BookJumper

I have that problem, too !

Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine.

Unearthly shrieking could be heard...

What a lovely introduction to the world of books. I need my own copy to re-read I think, I remember reading it as a child and bawling by eyes out !

I've read bits of The God Delusion and while some of the points Dawkins made were quite valid, it seemed to me like he was chiefly arguing against the evils of organized religion rather than against the existence of God - they are not one and the same. I also saw a TV programme once where he was teaching schoolkids about evolution (so far, so good); only that alongside taking them to dig up fossils and other exciting stuff of this sort, he needlessly undermined their respective faiths (it was a fairly international class). My own faith has gone walkies so I'm an agnostic at the moment, but it irked me because I fail to see how God and evolution are mutually exclusive concepts. Pretty much everyone excluding silly fanatics accept that the seven-days creation, like so much in the Old Testament, is a metaphor as opposed to hard fact. Surely if there were a being so immortal he'd existed before the beginning of time, millennia would seem like bats of eyelids to him? You love me really.

... shiny things which I keep...

The Wood Wife by Terry Windling.

The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare - Sophie Masson.

Finally finished Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction today instant review here.

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe To say that I've got mixed feelings about this book is an understatement. Let me explain, expand and expound. The good - When it gets it right, it gets it oh so right; there's nothing quite like the special kind of deliciousness you get when you read a description of the workings of your very soul in a book. - The language can be truly marvellous at times; I'll be needing to skim through this again and jot down all sorts of fantabulous words to look up & henceforth help propagate through our sadly predictable age. - The historical anecdotes are often amusing, inspired and inspiring. - The book's worth picking up for its bibliography alone; Tom Raabe's read list instantly transmigrated into my TBR list upon competion of the tome. The bad - I don't like my bibliophilia being treated like something I should be cured of. Admittedly, it is clear that the notion of 'disease' is used as a structural conceit rather than as a serious analytical preposition, yet it irked me to be told I was 'sick' and even more that the author kept see-sawing between loving and hating the 'heinous condition', as he called it. Though this love-hate relationship is in keeping with the book's premise, I'm not about to lie and say having a finger (ironic or no) pointed at me all the time felt nice. - Colloquialisms, I felt, dragged the tone down a bit too often. I and the rest of this book's intended audience eat abstruse words for breakfast in the company of Dr. Johnson, so please do not insult our intelligence by interveawing the profane with all that can be sacredly beautiful about the English language. All in all, I'm glad I read the thing; despite its flaws, it was enjoyable and entertaining, short and snappy enough not to outgrow its initial idea, succeeded me in teaching me a lot and making me want to know more re: its subject, and managed to elicit more than a few smirks - mostly of recognition, but there were also several instances of genuine amusement. I'd recommend it pretty much to anyone on this forum. In fact, I'd love to do a book ring of it, I envision everyone marking the passages they feel most accurately pertain to them as individuals it would be interesting to contrast and compare 'symptoms'!

Parnassus was magnificent. As my friend said re: Terry Gilliam on the way out, ':censored: genius'. I'd give it 15/10; I feel an effusive review brewing.

Would you say it's suitable for someone who doesn't qualify as a younger reader but whose favourite film remains Disney's Sleeping Beauty? It's on my wishlist as I've read some wonderful reviews; I'm 24 but very un-jaded (to the point that my wordlier friends tend to pat me on the head), d'you reckon I'd enjoy it?

My parents's house has always had books in the bathroom; now, in the face of the ever-growing collection, actual shelves have been put up in there at last. I'm sure mum wouldn't mind erecting some in the kitchen too, but alas it's a very small kitchen !

Of course, hard to find books are a different kettle of fish. If a book I want is out of print and available bruised at a second hand shop, I'll get it (always harbouring the secret hope of finding a replacement copy in better shape, though); however, if the book is freely available I tend to wait until I've got the money to buy it new. In fact, I do a lot of browsing and taking notes in second hand stores (as opposed to the browsing to buy I engage in in first hand stores)... then it's off to Amazon I go.

Finally off to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus tonight... w00t! I so hope it'll be good, I met Terry Gilliam a little while back while he was doing the rounds promoting the film and he's a lovely, warm, witty bloke so I really really want to like it.

- the Creature (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus): the archetypal avenger who just wants to be loved. How not to feel for him, how not to feel hatred and revulsion for the unthinking would-be God who gave him life only to desert him? - Hercules Barefoot (Carl-Johan Vallgren, The Horrific Sufferings of Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot, His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred): the closest modern literature has come to producing another Creature. Very much like Dumas's Edmond Dant

The first that spring to mind are: The fictional * Mary Shelly, Frankenstein (God-complex, parental responsibility, alienation, criminal psychology) * Carl-Johan Vallgren, The Horrific Sufferings of Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot, His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred (alienation, the workings of power-systems such as asylums/the inquisition, the psychology of revenge and forgiveness) * Keith Miller, The Book of Flying (innocence and loss thereof, self-knowledge, interaction with other entities) * Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (rejection of the preordained, freedom, power, nature of reality) * Lucy Eyre, if Minds Had Toes (a bit similar to Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World, except it's shorter, snappier, funnier and easier to take in) * Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (the morality of curbing free-will to reduce crime) The Philosophical * Renee Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (The man wrote the immortal line "I think therefore I am", he writes brilliantly yet there's a lot of holes to pick in his arguments) * Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (talks about the tricky relationship between man, God and faith - like Descartes, brilliant writer but debatable philosophy) * Friederich Nietzche, Ecce Homo (another brilliantly debatable guy; his ideas can be quite scary yet he brings you scarily close to agreeing with him on all counts as he writes so convincingly. Interesting to look into because his theories, duly warped into something they weren't, were used by the Nazis as philosophical justification for their crimes) * A.D. Nuttall, Shakespeare the Thinker (incredible stuff, he interprets the progression of Shakespeare's career in terms of philosophical progression; he makes a fairly good case for Shakespeare having anticipated nigh on every philosophical current there is) The Poetic and Dramatic * Kahil Gibran, The Prophet (precepts for life, both practical and spiritual) * John Milton, Paradise Lost (good vs. evil, told from Lucifer's POV but still within a Christian perspective) * Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus (ultimate knowledge vs. soul) * Lord Byron, Manfred (see Dr Faustus)

I wouldn't call "Harry Potter" utter drivel (the first four I found brilliant and even in the last three there was a lot to salvage, IMHO just hidden by a dire need for trimming and editing); I would like to know what the writer was on when describing Edward Cullen as "basically, a fanged Mr. Darcy" though... .

Prawn stir fry with halloumi slices, satay chicken skewers (or, as I call them, "chickeny things"), munchies & Gremlins 2: The New Batch - we're celebrating OH being offered a job I'm officially the bum of the house now !

I've read and enjoyed Persepolis, abandoned Twilight and The Deathly Hallows, have Bob Dylan's Chronicles One on my TBR and Pullman is on my wishlist - and that's is. Seriously, who chose these? The Times disappoints; you'd think The Mail had compiled this.

While our Friend Eco has no such excuse - he's just a showoff ! By the way... I abandoned The Name of the Rose on page 46. The dreaded portal defeated me (how is it that Hugo can talk about bricks for 50 pages and enthral me, and Eco's 5 pages of door-description are so tedious ?)!

I've just realised something. I want a book to look spic and span when I buy it. Other people of course have to treat my volumes like relics, and special editions are unlikely to leave the house even in my care, but as for paperbacks - if, during the journey of intimate discovery which I call hefting the same book around in my bag for two months, a book should get a bit bruised, it's (almost) alright... it makes it more mine, in a sense. But there's nothing mine about a book that gets to me bruised.

25 pages to go of Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction (review in the pipeworks); all going well I should have it finished by tomorrow. A question arises: hmmm, what next?