In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 15 Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

 Chapter 1

We're now with Natasha and Mary, who are united in mourning for Andrew.  However, Mary is now "an absolute and independent arbiter of her own fate" since the death of her father and brother, and is the sole guardian of her nephew, so she has to pull herself together.  Natasha has less responsibilities - and is more of a drama queen - so it takes her longer.  She keeps going over what she and didn't say to Andrew.   The chapter ends with her being called to hear the news of Petya's death.

Chapter 2

Petya's death reunites Natasha with her family, after Andrew's had estranged her.  

Chapter 3

Mary delays the departure of her and her nephew, little Nikolai, because Natasha is the only one able to comfort her mother.  Natasha's love, in caring for her mother, is able to help her heal begin to heal from her grief.  Natasha cares for her mother until she becomes ill, and then Mary takes care of her.  Natasha and Mary begin a tender and passionate friendship "such as only exists between women" with much kissing of hands and face.  They begin to feel that life is only possible in one another's presence.  They spend a great deal of time talking, and Natasha comes to appreciate Mary's relationship with religion, despite not being able to relate to it herself, which is rather sweet.  Natasha and Mary stay with the Rostovs until January - remember, Petya died at the end of October - before leaving together.

Chapter 4

We're back to the war.  The French have been fleeing so fast the Russians cannot keep up.  The Russian generals are trying to get Kutuzov to take some action even though, as Tolstoy likes to point out, the French are already doing exactly what Russia wants.  Kutuzov is doing his best to ignore these orders, but the generals are getting more eager because they're seeing their last chance for a bit of battle glory.  It's all very Lord Rust (see Jingo).  There are some battles - one senselessly raging on for three days, for no good reason, just because Napoleon happens to be there and some Russian generals want to capture him - but the French mostly just want to go home and are using guerilla tactics to slip past the Russian army if they can't just surrender.  Plus, none of the plans are working because they're all out of date by the time they get to the troops and/or someone wants to do something a bit more dramatic.  A bit shambolic really.  This chapter is stolidly in defence of Kutuzov and damns other historians for their lack of respect.

Chapter 5

In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was very much criticised for, basically, trying to preserve lives and have a sensible war rather than throwing soldiers away on vainglorious folly, and since we're not upset about all of Mary's family dying - except her and her nephew - and poor little Petya, we're inclined to agree with Tolstoy, who describes Napoleon, scathingly, as "that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed human dignity".

You know, I've been thinking about the book of The Princess Bride recently, and the conceit that it's abridged from a much longer original novel which kept leaving the story for essays about the history of the country it was set in.  I wonder if William Goldman read War and Peace and took inspiration from it, or if that's just a coincidence?  I recently got a fully voice-acted abridged version of War and Peace on Audible, which comes in at, if I recall correctly, about 9 hours.  Considering 100 pages is normally about 3 hours, that's only a third of the book so I suspect they've cut out all these war essays in the same way Goldman claimed to have edited Morgenstern's story.

Anyway, Tolstoy is very admiring of Kutuzov's dignity, and the way he appeared - from the writings and communications we have from the time - to be the only person who really understood what was going on and taking sensible actions about it.  Tolstoy attributes this to Kutuzov's pure Russian spirit.  There is definitely a vodka pun to be made here.  Tolstoy says that it is the fact that Kutuzov was a true hero and great leader that prevented him from being put in the false mould of the "European hero" because, as he's been saying since the beginning, the real world doesn't work like a story and battles and wars never go to plan, and you can't intend to carry out a plan and then do it in the middle of a battlefield so pretending that some generals did is just dumb.  He makes a very convincing argument.

In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 2, Chapters 11, 12 and 13

Chapter 11

In the morning, Prince Andrew needs to be presented to the Emperor Francis.   He goes to Bilibin's study where Prince Hippolyte Kuragin (son of Vasili and brother to Anatole and Helene) is waiting, among others.  They are a collection of "young, gay society men" (smirk), almost exclusively diplomats, and have interests related to "high society, certain women, and the official side of the service".  They meet up and gossip a little bit about society, but mostly about the women.  Like The Inbetweeners, if they had better clothes and jobs.  Prince Hippolyte is the one they all make fun of.

Chapter 12

Prince Andrew is finally in front of Emperor Francis.  He's not very interested in hearing Prince Andrew's dramatic story and keeps interrupting with boring questions like "what time did the battle begin?".  Afterwards, Andrew learns that an important bridge has been crossed by the French army, despite it being fitted with bombs and ordered to be blown up to prevent exactly this.  No one knows why it wasn't destroyed, and the Russian army is cut off.  Prince Andrew is thrilled; this his clearly his destined opportunity to be a war hero and lead the Russian army to victory from the jaws of defeat.  Bilibin tells Prince Andrew that the French took the bridge by trickery, which seems to impress him.  When he realises that Prince Andrew intends to return for honour and glory or some other idiocy, he tries to persuade him not to, and calls him a hero.  I have decided not to read it as a compliment.

Chapter 13

Prince Andrew sets off for the army - though he doesn't know where it is - while the rest of the court packs up to head to Olmutz.  Prince Andrew is having happy dreams of either winning or dying gloriously, whichever comes first.  As Terry Pratchett would say, there's an important word in that sentence, and it's not the word "gloriously".

Prince Andrew manages to accidentally stumble into the army.  I guess an army is a hard thing to miss.  He gets poached by Kutuzov, despite wanting to go with Prince Bagration, who I swear we haven't met before.  I think that's the group his friends are in.  Kutuzov will hear none of it.

Okay, I googled, and Pyotr Bagration is a real Russian general whom Tolstoy considered the "hero of heroes".  He dies at Borodino in November 1812, so we have that to look forward to.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 36/52

Five books last week, since the Forbidden Game is a trilogy!  The only new one, and the only non-audiobook is The World of Poo, a defictionalised Discworld book.  I borrowed that from the library.

That triggered a desire to read more Discworld books; I actually wanted to reread Witches Abroad, but I can't afford to buy new audiobooks at the moment, so Maskerade it was.

I'm trying to use a schedule to cope better with my ADD, and it includes time for blogging, so hopefully my entries will get a little longer than they have been recently!

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 4/52

Three books last week - 3rd to the 9th of September.  All books I'd read before, two audiobooks, and one on Kindle.

Play or Die was the kindle book, and it's one of the few I've actually reviewed on Goodreads. Undercover Economist is a non-fiction work on how economics can explain everyday things, while The Fifth Elephant is the last City Watch book before Night Watch.

A thought occured to me the other day; the City Watch series (or, loop) from Guards! Guards! to Night Watch is a stable time loop, a la Final Fantasy VIII, and it's the story of Vimes becoming a self-made man.  He's first influenced by the original John Keel.  Some of it sticks - he never lets the Beast out - but it's not enough, and he slumps into an alcoholic depression for the next thirty years.  In Guards! Guards! he's inspired by Carrot; he wants to live up to Carrots ideals, and the Watch finally has the power to start being the kind of force he wants it to be.  Vetinari begins to take an interest; begins to use Vimes as another instrument to focus the city how he wants.  Finally, after a few years of those two, Vimes influences his own younger self.  Only once he has reached that point can he move on with his life; his son is born immediately afterwards.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 2/52

Four books this week - 20th to 26th August.

I picked up The Girl with all the Gifts after reading an article in a local newspaper, calling for extras to play the zombies. The movie – which was written at the same time as the book – is being filmed near here.

The book was interesting – I loved the method by which they became zombies – but very sad. Since I’m about to begin a genetics degree, Caroline was an interesting character. In her place, would I go that far? Probably not….

Career of Evil is the latest in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling). Not as intriguing as, for instance, Sophie Hannah’s mysteries, but compelling enough. And, again, it does lend some legitimency to picturing Harry Potter the Auror as a hard-boiled detective!

The Last Girlfriend on Earth is one of my favourite short story collections. I’ve read it quite a few times over the last few years, so there’s not a lot to add here. It’s just a really well-written collection based on an interesting idea.

Finally, Men at Arms. It’s a shame about Cuddy, though it does begin to establish Detritus, Angua, and all the other characters who become the backbone of the Watch.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 49/52

Four books last week, two of the rereads, two of the them audiobooks (not the same two).  This is the week from 14th to 20th July.

The rereads were A Blink of the Screen and Atlas Shrugged.  A Blink of the Screen is a collection of Pratchett's short stories, including the High Meggas, which inspired The Long Earth.  I really need to read that series; it's such a good story!

Both Atlas Shrugged and Wild Swans I listened to while catching Pokemon.  Weirdly, Pokemon Go has really helped with listening to long audiobooks, and with getting through my unread list on Audible.  Probably because my attention's less focused on it, so I don't fret about how long the story is.

The Floating Prince is a collection of fairytales which are available on Wikisource.org.  It's an excellent collection, which I read in quiet moments at work.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 47/52

Eight books last week - 29th June to 6th July.  Four audiobooks, two of them new and two of them rereads.

The Undomestic Goddess and Wee Free Men were both rereads, as was Mary Poppins (via Kindle).  I really need to make some gingerbread!

I listened to The Fire Sermon for the first time and really enjoyed it.  I'm taking my time looking up the second one because the third isn't out yet.

The Dragons of Crumbling Castle was a collection of Terry Pratchett's short stories, most of which were unfamiliar to me.  I'm less of a fan of Pratchett's early work, though this was very enjoyable.

The Girl in the Photograph has been on my unread pile for a while; it focuses on the same issues as The Yellow Wallpaper.

I finally got around to reading (well, listening to) The Maze Runner on a recommendation from a friend.  It took me a while to get into it, but I went out and borrowed the sequels from the library afterwards.

Finally, Snow White Must Die; an interesting German crime novel.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 46/52

Six books last week; that's the 23rd to the 29th of June.

Four were rereads.  Lorna Doone is one of my favourite novels and on this readthrough I realised something that makes it even better.  John Ridd is explicitly writing as man in his fifties.  When he describes himself and Lorna and teenagers, and says things like he never again saw a spring flower without thinking of her, he isn't saying that as a teenager, but as a man in his fifties about the woman he's been married to for thirty years.

Catching Fire is the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy.  I named my hedgehog after Johanna; I love her, especially as portrayed by Jenna Malone in the movie.

Making Money and Trigger Warning are both books I've read before.

I'd never read Desperation before now but I really enjoyed it.  I need to write a proper post about it, though that may need to wait until I've finished The Regulators.

Finally, I read When Marnie was There after watching the Studio Ghibli movie.  I felt like the movie was simpler and more beautiful.  I also liked the mix of cultures in the movie; Marnie remained English though the setting and other characters were updated to Japan.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 36/52

Five books last week - 14th to 20th of April.  All but one were books I'd read before.

The Hunter is a book I first read as a teenager.  Last year, I picked up all three books in the series on Audible.  They're pretty short; 5-7 hours each.  The story focuses on Jenny, who is beloved by Julian, a Shadow Man.  Something of a Norse god/demon whose people inspired myths like those of alien abductions and dark elves.  I like the fact that - spoiler - although Jenny is tempted by Julian she acknowledges that his way of pursuing her isn't healthy, and rejects the idea of a relationship with him.  Considering it's a supernatural romance - that, fyi, predates Twilight by over a decade - it's a pretty healthy take on it.  I also like that it's about a group of friends rather than just one girl.

I've described The Rosie Project as 'Sheldon Cooper woos Zooey Deschanel', which is doing the book a bit of a disservice.  Don Tillman, the hero, is implied to be autistic and is definitely non-neurotypical, though he makes it work for him and has not actually been diagnosed.  He doesn't seem to have felt the need.  Don decides he needs companionship and begins his 'wife project', meting Rosie who he quickly decides is a totally unsuitable companion.  She's not a manic-pixie dreamgirl, beyond the fact that she does shake up Don's life and what he believed he wanted.  She's a normal girl who's somewhat accepting of Don, though not magically accepting.  It's a very sweet relationship and a fun book.  I enjoyed the audiobook, which is narrated in an Australian accent.  The book's written by an Australian and set in Australia, so that makes sense.

Going Postal was another one I listened to as an audiobook.  It's part of the Discworld series and is the first to star one of the new main characters, Moist Von Lipwig.  I quite like Moist, although I will always love Granny Weatherwax and Vimes more.

Light as a Feather is another book I first read as a teenager.  It's so nineties; about a woman who sets up a weight-loss support chat room which quickly blossoms into a small company.  There are boyfriend shenanigans and mean bosses, and investors who say she's too fat to promote her own company and hire a bitchy, thin woman to pretend to be Orla for TV appearances.  The good people get their dramatic victory and the bad people get their well-deserved comeuppance, and it's all very silly and fun.

The Language of Power is the first new book I finished this week.  It's the fourth of the Steerswoman series, which has been published very, very slowly since 1992.  The Language of Power was released in 2004, so I expect to be able to read the sequel any year now.  It's such a good series; I hope she does wrap it up soon.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 35/52

Only three books last week - 7th to 13th April - and two of those were audiobooks.

Thief of Time is one I first read as a teenager.  It's a Discworld novel which explains any lack of continuity in the main series in a way which is rather genius.  The auditors show up again, along with Susan.  Very enjoyable.

The Cuckoo's Calling is the first in JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike series.  I like to imagine that Harry Potter's life as an auror is something like this.  The fact that JK Rowling wrote a hard-boiled detective novel makes this fanfic, where Dudley grew up to be a gay social worker and Hermione is a wizard social worker, while Harry is a grizzled old cop, more legitimate.

Pretty Little Mistakes is a choose your own adventure book.  It has a branching plotline, so each branch is rather short, maybe seven entries at most.  I like the way that 'good' choices don't always work out, and you're not always punished for bad choices - that's what life is like.  Sometimes you're gay, which is another nice choice.

In Which We Discuss Dolores Claiborne

When I was younger - between the ages of nine and sixteen - I used to be off school a lot.  When that happened, my grandmother would take me to Bearwood with her, and we'd look in all the charity shops up and down the high street.  I'd come away with piles and piles of books, which I'd start on in the pub, over a coke while my nan had a lager and caught up with her friends.

Dolores Claiborne was one of these.  I remember reading it and getting through the first hundred pages before we left, and I think I finished it later that same evening.  It's told in the second person, in one long confession by Dolores herself, something Stephen King hadn't done in long fiction before.  It's a pretty short book, somewhere between 200 and 250 pages, and it gave me a real bad case of the gottas.

Dolores Claiborne is linked to Gerald's Game via the eclipse that both Dolores and Jessie witness, during which they receive odd glimpses of one another.  I'm not sure which of the books I read first - it really makes no difference - but I think it was this one.

James Smythe points out that this is only Stephen King's second novel with a single viewpoint, the first being The Body.  I hadn't realised that - though obviously I noticed the second person aspect as being unique.   I also hadn't really noticed the dialect the story was told in; I knew it was there but it didn't impinge on my experience.  Of course, one of my favourite books is Lorna Doone.

Stephen King is very good at keeping track of multiple characters in an overarching third person narrative, but, like Gerald's Game, it's where he limits himself that his skill really becomes apparent.  I also feel that Stephen King writes excellent women.  I've noticed that authors with daughters tend to be better at it, though I've not done any sort of formal survey so this observation might just be a coincidence.  I'm thinking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman when I make that sort of statement.  As well as having a daughter Stephen King was raised by a single mother, and is married to a woman with five or six sisters, so he's definitely had the opportunity to observe women in their natural habitat; he doesn't see them as being exotic beings or people very different from men, which we're not, in many ways.

I also like the discussion and use of the word 'bitch'.  It's used in a reclaiming way; sometimes being a bitch is all you've got to hold on to.  It's not a word I'd use on anyone else, who isn't fictitious, but I love bitches in fiction.  Strong women, who do what they need to do.

The book - which was the best-selling American novel of 1992 - was made into a movie in 1995, starring Kathy Bates who also appeared in Misery.

The next book Stephen King published was Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories that I've also read before.  After that it'll be Insomnia, followed by The Green Mile, both of which I've also read previously.  Then we'll be back on to a long string of books I've not read before, starting with Desperation.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 49/52

Only two books last week - 14th July to 21st July.  Mirror Dance, which was new to me, and The Wee Free Men.

The Wee Free Men I have read before, though this was the first time I'd listened to the audiobook.  I quite enjoyed it.  I'd like to listen to the rest of the Tiffany books (all of which I've read before).  I'm not allowed to buy any more until I've finished the 5-6 I've not listened to, though.

Mirror Dance I read for a bookclub.  Which was on the 14th, two or three days before I actually finished the damn book.

It started a little slow, and I do feel like part of that was because it was the 9th in the series.  I liked it a lot more when it picked up and Mark really came into his own, though apparently he's not in many of the other books.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 32/52

Three books last week, all new.  Raising Steam, The Girl Who Just Appeared, and The Steerswoman.  Two of them I bought very recently.  The third, Raising Steam has been on my to-read list for a while.  I read it last week because it seemed like the right time.

Knowing the circumstances under which it was written may be affecting my opinion, but it seems somewhat flimsy at times.  The jokes are cruder and more obvious.  It feels like the tone of the book is trying too hard to mimic earlier instalments.

The Girl Who Just Appeared is about a woman who was adopted.  The only hint to her birth family is the name and address on her birth certificate.  When that address comes up for rent she decides to move in and finds an old diary under the floorboards.  Great beginning, interesting book.

The Steerswoman is about a guild of truthtellers.  A steerswoman - or man, though they are rarer - is bound to truthfully answer any question they are ask, as long as their questions are answered in return.  The second you refuse to answer a steerswoman's question, you are under their ban and they will never answer a question for you again.  The book follows one specific steerswoman, who is investigating strange crystals that were strewn across the landscape some thirty-thirty-five years before.  Late eighties feminist hard sci-fi heavily disguised as fantasy, which happens to be my favourite genre (see Jinian Footseer).

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 31/52

Terry Pratchett died this week.

The first Prachett book I ever read was Only You Can Save Mankind, when I was ten.  Then The Colour of Magic, at eleven.  Then Jingo.  Then, I think Maskerade, then I saw the animated version of Wyrd Sisters, then I spent my birthday money on lots more of the discworld books, whatever they had in my local waterstones.  I'm now reading Raising Steam.  It's the last one for me.  It's the last one for all of us.

Last week, I reread Peony in Love for my feminist book group, which meets next week.  I read it back in November or December as well, so I won't repeat what I said then.

The Housemates was a book I've had sitting on my unread pile for a while.  It reads like someone watched Big Brother, hated it, and decided a fitting punishment for the contestants would be to mash it up with the Saw movies.  Everyone involved in the torture-gameshow is a criminal, and the whole thing is arranged by their victims.  Uncomfortably gory and violent, but compelling and quiet well plotted.  The ending, when it comes, is more obvious than I thought it would be.

Fortunately the Milk... I saw at the library, and had finished it before I got home.  A short children's book, with lots of illustrations, about a father explaining why he was delayed bringing home the milk.  Definitely does not including a time-travellings stegosaurus.

I read How to Become a Police Officer: The Insider's Guide because I'm applying to join the WMP when applications open on Monday.  Some of this is inspired by Commander Vimes.  Vimes is who I want to be when I grow up.  It's a pretty good guide, which talks through the recruitment process in depth with examples of questions that are likely to come up.  I'm confident about the tests - SJT, verbal and mathematic.  I'm confident about the phone interview and the bleep test (I ran one in my garden the other day).  I'm less confident about the initial application form and the face to face interviews, and the roleplay, and the essay questions.  We'll see.  I guess if my application form is fine, that'll mean I've gotten the hang of answering the competency questions, or at least that I'm better at it.

Mr and Miss Anonymous is another book I've had sitting on my unread pile for a while.  I read it because I'm aiming to read all the unread books on my Kobo.  Then maybe sell it or give it away.  I love my Kobo, and it was my faithful companion for months when I couldn't afford a Kindle.  But now I can, and the Kindle is better maintained with a better range of cheaper books.  Plus, I can read my Kobo books on that, or my phone, or my nexus.

Anyway, it's about a couple who donate to an egg and sperm bank.  They meet afterwards, fall in love at first sight, then don't see each other for years.  They meet again when they find out that something very dodgy happened to their genomes.  There are lots of contrived coincidences and love at first sight suddenly happening.  All very silly.  Quick read though.

Something Fierce is the memoir of a girl who served as a revolutionary in South America in the eighties.  I'm glad I read, since that's an area and a time period I don't know a lot about.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 28/52

Seven books this week!

I finished the original Last Vampire series.  There is a sequel, published in 2010.  The last of these was published in 1997, which gives you an idea of the gap.  I can only assume the vampire zeitgeist was responsible for this, especially since they were all republished in matching binding at the time.  They were pretty good; more actiony, less heart-rending than my favourite Pike novels, Remember Me and The Midnight Club.

Herland I reread for a feminist bookclub recently.  I was hoping to revive the group by choosing a short, sci-fi-ish book.  It's 120 pages, and we had a really good discussion about it.  It lasted two hours, which meant we could all have sat in silence and just reread the entire book, which says a lot about the ideas in it.

Maxiumum Willpower is a book I've been reading at a chapter a week for the past month and a half.  It's about all the things that can test our willpower, and contained some interesting tips for holding out against it.  Definitely worth reading.

Finally, Maskerade.  I've read it before, when I was thirteen or fourteen.  I stole my original copy from my school library.  It was the third or fourth Discworld book I read, depending on whether I got my hands on it before or after Wyrd Sisters.  I enjoyed the audio performance, though I'm a bit baffled as to why the witches all have slightly London accents.  It makes a sort of sense for Vimes, but surely they should be a bit more West Country?

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 25/52

It's my half birthday next week, which means I've been doing this for nearly six months.  Huh.

Snuff is a Discworld novel - number 38, and the 8th Watch story.  The second Discworld book I ever read was Jingo, as I believe I mentioned last month, so Vimes holds a special place in my heart.

I enjoyed Snuff.  I've been putting off reading it because, due to Pratchett's illness, Discworld novels are now finite and I didn't want to use them up too early.  I'm glad I did read it, though.  It's about slavery in the same way that Jingo and Monstrous Regiment is about war and it repeats the Pratchett habit of bringing a formerly mook-enemy into the light as a protagonist.

The Last Vampire is a series by Christopher Pike.  It's not my favourite of his books - that would be Remember Me and The Midnight Club - but they're okay.  About a vampire who believes herself to be the last of her kind, but rapidly finds out that she isn't.  I have all seven of them, all in sets of two apart from the last one, so I just read the whole book through.  My mother gave them to my grandmother along with all the Horror High and a few other Pike novels, so I claimed them.  It has the traditional Pike tropes of blonde and blue-eyed Hindus.

The Lost Mind is another one by Pike.  It's about a girl who wakes up with no memory, lying next to the corpse of her best friend.  It's barely 200 pages long, and has the usual Pike tropes of mysticism and murder.

Daddy Long-Legs is a book I read on wikisource after finding out that it's one of my friend's favourite books.  I quite liked it.  It's about an orphaned girl who is given the funds to attend college by a mysterious benefactor whom she is required to write letters to.  The book is made up of her letters, though he never writes back.  I like the heroine, Judy/Jerusha Abbot.  She's strong and determined and sensible and very much knows her own mind.  I think I'll probably read the sequel, Dear Enemy, which is not on wikisource but which is on Project Gutenberg.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is science-fiction.  Harry August lives his life over and over; every time he dies, he wakes up in his newborn baby body, right back at the start of his life.  At the end of his eleventh life, a young girl shows up at his bedside and tells him that the end of the world is a thousand years away and getting faster.  Interesting start, no?  I felt the ending wrapped up far too quickly; it was justified, but it was a little anti-climactic after all the build-up.  It was a good read though.

Finally, Why Evolution is True.  Non-fiction, and a very good, thorough guide to evolution.  It's written in opposition to creationism and "intelligent design", which I already think is ridiculous and requires a lot of anti-scientific thought and outright burying your head in the sand, so he was very much preaching to the choir there.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 24/52

Six books this week!  Two rereads, four new.  Four library, one kindle, one audible.

Sisterland was new to me.  I borrowed it from the library a while ago.  Saw it there on my lunch break, realised I'd left my purse at the office.  I asked the librarian if there was anyway she could help me; she offered to sell me a new library card, the cheeky cow.  I realised, as I was on my way back to work, that had she bothered to look up from her book for more than a minute, she could simply have looked up my library card number.  I could have typed that manually in to the self-service machines; since I know my pin, all I needed was that number.

Anyway, I went back after work and got it then.  No lazy librarian is keeping me from my books.

I quite liked it.  It's about twin sisters, both of whom had a vague psychic gift.  One has suppressed it and become a suburban mom, the other has embraced it and become a complete hippy.  The latter makes a public prediction of an earthquake to hit St Louis, triggering various plot shenanigans.  I didn't like it as much as Prep, which I read in late 2006/early 2007.

Couch Fiction was another library book, one I picked up along with How to be a Heroine, The Rosie Project and some sheet music when I returned Sisterland.  It's a graphic novel showing a therapy session, with little footnotes and thoughts on what both therapist and client are thinking, and possible issues which are raised.  Incredibly interesting.  I realised I do the opposite of what the client does; instead of suppressing emotions and ignoring any hint my childhood wasn't idyllic, I suppress emotions and ignore any memories of my childhood that weren't relentless abuse or misery.  I find it hard to feel like the good bits count, in light of the rest.  And I guess if I acknowledge that there are good bits, that means something must have changed, which my mother says is my fault.

The Secret of Platform 13 is an old favourite, which predates Harry Potter by three years.  I mention that because it involves a secret door opening in King's Cross station.  The author has said she is not going to sue Rowling.  Behind the door is an idyllic island kingdom.  They lose their prince on the surface, wait nine years for the gump (the secret opening) to reopen, and then mount a rescue mission.  It's lovely.

How to be a Heroine is a book about reading.  It's written by a woman who loved various literary heroines in her adolescence and went back and re-examined them as an adult with a feminist consciousness.  Very interesting.  I'd read about half of the books she mentions, and I'm enthusiastic to read the rest now!

The Rosie Project is about a Sheldon Cooper style character meeting a manic-pixie dream girl.  I am in admiration of Don (Sheldon Cooper)'s organisation skills.  I make a fortnightly meal plan with shopping delivered every fortnight, and lots of meals made in advance and frozen.  He made a weekly meal plan long ago and hasn't varied it, allowing him to perfect his weekly shop and the time it takes to prepare food.  I tempted to try this.  I am aware that I am missing the point of the novel.

Finally, Jingo.  Jingo was the second Discworld book I ever read, after Colour of Magic.  I have a bit of a soft spot for it, and for Vimes specifically.  I listened to it as an audio book this time.  Not sure I quite see a Scottish Detritus and an Irish Sergeant Colon, but it works okay.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 23/52

Only four books this week; two that have been clogging up my unread pile for years, an old favourite and the last Horror High.

Deadly Rumours was originally published as The Dead Girlfriend, which I've not actually read before.  It's eighties teen horror and I love that.

Geisha, a Life is the autobiography of Mineko Iwasaki, who provided some of the information behind Memoirs of a Geisha.  I liked Memoirs, so when I saw it in a charity shop, I bought it.  That was several years, perhaps a decade, ago.  I finally read it, and I really liked it.  Mineko Iwasaki was the most successful geisha in Japan, and she goes into a lot of detail here. 

Nation is a Pratchett novel I've loved since it was released.  It was the audiobook I listened to, which is a fairly recent purchase.  The performance doesn't distract from the story, though it doesn't enhance it as much as Blair Brown's performance as Rose Madder does.

Finally, The Little Friend.  I finally finished the fucking thing, after making myself read twenty-five pages a day.  The main character is a bratty pain-in-the-arse who decides to go about causing trouble because she thinks she's in Harriet the Spy.  I very sincerely wanted her to go away and stop making poor Danny's life worse.  What an unpleasant child.  The novel also lacks catharsis, which I consider to be a major crime.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 7/52

Tiger Lily I found because I was looking for a specific Peter Pan quote I've always identified with.

“Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.”

While looking for that, I wound up on this page, which has a number of quotes from Jodi Lynn Anderson's Tiger Lily.  It looked interesting.  One thing that always fascinated me about Peter Pan was the fact that every women in the original book was in love with him, and he had no way of understanding that.  It seemed like Tiger Lily explored that theme.  Plus, it's written from Tink's point of view, and who can not like that?

The book was pretty good.  Peter Pan was aged up to make the relationship a bit more believable, and I did like Tink as the narrator, and seeing more of Tiger Lily.  I didn't find it as magical as I might have ten years ago, though.

Speaking of ten years ago, Horrorscope is another book I first read as a teenager.  I don't know why I like it so much.  I guess I do like the conceit of someone murdering people in the order of their starsigns, and the amount of research into horoscope theory that's been done (yes, horoscope theory is a real thing).  I like the characters.  It's good comfort reading.

Player of Games I read at the last minute for a bookclub.  I've been meaning to read some Iain M. Banks for quite a while, so it seemed like a good opportunity.  I read it in two days.  It was okay.  A bit farfetched and unlikely. 

Pyramids is another book I first read as a teenager.  I got it as an audio-book.  It has so much in common with Small Gods that it seemed a natural choice, especially since I'm not particularly fussed about reading the Discworld books in order.  I know the series well enough that I can place relevant events in context.

Finally, A Wonderlandiful World is the third part of the Ever After High novels.  I watched the webisodes because they were on Netflix, and then I started reading the books.  They use some very clever language tricks and puns, especially in those novel when the narrator is infected with something from Wonderland and Maddie appeals to the reader themselves (yes you) in a nod to Peter Pan.  This book managed to make me like Lizzie Hearts, who I'd always found slightly irritating before.  It also brought out my soft spot for Duchess.  It's hard not to, considering her story, even if she is a cow.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read Last Week II

 Oh hey, I guess I am carrying on with this. Jolly good.

I read a lot more books I found on Kind of Book this week.  I think I may have a bit of a problem.  Especially since I bought the Kindle Paperwhite a month early, because I realised I could afford it if I just didn't buy food for a while, and I'm now spending my last food money on books for her (my Kindle's name is Melinda).  It's like some kind of unholy cross between a demon baby and a cocaine addiction.  God love her.

Try-It Diets: Macrobiotics and Raw Food - I bought these because I liked the vegan one.  I downloaded samples first, just to look at the contents pages.  I don't do that with most books, but I always do with cookbooks.  I think because I feel really guilty about having a cookbook which I don't actually cook from.  With my physical cookbooks, I tick off recipes on the contents page as I make them, and write the date and notes down on the pages.  The Kindle and Kobo let me do that with the 'note' function.

Anyway.  I had only the vaguest idea of what macrobiotics were, but from the contents page, I noted several vegetably recipes, and a few that were explicitly titled as vegan, so I figured it was worth a look.  Turns out, macrobiotics is a vegan (possibly vegetarian, can't recall if any dairy or eggs are used) way of balanced cooking, that is mixing food with certain elements with food with opposing elements to create a balanced dish.  Or something.  I skimmed the intro a bit, and then skimmed the recipes once I'd got the gist.  Also, if I didn't have an amazing ability to never get hangovers, I would be hungover right now, so let's go check wikipedia.

A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics), from "macro" (long) and "bios, biot-" (life), is a dietary regimen which involves eating grains as a staple food, supplemented with other foods such as local vegetables, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods and most animal products.

They don't write well for their audience in this one.  If the concept behind the Try-It series is to introduce people to new things, then you probably shouldn't throw in terms your audience won't be familiar with without explanation.  I had to google so many terms; shoyu, for instance.  It's soy sauce.  Why not call it by the name your audience are more likely to know it as?  If you were writing a British cookbook, you wouldn't label all the courgettes as zucchinis, would you?

The raw food one I got because raw food is mostly vegan, since you can't really go around eating unprocessed raw meat, eggs or dairy.  Some of the recipes include honey, but that's easy to replace.  The problem I had with it was that at least half the recipes require a dehydrator.

I have no intention of becoming a raw foodist; it doesn't fit my personal morality any better than veganism, so I get no benefits there, and the "science" behind it is utter nonsense (this article is pretty thorough on why, and less ranty than what follows here).  There are studies that prove that all that "live enzyme" bollocks is bollocks.  I stopped going to the Brummie Veggies and Vegans meeting when they had a talk from a raw foodist who went on about how she'd cured her cancer through the diet.  No.  Fuck you.  I'm glad you're in remission, but if it was really just a case of eating raw food don't you think the medical community would be all over that?  If you had a cure for cancer that was simple, cheap, uncopyrightable, and available everywhere, cancer would be cured by now.  Anecdata is not proof.  Some people were always going to go into remission; in order to prove that it was due to a raw food diet, you'd need to get a statistically significant sample size and have all of them go into remission.

My aunt died of leukemia a few weeks ago, I'm testy on the subject.

Oh, and then she banged on about how she put some non-organic apples in the fridge and they didn't go off.  No shit, really?  That's what apples do.  They store well in low temperatures.  That's what we've been doing with them for hundreds of years.  It's not weird or disgusting, and even if it was, she didn't even put an organic apple in there to see how they compared under similar conditions.  That's not science, that's cherry-picking evidence to fit your bias.

Anyway.  Point I was making.  Because I see no value in making a point of not-cooking foods, I'm not going to make anything that requires a dehydrator (a machine that basically cooks food at a low temperature for several hours, so as not to "kill the enzymes").  I'm not going to do that.  I'm just going to cook it.

I've seen some really interesting raw desserts which looked yummy, and I'd hoped they'd have some of those and more ideas for simple meals that you can make without cooking.  Oh well.  It was less than a pound, anyway.

I gave both 2/5 stars.

My Big Fake Irish Life - I saw this on amazon months ago, when I first started playing around with my price link.

I should tell you about my price link.  This is my price link.  It will display all Kindle books between 0-99p.  But wait, there's more.  If you change the bolded numbers below and then copypaste the link into the address bar, you can change those 0-99p values.  You can find all the Kindle books reduced to under 20p, or 50p, or whatever.  Or change the second value to 500 to find all the books under £5 or something. Have fun!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_ex_n_1?rh=n%3A341677031%2Cn%3A!341678031%2Cn%3A341689031%2Cp_15%3A-domain%2Cp_36%3A00-99&bbn=341689031&ie=UTF8&qid=1360170055


Anyway, My Big Fake Irish Life.  Saw it on Amazon ages ago, finally got around to buying it.  It's about an actress who is unsuccessful as her dishwater-blonde mid-American self, so decides to reinvent herself as an Irish redhead in order to give herself a unique selling point.  It's laugh-out-loud funny in places, and all the characters are squeeful.  I looked at a few other reviews on goodreads, and one negative review said she felt that the main character spent too long dwelling over whether she should reveal herself or not, and it got repetitive.  I guess it does come up a lot, but, y'know, that's the story.  I didn't find it irritating.  That said, some books - Lisa Jewell's Joy and Vince and Thirty-Nothing come to mind - have a will-they-won't-they storyline that drags on for decades (both within the book, and in the time it feels like it takes to get to where they actually make a decision) and that did my head in.  I didn't find this book similar in that aspect, but I guess I can see why someone would.  I gave it 4/5 stars.  It was happy and silly and generally cheering.

Play or Die - this book was awesome.  I got it for free from Kind of Book, though the price has since gone back up to £3.39.  The description starts with;

Ready to play the game of your life?

Could you stay ahead of a sociopathic hunter being sent your co-ordinates every three hours? Jo Warrington is about to live this nightmare. On a Melbourne city street she is plunged into a game devised by people from the future. Her choices - play or die.

That was intriguing.  But, what I really, really loved about this book was that neither the protagonist nor the antagonist held the idiot ball.  The book pits two intelligent people against each other, and has neither of them do really stupid and illogical things for the sake of plot.  I've been watching a lot of Charmed recently, which seems to take place on a planet made of idiot ball, so I'm utterly thrilled about this.  And it was so much fun to think about what you'd do in Jo's position.  She has $20,000 Australian to play with, due to the rest of the plot, and my first thought was to jump on a plane.  If she managed to do it without tipping off the hunter, she'd have a good 20+ hours in which to sleep, which would be a huge bonus over the five days.  Of course, the hunter could be only a few hours behind her.  And I don't think anyone would read or write the version where the hunter missed the plane.  Anyway, the author points out that the character doesn't have a current passport, which neatly sidesteps that strategy.

The ending is a little bit idealistic, but I needed that at that point.  I wanted it to be.  The author gave us so much awesome action earlier that I'm happy to go with an unlikely happy ending rather than a horrible bleak one.  I gave it 5/5 stars, obviously.

Love in the Fourth Dimension - this was a weird little book.  For much of it, the tone sounds like it's giving us a summary of a more detailed story.  It's a love story with some strange little vignettes and asides.  It deals with some serious issues, like alcoholism, and not everything goes right, but it works out in the end.  I gave it 3/5.

A Blink of the Screen - Collected short stories by Terry Pratchett.  I've read several of them before; The Sea and the Little Fishes, for instance, appears in Legends, and two more show up in Knights of Madness and The Flying Sorcerers.  You can read Theatre of Cruelty - a Discworld story featuring Captain (then Corporal) Carrot - on L-Space.

It made me feel a little sad reading this.  I know it's made to - cash in on?  Commemorate?  Less mercenary, less happy.  Anyway, something to do with Pratchett's alzheimers and his continued loss of focus and impeding death.  And being reminded of that was sad.

I really liked The High Meggas, the story which was the origin of The Long Earth, Pratchett's collaborative novel with Stephen Baxter.  I didn't really have any idea of what The Long Earth was about before that, but now I'm really excited to get my hands on it.  This was a library book, and I gave it 4/5 stars.

The Last Girlfriend on Earth - I loved this book.  It's a collection of short stories around the concept of love.  The author decided write about how different situations feel, rather than trying to literally describe them, and it works really well.  The best example of this is one where the main character's ex-girlfriend's new partner turns out to be literally Hitler - and no one else has a problem with it.  There's one about a whingy goat who's been "friend-zoned" - the character never uses that term, but his attitude is the same as the sort of people who complain about the fact that they have a good friend who doesn't want to sleep with them.  The stories are all pretty short and surreal, but with an underlying truth to them.  Another Kind of Book - it's currently reduced to £1.  Gogogo.  5/5.

I didn't get anything off my unread pile this week.  Stupid sexy Kindle.

Note:  I couldn't tag as thoroughly as I would like here, because of the 200 character limit.