(no subject)
Holy Week and Easter were absolutely amazing but completely exhausting and because it was straight back to work on Tuesday I'm only finally starting to relax again today (worked a half day so I could go and see one of my sister's friends get married). If I owe you emails/comments/responses then I'm sorry and also please do remind me!
(I think our Easter morning service from St Albans Cathedral is still on iPlayer if you want to play spot Sarah & her rainbow skirt *g*)
Because I was overtired I managed to yank one of my fingers backwards yesterday and now I have a bruise sort of in the middle of the bones of my hand which hurts when I pick things up and, I'm discovering now, also quite a bit when I type. Oops.
Apparently it's April? So I should talk about my March reading which involved some wonderful books (two stories about stories <3) but a lot fewer than usual because in my new job people tend to only take half hour lunchbreaks so less reading time. I need to do something about that!
The Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon I think this was one of my books from the Yuletide swap? But I'd looked at it in bookshops & charity shops before so I'm not 100% sure *G* Either way I very much enjoyed it. Everyone at my new job seems to have read it before and kept interrupting me to tell me how great it was and I think I agree. It's about books and novels and how personal they can be but it's also just a very good gothic horror in a lot of ways. I'm very interested in seeing what else he's written.
Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro About halfway through this I found myself trying to imagine what it would have been like to read this blind. I mean I never saw the film but I saw the trailers & read the interviews etc. so I had some background and there's such a slow build in the book I think reading it without knowing anything would have been amazing. That said it was pretty great even having some pieces of the puzzle ahead of time. I love his writing style, it's beautiful and descriptive without ever going over the top and left me sympathising with all three main characters (and Miss Emily & Madame too to a certain extent) and it's nice to read a completely different kind of SFF occasionally.
Are Women People- Alice Duer Miller I've listed this as poetry in my catalogue of books (shush) but it's satirical verses and lists and sometimes just really frustrated rants that she wrote for her column a hundred years ago. The great thing is they feel so modern but of course the terrifying thing is so many of her subjects still seem relevant. Maybe women do have the vote now but a lot of what Miller wrote was about the way women are seen and the contradictions between what is expected of women in ordinary times/exceptional time. There's the thing I posted about women's pockets and a whole section on chivalry that gave me the bad kind of shivers plus this:"Mother, what is a feminist?"
"A feminist, my daughter,
Is any woman now who cares
To think about her own affairs
As men don't think she oughter"
Which might be my new go to definition.
Egeria's Travels- Egeria (John Wilkinson, trans.) Egeria was a Spanish Nun who travelled to Jerusalem & the Holy Land in the late 4th century and wrote about her travels. I picked this book up last year after hearing about her for the first time but saved it to read during Lent because as well as describing all kinds of places from Mount Sinai to Job's tomb she also carefully describes the normal weekly liturgy in Jerusalem and then the special services that take place during Lent and especially during the "Great Week" (Holy Week) and it's fascinating. So many things she describes I can recognise in the services I've been at this week right down to a note she makes on Holy Saturday that the last service is done wasting no time as everyone's really tired by then and has to be back again the next morning :D
Sandman: The Worlds' End - Neil Gaiman I got this for Christmas, I think through the Yule Bookswap? I hadn't realised there were more standalone volumes of Sandman so it took me a while to notice that and actually read it (as I've only read volume 1 so far!) I absolutely love this though, stories inside stories inside stories <3 I mean there's an internal criticism about a lack of female characters which isn't wrong but I really enjoyed it.
(I think our Easter morning service from St Albans Cathedral is still on iPlayer if you want to play spot Sarah & her rainbow skirt *g*)
Because I was overtired I managed to yank one of my fingers backwards yesterday and now I have a bruise sort of in the middle of the bones of my hand which hurts when I pick things up and, I'm discovering now, also quite a bit when I type. Oops.
Apparently it's April? So I should talk about my March reading which involved some wonderful books (two stories about stories <3) but a lot fewer than usual because in my new job people tend to only take half hour lunchbreaks so less reading time. I need to do something about that!
- The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
- Are Women People - Alice Duer Miller
- Egeria's Travels - Egeria (John Wilkinson, trans.)
- Sandman: The Worlds' End - Neil Gaiman
The Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon I think this was one of my books from the Yuletide swap? But I'd looked at it in bookshops & charity shops before so I'm not 100% sure *G* Either way I very much enjoyed it. Everyone at my new job seems to have read it before and kept interrupting me to tell me how great it was and I think I agree. It's about books and novels and how personal they can be but it's also just a very good gothic horror in a lot of ways. I'm very interested in seeing what else he's written.
Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro About halfway through this I found myself trying to imagine what it would have been like to read this blind. I mean I never saw the film but I saw the trailers & read the interviews etc. so I had some background and there's such a slow build in the book I think reading it without knowing anything would have been amazing. That said it was pretty great even having some pieces of the puzzle ahead of time. I love his writing style, it's beautiful and descriptive without ever going over the top and left me sympathising with all three main characters (and Miss Emily & Madame too to a certain extent) and it's nice to read a completely different kind of SFF occasionally.
Are Women People- Alice Duer Miller I've listed this as poetry in my catalogue of books (shush) but it's satirical verses and lists and sometimes just really frustrated rants that she wrote for her column a hundred years ago. The great thing is they feel so modern but of course the terrifying thing is so many of her subjects still seem relevant. Maybe women do have the vote now but a lot of what Miller wrote was about the way women are seen and the contradictions between what is expected of women in ordinary times/exceptional time. There's the thing I posted about women's pockets and a whole section on chivalry that gave me the bad kind of shivers plus this:"Mother, what is a feminist?"
"A feminist, my daughter,
Is any woman now who cares
To think about her own affairs
As men don't think she oughter"
Which might be my new go to definition.
Egeria's Travels- Egeria (John Wilkinson, trans.) Egeria was a Spanish Nun who travelled to Jerusalem & the Holy Land in the late 4th century and wrote about her travels. I picked this book up last year after hearing about her for the first time but saved it to read during Lent because as well as describing all kinds of places from Mount Sinai to Job's tomb she also carefully describes the normal weekly liturgy in Jerusalem and then the special services that take place during Lent and especially during the "Great Week" (Holy Week) and it's fascinating. So many things she describes I can recognise in the services I've been at this week right down to a note she makes on Holy Saturday that the last service is done wasting no time as everyone's really tired by then and has to be back again the next morning :D
Sandman: The Worlds' End - Neil Gaiman I got this for Christmas, I think through the Yule Bookswap? I hadn't realised there were more standalone volumes of Sandman so it took me a while to notice that and actually read it (as I've only read volume 1 so far!) I absolutely love this though, stories inside stories inside stories <3 I mean there's an internal criticism about a lack of female characters which isn't wrong but I really enjoyed it.