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Sunshine Blogger Award and One Lovely Blog Award
We went on holiday, and I managed to get sick (again!), so while I’m recovering from that I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer these two awards I was tagged in. Labelling them awards seems a bit lofty, they were memes back in the old days of blogging (he says, feebly waving his fist in the air), but either way thanks to those of you who thought to tag me! I’ve been nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by Lady Emily Rose over at Knight of Angels. The Rules 1. Thank the blogger who nominated you in your blog post and a link back to the blog. (Thanks, Emily!)…
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Whisky Galore
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie Published: 1947 Narrated by: David Rintoul Length: 09:30 (304 pages) I love whisky, and I’ve been making an effort to incorporate more Scottish literature into my reading, so that was really all I really needed to pick this classic up. This is based on a real event during the Second World War. A cargo ship, the SS Politician, ran aground off the coast of the island of Eriskay with twenty-eight thousand cases of malt whisky and a very large sum of money on board, which was partially looted by the island’s residents. This novel takes place on two fictional islands, Great Todday and Little Todday,…
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Gemini Rue
Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure Game Developer/Publisher: Joshua Neurnberger/Wadjet Eye Games Release Date: February 24, 2011 Platform: PC (also on Mobile) Time Played: 7.5 Hours For a change of pace, I thought I’d start incorporating a bit of video games here from time to time. The focus will still be on books, but gaming is another hobby I’m passionate about, and it might be interesting (maybe just for me) to mix it up here a bit. If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventure games, you’re likely familiar with Wadjet Eye Games, a game studio founded by Dave Gilbert that has been publishing a steady stream of quality adventure games for just over…
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July in Review
Books Acquired: Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen Paper Girls, Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan Books Read: Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith Himself by Jess Kidd Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions by Alberto Manguel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Paper Girls, Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan Not a lot happened this month. I’ve been dealing with some on and off health stuff and generally feeling meh, but in an attempt to kick me out of this little slump (and to celebrate/hide for my birthday), we’ve booked a trip to Oahu! We…
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Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith Published: 2006 Series: Portuguese Irregular Verbs Length: 128 pages This is a novella I picked up at the local charity book sale this year, and it’s essentially a series of short stories featuring the insufferable Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, a language professor in Germany whose 1200 page magnum opus Portuguese Irregular Verbs was given the following review: “There is nothing more to be said on this subject. Nothing.” Each story features him with his various acquaintances as they as they stumble through increasingly absurd situations. The structure immediately brought to mind Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog),…
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Nimona
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson Format: Original Graphic Novel Publisher: Harper Collins Published: 2015 Length: 266 pages I believe this started its life as a webcomic and eventually became Noelle Stevenson’s debut graphic novel. She has since gone on to write Lumberjanes, which is a comic I’ve considered in the past and am much more interested in after reading this. A young woman shows up in a villain’s hideout and declares herself his new sidekick. This begins as a classic young adult fantasy narrative between an ineffectual (in the big picture) villain, Lord Ballister Blackheart, and the town hero, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, who are in a state of a perpetual, and…
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Norse Mythology
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman Published: 2018 Narrated by: Neil Gaiman Length: 06:29 (304 pages) I’ve never really gotten into any mythology. I’ve enjoyed some of the stories in the past, but the names and details just never seemed to stick. Most of what I knew of the Norse myths going into this sadly came from Marvel movies. This is the first time I’ve read an actual retelling, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A few months ago, I started to play the new God of War game. The story in the previous iterations of the game dealt with figures from Greek mythology, but this one makes the switch over to…
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Only Human
Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel Published: 2018 Narrated by: Full Cast Series: Themis Files #3 Length: 08:43 (336 pages) This is the final novel in the Themis Files trilogy, and I’m really happy with the way Sylvain Neuvel wrapped things up. I was curious about where the series would go after the cliffhanger in the second book, but he handled that perfectly. In this series, a group of scientists find pieces of a giant robot buried underground throughout the world and try to reassemble them, and doing so has consequences they could have never imagined. The story is full of surprises and major events, you really aren’t sure how things…
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The Sense of an Ending
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Published: 2011 Length: 150 pages This is my first Julian Barnes novel, and I really enjoyed it. Beautifully written with an interesting plot, one that manages to turn the story on its head at the end without it feeling at all gimmicky or contrived. If you’ll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn’t experience ‘the Sixties’ until the Seventies. Which meant, logically, that most people in the Sixties were still experiencing the Fifties – or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing. The first part of this follows a boy, Tony Webster, and…
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June in Review
Books Acquired: None Books Read: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman Nimona by Noelle Stevenson Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie Happy Canada Day! I am at the end of a multi-week chest cold, and I’m currently wallowing in self-pity until this bloody thing finally finishes with me. We’ve had some beautiful weather here this month too, but when I’ve been outside I mainly just felt like lying in the middle of a field and quietly dying. The last few days have been much better, thankfully, so I’m starting to find joy in life once more. We did still get out, though, and Paisley…
