This is the final post detailing the books I read and the films I watched during 2011. I don't think I'll bother doing these in 2012 as I suspect I'm stretching myself a bit thin with them. They're also a bit long, which probably puts some people off reading them. Perhaps I'll just blog about individual books or films I consider worthy of ( Read more... )

Despite making a compulsion of reading every day, the TBR pile looks no smaller - and, in fact, might well have grown. If I was smart I'd institute a policy of only buying a new book if I've read one from the TBR. Sadly, I'm not. Maybe I should get a Kindle or something - at least then the books wouldn't take up as much space. Mind you, it would ( Read more... )

If I've had trouble reading the books for my challenge in their proper months, it's not because reading them is proving a, er, challenge. On the contrary, it's because I've made a change in my reading patterns which makes the books I chose for the challenge less of a conscious or deliberate act of selection of reading material. I now read more ( Read more... )

It's been just under a month since the last one of these, and that one proved to be a somewhat humungous post. So I thought I'd try for a more bite-sized installment this month. Sort of. Anyway, you know the drill: the books wot I have read, the films wot I have watched. Comments thereon.

Books

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A bit of an epic post this, partly because in my last readings & watchings I only gave the books I'd read and not the films I've watched. But how can more be bad, eh?

Books
Troika, Alastair Reynolds (2010), is the first piece of fiction Reynolds has had shortlisted for a Hugo. It lost out on best novella to Ted Chiang, which is unfortunate. With ( Read more... )

As promised, during July I limited my reading to only books written by women. A dozen, in fact, which is about average for me; as are the subjects covered - science fiction, mainstream, crime, space, and autobiography.

The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston (2004), was June's book for my reading challenge, though I didn't read it until July. I wrote ( Read more... )

Time for another journey through the cultural landscape as navigated by Your Somewhat Whimsical Cartographer. Bit of a marathon journey, I'm afraid - other projects have meant this has been delayed a week or two, and so grown a little larger than usual.

Books

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Here we go again - we know a song about that - it's time for more scrapings from the petri-dish of popular and unpopular culture, as studied under the microscope by Your Scientifically-Minded Correspondent.

Books
Satan Wants Me, Robert Irwin (1999). Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare is one of the best fantasies of the 1980s, and his Night and Horses and ( Read more... )