Watch This Thing: The Secret of Kells

I swear I do watch some movies that aren't weird cartoons....this isn't one of them though.

This movie is beyond gorgeous. I'd recommend it even if the story was complete garbage (it isn't) because it's one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. I feel like I should let that speak for itself, so I'm just going to post a bunch of screenshots, and if that doesn't convince you then I guess I'll ramble about how much I loved it for a bit.

OK, that's probably enough....or maybe too many. Whatever, I don't care. I could just stare at screenshots from this movie all day, it's so beautiful.

So The Secret of Kells is a fictional version of the creation of The Book of Kells which is an illuminated manuscript from around the 9th century (I've been to see it in the Trinity College library and it is amazing). The main character is Brendan, a resident of Kells monastry. His uncle, the abbot Cellach is obsessed with building a wall to protect the monastery from viking raids, but Brendan is more interested in assisting Aidan of Iona, a master illuminator, with his work on an amazing book that will "turn darkness into light", and exploring the world outside the monastery with his new friend, the forest spirit Aisling.

This film reminded me a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's animation, and there are a lot of parallels with Princess Mononoke - wild girl lives in the forest with a bunch of wolves, conflict between nature and the modern world, threat of attack from barbarians etc etc. Moore even names Miyazaki as an influence in this interview, where he also mentions Samurai Jack which I love. I also love fairytales, folklore, mythology....all that jazz, so obviously this film was right up my street. I find Celtic folklore really interesting, but it's really not all that prevalent in popular culture, especially compared to say, Greek mythology, so it's really nice to see something this lovely and accessible about Irish legends.

I'm not going to go on and on about all the various influences and cool things about this film, I feel like the screenshots pretty much speak for themselves, so all I'll say is: WATCH IT NOW!

Anime For Beginners

I know it’s not universally true, but I feel pretty secure in saying that most people probably view anime as a very niche interest that’s mainly for perverts and shut-ins. Well I'm here to say – NOT TRUE! Or rather – NOT ENTIRELY TRUE! There is a lot of great anime out there, and if you give it a chance I'm sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I'm not professing to be an expert on anime, in fact I'm very much an amateur. I was planning on naming the post something like Top 10 Anime or My Favourite Anime but a more accurate title would be – Most of the Anime I Have Seen. This is by no means an exhaustive list, this is more just a summary of what I've seen so far and liked as I've begun to develop an interest in anime - a starter pack if you will. 

Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

These two shows are adaptations of the same manga – they start the same way, but then diverge and each go in different directions. They’re both amazing and I'm going to talk about them here like it’s just one show because that just makes things easier.

So the show takes place in a universe where alchemy is like an advanced form of science, and the military recruits alchemists like soldiers because they are so incredibly powerful. The story follows two brothers – Alphonse and Edward Elric who were in a terrible accident when they tried to use alchemy to bring their dead mother back to life (something which is considered taboo in the world of alchemists). In this experiment Edward lost an arm and a leg, and Alphonse loses his entire body and his soul is alchemically fused by Edward to an empty suit of armor  So far, so ridiculous. Over the course of the series Edward and Alphonse search for the Philosopher’s Stone so that they can restore themselves to their original bodies, and they uncover a lot of secrets about the nature of alchemy and the country of Amestris along the way.

The thing about anime is that no matter how weird or silly the premise is (often: very), it tends to take its subject matter and characters seriously in a way that makes you really care what happens. It doesn't talk down to its audience and instead offers complex and flawed characters, complicated plot-lines  and serious moral questions that have no easy answers. This is something you don’t really find that often in Western media, especially cartoons. Fullmetal Alchemist is no exception to this, the cast of characters is huge but you end up caring about every single one of them, even the bad guys! There are constant plot twists and revelations, you are questioning what is going on until the very last minute, and it has some of the best and most nuanced female characters I've ever seen in an animated series (or any series for that matter). I really don’t think any of my gushing about this series is going to do it justice, so just watch it. Oh and as a general rule with anime series – you have to give them at least 5 episodes (preferably 10) before writing them off, because sometimes they take a while to get going.

Studio Ghibli

I couldn't bring myself to only select one Studio Ghibli film to put on this list, so I'm just going to talk about all of them. Pretty much every Ghibli film I've seen ranks among not just my favourite animated films of all time, but my favourite any kind of film of all time. I know Studio Ghibli isn’t some obscure underground studio that nobody’s heard of, so I hope I'm not patronising anyone when I say – go and watch some Studio Ghibli right now.

Ah, how to I begin to describe the brilliance of Ghibli movies….OK first of all, they’re beautiful, if you have any interest in animation at all you’re bound to enjoy them because if nothing else they are visually stunning. They often have incredibly weird elements – woman turns into giant crow, fish grows chicken legs and then turns into girl, tiny cat statue comes to life, WW2 fighter pilot has pig’s head….the list goes on, but despite this, the stories being told are generally incredibly simple and easy to relate to. They’re about universal themes, like accepting yourself, falling love, growing up, getting along with others, and no matter how weird they are, the stories are always both touching and powerful. When you contrast them with Disney films (and even some Pixar films to be honest), they explore much deeper issues and have a much more nuanced approach to their characters and subject matter. There’s something Miyazaki said which I think really sums up why this is - “The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.” 

So as for which ones I recommend - Studio Ghibli has released 18 films so far, and I've seen 12 of them. All the ones I've seen are undeniably brilliant, but if I had to choose my favourites they’d be Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle, with Ponyo as a close runner up. Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro are a lot of people’s favourites, but they’re both a little light on plot, so maybe not the most engaging introduction to anime. A lot of people get very sniffy about the English dubs and especially about the use of mini-Disney-kids as the voice actors (Dakota Fanning, Noah Cyrus, Frankie Jonas etc) but I saw screw those people because they are elitist snobs. Personally, I enjoy a film a lot more when I can focus on the actual animation rather than on reading the subtitles, and I think all the dubs are fantastic SO THERE.

Hotarubi no Mori e (Meaning: Into the Forest of Fireflies' Light)

I don't really know whether to call this one a film or not, since it's only 45 minutes long, but whatever it is, it's great. This one's definitely very Ghibli-esque, it reminds me a lot of both Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. It's about a young girl who meets a strange spirit in the woods near her grandfather's house, and their ensuing friendship. It's a very short, sweet and tragic story, and I think it would be a great introduction to anime for anyone. 

It's technically categorised as "shōjo" which means it's target audience is young girls ("shōnen" is anime targeted at young boys, like Fullmetal Alchemist) but don't let that sway you, labels like shōjo and shōnen are more like guidelines than actual rules.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

This was the first non-Ghibli anime film that I ever watched and I love it, definitely one of my favourite films. The animation style is gorgeous, the concept is really interesting (regular girl suddenly gains the ability to time travel), the characters feel realistic, and it's also often really funny. I love a good time travel story, and this is definitely one of the best I've seen. Makoto, the main character, is just a regular teenage girl, and when she suddenly finds herself able to time travel, she uses it to solve all her regular teenage girl problems (with predictably terrible consequences). I love that Makoto is just kind of a clutzy idiot, it makes the film feel more authentic to me, and it makes me care more about what happens to her because she seems real. This film doesn't have any of the truly bizarre elements that can make anime feel not very accessible when you're first introduced to it, so it's probably a good place to start.

Summer Wars

Summer Wars is from the same studio, director and writer as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and is equally brilliant. It tells the story of what happened when a globally used social networking site called 'Oz' (which most people use to do their banking, work, and most other important things in their lives) is overrun by a powerful virus. It's got some really cool action scenes, and as well as all the stuff going on in this virtual world, it also tells the story of the Jinnouchis, a huge and very old Japanese family (loosely based on the real life Sanada clan). Because Japanese culture is so different from Western culture, it's really interesting to see a film that explores family history and family relationships, and of course a story about a whole family working together to defeat evil is pretty heartwarming.

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OK, so I guess that's a top 5 of sorts, and by that I mean I've gotten to 5 and then gotten bored, so this is going to be the end of the post. THE END!

My Favourite Irish Writers

I recently went on my second trip to Dublin. The first time I was there I dragged my mum and brother to the Dublin Writers Museum, and the most recent time I spent one of the days of my trip traipsing around the city going to every bookshop I could find, and it also happened to be Bloomsday while I was there (coincidentally, Bloomsday is also my birthday). All this Irish literary...ness inspired me to write this post about my favourite Irish authors, or rather...some of my favourite authors who also happen to be Irish.

Oscar Wilde 1854 - 1900
Oh, Oscar, I love you so much. People don't tend to think of Oscar Wilde as an Irish writer, despite the fact that his full name was 'Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde' (pretty damn Irish), because after attending Trinity College in Dublin, he spent most of his life away from Ireland. But despite moving away and losing his Irish accent, Wilde still said of himself "I am not English; I'm Irish which is quite another thing."

Bram Stoker 1847 - 1912
Dracula is one of my absolute favourite books, and I never actually knew that Stoker was Irish until my first visit to Dublin 2 years ago, but he is - surprise! Stoker was actually a friend of Oscar Wilde's family, and ended up marrying the girl who Oscar wanted to marry (or...said he wanted to marry).

W.B. Yeats 1865 - 1939
By most accounts Yeats was kind of a fascist crazy person - he was pretty publicly anti-semitic, he spent 27 years pursuing the same woman and then proposed to her daughter, and he had a fairly hardcore obsession with the occult...but dang, homeboy knew how to write a damn poem. Consider the following - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury, the Joni Mitchell song Slouching Towards Bethlehem, the Van Morrison song Crazy Jane on God and No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. All Yeats quotes. Because everyone wants to get in on his amazing word magic. Seriously, that list could be way longer, kinda seems like any time someone can't think of a title for something they just go "Hey, whack a Yeats quote in there, that'll do".

Jonathan Swift 1667 - 1745
Jonathan Swift was a SATIRE BOSS and I love him so much. Gulliver's Travels is awesome and everything, but my favourite things by him are without a doubt 1. This hilarious poem about a stanky lady and 2. A Modest Proposal. Ah, A Modest Proposal, I love you so. Personally, my favourite kind of satire is the kind where the people it's critiquing are too dumb to get it and they all flip the fuck out. In this essay, Jonathan Swift suggests that the poverty problem in Ireland could be solved by the Irish selling their children for meat and rather than being like "Lots of people are starving to death in Ireland and obviously we need to do something about it", all the rich English people were like "OH MY GOD JONATHAN SWIFT IS A CANNIBAL AND HE WANTS US TO MAKE GLOVES OUT OF BABIES!" Hilarious.

George Bernard Shaw 1856 - 1950
This dude wrote a lot of stuff, but is most famous for the play Pygmalion (which in turn is most famous for being turned into the musical My Fair Lady). Shaw won a Nobel Prize in 1925 for his contributions to literature and initially wanted to turn down the prize, but his wife convinced him to accept it because she considered it a 'tribute to Ireland'. Yeats had become the first Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature two years previously.

Seamus Heaney 1939 - STILL GOIN' STRONG
Seamus Heaney is considered by a lot of people to be kind of the "new Yeats" in terms of important Irish poets. He wrote a lot of poems about the unrest in Ireland in the 60s and 70s (the Troubles), and many of his poems talk about the political situation in Ireland through talking about preserved bodies that were found in peat bogs. I realise that sounds incredibly weird and morbid, but they're very beautiful poems. My favourite thing by Seamus Heaney is actually his translation of Beowulf, it's totally the best one and it's lovely.

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This list is a bit of a sausage fest, and for that I apologise, These are all writers I studied over the course of my Bachelors in English Literature, and sadly for me my curriculum was a little light on ladies. I have resolved to read some more books by Irish women though, so this list is my new friend.

For those of you who noted that Beckett and Joyce were both absent from this list - sorry, but I hate them both. Deal with it.

Read This Thing: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Disclaimer: this is going to be a glowing, gushy review. I will not be critiquing this book, I will be squeeing over it - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I downloaded this book for two reasons, firstly because I saw it recommended in this Rookie Mag article, and I thought it sounded interesting, and secondly because when I then googled it the first thing that came up was this New York Times review of it by John Green where he says: "“Eleanor & Park” reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book", and that is exactly how this book made me feel, too.

I don't read a lot of YA, and when I do I tend to feel a little embarrassed about it, it's a guilty pleasure. I also never read Romance. I mean, obviously, a lot of the things I read have romantic subplots, but if a book's primary genre is Romance, I am extremely unlikely to even look twice at it. So this book - a realistic, YA Romance, was a pretty big leap from my comfort zone but I decided to pick it up anyway and I am so glad I did.

I'm not going to bother discussing the plot here, because if I'm not giving anything away then it all sounds like pretty standard boy-meets-girl stuff, which I guess it is technically is, but it's also a lot deeper than that. The only way I know how to explain it is that this book snuck up on me and wormed its way into my heart. Normally when I read about teenagers falling in love, I find myself rolling my eyes a lot and thinking about how glad I am that I'm not a teenager any more, but reading Eleanor & Park I was just sitting there with a huge grin on myself, rooting for these two ~*misunderstood teenagers*~ to work it out.

This is going to sound a bit cheesey and personal - but Eleanor & Park reminded me of how it feels to be in love when you're a teenager, when you've never been hurt before and you think that no one will ever really understand the deeply special and unique love the two of you have for one another. With this book, you're not just seeing that phenomenon from the outside, reading it makes you feel like you're really living it.

There are two final things I want to mention about how great this book is. Firstly - the cover is adorable, but it's mostly adorable because it's so different to other YA covers, especially YA romance covers, and especially especially YA covers aimed at girls. Books like that typically get slapped with a miscellaneous object or with a picture of a girl with her face cropped out  (they like doing that, they think it's clever). But Eleanor & Park got a great cover and after all this talk about how gendered marketing for YA books is harmful to readers etc etc that's something I find really encouraging.  The other thing I wanted to say about how great this book is, is that it's really refreshing to read about characters who are a bit different than standard YA protagonists, because there's one thing that YA authors love to write about even more than vampires:

Specifically white, skinny, conventionally attractive characters. I'm obviously not saying there aren't any other books that feature minority or marginalised characters, but it's definitely a comparatively small number. In this book - Park is a half Korean boy who likes to wear make-up, and Eleanor is a plus-size girl who looks a little different to everyone else and suffers for it. To be honest it makes me sad that this is remarkable, but it is. There's a quote I've seen around (which I now can't find for the life of me, obviously) about how not seeing yourself reflected in the media is the quickest way to feel dehumanised...something like that anyway...so the characters in this book are another thing I find really encouraging, and that makes me really happy.

Settings: France

I've been having a bit of a Francophile moment since my recent trip to Paris (which I may or may not post about in more detail at a later date), so in an attempt to scratch that itch, here are some of my favourite books and films set in France.

Books

Paris by Julian Green
I bought this in Paris and read it on the train and it is just gloriously beautiful. Paris is a short collection of reflections about the city where Green lived for most of his life, and was first published in 1983. There are no characters (unless you count the city itself) and almost no dialogue, but it's completely entrancing. It's so easy to be roped in by Green because of his evident love for the city, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who has been to or would like to go to Paris.

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland
This one is the story of Louise de la Vallière, who was Louis XIV's mistress in the 17th century. I didn't know anything about this period at all, so reading about the court in Paris, the political scandals, and the building of Versailles was all really interesting. Around the halfway mark the characters started to grate on me a little (Louis is kind of an arsehole, Louise is kind of a drip), but the setting is still really interesting.

Pure by Andrew Miller
This book tells the story of Les Innocents Cemetry in Paris, which had to be closed down and exhumed in 1786 because of overuse. Again, this book was about a topic I wasn't familiar with (I think the exhuming of an overcrowded cemetery in the 18th century is probably obscure enough to justify that), so I found it really interesting to read about, and I liked reading the descriptions of Paris in that era. Also since this book is set just 3 years before the French Revolution it deals with a lot of interesting political subtext.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Perfume is set partly in Paris, and partly in various small towns in the South East of France in the 18th century. This is another one that provides an interesting snapshot of a historical setting without actually being about it. This novel follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan born with a superhuman sense of smell who dedicates his life to creating the perfect scent. It's a pretty weird premise, but it's a really interesting read.

Films

Midnight in Paris
This film is shamefully the only Woody Allen movie I've ever seen, and I love it. It's got everything you could want - beautiful people, beautiful setting, interesting story...it's just great, and you get to see modern day Paris as well as the Paris of the 1920s with F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

Amélie
I know it's probably a cliche, but this is one of my favourite films. Get lost, Zooey, Audrey Tatou is the only manic pixie dream girl for me. Amélie is essentially just a love story about a quirky, and slightly lonely girl who lives in Paris and works in a cafe in Montmartre. The setting is beautiful, the characters are all weird and delightful, it's just all round great, and a really memorable film.

Julie & Julia
Laugh all you want, I loved this film. Half of it is about Julie Powell, played by Amy Adams, a woman who starts a cooking blog, and the other half is about Julia Child's time in France where she first learnt to cook and started writing her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Marie Antoinette
A lot of people didn't like this film because it was very heavy on style and very light on plot, but I love it. To be honest, I think that criticism of it is missing the point somewhat. Personally I think that Coppola is trying to show a snapshot of the extravagant, frivolous way in which people saw (and still see) Marie Antoinette, and I think she does it very well. It's a beautiful movie, and the soundtrack is amazing.

Watch This Thing: Sita Sings The Blues

This film came out in 2008, but I had never heard of it until last month when I saw it reviewed in a favourite films of all time list, and was immediately intrigued. This film can broadly be divided into 3 parts, all told intermittently over the course of the entire film, each of which has a different style of storytelling and animation.

Part 1: The story of the Ramayana (an ancient Hindu epic which tells the story of Rama and the kidnapping of his wife Sita). This part of the story is told entirely through  the music of Annette Hanshaw - an American jazz singer from the 1920s.

Part 2: Three unnamed characters (represented by shadow puppets) discussing their own personal recollections of the story of the Ramayana.

Part 3: This part is set in present day America and tells the story of the breakdown of the marriage between the film's creator Nina Paley and her husband after he moves to India for work.

So, this film is pretty unorthodox, and that combined with the fact that it's centered around a story and a mythology most western audiences probably aren't familiar with, suggest that it might be kind of inaccessible or alienating, but it's so not. This film is straight up adorable and fantastic. Not to mention freaking impressive considering the entire thing was made by just one woman on her home computer, and it's more compelling and heartfelt than a lot of big budget animated films. Rodger Egbert described it perfectly: "I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord... To get any film made is a miracle. To conceive of a film like this is a greater miracle." And yes, I did rip this quote straight from Wikipedia, but the source is here.

All the different elements of this story just work so well together, even though at first they might seem like a strange combination. The shadow puppet section where the narrators discuss the details of the story give it the grounding and context the audience needs to not feel out of the loop and confused by the characters, the music (besides being amazing) gives the movie a more lighthearted tone - as well as making clear the themes of the movie (love and rejection), and the modern storyline shows us the universality of those themes. It's freaking perfect.

I probably could carry on gushing about this film for a lot longer, but I think I'll just leave it here by saying - WATCH IT! It's available on YouTube for free so you have no excuse not to.

Pride and Prejudice - Adaptations etc.

OK, so I realise that at this point it's kind of a cliche to gush about how much you love Pride and Prejudice, but you guys, I really love Pride and Prejudice. Shamefully I only read it for the first time about 3 years ago, but since I was raised on a diet of BBC miniseries I was already familiar with the story thanks to the 1995 adaptation.

A lot of people dismiss Pride and Prejudice as a girly book (I don't have time to rant about people dismissing things they perceive to be overly feminine as inherently frivolous and lacking in value right now, so let's just skim over that for the moment) but it's so much more than that. Firstly - Pride and Prejudice is funny as hell, Elizabeth Bennet is a beloved character for a reason, and that reason is that she's a sassy BAMF - if you want any evidence of that just check out pretty much any of her interactions with Mr Collins, Lady Catherine, Caroline and Whatsherface Bingley, or her mother. Secondly - Mr Darcy. I know I'm venturing even further into cliche territory here, but Mr Darcy is an adorable socially awkward uber-man and if you're not in love with him then you're wrong.

OK, now I'm going to get into the actual point of this post, which is adaptations. LET'S GO!

BBC Miniseries, 1995

Let's be real - this is the only acceptable answer to the question of which is the best adaptation. With 5 and a half hours of Darcy-y goodness to offer, I don't think the other versions on this list can really compare to the thoroughness of this adaptation, 90 minutes of screen-time just isn't long enough to do justice to the subtleties and slow development of Darcy and Lizzie's relationship. Also - Colin Firth.

Joe Wright Film, 2005

The first time I watched this film, it didn't really have an impact on me and I promptly forgot all about it, but I re-watched it a couple of months ago and loved it. For starters, this film is absolutely gorgeous, every shot is like a freaking work of art, and the music fits perfectly and is amazing. As an adaptation I'm not that crazy about this one, but as a film in its own right it’s stunning and brilliant. Adaptation wise, it doesn’t cover everything (obviously) but it does a really great job of picking and choosing all the essential moments and it is cast perfectly – I have a special spot in my heart for ginger Bingley. One of my favourite moments in this film is when Bingley is practicing proposing to Jane by roleplaying with Darcy, UGH! THESE TWO GOOFBALL ROMANTIC BFFS! So cute.

Lost in Austen, 2008

Another miniseries, this one isn’t exactly an adaptation but I’m including it anyway because it almost is, and I love it so I want to talk about it. In Lost in Austen a 21st century woman (Amanda Price) who is bored out of skull with her crappy call-centre job and even crappier boyfriend somehow ends up switching places with Elizabeth Bennett and finds herself trapped in the world of Pride and Prejudice. Essentially, every Pride and Prejudice fangirl’s fantasy - it all gets very meta when Amanda actually asks Mr Darcy to come out of the lake with his shirt on a la Colin Firth, and I love me some meta. This series is pure escapism and wish fulfilment and I enjoyed every minute of it, Jemima Rooper is charming as usual as the often idiotic Amanda, Alex Kingston kills it as Mrs Bennett (I bloody love Mrs Bennett) and Darcy is perfectly Darcy-like, what more could you want!?

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, 2012 – 2013

I’ll be the first to admit that I was super sceptical about this adaptation – Pride and Prejudice told through video diaries? I even watched the first few episodes when the series started and made the decision not to keep up with it, but I came back to it a few months later when it was over two thirds of the way through and I am so glad I did. I think this series really benefits from being watched in several long sittings, rather than watching each of the ~ 5 minute episodes individually, and I think that’s why I didn’t really get into it when I first tried to watch it. This adaptation is definitely not for everyone, and by not for everyone I mostly mean it’s not for Austen-purists who will be bothered by the modern setting, which obviously necessitates a lot of changes in the plot. However, if you can get past the modern setting and the plot changes it’s so worth it, mainly because the story is evidently told with a lot of love, and I think that's what makes a great adaptation. Also this adaptation gives us a really great insight into a lot of the characters through seeing the story from their point of view. Lydia and Charlotte Lucas in particular really benefit from this re-telling, and become complex characters in their own right, with their own stories, rather than just plot devices to advance Lizzie’s storyline. Also I have a soft spot for Mary as a socially awkward emo-kid.

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So there you go - my favourite Pride and Prejudice adaptations. I know I said that the BBC miniseries is indisputably the best adaptation but to be 100% honest if I had to pick a favourite from these four I don't know if I could do it, they're all very different and I love them all!

Books About Books

I love books and reading (obviously), so I love love love reading books about books. These are some of my favourites, and by favourites I mean just the ones that I can think of at this precise moment.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Summary: Set in an alternate version of 1985 Britain where the Crimean War never ended, Thursday Next is a "literary detective" who gets mixed up in an elaborate plot involving blackmailer and all-round evil guy Acheron Hades. The two of them end up facing off inside the world of Jane Eyre and inadvertently impacting the lives of the characters.
Why I Recommend It: The whole Thursday Next series is pretty great, later books involve the amazing organisation of "JurisFiction" - a collection of special literature agents who also happen to be fictional characters (notable mentions go to Miss Havisham and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle). Overall it's just a silly, fun series and I'd definitely recommend it, especially to anyone who loves Jane Eyre.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Summary: The Book of Lost Things is the story of David 12 year old boy who, after his mother dies, begins more and more to retreat into the world of fiction. Strange things start happening and soon he finds himself literally inside the world of the books he's been reading. The story has a lot of fantasy and fairy tale elements and can get quite creepy at times.
Why I Recommend It: This one is a must read for anyone who loves fairy tales (which I really do). I know the whole "dark re-telling of a fairy tale" thing has been done to death, but this take on that genre has a really original feel to it, and one of the things about it which I really loved was that it looks at the ways in which the stories we love as children shape the adults we grow into.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Summary: This story follows a young graphic designer in San Francisco who gets a job in a 24 hour bookstore and starts to notice that the place is more than a little odd. This book deals a lot with conflict between the old and the new, and whether we should embrace technology or hang on to the past. It's also just a really fun mystery/adventure.
Why I Recommend It: I would recommend this to anyone who loves bookshops, this book creates a really vivid picture of this weird, slightly creepy store and I totally want to go there. Also all the characters are just, for want of a better word, adorable and the story is exciting as well as being funny and sweet.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Summary: Margaret Lee is a bookish loner, who works in a bookshop, who is hired to write a book about a prolific (and famously private) author. Bookishness all round! In the course of interviewing the mysterious author 'Vida Winter' Margaret learns a lot about her dark past and uncovers various different family secrets, which also prompts her to take a closer look at her own life.
Why I Recommend It: Because it's crazy and exciting! I love a good dark past, and this book is all about the dark past. If you like books and storytelling and shocking twists then definitely check this one out.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
Summary: Ugh, this book! OK, let me get my emotions in check. So this story is narrated by Death and tells the story of a girl named Liesel and her life during World War 2 - I realise that probably sounds like the most depressing thing ever, but it's actually just lovely and heartfelt and unforgettable and brilliant.
Why I Recommend It: Well, I just gushed about it plenty while I was meant to be summarising, so I can't really think of anything else to add apart from - READ IT!

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Summary: I already talked about this book in this post if you want to read that. 84, Charing Cross Road is a really lovely little book collecting the letters between Helene Hanff - American, book lover, anglophile, and Marks & Co - an antiquarian bookshop on Charing Cross Road. The letters span a period of 20 years and Helene develops a really touching friendship with nearly everyone who works in the bookstore, as well as some of their friends, family and neighbours.
Why I Recommend It: Because it's just sweet and lovely and a really feelgood story, also it's less than 100 pages long, so you've got no excuse not to read it!

My Favourite Bookshops

I love bookshops, they are my churches, and I can happily spend at hours at a time browsing every shelf, regardless of whether or not I have any intention of buying any books (spoiler alert: I always end up buying books anyway). This is a list of my top 3 favourite bookshops, just because:

1. The American Book Centre, Amsterdam

Photo from here

Ugh, be still my beating heart! This place is incredible, four beautiful floors of books, the selection is incredible and they have every genre of book you could possibly hope to find. The Netherlands doesn't have a whole lot of English language bookshops so every time I'm in Amsterdam I spend at least an hour in here (as documented in this post).

2. Waterstones, Birmingham

Photo from here

I love this bookshop. I've only been there a few times because I'm only ever in Birmingham to visit one of my lovely friends who used to live there, but every time I went to see him I would drag him in here and he would traipse around after me while I stroked all the books. The building itself is amazing (as you can see) and there's a bunch of sneaky little hidden rooms off to the side which I love to explore.

3. Selexyz Dominicanen, Maastricht

Photo from here

I had heard about this bookshop online and seen a lot of pictures of it, and I had my heart set on visiting it for a long time, but I only finally went last weekend - which you can read about here if you're so inclined. The place is obviously just incredible and it's really awe-inspiring just to wander around it. Unluckily for me there isn't a huge selection of English books, but the place itself totally makes up for it.

BONUS ROUND - A bookshop I want to visit:

1. Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Photo from here

Because duh. This one is definitely on my bucket list, just look at it. I've never been to Paris before but as soon as I do this will definitely be my first stop. Wait actually no, that's a lie because I'll be in Paris for the first time in my life at the end of the month....for an hour in the airport while I change planes. What a bummer.

February Wrap Up

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Book 1 in the Lunar Chronicles Series)
I had heard a lot of people raving about this series online for ages, but had always dismissed it because the premise sounds ridiculous - Cinderella, but in the future and with cyborgs...what!? I downloaded book 1 onto my kindle on a whim because it was cheap and I kind of wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I was not expecting to enjoy it at all, but I picked it up one night just to flick through the first few pages and see what it was like, and then I ended up staying up until 3am and reading two thirds of it in one sitting. I normally love fairy-tale re-tellings, but combining that with the whole dystopia sci-fi thing just made the story seem a little silly to me, but if you ignore all the Cinderella stuff (which isn't really a huge part of the story anyway), it's actually a really good and exciting sci-fi adventure story. I mean, robots, cyborgs  aliens, mind control powers, a mysterious plague, what more could you want!? I would advise anyone who is inclined to scoff at the premise of this series (like I was) to just give it a go and take it for what it is - a fast-paced, exciting read set in a really intriguing world.

9 out of 10

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (Book 2 in the Lunar Chronicles Series)
Luckily for me the sequel to Cinder came out just 2 days after I finished it, score! I liked this one a little less, but it was still really good. Cinder ends on a pretty tense cliffhanger but the second book, rather than picking it up where it left off, starts by introducing a new character. The book is divided between carrying on with Cinder's story, and telling Scarlet's which at times was irritating because as soon as you get really into the plot you'll suddenly be reading about a completely different set of characters. That being said, by about halfway through I was really engrossed by Scarlet's story too, it just took a while to get to that point.

7.5 out of 10

The New Hunger by Isaac Marion
This is a novella and the prequel to Warm Bodies which I read last month. I was expecting this to be a little disappointing because I'm much more interested in the sequel (expected publication date: 2014, woohoo!) than in the events before Warm Bodies takes place, but it was actually really good. The prequel does a good job of expanding on an already established world and giving all the characters some back story which fleshes them out a lot more. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Nora's bits since she was a character I didn't previously find very interesting.

8 out of 10

Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas
I loved this book. It's about a group of intelligent 20-somethings who have all recently graduated and are now doing nothing with their lives, something which hits uncomfortably close to home for me and definitely may be part of why I liked this book so much. Anyway they all get stranded on a desert island together (which I didn't relate to quite so much) and hijinks ensue. The hows and whys of them being on this island actually aren't particularly significant, it's more like an exploration of what would happen if this group of people were all stuck in an isolated place together, very similar to the tv show Big Brother, although this book was written in like, 1999 before Big Brother came out. This book isn't for everyone, there's not a whole lot going on in the way of plot, it's mostly just about the characters getting to know each other, but I raced through it in one day and really, really enjoyed it.

9 out of 10

Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse
I love Wodehouse for all the usual reasons, but also because when I was a kid, whenever we went on holiday we would listen to a Wodehouse audiobook in the car. Because of this, reading anything by him just makes me instantly happy because from the very first page I'm immediately transported back to being 8 years old with scabby knees, excited to go on holiday and laughing with my family. There's not really much to say about this book that you couldn't guess yourself - it's silly and hilarious, I embarrassed myself a couple of times by chuckling aloud when I was reading it on the plane home. Despite the fact that this isn't a Jeeves story I still think it's fantastic and would recommend it to anyone.

10 out of 10

A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
I read this as part of my mission to make it through the complete works of Shakespeare (10 down, 34 to go!), I started with this one because it's the shortest, and also because I'd seen it performed at the Globe so I was pretty familiar with the story. I enjoyed it, it was funny, but it did kind of challenge my suspension of disbelief with how freaking stupid almost every single character is. The plot is centered around two sets of identical twins who have been separated since birth...and for some reason have the same names. Nearly every character in the story is aware of the whole long lost twin situation, and yet when everyone starts getting very confused at people accusing them of things they didn't actually do etc, not one person puts two and two together until they actually come face to face with each other and even then the freaking DUKE is all "which one of you is real and which one of you is a demon?" He's literally just been told the story of how these twins were separated, but yeah, probably a demon. Anyway, it was still great obviously, and there's a pretty good fart joke in it too - 'A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind. Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind'.

6.5 out of 10

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
This book was just adorable and funny and lovely and I had a huge smile on my face the whole time I was reading it, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, especially anyone who loves books. It's only about 90 pages long so I do feel a bit guilty including it as part of my 100 books challenge, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Although it is literally just a series of letters between a bookshop and a woman ordering books from them, which doesn't sound entertaining in the slightest, it really is, everyone go and read it! I'm going to read the sequel, the Duchess of Bloomsbury, tonight and hopefully it'll be just as good.

10 out of 10

100 books challenge progress: 2 books behind

On E-readers

I've had many a reddit argument about the various pros and cons of e-readers, but since they generally deteriorate into pointless insult flinging, and also since arguing with basement dwelling neck-beards is not a super productive use of my time, I thought I'd write about it here instead.

I'd like to start off by saying - if you don't like e-readers that's fine. If you have no desire to own one I'm not going to tell you you're wrong or stupid or force you to get one or anything. I fully understand that e-readers versus paper books is a matter of personal taste.  My issue is this - if you don't like e-readers, no problem, but don't be a dick about it (similarly if you think e-readers are better, don't be a dick about that either). There are a few recurring themes in this argument that I want to talk about:

The either/or argument
I don't understand why this is apparently such a difficult concept to understand - you can use both books and e-readers. Anti-kindlers always seem to say "I could never get a kindle, I like books too much!" - these are not mutually exclusive things. When you buy an e-reader the world doesn't revoke your book reading license, you aren't going to get kicked out of bookshops or libraries. Personally, I tend to buy things on my kindle when I'm not sure if I'll like them or not, then once I've read them I might choose to buy a physical copy, this actually means that I read a lot more than I did before.

Books are "better"
If your hobby is book collecting (a compulsion I fully understand and do engage in), then yes, books are better. However, if your hobby is reading, then the medium is irrelevant. The actual story has the same value no matter how it got into your brain and to suggest otherwise is clearly ridiculous. The people who are proponents of this particular argument tend to be misguided snobs. In my opinion if you are a lover of reading, then you should be glad to have people share your hobby, no matter how they do it. Regardless of whether or not you prefer e-readers or physical books, if you look down on something that makes books accessible to a wider range of people (e.g. larger prints for people with bad eyesight) and encourages people to read more, then you're kind of a dick.

E-readers are killing books
So this is just really not true. Amazon is killing books, not e-readers. People still buy vinyl even though iPods exist, and as much as I love my kindle, it's never going to kill my desire to collect books. The fact that this debate is still happening all over the internet and that there are all these people going "I hate e-readers because they are killing books" clearly shows that there are people out there who will continue to buy books. I mean, obviously I can't actually predict the future but I can't see actual books going anywhere for a long time.

So, that's my take on the whole thing, rant over!

Book Haul!

Is it weird to do a blog as opposed to a video book haul? Well, whatever, I'm doing one anyway. I was just back in the UK for the weekend, and I had ordered some books to be delivered there, and I also went on a bit of a spree at my local second hand bookshop, so I have lots of lovely new books to read.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
I ordered this off Amazon after seeing it mentioned by WordsofaReader on YouTube. I love books about books and this seems like it'll be a pretty quick read which is good for my 100 books challenge!

PopCo by Scarlett Thomas
I read The End of Mr Y last year and absolutely loved it, but for some reason didn't pick up another Scarlett Thomas novel until about 2 weeks ago, I guess because I was slightly worried her other stuff would be a let down. Luckily the next of her books that I read (Bright Young Things) was similarly amazing so I am now determined to read all her novels. I've just started this one and it seems like it's going to be good. Also I'm a sucker for books that have coloured-edged pages (is there a term for that?) and this one blue and gorgeous.

Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
The other Scarlett Thomas novel I bought, this one is beautiful  as well. I'm going to try and hold off on reading this one for a bit so I don't end up racing through everything by Scarlett Thomas in a month and then suffering from withdrawal.

Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut
I've only read one book by Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions), but I really liked it and have been meaning to read more of his stuff for a while. Sadly my copy of Slaughterhouse Five is AWOL (translation - I lent it to a friend who then lost it) so I was pleased to find this in the second hand book shop.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
This one has been on my wishlist for years and I have just never gotten round to buying it because I never see it in bookshops, but I did this weekend so I had to buy it, it was fate!

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
I read Black Swan Green last year and absolutely loved it, and I've been meaning to read Cloud Atlas for ages (I actually already own it in flipbook version), so I couldn't resist picking this up when I spotted it for only 2 pounds.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
I've never read anything by Murakami but have been meaning too for so long. This was actually recommended to me by a friend about 5 years ago, so I hope it's worth the wait!

Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy
I barely ever read non-fiction any more, but when I do it's usually feminist stuff. I did a lot of reading on feminism over the course of my degree, but it's pretty easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed in complex literary theory about écriture féminine etc. I picked this one up because I thought it looked interesting, and also like a nice change of pace from the non-fiction I usually read.

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Another recommendation from WordsofaReader - apparently I am extremely susceptible to booktube videos - I am really excited to read this one, I think I'll start it after I finish PopCo. I don't know a lot about this novel or Evelyn Waugh (I thought he was a woman until about 2 years ago) but I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy this.

Japanese Fairy Tales by Juliet Piggott
I am weirdly obsessed with fairy tales (I wrote my dissertation on them), so I was pretty excited to add this to my collection. One of my favourite books that I own is a book of Norwegian Fairy Tales which was my mum's when she was a kid and I recently found it that it's part of a whole collection called the World Fairy Tale Collection. This one was one of the only ones I could find on Amazon, sadly it's not as pretty as the Norweigan one because the dust jacket is missing, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

The pile.

January Wrap Up

I read 7 books in January which I am pretty pleased with since it kept me on track for my 100 books challenge (although I am now 2 books behind, oops!) I actually really enjoyed every book I read in January which is nice, although a lot of them were very different to each other, and a couple were a bit different to what I would normally read.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian is about a girl and her father, and their pursuit of the real life Count Dracula. I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed reading it, but I think that may mainly be because I love Dracula, rather than because it was actually that good. I'll admit that the ending and the final reveal seemed a little anticlimatic, though I guess when you spend 600 pages building tension in anticipation of the ending, it's always going to be a little bit disappointing. The characters were a little bit one-dimensional, and I didn't find myself caring that much what happened to them, but the story was still very exciting, and I loved reading all about their travels around France and Eastern Europe - this was one of those books that really immerses you in the setting and makes you want to travel (anyone want to take me to Istanbul?). Also the switching perspectives and use of letters and diaries to tell the story reminded me a lot of Stoker's Dracula (which in case I hadn't mentioned: I love). Overall I enjoyed this book, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea, especially since it's really long.

6.5 out of 10

Pure by Andrew Miller

This was one of my Christmas presents (thanks Mum and Dad!), I actually raced through the first 100 pages or so on the morning of Christmas day and I found it really gripping. The story is a little odd - it's set just before the French Revolution, but isn't actually about the political situation at the time (not really, anyway). It's about a struggling engineer who takes a job clearing out an overcrowded graveyard in Paris. Plot-wise, not a whole lot actually happens in this novel, but the writing is really beautiful, and compelling despite the fact that there's not very much action. This book isn't one I would normally pick up, but I found it really interesting and it made me want to read more novels set in that time period.

7 out of 10

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

I absolutely loved this book. Most people have probably heard about it now since the movie is out this month (not in the Netherlands though, so I haven't seen it yet). I went into this with pretty low expectations, since the premise is pretty silly - a zombie romance? What is that even called, rom-zom? I've heard this book called a rom-zom-com which is just... I have no words about that. I think most people have been pretty sceptical about this story (I've heard it called 'Twilight with Zombies' - though definitely by people who haven't actually read it) - the romance stuff puts off the zombie fans, and the zombie stuff puts off the romance fans, but since I love both zombies and romance, I decided to give it a go. First of all, the writing is just really great, the prose is beautiful, it's funny, but actually pretty deep at times too - lots of introspective stuff on the nature of humanity and what it means to actually be alive... basically it's just all around great. As for the story itself, it's actually very interesting when thinking about the zombie genre as a whole - it reminded me a lot of I Am Legend where SPOILER ALERT the zombies actually evolve into a new (intelligent) form of humanity. The zombie apocalypse story has been played out so many times over the past 30 years or so, and it tends to be the same story every time - end of the world scenario, small group of survivors, someone is elected leader, maybe they turn on each other etc etc. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love The Walking Dead, but it's interesting to see the zombie apocalypse scenario played out in such a different way. This is a quote from the author when asked what he would say to people who compared Warm Bodies to Twilight - 

It's completely different in tone, style, content, and themes. Warm Bodies is dark and satirical, has a nasty sense of humor, is full of blood, sex, drugs and foul language, and is not about romance so much as the meaning of being human. A love story is the engine for all of this, but the destination is not "Aw, they're going to fall in love!" it's, "Aw, they're going to crack the code of humanity's spiritual entropy and try to revive civilization!"

I think that pretty much says it all!

10 out of 10

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
This is another one that I absolutely loved. I got it at the airport when I was flying back to the Netherlands after Christmas (because I was sad and buying books cheers me up), I started reading it then and there and had finished it by the time I got home. I really enjoy reading books narrated by someone with some kind of psychological problem (is that weird?) - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are the ones that spring to mind, and this novel actually reminded me a lot of Perks, a more adult version anyway. This book was just great, it's a really quick read, the characters are complex and flawed and interesting, and it's very easy to get invested in the story. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried more than once. I have seen the movie as well, and I think I'll post a book and movie comparison some time in the next couple of weeks.

10 out of 10

Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison (Illustrated by Dave McKean)

This was another Christmas present (thanks Toby!) and it was freaking awesome. Despite the fact that I love superheroes in general and Batman in particular, I don't actually read a lot of graphic novels, mainly because they're SO expensive. The only other Batman graphic novel I've read is Year One, which was great but this was WAY better. I've played the Arkham Asylum video game though, so I was already familiar with the story and I knew the twist (which I kind of wish I didn't). Like I said, I haven't read very many graphic novels so I don't have a huge basis for comparison, but the artwork in this was absolutely incredible, overall Arkham Asylum gave me more of a sense of flipping through a book illustrations than reading a story. There wasn't very much text but it still managed to get the story across really effectively, and be very disturbing. My only criticism of this would be that most of the writing was absolutely minuscule and really difficult to read.

8 out of 10

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

I read this because I had just ordered The Child Thief by Gerald Brom, which is sort of a dark re-imagining of the whole Peter Pan myth, and I wanted to be familiar with the source material before I read it. I'm not sure if I ever actually read this as a child, but I really enjoyed reading it as an adult. I found it really interesting, because most of the stories which have kind of permeated our cultural consciousness and popular culture in the way Peter Pan has tend to be are fairy tales which can't really be assigned to one author (apart from Alice in Wonderland I guess...and probably others that I can't think of right now). Anyway, this book is just a little gem, it's actually really funny and I'm sure if I had read it as a child most of that would have gone over my head, but it's also very sweet and a little weird and just great in general. Also I found myself rooting for Captain Hook rather than Peter, and also a little bit in love with him, is that weird? I don't care.

8 out of 10


The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Yet another book that I really enjoyed! Since I graduated my reading habits have been a little more towards the low-brow end of the spectrum, so I thought I'd give this a go to try and break that slump, and I ended up loving it! Chopin's writing reminds me a lot of Katherine Mansfield, who I studied at university, so I found it interesting to compare the two of them. Another reason that I enjoyed this was that I love reading novels which are set in the deep South of America, their culture is just so weird to me that I find it really fascinating. The prose in this was really lovely, and it's a very short book so I think I finished it in a day.

7 out of 10

So that's all for January! I've finished 4 books in February so far, so I have some catching up to do for my 100 books challenge, but I have some new books that I'm really excited to read so I should be able to do that soon!

The Shakespeare Challenge

Lately I've been thinking about resolutions and ambitions and reading challenges...I've set myself the challenge (again) of reading 100 books this year. I only managed 75 in 2012, but I'm feeling good about 2013 so far. Right now I'm on 11, so 89 to go!

Anyway, that got me thinking about some other reading resolutions I could make. The main one that came to mind was to read everything by one of my favourite writers (or more than one). I've decided I want to read everything by Jane Austen, but since she only wrote 6 novels that's not really much of a challenge. So instead I've picked Shakespeare. It's a bit of a mammoth task, and I'm not going to attempt to complete it in one year (especially since my copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare is at home in England), but it's something I'm going to try and do in my spare time, and we'll see how it goes.

This is the list as it stands, I've crossed out the ones I've already read (though I may re-read them as I go through this):

Poetry:

1. The Sonnets
2. Venus and Adonis
3. The Rape of Lucrece
4. The Passionate Pilgrim
5. The Phoenix and the Turtle
6. A Lover's Complaint

Plays:

1. The Tempest
2. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
3. The Merry Wives of Windsor
4. Measure for Measure
5. The Comedy of Errors
6. Much Ado About Nothing
7. Love's Labours Lost
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream
9. The Merchant of Venice
10. As You Like It
11. The Taming of the Shrew
12. All's Well That Ends Well
13. Twelfth Night
14. The Winter's Tale
15. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
16. The Two Noble Kinsmen
17. King John
18. Richard II
19. Henry IV Part 1
20. Henry IV Part 2
21. Henry V
22. Henry VI Part 1
23. Henry VI Part 2
24. Henry VI Part 3
25. Richard III
26. Henry VIII
27. Troilus and Cressida
28. Coriolanus
29. Titus Andronicus
30. Romeo and Juliet
31. Timon of Athens
32. Julius Caesar
33. Macbeth
34. Hamlet
35. King Lear
36. Othello
37. Antony and Cleopatra
38. Cymbeline

I'm not a big fan of the histories, so I think that's going to be the toughest part. But anyway, wish me luck!