that I'm scared of, and some other stuff and things too. And about a million pairs of socks, as always. Could have stacked them in a pile and taken a picture too, but, you know, we all have our limits.

SO. That was Christmas and it was nice. And now, as I guess we all are, I'm looking ahead to the new year and just thinking about what I'd like to be different, what I'd like to change; which is a state of mind that, I think, leads to dissatisfaction with one's current life. Which is something I try to avoid, because if I look too closely at my life (living with my parents, sharing a freaking bedroom, not having a full time job, no money... and so on) I'm bound to see the things that are wrong with it rather than the things that are good, and the things that I've done this year in particular.

Like, you know, looking after my mum when she needed me too, like I did for the majority of this year, that wasn't nothing. And finally, finally stopping eating meat after sort-of-kind-of trying to do it for so long. And getting a job, even though it is a part time one. All of these things are actual things, and not nothing, and I need to remember that, rather than going 'well, this is wrong and I hate this and everything is awful.' Because it isn't. Apart from sometimes.

This is the bit where I suppose I should do some resolutions or something, but I don't really wanna because hello, setting oneself up for a fall! Plus, I still have ongoing goals or whatever that I set on my birthday and I'm doing pretty well with them, so... Might as well just keep going! But I sort of have two resolutions that I really... not even want, but need to do, and those are

• To walk to work- I want to basically do this every day because, firstly, I could use the exercise, and secondly, it's kind of douchey to make my mum take me every day. And by 'make', I mean 'she totally didn't expect that anything else would be happening', but still. I want to do it.
• To not buy any books for 100 days (at least)- I say 100 days because that takes me up to my birthday (don't ask me why I worked out how many days into the year my birthday is. I like numbers, ok? And actually, that's only on leap years, technically. So, 99 days) I don't know that I've ever 'officially' done a book buying ban before, but oh MAN, do I need one! So this is happening. I'm going to read the books I own, the books that were so important to me that I had to BUY THEM ALL this year and all the previous years. This shit must stop.

And that's about it, really. Or at least those are the achievable things that I want to do, as opposed to the things that I would like to happen but completely don't have enough money for. Do you have any resolutions? And hey- Happy nearly new year to you!