Posted on 27. Jun, 2009 by susie in books i've been reading, cooking, girl meets cake, internet, kids' books i've been reading, my invisible boyfriend, telly
I’ve wanted a hammock since the summer after my GCSEs, when I spent an entire week at a French campsite refusing to budge out of one, while reading Dune. (Truly, there cannot be more compelling evidence of the comfortableness of hammocks. Sorry, sci-nerds, but that’s a 750-page turd of a book.)
Today the sun shone, I read the weekend Guardian cover to cover, and there were raspberries, and much tea. Bliss.
Nomnomnombooks. Lately I’ve read Scarlett Thomas’
PopCo, which is marginally less weird than
The End of Mr Y, despite being about commercial globalisation, treasure-hunting, and complex mathematical formulae. Brilliant, though: the ideas are magnificent but it’s the characters I still miss, weeks later. Then Nicola Upson’s
An Expert In Murder: faux 30s detective fiction, starring actual 30s detective fiction author
Josephine Tey (do you see what she did there?), who gets embroiled in a series of murders connected to her play about Richard III. Being a Tey geek, I adore the concept more than is reasonable, but the execution is a disappointment: in lieu of narrative urgency the point of view wanders from character to character, including to the killer – who conveniently happens not to be thinking “hmm, wish I hadn’t committed that murder” at the time – and Tey is barely in it. I’d go and read
Brat Farrar instead if I were you (or Allingham’s
Dancers in Mourning, for genuine Golden Age theatreland intrigue). I’ve also finally read a Jaclyn Moriarty,
Becoming Bindy McKenzie (YA), which I adored with the queasy reservations of one who recognises bits of her teenage self in the (profoundly unlovely) heroine. The denouement is bonkers, but there’s so much brilliance before that you don’t mind at all. It’s the 3rd of her Ashbury books, and I plan to eat the others as soon as the library lets me.
I have proofs! One last pass over the insides of My Invisible Boyfriend (the US title for Girl Meets Cake), which is going to look beautiful. And I’m playing with a new Sooper Sekrit Project: only a few thousand words in, but I’m getting a wee bit excited. If I can juuust get the voice right…
Becoming enthralled by the televisual loveliness that is
Chuck; watching
Don Juan De Marco (Johnny Depp is so young! Marlon Brando is so… many other things); being dead chuffed about Anthony Browne being the new children’s laureate; eating lasagne; still loving RebelliousPixels’
Buffy vs Twilight satire vid (just in case you missed it); wondering if I can bring the hammock indoors at the end of the summer so I don’t have to contemplate life without it…
Tags: books i've been reading, buffy, cooking, culty rubbish, girl meets cake, internet, kids' books i've been reading, my invisible boyfriend, telly, whedonverse
Yes, I remember fighting over that hammock quite a lot. Looks like you’ve got one of the wussy hammocks with a frame? Be glad. The ones which turn into a rope when you get out of them are equally comfy, but you need a degree in ‘hammock-mounting’ (ahem) before you can enjoy.
LOVE the buffy thingy. I haven’t seen or read Twilight, but just the clips made me want to stake the creep myself. Eugh. Must be some teenage phase I skipped.