Tolkien Reading Day

Today I went out to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day. It's a day of celebrating this great author and his works. And so, when I spotted that this event was on at a local library, I thought it was about time I went to see who was giving the talk; and what it was about.

However, a few days ago, I was at the Logan North Library when I spotted the advertising about this event and called up Peter Kenny - Brisbane's biggest collector of JRR Tolkien memorabilia - and we chatted for a good half hour about just that topic; as well as collecting books. I found that Peter has a huge collection of 'The Hobbit' in a variety of languages, of merchandise, costumes and other information he's researched about the realms that JRR Tolkien created just to write 'Lord of the Rings', 'The Hobbit' and 'The Silmarillion'; as well as other books on how those books came together. 

There weren't many people at today's reading, but the few who were there knew their fair share of information about Middle Earth and some of the specifics. One girl showed up and greeted us in Elvish - a language that JRR Tolkien developed himself to use in the just the books, but people have learned and used for themselves - and she bowed to him as well; fun stuff.

Well, the talk went for over an hour on the history of how the spirit guides and the lands were created. This was very briefly explained. Then, Peter talked in-depth about how 'Lord of the Rings' was about Aragorn more and less about Frodo and him getting the ring he had to Mount Doom. Believe me, I'll be rereading that book again just to pick up on it all.
He also made note that the movies were a mess of mis-quoted lines from the books that were placed in the wrong places, into the wrong character's mouths in the movies.  

Overall, the whole talk was fascinating and was well worth my morning there. I stuck around to chat to Peter more as he asked me to stay after his talk so we could catch up about our books and collections. It was good to talk to somebody about something we both understood completely. What made it worthwhile was that he had a huge amount of knowledge and books I didn't; and I had some books he wanted to look at that he hadn't seen. So, it was good for us both. Until my next post, happy reading.

Vampire Reading

Yesterday, I had a wonderful friend of mine give me all of her vampire books! And some of the author's I haven't read, some of them I have... but haven't read their most recent works.

From Christopher Pike to Tad Williams to P.C. Cast, I have a great pile of books to add to my ever-growing collection of books!

'The Black Ridge' by Ander Louis
'The Liberation of Sundrian City' by Ander Louis
'Hunted' by P.C & Kristin Cast
'Time Raiders' by P.C Cast and other authors
'Chosen' by P.C & Kristin Cast
'Untamed' by P.C & Kristin Cast
'Marked' by P.C & Kristin Cast
'Tempted' by P.C & Kristin Cast
'Breathe Again' by Kamy Chetty
'Fragile Eternity' by Melissa Marr
'Shadowplay' by Tad Williams (vol II)
'Shadowrise' by Tad Williams (vol III)
'Lover Mine' by J.R. Ward
'Lover Revealed' by J.R. Ward
'Spirit Bound' by Richelle Mead
'Night World' by L.J Smith - Vol I
'Night World' by L.J Smith - Vol II
'Thirst' by Christopher Pike - Vol I
'Thirst' by Christopher Pike - Vol II
'Great Mysteries' by Pamela Bradley
'Karate for Everyone' by Robert B Sullivan
'Living My Dream' by Kancho Robert Sullivan

Now, the question for this book collector is:  where the heck do I put these new additions? Yep, I'm starting to run out of room in this tiny office - and it is great to have such a lovely, filled library of so many differing books in this little room. I mean, just look at the ones I've acquired only yesterday.  I don't wish to get rid of any right now - as they are ones I want. Well, until my next post, happy reading!

Writing Work This Wet Weekend

This weekend just gone has been one of the wettest around for some years; and I got a lot done!  

As I mentioned in the last post, I wanted to get some reading done - and I did.  I read a few chapters of 'Wizard and Glass' book 4 of 'The Dark Tower' Series by Stephen King.  That was on Friday night, but then on Thursday night, I read a few chapters of 'Dandelion Wine' by Ray Bradbury.  These books are total opposites, but both writers are absolute genius' as what they do in this world.

On Saturday, I cleaned out my lounge room.  It was great to be able to move around the house again, throw out a rubbish bag and fill up the Donation Box completely.  But then, it was also great to put things away too, check the water in the piano (yep, they need it to keep from warping) and I cleaned the coffee table and now, all I have to do is clear the dining table and the place look sweet!

But then, I stumbled upon two recipe books I'm working with.  They're lovely books.  One book is one Mum bought me where I write down recipes I've created or gotten from people and they are my favourites and the other is one I bought from my craft group and it's more professional-looking.  The second one is cut up into sections where you write your recipes down and there's little pockets where you can slot recipes cards that are loose and sitting around - a very nice book in all, something I'd definitely use!  So, I'm working with these two books, off and on.  Honestly, I really need to get them finished up and put away, they are getting in the way.
Then, I have a recipe book on my tablet.  This one is one where I've copied out my recipes from the first book onto an app I scored from the 'Play Store' for free.  It's great to have this on my tablet because I can take it anywhere and I have a recipe book at my fingertips without having to be hooked up on the internet - not a bad deal, right?  Well, I have to update that 'invisible' recipe book soon as well so I'm not without the needed recipe when I'm on holidays.  You never know when I'll need a recipe or two and if it's not on my table, it'll be at home.  Just what did we ever do without technology?

Well, I hope you survived the weekend, like I did.  I heard that overseas in the USA, there was a huge ice storm and everyone there was trapped at home as much as we were.  So, what did you get up to during that time? Until my next post, happy reading.

They're Everywhere!

I've been noticing that when I'm not looking a particular author's work will pop up everywhere!  And I mean everywhere!  I've been finding Piers Anthony books throughout my local Life Line Charity store lately; and they're going for $3.00ea... what a steal!  Quite a few of them are First Editions and they're in great condition too!

Have you found any books from a particular author which has suddenly just popped up somewhere and you can't seem to stop finding them?  Until my next post, happy reading!

What's Inside Your Collection?

Have you ever done it?  You know?  Gone through your book collection and found out just what you have in it?  I have once in a while.  And you know, it's a big surprise to me just how many books I really do have that I don't get to read or books I picked up and wanted to read at one stage and don't want to anymore.
The shelves are stacked beautifully, all the spines are facing out.  I have books piled on top of the ones standing up properly, as well as books on the tops of the shelves where they lay down so they don't fall down.  And all of those look like mountains; where they are all leaning in on each other from the edges just so nothing falls down if I add one more book on by throwing it on top.  Or if it teeters a little, something in the way it's sitting will keep it from falling down.  Or - funnier still - at some point in the next few days or nights, I'll hear a thump, and a few seconds later, a crash and race in to find all my books from the mountain on the floor!  And this book avalanche was caused by that one book on top teetering a little when I should have found a good spot for it.  Lazy me!

But seriously, do you know what you have in your shelves?  And I don't mean a rough estimate... I mean, do you know exactly which authors you have right now?  I can honestly say that I don't.  I know a few of them, but not all of them.  And that's a good thing to know.  And here's a few of them just off-hand:

Stephen King
Paulo Coelho
Maeve Binchy
Umberto Eco
John Connolly
JRR Tolkien
Douglas Adams
Imogen Edwards-Jones
Sara Douglass
Helen Garner
Jim Morrison
Donald Stephenson
Colleen McCullough
Bill Cosby
Ray Bradbury
Mark Twaine
Alan Alda
Charles Dickens
Oscar Wilde
Hugh Lunn
John Irving
Estelle Pinney
Matthew Reilly
Peter Straub
Nigel Goodall
 

I have more than one book of the above authors in my shelves... and this is who I can see from where I'm sitting. So, do tell!  Who have you got in your collection?  Are you proud to have them?  Or are some authors a big, bad secret?  Like for me having a Dr. Seus book isn't my proudest moment.  But then, I guess everyone's got a few hiding in their past.  Until my next post, happy reading!          

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

Roland's back in the second book of this great series.  His mind is still on the Dark Tower, but now, he's on a mission, this is to draw three.  However, he starts out on a beach - where the first book left him sitting, watching the sun set.  He begins to walk north and finds his first door.
Through this - another two doors - Roland finds he can enter into certain people's minds and into their lives, controlling them to a certain extent, to help them realise he needs them to find the Dark Tower.  This first person was easy to talk into this; as Eddie ended up not having anyone to turn to and went with Roland easily.
However, the other two doors were the real challenge.  There was The Lady, who was Odetta Holmes who was a lovely, sweet, Southern woman who was crippled only a few years before.  However, it was the other woman in the shadows of her mind Eddie and Roland had to be careful of... the scary, fearful one who made it difficult for either of them to sleep at night on the beach, or to turn their backs on her for a moment.
The last door of the three was the clincher... the one that tied the whole three of these people together for Roland.  But he didn't know this until he stepped through it and into the mind of a man whose hatred was so strong, he didn't dare take him back through the door; instead, he had other plans for him.

I found this book one I couldn't put down.  Even though I've been battling a cold lately, I have found myself fighting off closing my eyes late at night to read to the end of a chapter, and end up having to stop reading so I can be fresh enough the next day to remember what I've read.  Yep, Stephen King has pulled me into his wonderful ways of story-telling yet again and I know he won't let go until he's finished creeping me out.  However, don't read this book on its own, read it along with the other books in the Dark Tower Series; there's now eight of them.  And I found turned around and made me laugh in this book when he mentioned another character from 'The Stand' in it and it gave me a shiver.

'The Gunslinger' by Stephen King

Roland is a Gunslinger - the last of his kind - who is on a quest to The Dark Tower.  How he came to be on this quest is a bit of mystery, however, he knows that he's after the man in dressed in black and he must reach him before he arrives at The Dark Tower.

Walking through the endless deserts where nothing lives, he comes upon people who are barely scratching out a living and aren't really sure why they're there; and yet they are.  He shares meals with them, and stories, then moves on until he stays in a town where he meets a woman who owns a bar and she is cursed with a silent question which is constantly on the tip of her tongue each time she sees an undead man enter her bar.  This curse is the works of the man in black - and Roland knows it.  He tries to help her, and the people of this town, but fails and ends up leaving it a ghost town.

Roland is left alone yet again to walk through the desert until he comes across a weigh station where he finds a young boy sitting out the front sleeping, whose name is Jake.  Jake doesn't know how long he has been in this world, but he knows where he came from:  a place called New York City.  He's heard of the man in black and hates being alone. So, Roland offers to take him away from this lonely place.  But is it to help him escape from the desert, or is Jake a pawn in the chess game that the man in black has created to force Roland's hand and make him fight?

I have known of The Dark Tower Series for a long time; but have yet to get in and read it; thinking I didn't have the books in my collection to start.  However, when I recently bought the last - and most recent - book from QBD at Garden City, I found I had most of the books of the 8-book series!  So, I thought it was time I started reading them; and I'd find the ones I needed when the time came around to get them.

As you all know, I have been a Stephen King reader, and a big fan of his, for a very long time.  I love his past work, however have found his recent dabble in literature hard to get into.  The Dark Tower Series is an on-going project he began a very long time ago; and he was reminded to finish it when he survived a major car accident, and so he is.  I look forward to reading more of this series this year.  Until my next post, Happy Reading!

Series Reading

I've been reading other blogs lately that everyone either loves reading books in a series or they don't.  There's no middle of the road, it's a love or hate relationship.  Actually, I don't think it's that at all.  There's some series that click with people and some that don't.  

I've been loaned a trilogy of books by Peter F Hamilton.  He's a great sci-fi writer.  He's not complicated and gets right into the story.  However, his books are the size and weight of doorstops!  I found one of The Dream Trilogy series and not the other two; and one of my friends has the other two.  So, we put our heads together and thought to share.  Well!  My friend zipped through all three books and then handed them onto me.  I jumped in and only read to chapter two of book one and found it was such a mammoth read I couldn't get any further (sorry Geoff!).  But really, do books have to be so physically huge to carry the story along?

I have easily followed Raymond E Fiest's 'Magician' series along; and I stumbled upon that one by mistake while holidaying in Cairns one time.  I bought it at a second-hand store where the money went to build shelters for beaten women.  This one book led to another, and then another - then the next thing I knew I was buying the whole five of the series.  And you know?  I've still got those books in my collection to read.  I just can't part with them.

I've read 'Lord of the Ring's and 'The Hobbit' before it; however couldn't get into any other works by Tolkien, which is a pity as I do love his works.

Peter Straub and Stephen King both worked on a two-parter book together called 'The Talisman' and 'Black House'.  I bought the first one in Cairns (in the same place as I bought 'Magician') and found a copy of the next one at a garage sale to buy and keep as the libraries didn't like how slow I read at the time.  I still have these two books; and really I must read them again as the storyline is brilliant!

Even Stephen King has done a great, well-known series called 'The Dark Tower Series'.  Now, I was late in getting in on this one; but I'm there.  To start with I was given 'The Drawing of the Three' but it fell apart on me and I had to throw it out.  So, I ended up buying the first one - 'The Gunslinger' and tried reading it.  But my head wasn't really in it.  So, I kept it (as it was brand new I don't give away those books; especially when I want to read them) and was given 'Wizard and Glass' by my brother; which I also kept (and is the fourth book).  Eventually, Mum bought me 'Song of Susannah' and I found 'The Wind Through the Keyhole' (the latter was bought on Thursday this week).  So, I'm slowly getting the whole series together.  I only need three more books and I'm set to read them at my leisure.  The one mistake I've made with reading a series is reading them back to back; as they get a little too much.  So, I'll read one, then read something in between, then read the next one.

So, what is your favourite series to read?  Be it from childhood or from now?  Please do leave a comment and let us know.  Until my next post, happy reading!

My Guilty Pile

As you've all read below, I've broken a toe on my left foot; and now I have a week or so to sit around get some serious reading done.  So, today, I pulled out my trusty backpack which traveled around the UK with me in 1997 and brought it upstairs with me to pack with the books that I've got by my bed.  All of these books have been started, but not finished.  These books are my Guilty Pile; the books that haven't been finished but were great when I started them.  Have you got a pile such as this? I'm sure you have and just haven't gotten around to finishing any of them.  

Well, my broken toe has given me the opportunity to get in and do some serious reading; starting with these books.  And here's the list:

'The Dreaming Void' by Peter F Hamilton

'The Troy Game: Hades' Daughter' by Sara Douglass

'11-22-63' by Stephen King

'The Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes In New England' by Brock Clarke

'Star-Begotten' by H.G. Wells

'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood

'Neuromancer' by William Gibson

'Redeeming the Rogue' by Donna MacMeans

'Owls Do Cry' by Janet Frame

So, there you go.  My pile of books that have been sitting by my bed waiting for me to finish them.  I'm ashamed to have let them stay there for so long and not finish them.  I hope to finish them - one by one - soon and let you in on how good they were.  Which books do you have that are sitting awaiting for you to finish them with a bookmark a quarter or halfway through them?  Have you picked them up and finished them, or are they still waiting for you?  Or did you do what I did and almost forget them?  Until my next post, happy reading!

The Passing of Sara Douglass

There is sad news in the world of literature today as I have heard of the passing away of the great Australian sci-fi Fantasy author Sara Douglass.  She died this morning at 5am from Ovarian Cancer aged 54, after being diagnosed with in 2008.

Born Sara Warneke she and her family lived in Penola, South Australia with her parents raising sheep on a farm.  She hated leaving the farm to go to school; and eventually to Adelaide.  They moved to a decaying old Bluestone Victorian house in Malvern - a southern suburb - until she was packed off to Methodist Ladies College; which was a gentle, caring place, totally oblivious to the revolutions of the 'sixties.

She took up the family tradition of being a nurse for many years; and loathed it.  After 17 years of being a registered nurse, she traveled to Europe and loved it!  Then, returned to Australia and went to study a BA at the University of Adelaide.  This BA changed her life completely.  After she finished this, she did a PhD in early moderns (16th Century) English History and completed it in 1991.  In 1992, she gave up nursing completely and took up a position as lecturer in medieval history in La Trobe University, Bendigo, which is in central Victoria, Australia. This job was the most stressful she have ever held.

So in an effort to find a way out of that job Sara began writing again, seriously (very seriously, this was the only thing she could think of to save her), wrote several really awful novels, a couple of not bad ones, and then one day, sat down to begin BattleAxe.

Since then, as of early 2005, Sara have written 15 novels. Sara moved from Bendigo in Victoria to the house of Nonsuch in Cornelian Bay in Tasmania. She discovered a passion or gardening and cats.

Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Acheron, a demi-god, born into the body of a human and forced to live in the mortal realm away from his family in the royal family in Greece, is the twin of Prince Styxx.  Because of a birth defect - his eyes being different from everyone else's - he is disowned, shamed and sent away to the city of Atlantis to his Uncle Estes to become a whore; to become nobody; to be ignored.  This is until his older sister Ryssa receives a collection of letters, which she thinks is from him, stating that she should come and collect him before it's too late.  When she does, she barely recognises her brother as he is treated like a slave by anyone who approaches him, his rooms are kept dark and he's beaten if he does not obey and does not pull in enough money for Uncle Estes.

Ryssa takes him away from Atlantis and brings him back to his original home of the palace, where the family learns soon that if Acheron is treated badly, is starved or beaten, his brother - Styxx - suffers in the same way.  The family learns that if Acheron dies - so does Styxx; and so they begin to look after the one they have been embarrassed of for so long; still hiding him from the public.  However, the Greek Gods have been watching over him... so has Artemis; who tricks him into her service; until his twenty-first birthday, when Acheron receives the most astonishing gift of all.  He is given all of his powers and is turned into the God of Destruction.

Over 11,000 years later, Archeron has adjusted and become a citizen of the 21st Century.  He's a God who can walk among humans, travel within a blink of an eye and see the past, future and know the thoughts of every human around him.  This is until he meets Soteria, archeologist from Greece; a human he can't read at all.  Acheron is warned by his mother that this woman has discovered where Atlantis is, found Ryssa's journals and she orders him to protect her at all costs.  However, without knowing what she's thinking, how is he supposed to know what to do?  The first thing he has to do is let her into his life; and after more than a life time of distrust from anyone he has been in contact with, can he trust this one human with his heart, mind and soul; as well as his massive secret that he's not exactly what she thinks he is?

Wow! What a book!  I found this book with a bag of other books outside a house on Kingston Road last year on my way to the bus stop to go shopping.  And going by the size of it, I knew it was one heck of story.  So, I waited until this year to get my nose into it.  It took me almost a month to read and I'm glad I took my time; as there was so much detail in it.  However, I found that the first part was hard-going, but the second part was a lot easier; as the characters were already established and - with all the high tech devices - it was easy to relate to the characters and have a bit of a laugh with some of the Gods and Goddess who hadn't kept up with the times.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author, Sherrilyn Kenyon, who is proud of her Cherokee mixed heritage, lives a life of extraordinary danger... as does any woman with three sons, a husband, a menagerie of pets and a collection of swords that all of the above have a major fixation with. But when not running interference (or dashing off to the emergency room), she's found chained to her computer where she likes to play with all her imaginary friends. With more than twenty-three million copies of her books in print, in over thirty countries, she certainly has a lot of friends to play with too.
In the past two years, her books have claimed the coveted #1 bestselling spot twelve times. This extraordinary bestseller continues to top every genre she writes. Her current series include: The Dark-Hunters, The League, Lords of Avalon, BAD Agency and the Chronicles of Nick. Since 2004, she has placed over fifty novels on the New York Times.
Her Lords of Avalon novels have been adapted by Marvel and her Dark-Hunter novels are now a New York Times bestselling manga published by St. Martins.