Vodkafan's 2012 Reading List and Genre Challenge

[Kylie]

I already knew you were weird and crazy, so it didn't surprise me that you were laughing at a book about cadavers.

[frankie]

I already knew you were weird and crazy, so it didn't surprise me that you were laughing at a book about cadavers.

 

Oi!! Cheeky!

 

Read the book, btw ;) I left it behind so you WOULD READ IT!!

[Kylie]

I know! And it's one of those books I really can't wait to read, but other stuff keeps cropping up! You know how it is. I'll get to it this year, I promise.

[frankie]

I know! And it's one of those books I really can't wait to read, but other stuff keeps cropping up! You know how it is. I'll get to it this year, I promise.

 

I should've taken it with me. This month. Well okay, next month!!

(yes I know how it is )

Edited February 22, 2012 by frankie

[Kylie]

Taken it with you? I'm glad you didn't!

[frankie]

Taken it with you? I'm glad you didn't!

 

Then you know how to prove it!!

[vodkafan]

OK I am in trouble already. My bookshelves are overflowing . I already donated some paperbacks to charity and traded in 8 DVDs ( and got 4 other ones I wanted).

Here is the situation today:

 

 

Some of the books are keepers but over half are TBR. I have a couple more on the way from Amazon. I need to make an effort to plough through these so I can get rid of them. Apologies for the terrible photo.

Edited February 23, 2012 by vodkafan

[Sofia]

OK I am in trouble already. My bookshelves are overflowing . I already donated some paperbacks to charity and traded in 8 DVDs ( and got 4 other ones I wanted).

Here is the situation today:

 

 

Some of the books are keepers but over half are TBR. I have a couple more on the way from Amazon. I need to make an effort to plough through these so I can get rid of them. Apologies for the terrible photo.

 

I'm not seeing a problem...add more shelves...I see a tiny bit of room to the right

Edited February 23, 2012 by Sofia

[Kidsmum]

Definitely room on the right there I can't read your book titles though so can we have a close up

[poppyshake]

I can't affort to start liking him if he despises Sagittarii

No he doesn't despise Sagittarians .. far from it ..he IS one. He doesn't tell jokes as such .. it was just part of one of his anecdotes but I always remember it because it creased me up. Now I've looked at the Youtube link and I feel bad because it was a joke about incontinent people ... and there are people on there saying you wouldn't laugh if you suffered from it. However, I was young and heedless at the time and I nearly wet myself .. if that isn't too much of a pun. It's a celebrity audience .. though you might not recognise anyone.

I'll put the link in ...

[vodkafan]

I went off Billy Conolly a bit after the Ken Bigley thing....

[vodkafan]

Definitely room on the right there I can't read your book titles though so can we have a close up

 

Hi Kidsmum I will have to put over two posts and they came out a bit blurry but maybe you can make out some titles....

 

 

 

 

[vodkafan]

[vodkafan]

Before I Die by Jenny Downham.

 

I thought this was a marvellous book about a very difficult subject. 16 year old Tessa is dying of a terminal illness. She decides to make a list of 10 things she wants to experience before she gets too ill to do them, before she dies.

That is the whole plot, basically. It is written very sensitively and as the book went on I got more and more impressed.

My mum died of this same disease after a long illness, but she was 88.

Sorry this review is a bit short. But it is one of those books that can throw up quite personal feelings which are hard to write about.

I will be passing this book onto family members .

[poppyshake]

I went off Billy Conolly a bit after the Ken Bigley thing....

Yes, I liked the vintage stuff. I was reading recently that he was heckled a couple of times on a recent tour and each time he left the stage and didn't return which was very disappointing for those who had bought tickets .. surely he must have learnt how to deal with hecklers by now .. I think he's losing it or lost it.

 

I liked your thoughts on Before I Die VF .. I find it hard to read books like that though. Like most people, I've lost loved ones to terminal illnesses and it's all too painful. I can't bear it when those feelings are stirred up again, which is a shame because it means I don't really deal with it. I try and think only of how the person was before the illness etc .. just because I can't cope with it any other way I know, if I read it, I would blub my way through it and Alan would be urging me to read about Pooh & Piglet's Woozle hunt.

This is a work of fiction yes? .. did the author draw on personal experiences do you know?

[Alexi]

I loved Before I Die VF...if love is the right word. I read it 3 years ago but it still sticks with me, the ending and what her brother says made me bawl my eyes out.

[Ooshie]

Yes, I liked the vintage stuff. I was reading recently that he was heckled a couple of times on a recent tour and each time he left the stage and didn't return which was very disappointing for those who had bought tickets .. surely he must have learnt how to deal with hecklers by now .. I think he's losing it or lost it.

 

He used to be famous for how he dealt with hecklers - in fact, my Dad, who saw him a couple of times in his hey-day, felt they were some of the best parts of the show! I think his best work was while he still lived in Scotland, or just after he left, and he has slowly gone downhill ever since then.

[Kidsmum]

Lots of blokey books there VF I recognised the spine of Vicars of Christ, my OH likes to read that sort of stuff as well. The Sarah Waters one Little Stranger I have on my TBR pile & the Rohinton Mistry is one I'm looking forward to reading as I've read lots of good things on here about it. Thanks for posting the pics I love looking at other people's bookshelves.

[vodkafan]

Lots of blokey books there VF I recognised the spine of Vicars of Christ, my OH likes to read that sort of stuff as well. The Sarah Waters one Little Stranger I have on my TBR pile & the Rohinton Mistry is one I'm looking forward to reading as I've read lots of good things on here about it. Thanks for posting the pics I love looking at other people's bookshelves.

 

Glad that you enjoyed it Kidsmum!

[vodkafan]

Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson.

 

I enjoyed this book. Mrs Winterson was wonderfully bonkers, although this was of course no laughing matter for the author when she was growing up.

I do like the way she writes, although I can see why Frankie did not like it: I quote this phrase in particular as one that seemed nonsensical : " Words are the part of silence that we can hear" . Eh? Excuse me? Run that by me again ?

.

It is an odd sort of memoir that leaves out 25 years , but if the author chooses to do that it is her story after all, she is asking us to look at something else she considers more important. I did understand her completely when she started talking about linear time being just a construct of the mind, and internal time being more real , present and past juxtaposed together. I feel that too so I liked that. Parts of the book did make me feel like she was whinging a bit too much about not learning how to love and be loved. Lots of people have rough starts in life but they do the best they can.

It has not put me off this author and I look forward to reading some of her fiction now.

[poppyshake]

But you know how it is? .. when it happens to you, it doesn't matter how much you know that life is tougher for others or that you have it easy in comparison .. it still rankles and it's still difficult for the adult Jeanette to come to terms with what happened to the child Jeanette especially as it shaped her later relationships. I had quite a happy childhood but parts of it made me feel very insecure and gave me problems which are still with me .. I can't move on from it because I know .. or at least I believe .. that I would have led a much different life if those things hadn't happened .. and yet they were nothing as bad as Jeanette's experiences. I think she does say somewhere that she knows she's whinging and that she really should get over it. It's what I liked about it actually, that she was honest and made herself quite unlikeable in places (she admits to hitting her girlfriends for instance .. though thankfully no longer.) I'd rather read a truthful account than a homogenised one.

Anyway I'm glad you liked it and that you want to read more by her .. I do too. Frankie hasn't read this (or at least I don't think she has) she's read 'Oranges' which is Jeanette's fictional account of it .. very similar and yet quite different too. I preferred this to that.

[vodkafan]

Yes I do agree with you Poppy about rather reading a truthful account. Glad there are at least two of us who are Winterson fans we can compare notes.

 

My reading is all over the place at the moment I am reading 4 books at once:

Sail

Self Made Man

A Helmet For My Pillow

Uncertain Destiny

 

Going to try to finish two today

Edited March 17, 2012 by vodkafan

[vodkafan]

Have just finished yesterday A Helmet For My Pillow which was a wartime biography. Will review it Saturday. Hope to finish another book today. Have had to change one of my Genre reads; I had planned to read Emma by Jane Austen as my chosen classic but realised I don't have it on my Kindle! Will substitute Jane Eyre instead.

[vodkafan]

Not finding time to do any reviews lately. Am enjoying Jane Eyre very much.

[vodkafan]

A little bit behind on my reading. Trying to finish Jane Eyre so I can accredit it to my March total, which is looking a bit poor. I must be one of the few people who has read Wide Sargasso Sea first so I am not as enamoured of Mr Rochester as I might otherwise. He just seems to have an eye for the servants as in the prequel. Jane Eyre is only 18. The gypsy fortune teller trick shows that he can be deceitful and a bit sly.