Five books on the re-read pile

With the dawn of audio books, I've been rather slack at reading actual books, preferring to jam in my headphones to get me through the train trip every day.

Meanwhile, i've still been buying books from the local second-hand place! There's just something about holding a hardback in your hands that seems terribly romantic and 'old-fashioned'; it will always appeal to me. Recently i've been getting flashes of my highschool days, when we were told to pick books to read from a reading list, and then write an essay on the themes. Sadly, this took the fun out of reading the book for entertainment - you know it inside out, but because you know it so well, you don't enjoy it - there's no tense moment waiting to see what will happen next, because you already know! On the plus side, you got to read books you normally wouldn't even consider reading, and perhaps understand them more from all the study.

It appears i've been on a pursuit lately to read books that have had movies made from them, to look at it from different angles. Now i'm going to try something different - going back to books that I've read a long time ago, in order to recapture some of what made them so interesting in the first place. Here's my list of books to re-read:

• Tooth and Nail

This book is set in the 1930s depression era. Sadly it doesn't appear to have made it to any listings on the interweb, so I can't even tell you who the author is, but from what I remember it was set in New Zealand, about a teenage girl, and what it was like for her and the choices she had to make in terms of school and then work. I remember reading this several times during high school, so much so that I may have held onto a copy when school finished (they had plenty of other copies there!). There is a part in the book where the only work she can get is to paste up posters of upcoming shows - although disguised as a boy because girls weren't allowed to do that kind of work - and i'm reminded of this every time I walk through town and see people pasting up posters. I can't remember what happens in the end though, so this is definately a re-read, once i've found my copy!

• Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

I was quite suprised to find I had the urge to read these ones again. They come in the catergory of reading-too-much-then-picking-themes-to-study - so I really wasn't a big fan at the time (I think the black and white movie of '1984' put me off!) but for some reason they have stuck in my head, and i'm interested to read them again now that i'm older and see what I think...

• False Memory - Dean Koontz

I read this post-highschool - it was the first Dean Koontz book that I read, and made me want to read more of his work. Sadly I've found that none of his books were as good as what I remember of this one... I've been hunting around for a while for my own copy of it, and finally found one a couple of weeks ago, so that's made the list, so I can remind myself why it was so good.

• Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

I got this on audiobook a while ago [my review is here] and thoroughly enjoyed it - it was the unabridged version of it, so the hardcopy book should be the same, but i'm interested in seeing how I go with the constant change of narration between Henry and Clare, without the voices to guide me through the story.

• Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

Ok, so I haven't read this one before. And to be honest, the only reason I want to read it is to be able to follow up the quotes they use in Twilight (yes, i'm slightly obsessed, this we know!). But going through my dad's old bookshelf a month ago, I spotted a copy, so i've added that to my pile too - why not! I figure a story that was also made into an opera, movie and song must be good!

Over to you:
What books did you have to study back in the day? Are you compelled to re-read any of them again, just to see if you enjoy them more now? I'd love to know your opinions!

~Happy reading!~

Ballatrina's Books: Breakfast at Tiffany's

Buy from Amazon

Author: Truman Capote
Started: 25-Aug-09
Finished: 29-Aug-09

I picked this up while browsing at Borders last Monday; i'd just finished watching the movie (again!) and thought it might be good to compare the book. In this case, I think the movie was better! There seemed to be alot more going on with the characters in the movie than in the book. Holly Golightly seemed alot more flighty and vague in the book, and it was very hard to like her character. The main male character in the book is vastly different to the one in the movie, and his book character again is very vague. I was pleased though to see that some of Holly's movie quotes came from the book! I'm aware that the book came first, and while it was good in its own right, although alot shorter than I had expected, i'd rather watch the movie any day than read the book again.

This version of the book also had two short stories at the end (and STILL the book was only half an inch thick!), but I haven't got to reading those yet.

Next on my book list is 'Under the Tuscan Sun' - again, a book that matches a movie, and although so far they too seem like very different beasts, i'm really enjoying the book - its more about what real life is like in Italy, and how the author had to learn things from scratch starting with just her love of the place.

Craft update
Thanks so much for all your lovely comments about my tote bags! I had a very busy weekend, knitting neck cozies all day Saturday and sewing tote bags all day Sunday, but I managed to finish off the bulk of the work - just need to sew my labels onto the tote bags, and attach the little cards, and they'll be ready to go on Wednesday!

~Happy reading/crafting!~

Ballatrina's Books: Pride and Prejudice

Buy it from Amazon.com

Author: Jane Austen
Started: 15-June-09
Finished: 28-July-09

Oh my goodness. I loved this book! Well, that was obvious from the time I brought it, but it exceeded my expectations! (ETA - turns out this post if more of a mini-essay, so read on if you have time, but you've been warned! Or you can just shoot down to my overall opinion at the end...)

The olde-english language was hard to get at first, and I found myself re-reading sentences and 'translating' them into today's language just to get my head around what was going on sometimes, but I got used to it after a while. It was strange that sometimes words were missed out - sentences like ' in the ------ shire' are littered throughout, but it was easy to overlook them. It would be interesting to find out why they were there though, and if they are in other editions as well - maybe it was that the first person to type it up couldn't read Jane's handwriting???

...I get lost in the language, words like "Thither. Mischance. Felicity." I'm always in agony over whether Elizabeth and Mr Darcy are really going to get together. Ah! Read it. I know you'll love it!
- Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan, 'You've Got Mail')

After reading the first chapter, I immediately said that Mr Bennet was my favourite character, and that didn't change at all. Some of his quotes had me laughing out loud, which is always a good sign. He's so grounded in reality, but still has a fantastic sense of humor about everything - I suppose you would need it to live with Mrs Bennet. She's such a pain! Its nice that she cares about her daughters so much to get them married off, but the extent that she goes to, to set people up, is a little much. And she always blew things out of proportion, the small things became such a big deal. And really, don't get me started on Lydia, talk about rubbing everyone's noses in the fact that she was the first one married! Her antics just about made me give up on the book a few times, she was that annoying.

But enough of the bad stuff. I loved the relationship between Jane and Elizabeth - it was good that they had somewhere to escape to, to talk about the serious stuff that the rest of the family wasn't taking so seriously. Mr Bingley sounds like a bit of a pushover, but he and Jane are still the perfect pair. As for the main two, I spent most of the book figuring out which one was proud and which one was prejudice - by the end i'd figured Mr Darcy was the former and Elizabeth was the latter, but i'm sure that's open to interpretation, as they each seem to flip around between them a bit. I was taken back a little the first time that Mr Darcy proposed, as it seemed so out of the blue, but that's about the time that he started growing on me, so my feelings changed in sync with Elizabeth's. And i'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I was 'awww'-ing by the end of it - now to find my 'Mr Darcy'! :)

(This must be the first book that i've ever gotten into this much!)

Overall opinion

A brilliant book - if you haven't read it yet, highly recommended. Jane Austen is a talented writer, with humor and intelligence beyond her time - if not for the old language and society setting, it could have been written in the last decade with the same appeal.

Next will be to watch the movies (the loooooong BBC version and the newer 'Hollywood' version) to compare them to the book! And, of course, to read some more Jane Austen classics - Sense and Sensibility perhaps? [ETA - watched the BBC version on the weekend, just as brilliant as I remember! The only difference I noticed to the book was that they did a wedding scene at the end.]

~Happy reading!~

PS - An update on my new knitting book that I ordered: sadly it's out of stock! I ordered it from a discount catalogue, so they won't be getting any more in. I will have to keep an eye out for it elsewhere.

Ballatrina's Books - Finger Lickin' Fifteen

It was a lovely sunny weekend this weekend, so what better to do that sit in the sun and read! I brought this book last week (I found it for $30 in a store next door to where they were selling it for $45! Bargain!) and decided that I couldn't wait any longer to crack the binding.

Finger Lickin' Fifteen - A Stephanie Plum novel
Author: Janet Evanovich
Started: 18-Jul-09
Finished: 18-Jul-09

As you can see, I got through it in one afternoon. That's how much I love the Stephanie Plum series! If you haven't read one of these books before, a little information: firstly, I would rate it M (mature) because of some of the language and, ahem, sexual references. But if you can take that in your stride and love some good humor, these books are very funny! The story is about Stephanie Plum, who works as a bounty hunter for her cousin, but she isn't all that great at it. She lives in an apartment, but often goes home to her parent's house for the free food. Its a very easy and light-hearted read, but it helps if you know a little about the characters first, so I would suggest starting with one of the earlier books. The first one I found was book 5, then I went back and started from number 1 because I enjoyed it so much!

In this book, Stephanie's sidekick Lula comes into the bond office after seeing a famous TV chef decapitated, and the guys who did it are coming after her. Lula decides the best place to corner them (to claim the reward of course) is to enter the barbeque cook-off, so she and Stephanie's grandma set about trying to come up with the best sauce, and it takes several humorous attempts, and many explosions, to get it right! At the same time, Stephanie works with the oh-so-gorgeous Ranger (another bounty hunter, but a serious one, who has a little bit of a crush on her) in his security office, trying to crack a crime from the inside.

As part of the series, I wouldn't say this was the best one, but it still had some fantastic laugh-out-loud moments. Its almost like the Stephanie/Ranger story line was added just so Ranger could be in the story, it turns to be not so major afterall, a bit of a let-down. And there's not enough Morelli for me - he's her on-again-off-again boyfriend, who's always jealous of Ranger. These books come out about once a year, so its a shame I have to wait a year for the next one! Maybe i'll just have to start from the beginning of the series again :)

I'm still working on Pride & Predjudice too, i'm over 3/4 through, the language is just a little tricky to get my head around - I don't think I would have got this far if I hadn't seen the movie (the original Colin Firth one, which is way better than the new Kiera Knightly one) to know what the storyline was!

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Knitting update:

I was off work sick for most of last week, so I had alot of knitting time! Unfortunately I still haven't unpacked my second skein of Artyarns Supermerino that i'm using for a beret so that project is still on hold, but I finished a puppy jumper and i'm halfway through a little baby beanie just to use up some of my stash. Photos will be coming soon I promise! I had a go at starting the Baby Surprise Jacket by EZ (will be my new lunchtime project) but got totally perplexed by the pattern so I ripped it out - if you've made it before and can give me some help, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know!!

~Happy knitting!~

Monday Meal Madness, and new books!

The end of an era - we had our last Monday Meal Madness this week. Bec is off on her big trip in a couple of weeks, and Shorty is off to Oz before that. We decided to try a cheap new Thai place for our last time out - A-Roy Thai Restaurant in Cuba Mall - and it was great! I'd been there a few days before and had my standard chicken satay skewers (and they were fab, definately makes my top 10 for Wellington satay! Shorty had them this time) so I tried something different this time around, chicken and mushroom with rice. Bec had the chicken cashew which was tasty too.

Overall highly recommended if you want something quick and tasty with great prices! I believe they do takeaway too, must try that one night. (And for dessert, of course, we ended up back at BK again for their chocolate pie. A good end to a good night.)

I promised I would do another book reivew soon, and I have good news! While we were still in town and waiting for a ride home we popped into Arty Bees Books for a look around (by far the greatest second-hand book store in Wellington!) and I picked up some new books to read:

A real mix - Pride & Prejudice, 7th Heaven, Les Miserables, and Violets are Blue. I've started reading P&P in my spare time, and so far i'm finding Mr Bennet has a most agreeable sense of humor! I can see why people enjoy Jane Austen :) So look forward to my review on that one in a few weeks. Not sure what to read next though, perhaps Violets are Blue? The size of Les Miserables is putting me off a little, although I was inspired to buy after watching my old high school perform it as their latest production - its been years since I first saw it, but they did a brilliant job!

Up next: some more FO pictures!

~Happy knitting!~

Book worm

I'm sorry i've been quiet on the blog front recently... i've been doing little knitting, but much reading! As of last week, I have officially completed the Twilight Saga :) I started reading book one at Easter, and have found all four of them hard to put down! What to do now though, that i've finished? Start again! Well, i'm going to have a break, I have other books to read for other people, but I definately plan to get back to them soon. In the meantime, i'll keep watching the movie and wait for movie two to come out at the end of the year.

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Knitting update

Amongst the reading I have managed to sneak in some knitting - mostly when i'm at my parents house where I can't read while watching tv!

First project was to make a square for UNICEF - they were aiming to collect 1,400 squares to make into a large blanket to present to parliament, to represent children in need - turns out they got over 3,000! This was my little contribution, a good way to practise my weak crochet skills: (Rav link)

Next on the list was a cowl, using the Cleckheaton Vintage Hues yarn I brought at easter. (Sorry, no photo yet, hopefully tonight!) My plan was to knit a scarf on huge needles to make it stretch and look lacy, and just keep knitting until I ran out of yarn. Sadly I ran out much sooner than I thought, so it turned into a squishy cowl instead!

On top of all that, I knitted up a mothers day present from this pattern. (My photo to come) Nice easy knit, although I changed the chart to say mUm rather than mOm. Finished just in time, 11pm on Saturday night to be precise, so it was still wet from blocking when I gave it to her, but I don't think she minded. I'm looking forward to knitting some more of KrisKnit's dishcloths in the future, she has some fantastic patterns!

Progress on Buttony continues - the sleeves are seperated, and I added some waist shaping today. I'm worried that the sleeves may be a little big, but i'm assured that's a good thing since i'll be able to wear layers underneath as well. Time will tell... Anyway, here's the latest progress picture - just after i'd seperated the sleeves:

In sewing news, I got a new book today - 'A is for Apron'! Its got a whole lot of awesome vintage-looking patterns that I can't wait to try! And guess what - it's available here on Amazon.com if you're interested! (Just realised - lots of exclamation marks - can you tell i'm excited??)

~Happy Knitting!~

A new book review

The Reptile Room
Author: Lemony Snicket
Started: 9-Mar-09
Finished: 17-Mar-09

From audible.com

Following on from the first book, A Series of Unfortunate Events (which I read a while ago, but it doesn't look like I did a review on it!), this reading was slightly different, with Tim Curry covering all the voices, instead of having different readers. I very much enjoyed this book - after seeing the movie which covered all the different stories, it was good to get a bit more information about the characters. It was alot shorter than I was expecting though, so the story was rather basic, and a little predictable. Still recommended though :)

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Knitting update

I'm still in a bit of a knitting funk. I'm at the depressing stage of Buttony where it doesn't seem to be getting any longer, but for fear that one day i'll measure it and it will be perfect to put onto scrap yarn, i'm only knitting it at home when I have scrap yarn around! I needed some road trip knitting though last week so I cast on for Fern Glade again, and so far so good - although its stretching quite a bit around the cable, so I'll need to get a shorter one before I go much further. So far i've done one full pattern repeat (while sitting at a homestead looking out over the country side - it was lovely!) so there are five more to go for my size. The green acrylic is interesting to knit with...

I have a friend coming over tomorrow night to have his first knitting lesson; i'm definately looking forward to that! I might get him started on some squares for the Casa Kiwi blankets, to speed that project along a little, while I continue to forge my way through Buttony some more, aided by a nice glass of white...

~Happy knitting!~

Buttony begins

Buttony Sweater

I got started on this last night - it took a while to figure out how the sizing worked (its only written for size M, and i'm a size S) - i'm still not sure i'm on the right track as the collar looks smaller than I would like, so there's a definate possibility that I will start again with a different cast on number! I love the colour though, and the yarn is lovely to use :)

Ballatrina's Books

I was thinking the other day that I haven't had an update on when i'm reading for a while - and that's because I haven't been reading anything! I've become obsessed with listening to podcasts on the bus. I'm fully up to date with Ready, Set, Knit, the podcast from the awesome team at WEBS, and now i'm listening my way through the Cast On podcast - which is great so far, a little longer than RSK, but it plays full tracks between the talking, which is a good mix. If you have an iPod I recommend you check these out - I found them through a search of 'knitting' on iTunes (yes, yes, i'm obsessed, we know this!)

Quote of the week

Another quote from the Yarn Harlot's page-a-day calendar:

"If you're crazy, there's two things you can do to make yourself feel better: One is to get yourself cured. The other is to make everyone you have to deal with crazy."
- Alan Dean Foster

Stephanie's response to that puts it into knitterly context:

"This is the reason every knitter tries to teach everyone she knows to knit... or at least suggests that they should try it."

~Happy knitting!~

Latest book review

The Shack
Author: William P Young
Started: 20 Jan 2009
Finished: 7 Feb 09

This book comes under the category of "books my Dad recommended I read". In this case, I was the last one in my family to read it, so I was under alot of pressure!

I found the book very interesting, although the wording was quite eloquent (lots of metaphors) and so sometimes a bit difficult to read through. The subject matter is not one that can be talking about without giving the book away, although I can say that it is christian fiction. (If you're interested, the link at the heading is the book's website where you can read a little of it.) It had a little of the crime fiction that I like, and it certainly left me asking questions about how strong my beliefs really are, so it was really good from that view point. I heard that many tears were shed during the reading of this book, but I didn't experience that myself, which is very unusual - I usually cry very easily!

Overall, a good read for a rainy afternoon when there is nothing else going on - you could probably finish it in a day or so of solid reading.

Loving long weekends

I'm sorry to say i'm getting used to these short weeks! Its Waitangi Day here on Friday, which means another 4-day week! We will be going up to our bach to do some more painting and gardening, with hopefully some time for a swim as well.

Last weekend I went up north for a youth leaders retreat weekend - I had a good time, the training we did was really good, but never again will I spend a whole weekend away along with 4 other guys - talk about testosterone overload!! Everything was a competition, from who could jump from the highest rock into the river, to who could hold their breath underwater the longest at the pool! As you can see it was gorgeous weather though, so I couldn't really complain about having another mini-holiday :)

Progress is coming along well with the garter stitch baby cardi - I did some more work on it at lunchtime today, to discover that i'm pretty much finished on the bulk of the stockinette section, then a garter band around the bottom and the sleeves to go, along with picking up stitches for the button band. I'm suprised at how quickly its going! Its looking a little small at the moment - a little narrow across the back, but i'm hoping that the button band will make it look better.

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I also finished my audiobook this morning, so here's my review:

The Time Travellers' Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Started: 1 Dec 08

Finished: 3 Feb 09

It looks like it took me ages to get through this, but its an audiobook so I only listened to it on the bus and other travelling - AND its two 9-hour books! Brilliant story though (18+ in some parts); I read in a review that people were sobbing in parts and I could see how that could be so. I would put it in the genre of romance/drama, but its not as 'flaky' other romance novels i've read. Sometimes its a little hard to keep track of the dates and how old the characters are, as it darts around a bit. Its nice to have both male and female voices reading out different parts of the dialogue. HIGHLY recommended! But make sure you're not doing anything else while you're listening, or you'll lose track of what's going on!

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Happy knitting!

More reading...

Me and my shadow
Author: Carole Mackie, with Sue Brattle
Started: 8-Jan-09
Finished: 12-Jan-09
This is a biography of a lady who is learning to live with Multiple Sclerosis. She is a flight attendant with British Airways, and was first diagnosed on a stopover in Rio over 10 years ago. It shows what she went through in the way of symptoms, and also how those around her dealt with what was going on.

This was a strange one for me to pick up, and for a silly reason - one of the characters on my favourite TV show has just been diagnosed with this, so it caught my attention. I found it a very interesting read, and again, very hard to put down.

I would recommend it for those who know someone who has MS, as its very informative about all the symptoms and how she deals with them.

What i'm reading

You may have noticed that I started a new blog a few days ago showing what books i'm reading - as one of my NY resolutions was to read more, and read more 'intellectual' books rather than just crime fiction, which I love. So far its been a bit crazy keeping track of two blogs, especially since that one won't be updated that often so I think its a bit of a waste of time. So, i'm going to move them into this blog so you can see! After all, this blog is Ballatrina's Knitting and other bits and bobs so I think it fits nicely under that. Here goes...

Therapy

Author: Jonathan Kellerman

Started: mid-Dec-08

Finished: 4-Jan-09

I have read one of his books before which was really good, so when I saw this on one sale I thought, why not. Sadly, I didn't think it was as good as his other one. It started well, with victims being found in the first couple of pages and then the hunt to find the killer began, but after that it dragged along very slowly, with more and more suspects being introduced and still no closer to finding the killer - the suspects were very hard to keep track of because there were so many of them. 400 pages into the 500 page book, still no hints! I felt that it came to an abrupt halt once the murderer had been found.

I'm still a fan of the Delaware character, who is a psychologist who assists the police in cases like this, as it is interesting to see his clinical point of view on what happened.

Other People's Dirt
Author: Louise Rafkin

Started: 7-Jan-09
Finished: 7-Jan-09
This is officially the first book that I have read from cover to cover in one night!

In a search of biographies on the library computer this book jumped out at me, as i'm always interested in gossip and other people's lives, so the title struck me straight away :) This book is written by a lady who when she was little decided she wanted to be a CIA agent, but ended up being a housecleaner, and how this turned out to be about the same thing.

With chapters covering lots of topics from naked cleaners to joining a cleaning commune in Japan, its a very witty read that was hard to put down, and when I did, all I wanted to do was clean! It is a good insight into what its really like to be a cleaner, including tips on employers wanting to hire one.

I thought it was interesting that she also referred to 'Messies Anonymous' founder Sandra Felton, whose book I have also read, in an effort to understand how 'the other side' lived.

Overall a very worthwhile read :)

To come: Me and my Shadow - Living with MS, Cole Porter - A Biography, and Visions of Jazz by Gary Giddins.