Salt and corrosion

Gosh, my f-list is quiet these days. And so am I, so I can't complain.

I normally find Ferrero Rocher a bit of a let down. I mean, they look fancy, but they never live up to the packaging for me. But! Ferrero Rocher hazelnut mini eggs are good stuff, f-list. They are THE BUSINESS.

I haven't been eating much chocolate recently, so, in news that I suspect is not unrelated to the above, I have the most terrible headache.

When I was little, we went on holiday to Surfers Paradise and my strongest memory of it is of the little restaurant down the street from our hotel. It might have been a fish restaurant? I recall a lot of nautical decor, at any rate, and fisherman's basket on the menu. But what sticks strongest in my mind was the dessert: every time we ate there, I had the ice-cream boat, which was several different coloured squares of ice-cream and wafer arranged like a little boat on a sea of chopped-up jelly. I mean, if you're eight, that is the culinary high point of your life right there.

Anyway, I had a birthday this week and, in a fit of whimsy and nostalgia for the ice-cream boat, I made myself an ice-cream cake. Only, and here's the problem, adult me doesn't really like ice-cream. I don't dislike it, but I'd never think to have a bowl of it for dessert, say. And ice-cream cake is just ice-cream with frozen cream on it. In hindsight, I would have preferred a proper cake instead. Next year.

March books read

* Slade House - David Mitchell (2015) ★ ★ ★
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* Autumn - Ali Smith (2016) ★ ★ ★
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* The Sinking Admiral - Members of the Detection Club (2016) ★
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* The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross - Lisa Tuttle (2017) ★ ★ ★
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* Sheer Folly - Carola Dunn (2009) ★ ★
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* Carry On, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse (1925) ★ ★ ★ ★
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I have been reading a book about Lizzie Borden. You know, her with the axe and giving her mother forty whacks. Only it turns out that it was (a) a hatchet, (b) her step-mother and (c) only eighteen whacks. I suppose that doesn't really scan, though, does it? Not nearly as catchy. Anyway, what really caught my eye was the family's breakfast. On the morning of the murder, they ate: mutton soup, sliced mutton, pancakes, bananas, pears, cookies, and coffee. And then they were sick, because the mutton was off/poisoned (cheers, Lizzie). But still, that's a breakfast.

In my quest to find the world's ugliest shoe, I came across these:



And yes, they were an April Fools' joke and not real. Still, the mental image of how silly that woman must look with her leg stuck in the air pleases me no end.

In April 2012 I started using Barbara Cartland titles as my subject headers, and here we are, in December 2017, with the very last one: a book of poetry. Well done and thank you, Dame Barbara, for amusing me for the last five-and-a-half years.

I won't finish my current book tonight, so I can finish the year with this month's books. I made it past fifty (by one).

December books read

* I Found You - Lisa Jewell (2016) ★ ★ ★
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* Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore - Matthew J. Sullivan (2017) ★ ★ ★
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* The Rosemary Tree - Elizabeth Goudge (1956) ★ ★ ★
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* The Merchant's House - Kate Ellis (1998) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* An Unhallowed Grave - Kate Ellis (1999) ★ ★ ★
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* The Bone Garden - Kate Ellis (2001) ★ ★ ★
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* Once on a Time - AA Milne (2017) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Doll Junk: Collectible and Crazy Fashions from the '70s and '80s - Carmen Varricchio (2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
( With pictures! )

And my year-end book meme:

Year end book meme using titles of books I've read this year
Describe yourself: An Excellent Mystery - Ellis Peters
How do you feel: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Describe where you currently live: Printers Devil Court - Susan Hill
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Merchant's House - Kate Ellis
Your favourite form of transportation: The Winged Histories - Sofia Samatar
Your best friend is: Lolly Willowes - Sylvia Townsend Warner
You and your friends are: The Wrong Set - Angus Wilson
What’s the weather like: Death in the Rainy Season - Anna Jacquiery
You fear: The Secret of Wishtide - Kate Saunders
What is the best advice you have to give: Ways to Disappear - Idra Novey
Thought for the day: A is for Arsenic - Kathryn Harkup
My soul’s present condition: Something Fresh - PG Wodehouse

Happy New Year, f-list.

Weekly update, a day late. Well, a week and a couple of days. But with reason. I've been writing an essay. Not just any essay. My last one. The last one ever. That's the Masters degree finished. All done. I feel unmoored. More so than when I left work. I suppose this has been the one constant thing over the last year, and now it's gone.

I celebrated finishing the degree with a massive spending spree. Massive. I bought two books and some wool. I am hopeless at massive spending sprees. (I also made a cake.) The wool is for a jumper. There's a series of weekly updates to look forward to. It's a knit-along, so I can't start it until the first part of the pattern is released later this month. If I keep up to speed, I'll be finished by mid-December. Hahahahaha.

We are now on week four of the two week bathroom renovation. At least we have a shower and a loo now, although we have been without a washing machine for a week. Fortunately I have lots of knickers and socks to tide me over.

September books read

This time of year is normally when I race through the Booker Prize contenders. This year between being sick and writing that essay, I just wasn't in the mood for all that heavy duty reading. Sorry, 2017 Booker nominees. I needed something lighter this September. You'll have to get by without me.

* Crime at Christmas - CHB Kitchen (1934) ★ ★ ★
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* The Sudden Departure of the Frasers - Louise Candlish (2015) ★ ★
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Another slow book month, tied up as I was with academic articles about learning organisations.

July book read

* Twilight Robbery - Frances Hardinge (2011) ★ ★ ★ ★
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Can you tell if a macaque wants to bite you? I scored 83% on the quiz. I can really read a macaque, apparently.

* * * * *
It has been a giddy social whirl this week. I've been out twice. Twice! What a social butterfly I am. (I am not.) On Thursday I went to see some stand-up comedy, Jimeoin. I saw him about ten years ago and it was a riot. This year, meh. Still funny, but he didn't seem all that thrilled to be there.

Last night, my mother and I went back to the little town where she and John lived, where her former neighbours were holding a house concert. Their son is a country/folk musician and guitar maker who is touring the east coast and playing in living rooms, including his parents'. So for twenty dollars and a plate of nibbles each, about forty people got an intimate concert. So that was nice.

The only problem is that being out in the crisp winter air has made me wheezy, so I've had to get my inhaler out for the first time in over twelve months. So if I never write another entry, it's because I've died from puffing out-of-date Ventolin.

* * * * *
Due to work/reading for academic purposes/knitting (mostly the academic reading though), my leisure reading was very light on in May. So here is:

May book read
* The Shepherd's Crown - Terry Pratchett (2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* * * * *
Weekly knitting update: ( It begins to look like a cardigan. )

A day late, but here: Weekly knitting update. Well, I looked at it.

Other stuff update: This week, I went to see a play, Coranderrk. It used transcripts from an 1881 parliamentary inquiry in which a group of Aboriginal farmers wanted control of their own farms. Which seems like the least they could ask, really.

I have written on my notepad "death v reception". Imagine what a deep thought that would be if I could remember what it meant.

April books read

* Curious Behaviour: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping, and Beyond - Robert R. Provine (2012) ★ ★
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* Rivers of London: Night Witch - Ben Aaronovitch & Andrew Cartmel & Lee Sullivan (2016) ★ ★ ★
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* Something Fresh - PG Wodehouse (1915) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Best Australian Science Writing 2016 - Jo Chandler (ed.) (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Secrets of Wishtide - Kate Saunders (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

The glooms have been descending for a while now, which is unfortunate timing as I'm trying to write a couple of job applications. Not a good time to start thinking that I couldn't possibly manage to do any of the things they are asking for. Anyway. I'll get my act together. In the meantime, I've been writing down words to remind to write about things here. So that's what I'll do.

( Chicken nuggets )

( Coffins )

( Bowl )

( Beagle )

( Cucumbers )

And because it's the first of the month, that just leaves:

February books read

* Two by Two - Nicholas Sparks (2016) ★
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* Death in the Rainy Season - Anna Jaquiery (2015) ★ ★ ★
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* The Strangler Vine - MJ Carter (2014) ★ ★ ★
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* The Winged Histories - Sofia Samatar (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz (2016) ★ ★ ★
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December books read

See if you can spot the theme to last month's books.

* Mistletoe and Murder - Evelyn James (2015) ★ ★
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* Mistletoe and Murder - Carola Dunn (2002) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Mistletoe and Murder - Robin Stevens (2016) ★ ★ ★
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At this point in the month I ran out of books called Mistletoe and Murder. There are more, you understand, plenty more, but they either weren't available in my local library or cost more than I was willing to pay for a Kindle version. So I moved on to books with "mistletoe" and "murder" in the title, of which there are even more. I thought it was interesting that all the mistletoe and murder books set in England were set in the past, while the American ones were contemporary. I'm sure that says something deep about their cultural differences, although I'm not sure what. (Someone should write an Australian version. We have ninety varieties of mistletoe, apparently, compared to Europe's one, including a bright orange one that is the world's largest.)

* Mystic Mistletoe Murder - Sally J Smith & Jean Steffens (2016) ★ ★
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* Murder at Mistletoe Manor - Holly Tierney-Bedord (2016) ★ ★ ★
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* Mistletoe is Murder - Kathy Cranston (2016) ★ ★ ☆
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* The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories - PD James (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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Fittingly, I finished the PD James on Christmas Day, and that was the end of that little bit of festive fun. If nothing else, all those easy reads bumped up my book count, leaving me on forty-eight. Could I read two more by the end of the year?

* The House of Ulloa - Emilia Pardo Bazán (1886) (trans. Paul O'Prey & Lucia Graves, 1990) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Love and the Loathsome Leopard - Barbara Cartland (1977) (I won't do stars for Barbara, as they'd all be both five and zero, depending on how you looked at it.)
Previously discussed.

Out of my fifty books this year:
- It was a fifty-fifty split between male and female authors.
- It was also a fifty-fifty split between paper and Kindle.
- Non-fiction was twenty percent, which is down a bit on last year.
- Only 1.2% were written by non-white authors, which is also down a bit.
- None were in a language other than English, and less than one percent was a translation.

That gives me something to think about when picking books this year. I've got some reading planned: I've written my read-before-all-else list, which is a mixed bag of classics and rubbish, and of course there will be the Booker read in September.

Year end book meme using titles of books I've read this year
Describe yourself: Misbehaving - Richard H Thaler
How do you feel: The Somnambulist - Essie Fox
Describe where you currently live: The Field of the Cloth of Gold - Magnus Mills
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The High Mountains of Portugal - Yann Martell
Your favourite form of transportation: Drive - Daniel Pink
Your best friend is: Daphne - Justine Picardie
You and your friends are: The Chalet School Reunion - Elinor M Brent-Dyer
What’s the weather like: Foxglove Summer - Ben Aaronovitch
You fear: His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burnett
What is the best advice you have to give: Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeline Thien
Thought for the day: Mistletoe is Murder - Kathy Cranston
My soul’s present condition: Dancer in Danger - Lorna Hill

November books read

* The Bell of the Four Evangelists - Violet Needham (1947) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronovitch (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Raven Black - Ann Cleeves (2006) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Somnambulist - Essie Fox (2011) ★ ★
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* Eeny Meeny - MJ Arlidge (2014) ★
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* Westmorland Alone - Ian Sansom (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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