Uh-oh. The OUPblog editor let me loose on the Friday Procrastination Link Love last week. Think I lowered the tone by talking about the Literary Review Bad Sex Awards.
I'll never get asked back at this rate.
Other Stories posting resumes as normal tomorrow.
The lovely Sara over at A Salted has given me A Roaring Lion Award for Powerful Words! See?
Hurrah! I never win anything, as they say. Thank you Sara.
So, here's the deal. I have to pronounce my views on the top 3 things that make writing powerful. And here they are:
And now I have to pass the Roaring Lion Award on to 5 other bloggers... but at the moment I can only think of one: Dovegrey Reader, whose blog was one of the ones that inspired me to give this book blogging lark a bash in the first place.
A bit of a cop-out post today, I know, but I am busier than is truly decent. Sorry chaps. So, in the absence of me having anything remotely interesting to say, here is some link love from me to those who have entertained me via the internet this week.
Right, for reasons too long and complicated to go into, I have ended up with two copies of Alasdair Gray's BEE-YOOT-IFULL new book, Old Men in Love.
Even my level of Grayophilia doesn't require me to possess two copies, so I've decided to offer it to you, the blogging public. LitBloggers: email me at otherstoriesblog (at) gmail (dot) com (I'll foil you yet, googlebots and slurp spiders) and I'll pick a name at random. Lucky winner announced tomorrow.
And if none of you want it, I'll just have to sell it on Amazon. But I'd rather give it to a nice blogular home.
The debate about bestsellers now and then continues over at The Reader blog, where Chris has picked up on what I was saying yesterday and made some good points about the type of people who would have been buying books in the early 60s. Pop over and have a look, and join in the discussion.
More link love from me to The Guardian, where there was an excellent profile of Alasdair Gray a couple of weeks ago. It's a wonderful piece on the man they are calling the Clydeside Michaelangelo.
Meanwhile, I have finished reading Gents by Warwick Collins. A full review to follow later, but I shall say now that I really enjoyed it very much. It's a subtle little book that contains a lot more than it looks on first glance. Once I've ordered my thoughts on it a little more, I shall expand upon it.
I came across this post over at The F Word Blog yesterday afternoon, and I felt I had to share.
There is a university in the States (where else?) that has issued, amongst other things, a dress code. Men are prohibited from having tattoos and body piercings. They aren't allowed to wear hats, be anything other than clean-shaven, and they're to be quite particular about the length of their sideburns. No shorts (other than playing sports), and no jeans in class.
Women - of course - have a much longer list of dos and don'ts. Skirts and dresses only in class, and they must be below the knee. No trousers for women, because that's obviously way too unfeminine. Nothing too tight - clothes must have "a minimum of three inches of ease at bust and hips". Nothing sleeveless (unless something appropriate is over the top). Trousers or jeans must be loose fitting, and can only be worn in halls of residence, for sport, or for walking to and from homes in the area. Oh, and necklines may come "no more than four fingers below the collarbone".
Women also must have "neat, orderly, and feminine" hair. They must "avoid cutting edge fads and cuts so short that they take on a masculine look". Well, that would be me buggered then, really, wouldn't it?
Also, and this is my personal favourite point. Neither men nor women are allowed to wear anything by Abercrombie & Fitch, even if the logo is completely covered. This is because "Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary Hollister have shown an unusual degree of antagonism to the name of Christ and an unusual display of wickedness in their promotions". So that's you told.
Elsewhere on their website, we are told a little about "general expectations" for students. "To help each student grow in Christlikeness" (I'm really not making this up) there is a "reasonable, just, and firm disciplinary system". No alcohol, drugs, adultery, homosexuality, dishonesty, lewdness, dancing, gambling, illegal drugs, or sexual perversion of any kind. No missing evening prayer sessions. If you work in a restaurant off-campus, you're not allowed to serve alcohol.
I wondered whether this site was a piss-take, but the f-word seem convinced of its veracity.
Good God (as it were).
Thought it would be overkill to stick another update at the end of my last post. So, here is a link to my latest post over at the OUP blog: Double Whammy for British Farmers.
The latest post over at Eve's Alexandria couldn't have come at a better time. Here I was struggling with my thoughts on Darkmans, trying to force the words into some kind of coherent structure, when up pops this book meme and I saw my escape. Here are my answers... (Darkmans tomorrow, promise).
Hardback or Paperback, and why?
I honestly don't have a preference. There are obvious pros and cons to both. Hardbacks (especially the Nicola Barker monster) are more difficult to read in bed, and if you fall asleep mid-sentence, you're more liable to take out an eye on a sharp corner. The dust jackets are easy to rip and damage if you're not careful (though this is solved by taking the cover off, obviously. I tend to do this if reading a HB). But they look so pretty! The excitement of buying a new hardback on the day of publication isn't quite the same as a new paperback. But paperbacks are portable, and cheaper, and can be pretty in their own right.
You see? I'm torn (paper! torn! ha! I'm a comedy god). Can't decide. I'm more irritated by poor paper quality than what kind of covering the book has.
If I were to own a bookshop, I would call it...
Why, I'd call it Other Stories, of course.
The name of this blog is, for those of you who haven't figured it out already, from my favourite collection of Ali Smith's short stories: Other Stories and Other Stories. Go look at it here. It's really very good indeed.
My favourite quote from a book is...
Well, I'm not very good at memorising quotations. Also, I don't think I can have just one favourite. There's definitely some Woolf in there though...
"Each had his past shut in him like the the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title" Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
There's also the passage from Mrs Dalloway, quite near the beginning, where she pictures being at a lake with her parents, and going up to them carrying her whole life in her arms, saying "this is what I made of it". I wish I could remember the exact wording. Whenever I read it, it leaves me a little breathless.
The author (alive or dead) I would love to have lunch with...
It would seem most obvious for me to say Virginia Woolf, but I won't. For one thing, I'd be too awestruck to form a coherent sentence, and for another, I don't think she was terribly fond of lunch.
In that case, I will plump for Elaine Showalter. She is alive, which is a bonus. She has written on all manner of feminist and Victorian and Victorian feminist goodies. That, frankly, ticks a lot of my boxes. Showalter it is.
If I were going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, apart from an SAS Survival Guide, it would be...
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Better still, a one-volume complete works of everything Dickens wrote.
I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that...
Hmm. I've been thinking long and hard about this. I honestly don't think there is anything. As long as I've got a decent light and a comfortable chair (and preferably a duvet, though this is impractical on public transport) then I'm good to go.
The smell of an old book reminds me of...
My two favourite second-hand book shops in Glasgow. Voltaire & Rousseau, and Otago Books. They are one of the things I actually miss most about my home city. Is that weird?
If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title) it would be...
I'm not quite sure I understand the question. If I could the lead character in a book that already exists? I presume so. Uh.... I'm not really sure, but I think I'd like to be Sugar from The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. Without the prostitution, obviously. I just think she kicks arse. Man, I LOVE that book. That's due a re-read.
The most overrated book of all time is...
Oh there are several. The Catcher in the Rye, which I read as a disaffected teenager in the hope of relating to another disaffected teenager. I didn't. I hated the book, and only read it in one sitting because I was so desperate to finish the bloody thing. Have tried reading it again since, and gave up after 25 pages. I didn't actively hate On Thr Road so much as wonder what all the fuss was about. Oh, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas left me utterly cold. So you drove about and took a lot of drugs. Whoop-de-doo.
Contrary to how this looks, I don't hate all American novels. Honest.
Right, hello, normal service is resuming as from today. Promise.
The in-laws elect are still here and enjoying their visit to the sunny climes of Oxford. Yesterday we did all the touristy things like the Bodleian Library. This should be my last visit as a mere visitor as I am eligable for a card to study there thanks to working for OUP. This will be infinitely useful come the start of the MA (ONE WEEK TODAY! WOO!).
Went to see the live tour of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue at the New Theatre last night. It was a true Greatest Hits performance with all time faves Mornington Crescent, One Song to the Tune of Another, Swanney Kazoo, Sound Charades, and the Uxbridge English Dictionary. We even got our own kazoo. It's now sitting on my desk to play in times of stress. As yet, I am unsure what my office colleagues will make of it, but I'm going to give it a bash anyway. They seem unperturbed by the small wind up robot that I occasionally set adrift on my desk when the muse is lacking.
Am still tantilisingly close to the end of Darkmans, though sight-seeing and Trivial Pursuit marathons have put paid to any reading time in the last couple of days. By the end of the week, promise.
And you wait all your life for a book group to come along then two pop up at once. I'll be devouring The Easter Parade by Richard Yates for The Palimp, and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox for the book group recently set up by some friends and I. It is happening through the medium of Facebook since we are scattered to the four winds. Or rather, one of us has relocated from the Ox to Edinburgh. (It's all *your* fault Claire! I know you're reading this!)
Anyhoo, I am surrounded by paper and feel a small tune on the kazoo coming on. Leave me to it, and take a gander at my latest OUP blog outpouring, which has given me a small chance to wax lyrical about my love for all things Radio 4.
And I'm sorry for talking about the OUP blog again. I was about to say I'm not paid or anything, but then I remembered that I actually am. Hmm.
Anyhoo, in the spirit of Other Stories being my damn blog, I only talk about things I really actually properly like in real life away from my payslip, and this is one of them:
"So here is my proposal: blogs to serve as the back-up of mankind, our rough drafts never completed, the store of what’s saved. That’s what we should use them for: the little bits and pieces that won’t find a place for themselves in the world; tiny specifics more than over-large and self-conscious opinions; messages in bottles. In her tale, “Mr Sandford”, that fine neglected Victorian novelist Mrs Oliphant describes a failed painter whose unsold paintings are turned to the wall. When he dies, he says, he hopes they will all be turned round, with their faces showing, and God will see what is best in them, however small."
Lovely little quote, no? This is by Phil Davies, author of the new Bernard Malamud biography we are publishing, and if you want to read the rest of his post, then toddle off over here.
Trivial Pursuit! Over the last two days, Boyfriend and I have played 7 and a half games. The biggest surprise so far is that I have beaten him on two occasions! This is impressive because:
All of the above prompted me to actually buy an up-to-date Trivial Pursuit set yesterday, thereby giving myself a fighting chance of getting more questions right and beating his sorry ass into submission. It didn't work. He beat me both times (and a half -- he was 4 pies up on my paltry 2). But I will succeed! I will!
All of the above means that I haven't actually managed to finish either Gifted or Victorian People yet, but I'm still aiming for the end of the week. Tonight sees another distraction in the shape of the yearly St Giles Fair, so I shall be off eating dubious hot dogs and screaming on the waltzers for the evening. Huzzah!
Also: Get Me! I'm now on BritLitBlogs! Woo! (Thanks Mark)
Apologies for the radio silence. On Friday I was cut off from the internet, which pathetically felt like I'd lost a limb. Then it was the weekend, and I was busy, and... and... and... there you go. But I'm here now, you can all breathe easier.
Fantastic review of Darkmans by Nicola Barker by the dovegrey reader. I had the very great pleasure of meeting Ms Dovegrey herself on Thursday in a work capacity at the Publishers Publicity Circle meeting at Foyles. Oh Foyles, how I love thee. I am so excited about Darkmans I can hardly stand it, and once I finish Gifted then I'll be straight onto it. It is sitting glinting provocatively at me from the bookcase in my bedroom. I foresee many an hour, ensconced in duvet, devouring what is looking like a fantastic book. Yummy.
Very much enjoying Gifted at the moment. I can't wait to get home to start reading it again, which is always a good sign. I love that feeling of knowing that you're reading something really enjoyable, and that it won't let you down. Or, I hope it doesn't let me down anyway.
In other reading news, I am struggling a little with Victorian People. It's really interesting (for the record, having just read a chapter on the Crimean War, many of the things said about it at the time sound strikingly like things being said now about Iraq. We never learn, do we?) but the prose is dense and very 1950s. This is unsurprising given that it was written in the 1950s, but you take my point. Also the type on the page seems crushed together, and I keep finding myself skipping lines accidentally or re-reading the same line twice. It is not an easy book to physically read, so it takes some actual effort to sit down and get through it. It's a shame because I am finding the subject matter incredibly interesting. I shall persevere - I'm a little under half way through and I'd like to get it put to bed by the end of the week if possible.
My university reading will then pick up because next on the list is Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet. I've read this before, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's about the dark side of Victorian culture; blasting through the ideas of covering the table legs and exposing the freak shows, the circuses, the sexuality, and the underworld. Billy the Bi-Penis Boy especially sticks in my memory for some reason. I love that this stuff is actually on my reading list.
And now for my latest purchases. Foyles proved a temptation too far, and after finishing up with work-related things in London on Thursday I found myself ambling back up Charing Cross Road to those fabled doors. I had been chatting to lovely Mark Thwaite of ReadySteadyBook fame at the PPC, and took his recommendation of The Threat to Reason by Dan Hind. Along with that I also ended up buying Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell, and The New Feminism by Natasha Walter. I really need to stop buying books, I am running out of room very fast, and at some point I'll have seven million Beatles biographies to fit somewhere. :) More bookcases are in order. But where on earth am I going to put them??
In other news, I stumbled upon a Christian Anti-Feminist site the other day, via the always readable DollyMix. Choice tidbits of wisdom included the fact that they didn't understand all the bad press about patriarchy because "the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church". Oh really? Did you have to ask hubbie for permission to use the computer? Grrr. The best of it is that the website's tagline was "Promoting Beautiful Womanhood". I have to say that I personally don't find the idea of being subservient to my husband a particularly beautiful sort of womanhood. This site gives women (and Christians) a bad name.
Oh, and I use 'Ms' as my title because I don't see why I should have to declare my marital status to all and sundry (if I find the bugger who said that Ms is only for divorced women I shall personally ring their necks). When unmarried men start using 'Master' instead of 'Mr', then I shall use 'Miss'. Grrrrrr.... ... and breathe. Sorry. This happens occasionally.
**AN UPDATE**
Broken links now fixed. Sorry about that.
Just a short 'un today. Here are some of my links of choice from recent times:
Enjoy! I shall be back tomorrow. I'm off to London now. Cheerio!
I was thrilled this morning to discover that my favourite local rag, the Barrhead News, has its own website.
It is the local paper from the town I had the misfortune to grow up in, and is full of lurid stories like "Town Link to Brutal Murder", "Granny Flees Sick Thug", and, er, "Dog Jibe Made Me Hit Woman In Face".
Unfortunately, it didn't have my favourite recent story online, which I discovered in the paper itself last weekend while up at home: "Rammy in Post Office". The standard of reporting is such that they use the word "rammy" in legitimate news stories, which makes me laugh more than is really decent. "A 23 year old man allegedly caused a rammy in the post office..." I had to cut the story out and bring it home, I loved it so much.
They also insist on referring to the police as "cops", which makes me wonder whether they are operating under the illusion that they are in New York, rather than a slightly scummy town stuck in between Glasgow and Paisley.
I myself have appeared in those hallowed pages a number of times, though thankfully never to do with anything violent. There was a rather nice arty shot, I seem to remember, of me aged 10 with my cello and Grade 1 certificate. (Apparently I was the youngest pupil my cello teacher had had that passed a grade exam, hence the photo.) Then there was the time that a school friend and I had a story printed in *gasp* the Mandy comic. About the same time as the cello thing, I think. Obviously 1992 was a busy year for me. Never out of the bloody paper.
Always the same photographer, I seem to remember. His name was Drew. Where are you now, Drew?
A couple of years ago they also had a couple of pages devoted to the smaller villages close-ish to Barrhead/Paisley (like Houston, Inchinnan, Erskine, Kilmacolm etc) that were written by a delegate from each village. There was one particular issue, sometime around 2003, that had the front page headline "SCALPED!", which told the fairly horrific story of some poor sod who had been set upon in a local Barrhead park with a large knife. When I flicked a few pages on, and got to the "Down Your Way" pages, the biggest stories were a dead swan found in Inchinnan, and an eldery lady having lost her door keys in Erskine. I think my parents moved to the wrong town.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and do a count of how many of my old classmates have been in court this week...
**AN UPDATE**
Am thrilled to discover that "rammy" is in the OED.
I'm sorry, I just had to tell you about this. I recently came across the website of an independent bookshop in Bath by the name of Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights.
It looked fun, and I enjoyed the slightly Victorian sounding name, so I took a browse around their online bookshop.
Every book had a little bit of explanation and recommendation next to it, which made it wonderfully personal. They introduced all the people that run the shop (including the dog). It all tempted me into buying two books: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, by Heinrich Boll, and The Collector, by John Fowles.
So far, so good. Nice website. Online purchasing. Didn't think much more about it, until the books arrived yesterday morning. Not only did they put a very attractive bookmark in, but also a hand written, personalised note hoping that I enjoy the books. Then, opening my inbox, I find an email from one of the people at the shop, just checking that they arrived ok.
Now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is service. I will be using them again. And so should you... and they have a blog.
=================================================================
By the way, my latest OUP blog post is over here.
In the interests of fairness and clarity, I suppose I should make a confession. This isn't the only place I blog. I also have a day-blog: OUP blog, where I am the UK/Europe blogger, writing once a week.
Yes, that's right, I work in publishing. But this in no way affects the way I write about the books I read on here. I try my upmost to keep my blogging lives separate.
But I just had to link to my new day-blog-baby - a monthly column on the Very Short Introduction series, which I look after PR-wise. Please drop by and take a peek.
Now, normal, non-work blogging will resume...
Morning. First off, a disclaimer: I have a headache, I'm tired, I didn't sleep well last night, house guests mean that I am sorely lacking in any space (they invited themselves for a longer time period than I would have invited them for) to move or think, and I need a flipping holiday. Just so you know.
So, nothing of any real consequence, but a mere collection of whimsies. More than usual, I mean.
Nice piece on the Today Programme this morning about bloggers of the political variety and the effect they have in America, as well as a discussion on whether bloggers could have the same impact over here. Conclusion: we are a couple of years behind the US when it comes to blogging, so maybe in the future, but then again, maybe not because we have the BBC News Website, a veritable news monolith that "everyone" looks at. They don't have an equivalent in the States. Man, my grammar was astonishing there. Conjugate THAT!
I've had basically no time to read this week, and it's making me twitchy. I can't be anti-social and go and hide in the loft with Jonathan Franzen though, no matter how much I would love to. When did I get so busy? With house-guests until next weekend, then a weekend in Glasgow after that, I am very, very much looking forward to my bank holiday weekend away with Boyfriend.
Speaking of whom, I have been receiving an education in the advantages and disadvantages of vinyl versus CD/iPod. Boyfriend's Father and Step-Mother have recently retired, sold up, and gone on a year-long tour of Europe in a mobile home so they can decide which country they want to settle in. Which sounds like a pretty nice way of deciding which country to live in if you ask me, but that's besides the point. All of this means that they have quite a lot of belongings that need storing in the meantime, and it has fallen to Boyfriend to take custody of record player, speakers, reel to reel tape deck, and a mountain of records from his youth (and before). Since Boyfriend is moving in with me at some unspecified point over the next few months, it seemed to make most sense to install all of the above in my loft, which is to be "his domain", and which has the space he is lacking in his own place.
Anyway, Boyfriend has been getting misty-eyed over some of the records now residing chez moi, not least an Eric Clapton single, which had a token on the sleeve to cut out and send off for tickets to see the man himself live. There was something sort of poignant about the sleeve with the triangle cut out of it. Also, the Boomtown Rats single that he wrote on the front cover of when he was a teenager. Some of his records are older than me, not to mention the tapes of him playing with his dad's band when he was about 15. A veritable trip down memory lane.
Most of a whole Sunday was recently spent going through all the records, interesting for me because I have had very little exposure to vinyl. I was born in the 80s, by the time I started listening to music it was all cassettes and boom boxes. I am of the MTV generation. My parents, though music fans (blues and jazz a speciality), had no time for vinyl and my dad was one of the first to get a CD player. As soon as he had hurriedly got everything he wanted on CD, he got shot of the vinyl and the record player. The only vinyl record I remember with any clarity was an LP of Disney songs, bought to entertain me as a toddler. The rest of my childhood was waking up on a Sunday morning in my dad's flat in the West End of Glasgow, his blues albums playing on CD at alarming volume, my dad's singing along enthusiastically, if not tunefully. Mum, on the other hand, was the jazz fan, and she had a suitcase of cassettes behind the sofa that was pulled out every evening to be pored over on the living room floor, till she decided what she wanted to listen to. She only got a CD player a handful of years ago, when the cassette player finally gave up the ghost.
I digress, sorry, I blame the headache. So, my vinyl education. Things I have learned:
So, I am learning. Every day is a school day, as my father says. Though, I have to say, I think I'll stick to my iPod. The sound quality is better than any of the above, and at any given time I have nearly 2000 songs in my pocket.
I have recently been having a CD clear-out. I realised that my piles and piles of CDs largely consistedly of really godawful mid-90s heavy metal, which I loved at 14, but which now mainly makes me crack up laughing. God bless Amazon marketplace, for I have sold over 40 CDs in the last week. The rest of the CDs that I am keeping are going up to the loft, which I means downstairs I have more shelf space for books. I may know close to bugger-all about vinyl, but I do know my books, and I fear the shelf space will be filled imminently...
Sorry for this massive ramble today. It was all written in a stream of consciousness, except with slightly more full stops. I need a holiday, for a week or something, where I don't have to run around seeing people and doing housey things. I just want to go somewhere quiet with a pile of books, no mobile phone, and a duvet. Is that really so much to ask?
Sometimes you hear a story that is so fantastic that you know you could never do it justice in trying to re-tell it. So today, in a momentous first for Other Stories, I am bringing you a very special guest blog from my dear friend Jess. Jess is getting married next summer and she and her betrothed recently had to go and meet the vicar of the church they are to be married in. Over to Jess:
For your reading delight, I present my list of what not to do when meeting the vicar hosting your wedding for the first time....
1. don't leave home late
2. don't get stuck behind a van driving at 11mph for most of the journey
3. don't get lost
4. don't slip and nearly fall under the wheels of the car when running back to it after asking for directions in the local pub
5. don't be in quite a bad mood with each other on arrival
6. when asked 'have you been christened?' don't answer no
7. when asked 'would you like to be christened?' don't answer no
8. don't go on to explain that you and your parents just never thought it was that important
9. when asked your reasons for marriage, don't say it's more romantic than a joint mortgage
10. don't mention that you've alienated all the Christians you used to know at college
11. don't try to give a second hand theological lecture on Genesis, and definitely don't use the word 'myth' when doing so
12. don't bring up the Big Bang Theory
13. don't babble on about tradition being really important, you'll only have to back-pedal when you remember that you don't want the traditional vows
14. when read the start of the marriage service, don't admit that you only know that bit because it was on Pride and Prejudice
15. don't ignore your other half when he starts trying to shut you up by subtley nudging you with his knee
16. don't get crumbs on the carpet
Here endeth the lesson.
This is a rather fantastic piece of footage, that I first saw over at The Osterley Times. American news readers Mika Brzezinski objected to the fact that her producer wanted to lead with the story that professional waste of space Paris Hilton had been released from prison. So she took matters into her own hands:
I got particularly irritated with the guy to her left, who mocked her. I wanted to give him a bit of a slap.
Look at me! Blogging from home! Oh, how I'd missed sitting in the spare room, looking out the french windows, trying to ignore the fact that my neighbour's garden is much nicer than mine (must dig out the sec... secuteurs... secateurs... sorry, I can't spell), and defending my keyboard from two ultra curious cats who enjoy nothing more than padding over it to lick my nose. I return from the midsts of a broadband-less land.
Incidentally, I know it's really quite pathetic to be in broaband-withdrawal after only two weeks. This is because I'm a bit of a geek. I'm fine with that. I actively embrace it.
Further to my geekness, I've just installed a rather natty little widget that gives me stupidly minute detail on all of you, my avid readership (not that there's many of you - I'm at the stage of recognising IP numbers, which is a sorry state of affairs really). I see I've been getting visitors from the exotic climes of Belfast, Italy, University of Glasgow, and even Milton Keynes. Welcome, one and all.
On a different note, I'm going to my first Proper Oxford Ball this evening, and I'm wearing a Proper Ball Gown, which is going to be frankly hilarious because I'm not really a "dress" person. I'm more of a jeans and Converse person. But one has to make an effort when one is going to a ball, doesn't one? Between Boyfriend, who has been forced to dig out his dinner suit from the depths of God only knows where, and I, in my full length burgundy glory, we're going to cut quite the dash. Possibly. I am already dreading the photos... my friends have been explaining the protocol though, so I think we'll be fine. Thank God I have several friends who went to Oxford, that's all I can say. I never went to my graduation ball when I was at Glasgow Uni, and the graduation ball at Stirling basically equated to a band and some balloons in the gym hall. That said, at Stirling it was Diana Rigg who conferred our degrees, so that was a bit exciting (not least for my father, who was in the front row).
Anyway, tonight I shall transform from my denim-clad self into A Proper Girl. Or at least, that's the plan. We all know I'll spill champagne down my dress and smear lipstick across my face within a hour. At least there's a music quiz to keep Boyfriend happy.
In other news, we went to see both psychological mind trickster Derren Brown, and a wonderful singer by the name of Kyla Brox last week. Mr Brown was a baffling as usual, and I appreciated the Victorian-seance-theme of the evening. Boyfriend was afterwards trying to describe the tricks to the landlord in my local but didn't get terribly far as it largely amounted to "but... he knew what was in the envelope! And! He knew who was going to come up on stage at the end!". I guess you had to be there. Kyla Brox was fabulous. I'd never heard of her, so was trusting Boyfriend's recommendation. In the end, I enjoyed it more than he did, it was me that bought a cd, and it was me that went to speak to her afterwards. :) Typical.
I see this moring that Salman Rushdie has been given a knighthood. Hurrah for him! I really must get round to that copy of The Satanic Verses that has been sitting on the shelf for more than a year now. At the moment, though, I am dividing my time between Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, and Bleak House by Dickens. I was talking to a friend about them last night after I'd returned from a bit of an epic pub session (a good friend was leaving work and returning to the Motherland so we gave a bit of a send-off), and said that since I had had a bit to drink I'd be reading Dickens instead of Strachey because I had to concentrate less on Dickens.
"Kirsty", she said, "only you would refer to Dickens as the easy read. You're such a nerd, but that's why I love you." I was quite touched, oddly.
First off, I saw this on Dolly Mix this morning:
http://www.dollymix.tv/2007/06/walmart_thinks_a_someday_a_wom.html
Grrrr... OFFENSIVE? Offensive how? These people sold (still sell? I don't know) ammunition for guns yet they won't sell a tshirt with a slogan about a female President... It fair got my dander up.
Also, I saw about 10 mins of the repeat of last night's Big Brother while eating breakfast this morning, and witnessed one housemate (the one whose ambition is to marry a footballer so she doesn't have to do anything with her life other than shop) declaring that she HAD to have some toast, because her period was going to start in two days. Err... what did I miss? Toast? Really? Why toast specifically two days beforehand? I was confused. If anyone can enlighten me then please do... I just thought it was a bit random.
I eat toast all the time. I love toast. It's one of my favourite things in the whole world.
I am slightly on the frantic side today so forgive the scant posting.
First off, congratulations to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who won the Orange Prize (or Orange Broadband thing whatever it's called now) last night for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun. I haven't actually read the book, so I haven't really much to say on the subject, but I've read wonderful things about the novel. Hurrah for her.
In utter contrast to last year's shortlist, when I had read all but one of the novels, this year I haven't read a single one. I do own two of them, but only by accident (I'm a member of one of those mail order book clubs, except I keep forgetting that I am and don't send back the thing saying I don't want the editor's choice, and then they arrive, I have to pay for them, and I've ended up with some random books). They are: Booker Prize 2006 winner The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, and A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. I have to admit I haven't really got much intention of reading either of them, so they are by default on their merry way to the charity shop box currently languishing in the spare room, waiting for me to remember to put it in the car next time I'm going out.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but if you want a more informed chat about this year's prize, I recommend you read the lovely Sarah Crown's post on it over at the Guardian Books Blog.
And while you're over there, have a peep at this week's live blog on The Apprentice. It's another of my TV weaknesses, and the Guardian blog is wonderful.
Gosh I'm in linking mood now. If you have an idle minute, please say hello to the following:
The BronteBlog (who linked to me recently, which was lovely of them)
Scott Pack (who also linked to me recently, and even said I was worth bookmarking, so he's lovely too)
little.red.boat (by the person who usually writes the Apprentice blog)
gettingitoffmychest (who I found through dovegrey reader's site; it's a very moving blog about one lady's fight with breast cancer)
Seen Reading (which I mentioned earlier)
Digested Reads (another Guardian thing - I promise I'm not on commission - puncturing the pride of authors everywhere)
The Times Big Brother Blog (their tag line about watching it so you don't have to is particularly handy, because I haven't been - blog's still worth reading though)
I think that'll do you for now. Enjoy!
Just wanted to tell y'all about this blog that I've recently become a bit addicted to: Seen Reading.
The concept is simple. The blogger sees someone out and about reading a book, guesses roughly what page they're on, looks it up in the bookshop, and guesses a little of what the reader's life might be.
She obviously has more time/dedication than me, but it makes for a fairly addictive blog all the same. I've certainly added her to my bloglines!
My internet connection at home is no more, at least for the time being. This is entirely due to an over-enthusiastic engineer cutting through the broadband cable while doing a tv-related job chez moi last Thursday. Unfortunately it wasn't until Friday that the problem came to light, and I have spent the weekend in an internet-less universe. I wish it hadn't bothered me as much as it did.
I need to get a life.
Anyway, progress with Jane Eyre continues - nearly finished. Which is just as well because I went to Oxfam Books on St Giles on Saturday and came away with another pile of booky goodness. Indulging as I am my two major interests in feminist/women's writing and Victorianism, my latest stash was wholly appropriate. It began with a book I saw in the window as Boyfriend and I ambled past on our way to the covered market: A Century of Women (annoyingly the author's name escapes me as I type), which takes a decade-by-decade look at the lives of women in the UK and America from the turn of the 20th century to the mid-90s. It was irresistable so - obviously - I had to go in and take a further look around. Also purchased were: the now out-of-print The New Woman and Other Emancipated Woman Plays by Jean Chothia; What the Victorians Did For Us by Adam Hart-Davis (the book of the fabulous TV series); Queen Victoria: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert, and finally Victorian Cities by Lord Asa Briggs.
By this point, Boyfriend had exhausted the Music section, where he had been left while I ran around in a bookish ecstasy, so it was time to move off. We went about our business, and in a bid to avoid the tourist scrum that is Cornmarket Street, we took a leisurely route back along Turl Street to stay in the relative shade of Jesus and Exeter Colleges. Which would have been fine, if such a route didn't take us past one of my very favourite books shops in all of Oxford: The QI Bookshop. For those of you unfamiliar with the shop, it isn't organised by genre or A-Z, but by topics like "the sea", where you'll find histories of voyages next to fictional books set on the ocean, etc. It's a veritable treasure trove (and packs purchases in environmentally friendly paper bags too). I couldn't resist. So another three purchases were made: Peter Ackroyd's acclaimed biography of Dickens, a copy of Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, which I've been meaning to get a hold of for years, and another feminist tome, The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.
I have a lot of reading to do. Lovely.
I really do. These are oldish articles, but I occasionally re-read them when I want to shake my fist at something and shout "yes!" a lot.
No sniggering at the back.
Anyway, go look!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1639321,00.html
and also...
http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1782856,00.html
I know, I know, I've gone quiet again. Apologies. For once I seem to actually very busy, which is a new and interesting development.
When I have time to do a 'proper' post (hopefully tomorrow evening) I will tell you about the following:
In the meantime, you shall just have to make do with those thrilling titbits, while I try and rein in my massively expanding social life. I exaggerate, of course.
Talk amongst yourselves, now.
I am more than delighted to see that Scott Pack has mentioned my humble blog on his site (thank you!)... I was wondering why my web stats had jumped from 2 a day to 25. Normally it's just a loyal bunch of friends who humour my random musings and inatriculate book chat. So... hello! Welcome! Pull up a pew! Please don't think for a second that I'm anything like professional in my blogging, I'm just a 25 year old girl called Kirsty who rambles on about whatever inconsequential thoughts flutter through my brain, and occasionally say a little about what I've been reading/watching recently.
I think I'd better up my game. :)
Anyway! On to business. Last night I finished the somewhat shockingly titled Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates. This was the first book I'd actually read by her, despite the regularity I used to peruse her shelf when I was a bookseller. It's a very short (150 pages) fable, almost, about Teena Maguire and her 12 year old daughter Bethie, and the aftermath of the vicious gang rape and assault they are subjected to on the 4th of July as they walk home through a park.
It's full of disjointed sentences that together make the narrative somewhat like a poem (does that sound hideously pretentious?) . I'm told this is JCO's hallmark, but given that this is the first I've read I'll have to take their word for that. Anyway, it has the effect of making this horrific assault almost dreamlike and not quite real - echoing, I suppose, the difficulty Teena and Bethie and everyone around them has in comprehending what has happened. It also examines the fall-out for the police officer who is first on the scene, and for Teena's boyfriend, and for the community as a whole. It explores the reactions from locals, from the families of the accused, and from the rapists themselves. Of course, my ever-primed feminist radar picks up on the injustice of people turning against Teena, saying that she brought it on herself by wearing high heels and a short skirt, and the sense I got from the book as a whole is that that's what JCO was really trying to highlight.
Overall then, an affecting piece of lyrical prose that explores reactions to rape, but still draws hope from the love and support between mother and daughter as they try to recover from this awful attack. It's definitely a book that will stay with me, and has made me eager to read more by her.
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