Book number five of the year is The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. I mean, it wasn't great, but it was interesting enough to keep me going and the prose was fluid and descriptive and also not too bad.

I received this book for Christmas from G's sister. Its not normally something I'd pick up by anymeans (meaning its not fantasy or historical fiction or historical non-fiction or even horror, which is the bulk of what I read), rather its good 'ol best sellers list stuff.

The book is about a doctor, David Henry, who, in the 1960s, finds himself delivering his own set of twins on a snowy night, unable to get his wife to the hospital in time. Everything is fine with the first baby, a healthy little boy, but the second baby, a little girl, is born with an obvious case of Down's Syndrome. Henry, having grown up with an invalid sister who died young, makes the decision not to 'burden' his wife with this child and so tells his nurse to take the baby away to a home where she will be cared for. He later tells his wife (who has been unconscious for the later part of the birth) that the baby girl died.

The twist here is though that the nurse, Caroline, does take the baby (called Phoebe) to the home, but sees immediately that it is a horrible place, and so makes the decision to take Phoebe and raise her as her own. She does indeed tell Henry that she has done this, but she doesn't tell him where she moves to, as she doesn't want to give up the child.

What ensues is a very interesting look at the dynamics of the two families who are formed by the doctor's fateful decision. The doctor's wife Norah, never comes to terms with the depression she continuously feels after her baby's 'death', and the doctor forever holds himself apart from his family, protecting the terrible secret he created. The family slowly disintigrates over the years, drifting apart, never talking, no one but the doctor knowing what the real problem is, so never being able to fix it.

The second family, the nurse's, turns out much more happy really. She does live with some fear that she will lose her 'daughter', and she fights very hard for Phoebe's rights, ensuring that she gets a fair education etc. She also has the happier of the two marriages by far. Because of this, I couldn't help but feel that obviously, Caroline made the 'right' decision in not abaonding Phoebe, and so, while there are some hardships, she does have the happier emotional life.

Of course, its also very interesting seeing the way Down's Syndrome was percieved in the 60s. While it may seem increadible to us that David Henry would just immediately sentence his child to an institution, back then, this was what most doctors would recomment. Caroline's story of struggling to win the basic rights for her daughter to even go to school is very fascinating, and its strange to think that this wasn't always such an automatic thing.

So yeah, quick read, but a good one, I think this really only took me three days to read.

Number 4 of the year is Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Guy Kay is my favourite author. He wrote my very favourite books ever (in fact, I'm re-reading the Fionavar Tapestry again right now), and during university, I wrote a paper on them (which, if you go to Kay's site www.brightweavings.com, you can read it there.) I realized it had been awhile since I'd visited the site, so last Monday I decided to pop on over and see what Kay was up to.

Imagine my surprise to discover he had a new book out. Ok, surprise probably isn't the right word... shock is more like it. I couldn't believe I'd missed it! I couldn't believe I'd missed him doing his usual book launch reading at Hart House! I have all his books and each and every one of them are signed. This is the first one that hasn't been and I feel... let down. Let down by myself more than anything really. But, I'll keep track now and hope that he does another reading again at some point. After all, he does live in Toronto.

So anyway, yes, Ysabel. I loved it. Loved, loved, loved it. Mainly because two characters from Fionavar show up in this, and I was just tickled to see them. Oh, the book has its own merits of course, and its actually quite the departure for Kay as well. Its his first book set wholly in the 'mundane' world. Rather than having characters from our world cross over into a fantasy world, or rather than having the story take place entirely in a fantasy world... Ysabel takes place completely in Provence, France. And in another departure, the protagonist of the book is only fifteen years old, which makes for an interesting perspective. I'm not entirely sure Kay writes a youngster perfectly, but he does well enough.

The plot is mainly a cat-and-mouse game that has been going on for thousands of years, and its a game with deadly consequences that the protagonist, Ned, finds himself wrapped up in. Kay likes the themes of people with hidden potential caught up in stories that they don't mean to find themselves in and rising to the occasion, and he writes them very well. I also thought that despite the title of the book, Ysabel herself is not really... in it much. She is discussed and sought after and the raison d'etre for the entire book, but we don't really see her much as a character, which meant I felt myself rather distanced from her, but I think that was the point. Ysabel is from a time so long ago and alien to us that its hard to understand what is happening with her and her two, eternal suitors, Cadell and Phelan. We see the story pretty much entirely through Ned's eyes, and while sometimes this is good, sometimes its frustrating because I would've liked to know a little more about WHY everything was happening. A little more explanation would've been nice.

But other than that, I didn't have any complaints. I burned through it in a week, and the exclamation of joy I made when I realized who indeed Aunt Kim was, made this book all worth it for me.

Whoohoo! Finished book number three of the year!

And what was my third book? Bitten by Kelly Armstrong. Originally, I had G pick this up as a possible Christmas gift for my mother. I had mistakenly thought it was about vampires, but it ended up being about werewolves. No biggie though, my mom is equally fond of both. However, it ended up that G found the book he originally wanted to give my mom (which was about vampires), so I ended up keeping Bitten.

I'd heard of this book awhile ago. Kelly Armstrong is from Toronto and took the same Romance Writing course I took, from the same instructor. As she has gone on to be published, of course Brian (the course instructor) trotted out her name to prove that some of his alumni do go on to get published. Which actually, was nice to know.

So, having the book in my posession, I decided to give it a shot.

It's not great.

I's not bad either; the fact that some of it is set in Toronto is always amusing, since not a lot is actually set in Toronto. It's told in a first person narrative, through the eyes of the 'only female werewolf in the world', Elena. Elena has a cliche ridden angsty background that drove me up the wall (orphaned tragically at a young age, brought up in foster homes and abused repeatedly. I don't doubt this happens, but really, it would be so much more refreshing if this sort of thing didn't happen all the time in order to make a character more... edgy) and she dithers more about decisions than Hamlet does, which also makes her rather annoying.

Armstrong does create her own werewolf mythology, and she maintains her internal consistency well, but I find her writing style falls victim to her often repeating herself, or hitting you over the head with her central motifs of how angry Elena is with everything, but how she has to accept it etc. The secondary characters aren't all that interesting, in fact, I also found them pretty cliche; the attractive, intelligent, dangerous, lone wolf ex-boyfriend; the patient, intelligent, talented Alpha male pack leader, etc. I found that I didn't really bond with any of these characters much at all.

As I said, it wasn't a horrible read, I mean, I did finish the book, but I know there are more in this series about Elena, and I doubt I'll be rushing out to pick 'em up.

And now after three fairly 'fluffy' books, I'm feeling the need to read something a little more... weighty I think.

Oh, and I'm half way through a re-read of Guy Kay's The Summer Tree.

Yay! First post of 2006! And I've already read two books!

Ok, so one was pretty damn short, but still, two books! Two weeks into January!

I'm not going to keep this pace up...

So, what have I read? Well, I read Inheritance by Devin Grayson, and Five Hole Stories by Dave Bidini. What are they about? Well two of my very favourite things, superheroes and hockey, respectively, and even better, there's sex in 'em!

lol. Yes, I'm juvenille.

Devin Grayson normally writes comic books. She normally writes comic books that I don't read because I don't like her writing. She took over the writing chores on one of my very favourite characters, Nightwing, and I had to drop the book, I was so unhappy with her writing on it. Now, I understand that she probably feels kinda like how I do about Nightwing... i.e. she's got a bit of a fetish about him. So while I can totally get on board with that, I still think her writing style stinks, its way too soap operaie. Why did I want to read Inheritance then? Because, way back when, Rich Johnston of Lying in the Gutters fame, posted a couple of passages from this book and they were DELICIOUSLY awful and I decided right then and there I had to read it. Plot doesn't really matter, it has to do with a (made up) foreign dignitary's son nearly being assasinated in Gotham, so Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Arsenal, Aquaman and Tempest team up to find out whodunit. So, with all these heroes and their side kicks running around, you see where the title came from. The thing I took most from this book? Devin must think Green Arrow has bisexual tendencies as she has him comment on how good looking Nightwing is NUMEROUS times, and she is terribly concerned with both Nightwing and Arsenal's sex lives. Unfortunately, she doesn't go into quite salacious enough detail to really make this book worthwhile. As far as superhero porn goes, it wasn't that good.

I'm a big fan of Dave Bidini's. No, not his band, The Rheostatics, but his writing. Another of his books, Tropic of Hockey, ranks up their amongst my favourite books. So, when I heard he'd published a book of erotic hockey stories, well, lets just say I was thrilled and rushed out to buy it as soon as I could. Five Hole Stories is not very long, there's only about five short stories in it, but they're well written if not very... titilating. A few of the stories were even tinged with a bit of sadness; there's nothing graphic about them, and the most controversial one of them got was about a goalie who feels unrequited love for his team star player, a very thinly disguised Wayne Gretzky. I mean, I enjoyed the book, I guess I was just expecting something more... erotic.

Hmm, these reads seem to have left me rather frustrated. lol

In the words of Daniel Cook; "Here we are!"

That's right, 2007. So... what did I read in 2006? What was the final count?

Well, 22 new books were read, 20 were re-read, plus one re-read of an epic poem, for a grand total of 43 books read this year...

Wow that seems low. Of course, I chalk this up to numerous things, mainly just having less time to read and my dear G passing on his bad habit of watching television on DVD :)

Of course, this also doesn't keep track of all the comic books I read. With at least 3 or 4 a week, that's a lot of comic books over the year.

I have quite a pile on my bedside table right now, latest Dave Bidini offering; something that could end up being deliciously smutty from Devin Grayson; Gaiman's Anasasi Boys still; and a book on the Cohen brothers, are all things on my reading list for the new year.

Let's start the count again!

*insert usual comment about how I haven't updated this blog in awhile...*

Since last update, G and I went on a trip to England, London specifically, and it was wonderful and perfect and everything I could ever have wanted it to be and of course I bought books over there :)

But what have I read since I last updated?

All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman. G lent me this book and it was a fun, quick, little read written by Canadian author Andrew Kaufman. Its a funny little book where the main character is about to loose his wife forever, because she cannot see him since he was made invisible on their wedding day by a rival for his wife's affections. Everyone in the book has a 'superpower' based on the most outstanding aspect of their personalities (i.e. the wife is the Perfectionist) and I found myself wondering what my personality-related-superpower would be and strangely enough, I couldn't come up with one. But anyway, it was a fun book and really enjoyed all the different superheroes (as I also found myself going 'Oh yeah, I know someone like that') and it was a satisfying, happy ending.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Believe it or not, this is NOT an Arthurian-themed book that I picked up in London. This book is about a case of a wrongfully accused and convicted man (one George Edalji) who's cause renowned author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes to champion. The book is a very, very interesting look at the lives of two very different men, and infact, it isn't till about 2/3s of the way through that Arthur and George finally meet. I admit, I kept wondering if the crimes George was accused of would end up being linked to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, but that was never done, and I actually found myself happy that they weren't. Its funny though, while I have read some Sherlock Holmes stories and liked them well enough, I've found that I enjoy books where Holmes' creator is a main character very enjoyable (like in the List of Seven) Sir Arthur seemed to be an extremely fascinating character all of himself as well.

I just began Alice Munro's latest offering The View from Castle Rock, which I hope to have finished fairly soon.

Rereads of late includes lots of Anne McCaffery books; Dragonflight, Dragonquest and the MasterHarper of Pern.

Oh my goodness I have been neglecting this thing. Not neglecting reading though of course, I could never do that. But I also do know I haven't been reading as much as I used to. Not replacing it with watching TV though (even though hockey has of course returned to the airwaves now), but the problem with dating someone who has a larger comic book collection than you do, is that there are more comics to read. So yeah, reading a lot of comics, no so much books.

But, books I HAVE finished in the last while... Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories II by Annie Prouxl and The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era by Norman F. Cantor. Both of these books were purchased in Stratford when I went to see Coriolanus with G, and that was in July. Tells you how busy my summer was, huh?

I enjoyed Bad Dirt as much as I liked Prouxl's first short story collection. Many of these stories took place in the same towns as other stories, and that gives them a nice homey (read: claustrophobic) feeling to what is a very large state. I thought it was a nice touch. Some of them had a bit more of a supernatural element to them, which was definitely interesting, and there was still a lot of despicable people getting their comeuppances. And in one story I was tickled to see one of the characters spell his name the same way that G spell's his :)

The Last Knight was a wonderful look at the end of the Middle Ages mainly focused through the life of John of Gaunt, one of the very wealthy, very powerful sons of Edward III. Gaunt was brother to Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) and one of England's ruling Plantagenet family. He became, through marriage, the Duke of Lancaster, and so became the patriarch of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenets, one of the two families who would later become embroiled in the War of the Roses. Anyway, in modern terms, Gaunt would be considered a billionaire, that's how wealthy he was at the time, and like any member of the ruling class, being it part of a medival society or a capitalist one, he was pretty fond of the status quo. That's not to say he didn't also sometimes flirt with progressive thinking, in fact, Gaunt was a patron for quite some time of Chaucer's, so he did promote the arts. But overall, Gaunt was a product of the 1300s and was not quite ready to move into a more modern era, Not that the 1400s were all that modern mind you, but medieval society was definitely changing during the end of Gaunt's era. Anyway yeah, very interesting, historical read. Cantor also has a book out about the Black Plague, which also sound neat, I may have to check it out as well.

I'm also nearly finished One Knight Only, the second of Peter David's Arthurian themed books. Rather less humourous than the first one, this one seems to be David's rather visceral reaction to 9-11. Arthur is now President of the United States, and not only has his administration had to weather an extremely brutal terrorist attack on US soil (David doesn't go into details about the kind of attack, but the 9-11 parallels are inescapable), but also, after the US retaliates against the terrorists, they then make it personal by having Gwen (the First Lady, natch) assasinated. Well, almost assasinated. So of course, Gwen, hovering near death necessitates the need for a Grail Quest. I'm always up for a good Grail Quest, but this one is made quite interesting in that the Grail's new keeper (and I use 'new' in a very loose sense here) is someone who is quite possibly the first 'hero'. And he makes for a very good contrast to Arthur's more modern hero. All in all, its a good read so far, a little bombastic and rah rah America, but overall, its also a good treatise on free will and human rights against dictatorships and whatnot and I am very interested in seeing how it gets all played out.

Also recently, did a comfort rereading of Pamela Dean's Tamlin for the umpteenth time.

Next up on the bedside table is Neil Gaiman's Anasasi Boys.

I'm really not getting much reading done these days, due to a myriad of reasons. Well, ok, really only one reason, but he's a good one :) However, on my week long holiday spent at the parents' and the cottage, I did manage to read The Devil Wears Prada. I saw the movie a few weeks ago and really, really enjoyed it, so when I saw the book at my parents' place, I dived in. Took me all of a day and a half to read it. It has now been added to my official "The Movie is Better than the Book List". It's actually rare that I find a movie better than a book, I usually always like the book better, but not in the case. I liked the ending of the movie much better and I actually found the main characters of Andy and Miranda much more sympathetic in the movie. Also, the author's (whose name I don't even remember) writing style left me a little cold in places. She definitely went for some rather overly complicated sentences a little too often. Overall, the characters in the movie felt far more fleshed out and I agreed with their decision to amalgamate about 3 separate characters into the one of Nigel, so brilliantly played by Stanely Tucci. The movie also left out a huge subplot about an alcoholic roommate, which, while I understand its importance in the book of displaying how Andy's job was consuming her life to the point where she wasn't there to help her friend, I thought was demonstrated just as ably in the movie through a stronger plotline concerning Andy's boyfriend. Anyway yeah, movie, great, book, not so much.

I also started The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. I really enjoyed Bryson's book "A Brief History of Nearly Everything", so when I saw he had written about the beginnings of the English language, I thought I just had to pick it up. Of course, I'm not really learning anything new, most of what he talks about here was covered during my Old English course at university, but Bryson definitley has an easier way of explaining things than good ol' Professor John Chamberlain did. But of course, Bryson isn't also trying to teach a bunch of second year students how to speak and read Old English :)

I went to Stratford (Ontario) last Sunday to get my Shakespeare on and it was a fabulous time. My main reason for going was because Colm Feore, undoubtedly my favourite Canadian actor, was back at Stratford after an absence of some years, and I was determined to see him in something. He's playing the lead in one of the Bard's lesser known plays, Coriolanus, and he was magnificent as always.

So, what does this have to do with what I'm reading? Simple, I'm now reading Coriolanus. I read it once, years ago, in university, but I wanted to read it again. The main character, Caius Martius, is unabashedly a great warrior. His entire being, his entire raison d'etre, is tied to him being a soldier. It is what he is good at, and he knows this and is secure in this. He has nothing but disdain for the common populace of Rome (mainly because they do not fight) and it is because of this that he gets into deep trouble when he attempts to become a politician. It is often said that this is Shakespeare's most political of plays, even more so than Julius Ceasar or Henry V, and I have to agree. Rome as a city, as a political entity in herself, is just as much of a character as anyone else.

And Martius himself is a very interesting character. I just finished the first true battle scene with him in it, and the way he rallies his troops, by almost shaming them into being brave, is just so different from Henry V (who is probably my favourite Shakespearean soldier) who's St. Crispian's Day speech spurs on his hopelessly outnumbered army by stressing brotherhood and the honour of fighting alongside one another. Not so Martius, while he does lead by example, he sees very little brotherhood amongst his own army, in fact, he feels closest comradeship with his greatest enemy, Aufidius. He and Martius have an intense, love/hate relationship that one could easily make a case for becoming sexual by the play's third act. It's fascinating.

I also picked up a couple of other books, Wyoming Stories, another collection of short stories by Annie Proulx, and a book called The Last Knight, which is about the end of the 14th century. I look forward to getting to both of those.

I'm also re-reading The Mirror of her Dreams by Stephen Donaldson, mainly as research as I get back to writing my novel. I had always seen my heroine as slightly... reactionary at the beginning, but I don't want her to be completely passive, because I find that unlikeable. Terisa, in these books, is completely passive at the start, and quite unlikeable, I've always found I wanted to give her a good shake. But eventually, she does find her talent and is able to break out of her passivity, so I find she's not a bad model to look at. But I don't want quite her extreme, so she's also a good example of what I don't want to do.

Greetings.

Not much new I realize. I'm still slogging through A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599. Well, not really slogging, it is a good read, but I've found I havent' wanted to lug the big hardcover on the subway, so I'm doing a lot of re-reading too. I had wanted to finish A Year... when I was at my aunt's farm for a week, but I just never managed to find the time to read, we were just always doing things.

I've re-read the entire 'Kelts in Space' trilogy (the Silver Branch, the Copper Crown, the Throne of Scone), which, despite how the main character is disgustedly good at EVERYTHING, I still enjoy. Patricia Keneally may be a bit loopy, but I think she did manage to craft an interesting world overall.

I also read the first trade of a zombie comic called The Walking Dead. I'm not a huge zombie fan or anything, but I really enjoy Robert Kirkman's other comic book, Invincible, so I thought I'd give this one a try too. I have this vague feeling it gave me nightmares (I don't remember my dreams often), so I'm not sure I'll be going much farther than the first trade.

I was also given a very funny book, the Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Guide, by Scott Beatty, which is basically a very fun book that teaches you how to be Batman. And yes, I have always wanted to be Batman.

Yup, that's all for now.

Been awhile since I've posted anything here I see. I have been reading quite a bit in the meantime, but a lot of it has been the 'comfort food' of re-reads.

I've burned my way through five Outsider trades. Not bad, not great, not inspired enough to pick up the series regularly, that's for sure.

Re-read all of Byron's Don Juan; a whack of Shakespeare's Sonnets and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Of course I read that Potter book when it came out a few years back, and I remember it immediately becoming my least favourite of the bunch. But upon re-read, I found it wasn't that bad. If you go into it knowing that Harry is a pratt throughout, I found I was more able to see WHY Harry was a pratt throughout. Everything was just finally getting to him, and he IS only a 16 year-old-boy. The shit that kid's gone through, I think I can excuse his pratiness. And man, Delores Umbridge was a pretty good villian.

I did finally pick up a new book yesterday, which I started this morning; A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599, by James Shapiro. Its fictionalized history, which I've always had a fondness for, and its about Shakespeare, so how can I go wrong? Shapiro has decided to focus on this year in Shakespeare's life because this is the year he writes Henry V (which is one of my very favourite plays), Julius Ceasar, As You Like It, and his masterpiece, Hamlet. It is a year of incredible creative growth for Shakespeare, and Shapiro wants to examine the history of the year in which Shakespeare was living and see if he can find a clue as to why this became an almost seminal year in Shakespeare's writing. I thought this was an admirable thesis, and so I'm very interested in reading it.

Speaking of a thesis, I started my hypothetical one as well. That's right, my 'prove Lancelot was indeed the best knight ever by doing a sports-like statistical analysis of all tournaments and battles the knights were in.' I'm about half way through the first volume, and right now, my poor, tattered Penguin editions of Le Morte D'Arthur are now furiously scribbled in all over as well. But I'm having a great time, and at some point, I'm going to talk to one of the mathematitians I work with about how to go about the actual statistical side of things. I also told Nat about this entire endevour of mine, and she thought it was a great idea. Nice to hear that from a fellow academic :)

Ok, since last post I have indeed finished Bury the Chains. VERY good book. Has made me want to swear off eating sugar for good, but I know that's damned near impossible these days. Funny thing is, while reading the book, the CBC rebroadcast their 'Big Sugar' documentary, which looked at modern day sugar-cane plantations, and all the ways sugar is a very big problem in our world. Those who harvest sugar-cane on modern day plantations are living a life of slavery in all but name. Its like nothing really changed over the past two hundred years, and Bury the Chains have said that many of the Caribbean nations (like Haiti) have never really recovered from the slave rebellions that destroyed much of the island's wealth. The show Big Sugar also heavily referenced Bury the Chains, as they showed the abolitionist movement was very directly tied to sugar. They also mentioned how WHO had been trying to get a bill tabled at the United Nations about sanctioning big sugar, in order to protect children from the growing obesity problem, but the US refused to sign it and threatened to withdraw funding from WHO should anyone mention it again. Guess who is a large contributer to the Republicans? Yeah, sugar companies...

After finishing Bury the Chains, I started Knight Life by Peter David. Not bad at all and a fun little read as a re-awakened Arthur runs for mayor of New York City. I did have a slight panic attack worrying that perhaps this book might be too close to what I've come up with for the plot of my romance novel, but fortunately PAD's Lancelot is a non-factor in the book, and although Gwen might have some characteristics in common with my heroine, I think they're still different enough. The Arthur in this book was pretty good, and came off as very charismatic. Morgan was an ehn villainess, but I loved that Mordred was a top PR man. He was great. So yeah, overall, a nice book, I'll probably end up picking up the sequal, One Knight Only.

I've also been re-reading Byron's Don Juan (don't ask; personal reasons). I read this originally in second-year university, I had to do my Romantics seminar on it. I had an episode of Cheers taped where Diane was doing her psychology thesis on why Sam was a text-book case of Don Juan syndrome. Sam was a compulsive womanizer, and so yes, was a perfect example of the psychological Don Juan. However, as I read through Byron's poem, I realized that his Don Juan was not the compulsive womanizer that Sam was, rather Byron's Don Juan was more of a romantic, and it was usually always the women who pursued him. Byron's Don Juan was almost a niaf, and I found that rather fascinating, given the almost negative connotations being called a 'Don Juan' has in modern society. Byron's Don Juan isn't really what we think of as a stereotypical Don Juan. It is a lovely poem, full of romantic imagery, but also quite humourous as well. I'm having fun re-reading it. Oh, and way back when, I got an A on that Romantics seminar. Thanks Cheers :)

I started Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild this weekend. I'd heard about this book quite some time ago, meant to pick it up, but then completely forgot about it until I saw Hochschild interviewed on the CBC last week. Then I remembered I wanted to read this book and picked it up on Friday.

Bury the Chains looks at what was probably the world's first organized social campaign, the campaign to abolish the slave trade in Britian during the late 1700s. What is so amazing about this is that nothing like this movement had ever happened before, and those who started it were moved to do so because of the suffering of people half a world away from them. It is a remarkable thing that we, in this modern day and age, supposedly take for granted, but when we allow things like the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur to occur, well, it seems like things haven't changed all that much.

But so far, its a fascinating book. We've met some of the major players in the movement, men who were moved by the hardships and brutality suffered by slaves, some of whom had been involved in the slave trade themselves. But most interesting of all, was that the movement was really started by, and organized by, Quakers. I had never known this and found it fascinating. These men started just about every practice we take for granted today as being part of a social, reform movement; petitions, letter-writing campaigns, fund-raising, even the forerunner to political slogan-type campaign buttons.

Anyway, I'm only about half way through it, and the main players are still organizing themselves and are gathering amunition to use against the slave trade (they found huge support in the pre-Industrial Revolution city of Manchester, one of the few cities in England whose economy was not dependent upon the slave trade) and in trying to win over all-important Anglicans (for only Anglicans could vote and be Members of Parliament) to their cause.

The sections about the treatment of the slaves and what they went through is particularly horrifying, but well balanced with the more uplifting sections about the successes the abolitionists were having. It is a good strategy in the narrative, for the brutality does not become too much that it just makes you simply want to stop reading. You experience outrage, but you want to continue to see what happens and how the inevitable end, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, comes about.

Whew, I was right, hockey playoffs have completely screwed up my reading time. Even with my favourite teams out, I'm still watching hockey. I'm so weak :)

Plus, I've finally been able to start riding my bike into work again, so no subway to read on.

So, I haven't really started anything new since finishing Mad Merlin. In fact, I went back for a re-read on two of my favourite Arthurian books, The Child Queen and The High Queen. They're told from Guinevere's perspective, and she's not bad in these books. A little drama-queenesque, but definitely not as completely unsympathetic as she is often portrayed. And the Lancelot in these books is a hot-head, and I like that about him. These books also have a GREAT Arthur. He's definitely one of my favourite Arthur's ever; very real, very personable, very... Arthur.

But yes, I still have to launch myself into Peter David's Knight Life. That will be next.

I've also started the painstaking process of carefully re-reading (and taking notes) Le Morte D'Arthur. I've recently had this wild idea that I would like to 'prove' that Lancelot was the best knight, statistically speaking. I mean, Malory is great with listing off EVERYONE who fought in tournaments; who unhorsed who, who fought who on the ground, etc., and I thought it would be fun to go through Le Morte D'Arthur and actually do sports like stats for the various knights. If I ever did get the opportunity to go and do my Master's Degree, this is completely what my thesis would be. Yes, I'm weird :)

It's the time of year again when my reading time will seriously suffer because the Stanley Cup playoffs have started and there is MUCH hockey to be watched. This year isn't as bad as the past few, since the Leafs didn't make the playoffs, I'm only having to pay attention to my beloved Wings. But since Detroit is playing a Canadian team in the first round, I'm actually getting to see the games. Which is awesome. But as I said, my reading suffers in the Spring.

But despite the distraction the playoffs present, I did manage to finish Mad Merlin by J. Robert King. It wasn't bad, but it is the first time that I actually felt like... yeah yeah, I know what's going to happen, Arthur beats the Saxons at Badon Hill, blah, blah. I never usually feel like that with an Arthurian book, I mean face it, I ALWAYS know what's going to happen with an Arthur book. Depending on when in his life they're focusing, I know that he becomes King, marries Guinevere, founds the Round Table, fights a lot of Saxons, defeats the Saxons, has years of security, the knights go off to find the Holy Grail, gets killed by Mordred. End of story (unless you're doing the once and FUTURE king side of his story). But this book is obviously ending early in Arthur's reign, and is going to be using the victory at Badon over the Saxons as the climax, but I'm just kinda... ehn about it.

It's not that I'm not enjoying the book, it has some neat ideas, like Merlin being the fallen ex-god Jupiter and Excalibur forged from the actual word of the Christian God, but I've found the characters rather hard to enage in because there's SO much focus on the magic and the clash of religions. Wow, I cannot believe I'm actually complaining that there might've been too much magic in this Arthurian telling, but I think I am.

I did like that the conflict with the Saxons was also them bringing their gods with them to conquor Britannia, but we all know that didn't work. The Saxon people might've eventually won, but it was the Christian God who won the religious wars, stamping out or appropriating the gods of the Saxons, the Celts, the Romans, etc. So yeah, that aspect I did find interesting, but I did think there was a little too much focus on such things.

Still have to finish Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure though. But I also started re-reading my run of Y: The Last Man, since I just got all my trades back from a friend who had borrowed them.

I'm still only about half way through Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure. Its not bad, but it hasn't really grabbed me much. I like it, its still amusing, but I find that Dave and Danny are not quite as funny apart as they are together. But, with Dave's book its quite interesting to find out that he still keeps in close contact with a few of the other Dave Gorman's he met, just as Danny made some good freinds out of Join Me. I liked that :)

Last Monday (not the one yesterday), I had forgotten my book at home and so had nothing to read AT THAT MOMENT, and so decided to go to the World's Biggest Bookstore. I love that place. It truly has the best selection of Fantasy/Sci-Fi books out there. Now, if I want just normal mainstream, popular fiction, then a Chapters or Indigo will do, but for fantasy? Nothing but World's Biggest. Lately, they've taken to having displays of 'theme' books, i.e. all humourous fantasy (Tom Holt, Robert Aspirin, Terry Pratchett, etc.) or all books prominently featuring Dragons, or all Canadian fantasy (Guy Kay, Michelle West, Charles De Lint etc.) or all Arthurian themed books. Squee! So yeah, saw that and had to pick up a couple I hadn't read yet. And its acutally been a few months since I've read any Arthurian and the withdrawl was starting to set in, so I picked up Mad Merlin by J. Robert King and Knight Life by Peter David.

I'd read another Arthurian themed book by King, called Lancelot du Lethe, and I enjoyed it, so thought I'd give this one a try. Its not bad, it has all the magic left in and has to deal with Arthur's ascention to the throne. Its got some weird ideas in it (Merlin is actually a 'slain' Jupiter, he was cast out from being a god and made mortal when he lost his followers to Jehovah), but the characters are quite good and Arthur comes across as quite charming, which, for being such a great leader, isn't always the case. So yeah, so far, not bad. Oh, and B finds the author's name very amusing, since it is pretty much his name, just rearranged a little bit. So he keeps referring to it as 'the book he wrote' :)

The second book, Knight Life, I'd been meaning to pick up for awhile because Peter David is someone I'm very familiar with through comic books. He's written all kinds of stuff, from the only Hulk and X-Factor issues I've ever read (and rather enjoyed), so a fabulous retelling of Aquaman's origin to the very enjoyable first bunch of issues that was Young Justice (I will say that as the run of YJ went on, I did have some problems with it, but there was some comedic gold in those first few issues), so I'm curious to check out his take on a modern version of Arthur.

And that's where I am this week.

I loved Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It was a tremendously funny, touching and deep book. It humanized Christ in a way that I, someone who doesn't really count themselves as a Christian, never thought was possible. And as I've always thought that Christ, despite his divine connections, was supposed to be the human side of God, he always felt so... untouchable to me in the Bible. There was never anything that made me want to follow his teachings in the Bible, but that may be because the Bible is presented as this 'authority', and I don't believe that anyone other than Christ himself could be the 'authority'. But anyway, I'm not about to run out and become a true believer, but I just really liked the way Christopher Moore characterized Christ, or Joshua as he is called throughout the book. Even just calling him Joshua instead of the more familiar, Jesus (which Moore has Biff point out to us is the Greek form of the name Joshua) goes so far in humanizing Christ. As does the first time we (and Biff) see him, in a scene that made me fall in love with the book nearly right away; Joshua is around nine years old and he has a squirming lizard in his mouth. He takes the lizard out of his mouth, hands it to his younger brother James, who proceeds to smash it with a rock and kill it. James then hands the lizard back to Joshua, who puts it in his mouth again, and brings it back to life. Biff cannot help but think there's something different about this kid.

The main crux of the story is that Joshua passes those 'missing' years, the ones none of the Gospels cover, but going to learn how to become the Messiah. He does so by finding the three men who believed he was the Messiah right from his birth; the Three Wise Men. He (and Biff) journey to China, India and what would be modern day Afghanistan to learn the ways of magic, the Buddha and some Hinduism/Yoga. Its fascinating and a wonderful idea.

But most importantly along the way to learning to become a Messiah, it is Joshua's best friend Biff (Levi who is called Biff, named so because the sound of him being repeatedly slapped upside the head by his parents is the sound 'Biff') who teaches Joshua to be human.

It is a wonderful book, and even though the ending is such a foregone conclusion, I couldn't help but be sad at the end because for the first time, I felt I connected to Christ not as the ideal, or the sacrifice or the martyr or what have you, but as a person.

So yeah, plowed through that one and now I'm onto Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure.

Alrighty, I finished Danny Wallace's journey into culthood, er, sorry, collective-hood, Join Me.
It was a very good read, but not as side-splittingly funny as Are You Dave Gorman? Join Me was definitely more introspective, but still a journey about self discovery. Danny was inspired to create Joine Me when a Swiss great uncle of his passes away, and Danny is told by some family members, that at one point, this uncle had wanted to start a collective of people living on his farm, helping each other, living in harmony, etc. Basically a commune. Danny finds this wonderful and so places an ad in a newpaper, asking people to simply "Join Me". All they have to do is send him a passport photo. And from there it begins and it grows throughtout the UK to Belgium, Norway, and even the Far East.

I did find it sad that Danny and his girlfriend Hanne, who was such a wonderful character in Are You Dave Gorman?, eventually did break up over Join Me. To her, it was just 'another stupid boy-thing', whereas to Danny, it was an important meeting of minds, of people inspired to do good deeds, etc. It was sad that they couldn't agree on it (although Danny was a prat and hid his collective from her for most of it), although Hanne did eventually join him, but only as a member, not as his significant other again.

So anyway, good read, quite thought provoking really.

And now I'm onto some Christopher Moore hilarity, reading one of his older books that I'd been meaning to read forever but haven't gotten around to, Lamb: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. It promises to delightfully irreverant, but with enough good punches to also make you think. Christopher Moore hasn't failed me yet.

I've been sick for the last three days with the worst cold I've had in a very, very long time. Didn't feel like doing much reading because my head hurt, but I did manage to finish Close Range. Overall, I really enjoyed the stories. Her descriptions of Wyoming are beautiful and yet stark, and she never lets you forget how unforgiving the country can be, death is an everyday part of the lives of all the characters, and many meet unpleasant ends. Her characters are harsh, hard-living, sometimes noble, but often not types. There was one story that was only a page and a half long, but with the best 'makes you laugh in a VERY uncomfortable way' punchline ending ever. As I mentioned, also included in this collection is the story, Brokeback Mountain, which was the main reason I picked this up. The story is very similar to the movie, and its not very long, but there are chunks of dialogue in the movie straight out of the story, and I now realize that the screenwriters of the movie did a really fantastic job of filling in the details after Annie's wonderfully stark prose supplies you with the initial ideas. Plus, Ang Lee totally captured exactly how Annie sees Wyoming. I think it was a beautiful translation, and I was so happy to see that some of my favourite moments in the movie did indeed come right out of the story. Brokeback Mountain comes out on DVD on Tuesday, and I am definitely going to pick it up so I can watch it and then reread the story.

Next on the reading list is Join Me, where Dan Wallace, one of the co-writers of Are You Dave Gorman? inadvertantly starts a cult. Sounds amusing :)

But I am taking a brief time out to reread Watchmen, as I reread V for Vendetta this past weekend in what was supposed to be a warm up to go see the movie. Which I didn't go see, because I was sick. But somehow, a really bad cold and political unrest/anarchy seemed to go well together.

Gah, I've been so slow with reading things lately. Stems from two things: I'm able to get out more since I only have Jet part of the time (which has its bonuses and its disads), and I got a beautiful new TV at the beginning of the month and have found myself watching TV for simply the sake of watching my awesome new TV. I'm getting a handle on this though, and am slowly returning to my regular viewing habits of only watching the Amazing Race, Lost and some incarnation of Law & Order.

So, since I was last here though, I have indeed finished the Maltese Falcon. I think the ending of the movie is very different from the one in the novel. I seem to remember in the movie, Humphrey Bogart breaking open the Falcon and some ridiculously expensive jewel was inside it. Or am I making that up? Anyway, book was good, but because I seemed to have that ending fixed in my mind, I was quite surprised at the ending of the book and I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or not. Kinda like when I read Jaws finally and got to the end and said "That's it? Boring!" Say what you like about Speilberg these days, he definitely improved on the ending of Jaws.

Also finished Are You Dave Gorman. I got off to a slow start with it, but ended up loving it and laughing myself silly at parts of it. It really is a good thing the authors were able to parlay their silly bet into a book and a BBC series, I can only imagine how far in debt Dave Gorman was after travelling to places like NYC, Italy and Tel Aviv. Being of Norweigian decent myself, this was my very, very favourite passage in the book, said by Dan Wallace's Norweigian girlfriend:

"I am in charge on this trip," said Hanne sternly. "Nothing is going to go wrong. You two have been very sloppy so far. You need a Norweigian in charge. Or a woman. Or better still, a Norweigian woman."

And, as her boyfriend then states, there's not a lot you can say to that. LOL.

I also finished my rereading of the complete Chronicles of Narnia. And, as I'm trying to break out of a writer's block concerning the superhero game I run, I also re-read all the Warren Ellis written trades of StormWatch. Still not inspired though...

Last night, since I was so close to finishing Are You Dave Gorman, I picked up Close Range, the collection of short stories written by Annie Proulx that Brokeback Mountain is in. I've only read a couple of the stories so far, but I'm quite liking them. She's very Alice Munroesque by way of Wyoming. I'm looking forward to getting to the Brokeback story considering how much I adored the movie.