Tag Archives: books

RECAP: Reading | Watching | Loving – July/August 2021

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I’m a smidge behind on recaps for no very good reason, other than who I am as a person. We crossed the middle of the year in a heartbeat though, didn’t we? Only four months left of 2021 and I’m still not entirely sure what happened to 2020 if I am honest. Time is a lie and all that jazz.

READING

July reads:

  • The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers (3.5 stars)
  • The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld (4 stars)
  • Outlawed – Anna North (3 stars)
  • Circe – Madeline Miller (4 stars)
  • Shackleton’s Epic – Tim Jarvis (3 stars)

August reads:

  • Dune – Frank Herbert (4 stars)
  • My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante (3 stars)
  • Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood (5 stars)
  • Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman (5 stars)
  • The Death of Noah Glass – Gail Jones (2 stars)

WATCHING

COVID lockdown and a non-COVID lurgie meant I spent quite a bit of time with my TV over the last couple of months.

  • Loki, season 1. This is so, sooo good overall but the ending felt like a bit of a let down to me, for seeming more in service to what Marvel Studios need for their next phase than in service to the story of this particular show. That said, fab writing, acting and visuals and yes please, more thanks.
  • Never Have I Ever, season 2. Devi is complete chaos and I love it.
  • Dr Death. Really good, tense viewing. The writing was well done and the acting impressive. Related: Christian Slater got old but I 100% still would.
  • Buffy, season 4 and two episodes of season 5. You know, just when you think you’re over the slump of the whole Initiative storyline they go and introduce a little sister for Buffy. And it sucks. It’s very clear that Joss and the team really shifted their focus to…
  • Angel, season 1. Frankly it was a stroke of genius to use Angel to create a super fun LA noir supernatural detective situation. Also the way this series turns some of Buffy‘s least endearing characters into interesting people in their own right is masterful.
  • Hacks, season 1. Didn’t think I was going to dig this but it ended up being complex and darkly funny. Jean Smart is as good as everyone says.
  • AP Bio, season 4. I have such a soft spot for this show! Very into Glen Howerton and his cardigans and the episode where the students write fan fiction shipping the teachers is solid gold.
  • A ridiculous amount of rom coms. I was sick, ok? I needed light viewing and despite my icy exterior* I am a sucker for romance. Still, even I know to admit that I hit the bottom of the barrel and started digging (I see you, Amanda Bynes movies). Honestly, I’ve broken my algorithm so thoroughly we may never recover. Have you noticed how characters in these movies propose – actually propose! – when they’ve known each other for about three weeks? Mate, I’ve known eligible bachelors for 10+ years and still no one wants to marry me.
Hi, we’re interesting now. (image source).

LOVING

Spring trying its very best to get here, with sweet little ducklings waddling around and blossom on the air and actual sunshine to bask in like a cat. Hands down my favourite season and I am so ready to not need seventy billion layers of clothes and to always carry an umbrella.

‘Til next time,

*yes, I know this is a thing I don’t actually have, but I try OK?

RECAP: Reading | Watching | Loving – June 2021

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First thing’s first. Let’s all agree that it’s perfectly flipping bonkers to be six months into twenty-bloody-twenty-one. It seems like only a handful of weeks ago we were toasting to the demise of 2020, gleeful at the prospect of a better year and all that Auld Lang Syne-y jazz.

And look at us.

Just LOOK at us.

Half the country in lockdown thanks to the Covid Delta strain running rampant from coast to coast . We’re pretty lucky here in Adelaide, but restrictions are back, interstate borders are closed and yesterday I got my face mask all tangled in my earrings while my glasses fogged up like it was 2020 all over again, so yeah. Pandemic times, they sure do go on.

Now we’ve dispensed with the obligatory ‘march of time’ sentiment that accompanies the EOFY so nicely and rued the relentlessness of corona-times, let’s review the heck out of June and it’s delightfully mask-free happenings…

READING

I’m feeling like I’m back to my bookish best after a slight reading slump. A good day spent sipping coffee and rummaging through a bunch of local secondhand bookstores with a friend was a welcome treat, and winter weather is just built for hibernation with a book in hand and a cat on lap.

  • Snow – Gina Inverarity (5 stars)
  • Artemis – Andy Weir (2 stars)
  • The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires – Grady Hendrix (4.5 stars)
  • Jonathan Unleashed – Meg Rosoff (3 stars)
  • There Was Still Love – Favel Parrett (3 star)
  • If You’re Reading This I’m Already Dead – Andrew Nicoll (2 stars)

WATCHING

  • Friends: The Reunion. This was 100% not what I was expecting. More tellingly, it’s not what I wanted. Is that because I actually didn’t want it at all?
  • The Mandalorian, S1. Yes, I’m horribly late to the party on this because I was adamant that I wasn’t forking out for yet another streaming service but I finally made it, you guys! Gosh, it’s a bit spaghetti western meets Star Wars and I ain’t mad about it at all. Delightful.
  • Superstore, S6. There’s a challenge for any show that has a ‘lead + ensemble’ cast to turn it into a genuine ensemble when the lead leaves. Sure, New Girl was a far better show for that chunk of time without Zooey Deschanel (fight me) but without Amy’s character bringing a sense of normality and balance to Superstore’s cast of madcaps, there’s just something missing. It’s still good, but not as good. All the feels for the last ep though. All of them!
  • Inexplicably, a bunch of Hugh Grant movies. I can’t even begin to explain this but I have a new fascination with how Hughey G is making some smart choices when it comes to transitioning his particular schtick into some surprisingly age-appropriate and marginally decent roles. More on this later, probably.

LOVING

I don’t know my neighbours very well but this sweet little system has come about where we trade cat food that we’ve tried our (apparently very fussy) cats on unsuccessfully. Waste not, want not and all that. It would be nice to have this little bit of community at any time but it seems especially nice during the pandemic when people are feeling more isolated than ever. Having had some very awful neighbours, this is just lovely and goes to prove: cat people are the best people.

‘Til next time,

RECAP: Reading | Watching | Loving – May 2021

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Something something, back from the dead… I know, folks. I KNOW. A solid year and then some, and here we are like nothing ever happened. My sweet zombie blog is back, limping its awkward shuffle, looking a little less fleshy and a bit green around the edges. Nice to see you, to see you nice.

I’ve had an inkling to resurrect this little old thing for some time. Let’s start gently with a little recap of the month that was…

READING
Technically this list is for both April and May, but I make the rules here so them’s the breaks. This delish little pile featured teen saviours turned mixed up adults thrust back into the world-saving business, women shaping the first dictionary, familial mystery and obsession, parallel universes, books that felt like a big, warm hug and a borrowed book that had a lot of potential but, for me, didn’t deliver.

A stack of books read during April and May.
  • The Amber Amulet – Craig Silvey (3 stars)
  • Jitterbug Perfume – Tom Robbins (2 stars)
  • Chosen Ones – Veronica Roth (3.5 stars)
  • Last Night in Montreal – Emily St John Mandel (3 stars)
  • The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams (4 stars)
  • The Midnight Library – Matt Haig (4 stars)

WATCHING
As someone who spends a considerable amount of time on their couch, I’m always binging two or three shows at a time. In a global pandemic world, I’ve been most enjoying easy-watch, no-fuss viewing, opting to comfort and familiarity over anything too confronting or challenging. What can I say? The world is confronting and challenging enough right now.

  • Girls5eva, from creator Meredith Scardino (of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fame) was an unexpected, hilarious delight. The cast is very good and the writing solid. I ate up all 8 eps in a flash.
  • Always a sucker for an underdog story and a fan of America Ferrera, Ugly Betty made for a good 4 season binge. It hasn’t aged well in some regards (particularly its take on transgender storylines) but broadly it’s quite a fun time. Where it succeeds is in its balance of convoluted telenovela plotting with a thoughtful treatment of familial relationships within Betty’s own family. Certainly a precursor to Jane the Virgin (which probably did these things much better but without the fabulous outfits).
  • Younger S4. Meh. Time to wrap this one up for sure. That said I am enjoying seeing how many ways they try to hide Hilary Duff’s very obvious pregnancy (holding big things, mostly).
  • After revisiting the low-budget/high-fun OG Buffy movie recently, I decided to give Buffy S1 a rewatch and one thing’s for sure – it’s been too long. Mad props for the early eps laying such a strong foundation of Angel’s storyline so early and special mention to Giles’s scarves. (Also RIP low-waisted jeans – let’s hope the current 90s inspired fashion trends don’t bring this back).
Scarf game strong. Source

LOVING
May always feels like one of those awkward, in-between months, but there were certainly some highlights. I flew on a plane for the first time in over a year, celebrated a milestone birthday (not mine) with the fam for a delightfully wintery beach holiday, got excited about hat weather (berets are back, you guys!) and dead set LOVED all the things in the Princess Highway AW21 collection. Really I should be diverting a portion of my salary there every fortnight. Send help.

‘Til next time,

2019 in Books

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In 2019, I read some very fine books and a handful I thoroughly disliked. I joined a book club (briefly). I made a real effort to do #nonfictionnovember and even remembered to Instagram my reads every month. Look, I made them into a flashy gif:

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(Don’t look at it too long, it might give you a seizure).

Here are some statistics, because statistics can be fun…

  • I read 20,320 pages over 65 books.
  • The shortest was a book of poetry by Mary Oliver (Blue Horses), clocking in at just 83 pages.
  • The longest was Hanya Yanagihara’s heart-wrenching A Little Life (720 pages). 
  • 68% (44 books) were written by women.
  • 15% (10 books) were written by Australian women.
  • 15% (10 books) were non-fiction.
  • I am notoriously tough with my 5 star ratings, giving them to only 12% (8 books).
  • 29% (19 books) rated 4 stars.
  • 9% (6 books) rated 2 stars or below.

Here’s the full 65, with the books I rated as 5 Star Reads in bold:

  1. All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
  2. How to Be a Woman – Caitlin Moran
  3. Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit – Amy Stewart
  4. Eleven Hours – Paullina Simons
  5. City of the Beasts – Isabel Allende
  6. Burial Rites – Hannah Kent
  7. The Museum of Modern Love – Heather Rose
  8. All the Anxious Girls on Earth – Zsuzsi Gartner
  9. The Boy on the Bridge – M.R. Carey
  10. Lola Bensky – Lily Brett
  11. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Joy Fowler
  12. The Dry – Jane Harper
  13. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
  14. See What I Have Done – Sarah Schmidt
  15. I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive – Steve Earle
  16. Daring Greatly – Brene Brown
  17. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
  18. Room – Emma Donoghue
  19. War Storm – Victoria Aveyard
  20. Pink Mountain on Locust Island – Jamie Marina Lau
  21. All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld
  22. Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
  23. A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
  24. Blue Horses – Mary Oliver
  25. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy – Tim Burton
  26. The Natural Way of Things – Charlotte Wood
  27. First, We Make the Beast Beautiful – Sarah Wilson
  28. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
  29. Daisy Jones & The Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid
  30. Looking for Alaska – John Green
  31. Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion
  32. I Love Dick – Chris Kraus
  33. Congo –  Michael Crichton
  34. Normal People – Sally Rooney
  35. Only the Animals – Ceridwen Dovey
  36. Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
  37. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
  38. The Silence of the Girls – Pat Barker
  39. The Boneless Mercies – April Genevieve Tucholke
  40. Fleishman is in Trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  41. Lies Sleeping – Ben Aaronovitch
  42. The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovitch
  43. Write Away – Elizabeth George
  44. Beloved – Toni Morrison
  45. Big Little Lies – Liane Moriarty
  46. The Miracle at Speedy Motors – Alexander McCall Smith
  47. Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie
  48. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
  49. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
  50. Tell-All – Chuck Palahniuk
  51. Autumn – Ali Smith
  52. Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love Notes and Heartbreak in the Stacks – Annie Spence
  53. Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss
  54. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
  55. The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
  56. A Complicated Kindness – Miriam Toews
  57. Kopp Sisters on the March – Amy Stewart
  58. Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men – Caroline Criado-Perez
  59. A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons – Ben Folds
  60. The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself – Michael A Singer
  61. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris
  62. Quiet Girls Can Run The World: The Beta Woman’s Guide to the Modern Workplace – Rebecca Holman
  63. Native Tongue – Suzette Haden Elgin
  64. Dracul – Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
  65. Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell

 

 

 

Recap: January Reads

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My, my, my. Not only is it suddenly 2018 but it’s suddenly February 2018 and, pardon me,  where has the time gone?! I don’t know about you guys, but last year sure got away from me and to think we’re already well into the second month of a brand new year and Christmas was an age ago and summer is nearly over and there are Cadbury creme eggs in the shops and, oh ALL THE THINGS!

Hello. How are you? Nice to see you. Your hair looks bloody great.

I’d sure like to get back into the habit of regular blogging and recapping my January reading seems a good place to start. So, without further ado and in no particular order…

IMG_20180201_202240_686

 

The Messenger – Marcus Zusak (2002)

After becoming something of a local celebrity for foiling a bank robbery, nineteen-year-old Ed Kennedy starts receiving mysterious playing cards in the mail, setting his uninteresting life into a cryptic and tumultuous spin. A mixed bag of self discovery, small town desperation and human connection, The Messenger could have felt cliche or contrived, but Zusak presents a story that is unpretentious and characters that are believable and raw.

Where Zusak particularly succeeds is in capturing the necessary ordinariness of his setting, tinging small town Australia with a kind of humble sadness that makes Ed’s journey as a disaffected almost-adult all the more poignant. Though certainly problematic in places, The Messenger made for pretty compulsive reading and was tricky to put down.

3.5/5 stars.

Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor (2017)

The big strength of Laini Taylor’s writing is how effortlessly she seems to blend vivid imagination, original storytelling and lyrical prose. It was what made the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series so enjoyable and what here sweeps the reader so fully into the fictional world of Lazlo Strange – daydreamer, orphan and librarian – to solve the mystery of the lost city of Weep.

The first in a planned duo of books, Strange the Dreamer feels part fairy-tale and part classical epic. Cleverly conceived and beautifully written, with good doses of adventure, conflict, gods and monsters, softness and light, it gets a whole-hearted two thumbs up from me.

4/5 stars.

Labyrinth – Kate Mosse (2005)

A $4 op shop bargain and veritable doorstop of a book, Labyrinth promised secrets, adventure and conspiracy all wrapped up around that old chestnut, the true Grail. With parallel storylines of medieval and modern day France, and two characters with a mysterious connection, Labyrinth, for the most-part, delivers.

On discovering two skeletons in a cave in the French Pyrenees, the crux of mystery resides with Alice in 2005 but following Alaïs circa 1209 is clearly where Mosse is most at home. Though highly effective as a sweeping historical narrative which paints medieval France with a deft hand, the story could have been 100 pages shorter and been no worse off. The main characters are well-realised and compelling, though some of the supporting characters felt under-done and largely expositional despite hints of potential for being interesting in their own right (Shelagh, for example). These quibbles aside, there is more than enough suspense and intrigue to keep the pages turning (all 700 of them).

3/5 stars.

‘Til next time,

Sig

 

Backwards page numbers are my jam (and other thoughts on books)

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Ah, books. My  favourite. I was reminiscing earlier this week about the time years and years ago that I did a holiday internship at a publishing house and I got all doe-eyed and nostalgic over copywriting blurbs, editing recipes and compiling indexes for history books. One of my colleagues called me ‘bookish’ and they weren’t wrong. I refer to my spare room (only half-jokingly) as ‘the library’, which conjures up images of wingback chairs and rich mahogany and not a tiny cupboard of a room which also houses my vacuum cleaner. But you know, I am bookish. So there.

library

The ‘library’

I want a book to read, obviously, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also want something pretty to adorn my shelves (so torn: lugging a doorstop-style hard back on the bus is not my idea of a great time, but SO PRETTY). I love the idea of books as objects. I am one of those old souls weirdos who romanticises picking them up and leafing through them, inhaling that new book smell, that old book smell, like I can absorb the contents through my fingers by osmosis. It’s part of the ritual of reading, for me, to hold a book in my hands. There is a satisfaction in turning the pages or reaching the end that can’t be matched by e-readers or tablets no matter their convenience.

I love a plain old paperback as much as the next girl, but as a collector of quirky things, I am especially in love with books that do something a little extra, a little special, a little bit inventive. Not to judge a book by its cover, but you will win me over almost instantly with clever publishing quirks. It’s not all gilt-edged pages and embossed covers (though, admittedly, sometimes it is). I am nothing if not sophisticated: basically I want pop-up books for adults.

Anyway, here are a handful of books from my collection that do interesting things…

Survivor – Chuck Palahniuk

In Palahniuk’s Survivor, the pages are numbered backwards, counting down to page one, chapter one, as protagonist Tender Branson narrates his story to the black box of a hijacked 747.

Novel Journals 

One of the coolest gifts I’ve received in recent times is a thing called a ‘novel journal’. It’s a note book, right, but the lined pages are actually a classic novel in tiny, tiny print. Who comes up with this stuff? I don’t know, but they sure had my number. (Mine is Dracula, by the way – thanks, Rose!).

Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn

Not so much a publishing quirk as a conceptual one, the premise of Ella Minnow Pea is that it becomes unlawful to use certain letters of the alphabet. One by one they fall from a memorial statue on the fictional island of Nollop, and one by one the totalitarian Council bans their use. The cleverest part: as the letters are banned, they also disappear from the novel.

Vitalogy – E.H. Ruddock

As any good Pearl Jam fan knows, Vitalogy is a pretty great album named for a home medical encyclopedia first published in the 1890s. I have an edition of this veritable BRICK of a book from 1940 and among the questionable and hilarious health advice it offers there are amazing flip out anatomy charts. Flip out anatomy charts?! I am so there.

Girl Waits With Gun – Amy Stewart

I caught Amy Stewart at Adelaide Writers’ Week recently and really enjoyed her panel (with Kate Summerscale) on writing about real figures in history. Girl Waits With Gun is a fictionalised account of real-life Constance Kopp, the first female deputy sheriff in the US. Ever a fan of a signed edition, I was especially stoked that Stewart co-signs with a stamp of Constance Kopp’s actual signature. Oh, and she also had super cute temporary tattoos of the cover art. It was like book-signing Christmas.

‘Til next time,

Sig

52 Books

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If you hadn’t already noticed, I am a fan of recaps and lists. This year I read a total of 52 books. That’s a book a week. More than that, really, since the year is not quite done.

In total, the 52 books represent 16,463 pages. The shortest was 60 pages, the longest was 841.

Some were very good and some were very bad. There was non-fiction in good doses. There were books that took me far away and some that struck too close to home and hurt my heart. Favourite authors, repeat authors, new authors; books for writers, books recommended by and even written by friends. There was time travel, parallel worlds and shrinking alphabets; trains and cows and drugs; fires, Nazis, bikers, cops, astronauts; and love and loss. A bit of everything then, and more still.

This is what my year in reading looked like (full list below).

52books2

  1. Wolf by Wolf – Ryan Graudin (4/5)
  2. The Night Circus– Erin Morgenstern (4/5)
  3. The Pleasure of My Company – Steve Martin (2/5)
  4. Jennifer Government – Max Barry (2/5)
  5. The Hours – Michael Cunningham (4/5)
  6. Slam – Nick Hornby (3/5)
  7. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott (4/5)
  8. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer (4/5)
  9. Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn (3/5)
  10. Midnight Crossroad – Charlaine Harris (2/5)
  11. Betwixt – Tara Bray Smith (1/5)
  12. The Crane Wife – Patrick Ness (4/5)
  13. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury (4/5)
  14. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt (4/5)
  15. Magician – Raymond E Feist(4/5)
  16. King – TM Frazier (1/5)
  17. Mad Woman – Kat Savage (3/5)
  18. Tyrant – TM Frazier (1/5)
  19. Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch (3/5)
  20. Moon Over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch (3/5)
  21. Lawless – TM Frazier (1/5)
  22. Soulless – TM Frazier (1/5)
  23. The Wicked Will Rise – Danielle Paige (2/5)
  24. Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovitch (3/5)
  25. Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch (3/5)
  26. Foxglove Summer – Ben Aaronovitch (3/5)
  27. The Martian – Andy Weir (5/5)
  28. Rising Strong – Brene  Brown (3/5)
  29. The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins (4/5)
  30. 31 Songs – Nick Hornby (3/5)
  31. Yellow Brick War – Danielle Paige (3/5)
  32. Bovicide, Zombie Diaries and the Legend of the Brothers Brown – Stephen Bills (4/5)
  33. Story Fix – Larry Brooks (5/5)
  34. Fratricide, Werewolf Wars and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington – Stephen Bills (4/5)
  35. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – John Tiffany, Jack Thorne, JK Rowling (5/5)
  36. Deicide, Vampire Confession and the Legacy of the Brethertons – Stephen Bills (3/5)
  37. Lady Oracle – Margaret Atwood (3/5)
  38. Firstlife – Gena Showalter (2/5)
  39. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson (3/5)
  40. Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris (3/5)
  41. Hollow City – Ransom Riggs (4/5)
  42. Girl Waits With Gun – Amy Stewart (4/5)
  43. Dark Matter – Blake Crouch (4/5)
  44. Library of Souls – Ransom Riggs (3/5)
  45. Lady Cop Makes Trouble – Amy Stewart (3/5)
  46. Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin  (4/5)
  47. The Murdstone Trilogy – Mal Preet (3/5)
  48. Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel (5/5)
  49. Blood for Blood – Ryan Graudin (4/5)
  50. Quiet – Susan Cain (4/5)
  51. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle (3/5)
  52. The Call of the Wild – Jack London (3/5)

‘Til next time,

Sig

10 Halloween reads that aren’t by Stephen King

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Halloween. We don’t do it well in Australia. Every year I buy a couple of packets of Cadbury fun-size bars just in case I am visited by trick-or-treaters. I don’t want to be another in a long chain of dud houses who weren’t on board with the All Hallows vibe. Of course, that means every year when there are no trick-or-treaters I essentially have a couple of packets of fun-size Cadbury bars for dinner. Cherry Ripes go well with red wine. If you’re drinking white, I’d go for strawberry Freddos. That’s my hot tip for Halloween.

I read a lot, but I don’t read a lot of horror or what I would instantly classify as horror by the usual definition. You can see then, what the issue was when I decided I wanted to write a quick post on Halloween reading options. Stephen King tops all the lists of scary books, but what if you’re just not into Stephen King?

Still, once I had a good rummage on my book shelves, it turned out there were a number of books that in turns scared and unsettled me, and one or two that legit gave me nightmares. So, using only what was on my shelves, here are 10 scary reading options to go with your fun-size chocolates. No Stephen King to be seen.

books

Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin (1967)

Rosemary reckons her neighbours are satanists, and that’s a scary thing. Levin takes all of the tropes of gothic horror and moves them from lofty distant castles to your own lounge room. Well-plotted and terrifying.

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (1985)

Offred is kept as a ‘handmaid’ in a near-future dystopian society where fertile women are owned by the ruling class because of birth rate decline. Told with Atwood’s deft hand, it is frightening in its plausibility.

Dracula – Bram Stoker (1897)

I love vampire stories and the original is still the best.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Post-apocalyptic, disturbing, grim. A harrowing read.

Coraline – Neil Gaiman (2002)

Coraline’s seemingly perfect other world is not all its cracked up to be. They replace your eyes with sewn-on buttons, for one thing. Though for younger readers, Coraline is creepy as shit.

Let the Right One In – John Ajvide Linqvist (2004)

Another vampire story, and boy is this one dark. Oskar is a bullied kid who befriends his new neighbour, a vampire child. A genuinely disturbing book dealing with some pretty confronting and disturbing themes. This one kept me up at night.

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (1818)

You know it. Archetypal gothic horror where doctor creates monster – which makes him the monster, actually.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson (1962)

The story of the Blackwood sisters, isolated in their home after one of them poisoned the rest of the family. Atmospheric and suspenseful.

Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham (1951)

Proper sci fi with a plague of blindness and carnivorous plants. I love this book!

Fevre Dream – George RR Martin (1982)

I know, I know. Enough with the vampire books. But vampires on a steam boat on the Mississippi in the 1850s? Please and thank you!

‘Til next time,

Sig

BOOK REVIEW: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

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I’m kind of a pop culture nerd and I don’t mind saying so. Popular culture is a fascinating vehicle for examining the philosophical and moral concepts of society en masse. Mass production, mass communication, mass consumption, fan culture – I dig it because people show what’s important to them in a broader sense through how they consume and respond to pop culture. Also I dig it because I like to quote Star Wars a lot.

I saw Felicia Day speak at Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Adelaide in 2012. At the time, I was only familiar with her work from Joss Whedon’s Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and Buffy and I had a vague notion of her creating a web series that was super popular but that I hadn’t seen. How little I knew. I remember the session being funny and inspiring and I became an instant Felicia fan as she talked through the highs, lows and overall success of The Guild and the [at the time] very recent launch of Geek and Sundry with youtube. Holy cow, this chick was an online mogul and could do all these things and still be hilarious and personable with her fans? What champ. Being somewhat in awe of her ongoing new media career since then, I was super excited when I found out her memoir You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) was being released this month.

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Following her unconventional home-schooled childhood, her college days studying an unusual mix of maths and violin, and her move to LA to commence her acting career, underpinned throughout by her early adoption of and addiction to all things internet, the book is ceaselessly funny and frank, and feels like sitting down for a good long chat.

Oh, and just quietly, Felicia Day herself casually liked my Instagram photo of her book so, like… YAY!

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Yeah. I fangirled. HARD.

Never Weird is less a ‘this is how I became an internet pioneer’ success story and more a love letter to difference, showing that breaking the mould and chasing your own model of creative happiness is what personal success is really about. So let your freak flag fly and all that, because Felicia is proof there is a terrific freedom in just being you.

‘Til next time,

Sig

Book Review: Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler (2004)

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full-dark-houseIsn’t it lovely when something turns out to be an unexpected treat? I read a lot, I read all sorts of stuff, and I don’t always choose my reading matter with some highfalutin, intelligent purpose in mind. In fact, I often pick a new book to read on a complete whim – because I need something to read and it’s there, because the cover stood out, because the author has an amusing name. I’ve discovered some great reads this way, and I was thrilled that this was true of Full Dark House, a recent selection made purely out of the blue. I was unfamiliar with Christopher Fowler, but I needed a quick fix and it sounded like a page turner – with a quirky cover to boot.

The first in a series of British mysteries, Full Dark House opens with a bomb destroying the London headquarters of the Met’s Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) and ending the 60 year partnership of its longest serving detectives. Bryant and May’s first case together – a ‘phantom’ stalking a controversial new production of Orpheus in the Underworld during the Blitz – seems to be connected. But how?

With parallel stories cutting between the present and 1940, a cast of memorable characters, and Fowler’s ability to paint a sometimes far-fetched plot with enough charm to render it plausible, Full Dark House was tough to put down. The writing is energetic and effervescent, brimming with wit and clever turns of phrase, and full of engaging and unexpected plot twists. Fowler conjures a vivid image of London during the Blitz, and the mythic, bleak setting amplifies the sinister nature of the crimes to great effect. The Palace Theatre looms large in the narrative, as much a character as any of the production company players.

The PCU deals with ‘unusual’ matters – the sort of crimes that call for a different way of looking at things. At times echoing the quirkiness of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently, Fowler weaves mythology and elements of the supernatural seamlessly into his fast paced novel. Bryant, with his eccentricities and unorthodox methods, and May, with his dapper charm and logical brain, leap off the page as they try to solve this gothic mystery, successfully avoiding staid ‘odd couple’ clichés. The pairing is part Sherlock Holmes, part Fox Mulder, and ultimately it is their solid friendship that makes Bryant and May a hugely entertaining, immensely likeable duo.

Though I discovered him only recently and at random, Christopher Fowler has written numerous novels and short stories across several genres, and to much critical acclaim. Among his award successes, he won the August Derleth Award (Best Novel) for Full Dark House at the British Fantasy Awards in 2004.  With eight other titles in the series, Bryant and May have been added to my list of guaranteed future reading.