Kylie's Literary Adventures in 2013

[poppyshake]

but I decided to live a little.

 When was this decided? .. are we all following suit? .. what does it entail exactly?  Oh man! .. I'm gonna let you go first and see what happens   

 

Yay!! for Kylie winning the Great Penguin Bookcase game  We expected no less but are very proud of you just the same  

 

I love the sound of your bookish week ... I'm definitely going to aim to have one of those this week  Great titles .. how could you not buy Case of the Nervous Nude?  Off I toddle to look it up  

[Kidsmum]

Kylie - i have only read one Patricia Highsmith novel,The Cry Of The Owl, but i enjoyed it very much it had a kind of Twilight Zone feel to it 

 

A boardgame with a book theme 

 

Hope your still enjoying Death & the Penguin 

[julie]

Kylie

Glad Bonnie & Clyde arrived at your house. Might want to stash your valuables someplace so they don't find them .

Enjoy the book !

 

Sounds like you have a whole pile of new ones that all sound good .

[Kylie]

Great haul, I hope you enjoy your books ! I always love it when the books in a series match each other.

 

The board game sounds awesome! I googled for pictures, it looks really nice too.

 

Thanks Athena. Yep, it's great to have matching editions.

 

It's such a cute game. The playing pieces are little bookshelves, and each time you answer a question correctly, you get a little book to put on your shelf. There are even stickers that you can put on each book so they look more real (they have actual titles and author names). But I haven't stuck them on.

 

 When was this decided? .. are we all following suit? .. what does it entail exactly?  Oh man! .. I'm gonna let you go first and see what happens   

 

Yay!! for Kylie winning the Great Penguin Bookcase game  We expected no less but are very proud of you just the same  

 

I love the sound of your bookish week ... I'm definitely going to aim to have one of those this week  Great titles .. how could you not buy Case of the Nervous Nude?  Off I toddle to look it up  

 

Haha! Yes, well 'living a little' is well outside my comfort zone. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

I'm glad I won too! I told my Mum that we played the game and she said 'you didn't get upset when you lost, did you?' Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mum!

 

It's interesting because we have different tastes in books, so I would often get questions right that he wouldn't know and vice versa (he had an annoying habit of reading the question first and then saying 'oh, this is easy!' and of course I then wouldn't know the answer!) With our combined knowledge, I think we'd be unbeatable if we were to play as a team.

 

I toddled off to look up the Nervous Nude as well after I read your post. It doesn't seem to have very good reviews, does it? And his other books don't seem to be any more popular. Oh well. Here's hoping I enjoy it more than others have!

[Kylie]

Kylie - i have only read one Patricia Highsmith novel,The Cry Of The Owl, but i enjoyed it very much it had a kind of Twilight Zone feel to it 

 

A boardgame with a book theme 

 

Hope your still enjoying Death & the Penguin 

 

Cool! I love the Twilight Zone so I'll have to look up The Cry of the Owl. Thanks.

 

I finished Death and the Penguin just yesterday, and yes, I enjoyed it to the end. I hope you're still enjoying it, if you haven't already finished! I want to read the next one now.

 

Kylie

Glad Bonnie & Clyde arrived at your house. Might want to stash your valuables someplace so they don't find them .

Enjoy the book !

 

Sounds like you have a whole pile of new ones that all sound good .

 

Hahaha. Luckily(?) I don't have any valuables, except my cat and my books, and I don't think they'd be interested in them.

[Kylie]

I went into the city on Tuesday to visit a couple of bookshops. I was a little bit naughty. (Books separated according to where I bought them.)

 

Richard Dawkins River Out of Eden

Philip K Dick The Penultimate Truth (not the SF Masterworks cover)

AC Grayling Thinking of Answers

Chris Masters Jonestown

Andrew J Petto & Laurie R Godfrey (eds) Scientists Confront Creationism

Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

 

Benedict Allen (ed) The Faber Book of Exploration

Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward All the President’s Men

Angela Carter A Card from Angela Carter

Agatha Christie The Grand Tour

Richard Dawkins The Magic of Reality

Paul Donnelley Firsts, Lasts and Onlys of Cricket

Jonathan Franzen Freedom

Vladimir Nabokov The Original of Laura

 

[Kylie]

My BF posted this on my Facebook page earlier. I think it's lovely and it describes all of us (women, that is).

 

[Athena]

Great haul, Kylie ! The video your BF found is very nice ! I loved how it all rhymed.

[frankie]

Frankie 

Kylie

 

Homer The Iliad
I can't wait to read it. I think it'll be a lot more readable than I'm anticipating. I guess I should just dive in and get started (...one day).

Oooh, jolly good that it seems a lot more readable... I always think this one would be a drag...

Oscar Wilde De Profundis and Other Prison Writings
Poppyshake is the reason I had it on my wish list too! (That woman is responsible for many books on my TBR pile/wish list! ) It should be very interesting. 

She is a very wicked woman

Tom Wolfe Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
I think some of his more recent books have normal titles. I guess he has mellowed with time! (Or maybe stopped taking drugs?  )

Oh yes, maybe he has indeed stopped doing drugs, well spotted! I never thought of it... Also, I should've remembered I have one of his 'normally titled' books, The Bonfire of Vanities... It's a really big book and I never seem interested in reading it, and have already twice thought about giving it away, but then I open it and read a few lines and I'm intrigued!

 
Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (had this on my wish list for a while)
Yes. I don't have high hopes for it because it's supposed to be pretty bad writing, but I'll see how I go!

I've heard the same, but we are too curious to let that stop us, aren't we.

Aww. What if I told you that I gave him my trolley and I used yours? And he didn't use it as well as you did! (I mean that your book selections were much better. ) 

That definitely makes me feel better Thank you darling!  

 

 

Oops, I only read the text. I didn't check out his pic. I'll have to go and Google him again.

 

Which text? The man was in the youtube video I showed you Okay I'll find you a picture:

 

Oh... You meant Phil Rudd the drummer, the drummer the man on the video is talking about... Now I understand!   I meant that the dude, the latest (?) singer of the band is hot. The man talking in the video

 

I'll find you a picture anyways

 

Okay um.... Scratch that... He was better in person, on the video, than in pics on image google... Never mind

 

I like a couple of AC/DC's songs and have been meaning to check out more for ages. I think I could really like them.

 

Do you really think you could like Acca Dacca?

 

I wonder if you would like Fair to Midland... I think, if you like, we could do a music swap some day. You would tell me which band/artist to listen to, one of your favorites, and I would recommend something to you in turn. But they'd have to be something we know the other person's not going to hate straight off. Something they could actually listen to I'd like to get to know some of the stuff you like! Maybe Cat Empire?

 

Simone de Beauvoir A Very Easy Death

Yay! But this one will be rather depressing, I think. It's about when her mother died of cancer.

Oh dear I didn't know that...

Al Franken Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Yes, it's on the Rory list! I was sooo excited to find it. I absolutely love the title. When I showed it to BF, he said that he has read it and that it is an excellent read.

Oooh, cool! The title is great, and sounds like the kind of book I'd like to like, but also the kind of title that it might be a book which I will be disappointed in... So it's great to hear your BF thinks it's excellent

Very odd how analytical one can get only based on a title...

 

Jon Ronson The Psychopath Test
I'm so embarrassed. After I posted this, I realised I already had the book! Doh!  Considering it's a book I had wanted so badly, I can't believe I forgot I already had it! What's even worse is that the copy I already had is a perfect-sized book for my shelf, but the copy I bought is a trade paperback (annoyingly large, but I got it anyway because I didn't want to pass up a chance to get the book so cheap). So I can't even use it as a replacement copy.   

Oh dear! Well we can't remember everything....

 

Michael Cunningham A Home at the End of the World
Yes! I cannot tell you how much I have searched for this book (just based on your recommendation). At every single book fair I've seen many copies of his The Hours, but never ever AHatEotW. And now, you finally decide to bump it from your list and of course I suddenly find a copy! Unbelievable. But I wasn't going to pass it up because I know you enjoyed it once and I've wanted it for so long now.

Yeah, you should definitely go for it, it's still a great book!

 

Voltaire Candide
I will try to put this near the top of my TBR pile. After yours and Poppyshake's reviews, I'm so curious about it!

You won't be disappointed... I mean, you might not like it, but you'll see what inspired our comments on it

 

 

Excellent! I suppose the sticker could be removed pretty easily (eucalyptus oil is really good for getting sticky residue off books, as Frankie will attest).

 

Oh yeah! All hail Bosisto's, the best eucalyptus oil there is

 

While I was laying around and feeling sick and sorry for myself during the week, the postie arrived early one morning with a book package. It was my deliciously early Christmas present from Poppyshake: a book called The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin. The book was perfect both because I needed a pick-me-up and because I was sick and miraculously received a book of remedies (I think Poppyshake has some strange mind powers, because I'm sure I hadn't previously mentioned that I was sick. ) Thank you, darling Poppyshake!

 

The woman is psychic!   Sounds like just the book kind of book you'll love

 

 

Matt Haig The Radleys

This one is brand new but had a bargain price, and I couldn't believe I found it so soon after reading good reviews about it here.

This one's great! Oh yes, I think I first saw the book when I was in Australia... In the bookstore at the Plaza, I think!

 

My BF was over today and we played my Great Penguin Bookcase board game, which I've never had a chance to play before (because I didn't know anyone who was bookish enough). It's like Trivial Pursuit, but with book questions. I won the board game, and then we just took turns asking each other the questions and keeping a tally. I led for a while, but eventually lost by four points.

 

 

 

My BF was over today and we played my Great Penguin Bookcase board game, which I've never had a chance to play before (because I didn't know anyone who was bookish enough). It's like Trivial Pursuit, but with book questions. I won the board game, and then we just took turns asking each other the questions and keeping a tally. I led for a while, but eventually lost by four points.

 

Oh man, I really want to play that game!! I'm happy you finally got a chance to play, and it's great that you had such a knowledgeable partner to play with/against

 

It's such a cute game. The playing pieces are little bookshelves, and each time you answer a question correctly, you get a little book to put on your shelf. There are even stickers that you can put on each book so they look more real (they have actual titles and author names). But I haven't stuck them on.

 

Oh that's just too cute!!

 

I'm glad I won too! I told my Mum that we played the game and she said 'you didn't get upset when you lost, did you?' Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mum!

 

:lol: Great going, Kylie's Mum  

 

 

I went into the city on Tuesday to visit a couple of bookshops. I was a little bit naughty. (Books separated according to where I bought them.)

 

Richard Dawkins River Out of Eden

Philip K Dick The Penultimate Truth (not the SF Masterworks cover)

AC Grayling Thinking of Answers

Chris Masters Jonestown

Andrew J Petto & Laurie R Godfrey (eds) Scientists Confront Creationism

Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

 

Benedict Allen (ed) The Faber Book of Exploration

Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward All the President’s Men

Angela Carter A Card from Angela Carter

Agatha Christie The Grand Tour

Richard Dawkins The Magic of Reality

Paul Donnelley Firsts, Lasts and Onlys of Cricket

Jonathan Franzen Freedom

Vladimir Nabokov The Original of Laura

 

A rather wonderful megahaul   I'm jealous of The Penultimate Truth And I've seen a copy of The Original of Laura at the library... I'd never heard of it before I noticed the title on the shelf... I hope you like it, you Nabokovian minx

[frankie]

Oh and darling Kylie... You need to stop buying books now, before Christmas... And give people your wishlist on BD... Just so they can see what kind of taste in books you have! And update those lists on the first page of your log   (No, I wasn't telling you, I was asking politely... Even though I now see that maybe it didn't come across that way... )

[shelley.s]

I love Philip K Dick   I really hope you enjoy the Penultimate truth, my friend read it recently and thought it was fab but i havent got round to reading it myself yet so ill be interested to see what you think! 

[poppyshake]

 

Angela Carter A Card from Angela Carter

I haven't heard of this but I'm jealous anyways ..   sounds interesting Kylie  

 

Great book haul and I love the video  lovely poem and great imagery ..  'She'll sit addicted at breakfast, soaking up the back of the cornflake box, and the info she gets from what she reads, makes her a total fox. Because she's interesting and she's unique, and her theories make me go weak ... at the knees. I want a girl who reads!'  Hell yeah!!  

[pontalba]

 

Some lovely bookish activity in the past week:

 

Julie, I finally received my Bonnie and Clyde book, Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn.

 

I went into Sydney for a music gig on Friday night, so I went in earlier to visit a great secondhand bookshop called Elizabeth's. It's not the biggest bookshop around, but the selection is always great and I often find a few gems (there is a 'sister' shop in a nearby suburb, which is also great). I passed on buying a couple of books there because I didn't want to spend too much and figured I could buy them online for a cheaper price, but it turns out that I can't buy them cheaper online, so I might try to go back in the next couple of days and buy them. Anyway, I bought:

 

Jonathan Craig Case of the Nervous Nude

Yes, I was drawn to this book by the title, and then by the cover, which is deliciously 'pulpy' (but the woman is tastefully clad). I almost never buy books that I haven't heard of before (or if I haven't heard of the author), but I decided to live a little. I did read the blurb and the first page, and it reads like a Raymond Chandler-type novel, which bodes very well.

 

Matt Haig The Radleys

This one is brand new but had a bargain price, and I couldn't believe I found it so soon after reading good reviews about it here.

 

Patricia Highsmith The Boy Who Followed Ripley

This is the only book I have been missing from Highsmith's Ripley series. I was stoked to find it, and it's in perfect condition and exactly matches my other books in the series.

 

Vladimir Nabokov The Eye

I haven't head of this one before. I never pass up anything by Nabokov. This edition is rather old and has those red-edged pages (does that happen because of age?) but the cover is kind of retro cool (although it's the type that I could change my mind about and hate tomorrow).

 

On Saturday I went browsing in a local bookshop and couldn't help but buy:

 

Alexandre Dumas The Black Tulip

Veronica Roth Allegiant

 

My BF was over today and we played my Great Penguin Bookcase board game, which I've never had a chance to play before (because I didn't know anyone who was bookish enough). It's like Trivial Pursuit, but with book questions. I won the board game, and then we just took turns asking each other the questions and keeping a tally. I led for a while, but eventually lost by four points.

 

In actual reading news, I have about 40 pages left of Death and the Penguin.

 

Love Patricia Highsmith, have you read the other Ripley books? 

We have The Original of Laura, and were frankly a bit disappointed.  At least I was. 

I think Dmitri should have left well enough alone.

 

My BF posted this on my Facebook page earlier. I think it's lovely and it describes all of us (women, that is).

 

 

This is fabulous!

[Devi]

Did you see BD are doing another of their 24 hr sales again?! I think it was at the end of this month. Will double check.

[Kidsmum]

 I finished Death and the Penguin just yesterday, and yes, I enjoyed it to the end. I hope you're still enjoying it, if you haven't already finished! I want to read the next one now.

 

I really enjoyed it as well, loved the ending  

 

Great video i'm going to show it to my girls who are all, girls who read, if only all men were so enlightened 

[Brian.]

Mark Grist (the man in the 'Girls Who Read' video) is a really entertaining and interesting person. He gained a lot of interest on the internet when he took part in a rap battle against a young lad. I think he was still a teacher at the time and instead of using the usual offensive approach he used some great witty put downs mixed with word play and completely won the audience and the other rappers over.

[Kylie]

Great haul, Kylie ! The video your BF found is very nice ! I loved how it all rhymed.

 

I love the rhyming too. I'll have to save this video so I can watch it over and over.

 

I love Philip K Dick   I really hope you enjoy the Penultimate truth, my friend read it recently and thought it was fab but i havent got round to reading it myself yet so ill be interested to see what you think!

 

Thanks Shelley! I have Devi to blame thank for this. The synopsis sounds so good! I'd like to start it straight away, but I really should read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? first, which has been on my TBR pile for quite a while now.

 

I haven't heard of this but I'm jealous anyways ..   sounds interesting Kylie  

 

Great book haul and I love the video  lovely poem and great imagery ..  'She'll sit addicted at breakfast, soaking up the back of the cornflake box, and the info she gets from what she reads, makes her a total fox. Because she's interesting and she's unique, and her theories make me go weak ... at the knees. I want a girl who reads!'  Hell yeah!!  

 

It's funny that you haven't heard of A Card from Angela Carter because I kind of have it linked with you in my mind, as though I'd heard about it from you or something! Doh! Here is the synopsis:

 

Susannah Clapp and Angela Carter were friends for years. The postcards that Carter sent to her form a paper trail through her life. The pictures she sent were sometimes domestic, sometimes flights of fantasy and surrealism. The messages were always pungent. 

 

From Stratford, Ontario, she explained that Canada was 'like Scandinavia, with liquor'. From the States, where she was smarting from a critical onslaught in the London Review of Books, where Susannah then worked, she sent a terrifying picture of Texan chili, with the message: 'Carter's reply to the critics ... goes through you like a dose of salts ... I'd liked to feed it to that drivelling wimp...'

 

Through the medium of her postcards - small documents that are the emails of the twentieth century - Susannah Clapp will evoke Angela Carter's anarchic intelligence, her fierce politics, the richness of her language, her ribaldry, the great swoops of her imagination; she will also say something about her life. Intimate, funny, unexpected, it will catch this unique artist on the wing.

 

Love Patricia Highsmith, have you read the other Ripley books? 

We have The Original of Laura, and were frankly a bit disappointed.  At least I was. 

I think Dmitri should have left well enough alone.

 

I've only read The Talented Mr Ripley so far, which I absolutely loved.

 

I have wanted The Original of Laura since it came out, but it was so expensive that I decided to wait for the paperback, but it seemed like it would never be released in paperback, so I gave up and took it off my wish list. I was so excited to find this, and at such a cheap price! Now I wish I had bought two copies, because I forgot that you can take out the index cards. I would never do that though unless I had a 'back up' copy that was in pristine condition.

[Kylie]

Did you see BD are doing another of their 24 hr sales again?! I think it was at the end of this month. Will double check.

 

Yep! How weird that they're doing one so soon after the last one! I'm not complaining though. Hopefully I'll manage to stay awake a bit longer for this one. I have a big job on at the moment and won't be sleeping much this week, so fingers crossed!

 

They just sent me a reminder email about the sale. It starts on Thursday night at 11 pm (Aussie time).

 

I really enjoyed it as well, loved the ending  

 

Great video i'm going to show it to my girls who are all, girls who read, if only all men were so enlightened 

 

I hope your girls enjoy the video! It's nice to see that there are men out there who appreciate us bookish gals.

 

Mark Grist (the man in the 'Girls Who Read' video) is a really entertaining and interesting person. He gained a lot of interest on the internet when he took part in a rap battle against a young lad. I think he was still a teacher at the time and instead of using the usual offensive approach he used some great witty put downs mixed with word play and completely won the audience and the other rappers over.

 

Interesting info, thanks Brian! I will have to look him up and see if he has more videos. Mark sounds like the complete package! I wonder if he's single...

[Devi]

I'd love it if they changed the BD start time now and then to accommodate people who don't live in the U.K. I'd love to be awake for most of it.

[Kylie]

Yes, but even the Brits would have to sleep at some point, so I guess it balances out in the end!

[Athena]

Thanks Shelley! I have Devi to blame thank for this. The synopsis sounds so good! I'd like to start it straight away, but I really should read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? first, which has been on my TBR pile for quite a while now.

x

I don't know which one you should start with, but wanted to add I quite liked Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? .

[Kylie]

A couple of days ago I finally finished reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Yay! I started it in the first half of last year. For such a short book, it certainly took me a long time to get through. I guess my reading was so disjointed because I had such a hard time getting into it. It wasn't the type of book that I couldn't wait to pick up again, so I just kept letting it lapse while I read other things.

 

Even allowing for my disjointed reading, I found the story itself rather disjointed and difficult to follow. It was written in such a way that I had a hard time understanding exactly what was going on. I felt like I was only understanding half of what I read, but it all came together in the end. I think in this case I enjoyed the ideas and events in the book much more than how the ideas were conveyed. I hope I don't put anyone off reading it, though.

 

I've since started the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, called iWoz. I'm already over halfway through it. It's written in an easy-to-read conversational style (a breath of fresh air after We!). It's quite technical, which was a surprise to me. Steve goes into a lot of detail about electronics and how he made his many projects. While this might sound boring (especially to someone with absolutely no knowledge in this area, like me), he writes in such a way that it is reasonably easy to understand, and his passion for the subject makes it much more interesting. It sounds like a lot of what has happened has resulted from him being in the right place at the right time, and it's clear that he's grateful for various coincidences that allowed him to further his passion. I've just finished reading about when he finished putting together his first ever computer (the Apple I) and turned it on for the first time, and how excited he was to see the characters appear on the screen (a black and white TV). It makes me realise how I take technology for granted and what a marvel it is that we have this technology that can do so much for us, and all it really is, is a bunch of chips and wires and 0s and 1s! Marvellous!

[shelley.s]

Yes Do androids... was really good too. I just checked and i actually have read The Penultimate truth   oops, Ive read so many PKD books ive lost track! I thought Penultimate Truth was better than electric sheep if that helps. My absolute favorite is A Scanner Darkly though. Such a genius book.

[Athena]

I've since started the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, called iWoz. I'm already over halfway through it. It's written in an easy-to-read conversational style (a breath of fresh air after We!). It's quite technical, which was a surprise to me. Steve goes into a lot of detail about electronics and how he made his many projects. While this might sound boring (especially to someone with absolutely no knowledge in this area, like me), he writes in such a way that it is reasonably easy to understand, and his passion for the subject makes it much more interesting. It sounds like a lot of what has happened has resulted from him being in the right place at the right time, and it's clear that he's grateful for various coincidences that allowed him to further his passion. I've just finished reading about when he finished putting together his first ever computer (the Apple I) and turned it on for the first time, and how excited he was to see the characters appear on the screen (a black and white TV). It makes me realise how I take technology for granted and what a marvel it is that we have this technology that can do so much for us, and all it really is, is a bunch of chips and wires and 0s and 1s! Marvellous!

x

This sounds interesting, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far .

[Kylie]

Yes Do androids... was really good too. I just checked and i actually have read The Penultimate truth   oops, Ive read so many PKD books ive lost track! I thought Penultimate Truth was better than electric sheep if that helps. My absolute favorite is A Scanner Darkly though. Such a genius book.

 

That's great to know because I have all three books waiting to be read! You've made me want to start on them all now, but I already have so many books on the go.

 

x

This sounds interesting, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far .

 

It's definitely interesting, Athena. I imagine it would be particularly interesting to techy IT nerds and Apple fans. My BF is both, so I'll definitely be recommending this to him. But I think it would also be interesting to anyone with even a mild interest in technology and its history, and how the whole home computer industry really got going.

 

I keep forgetting to mention some book-related news:

 

My BF is part of a local amateur drama group (he performed in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap earlier this year). He is going to direct his first play next year, and it will be 12 Angry Men. Now, I have no experience in drama whatsoever, and I'd sooner die than get up on a stage and act, so I'm going to be involved backstage. Yay! I've always thought it would be cool to do backstage stuff at a show (Athena, you in particular will probably understand that I used to love reading the Baby-Sitter's Club Super Special where they staged Peter Pan ). So I'm going to be the Stage Manager—I have to make sure the 12 Angry Men have their props and are on stage at the right time. This shouldn't be too difficult because everyone stays put once they go on stage. I'm rather shy, so I don't know how I'll go ordering 12 men about. But they all seem like lovely guys—not angry at all. We staged the auditions over the last couple of weeks and the cast was just finalised. Not much will happen now until early February, when we will start rehearsals. The play will be on in May. I'll also be the 'Prompt' for a while—when the lads have to put down their scripts and try to remember their lines, I'll help them when they get stuck.

 

I can see I'll be reading the play dozens of times in the coming months. I wonder if I can count that as dozens of reads to help boost my yearly total?