todayiamadaisy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
todayiamadaisy) wrote2015-03-31 10:35 pm
todayiamadaisy) wrote2015-03-31 10:35 pm
The Hunted Heart (aka The Haunted Heart)
March books read
* The Horologicon - Mark Forsyth (2012)
This was a trip through the day using obsolete words, which was mostly enjoyable. I found it slightly annoying that it didn't always mention the provenance of the obsolete word, so it was sometimes hard to tell if it was a once-common word that had fallen into disuse or one from an obscure dialect that had only ever been used by a hundred people.
Anyway, it was filled with words so useful one has to wonder why we're not all using them all the time. Grinnow, for one, being a stain that has not come out in the wash. Why isn't that in washing powder ads? How about hurple, which is a verb meaning to shrug up the neck and creep along the streets with a shivering sensation of cold? I mean, that is not only useful, it is also that rarest of beasts, a rhyme for purple. Use it in your next poem!
Vespertilionize, meaning to convert into a bat, is probably less useful on a daily basis.
* Malice - Keigo Higashino (1996) (Trans. Alexander O. Smith, 2014)
This was a fairly standard murder mystery, only set in Tokyo rather than, say, Midsomer. Whodunnit is fairly obvious from the start to both the reader and the story's detective; this book is more of a whydoit, as Detective Kaga digs through layer after layer of potential motives to find out the killer's real one.
This book was written and set in 1996, and the plot depends on evidence provided by a fax machine and a CD-ROM. So that was a slice of period-correct fun.
* KNITSONIK: Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook - Felicity Ford (2014)
I wasn't sure whether to include this, as it's mostly pictures and I only flicked through it. I'm not going to count it in my total books read for the year. But I thought I would put it here because (a) it's really good and (b) some f-listers might be interested. It's by a woman who used Kickstarter to publish a how-to-chart-your-own-Fair-Isle-patterns book, using things around her as inspiration. Brickwork, flowers, a tape recorder. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you can find out more about it here.
* 1974: Le livre illustré de ceux qui sont nés cette année-là! - Adrien Servent (2015)
This was a birthday present from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emma2403. It's one of those little books that takes a hop, skip and jump through the childhood of people born in a particular year. Guess which one! Because it is a French book, it was sort of like reading an alternative history of my life. If I had been born in France, I might have been called Sandrine, Stéphanie or Nathalie, the most popular girls' names that year. I would have been born into the national period of mourning Georges Pompidou (seriously, the book took a lot of pages to commemorate that) instead of the tumult of the Whitlam years in Australia. If I grew up reading the Famous Five in French, I would know Timmy the dog as le célèbre chien Dagobert.
Here is a game: I will list five titles mentioned in 1974 and you see if you can guess the English title. These aren't from 1974, mind, but were enjoyed by people born in that year, so think late 70s/early 80s. Answers below.
1. La croisière s'amuse (TV show)
2. Hippos gloutons (board game)
3. Oui-Oui (Character/book/TV show)
4. Drôles des dames (TV show)
5. Qui est-ce? (board game)
I also started a new Cartland during the month and didn't get back to it. I know you'll find this hard to believe, f-list, but it was boring. I mean, the hero was called John. John. Remember that time there was a hero called Norvin? Those were the days. John was described as looking like a leopard, which would make him... spotty? That can't be what she meant.
Answers to 1974 quiz
1. The Love Boat
2. Hungry Hungry Hippos
3. Noddy
4. Charlie's Angels
5. Guess Who
* The Horologicon - Mark Forsyth (2012)
This was a trip through the day using obsolete words, which was mostly enjoyable. I found it slightly annoying that it didn't always mention the provenance of the obsolete word, so it was sometimes hard to tell if it was a once-common word that had fallen into disuse or one from an obscure dialect that had only ever been used by a hundred people.
Anyway, it was filled with words so useful one has to wonder why we're not all using them all the time. Grinnow, for one, being a stain that has not come out in the wash. Why isn't that in washing powder ads? How about hurple, which is a verb meaning to shrug up the neck and creep along the streets with a shivering sensation of cold? I mean, that is not only useful, it is also that rarest of beasts, a rhyme for purple. Use it in your next poem!
Vespertilionize, meaning to convert into a bat, is probably less useful on a daily basis.
* Malice - Keigo Higashino (1996) (Trans. Alexander O. Smith, 2014)
This was a fairly standard murder mystery, only set in Tokyo rather than, say, Midsomer. Whodunnit is fairly obvious from the start to both the reader and the story's detective; this book is more of a whydoit, as Detective Kaga digs through layer after layer of potential motives to find out the killer's real one.
This book was written and set in 1996, and the plot depends on evidence provided by a fax machine and a CD-ROM. So that was a slice of period-correct fun.
* KNITSONIK: Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook - Felicity Ford (2014)
I wasn't sure whether to include this, as it's mostly pictures and I only flicked through it. I'm not going to count it in my total books read for the year. But I thought I would put it here because (a) it's really good and (b) some f-listers might be interested. It's by a woman who used Kickstarter to publish a how-to-chart-your-own-Fair-Isle-patterns book, using things around her as inspiration. Brickwork, flowers, a tape recorder. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you can find out more about it here.
* 1974: Le livre illustré de ceux qui sont nés cette année-là! - Adrien Servent (2015)
This was a birthday present from
emma2403. It's one of those little books that takes a hop, skip and jump through the childhood of people born in a particular year. Guess which one! Because it is a French book, it was sort of like reading an alternative history of my life. If I had been born in France, I might have been called Sandrine, Stéphanie or Nathalie, the most popular girls' names that year. I would have been born into the national period of mourning Georges Pompidou (seriously, the book took a lot of pages to commemorate that) instead of the tumult of the Whitlam years in Australia. If I grew up reading the Famous Five in French, I would know Timmy the dog as le célèbre chien Dagobert. Here is a game: I will list five titles mentioned in 1974 and you see if you can guess the English title. These aren't from 1974, mind, but were enjoyed by people born in that year, so think late 70s/early 80s. Answers below.
1. La croisière s'amuse (TV show)
2. Hippos gloutons (board game)
3. Oui-Oui (Character/book/TV show)
4. Drôles des dames (TV show)
5. Qui est-ce? (board game)
I also started a new Cartland during the month and didn't get back to it. I know you'll find this hard to believe, f-list, but it was boring. I mean, the hero was called John. John. Remember that time there was a hero called Norvin? Those were the days. John was described as looking like a leopard, which would make him... spotty? That can't be what she meant.
Answers to 1974 quiz
1. The Love Boat
2. Hungry Hungry Hippos
3. Noddy
4. Charlie's Angels
5. Guess Who