Sunday Salon: Making peace with Kindle

The Kindle... The end of all real books???!!

"You kids with e-readers! Get off my lawn!"

That's basically what my 2009 post about the digital revolution in reading sounded like. I was the crochety old lady who was more than happy with her good old-fashioned paper books, thank you very much. All this gumph about new-fangled devices for reading, I huffed. I had no need for such shenanigans.... Did I?

By early 2011, I had softened considerably. It wasn't that I was against e-readers you see, I just preferred the entire reading experience. I'm one of those people who unashamedly sniffs books. I buy notebooks when I have no need for them. I like the way paper feels between my fingers. The clinical diagnosis, were I to get one, would likely be Severe Paperphilia. A diagnosis I embrace wholeheartedly - but the question that kept nagging in the back of my mind was, did my love affair with paper necessarily have to be so tightly linked to my love of the written word?

This question was answered at the end of last year, when my beloved husband bought me an iPad for Christmas. This gift came at a time in my life where reading for pleasure had become nearly non-existent due to the required reading necessary for the thesis which had taken up nearly all of my time and severely depleted my reading mojo. It was also a matter of timing - when I was thesis-free (that is, out of my house) and had the mental space for reading I was typically on some form of public transport or at a loose end somewhere. I had fallen out of the habit of carrying a book with me in my bag, for some reason but now, the iPad would be with me pretty much all the time.

Casually, I downloaded the Kindle App. I looked up. Checked behind me. No-one was screaming. I didn't hear any bookstores bursting into flames in the near vicinity. Excellent. Now, to find something to read. I downloaded Book of Mercy - an appropriate title, given my feelings about this whole foray into digital reading.

It was brilliant - not just the book but the whole experience. From click-to-buy to ready-to-read took all of 10 seconds. This is no small thing when, living where I do, the acquisition of books is not an easy task. The closest bookstore with a reasonably decent selection of English language books is a 15 minute bus ride away from my home and the one with the best selection is over an hour away by bus in Taipei. Ordering books online is easy but means waiting for two or more weeks for the books to arrive. Given this, I'm sure you can see why the immediacy of this appeals so much!

My swagload of real books (Image credit: Kath Liu)

Aside from that, the thing I worried about the most was the reading experience. Would it feel cold? Would it be uncomfortable holding an electronic device in my hands rather than a book? It certainly wasn't the same, but there were a couple of unexpected benefits, including the dictionary search function which helped me out on a few occasions as I read Game of Thrones. Highlight a word and its definition helpfully appears at the bottom of the screen. Further, I could add notes or highlight without feeling like I was committing the carnal sin of writing on a book. In fact, the only major downside was the constant distractions from email, Facebook and Twitter notifications. When you're deep into a dramatic moment, the last thing you need to know is that Bob Jones "Liked" your photograph. Easy solution: disconnect from the internet.

So there it is. Who knew. The Digital Dissenter has been turned and having access to e-books has shattered my reading slump. I have embraced the positives of this new way of reading and ceased worrying about my beloved physical book - I reckon those babies are going to be around in this world for a lot longer than I will, and I ain't planning on going anywhere for a good while yet.

And just to make sure, I bought myself a swagload of real books - and delightedly sniffed each and every one of them. Bliss.

Sunday Salon: The secret shame of unfinished books

It's confession time. In the last few years since I have had a full workload of both thesis and editing/writing work, I have been a serial non-completer of books. Not bad books. Not because I didn't like them. Not because they were unworthy. Purely because I would get distracted, put it aside, then forget which book I was actually working on and so pick up another. In this fashion, I have left a trail of many partially read books in my wake and quite frankly, I think it's time I put a stop to it.

Just as an aside, I have completed plenty of books during this time also - don't get me wrong. I do have at least enough attention span to complete most of the books I set out to read. But still. There is a noticeable issue here that I feel the need to address. The first step is admitting I have a problem.

Hi, my name is Kath and I'm a serial non-completer.

The next step is to map out a plan of recovery. Below is a list of the seven previously abandoned books I will complete during the year of 2012. I will complete these books despite the myriad shiny new books that come my way, beckoning invitingly. I will complete them despite having to read others for Book Club. I will complete them because they deserve it - they're damn good books and I was enjoying them until... well you know.

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Possession by A.S. Byatt
6. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
7. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Has anyone else had this problem? I'll bet no-one has. I know my audience - the dedication and reading pace of the book blogging community impresses me no end! But if you're out there, fellow non-completer, speak up and join me on the Quest of Completion for 2012. [Edit: looks like I'm not alone! Jillian over at A Room of One's Own has set up a challenge specifically to deal with this problem. Trot on over there and join in!]

Sunday Salon: Caution! Thesis in Progress.

We're finally at that magical stage, folks, when the months of reading and thinking and changing directions and reading some more is coming to fruition: the real writing of my thesis. Don't get me wrong, I've been banging away on the keyboard for quite a few months now but now I can feel it all pulling together. It's making sense. It's going in a logical progression. I can see the map to the finish line. Thank Gawd. I'm taking December to focus exclusively on final write up (yay for supportive bosses!!) so hopefully by the time new year rolls around I will be all but done. That just means being a hermit for a month. Wish me luck.

In other news, it is time for Le Grande Book Club Nominations. Although I already have far too many ideas (I have a list of 7 possibles, limit per person is 2) I would like to humbly ask you to suggest others or give feedback on my choices so far. The list is:
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
The Submission by Amy Waldman
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The Marriage Plot by Jeffry Eugenides
Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Also, it was my birthday this month so hubby took me to Sun Moon Lake here in Taiwan to celebrate. It was startlingly beautiful so I wanted to share a few pics here with you...

The lake at dawn

Heading off for a day up the mountain

Looking across the lake

Coming down the mountain on the gondola

Hope everyone is well and enjoying November!

Sunday Salon: 9/11 and its literature

Ground Zero
Image Source: Here

Ten years ago today I was dragged out of my bed by my mother. She was saying something about "You have to see this!" and "Oh my God!" Through the haze of my attempts to wake up, I saw on the television the footage of a plane flying into the side of a building and then, horrifyingly, its collapse with people still inside. Immediately, I was awake. All of the questions that everyone else who was seeing this for the first time came falling out of my mouth. I was rooted to the spot for the next half an hour taking all of the information in. 

I was in my first year of studying at university, a couple of months shy of my 19th birthday. My abiding memory of that day was sitting around in the quad with my friends, all of us trying to comprehend what had happened and what kind of effects it would have on our lives. We had a Statistics exam that evening. I remember that the majority of the class bombed and I always wondered if our lecturer realised why that probably was. 

Ten years later I'm still transfixed by the events of that day as post-9/11 literature is the focus of my thesis. I've read a raft of novels that I consider to be post-9/11 - that is, literature that directly represents the events of the day or the effects on society after the events. I'm more interested in reading novels that register the after-shocks as I always think that seeing what happens after is far more informative than the fiction that tries to re-create what was undeniably a terrible event. So since this is my "Special Topic" of interest, I thought I would create a post-9/11 reading list. To honour the memory of those who perished in the collapse of the towers, the attack on the Pentagon and in the flight that went down in Pennsylvania, I believe it is best to keep on thinking and keep on asking questions. 

Fiction:

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

The Zero by Jess Walter

Ghost Town by Patrick McGrath

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I haven't read these yet but I hear they're worth a look - 

Terrorist by John Updike

Submission by Amy Waldman

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer.

Also, go over to The New Dork Review of Books for this thoughtful and interesting post about what we should expect from fiction about this subject. 

What is your favourite post-9/11 novel?

Sunday Salon: Desert Island Books

As a kid, one of my favourite radio programmes was Desert Island Discs, a BBC Radio 4 production that has been running since 1942. The basic format is that a well-known guest is invited onto the show and asked to imagine that they will be stranded for an indefinite period on a desert island with 8 pieces of music, one book of their choice, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bible or other relevant religious/philosophical work and one luxury item which must be inanimate and of no use to escaping from the island. In between explaining their music choices, the guests talk about their lives and since this programme is basically an institution, they've had just about everyone you can think of on there. Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that I could subscribe to the podcasts of current episodes AND access the archives all the way back to 1998.

Which got me thinking - how about the literary version? What if instead of music you had to choose books to take with you?

Book choice one: Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

This hardback book is a compilation of the first three Malory Towers books, one that I read many a time during my childhood. There was something magical to me about the escapism of boarding school stories. I loved being at school (the nerdiness started young) and thought that eating meals, being at school after the sun went down and then sleeping there with all of my friends would be fabulous. Now I'm a bit older and wiser I can see that boarding school would likely not have been all it was cracked up to be in my head but if I'm going to be stuck on a desert island, I figure escapism to a magical place of my childhood might be just what the doctor ordered.





Book choice two: Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose (selected and edited by Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi)

I'd always been one of those 'girls can do anything' kids and when I got to university and started studying for my Bachelor of Arts, I was exposed to a wealth of ideas about feminism. When I continued on to study Literature papers in my Grad Dip Arts (to make up for the fact that, oddly, I did no undergrad Lit papers in my BA) the interest continued and grew and I focused a lot on the literature of women. This book was a required text for one of my papers and one I really enjoyed for the fact that you could dip in and out of it and it always gave you something to think about. I know that if I'm going to be alone with nothing but trees to talk to for an indefinite period of time, I'll need something to keep me thinking to stave off the insanity!

Book choice three: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (edited with intro from Diane Wood Middlebrook and Diana Hume George) 

Expanding on the point above, this book was also a required text. Sexton's poetry isn't exactly of the uplifting variety so it's more likely that I'll be reading it on the beach in the day time rather than by the camp fire at night but it's got a lot to it so will give me something to think about.

Book choice four: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Some books you can read and read and they never get old. For me, Wuthering Heights is one of those books and it's not because I wish that I could have a dark and moody lover named Heathcliff brooding over me. The main reason I love this book is the atmosphere, the stormy Yorkshire moors, the old stone houses and the creaking gates in the wind... *shiver*. Absolutely fantastic!

Book choice five: The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of Modern China by Emma Pakula.

I'm noticing that a lot of my choices are non-fiction and/or educational. This one is all about the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, the first President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Apparently she was something of a power-house and by all accounts, one helluva interesting lady so I thought why not take the time to learn something about the history and formation of my husband's country of origin from the perspective of one of the most powerful women at that time.

Gribbin Head Lighthouse
Image credit: Wild About Britain

Book choice six: Lighthouses by Jenny Linford

Growing up on the rugged and beautiful coastline of Cornwall means I have salt water running through my veins. I never feel more alive than when I'm standing on a cliff top, looking out over the ocean, preferably with a good strong breeze blowing through my hair. As a result, when I moved away from the Cornish coast to the more sedate (but still beautiful) coastline of Auckland, I became a little obsessed with lighthouses. My old office at Massey University was plastered with pictures of lighthouses, and since I worked in a Psych department there were of course more than a few Freudian explanations offered for this love of mine! Nothing Freudian about it, honest. I just find them evocative and beautiful and they remind me of romping along the cliff paths in St. Austell Bay towards Gribbin Head.

Book choice seven: The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton


This book was recommended to me by a friend but I haven't read it yet. I figure that if there is ever a time I will need to be consoled, it'll be when I'm stuck on a desert island.

Book choice eight: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

My father read this to my younger brother and I when we were kids. I loved the book, I loved the movies and it's a massive book which means it will keep me occupied for a while. There's nothing like a bit of Mordor to distract from the fact you're stranded, right?

Luxury item: Unlimited supply of writing supplies.

What would some of your Desert Island book choices be? Luxury item?

Sunday Salon: Enid Blyton

This Sunday is Mother's Day here in Taiwan and it got me thinking about my reading childhood. I was a serious bookworm in my earlier years. I didn't mind being collected from school late because it meant extra time in the library and I regularly snuck a torch under the bedcovers to read 'just another chapter' before sleep overtook me. I read almost anything I could get my hands on but one of the authors who pretty well defined my childhood was Enid Blyton and since Sunday is all about the women who shaped our childhoods, this post is dedicated to her.

She was born on 11th August 1897 and passed away well before I was born on 28th November 1968. She was a prolific children's writer and enjoyed huge popular success. She did suffer some problems, namely the "Blyton Bans" where allegedly her books were removed from the children's section on the library and the BBC ban which I wrote about in an earlier post. The ban was apparently because she used a vocabulary that was thought to be too limited and presented a "too rosy" version of the world. Perhaps this is true, perhaps there aren't 'lashings of ginger beer' in real life and perhaps it's not possible to make a bed for the night out of heather and bracken on the moor but you know what? I don't care. Reading is escapism and as a kid, I wasn't interested in whether I could really do all of these things. I was far more interested in pretending that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

I tore through all of the Famous Five series and the majority of the Secret Seven. My childhood best friend and I would spend hours holed up in her backyard, ducking behind the back wall whilst we surveilled the neighbours in the farmhouse across the field. Of course, they weren't doing anything suspicious but we keenly documented every movement in and around that household... that is, until dinner was served. I also absolutely loved the boarding house series she wrote: Malory Towers, St. Clare's and Whyteleafe, where The Naughtiest Girl was educated. Stories of midnight feasts and the crazy escapades they got up to were just the thing I wanted to read. I inhaled it all, start to finish and then read it all over again. These books sparked my imagination, made anything seem possible (hello, Magic Faraway Tree!) and provided the pure, simple escapism into a world where the worst problems could be overcome with the help of your 'chums', a loyal dog and some more ginger beer.



This magical world of Blyton was a pillar of my childhood and for this reason, on Mother's Day, I choose this literary icon to say a big THANK YOU to.

Which author played a part in your childhood?

Sunday Salon: Nostalgia and reading

Now there's some old books...
Image copyright: Kath Liu 2011

I don't know if it's a result of coming face to face with my long-lost past during The Big Trip or if it's just one of those things that comes around once in a while but right now I have a serious case of nostalgia. I've been looking up all of my favourite tunes from the 90's and enjoying a good little bop down memory lane. I've been singing along with Eternal, dancing around my living room to En Vogue and re-living the best of Tupac Shakur. For a bookish British girl, you might think that I have a very unexpected taste in music, but I'll bet you didn't know that Tupac was, according to one of his biographies  Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur by M. Dyson, a huge reader.

In any case, this attack of the nostalgic got me thinking about the books I had read and loved as a younger person. More specifically, books I had read and loved 10 or more years ago that I hadn't re-read. Would I still love them? Is it possible for the books we loved in our youth to ever going to stand up to us reading them again as adults?

I mean, I'm only 28 years old but already my perspectives have shifted significantly in the single decade it took to get me from only-just-adult to only-just-figuring-out-life. Goodness only knows what changes, lessons and wisdom will come in the next decade or two! So I wonder - are the books I loved then bound to be a little tired now? Or is good literature just plain good no matter how old you are?

I guess it depends on the books and to be really sure I'd have to go back and road test a few old favourites... but with the mountainous To Be Read pile staring at me balefully from my bookshelf, I should probably spend my time on discovering new favourites rather than trying to re-spark something that I may have already outgrown. Sometimes it's kind of like your first love - you look back with fond memories and sometimes you allow yourself to wonder 'what if...' but going back is rarely a good idea. It's better to keep it on the treasured memories shelf rather than let is slide into the what was I thinking bin.

Have you lost any happy memory books by re-reading them at a later stage? Or have you found something fresh and new in old favourites?

Me? I'm just happy re-living the musical moments of years gone by. Good tunes never get old!

Sunday Salon: The Reading Slump

Now if I had a nook like this
I'm sure I'd never have a reading
slump, like, ever.
Image copyright: Kath Liu 2011

Yep, the first slump of the year has hit and my blogging mojo has also somewhat hit the skids. I'm not sure exactly what causes these slumps. I mean, really - what is my life without reading? I'm a book lover, a reading nerd, the bookish girl that everyone asks for reading recommendations. Why, then, do I have these periods of time where I don't pick up a book for ages? Right now I really need to not be in a reading slump. I have to get The Lacuna done and read and write the review within the next 2 weeks. I'm currently on page 21. Come on!! What's going on in there, brain?

Having just written that first paragraph, sat back and reflected, I think I can pinpoint the cause of my slump. It's performance anxiety. It's that nagging little voice. You know the one - the annoying little nay-sayer that barges in, makes himself comfy in the back of your mind and sighs and shakes his head and occasionally comments "You're never going to make it, you know..." or "It's all going to fall down around your ears soon..." I often have this little bugger hanging around telling me that I'm never going to get my thesis finished on time. Unsatisfied with this, it seems he has moved on to my reading and blogging.

This year, I've been making a massive effort to blog regularly and interestingly. It's been going quite well and I've been very happy to welcome about 50 new followers (hi guys!) But I logged in today to find that the air had been let out of my "OMG I have 100 followers" balloon when someone un-followed me. I know, I know, I shouldn't take it personally - but I do. Of course, this was just fuel for the nay-sayer's fire: "See? The decline in your success is already happening..."

Alright! Enough already! You. Nay-sayer. Out! I am officially evicting you. Pack your sad little suitcase and get out of my head. Go on. Shoo!

Image source: Here

OK. I feel better already. I'm sure I will get another follower sometime. I still have 2 weeks to read The Lacuna. I will get back on track with my War and Peace mission today. Reading is supposed to be fun and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it become a chore.

Do you ever have reading slumps? If so, what causes yours?

Sunday Salon: Home and books

Home. Where is home? What is home? For a good deal of folks, this question is too obvious to even give much consideration to but for those of us who have chosen the expatriate life this can be a bit of a tricky one.

St Austell, ©2003, Myra Davey

I was born in Cornwall, England and lived the first (almost) thirteen years of my life there. I lived in the same town the whole time, went to school with pretty much the same people the whole time and had all of my extended family within shouting distance. It was comfortable. I loved Cornwall. I felt connected to the place that included but went beyond the ties of family and comfort and Cornish pasties. Even now, if I see a picture of a Cornish coastline I get a little lump in my throat - it's not only the people who were important it was also the land that I felt connected to in a way that's hard to really put into words.

Auckland's Sky Tower
© Kath Liu, 2008

Then, three months before my thirteenth birthday, life got flipped on its head and we moved to New Zealand. We spent the first few months wandering around, seeing where we would settle. This involved me going to three different schools within six months. Luckily, by the third school, my family had decided where we would be and I ended up staying at that school for five years. As soon as I knew we were staying there I was gripped by the desire to settle again, to grow myself the roots I no longer had. To grow a history with people - I had known all of my friends in Cornwall since I was seven years old, sometimes younger - became my primary objective. Here I wasn't sure yet where I belonged, whom I could call 'friend' and this left me feeling incredibly unmoored. I felt like a tiny boat, bobbing around in the sea with nothing to anchor me down. It didn't help that my parents were going through exactly the same thing as I was and were a touch pre-occupied with how they were dealing with settling in a new country to see how it was affecting me or my brother.

Soon enough though, I started to feel settled in New Zealand. I found connections and started to grow back those roots, little by little, into the soil of my new home. My confidence level was not what it was in Cornwall and so I shied away from clubs and school plays (something I had always been involved in before) and I retreated more into the world of books. Reading became a major source of comfort for me and even though what I was reading wasn't anything of literary note (Sweet Valley High, anyone?) it helped me navigate the treacherous waters of becoming a teenager in a new country. Without anyone to guide me on the intricacies of female interaction, I devoured this sort of book and took mental notes on what sort of things were expected and which sort of things were not. Reading almost became the replacement Aunties I no longer had access to (remember this was the late 90's and email and Skype and Facebook were not there to help me out!)

Me in front of Taipei 101
© Art Liu, 2008

Sixteen years and another move to a different country (Taiwan) after that I am finally going back to Cornwall. Ever since the day I left, I have not been back. I planned to on a couple of occasions but family circumstances held me back. Now, these circumstances no longer exist and I am returning to England.  I left as a 13 year old not knowing I would not return for such a long time, not realising I would never see some much loved family members ever again, unaware of the life and adventures that lay ahead of me. I return as a 28 year old, knowing what I've missed and what I have lost, but also what I have gained from being in NZ and Taiwan. It's going to be a very emotional trip but one I just cannot wait for.

So the concept of 'home' for me is a very fluid thing. It is the place I was born and spent my childhood, it is also where I grew up and became a woman and it is the place where I currently live. All of these vastly different places, Cornwall, New Zealand and Taiwan, are all 'home' to me. The 'why' and 'how' changes but the fact that they are all home doesn't. I feel a strong connection to each and every place. This makes me sound splintered but actually I feel enriched. There's something from everywhere that makes me who I am and I'm really grateful to have had the life I have and through it all, I have had books by my side, providing an escape, providing guidance and being at times the one thing I could rely on.

Where is 'home' for you and how have books helped you through some of life's challenging times?

Sunday Salon: Thinking of Japan

It's only been two weeks since I posted about the devastating earthquake that hit Christchurch and now here I am again, glued to the television set, looking on in horror as another country is laid low by mother nature's power. Last time it was my home country, this time it is the home country of my sister-in-law. Luckily, all of her family and all of her friends are accounted for and safe, there were a few tense hours when she wasn't able to reach a friend of hers who lives near one of the nuclear power plants that has been having issues but as luck would have it she was in another part of Japan entirely and was fine.

Screen capture of the status update
that alerted me to the news.

The thing that struck me about this quake/tsunami (besides the obvious distress and devastation) was how I found out about it. I was having a real failure of a study day on Friday. My brain was stuck in neutral and no amount of coffee or cajoling was going to change that. I gave up and checked Facebook to see if one of my friends had played his move on Scrabble. In my news feed I saw another friend post "Dang big earthquake in Japan". I wasn't sure if he was talking about the other quakes they had had in the last couple of days so I googled it. Sure enough, there it was - breaking news. The earthquake happened at 2.46pm (Tokyo time) and he put an update about it on Facebook at 3.26pm (Tokyo time), only forty minutes later. The immediacy of the transfer of information is just astonishing but is becoming more and more common.

After calling my sister-in-law to make she knew and could check on her family and friends, I turned on the BBC World Service. It was already showing coverage of the quake and that's where I learned that it wasn't just an earthquake but a terrible tsunami was in progress. Within the first few minutes I was watching they upgraded it from a 7.6 to an 8.4 to an 8.9 on the richter scale and the phrase "Super Quake" and "The Big One" started being thrown around. Forget studying. I spent the rest of the afternoon glued to the news footage, a constant onslaught of horrific images and facts that were hard to absorb and truly comprehend. My sister-in-law came over for dinner that night and we spent a while longer in front of the news until we both got to saturation point and agreed to turn it off and watch something light-hearted for a mental break. I've been rationing my consumption of it ever since. Of course I care but I don't think it is necessarily wise or helpful to sit through looped repetitive coverage of the same thing over and over and over. I know it's what a lot of people like to do when there is a big event like this but I don't.

Pictures of the devastation
Image credit: BBC

I have to say though, through it all my admiration for the Japanese people has only grown. There was one piece of footage within a supermarket when the quake was happening and the store workers were trying to hold up the shelves to make sure they didn't collapse and hurt anyone. That kind of captured it for me, really. The sense of the greater good and pulling together that is sometimes somewhat lacking in other societies was so good to see. The BBC were interviewing a psychologist at one point and he too was commenting on the really pro-social behaviours that everyone seemed to be displaying. Even in the face of serious danger and personal risk. I'm impressed.

If you're wondering how to help, there are a bunch of international aid agencies that have sprung into action. I got this link from a blog post on the same subject by Eileen over at Sincerely, Eileen which seems to be mainly for those residing in America but the same agencies will likely have branches wherever you're living so make sure you check in with The Red Cross, Save the Children and places like that.

Just in case I missed the lesson from Christchurch (I didn't) this only reinforced the concept that life is unpredictable and not to be taken for granted. I plan on switching off the TV and logging off the internet a bit more and spending even more time reading, playing with my dog and hugging my husband. I sincerely hope that my life remains normal and uninterrupted by this kind of disaster and I don't plan on living a life where I keep looking over my shoulder - I just want to make sure mentally I'm here, in my life, enjoying the many blessings I have.

My thoughts are with you Japan, and with everyone all over the world who is suffering the effects of natural or man-made disasters.

Sunday Salon: Reading roundup

This Sunday was a bit of a washout to say the least. It was the one day where hubby was home between week long trips away and I spent most of it asleep on the couch, thanks to the flu virus I'm still doing battle with. I'm now writing this on Monday night, feeling much improved it has to be said.

Reading has been slow going around these parts lately, mainly due to my reading War and Peace AND Snow by Orhan Pamuk concurrently, both hefty novels of serious literary content. I've just this very instant finished Snow and I'm desperately wondering if I have anything intelligent to say about it. I think it will take a few more days of percolations through the old grey matter before I can commit to an opinion. One thing I can say is that I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a very challenging read but one that leaves your brain feeling good, like it's just done a vigorous workout at the gym. It taught me things that I hadn't known previously, like a lot of Turks migrate to Germany (I still want to find out why) and did so in a language engaging and ethereal. It's a serious book but I totally recommend it if you're a fan of literature.

Next up, I have The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson and Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill in my sights, the first for my own pleasure and the second for April's Book Club. Hopefully I can get some pace back into my reading again with these two, for no other reason than to make sure I can get around to reading all of the amazing books I've come across lately. Hopefully the one positive of the hubby being away is that the couch will be exclusively mine for a week and the PlayStation will be off which makes for good reading conditions.

I hope everyone else had a a healthier Sunday than I did! What are you planning on reading next?

Sunday Salon: Thinking of Christchurch

This week has been a very sad one for everyone who is connected with New Zealand. As you will no doubt have heard, on Tuesday 22nd February a 6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch, NZ's second largest city. This quake was smaller than the 7.1 that hit Christchurch 5 months ago but it caused infinitely more damage as the quake was shallower, buildings were already weakened by the previous quake and this time it struck in the middle of the day. As a result, a lot of my reading time has been directed towards keeping up to date with the happenings on the various news websites and on the BBC World's news updates.

Photo credit: Richard Cosgrove/The Press

Thankfully, the few people I did know down there are all alive and well but many aren't. The latest numbers put the death toll at 147 but there are still many people missing. As a Kiwi sitting half-way across the world it's really hard to know that there's nothing much you can do. There are thousands without the basics of power or clean water, one third of all buildings are likely to be condemned and torn down leaving people without homes and there are more injured people than the medical staff know what to do with. I strongly wish I could go back and help them out but I know I'd only get in the way. I've donated money of course but when something like this happens, I really just want to roll up my sleeves and help out.

Photo credit: Don Scott/The Press

Natural disasters happen all over the world and affect hundreds of thousands of people every year. Luckily, New Zealand was fairly well prepared for an earthquake (although I think it's fair to say that up until the September 2010 quake, nobody would have dreamed it would strike Christchurch) and is a prosperous nation with a stable and effective government. It could definitely be a lot worse, but it's still a nightmare for those stuck in the thick of it. These people are in my thoughts and have my sincere sympathies. Kia kaha, people of Christchurch. I know you will make it through.

If you would like to know more about what's going on, check out:
Stuff News Website
NZ Herald Website
TVNZ Website
Twitter and search for the #eqnz hashtag

If you would like to help out, have a look here:
TVNZ donation information page
Stuff News Website donation information page
Julie at Anglers Rest
Join in the 2 minutes of silence on Tuesday 1st March at 12.51pm (UTC+13) wherever you are and send good vibes, prayers and love to those affected.

Sunday Salon: Reading roundup

This week it was wet, cold, grey and uninspiring outside: perfect weather for snuggling up with a book under a blanket! Luckily, we had our February book club meeting on Wednesday - typically a highlight of my month. Our book club got started when a few of us met at Survival Chinese at the Community Services Center. We'd all pretty much just arrived and were figuring out life in Taiwan. It's a nervous time when you relocate to a new community, whether it be 100 miles or 10,000 miles from your home. The same questions circle in your head: will I find friends? Will I like it? What will I do when I get there? It doesn't matter how many times you've done it before. Happily, we were all new and so were in the same boat. Over a cup of coffee one morning, someone asked if we knew of any book clubs that were accepting new members. There wasn't so we formed our own and we're now into our second year of reading and have 15 members.

The Book Club: good books, good coffee and cake

This month we were reading a book that I had nominated: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I was a little nervous as my enthused Atwood recommendations have not always met with success in the past. Despite being a fully paid up member of the "Atwood is Awesome" fan club, I know that her fiction can be a bit of an acquired taste. I got increasingly worried when I heard through the grapevine that a number of people were having a tough time with the book. Still, armed with my list of questions for discussion I braved the meeting. As I stirred my cup of tea, I eyed the other ladies... there were no signs of any concealed weapons so I saw fit to proceed.

What transpired was relieving. Although the larger portion had at first started off wondering what on earth this book was all about and why on earth I had recommended it, at least half ended up loving it and wanted to read Oryx and Crake, the complementary book and first in this MaddAddam trilogy (third book pending). Those that I failed to convince had good reasons: they found it too preachy or heavy-handed - and I can see how they could feel that. PHEW! It's always a bit of a risk when you put yourself out there and recommend a book that you really like but this time it paid off.

Have you ever made a recommendation for a book club or for a friend that you were a bit worried about? Tell me about it!

Sunday Salon: Reading roundup

Since this weekend was Unputdownables' 48-hour readathon I've been somewhat pre-occupied with reading this week. Well duh! I hear the audience shout. You're a book blogger! What next? You tell us how fond you are of a good story? Good point but I'm not only talking about the act of me reading books. I've also been very much taken in with the 'being read' aspect of book blogging lately.

You see, at the end of last year I had about 50 followers and an average of about 5 hits per day. I was happy enough with this and most grateful for the 50 souls who liked what they saw on my blog enough to hit "Follow".  I wished I could get past this seemingly magical number of 50 followers but then I wasn't really sure how. So, things were just trundling along until I came face to face with two things:
1) Twitter
2) Bloggiesta

I had long eschewed Twitter for one reason (which remains true today): I just don't care to hear about the micro-details of anyone's day and I'm darned sure they don't want to hear about mine. I was fairly well convinced that Twitter was just a collection of
12.34pm - Eating a sandwich for lunch - yum cheese and tomato!
12.46pm - Yawn I don't want to go back to work.
12.57pm - Ok maybe a cup of coffee will help me do this job without me dying of boredom.
12.59pm - Someone drank the last of the coffee and didn't refill it! Anger!
Etc etc ad nauseum.
But then I started noticing the Follow Me on Twitter buttons on a large number of book blogs that I read, enjoyed and respected. Hmm, I thought. Perhaps if these intelligent folks here are using it, there might be something in it. So I took a peek. And then I realised what the fuss was about. I posted my first tweet in November 2010 and became a serious user after the second of my recent epiphanies, Bloggiesta.

I had seen Bloggiesta happening on the blogosphere but I'd been a bit shy to join in. Why? I have no idea, it's daft I know. However this year I decided to go for it. It was actually kind of perfect timing as I had just been doing a bit of an overhaul of my layout and theme.  So with a bluster of enthusiasm, I signed up for a few mini-challenges and dedicated a good number of hours to sitting in front of my laptop working on my blog. I learned so much. I learned things I knew I didn't know anything about as well as things I had no idea I didn't know about. Huge shout-out to Maw Books for organising it.

So armed with a new Twitter account and a much increased knowledge thanks to Bloggiesta, I turned to blogging with renewed enthusiasm and determination. I'm reading and commenting on more blogs, spending time on dreaming up post ideas and generally putting a lot more time into this bog. So far so good - my hit rate has increased to an average of 30 per day within 2 weeks and I've got 8 new followers. Yay!

In terms of real life, nose in a paperback reading I've been making my way through Orhan Pamuk's Snow for Unputdownables' Readathon. My progress has been something akin to trying to walk through a thick fall of fresh snow - slow, hard work but brilliantly beautiful. It feels like a novel that needs to have time taken over it so I'm honouring that, even though I'm very aware that there are more people in the Bookcrossing ring after me who are waiting to read this!

Snow progress:
Friday 5th (evening): Snow (Orhan Pamuk) 101 - 177 or nine chapters
Saturday 6th (evening): Snow (Orhan Pamuk) 177 - 211 or three chapters
Sunday 7th (day):  Snow (Orhan Pamuk) 211 - 277 and counting (I'm writing this in the afternoon)

Wow, that ended up being quite a long post. If you made it to the end, congrats! Out of interest.... Bloggers: what have you done/do on a regular basis to increase the readership of your blog? Readers: what makes you come back to a blog?

The Thirteenth Tale: Review

The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
Published in 2006
Published by Washington Square Press
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9803-2

I borrowed this book from a friend and I was not paid for this review.

When a well known figure refuses to tell us their life story, we tend to get a bit annoyed. They're famous! How can they possibly expect any privacy?! As ridiculous as I know that is, I am just as guilty as anyone else on this count. I want to know about the authors who write my favourite books, the actors in the movie I just watched or the latest television series I happen to be obsessing over (Dexter and Castle right now) and, I hate to admit, love to read the Entertainment section on the news website. Normally before I read the world news.

So imagine, then, the intrigue of being approached by a hugely successful and reclusive author to be the one person to whom she will tell her full story. It's enough to get Margaret Lea to leave the comfort zone of her father's bookstore and venture up to the Yorkshire Moors to meet Vida Winter. Ms. Winter is the grand mistress of fantastical fiction, especially fantastical are the tales she tells to nosey journalists who ask about her personal life. But this time she intends to tell the truth. She has a painful past to get out of her system and time is running out.

This novel spins together all of the threads I love the best: a bookworm heroine, the dark, blustery setting of the moors, an old house, a terrible family secret (or three) and beautiful writing. As Ms. Winter reveals more about her past, you can't help but be completely enveloped by her story and the fact that half the time she's withholding vitals bits of information that Margaret has to unearth herself only makes it all the more fascinating.

The best bit about this novel for me was that it felt a little bit like Wuthering Heights revisited. It has this wonderfully atmospheric feel to it which triggers a sort of primal urge to throw caution to the wind and sprint across the moors in the middle of a storm. Like Wuthering Heights it kept me riveted, unable to tear myself away from the story unless my husband staged a physical intervention and removed the book from my white-knuckled hands. Basically, this book is one that is at once literary, enjoyable and thoroughly engaging. It is one that I think would be safe to recommend without abandon and I do. If you haven't already read it and you're looking for a great read, this is one for you.

Have you read this book? If you have, what did you think?