The addiction continues

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…

Book Update

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*

Hello!

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!

This is ridiculous

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?

Failed already

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…

I do what with this now?

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*

“Your task, should you choose to accept it…”

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!

Blah

Need to write something.

Nothing on the telly (again…).

Have slept for hours this afternoon.

Lay in bed last night and the night before with lots of ‘Oooh, I must write that down’ type bollocks tripping through my poor frazzled brain.  I come to write it down today, now, and it has turned into lots of ‘Oooh, I can’t remember what was so amazing that I couldn’t be arsed to get up and write it down last night’ type bollocks.

Hence I am, once again, rambling.

But that’s OK, because I have the week off.  So surely one of those days shall be spent being creative and clever, rather than drinking coffee and meeting people for lunch?

I did take my laptop to Costa yesterday.

Well, it’s been complaining that I never take it anywhere…

OK, that’s not funny.

No, I wrote a minuscule amount towards the Worst Business Plan In The World Ever ^TM and then checked the word count (and then a family came and sat right next to me so I quick shut down and stepped away from the coffee shop before screaming children were killed).

Only another couple of thousand words to go then.

I have written a ten thousand word dissertation for fuck’s sake! Why am I finding this so difficult and evil??

Well, I know the answer – I was interested in my dissertation subject (Stanley Kubrick film adaptations of twentieth century novels).  I couldn’t really care less about this business plan.

Plus, I spent my first degree writing essays and being creative and stuff.  Writing a business plan or anything report-like is almost beyond my academic comprehension.

But it’s nearly a new year, which means the inevitable and exhausting re-evaluation of everything and re-reading of self-help books that contradict each other and confuse the heckfire out of me.

So, no doubt, along with ’stop biting nails’ and ’stop eating bad things’ I’ll be adding ‘do some fucking college work’ to my New never-to-be-kept Year’s Resolutions.

But that’s a whole other post.

“I wouldn’t have thought libraries were a stressful place to work…”

…said my dealer doctor before handing over that magical bit of paper that provides (at a small price) access to seratonin/endorphin-enhancing pharmaceuticals.

So, here’s a small example of what we altruistic (ahem) library staff have to deal with.

This evening, three well-known (to us) young (mid-teen, perhaps) lads came in.  That’s fine.  So far, so good.  Apart from breaking the relative peace of the building they were doing no harm.

They went and sat by one of the radiators, tucked away in a corner.  They were a bit loud, but not enough that anyone had cause to complain, so I left them to it.  I was busy with some highly important library-detective work.

One of the lads beckoned me over to ask where the ‘Where’s Wally’ books were.  I showed him.  All is well, still.

Ten minutes passes.

One of the young lads decides it’s time to run around throwing teddy bears.

Obviously.

So, T, a young lad himself (but a ‘nice’ young lad), who is one of our Casual staff, asked them to pack it in.

I went over and looked at them, and said that if they continue to mess about, they’ll be back out in the cold.

The one lad looked at his mate and said “that’s a bit cuntish, innit?”

So I said “OK, now you can leave.”

To much protestation from all.

I went on to say that “you can’t talk to people like that” and “I’m not arguing with you – out!”

I didn’t shout.  My voice may have been slightly raised.

But, oh, the injustice.

“I never said anything – it was ‘im!”

“Well, you should choose your friends more wisely.  If you stay, he’ll just come back.  Off you go.”

And that was that.

I wonder if I was a bit harsh.

I mean, I swear.  In fact, what I wanted to say was ‘You don’t FUCKING talk to people like that, you little shit!  Do you understand? Now fuck off back to the gutter’. But of course, I didn’t.

Perhaps this is just their way of speaking.  I mean, earlier in the day there were a couple of girls who can’t have been older than 15/16 who were talking about ‘fucking this’ and ‘fucking that’.  Not even trying to curb their language while I, or anyone else, was in earshot. And it was just natural conversation – I don’t think they were trying to appear more adult or cooler or anything like that.

And it’s just words, I know, it’s all the evolving language that is English.  Personally, I don’t care what sort of language people use amongst themselves.  But surely in a place of work there has to be certain rules – especially when that place of work is a public library.

The other thing is, he was probably just saying it to get a rise out of me.  And I guess he did.  I validated his presence by acknowledging him.  Maybe that is how it works in his house.  Perhaps he is only acknowledged when he plays up.  And that makes me sad.  But that doesn’t mean I have to put up with him calling me ‘cuntish’, to my face, in my place of work, does it?

Twat.

A Borrowed Library Rant

So there is this website I dip into from time to time.

I’m not signed up to it or anything, although the summer holidays and all they bring with them into my place of work has made me consider it.

It’s called ‘The Society for Librarians* Who Say “Motherfucker”‘

Here is a snippet of what one might find on said site.  This one comes from pcdoc:

Dear Patron:
yes, we do have a lot of internet computers and yes, many of them are in use right now. Some people may be looking for jobs, some doing research, some working on their resume and yes, we do extend time.
However
It’s 82 degrees outside, nice and sunny, not too humid, pleasant breeze blowing.
Your 8 year old is bored to tears and you are still on the computer, after 3 hours.
Are you working on a resume?
Doing research?
Job hunting?
No.
You’re watching cartoons.
For 3 fucking hours

It’s a relief to see that some library customer habits are the same the world over.

Even if it is fucking annoying.