Newest Addictions To My Bookshelf

While i was in London at the London Book Fair this month, i also did a load of sightseeing in the city as we went for a few extra days.

We did all the usual hotspots, such as Big Ben, the Shard, and Trafalgar Square, but we also had a list of bookshops to visit as well!

Our main choices were Foyles and Waterstones Piccadilly! I think we spent about 5 hours in these shops in total, all in one night! I really love that these shops are open so late, especially with Waterstones Piccadilly being open until about 9pm and having 5 floors of books! We were in book Heaven!

I came out of Foyles with:

The Horologicon – Mark Forsyth

And i came out of Waterstones Piccadilly with:

“Moranthology” by Caitlin Moran, “Is It Just Me?” by Miranda Hart, “Warm Bodies” by Isaac Marion, and “The Perks Of Being A Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.

Got most of them on special offer so only spent about £30 on all 5, which is good considering 3 of them are hardbacks!

So, i have got lots to reading through in May!

A long and busy week

Hello, i haven’t forgotten about this blog! Been a long and busy week! But been working a bit less than usual, thankfully, because i’ve been rather tired!

Totally out of character, i said yes to accompanying my friend to a viewing of England vs Ukraine last Tuesday, and we ate a whole pizza each! Once i get into a match, i will keep watching! At least England won that game!

On Wednesday, i had an interview! Was a very long day as i had to get up at 6am and get the train to Oxford! Spent about 10 hours on 8 trains! You can’t say i’m not dedicated! Interview went ok, i think! I spent a few hours wnadering around Oxford, and the weather was gloriously sunny and warm (not the best when you’re wearing dark-coloured interview gear!) so was nice to chill out a bit. I saw some beautiful architecture, and was so tempted to go into the Bodleian Library, but i didn’t really have time to go around it! I’ll have to make a trip sometime in the future because Oxford is a very literary-rich city!

The Bodleian Library, Oxford

Saw lots of graduates in their robes in the city as it seemed to be a graduation day, and also, on the train south of Birmingham i saw people all dressed up and heading to the Royal Ascot for the racing! I also walked around a few shops, my first choice being Waterstones! Even though i wasn’t supposed to be buying books, i ended up with one!

Zeina – Nawal El Saadawi (via Amazon)

On Thursday, i went to watch the Olympic Torch arrive at Bowness-on-Windermere! It was great to be part of something so huge! It rained a fair bit, as is expected in the Lakes, but that didn’t dampen our spirits, in fact my friend was eating an icecream while standing under her brolly!

The Olympic Torch Relay – the stage at Bowness

Haven’t really been getting very far with my latest reading challenge, although i read a lot of one of my books on the way down to Oxford. I’m afraid i ended re-reading the Twilight saga again, instead of reading the books i haven’t read yet!

Have a bit more free time this week, so i will be getting on with my reading!

An afternoon spent in a bookshop

Me and a friend spent yesterday wandering around every shop selling books we could find in town!

We discussed many books that we’d read, yet to read, or were curious about. We basically went around Waterstones from A-Z looking at everything! We were glad to see a section on translated fiction, although it was tiny and only had about 8 books on display, and i had read a few of them already.

I was also very pleased to find “Z for Zachariah” by Robert C. O’Brien on display, as i have been wanting to get a copy of it for a while, but had previously only found secondhand copies on Amazon, and i wanted a new copy. So i got a brand new print copy for £6.99! I read it at school and found it very interesting and have been wanting to re-read it for a while! It’s a great apocalyptic tale! So that brings my total up to 9 books acquired in the last week or so! (See March Madness – Buying Books for the other 8).

Z for Zachariah (Puffine Teenage Fiction) - Robert C. O'Brien (via Amazon)

Me and my friend raved about how much we love The Hunger Games, and wonder how on Earth we didn’t know about the trilogy even though it’s been out for years! She has only read the first book, so i had to bite my tongue and try not to spoil the other two books for her in my passion for them! The books are just brilliant though! We both can’t wait for the film to come out, hoping that it won’t ruin the books for us! Still annoyed that people keep comparing The Hunger Games to Twilight though – they’re nothing alike! Twilight is paranormal romance and (let’s face it) Bella is a pretty substandard heroine, while The Hunger Games is an epic dystopian tale with Katniss being a fascinating and compelling heroine! But i won’t rant any more about that now…

We also discussed how the last few popular genres have fared and wondered what would come next. We came up with the following list:

Witches and Wizards (Harry Potter) → Vampires (Twilight and so on) → Werewolves (briefly) → Apocalyptic → Dystopian (The Hunger Games and so on) →

What would come next? Some kind of rebirth series? Phoenixes? More undead? Or something completely different?

So Many Books, So Little Time

Lately, choosing books to read has become a lot more difficult.

Maybe it’s because I want to review every book I read for this blog and so I’m being more careful about my choices, so I seem more cultured and educated. (Although if you look at my reading list for 2011 you will see that i re-read Twilight several times, so make of that what you will, but i quite like an easy read from time to time!)

Or maybe I’ve just suddenly grown up and realised that, as a result of having studied a publishing degree, I am more aware of a wider range of books which I never considered reading before, particularly as I wrote my dissertation on translated fiction and now choose to read more of them.

Or maybe it’s because my parents have taken a liking to Scandinavian crime fiction, thanks to Stieg Larsson, and now seem to exclusively read crime novels by Scandinavian authors. I’m not a huge fan of crime but I loved The Millennium Trilogy.

My Amazon Wishlist has been steadily growing and lately it consists of more books than anything else, especially since getting a Kindle. Amazon will be so happy to see me searching through all their books and wishing for so many of them, but I feel like I’m betraying Waterstones and all the other book retailers and not supporting them by solely looking on Amazon.

I still pop into Waterstones every now and then, and wander around the shelves to see what is doing well in the shop displays and so on. I still like scanning shelves and picking up the books which stand out, and although you shouldn’t, I always judge a book by its cover first and then read the blurb on the back, and then maybe read the first page to see what its like.

The experience feels so much different online: I hunt through the bestsellers and then see what other customers have been buying or looking at and it goes on like that. Or I search for an author I already know and then see what other similar authors are recommended. I find myself finding an interesting book and doing the inevitable scroll down to the customer reviews to see what people think. I shouldn’t really base my choices on what other write about the novels as they aren’t always very positive and I should read the book and work out for myself what I think of it, but I find myself rejecting many a book due to whether it has a higher percentage of negative comments.

I also read newspapers and see what books their literary sections are talking about and their recommendations and reviews, and I use Twitter to see what like-minded people are reading as well.

So anyway, with these methods I still find plenty of intriguing books, both homegrown and foreign, and its got to the point where my Christmas list was composed of about 18 book titles, of which I only received 2! So I still have loads left to read, and there just feels like too many books to read them all, especially as every day a new selection of books is published or I discover more books which I havent read yet which have been around for a while!

So I can hardly write a list here of all the books I want, you only have to look at how many books I’ve got on the go at the moment in My Reading Journal to see that I’m constantly eager to start something new before I’ve finished the previous!

I wonder if anyone else works the same way as I do when finding novels to read, or if anyone else has the same problem when it comes to being overeager to start the next one?

Book Review: The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

The Junior Officers' Reading Club (via Amazon)

I have finally finished reading “The Junior Officers’ Reading Club” by Patrick Hennessey, after having started it last year (October 21st 2010, as i found that my bookmark in it was my train ticket for the day i bought it!).

I’m not sure why it took me so long to read it, at first it was just one book i bought in Waterstones’ 3 for 2 offer and started reading on my commute home from university that evening, and read bits of it every journey from uni for a few weeks and then stopped. Maybe because i got too tired on an evening to read with the attention it needed, or maybe because the pain associated with a link i once had to the Forces became too much to bear ( i was in a relationship with an RAF man who left the Forces and then left me about two months before i started reading this).

Anyway, i can’t say i enjoyed reading this book, but it was very educational about just what members of the Forces go through while training and then out on tour in warzones. It describes everything as being horrific, exhilarating, boring, farcical and everything else in between. Just reading about the sheer amount of emotions soldiers go through makes you realise how petty your own are.

The sheer amount of content is staggering, the description doesn’t hold anything back, the prose just flows although is a little confusing and hectic at times as the narrator gets excited. It is very intense but you are drawn into the action and the descriptions have you picturing the scene in your head: the sounds, the sights, and the smells. Not only do we get the strange excitement and bloody horror of the battlefield, we also get the sense of boredom and jealousy during the quiet periods where the soldier is dying to get back into the fight and envious of those who have already fought and proved themselves and have their own battle stories and battle scars.

It seems bad enough to go through such terrible and tough fighting and living conditions in the warzones, but to come back home in be forced to live a civilian life with people who don’t understand what you went through seems unbearable. You don’t realise how when a soldier is distant and troubled back at home, he can’t help it. One poignant quote which will stay with me is:

“They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm”.

This book is a great insight into the mind of a soldier and although it may be difficult for some people to read, i felt it was worth spending the last year trying to read it, even if it was hard for me at times. It makes you realise how grateful you should be to the Forces who work harder than you ever will in your life.

I can’t really give it a mark out of 10 as a memoir, but i guess it would be 10 out of 10 just because its one of those books which you won’t forget in a hurry. I definitely recommend it.

Back to blogging and books!

Hello!

I have been absent from my blog for almost a month and it feels good to be back! The dreaded dissertation has finally been completed, after many sleepless nights and very little social life! I have never been so glad to get something out of the way! Last friday i handed it in and went to celebrate with other people on my course. Very weird that the MA is now finished! Just have to wait for results to see how i did, and then it’s time to job hunt!

As i was doing research for my dissertation, i came across many book-related things which i will share with you here.

Firstly, i found this BBC Radio4 programme which follows people trying to clear out books from their homes and what happens to books that have been abandoned. It’s really good because i understand how difficult it can be to get rid of books as a book-lover! (I did give many of my childhood books to charity shops when i was younger and rather thoughtless, but you have no idea how much regret doing that now!) It is available on BBCiplayer here- Too Many Books – BBCR4

The next thing of interest was this article:

Germany’s public bookshelves reincarnate well-read treasures – Deutsche Welle

It describes a trend in Germany for having bookshelves set up around cities where people can pick a book up for free and leave one they’ve read in its place, like a giant library. It’s a nice idea, but i doubt it would work so well over here in the UK.

Lastly, this article:

Reading the riot acts: why wasn’t Waterstone’s looted? – Guardian

I thought this highlighted some important issues with people’s attitudes to reading and how it can be changed. People wondered why Waterstones didn’t get looted in the recent UK riots… well, books don’t have the same importance to some people as it does to people like me who love books. Why nick a book when you can nick a TV which is worth more money? These people, who complain that they are poor and that it’s only fair that they rob the so-called “rich” people (this the general gist of the rioter’s reasons for rioting, not my own opinion – i am disgusted with them), don’t think books are worth nicking. It seems that money worth means more than intellectual worth. It also rightly points out that “If publishing is full of white, middle-class people is it any wonder that bookshops are too? The writing community can be as diverse as it likes – in class, race, religion and genre – but if publishers don’t know how to market these books, they’re not going to find readers”.

I was amused by the statement- “Waterstones even challenged rioters to loot them as “they might learn something”. But why would this make a difference? After all, i heard in one news report that looters had broken into mobile phone shops and stolen phones, but people clearing up later had found them all over the streets outside because the looters had realised that they were dummy phones of no monetary worth. Well, durr!! Stupid much?

Anyway, moving on…

I had to ban myself from reading any books unrelated to my dissertation in order to make myself concentrate so i haven’t read anything new and worth reviewing yet. Of course the book-ban didn”t work so well, i got to a point where i was so fed up of being tied to a computer screen that i relented and started re-reading Twilight again! It is an easy read and was just a nice break from killing my eyes looking at the computer screen. (Yet another reason for me not getting on board with ebooks.)

I have a big pile of books to read sitting on my bookshelves, and as my birthday is approaching next week, i suspect i will either be given books or i will get money to buy new books, so i better get on with reading them!

JK Rowling launches Pottermore

Recently, JK Rowling unveiled her new website Pottermore.com, which offers a whole new dimension to the Harry Potter series by offering ebooks of all 7 books.

It has delighted her fans, who have been waiting for the ebooks, and offers the possibility of extra stuff about the series, previously unreleased material written by Rowling.

However, it has worried the book industry, with retailers complaining because they are banned from selling the ebooks. Obviously, Waterstones had a huge role in launching the Harry Potter books from their stores at special launch events, which have been attended by huge numbers of fans queuing all night to get their copies of the books at each book launch. Retailers wanted to cash in on the ebook release of the biggest selling books of all time in a similar way to the printed book releases, but JK Rowling’s decision to limit the ebook sales to her website has annoyed a lot of people. She clearly wants to control the ebook sales and protect her material.

The books will be available as ebooks and audiobooks, and in many languages, as it is the only place where the books are available.

I suspect that  the website will crash in October when the ebooks are made available to purchase for the first time, as pretty much every fan will be accessing the website as soon as its announced! It will cause problems i’m sure, as the demand will be ridiculous! Surely it would have been easier to spread the ebook sales around several retailers to ease the predicted congestion and mania of the ebook releases!

Ah well.

I’m not sure i will be buying the ebooks, as i have the paper books already, sitting proudly on their bookshelf in all their colourful glory! Unless i can afford to buy an Ipad or something by October of course! But i will definitely be looking at the Pottermore website when its launched properly to see what its like… although i might leave it a few weeks because i suspect i won’t be able to access it right away if the sheer volume of traffic crashes the site!

2010 book sales and Waterstones news

Image via Wikipedia

Happy New Year to my readers and fellow bloggers!

During my usual daily visit to The Bookseller website, i discovered that Waterstones is suffering and is forced to close 20 of its stores over the year, further diminishing the amount of bookstores on our highstreets. See Waterstone’s confirms 20 store closures – on The Bookseller.com for more details.

At university in our last session before Christmas, we were asked to predict what would happen in 2011 in the publishing and book industry. My prediction was that Waterstones would end up on the brink of extinction, something i really hope will not happen, but seems more likely now there’s this incident of closing more stores due to needing to save costs.

Waterstone’s sister chain HMV is also struggling and closing stores, which is sad because a HMV has just opened up in my local town and this news makes me wonder if it will remain open.

Sales of books from shops have fallen over the Christmas period due to the bad snowy weather forcing shops to close due to the lack of customers able to reach them. Digital sales seem to have picked up however due to the growing popularity of the Amazon Kindle.

Book sales have taken a beating, as 2010′s bad weather at the start and end of the year caused a slump in book sales. In a Bookseller.com article, it states:

“As well as the weather playing a significant part in 2010′s poor sales, other factors leading to the decline include the loss of Borders in late 2009, as well the uncertain economic climate. A weak pound, strikes and the Icelandic ash cloud meanwhile, affected sales of travel maps and guides last year, while the increasing popularity of e-books may also have had a small, negative impact on printed book sales in 2010.”

The best-selling book of 2010, particularly in the run up to Christmas, was Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph) with sales of 1,167,457 copies! Steig Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Quercus) was also a bestseller in 2010. The bestselling children’s book was Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn with her sales totalling £16.8m in 2010, possibly helped by the release of the latest film instalment in the Twilight franchise.

See Book Sales in 2010 fall by 3% on the Bookseller.com

I hope 2011 is a better year for the book industry, otherwise there are going to be some big changes and some unfortunate events. I for one would be sad if Waterstones disappears from our highstreet.