In Which We Discuss Annie Murray and My Unread Pile

It's June 1st, and my unread pile has 154 books in it (including one that I finished today, but I'm counting anyway because it was still unread by the end of May).  According to GoodReads, I read six books between the 20th and the 31st - Juliet, Naked I finished today.  Don't ask me where the rest went.  Some I gave to my grandmother, with the knowledge that they'll be there when/if I want to read them.  I also bought one new book.  I think my books breed and hide from me, because the numbers never quite seem to add up.

I've really enjoyed this project, even though I didn't succeed in my goal.  Some of those books have been there for almost a decade, and I don't know why I never got to them before, because some of them were awesome.  Annie Murray, who writes books set in Birmingham, will be giving a talk at my local library soon, so I expect I'll get a few of hers out of the pile over the next week or so.  She'll be speaking about her new book, The Women of Lilac Street, and that'll be at South Yardley Library on the 17th of June, between 10:30am and 11:30am.

I like that Annie Murray's books are set in Birmingham.  There was a weird moment, when I read My Daughter, My Mother when I was on the exact same bus that the character was travelling on.  I like that.  I like being able to picture the street the characters are on - it happens so rarely.

I really liked Soldier Girl, the middle entry of a trilogy of girls growing up in Birmingham in the early 20th century.  I like Molly.  I would like to be friends with her.

One of her books that I didn't like was Orphan of Angel Street.  The main character seemed like a complete Mary Sue.  She was so perfect, and terrible tragic things happened to her, because she was so perfect and lovely and everyone wanted her, but it all worked out okay.  I just found it a bit melodramatic, and found it hard to like the character, near the end.

The librarian whom I asked about the event highly recommended Where Earth Meets Sky, which I have.  I think I'll probably reread Soldier Girl and that before the 17th.

In Which We Discuss Last Week

I've decided to make the effort to write a weekly column (well, post, really) on what I've been reading.

Mostly, this was inspired by reading Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree, which I have, irritatingly enough, misplaced twenty pages from the end. How annoying is that?

The Polysyllabic Spree is a reprint of columns Hornby wrote for American literature magazine, The Believer. At the beginning of each one he lists the books he read that month and the books he bought, before going on to write down his thoughts on them.

It's kind of odd that I enjoyed the columns, despite Hornby and I having very different tastes. I like most of his books, sure - About A Boy, High Fidelity, and How to be Good come to mind - but, for instance, I've never gotten along with Dickens, which is one of his favourites. I also love sci-fi, which Hornby just cannot understand (really, he says that himself). In fact, I'm now determined to go check out Iain M. Banks' work at the library, based solely on a few paragraphs of Hornby's bafflement. Not at the fact of his bafflement, but because the bits he described seemed really, really interesting, and not baffling at all.

Oh, I've just spotted Hornby's latest book, Juliet, Naked on the pile at the end of my bed. That was one of the books I bought at the airport at New Years, on my way to Aberdeen.

Speaking of books I bought at New Years, I finally read that one by Derren Brown, Tricks of the Mind. I found it absolutely fascinating, and finished it over two days. I really couldn't put it down.

Tricks of the Mind is basically about whatever Derren Brown felt like writing. It's aimed towards the general public, and contains a little information on his life, but a lot more information on memory tricks. Did you know, for instance, that in 2004, the final score of the FA Cup Final was Manchester United 3, Millwall 0? I am never going to forget that, after reading the following paragraph;

'04: M3, Millwall 0. Whore: mum, wall 0. Let's convert 'Millwall' into 'wall' to seperate it from the other Ms. Who's that whore? Why it's my own mother (God forgive me), stood against a wall, making nothing at all.

...makes me crack up everytime.

What he's done there is convert the information into words and formed those into an interesting image that you won't want to forget. '4' becomes 'whore' because it rhymes, while '3', using a slightly different number system, becomes an 'm' sound (because an m has three prongs). 'Man U' become M, Millwall is wall. The nil score isn't converted, because we can use it as it is.

That's only a very short overview of that system, but you had to know that much to understand that paragraph, which is the single funniest thing I've read all year.

The book also covers a little about hypnotism, and some of Derren Brown's feelings on mystics and mediums (he disapproves) among other things. It's fascinating if you're the sort of person who likes to know how things work (I only recently realised that some people don't - they're happy to enjoy something without identifying all the peices. How very odd).

I was hoping that that book would last me for the four hour bus journey down to Southampton, but since I finished it so quickly, I got started on the next one - rereading Maureen McCormick's Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice (incidentally, I managed to finish that on my journey down to the bus stop).

Maureen McCormick played the original Marcia Brady, and that's all most people know about her. I admit, I wanted the book simply because she was my favourite character. I didn't even realise she played Judy in Teen Angel, and I loved that show.

McCormick's a very interesting person, too. I think I would like to be her friend. I like how candid she is about her attraction to men, and the frank way in which she discusses her past drug problems. She still looks beautiful, too.

I like biographies. I'm not always in the mood for them, but it's always interesting reading about people's lives.

Maureen McCormick did a cameo on Scrubs in 2003. I use a screenshot of that as one of my usericons on livejournal, but you can see the whole clip here, lucky blog readers.



I wonder what it was like for her, after being haunted by Marcia for so many years to say on TV "my name is Maureen McCormick", and then to be shushed? It doesn't seem to have been a big deal for her, but I find that it kind of sums up the influence Marcia has had on McCormick's public life.

In Which We Discuss the Devil that is WHSmith

So, I'm back in Aberdeen.

I was very good about packing books into my hand luggage. I'm staying for five days, so I was quite restrained and brought some of my library books - The Bachman Books, 'Salem's Lot - I'm on a King kick at the moment - The Telling, and The United States of Europe. Oh, and a copy of Y Tywysog Bach and a Welsh dictionary. The Little Prince is a book I find very useful for languages, incidentally, as it's been translated into so many. I've bought copies in Latin and Spanish, for friends who are studying those.

So, yes I was quite restrained. Until I got to the WHSmith in the airport, and noticed that they had everything on 4 for 3.

I didn't intend to buy anything. I was just going to look.

I started in the biography section. I enjoy biographies - people are fascinating. However, I did turn my nose up at Cheryl Cole's. I don't believe she's had enough life to justify one really. In all honesty though, I must confess that I simply dislike her.

Anyway, then I picked up Confessions of a City Girl, the book of the column. In this case, the column in question is City Girl, from thelondonpaper. It's the memoirs of a female merchant banker. Since I really liked I Don't Know How She Does It, and Trixie Trader, I had a look at a few random pages. The writing style seemed like it would be absorbing and readable, so I picked it up.

Then I noticed Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind next to it. Although I don't expect to find out any of his secrets, I do find the man quite watchable, and a skim of the pages looks like he'll be readable too. And I had to make up four, didn't I?

I went over to the chart's display then. Found Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, which, I gather from another quick page skim, discusses the science shown in the media, including a chapter on Gillian McKeith. It looked interesting, and I suspect it will be good for debates and bits of random trivia.

My final choice was Nick Hornby's latest effort, Juliet, Naked. I enjoyed his other books, and I'd been looking at it in the last WHSmith I passed ( there was one at the train station, one before security, and then another one after), so that was that.

...and then I picked up a magazine, too.

...and a copy of Confessions of a Working Girl in the third WHSmith.

Godammit.

Oh, I know I still had two reviews and a conclusion to write about the Lisa Jewell thing. I lost interest, and forgot what I was going to say.