Category: Other

Categories
Other Really Old Classics

Tale of Genji – Read Along

I wish to apologise in advance for the number of Tale of Genji posts about to descend on this blog.

Matthew is hosting a read along for The Tale of Genji. The plan is to read 3-4 chapters a week, starting today. The Tale of Genji is am imposing 54 chapters long. This means that you will have to endure Genji posts for a minimum of 14 weeks – that means they won’t end until at least the middle of September! Sorry!

If you can’t face reading my meaningless Genji posts for that long then you can do one of two things

  1. Ignore all Genji posts
  2. Join in!!!

The Tale of Genji is often quoted as being the world’s first ever novel. Written over a thousand years ago in Japan, it is about 800 hundred years older than any book I have ever read before. 

It easily qualifies for Rebecca’s really old classics challenge. I’m not taking part in her challenge at the moment, but depending on how well I cope with Genji I will definitely consider taking part next year.

I am reading the new Tyler translation of the book, which claims to have writing frseh enough to be enjoyed in today’s society. We’ll soon see if this is true!

This definitely qualifies as the most challenging book I have ever read. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so daunted about reading something before, and I would never have decided to read it without someone to read along with. Thank you Matthew!

Are you planning to join in?

If so, are you daunted by this book?

What is the most challenging book you have ever read?

Categories
Orange Prize Other

Home wins the Orange Prize

 

I don’t like to brag, but I correctly predicted that Home would win the Orange Prize.

I’m gutted. For two reasons:

  • Wilderness didn’t win.
  • I didn’t put any money on it.

Never mind. Let’s see if I can correctly predict the Booker!

Categories
Blogging Other

Lurkers – What would make you show your face?

cartoon-embarrassed-hiding-dont-mind-me

I am very pleased with the number of people who visit my blog each day, but only a tiny proportion ever comment on it. I’m very grateful to those that take the time to comment, but often wonder about those who don’t.

I realise that a large percentage just come via google to read about a single book, and I understand why they wouldn’t be interesting in commenting, but there also must be a large number who follow the blog and don’t show their face.

Do you ever lurk on blogs? I follow 173 blogs and I have to admit that I do not comment on all of them. Some are funny and always seem to have 50+ humorous comments by the time I get there. I don’t feel I can match their quality, so I just enjoy reading them. Some are technical (I don’t even understand some of the comments!), so although I sometimes thank them for providing information, I often just lurk. Then there are a lot of book blogs where I probably don’t comment very often. This is probably because they are reading a different genre of book to me (eg. science fiction) so I normally just skim them in case they have a useful blogging post. Is it wrong to lurk?, Should you at least let the blogger know you are there and appreciate their writing?

Was there a period of time when you first started blogging where you read without commenting? If so, what was it that made you decide to comment for the first time? I started commenting on blogs almost as soon as I discovered them. As soon as I found blogs covering the books I loved I was away!

I’d love to hear your comments on this, and whether you think there is anything we can do to get those lurkers out of the woodwork?

Are you a lurker on this blog? If so, why don’t you comment?

What do you think I could do to encourage lurkers to show their faces?

I look forward to hearing all your thoughts!

Categories
Other

May Summary and June Reading Plans

May has been a record breaking month for me. I read a massive 14 books!! They covered a complete range from Home, which I admit I didn’t finish, to Wilderness which managed to secure one of my rare 5 stars. I managed to complete the Orange short list, and look forward to finding out who wins on Wednesday. Overall it was a very productive month!

Burnt Shadows – Kamila Shamsie stars3h

The Post-Birthday World– Lionel Shriver  stars4

2666– Roberto Bolaño. Part 1: The Part About the Critics stars3h

The Room of Lost Things – Stella Duffy  stars3

Molly Fox’s Birthday – Deirdre Madden stars3h

Home – Marilynne Robinson  stars1

The Wilderness – Samantha Harvey  stars51

Best Intentions – Emily Listfield  stars4

Half of a Yellow Sun– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  stars4h

Gilead– Marilynne Robinson  stars21

Theory of War – Joan Brady stars4

The Invention of Everything Else – Samantha Hunt stars21

The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters stars4

Midnight’s Children– Salman Rushdie stars3h

   

 Audio Book

Salmon Fishing in the Yemon– Paul Torday stars3

 

Reading plans for June

I actually hope to read less books in June, as my husband will hopefully be at home and not away on business. This means I can spend more time with him and go out in the evening with my friends sometimes.

I am currently half way through The Master and Margarita, Out and Outlander. It is unusual for me to have so many books on the go at once, but I can’t take The Master and Margarita in the bath with me (regular readers know I like to read in the bath every day!) and I accidentally read the first few pages of Out, then couldn’t stop!! It is really good – possibly a contender for 5 stars? All books are reasonably long, so it might be a few days before I finish one.

I am then going to continue working my way through the list of books recommended by you, stopping occasionally to read a new book or two!

I’ve also just received my copy of  The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas from New Zealand. It won the Commonwealth Writers prize a few weeks ago and looks really good.

Did any of the books I read in May appeal to you?

Are you planning to read any of books I’ve mentioned in June?

I hope you had a great May, and wish you all the best for June!!

Categories
Other

Please put a search box on your blog!

A little plea from me…PLEASE put a search box on your blog!
I love your blogs, and it is great to read the new posts that you put up daily, but sometimes you write really good posts that I want to read again a few months later. Sometimes it’s because I’ve just got hold of a book, and want to re-read your review, sometimes I remember that you’ve written a really good post on how to do something, whatever the reason there are occasions when I want to look at posts you’ve written a while ago.

The problem is that I don’t remember whether you wrote that amazing post in November or February, so digging through the archive section on your sidebar is annoying. Some people have great A-Z lists of the books they’ve reviewed (which everyone should have too!) but it isn’t always the books I’m after, so please, just for me….

ADD A SEARCH BOX TO YOUR BLOG!!!

Is there anything else you wish everyone would add to their blog?

Categories
Other

Blogger problems and RSS feeds

I normally view all the blogs I subscribe to using the RSS feed option in my email programme – Microsoft Outlook. I love this, as it means every time someone writes a new post it comes straight into their own folder just like an email. This means that I can take a little break while I’m working to read the latest posts. If you have never tried this option, then I highly recommend it. It is the best way I have found to view blogs.

In the past week I have had big problems viewing new posts this way. When I went to read the new post Microsoft Outlook would freeze, sometimes for a couple of seconds, sometimes so badly that the whole programme shut down. Yesterday I worked out that all the problems I was having only occurred with Blogger blogs. WordPress ones seem to be OK. I did a little research and found that this is a known problem which is affecting Blogger at the moment.

To avoid this problem I am going to be transferring all blogger based blogs onto google reader. This will mean that I will only check blogger blogs once or twice a day, as opposed to constant checking of the others. Hopefully the only difference you’ll see is that I may be a bit slower commenting on your blogs. I hope they fix the problem soon, as I do love my RSS feeds!

How do you view blogs? Have you ever tried using RSS feeds?