"Turns out even NASA can't improve on duct tape." - Andy Weir, The Martian

"It’s been an hour and an alumnus.”

“…What?”

“An hour and an alumnus. Since I went to sleep.”

“…”

“Alumni? What’s the singular?”

“…………What are you saying”

“AN HOUR AND AN ALUMNUS. AN ALUMNUS.”

The above is a conversation my husband and I had after I woke up from a nap. I was completely awake but convinced that the word alumnus meant 20 minutes, because obviously it should. I’m a linguist so I’m an authority on the words.

As well as coining clever new word usages, I have surpassed my reading goal for 2017! *fanfare* *toot toot* Hurrah! (You would be correct in thinking that I just wanted to tell that story and only came up with this weak segue while writing this.) The total currently stands at 22 and I am in the middle of 2 more, reading one with my eyes (Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card) and one with my ears (Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell). Since my last post I have read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and The Martian by Andy Weir. I also did not finish Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, because gosh dang it I don’t need to waste my time on drivel. This is new Anna, who doesn’t finish books if she doesn’t want to. Yeah.

I have recently enjoyed not knowing a single thing about a book before delving in, and this was the case for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. This book was not at all (at ALL) what I expected. The blurb really doesn’t give anything away and I think it’s best to go into it blind, so I won’t go into details. My favourite part is the ending, so even though the first section was a bit “Eh, whit?”, I’m glad I pushed through. 

I picked up Ender’s Game because it’s my husband’s favourite book and I took him saying “I don’t think you’ll like it” as a direct challenge. And, as we saw earlier with his denial of my linguistic prowess, he is often wrong. And ha! I did like it! In ya face! (He doesn’t care.) Ender’s Game is sci-fi and political and highly confusing at times, but a really great read. Ender is a genius 6-year-old, sent to Battle School to be trained up for the next intergalactic war. I really don’t know what else to say. It’s real good. (Who let me write about books?) 

Wait wait wait. The Martian. I can talk about The Martian. I l o v e d The Martian. I devoured it in a day. I knew about the film and I wasn’t all that fussed about seeing it, but I picked it up when perusing the library for anything that I’d heard of. And oh dang. It felt so real! Have people been going to Mars without me hearing about it?! Complex enough that it seemed like legit NASA but still readable and enjoyable. Gripping and funny. 5 star. New favourite. Applause.

On Sunday I’m going to be travelling for 16 hours – potentially a good time to read, potentially a good time to watch Parenthood…I’ll let you know how it goes.

"Courage, dear heart." - C.S. Lewis

(Do I acknowledge that it's been a year since I last wrote one of these or do I just keep going like it's been no time at all yes okay I think I'll do that)

After 17 years in a row of full-time education (this is the first time I've actually worked that out...17??), I am officially done. Finished! I graduated with a 2:1 MA in Linguistics and English Language a few weeks ago. They said my name and I got tapped on the head with a really old hat and they handed me an empty red tube and a certificate that you would think would be in the tube but nope it wasn't in the tube. Done did it. Graduated.

Now what? Now I'm delaying adulthood by not being able to work for a few months because that's the way the world works when you marry an American. This means I find myself with a lot of free time! Hurrah! With this free time I am admittedly mostly re-watching The Office but I am also getting some reading done.

I've read 18 books so far this year, which is 2 more than I read in the whole of 2016. It could be that writing a blog about reading actually made me read less, but I think 4th year of university was the more likely culprit. What a time-sucker that was. Man. But then over Christmas, I discovered how great audio books can truly be - I started listening to books while I was walking places (meaning I couldn't be distracted by other things) and my reading total began to rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes.

Revisiting The Chronicles of Narnia was revisiting childhood; it was revisiting the language of yesteryear; it was revisiting the gospel. I think this was my first time reading them as a grown-up (questionable) and even though I've always known that they were based on the gospel of Jesus, this time I was really struck by how clear the parallels are between the sacrifice that Aslan made and the sacrifice that Jesus made, and between Narnia and heaven. Yes. I have no deeper insight than that to give. This is not the blog for intense literary wisdom.

I will leave you with this: did you know that the audio book for The Fellowship of the Ring is 20 hours long? Still trying to gather the strength to start The Two Towers.

"My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody." - Wilkie Collins

Funny how time works. April turned into May, May turned into June, and June turned into July. Huh. Does it do that every year? I’m baaaaaaack! Despite the end of the semester bringing me tons of free time (beautiful, wonderful free time), my reading slowed down (curse you, Netflix). The two books that I hoped to finish in April (shhhh) were both pretty long too, which didn’t help. This week I finished my 8^th book of the year which sets me a couple of books behind on the tentative schedule I had set myself. Since my last post I’ve read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I didn’t completely fall in love with either of them but they were definitely fun to read.

Big holla shout out to Tom for both recommending and lending (rhymes) A Prayer for Owen Meany to me. This is a book about faith, but in no way I’d ever read before. The story flicks about across the timeline of two best friends, John (I just had to look up his name because I couldn’t remember it – one of the issues of first person narratives...) and Owen, who is one of the strangest characters I’ve ever come across. Owen hits a foul baseball which kills John’s mother, and Owen doesn’t believe in accidents. He very much believes that everything happens for a reason, and this is what the book centres around. A Prayer for Owen Meany feels more like a biography than a linear story. Sometimes it’s not clear at first why a particular story is being told at that point in the book, but each tale of Owen’s life has a reason for being told, just like Owen believes the events have a reason for happening (I don’t know if that was intentional but I’m rolling with it – I sound intelligent, right?). This book is a little crass at times, but the writing is good and I did enjoy it. Long chapters, though. Really long chapters.

On the other hand, we have The Woman in White, which my mum and sister had both read and enjoyed. Victorian writing can be tough to read since it’s so wordy and descriptive and sometimes it feels kind of exhausting to get through a page where all that’s happened is that two people have made eye contact. …Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad. It’s written from the point of view of six or so different people and I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of books with split personalities, but it was really well done – each character had a very distinct style and there is actually a purpose to splitting up the story in that way. The story itself was gripping – it’s a mystery novel that feels predictable but takes confusing turns along the way, about (you guessed it) the elusive woman in white. The solution is laid out in a very matter-of-fact way and is a bit anticlimactic, but I sort of liked that. If you’re into old Victorian-type novels or want to try one out I would recommend it!

Now for the cheesy part. I’ve been thinking a lot this summer about how the experience of reading a book is about more than just the book itself. Re-reading a book brings back memories of the first time I read it, whether it’s of the place I read it in or when I smudged chocolate on the cover (oops). I’ll always remember that the first time I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I had to share it with Clare and I got annoyed at her when she overtook me (it was MY book); I’ll remember that I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin for the first time in a tent in Italy in 2009; I’ll remember that I read A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Woman in White outside in the garden on sunny days in Washington while trying to stop Lily the dog from knocking over my water.

"I wanted to scatter his ashes both more publicly and more privately. I wanted to write about him." - Sue Miller

No more essays until 4^th year woohoo!! I wrote 6000 words last week. I read thousands more, but it was all about vagueness and ambiguity and morphology and semantics and it wasn’t enjoyable. Yesterday, I sat for 2 hours in a coffee shop and read for fun! I’d forgotten that was a thing! Now I shall avoid thinking about my exam for another couple of days and enjoy the contentment I am currently feeling.

This is how uni feels pic.twitter.com/k11Ivhal0q

— Student Problems (@ProblemsAtUni) April 12, 2016

Guess who’s back on track? That’s right, it me. Holla. I went to Skye earlier in the month and I ambitiously took 2 books with me. I didn’t read a page of either, because I was too busy soaking up the hashtag amazing views that Skye has to offer and falling on my bum in the mud, but nevertheless, I’m back on target after last month’s fiasco and have finished 6 books so far this year! No need to applaud, thank you. In March I read The Story of My Father by Sue Miller and Compared to Her by Sophie de Witt, as well as finishing The Sword in the Stone. When we last spoke I was two thirds of the way through, and it was sorely lacking in both swords and stones at that point. Finally, 13 pages before the end, he pulls the stupid sword out of the stone. And now he’s the king blah blah blah. It felt like the entire book up to that point was just background leading up to the only part of the story that was actually important. I suppose you’re supposed to take all 5 volumes as one big book and so it’s not really 13 pages before the end, but I don’t think I’m ready to take on the next one just yet. Watch this space.

So! We’re only 6 books in and I’ve already read 2 that are about old age and memory loss. My auntie Lynda (of Wedding Crasher blog fame) gave The Story of my Father to my mum, who then passed it onto me to read. It’s the true story of the life and death of the writer’s father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. It’s a beautiful account and incredibly interesting - even more jarring than Elizabeth is Missing because it’s a true story. I feel like a learned a lot from it and I really enjoyed it, even though it is blunt at times, and sometimes kind of felt like I was intruding! I’d be interested to read some of Sue Miller’s fiction books to see how they differ.

Book no. 2 is Compared to Her. It’s written from the point of view of a Christian and primarily aimed at women, but to be honest, I think it would be helpful for anyone to read if you’ve ever found that you compare yourself to other people and your sense of worth goes up and down with how you fit on that scale. Extremely challenging! I read it in a few hours because it’s so tiny but it’s the kind of thing you need to hear every week, so I’m sure it won’t be long before I pick it up again.

This month I’m reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and it is long. I wrote that I was back on track about a week ago now and I’m kind of already off track again but I didn’t want to delete that paragraph, so we’ll just pretend. After I finish that mammoth book I don’t have anything lined up so give me your books. Man, when I don’t have any anecdotal toothbrush stories I feel pretty weak. Here is a picture of a magical landscape to make up for it.

P.S. If you’re into books and you use Instagram, you should follow my friend Beth’s new page. Good.

taken on the way to Skye (don't know where we were specifically so don't ask me)

“Splendid the beams and the pillars/ Of marvellous pork.” - T.H. White

I’ll be honest, we’re only 2 months in and I’m already struggling with the challenge I’ve set myself. January gave me a false sense of security since I finished The Shock of the Fall well before the end of the month, and then suddenly February was over. Since I’d started February’s first book in August last year and I…still haven’t finished the second one…I didn’t actually manage to complete a whole book in February. But we shall persevere. The many cries of ‘WE WANT BLOG’ from my countless fans have spurred me on. You are welcome. (Seriously though, I received so many nice messages after my last two posts – thank you!)

January’s two books were very similar in many ways (you can read all about them here *plug*), whereas my two books this month had zero similarities. One of them brought about a dilemma – The Sword in the Stone (T.H. White) is the first of five volumes in The Once and Future King, and even though I’d originally planned to count all five as one of my 30 books, once it became clear that I was never going to finish it on schedule I took the easy way out and decided to count them as five separate books. I felt bad about it, don’t worry.

The book I actually did finish in February was The Hole in our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung. I. loved. this. book. I’ve been reading it on and off since August, and the main reason it took me so long is because every chapter gave me a whole lot to think about (which is the case for many Christian books). Holiness feels impossible when you are aware of how sinful you are, but even though as Christians we are still sinners, we are also alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:4) and we are God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). Holiness is possible because of who we are: we belong to God! He has given us everything we need for a godly life (2 Peter 1:3) – it’s not impossible, but it’s also massively important that we do not think we can manage it by ourselves. This book was both challenging and encouraging, and I would really recommend it to any Christian. I got to hear Kevin DeYoung preach on Sunday night which was very cool, but that was not how I imagined his voice. If (more like when) I read this book again I’m going to have a whole different voice in my head.

If you’re not a Christian and you’re interested in knowing anything more about this, I would love to chat to you!

The Sword in the Stone is based on the legend, and unlike The Hole in our Holiness, features a castle made out of food. And a poem all about it:

Its two soft door-posts of custard,
Its dais of curds and butter,
Beds of glorious lard,
Many shields of thin pressed cheese.

Yep. That’s just one verse. There’s also a chapter where Arthur gets turned into an ant, for reasons which were not clear at all. Arthur gets called ‘The Wart’ and Merlyn is Merlyn not Merlin and Robin Hood is in it except he’s actually called Robin Wood…it’s an interesting experience. My plan is to read all 5 of the books but since I’m two thirds into the first one and there has been mention of neither a sword nor a stone, I’m finding it difficult to stay motivated. We shall see. At the very least reading it has made me want to watch the Disney film.

This month I’m going to get back on track and read Compared to her by Sophie de Witt and The Story of my Father by Sue Miller. Keep coming with the recommendations and plz lend/give me your books. You da best, thanks for reading!

"I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it." - Nathan Filer

I was buying a toothbrush the other day (I promise this is related to books) and I had a choice between three. Not a very extensive selection, but this was only a teeny Tesco Express, so we won’t judge their range of toothbrushes too harshly. I was immediately drawn to the fancier toothbrush of the three: the one that had such a fancy aerodynamic-looking shape that it looked like it would have flown through the air with great ease if you ever felt the urge to chuck it at someone (Why would you do that? Weirdo). The other two were own-brand, standard, boring. So I bought the fancy toothbrush, even though I am pretty certain that no matter how many extra features they add to a toothbrush, it will still give me the same quality of cleaning as any other toothbrush. And how similar the toothbrush is to an aeroplane will have even less of an effect on my teeth.

Anyway, my point. I am the same with books (see, I told you). However, I feel less guilty about buying books for the way they look than I do about toothbrushes – books can be beautiful, and toothbrushes are…toothbrushes. I promise I won’t mention toothbrushes again.

The two books that I have finished so far this month are Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer. 5 points for Ravenclaw if you remembered that from last time! In case you didn’t catch my much laboured point about the toothbrushes (oops), I bought these books because they were pretty. I was buying Christmas presents on Amazon and since I would get free postage if my order was over £10, obviously I needed to buy something else. To save money. Logic.

I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed both of these books! Elizabeth is Missing is a mystery novel written from the point of view of a woman with dementia, which was fascinating and unsettling at the same time. It flicks between the past and the present, with the two often getting muddled up. Maud’s confusion and disorientation really gripped me – I really liked her character and felt as though we were trying to figure out this mystery together. The writing style could easily have been far too difficult to follow, and at some points I was a bit confused, but I think that was intentional and it comes together beautifully at the end.

As I probably should have guessed by it being in the related titles section, The Shock of the Fall wasn’t exactly light-hearted either. So many details about this book aren’t revealed until way into the story, so it’s difficult to talk too much about it without spoiling it. I don’t feel giving you the blurb is too much information, though:

“I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.”

It was enough to get me to read it. You know, after I’d already bought it because of the pretty cover…
This book was dark and bittersweet. It’s written to its readers – Matthew addresses you as he writes which I found really engaging (even more than Elizabeth is Missing, which felt more like being a stranger looking down on what was happening). Halfway through the book, the text changes to being like it was written on a typewriter, because the character writes that section on a typewriter. I love it when books do that, like when characters are given their own personal handwriting when we’re reading letters written by them (prime example: the newish editions of Harry Potter. Love.).

In short, I’d recommend both of these books. They both begin with unexplained events that tease you just enough to want to keep reading, and the conclusions of both were worth waiting for (which doesn’t always happen…*cough* Ketchup Clouds). I’m loving reading more, and I still managed to find time to finish watching Making a Murderer! Skills.

Next up: The Hole in our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung and The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

I know you just can’t wait. But you have to. Don’t cry.

"Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them." - Cornelia Funke

Sometimes, I remember how much I love to read. Usually when I'm reading a really good book. So why don’t I read as much as I used to?  In 2015 I only read about 7 books, most of them over summer, and most I had read before. There is some comfort in re-reading a book – it gives you a foresight that it’s somewhat difficult to have in the real world. I love reading Agatha Christie novels over again and mocking all the characters for not knowing who the murderer is. Idiots. 

But picking up a new book takes a lot more willpower. I might not enjoy it, and...ugh, effort. This year, I'm going to get over that. I've set myself a goal of reading 30 books in 2016. Why 30? My reasoning is that it’s not as daunting as 50 but it allows for reading more than 2 a month during the summer. Still pretty daunting. I had already given myself a head start with a book that I had started reading before Christmas, and I have finished said book and started another, so why is some part of my brain already coming up with objections?

1. Do I really have time to read?
2. Where am I going to get all these books from?
3. How am I going to write a bazillion essays and a dissertation later on when I’m reading all of these books??

The booky part of my brain easily rebuffs these objections:

1. Yes. I’ve been doing not much except watching Making a Murderer for the last couple of days, so…yes.
2. Living next to a map library and studying in the shadows of the university library has made me forget the joys of real, good, proper libraries (although if maps are your thing, I guess the map library falls into that bracket…you do you).
3. If I’ve got time to watch Making a Murderer/countless other Netflix shows and still pass my first semester of Honours, I've got time to read. And I am unlikely to get tonsillitis again this time around.

 I am in my third year of a Linguistics and English Language degree, and while the workload this brings has contributed to my lack of reading for fun, it has also increased my love of language and words and meaning. I love a good sentence. I love good punctuation. I'm just going to say it: I love grammar. Ain’t nothing better than good grammar. I'm looking forward to reading some good grammar.

This blog is going to be…I haven’t quite decided what it’s going to be. Reviews of books with added interesting thoughts and observations?  My aim is to move away from purely reading Young Adult fiction this year, which I have a habit of falling back on even though some of my favourite books don’t fall under that category (e.g. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy). Right now I've got a range of fiction and Christian non-fiction to start me off.  I'm also going to allow myself to not like books, and if I can’t stand any of the characters and don’t care what happens to them, I'm not going to feel guilty about not finishing it. I've only ever really, really disliked 2 books – one of them was the second in a trilogy of which I bought all three and can’t bring myself to read the third. It was just so awful.

There. I've written it down so now I have to do it. My next post will be about the books I've read in January, but as a teaser (aren’t you lucky), the first book I finished in 2016 was Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, and my second will be The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer. I've got 10 days to finish it, which is perfectly manageable. I can do this. I can.

Thanks for reading this introductory post! If you have any recommendations for books or feedback on what is my first time writing a blog, I would greatly appreciate it.