The Longest Books I've Read According to Goodreads

Review: The Cursed Child

Holy Smokes but this review has taken all of time to write. Seriously, I cannot actually remember the last time I found it hard to put my feelings about a book into words. I mean I know I flail sometimes and I have kind of made the incoherent keysmash into an art form of my own (and I am eternally sorry for any and all posts that are basically just READ THE DAMN BOOK) but I hardly ever sit and just think ‘well then.’

Thing is, ‘well then’ is pretty much what I did think when I got to the end of The Cursed Child and now I don’t know quite what to do or say. WHAT SHALL I DO OR SAY?

I’m not going to talk about it lots. I could, and maybe I should. But I’m not going to, partly because see above and partly because I know some people haven’t read it yet and I don’t want to be SPOILER GIRL. I’m basically going to say that I have feelings and they’re mixed and a lot of that might be down to what Harry Potter means to me, and how despite myself my expectations for The Cursed Child were unrealistically high. So high though, you don’t even know. They were always going to be. Harry Potter owns a part of my soul, my love for this franchise knows no bounds. For all of time I have – for all of time I will – make grabby hands at anything new that JK Rowling and her cohorts want to throw at me. I will grab it all and I will want it all and I will devour it all, and I will expect it all to fill me with the same wonder that the books did the first time around.

And when it doesn’t, I will feel sad about it.

I think that’s perhaps what I’m feeling now. Sad. Because you see, I remember so well the last time a new Harry Potter book arrived on my lap. I remember Deathly Hallows release day so well. I remember how it was so very very worth the wait. I wanted to love The Cursed Child, believe me I did. & I read part one and made myself stop for the night because I didn’t want it to be over too fast – who knew when (if ever) I was going to get this again, I didn’t want to rush it. & it felt good to be back at Hogwarts, it did. So good. I giggled, and I rolled my eyes and I thought ‘yeah, of course he said that’ and I snorted at Draco and Harry and I was mildly irritated by Ginny and I felt strangely calm and settled and like as JKR promised me, Hogwarts was still there to welcome me home. It just….wasn’t entirely the Hogwarts I was expecting. 

& still, I don’t want to say too much, I don’t want to spoil and I don’t want to bias and to a point I don’t actually want to say anything negative about a part of something that I love so hard (writing this review is hard, dammit. I feel like a house elf.)

I’ll tell you a few things though and the main one is, is that it’s glaringly obvious that a JK Rowling piece of work this is not. Jo very kindly agreed to let somebody play in her sandbox and that’s fine because it’s nice to share your things, but it’s not Harry Potter in the way I know Harry Potter. It doesn’t feel to me to be Jo Rowling’s Harry Potter and I have feelings about that, because it kind of should be, you know? Jo’s Hogwarts is also my Hogwarts and this, this is something else. I didn’t want something else.

It was weird to read too, in some ways, perhaps because it was a script and not prose. We lost a lot there, a mon avis, because a lot of Harry Potter is in the storytelling; the world JKR built; in the way she used her words. So much of what made me fall in love with the whole damn thing in the first place was lost, and I missed it and it was so obvious to me that it wasn’t Rowling’s writing and that made me sad. You don’t get the same level of description in a script, the same level of detail. The detail is what made Harry Potter and without it, at the risk of sounding like a poor and broken record, it just wasn’t the same.

Also, there were flaws in the plot: things that really bugged me and things that felt too convenient and things that needed explaining and things that made me facepalm so hard and there were some pretty major issues with characterisation, such as (sometimes) Hermione (holy feminist issues batman do not let me get on that soapbox because I was a little bit ragey) and Ron (who albeit had some excellent lines) coming across like he was a caricature of himself.

& then there was pretty much everything about Harry as a parent. I felt like some key issues from the books had been conveniently cast aside in order to try to make the story work. Anyone else remember Sirius, and Remus and how thanks to them Harry sort of did have a father figure? Ok, good. Because all of that stuff, the Harry as a father stuff… actually, no. Let’s not. Don’t get me get on the Sirius Black train, it won’t be pretty.

Oh, and I missed people that I thought should have been there – where was Hagrid please? Where exactly was Hagrid. Perhaps Jen was right (and I don’t mind telling you that our live texting of this was a world away from our live texting of DH) and they just didn’t know how to stage him, ha, but still. WHERE WAS HAGRID???

It’s just….I was from the fanfic era you know? I read a lot of fanfiction back In The Day. A lot. And some of it was out of this world excellent. I read fix-it fic, which essentially is what this play was and whilst I was totally a Marauders fangirl, after Deathly Hallows I also read a fair amount of Next Gen fic and that’s kind of what this felt like to me. Next Gen Fix-It Fanfiction. I already knew this version of Albus and Scorpius because I’d met them – they felt like they’d been lifted straight from the internet.  (& if you want to tell me that Scorpius has a thing for Rose then sure, go right ahead, but that’s not the play I read.)

On the flip side, the Voldemort storyline made my skin crawl in the way I imagine it was supposed to and there was also a scene with Harry that ripped out my heart in a way that I was not prepared for, fuckety fuck and also ouch.

There was some excellent and very moving Snape stuff (good God is anything to do with Severus Snape ever not going to destroy me?) and, there was Scorpius. Oh, Scorpius Malfoy, how I love you. If JKR wanted to write an actual book about that kid, I would so totally be down for reading that thanks.

& despite my misgivings I can totally see that it would be pretty impressive on stage, and I really want to see it. I also loved the little bits of JKR that shone through – I mean look at Albus’s initials and tell me she hadn’t already sorted him when she wrote the epilogue. There are zero coincidences in Harry Potter and I have always loved Jo for that. Those little bits, the blink and you’’l miss it foreshadowing, the ‘fuck yes’ moments of realisation, the seemingly insignificant details that turn out to be epically important, the things. Those are what I love. This play was lacking in things. I WANT ALL THE THINGS. 

TL;DR: If you want to read some really excellent fan fiction then start here. For the love of God if you’re going to read The cursed Child because you’re a Harry Potter fan, then read this because wowzer.

If you want to read something that’s been for actual real published then read this and then read this because Rainbow Rowell is a genius. 

& you know what, read The Cursed Child. Let’s be honest, you’re a HP fan so you’re going to anyway. Just, just remember that it was never meant to be read like this, it was supposed to be seen and remember that JK Rowling didn’t write it, and don’t expect it to be like the books, and make your own mind up afterwards.

(Sad Jo is still sad about this whole damn thing.)

The Time and Place Book Tag

I absolutely do not want to be at work today. I want to be home, watching Wimbledon. Today is a good day on Centre Court: Venus and Serena, Andy Murray, Roger Federer. Oh but how I wish I was not at work. Le sigh. I am at work though, and as such I shall try to cheer myself up by talking about books.

So. Last week Jen created The Time and Place Book Tag over on her YouTube channel.

You can watch her video and find out what it’s all about here and you should because Jen is awesome. 

 

If you can’t do that til later, then that’s cool: in a nutshell, the tag is basically what it says – an excuse to talk about ten books that remind you of a time and/or a place. Because that’s totally a thing, right? We all have those books that remind us of this holiday or that break-up, being that age or friends with that person. Books that you only have to hear the title of to be transported back to a whole other time or place, even if that’s not necessarily a good thing. & because Jen tagged me, these are mine. 

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was the last present my boyfriend bought for me before he passed away in 2005. He pre-ordered it from Amazon and I had no idea, it just turned up on release day, by which point he was really super sick and I remember opening it and him smiling at me and my heart feeling like it had been ripped right out of my chest. The book was released on July 16^th and he died on the 30^th so it was all pretty grim. I remember him sleeping on the sofa because we didn’t have a tv in our bedroom and he was too sick to move far, and me making a bed out of cushions and lying on the lounge floor. I read this book and watched him sleep and I swear to God, I’m not even being a dramatic fangirl when I say that Harry Potter saved my life. I would not have got through that summer if it weren’t for this book. I wouldn’t. I read it over and over, it was the only book I could face looking at for weeks and Helen and I spent so many hours trying to come up with Dumbledore’s not dead theories. I feel weird about it now, when I’m doing a re-read and get to HBP, I get a knot in my tummy. It’s a weird mixture of comfort and pain that I never quite know how to deal with. OH GOD I AM SO DISMAL I APOLOGISE.

I woke up one morning to a barrage – I’m not even exaggerating here, an actual barrage - of texts off Jen about Rosamund Lupton’s Sister. She was all I KNOW IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT JO BUT THIS BOOK. So I read it, because that’s what I do when Jen recs a book, I find it and I read it. I couldn’t put it down. I read it in one sitting. It’s always a book that makes me think of that – of waking up that morning and wondering what the hell had happened, I swear, I thought something had happened that was bad times because so many of the text messages. Ha.

You know when sometimes you discover a book that makes you forget how to breathe? That sucks the air from your lungs and leaves you gasping, hands curled into fists, wondering how life will ever be the same again? I read If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things when my boyfriend was drag racing one weekend in Stratford. 2012 I think. We had an old VW Camper back then, and I unfolded the bed and read this and ate skittles and was totally and completely blown away. It changed how I felt about pretty much everything and I didn't know what to do with myself because how could it be so good? I’ve been reading books like they were going out of fashion my whole life and I had no idea that it was possible to do something like this with just words. Every time I went back to the racetrack after that I’d think about this book. 

if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?

To Kill A Mockingbord. God, I love it. Is there anyone that didn’t study it in school? It feels like one of those books that’s going to be on the curriculum for all of time. Rightly so as well. I loved English at school, it was my subject, the one where I felt like I could really be myself, where it all made sense. Let's not talk about maths and science and all the nonsense. It was all about English, all of the time. We studied TKAM for GSCE, obvs, and that time spent reading it, discussing it, writing about it, was probably the highlight of my education. My English teacher was amazing. I loved her. I still have the copy I bought for school, with all my notes in the margins, all the key paragraphs underlined in HB pencil. I’ve read it so many many times since then, so very many you don't even know and every time there’s still a part of me that feels like that fifteen year old kid in an English Lit lesson; no other two words can make my chest tighten like hey Boo. 

The Blind Assassin reminds me of the first time I lived alone, in 2001 I think, in this scummy bedsit over the top of a corner shop. God but it was awful. I only lived there a couple of months but it was long enough *shudder* I hated it, hated it. It was so horrible. It’s part of the reason I am so hung up on moviong somewhere amazing now I think: I swore I’d never live like that again. AWFUL. I read The Blind Assassin when I lived there, it was the first time probably that I read Margaret Atwood and thought but how do you even words. This book was a freaking revelation I swear to God. It’s so good. It’s my favourite of hers, still. Will always be I imagine because I can’t imagine anything else ever coming close.

I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s when I was in high school. It’s the book that instantly came to mind actually, when Jen tagged me in this, because it’s a book that instantly makes me think about my fourteen year old self, how I saw myself and how this book made me feel. I was a bit lost and a bit afraid of pretty much everything and a bit desperate to find my place when I was a teenager (I am totally not Team Teenage Years, at all. Being a teenager was a great big pile of elasticated granny pants) and I totally fell for Holly Golightly and her devil may care attitude. She was fashionable and confident and ultra cool: she would never be caged by convention in the way that I totally felt like I was, she’d never be judged for not being pretty or trendy or popular enough. Holly Golightly had zero fucks to give. She’d never waste time and tears on what other people thought of her and when everything felt like it was going to shit, I pretended I was just like Holly Golightly, Travelling. I was a little bit like ‘when I grow up I want to be…’ which, well it’s a bit crackers isn’t it, given that she had no job and was actually pretty damn lonely and probably as lost as I was – it’s interesting actually, how differently I perceive the whole book when I read it now.  Never love a wild thing. I still love that quote.

I found Richard Siken by way of the internet back in 2012, like you do, (HOW DID WE EVER BEFORE THE INTERNETS THOUGH) and got my hands on a copy of his poetry collection Crush as soon as I possibly could. I read it in bed, I think Ian must’ve been away because I was very definitely on my own. I had a cup of hot milk that went cold, forgotten about on the beside table because this book engulfed me entirely. (It went so cold it had that gross out milk skin and I was very nearly sick in my mouth.) It’s the kind of book that crawls under your skin, makes it’s self comfortable and stays there, the kind of book that hit me like a suckerpunch, right in the chest. It gave me goosebumps and it broke my heart and it moved me in a way that even now I can’t quite put into words. I kept a copy of it by my bed for a year, for a while I even carried it around in my bag because weirdly I couldn’t stand to be parted from it. It ruined me, this book, and it ruined my hot milk too.

Little Women means Christmas in a way that nothing else does. It’s more Christmas to me than my Christmas tree even. I’ve read it every Christmas since I was 8. That’s 24 years good gracious I am old. I read it for the first time on Christmas Eve, curled up on our settee. The house was all trimmed up and my Mum was playing her new Cliff Richard Christmas album – and how mental that I remember that still – and there was this amazing new book, blue and hard-backed and lovely with this character called Josephine who loved to read and write and that was it. I was sold. I’ve read it every Christmas since. Not always on Christmas Eve, as I’ve gotten older it usually coincides with trimming up, but still every damn year. I’ll still be reading it when I’m 80. Just watch me.

Between Shades of Gray was a book I read in Cornwall in the summer of 2011. The Ex-Boyfriend and I  had rented out this little beach hut-esque holiday cottage for a fortnight and it was a glorious time of sunshine and cider and coastal paths and lots of cheese. I always eat so much cheese on holiday. So much cheese and so much cider. I started read this book on the beach at St Ives and felt my heart splinter. I was in bed when I finished it, I remember turning to him and saying ‘oh, I think I’m sad’ and then just sobbing. He wondered what the hell was even happening. We could have had a caucus race I cried that much.  A SEA OF TEARS.

Have you read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull? If the answer is no, then you should. You totally should. I first read it in 2002. I say I read it; it was actually read to me. It was one of my boyfriend’s favourite books; he was a bit of a Richard Bach fanboy truth be told and when he found out I’d never even heard of the guy he looked at me in horror, dug his copy of this book out of his bedside drawer and threw it at me. Then, ‘actually’ he said, ‘this is the kind of book that needs to be read aloud’ and he did. It was winter and we lived in this tiny old cottage and the cold seemed to seep through the gaps in the brick; it never felt warm even with the heating on full. I was still so young and I thought that those days would stretch on into forever. We curled up in bed, I wore his t-shirt and his socks and I rested my head on his chest so I could feel the rumble of his voice as he spoke and he played with my hair.  We read two chapters a night and it was one of my most favourite things. That was a side of him that not many people got to see, this soft and affectionate guy that would play with my hair and read to me in bed, that would kiss me hello every time he walked in the house and sing George Benson songs to me in the car. It’s one of those memories that I treasure now he’s not here any more and this book always reminds me that he was so much more than the ‘don’t give a damn’ façade that he presented to the world, that I was one of the few that he let see him with his guard down. It’s a book that sums up for me all that he was, and all that he wanted to be, and it’s a book that will always be cold-nosed whiskey kisses and the rolling timbre of his voice and the feeling of belonging. 

So tell me: what are the books that always take you to that particular time and place?

This Is A Post About Me

This week has been a week, not a terrible week but not a great week either. Seems like sometimes That Break Up feels so much more raw than it has any right to be really, this far down the line, and it’s hard to get past the fact that my heart just hurts. I’ve totally self medicated though, with OItNB and new bedding and San Pellegrino. It’s been a week of being in bed by 8 pretty much every day, but whatever.

Soooooo, the week might have been pretty miserable but I will not be defeated because now? Well, first of all there’s THAT HARRY POTTER NEWS. You’ve all heard that by now right? That JK Rowling has confirmed that a new Harry Potter play will be coming to the London stage next year? It’s called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and whilst she’s keeping all her cards v close to her chest like she does, she has said it’s not a prequel. I have all the feelings. I am simultaneously excited and nervy (I am not so good with the unknown. The unknown makes me very anxious) and you just know that I (along with oh, the rest of the world) will spend some time in London Town next year. Ha. 

So, there’s that. There’s also the weekend. Hurrah. It’s going to be a good one. LEMME TELL YOU AAAAAALLL ABOUT IT.

I’m meeting Helen for lunch any minute. Helen’s baby is due in August (I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS FACT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW) and she’s easing herself into her mat leave; last Friday marked her last Friday at work and we’re celebrating that fact today with lunch just because we can. Hurrah. Sometimes all you need is a bit of QT with your BFF you know?

Time with Helen is different to time with anyone else and it’s my best. Last week we met up and visited her nephew before we went to Maccies and then just huddled under blankets on her sofa to watch Before I Go To Sleep which mostly meant we talked shit to each other the whole way through, renamed the characters, got very angry at Mr Darcy being a badass, criticised Kidman’s hair, and generally took the film nowhere near as seriously as we should have done thus missing a few important plot points. I can’t do that stuff with anyone but her.

This evening my pal Jane and I are headed to Hoyster’s for dinner. 

Look how lush it is. You wanna come, right?

Prosecco on tap, this is not a drill.

Prosecco. On. Tap.

For some reason I see lots of prosecco in my future. Also tapas. Oh, all the tapas.  Jane and I often have these grand plans of big nights out and cocktails and living the high life. The truth though? We’re eating at 6.30 so do not be surprised if we’re tucked up in bed for 11. Ha. We’re the most rock and roll. I’m excited because I haven’t been out since Before the Break-Up so you know, it’ll be fun to dress up and drink bubbles and let my hair down a while.

Tomorrow I’m getting my culture on with a matinee performance of Dreamers at Oldham Coliseum. It's a new comedy musical about a group of girls in 90's Manchester: small town nights out, friendship and 90's Indie classics. I am all over that. I’m going with my friend Natalie – the show was co-written by her sister in law, which is super cool. Then, we’re heading back to Natalie’s for takeaway food (I hope Chinese. Nat, if you’re reading this, shall we have Chinese?) and a film – we’ve mentioned Selma as we missed it at the cinema. It will be a delightful day of delightfulness and will probably involve us making plans for when we go to London in October to see Cumberbatch as Hamlet. Nat was all Cumberbatch crazy until I gently pointed her in the direction of Elementary. She’s seen the (Jonny Lee Miller shaped) light, naturally because how could you not when he’s that sexy, but she still has a soft spot for old BC and me? Well I just like London and the theatre and cocktails so you know, fun times. We’re going to do Hamlet and hit up some of the galleries and find some awesome cocktail bars and generally just spend a weekend being super sophisticated. I’ll follow Natalie’s lead on that then, I know: I am the least sophisticated of them all...

On Sunday I have a blissful ZERO PLANS, but whatever I end up doing it will not involve food. [& next week will involve a lot of gym time. That cross trainer and I will become very well acquainted] I might just drive home, and watch the rest of the first season of Grimm in bed. Yep. That sounds like it could be a plan. I’m still on the fence about Grimm. Ems and I watched six episodes the other Sunday which means I have to finish it, because I’m too far into it not to, but I’m not sure that I love it, yet. I might also finish my book.  I’m reading The Beach Hut at the moment, which is brill and marv. I love the way Cassandra Parkin writes. I also love that the beach in the book is based around Perranporth. I love Perranporth. Anyway, I’ll talk about it properly when I’m done but in the meantime, you can (and should) get a copy here. Next on the list is the new Rosamund Lupton The Quality of Silence which is out next week and which as a lover of Sister I am super excited about.

I’ve also been house-hunting which is both exciting and terrible. I have a lot of emotions about it, and if I let me think about it properly then I get rather weepy but, well, the actual ‘let’s find a cool place to live,’ that’s sort of fun. I feel like I’ve found the perfect place, actually. . It’s at the upper end of my budget, as in the very most I would be prepared to pay right now, which is obviously not ideal: the higher my living costs the lower my savings/book money, but it’s beautiful, so beautiful. I’ve even been furnishing it in my head this week which is perhaps not sensible. So, I made a deal with myself: it’s not even available til August, so, if it’s still on the market this time next month I’m going to go and view it. If it’s not, well, then it was never meant to be and I shall find somewhere less beautiful and less expensive. This is my plan.

in which I mark the passing of time.

This week marks the seven year anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Can you even believe it?

I was 24. I’m fairly sure that puts me outside of Harry Potter’s intended demographic and yet I felt like I had been waiting for this book my whole life. Helen and I had spent more hours than it’s probably even possible to count after the end of Half Blood Prince coming up with theory after theory: Who was RAB and surely Dumbledore’s not really dead and omg the Snape of it all. We drove ourselves crazy.

I live out in the sticks a little bit, so there was no exciting midnight release for me. I was living with Helen at the time, and instead two shiny new copies of the book were delivered by a postman (who likely had the heaviest post bag of his career that day, except for OotP release day, obvs). They were so shiny and new and beautiful and my tummy did a funny flippy thing.

& then Helen went out. I’m not even kidding. Off she went with her chums from work on a beer bus around the Yorkshire Dales. She had to lesve the book behind – needless to say she wasn’t happy about it. I waved her off and then I went back to bed. To read. I spent the morning reading in bed and the afternoon reading on the sofa & I exchanged a ridiculous number of text messages with Jen (who thank goodness reads at the same speed as I do)

By the time Helen got home that evening I was done. & emotionally drained. I’d laughed and I‘d cried (oh God, the tears) and I’d held my breath. I’d barely been able to turn the pages fast enough. And then it was over.

All was well.

I felt strangely bereft, knowing that there would be no more. These books had a profound effect on me, one that I still don’t really understand. & I didn’t quite know what to do once I’d read the last words of the last book. When I went to the premiere a few years ago, Ian asked me what I would say if I met Jo Rowling. Half Blood Prince  had been my lifeline; the only thing I could think of was ‘thanks.’

I think I all but threw the book at Helen when she got back. I pretty much forced her to read it, if you listen to her version of events. If you listen to mine she didn’t take much forcing, but still, whether my fault or her choice, I don’t think she’s read a book that fast before or since. ‘Where are you up to?’ I’d demand at intervals, or when I heard a quiet ‘oh,’ from her bedroom ‘Hedwig?’ (Still not over Hedwig. Will never be over Hedwig.)

I can’t believe it’s been seven years. I still love the books and the characters as much as ever, but more than that I love what they represent: the hours of conversation, the friendships that have formed (and strengthened) because of a shared love of Hogwarts, the way it’s like being part of a really big family – you see someone reading HP and you give them a little nod and a smile. You do right? It sounds trite, but the Harry Potter series has given me so much more than just a story. & if I ever do get the chance to meet JK Rowling, I still think the only think I’d be able to say is thanks.

It Starts and Then It Ends

The Top Ten Tuesday this week - as seen on The Broke and the Bookish deals with the top ten opening and closing line[s], which is a topic that made me go 'ooooh' because whilst the body of a book is obviously of great import, it's how it starts and how it finishes that counts. If it starts awfully then you might not read past that first line and likewise if the ending leaves a bad taste in your mouth then it can taint the whole experience. Also, it made me have to do thinking and remembering because it's not just 'oooh that was a book I liked' it's 'how did it start and how did it finish and were either of those things better than all the other books?' 

What a fun way to spend a lunch break, hey?

And so (never in any particular order):

1.       I Capture The Castle – I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. 
Best opening to a book ever. Possibly. Not only is it a super opening, because let us be real here, who doesn’t want to know what happens after that, it’s also a really great quote. It’s really a really great book too, which helps.

2.       A really great book with a very good end: “Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

3.       Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. 
It’s an opening that hooks you in, because you want to know more about these Dursley folk and what it is about them that makes them feel they need to proclaim their normality.  More than than though that it’s what it represents: the first sentence to a series of books that has changed lives; that changed mine.

4.       Life of Pi  “Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."
I loved Life of Pi; I loved the journey the book took me on and I loved how the conclusion made me question everything I’d read. The ending just felt right.  

5.      Looking for Alaska: "Thomas Edison’s last words were: 'It’s very beautiful over there.” I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful'."  
John Green, you’ve done it again and I love you. Looking at this book as a whole, making the last words 'last words', is genius and these last words are perfect.

6.       The Graveyard Book “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”
I love you Neil Gaiman, talk about building suspense from the very first second.

7.       Deathly Hallows: All was well."
*uncontrollable sobbing* [FYI the epilogue will forever displease me but these three words? God, the first time I read this book they slayed me.]

8.       TKAM: He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."
I just love the whole thing, honestly. Wouldn’t change a word.

9.       The Book Thief: "A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. I am haunted by humans."
I am haunted by humans.  I will never be over this book. If you haven't read it, then read it. You need to have read it, and felt it, and lived it to understand why this ending is so heart-hurtingly perfect.

10.   The Blind Assassin: Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." 
 A good opening line makes you want to know the story. Even now, when I know the story, this opening line makes me want to read on. I love this book so hard.

Things denied, things untold, things hidden and disguised.

Friday, Friday, Friday. Hurray and also hurrah. Tomorrow is the the start of another long weekend; the boy and I are off down to Brighton for four days to stop with Mark and Emma. It will be a lovely [cheap] weekend of reading on the sofa and walking on the seafront and eating lots of home-cooked food and watching fireworks and also some horse-racing, so I'm told.=. We've not seen Mark and Em since June and I'm really looking forward to it. Stopping with them is a little like a home from home in a way, which is always nice. There's no expectations and I'm pretty sure I'll spend Sunday mooching around in my PJ's eating Sugar Puffs like I did last time I was there. It's just like being at home except there's two cats instead of one and the house is nicer and the garden bigger and of course Mark and Emma are there being all delightful. I can't wait.

Before then though is the rest of today! I'm off to see my Granny in a little while which will be nice as her holiday and my holiday means I've not seen her for 3 weeks so I'm looking forward to a cup of tea and a chat and then tonight I plan to be indoors. We have some TV to watch, I don't know quite what, but something and I'll watch whilst making Christmas presents - this weeks homemade gifts involve buttons!  Exciting.

AND!!! Starbucks Red Cups are back. Dance with me?

In bookish news, this week I read The Casual Vacancy. Would I be lying if I said it was one of the most anticipated titles of the year? Maybe. There was a massive stand full of books in Sainsbury's though and Amazon sent me about 72 million emails so I'm going to say people somewhere were expecting other people to anticipate it.

I wasn't sure how I felt when I first heard that J.K. Rowling was writing another book and not only was it not the history of the Marauders but it wasn'y even remotely connected to Harry Potter. I'm not going to lie - I do not think J.K Rowling is the greatest writer that ever lived. I love Harry Potter, everybody who knows me loves that. I love the books, I know them inside out, I am grateful to Jo for writing them, I think they should be required reading for every child in the world but I don't think Jo Rowling is the greatest writer in the world [hush, don't hate me. I still love her]; she could write in Harry's world forever and I would read it forever, but something else, something totally and utterly different? I wondered how that would work out and actually, I was nervous for her because God, can you even imagine the weight of the pressure that comes of releasing anything following the success of Harry Potter - so much pressure to succeed because everything else she's done is just adored and at the same time so many people, watching, rubbing their hands together and waiting to see her fail. *gulp*  rather her than me.
I think she made the right desecion taking the step away from children's literature for that very reason; anything she wrote in that genre would be judged - harshly - against Harry Potter, she'd have to produce something incredible to stand half a chance of measuring up. At least with The Casual Vacancy whilst people will always compare it to Harry Potter, the comparisons are harder to make.

First impressions? In fact, earlier than first impressions, so impressions based on the information I had before I even had a copy of the book? I wasn't sure I was going to like it. If Jo's name wasn't on the cover then I wouldn't have picked it up and that's a fact; the blurb would not have drawn me in - a book about small town politics doesn't sound like the most exciting read. I read this book purely because it said J.K. Rowling on the cover; Jo drew me in, the fact that I had to see what she could do and I kind of liked that because I had no idea what to expect, no clue. I was pleasantly surprised, actually, because I actually really liked it.

It's a funny thing to say, I suppose, but it felt familiar reading this book. I mean, the characters, the setting, the story, all of it was brand new and yet somehow it felt a little like settling down with an old friend; whilst there are no wizards and no magic and no Hogwarts in the world of The Casual Vacancy but instead council estates and drug addicts and pompous middle aged men and small town politics there's something about it, which I guess can only be Jo that comes through and it made it easy and comfortable to read, perhaps because like Harry Potter, in The Casual Vacancy's characters are at the heart of the story and Rowling does well with characters. It's a book about class and about society and what at first seems like just a simple story about the complexeties of a relatively small group of people - all of whom had their own distinct voice, well done Jo - soon grips you with unexpected melodrama, and twists that leave you gasping and an ending that is shocking but very well executed. Once it got it's claws in, this book wouldn't let me go, I had to keep reading - meaning I am stupid tired this morning - and I'm really very glad I did.

J.K. Rowling has proven here that she isn't just a one trick pony, that she can do more than just Harry Potter and I certainly won't be as nervous about picking up her next offering.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

It really is though, isn't it? I lovelovelove Christmas. I love the festivities, I love the carols, I love the smell of the Christmas Tree, I love the presents - the giving, not the receiving, obviously ;) - I love it. I also love that it means just over a week of no work. Hurrah.


Ian and I are off to his Mum's shortly for a mahoosive Christmas dinner and lots of Daisy snuggles before heading over to my Mum's for salmon and games and Christmas banter. My Grandparents will be there too, which will be wonderful. I am feeling very festive.
I plan to spend this holiday season drinking mulled wine [and sherry because apparantly that's what I do now. I am officially old] and eating mince pies and singing along to Christmas songs at every available opportunity and reading and watching Harry Potter and going for long walks in the snow and spending lots of time with my family and my friends. It will be lovely, and I hope yours is too. I hope wherever you are and whatever you do you have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Hurrah for Christmas, hurrah hurrah hurrah.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

& it will look more like Christmas when I finish work and Ian and I go and purchase a tree!! That's the plan for this afternoon/evening: buy a tree, keep all fingers and toes crossed that the electrician doesn't needto demolish the kitchen, trim the tree, decorate the house, wrap lots of presents and drink Baileys (Ian) and Lemsip (me) whilst listening to Michael Buble.

Lovely.

I am feeling very fesitve today actually, despite my germs. It's a combination of knowing we're getting the tree today, the fact it's all pretty and snowy outdoors, The Yule Ball in GoF which I am reading about at the moment and the fabulous Glee Christmas Special last night. I want to talk about that so much and bombard you all with photos of Kurt and Blaine and RoryLeprechaun and Mercedes but some people *cough* Helen *cough* haven't seen it yet and I am trying to be spoiler free so I won't. I'll just say it was all kinds of fabulous, Darren Criss and Chris Colfer deserve to win all the awards ever in life because they were absolutely spot on and made me laugh my socks off and yes, Merry Christmas.

Have a Friday photo because these are wise words:

Hello December

Hello people!!

Hello and happy happy December! I am feeling rather festive at the moment, probably because I have just counted up and have only 8 working days left before Christmas.
Hurray and also hurrah.
Christmas is my favourite.

Tomorrow I am taking a Jo day. This means I will stay in bed til much later than 6.45am. I will wrap all (or most of) my Christmas presents, I will take my book and have lunch at Starbucks, I will dance around my house to Christmas tunes, I will go to Ikea and then I will call in on my friends T&S for sherry and mince pies. Hurrah for Jo days.

I have quite a bit of book news to share with you, but not today. I'll come back in a day or so and tell you about 'All My Friends Are Superheroes' which is adorable and about 'Girl In Translation' which I am reading right now. I'll also do some kind of 'hurrah for the amazeballs books of 2011' post too. That'll be nice won't it ;)
Seriously though, if you haven't already then you really should read 'All My Friends Are Superheroes.' I heart it.

Now that December is here I can re-read all my winter favourites: Harry Potter and Northern Lights and Alice and Little Women. This makes me happy. There's just something about Christmas that goes hand in hand with revisiting books you love. It wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't read Little Women.

I leave you with an early Friday photo (due to the aforementioned Jo day tomorrow) - reasons to love Maggie Smith: she gets the star of the entire Harry Potter franchise to hold her umbrella!