Brennig Jones (and friends)

So, there is a bit of a mention of censorship in an earlier post, and that is one of the topics that I am interested in.  Not to say I know anything at all about it, but I find it a fascinating subject where one can talk in circles and still not resolve anything.  I am, of course, talking about censorship of books, mainly.  Because books are my ‘thang’, y’know?

Anyway, a lady came into the library today, handed over a book she had borrowed and, apropos of nothing, told me that she didn’t get more than a couple of chapters in because it was so horrific and she was disturbed by it.  Fair enough, that is what’s so good about the library (cue public broadcast); you can try a book and return it – if you don’t like it we won’t force you to read it.  Hoorah!

However, this particular lady’s comment was quite pointed.  She wasn’t simply giving me her opinion.  She added that she ‘just thought she would let us know’.  To me, that suggests she wanted me/the library service to do something about said book.

This happens on occasion.  Especially with audiobooks, because the extra sensory experience of having violent sex or murder described/read out loud is probably more disturbing than reading it to yourself.  If you see what I mean.

Anyway, I had a look at the back cover and first few pages of the book in question.  It’s Edna O’ Brien’s ‘In the Forest‘.

If you click on the ‘Look Inside’ front cover icon on the Amazon page (linked above), you can scroll to or click on the back cover link.

When the words ‘unbridled’ and ‘deranged fantasies’ and ‘haunting’ and ‘shocking’ are mentioned, I would have a fairly good idea that this book is not for the faint-hearted.

Anyway, my point is (there was a point?!), that libraries try their best to provide a wide ranging selection of books.  If we were to take everyone’s opinion and say ‘oh, right, we’ll get rid of that book then, sorry it was so offensive to you’ we would have no stock.

There has been one instance where I have taken a book off the shelf and brought it to the Librarian’s attention.  I completely forget what the title was.  It was an anonymous author.  And although it was clear to me from the cover what the contents of the book would be (erotica), it was not made clear on the back or front cover how very explicit the detail and language used would be.  And it had a cover similar to one you might find on a Mills and Boon.  Now, M&B can be a bit racy (ahem, so I’ve been told), but I flicked through this book out of interest, and even I was shocked.  I am never shocked.  Nothing fazes me.  Anyway, I passed it round the staff who were nearby and we all had a bit of a giggle (I told them to open it at any page, and they would find much rudeness) like a bunch of kids, but decided it might be wise to take it off the shelf for someone to check, before a little old lady got hold of it and had a heart attack.

I am still a bit conflicted about this, but it’s part of the job.  We select the books to buy, because we can’t buy them all.  We remove books that are tatty or not issuing.  All of it is some form of censorship.  Us library folk are fairly open-minded.  We have to be.

So when someone tells me we shouldn’t stock so much of that ‘rubbish’ and more of this ‘literature’ it’s difficult to explain that actually that ‘rubbish’ is someone else’s ‘literature’ and vice versa. We will take such comments on board, pass them on, but we have to remember that everyone has different tastes.

Personally, I will give anything a try.  Hmm, let me rephrase that – I will give any type of book a go.  I have cried with frustration at the ending of a book before now, because I thought it was a cop-out on the author’s part.  I have strong physical reactions to some books (I actually heaved the other night while reading ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’) and others I can read and then completely forget about.  Even if I’ve enjoyed them.

Anyway, this has gone way off course.

I have finished aforementioned Swedish ‘Dragon Tattoo’ book, today, in fact.  I understand the big fuss now.  I went out at lunchtime and bought the second in the trilogy.  I am currently broke, by the way.  But I bought it.  Because I had bought the first one, enjoyed it and decided that it is a collection that should be kept.

Plus the many copies that pass through the library are all falling apart and continuing to stack up long reservation lists.

I like having a crisp new book that only I have read.

Even if it means Bren and I don’t eat for a while;)

Lists!

Lists!

Lists!

Skin = EVIL

Must must *must* be good and wash and cleanse and tea-tree oil it up EVERY night.

Teeth.

Must must must put on mouthguard before bed.  But after cleaning teeth.

But not before sex.  That’s not right.  Unless you are slightly kinky.

Remember (remember, remember, remember…FAME! I wanna live forever…)

Sorry, distracted then…

<time passes>

Oh no!  I have actually forgotten what I was going to tell myself to remember.

That sucks.

Having long nails and unchewed skin around the fingers = GOOD.

Oh yes, remember that you always feel great when you’ve had a gym session.

Ignore the premonition that you will ache tomorrow and forget the immediate post-gym high.

Don’t eat everything.

You don’t have to read everything.

Everything should be removed from your vocabulary.

No, let me make that more grammatically correct:

The word ‘everything’ should be removed from your vocabulary.

Eating to excess = NOT GOOD.

Remember what the guru of all things, Mr Paul McKenna, says:

1)    Eat when you are hungry (ridiculous – I am always hungry – but remember, Paul knows that you will scoff and say such a thing, and he will tell you to learn to recognise what you body is telling you – are you hungry?  Really?  Well then, eat.  But if you just feel like shit, go do something else instead – like the 80s kids TV show ‘Why Don’t You’ advised).

2)    Eat what you want, not what you think you should (ridiculous – I will always want chocolate, cake and chips and not vegetables or fruit – but remember what Paul says? He knows that you will say that, and he quotes some 1950s experiment at you where lots of children were left to look after themselves with all types of foods available, and over the test period ate a balanced diet.)

3)    Enjoy every mouthful of food that you eat (ridiculous – do you know how stupid I look chewing everything slowly – and have you ever tried to chew porridge?? Seriously, it’s like rolling sick around in your mouth. Yeah yeah, “Paul says”…I know it works, but who has time to chew ffs?? Oh. Most people? Rightio).

4)    When you think you are full, stop eating (ridiculous – I want to finish that pricy meal my husband has splashed out on…and what about the starving children in Africa? Oh, right.  They won’t be eating my leftovers either.  OK, I’ll try.  But it won’t be easy – I was always taught to ‘clear the plate’ because then I’d get pudding…and I wonder why I have food issues…?!)

Anyway, that’s enough of this brain dumpage.

I really *really* need a wee now.

I have no excuse for you.

My lack of blogging is inspired purely by sloth and apathy to the art of writing.

Indeed, the art of doing anything that doesn’t involve sleeping and eating has been a bit of a stretch over the past couple of months.

I have received a letter from Aber Uni about my ‘pace of progress’ or lack thereof.

I have received 4 missed calls and a voicemail from my gym asking if I’m ok.

I now have shares in Dominos Pizza and Costa.

OK, I don’t, but I should!

And as for the Reading List – well.  It continues to grow.  But I can’t be arsed to add the books that I’ve read to it.

Mainly because I’ve forgotten.

I have italicised those books I started reading and gave up on, or didn’t even start reading and gave up on.

I did finish the ‘Depression’ book by Tim Cantopher.  Very interesting indeed.

I have read the Paul McKenna thin-making one too.

When I’m eating now I think ‘I should be eating this much more slowly’ and ‘I’m full so I should stop eating now’.

Thinking, my friends, is not the same as doing!

I have an arse the size of Canada.

I’m fine about this though.

Well, maybe ‘fine’ is a bit strong.  If I were to draw a picture of myself, it would be similar to an image of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon when he goes into mental mode and spins all over the place.

Because I feel as though, even though I tend to spend my evenings doing bugger all, that I’m constantly trying to keep up with myself.

That probably makes sense only to me.  And it sounded better in my head.

I need to have my brain scraped.

There’s so much clutter up there that it’s pushing out the stuff that I need to get by.

On the plus side, my fingernails are less bitten lately.

My thumbs and thumbnails, however, have had the shit chewed out of them today.

It’s completely unconscious.  Until the thumb starts to hurt and bleed.  Then I berate myself and hark back to a few moments before when the nail and thumb were intact.

Then I spend far too much time looking at said thumb and urging the skin to grow back more quickly, so that it doesn’t hurt anymore. And doesn’t look like I’ve chewed it.

It’s not nice, is it?

Reading this you’d think I am not happy.

That’s the weird thing, I’m pretty happy at the moment.  Certainly, when the lights came back on (i.e. the sun graced us with it’s presence) a couple of weeks ago, I was a different person to the one who has spent the last few months moping around and wondering what the fuck is wrong with her.

I had a gloomy day on Friday.

But I blame that on a lack of sleep and one glass of red wine with a meal.

I should just not drink.  And sleep more.

Blimey, if I slept any more than I do, I wouldn’t hold a full-time job down!

I haven’t killed any members of the public recently, or even wanted to.  This is a very positive thing, I think you’ll agree.

I have had a couple of job interviews, both unsuccessful, and applied for a few jobs that I’ve not heard anything from.  My lovely colleagues have expressed a certain amount of gladness that I’ve not got the jobs I’ve been interviewed for, because they love me so.

Well, I am very lovely, of course.

And one wise colleague has told me to stop wasting my time applying for jobs and stay with them, and spend the time concentrating on my studies instead.  This may seem like ‘stating the obvious’ to some, but I needed to be told.

She also said that I try to do too much at once.  Bless her.  She should follow me home when I try to do nothing at all.

But in a way, I think she’s right.  I want everything and I want it now.  And if I don’t get it right away, I keep it in the background and move onto the next thing that I want.  Adding another ball to the many that I’m throwing around in the air, in the vain hope that I’ll be able to catch at least one of them at some point.

Here’s an example.  The whole book thing.

Last week I returned at least 10 books to the library.

Out of those 10 books, guess how many I had read?

None.

I had started about 3 of them.

But then the Jodi Picoult book I’d reserved came in and I thought ‘now is the time to streamline, and concentrate on something’.

So I returned the 10 books and 3 dvds I’d taken out less than a week ago.

At least 2 of those books were ex-library stock that I’d bought.

Anyway, this is a constant cycle of mine.  I see a book and think that I have to have it.  Immediately.  It sits in my house for a while.  First in the lounge, then next to my bed.  More are added to either pile.  Then one day in a fit of tidying I pack them all into a re-usable Waitrose bag and take them to work with me to be redistributed among the Oxfordshire Library Service.

One day I will realise that I will never read all of the books I think I should, or even those I want to read.  It’s just impossible.  Unless writers stop writing, or the internet stops working, or the television broadcasting service dies, I’m never going to read everything.

Why does that thought scare me?

*Chews thumb-skin until there is nothing left but a bleeding stump*

So.

It’s not going too well.

This whole ‘I’m going to read all of these books this year’ project.

Like any other project I start with gusto, the enthusiasm has quickly worn off and I’ve fallen into my old ways.

Which means I continue to pick up more books from the library, at least one a week, usually more.

Tonight I sorted through the previous additions to my list with a vague recognition of desire, but they are no longer as exciting, due to my new plunder.

Here is my guilty secret.

I like Stephen King.

I’m so ashamed.

I mean, it’s ok to go through a phase of reading Stephen King as a teenager, in that kind of transition between child and adult (at least before Teenage books got their own genre and writers), but I’m a 30-year old woman girl.

Anyway, I spotted his latest epic on Friday and had to have it.

Some girls have to have handbags.  This is my equivalent.

I started reading it as soon as I got home.  Which is unknown for me, because I usually plonk the telly on and become a zombie.

It did send me to sleep, but that’s more of an indication of how tired I was, rather than the content.

It’s pacy and gristly and interesting.

It’s called ‘Under The Dome’; when I described the premise to Bren he immediately said it’s like ‘The Simpsons Movie’.

Which it kind of is.  Only with humans.  And more gore.

I think it’s about a million pages long, judging by the size of it, and I’m only about 150 pages in, so maybe I’ll get fed up of it soon.

But at the moment, I am really excited about it.

How sad is that?

The list of books posted previously is all but a faint memory now…much like that distance-learning course I started nearly three years ago and got 2 modules into and mediocre marks for…

*digs out books and module information to remind self of current assessment details*

Better dust it all off I suppose.  I need to do that whole Susan Jeffers ‘Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway’ instead of just feeling the fear and ignoring it in case I don’t measure up.

Hmm.

Babbling now.

It’s because I’ve cleaned.  It makes me happy.

Or the furniture polish-sniffing makes me high…

So.

If one returns to my original post regarding my book-challenge for 2010, one may or may not notice that the list has possibly been tampered with.

Damn those book fairies.

Anyway.

I have had the satisfaction of striking through a couple of the titles.

Sadly, this has not diminished the list due to the fact that I have added more titles to it.

So I read the Martine McCutcheon book.

I know, I know.  Celebrity writers and all that.  But she wrote it herself, and it’s pure chick-lit.  Lots of name-dropping in terms of labels and costly brands, ridiculous and contrived storyline. I devoured it.

I usually hate the idea of those celeb books – Kerry Katona, Katie Price all those chavs – but I heard this on Simon Mayo’s Books Podcast (RIP Books Podcast…), and the panel didn’t completely tear it apart, and Ms McCutcheon defended herself quite well on points that were raised.  So I thought, why not?  It’s all research, innit?

And it must be quite well-written, because I quite enjoyed it, really.  And was impressed with the outcome, no matter how unbelievable.

I also read the collection of short stories called ‘Water’ that I got for Christmas.  I won’t review all of the stories, but I really enjoyed them.  Some were excerpts from forthcoming books, and all were written by well-known, excellent writers.

The problem with this is, it has lengthened my book list.

One of the stories was by Michael Morpurgo, a children’s author who is super-popular and whom I have never read.  It was the beginning of his latest (I think) book, ‘Running Wild’.  That’s next(ish) on my list.  It was amazing – and because it was clearly building up to something, and finished just as that something was happening, I had to reserve the book (at my local library, dontcha know) so that I could find out what happens.

I always have to have the closure.

Anyway, that’s in the queue, because I am now alternating between ‘Divine By Mistake’ – poor pure (the ‘poor’ was a genuine typo – maybe my subconscious is telling me something) fantasy trash.  I love it – and ‘I Can Make You Thin’.

I bought the latter a while ago. Kind of dabbled with McKenna’s idea – it seemed simple enough.

But when I wasn’t supermodel thin by, I don’t know, a week, I just combined his ideas with all the others floating round in my head.

So what made me pick the book up yesterday?

I weighed myself in Boots.

I’m so glad the machine doesn’t shout out how much you weigh.

I’m heavier than I have ever been.  Ever.

So I am now a little more than determined.

Not going to make a big fuss and clear out cupboards and fill up the fruit bowl, because I just end up letting stuff go mouldy and wishing I had all the stuff I’d thrown away to commiserate with.

And, anyway, Paul says I should eat what I want – I may love him slightly.

OK, so it’s Day Two.  But, I am *really* trying to follow these new rules.  Not had one Pringle sandwich in those two days.  Not even one.  Not that this is a rule of Paul’s, but still, it can’t be good for one to eat so many Pringles in a week…can it?

So there we go.

And all this talk of food has made me hungry.

The first rule of McKenna Club? Eat when hungry.

OK then. *goes in search of food*

I seem to have a problem.

Kind of an addiction.

My name is Sophie and I am a book-buying-aholic.

It’s been *counts* 4 and a half hours since I last bought books.

But before that, I hadn’t bought books for *counts*…a day and a half.

For someone who works in a place that allows one to borrow books at no charge, this is fairly excessive and stupid.

Especially since the books I purchased today were ones I have read before.  Apart from one.

So, why?

The reason for the aforementioned book-buying expeditions recently is due to a WHSmiths promotion.

Last week I bought two books as gifts, and tried to use a BOGOF voucher.  Yes, that’s tight, I know.  It’s a recession.  Deal.

The voucher wasn’t valid until a few days later.  So I had to pay normal price.  Which is fine.

On Sunday, I thought, ‘Aha! I’m at a railway station with nothing to do, I shall potter around WHSmiths and use my BOGOF voucher!  Hoorah!’

Alas, I did not read the small print which told me that I couldn’t do that, because I was in a railway station.

But I didn’t put the books back, because there was a queue and I didn’t want to look tight.

So, again with the buying books.

Today I finally offloaded two of these stupid BOGOF vouchers and bought four (count them – four!) books.

The lady on the till was fine with accepting the vouchers.  However, she didn’t have a bloody clue what she was doing, and although I’ve not done the sums, I am pretty sure I still ended up paying more than I should have.  She did go through the whole process twice and came up with the same price, so I just paid it and went on my way.

So.  I am a mug.  I think that is pretty safe to say.

Ah well.  I’ll read them.  One day.

I have already started the book I bought on Sunday, and it has usurped ‘Air’ by Geoff Ryman, which is now nestled snugly back on the library shelves.  I started it.  Read maybe about 10 pages.  Just wasn’t my cup of tea.  Sorry Geoff.

I’m just trying to remember the title of the one I bought Sunday.  ‘Divine By Mistake‘ by P C Cast.  It’s utter trash.  I love it.  P C Cast has co-written a series of books with her daughter, about a school for vampires. Called ‘House of Night‘.  I have devoured them.  And because they are doing so well in the current ‘Vamps are Cool!’ climate, the series that starts with ‘Divine by Mistake’ has been re-released, I think.

I’m only a smidge into it, but it involves alternate realities where a normal American school teacher is a Lady and is betrothed to a Centaur.  I suspect it is based on FACT.  Oh yes.

OK, so it’s trash.  But I like it.  It’s fast moving, and the writing is full of parentheses and words-strung-together-like-this.  Which is kind of how I write, really.

But I left it at work today.

So my bedtime reading tonight shall be the literary (no doubt Nobel Prize winning) Martine McCutcheon.

I never claimed to be clever.

I need to update that list!

So.

We are 8 days into the new year.

It is 5 days since I revealed my list of books that I shall read (oh, yes, I *shall* read them) this year.

I have worked 4 of those 5 days.

On 2 of those 4 days I have picked up 5 more books.

I mentioned 2 of those books in yesterday’s post.

Today I have added to my plastic-jacket clad pile of borrowed books.

The guilty 3 are:

“Air” by Geoff Ryman (because the cover is the same design as his book called ‘Was’ which I recently finished, and enjoyed).

“Hunger” by Knut Hamsun (because it was on my Amazon recommendations list).

and

“The Madness of a Seduced Woman” by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (because I stupidly read the back cover before shelving it and decided it would be a good read).

Working in a library, for me at least, is like an alcoholic working in a pub.  Or a gambler working at Ladbrokes (seriously – Evil Ex tried to get a job at Ladbrokes, he was addicted to gambling.  Like ‘dur’).

I know it is good to read.

But the problem here is I bring the books home, gaze at them and touch them longingly everyso often, and then don’t read them.  Because there are only so many times you can renew a book.  And I don’t want to deprive everyone else of a book that might change their life, just because I have been watching too much telly and not reading enough.

Am I slightly obsessive?

So I finished a book yesterday.

I won’t review it.  It’s one of the True Blood series.  And although I am addicted to this current wave of trashy vampire/fantasy type fiction, I can’t really say much about it.  It’s titillating.  Fast-moving.  Fun.

There ya go.

Anyway, I’ve nearly finished my Christmas present from the lovely Cara (off of Melbourne, Oz), which is one of the Ox-Tales series, ‘Water’ with various short stories or excerpts from very good authors.

But, the reason I have ‘failed already’ is because I picked up a couple of books at Witney Library yesterday.

One was another trashy late-teen vamp series (3-in-1 anthology type thing) and one was Charlie Higson’s adult book, called ‘Happy Now’.

Shall I add them to the list, or take them back? Decisions, decisions…

So, I went to work today.

Yup.

I was the one.

OK.  I exaggerate.  The Costa ladies in Witney were there way before I wandered in and dripped all over them at 8.15am.

Ah, yes.  I went to Witney Library to work.  Well, driving to Abingdon would have been suicide.  And homocide.

It’s annoying though, because Abingdon was closed due to staff not being able to get in.  So all the staff whose local library is Abingdon didn’t have to work.  Bah.

But it was fun.  There were two of us from Abingdon and many from Oxford Central and a couple from Witney itself, so we weren’t all doing everything wrong (I may have made the till make beepy noises, due to it being weird…or my not being able to figure it out…).

And can you believe it?  People came into the library.

In this weather.

We ARE an essential service after all! Huzzah!

But we closed at 3pm, due to weather and stuff.

Anyway.  I was really tired when I got home.  Nothing strange there, except I’d worked less hours than usual.

But walking in snow is tiring.  Yes.

So I polished off the blue cheese (no, it didn’t tell rude jokes) that was stinking the fridge, and therefore the house, out.

Which means I had a snack of 6 Ryvita smothered in butter and cheese.

Is it bad to eat blue cheese with a spoon because it’s too crumbly?

Shortly afterwards I washed the salty-smelliness down with many Christmas chocolates.

All while watching Channel 4 late afternoon telly.  Bliss.

Halfway through The Simpsons, I noticed my darling husband had closed his eyes and was breathing slightly heavier than usual.

And I thought ‘Hmm.  I would like some of that snoozing due to my over-eating in the afternoon’ and snuggled up under my fleece and fell very much asleep.

To be woken by the house phone ringing half an hour later.

I jumped up and ran over to where the phone is.

And looked.

And looked.

Until Bren said ‘Well, answer it then!’ and I remembered what I had to do.

I had a conversation that made no sense at all.  Luckily, it was with my Mum, who has had conversations with me while I’ve still been asleep, so she will understand.  Or she’s already called the men in white coats.

But I am slightly freaked out, because I was staring at the phone, but for some reason was looking for a hand-held phone, rather than our old fashioned corded normal phone.  And I was feeling the area around the phone as if I was missing something with my eyes and needed that extra sense to put the final piece into place.

Is that weird?  Because I do wonder if my brain is slightly…wrong, sometimes.

Can you get Early Onset Alzheimer’s at 30?

*Goes to interwebs to find out*

OK, so taking a leaf out of LizSara’s book, I have made a list of books I *have* to read this year.

I *have* to read them because they are, and have been for a while in the most part, gathering dust on our shelves and taking up precious room on our bookcase.

That’s not to say I will immediately get rid of them once read, but some of them are ex-library books, and not really ones to keep.

The table below is a little bit convoluted, mainly because I like making things complicated, but also because I currently have books on the go that I would like to finish before getting this project ‘properly’ underway.

It is also a fairly small list, compared to LizSara’s anyway, and this is because I shall undoubtedly come across books along the way that I will also *have* to read there and then.

If you could see my library account history, you’d understand what I mean…It’s an obsession.

I’ve put the year published, because I might read them in that order, or maybe in alphabetical by author.  But at the moment, I need to finish the first four.  Then I’ll see how I feel.  I mean it’s no good reading Wilkie Collins if I fancy a bit of hard-hitting modern crime, is it?

One book that I’ve had for a few years and really want to read, but am too scared to start, lest I never finish it, is ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas.  It’s enormous. So I’ve left it off the list for now…

But, if I get through the list with time to spare, that shall be my indulgence.  Or punishment…depending on whether I like it…

Incidentally, Bren knows a guy called Robin Dumas through the horsy world.  Yes.  He is related.

Oh, and there are a couple of self-help ones in there.  The ‘I Can Make You Thin’ one is an ongoing thing.  Obviously.  So I’ll just try to keep plodding on with that.  The ‘Depressive Illness’ one is a really interesting book.  I’ve kind of started that one too, but it’s another ‘dip-in’ and ‘make-notes’ kind of book, so I’ll keep it nearby at all times…

You never know, I might be supermodel-thin and annoyingly cheerful by the end of the year!