Simon's Cat in Kitten Chaos
Given that this is a book of pictures, I'm not sure if it counts as reading, but there's a story in the pictures. The downside to having read it is that a lot of the Daily Mirror strips I've read in the book. But it was funny. The page that sticks in my mind is of the lounge full of scratching posts and the kitten scratching at a table leg.

Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography
I really enjoyed this, it was really interesting to see where she came from and how she came to get where she was, and how things worked in the world of theatre and TV. I only wish she could have finished it because I'd love to have heard more about Big Finish and SJA.

Gin O'Clock by The Queen [of Twitter]
This is a short funny book. It's like some of the things you see on the Queen's twitter account, but longer. And it's easier to see the running jokes, such as Camilla always misunderstanding fancy dress parties.

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold
I did read this when it first came out, but on Dad's ebook reader. I waited until the paperback came out, then bought it and re-read it. I enjoyed it more the second time. I think because this one starts quite oddly and is just Miles (out of the characters we know) for such a long time, it was hard to get into the first time round. But this time I knew what to expect and had forgotten the plot. Not that I understood it the second time round either...

The School at the Chalet and Jo of the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
I am re-reading the Chalet School books this year because I have forgotten a lot and in preparation for writing Lynda Day at the Chalet School. Although I'm going to have to go a bit quicker than this to get them all read in a year. I was surprised by these two at how English the school was. You get so used to the idea of them speaking three languages, and I'd forgotten that it was an English school at the start. What annoyed me this time was how the youngest children were treated. It's mentioned somewhere that Amy is nine, I think, and she has to be helped with bathing - which includes drying her. I don't know much about kids, but I'm pretty sure they can wash and dry themselves by the age of nine. And I was surprised that the Robin was six - she comes across so much younger. But I am enjoying these - I like the Austrian era the most, so I will make the most of reading them because it isn't long before the school relocates.

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Although this weekend I have felt well enough to move around a bit and I have finally put all my books, CDs and DVDs on my bookshelves. And then I took photos of them. The last two (Flickr orders them in reverse) are from a funny angle because there's not much space in that corner.

As you can see, there's not a lot of space left... If I owned this house the shelves would be floor to ceiling. I don't have any more space left along the walls in the spare room. Although I might be able to fit another one in and have it sticking out a bit (the room's a funny shape). Theoretically I could have shelves in the middle of the room, but it is supposed to be a spare room too, and I do need space to unfold the bed. But I haven't used the tops of the shelves yet, so when I run out of space I'll buy some bookends and start on those. When I run out of space up there I need to get rid of some books. According to LibraryThing I have 435 books, which is plenty. Maybe one day when I have a house big enough to fit them in I can have more.

There are still things in my room at home. The bookshelves still have ornaments and rabbits (of the cuddly variety) on them. There are still things in the cupboards too (including a lot of videos). But the cupboard doors are being used to keep bunny's hammock up, so I can't open them, otherwise her hammock falls down and she falls out.

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I have one bookcase left to make. At some point once I've made them all and got all my books on them I will take a photo (well, it'll take a few photos) to show how many there are. LibraryThing tells me I have 430 books, but there are some I could get rid of.

I have started reading A Game of Thrones. I'd been putting it off because it's 800 pages in a small font, but it turns out that the chapters are only about 10 pages each. So it's easy to just read a chapter before bed. I am enjoying it - the TV series followed the plot well and the book is explaining more of the background. So I will watch the next series before reading the second book.

Before I read A Game of Thrones I read Snuff. Which I was never not going to like.

My copy of Mylo Xyloto (Coldplay's new album) arrived on Monday. And I finally managed to listen to it today. I got through the whole of it on my journey to work and back. But since I was busy driving and navigating the fog and making sure my windows stayed de-misted and talking, I can't say that I listened to it that closely. But not as closely as I did X&Y - I had that in my car when I moved house the time before last and my sister had it in her car too. Given there was a 10 minute journey between my old flat and the new, we both got sick of the album. I couldn't listen to it for ages after that.

I have almost finished playing Lego Harry Potter. I would have finished it ages ago but I came across a bug, so I was forever stuck at 98%. Once my sister's finished Lego Pirates of the Caribbean then I can play that and she can play Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. And then I can play it once she's finished. I have bought games for my Wii, but only three and only because I'd played them and liked them (and in two cases because they came with nunchuck/extra bit to make the remote more sensitive).

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Stargate: Atlantis: Homecoming by Jo Graham and Melissa Scott.
I was saving this one until after I'd finished my Big Bang story, because they start in similar places, after the last episode of Atlantis. I enjoyed this book to start with, seeing all the characters and what they were getting up to. But then it went over to standard Atlantis stuff and although I liked it when I saw it, I wasn't so keen on reading it for some reason. Perhaps because we had so much from Todd's point of view which was just weird. I wasn't so sure about seeing the Wraith humanised like that, even though they are partly human. I was also surprised to see obvious John/Teyla shipping. I'm not used to seeing that sort of thing in published books so it was a bit strange. The book ended on a cliffhanger, but I can't say that I'm that desperate to find out how it's resolved.

Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey
I've read a few Mercedes Lackey books and I find them hard going until about halfway in and then you have to read big chunks in one go to actually enjoy it. Which means I don't get many books read in a month when I read one of these. But the first in this trilogy actually got going right from the start and I liked all the way through. However, this is book three and it did start going downhill a bit in book two. This one was alright, but I can't tell you what happened in it now, except for a lifebond and Ancar. The lifebond part I hated with a passion. I've been there and done that in fanfiction (reading, not writing) and it's just so cliched and sickly, frankly. The Ancar stuff was more interesting because I realised that I'd read stuff about him in future trilogies (I seem to be going backwards with Mercedes Lackey trilogies). Which did make me want to read another Mercedes Lackey.

Winds of Fury by Mercedes Lackey
I read the first two of this trilogy ages ago, and then read the trilogy that came after, so I had a good idea of how this ended. And then forgot about it because it was ages ago. I actually enjoyed this one. I felt like I was starting to get a grip on the characters and the magic and the land. Some of it still baffles me - I could do with a glossary I think - but given that they only just explained what a Heartstone is in this book, after it being an important thing in the previous two, perhaps that's on purpose. I'm feeling all excited about reading more Mercedes Lackey now. And thinking that perhaps I need to go back and re-read some sometime.

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Given that I still had money left on my Waterstones gift card that was my birthday present from my grandmother last year, and she gave me another one this year, early, I had lots of money to spend on Waterstones! Which doesn't go very far on new books, I found. I'm used to not spending more than £2 on books and most of the ones I buy these days are from charity shops.

But I spent £22 and for that I got:
Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods by altariel
Mothers and Daughters by Kate Long
On The Beat by Graham Cole (which is his autobiography)

I've read The Way Through the Woods, which was good. And there was a mention of Barbara and Tegan. And a bit where I went, "Are you sure he remembers that?" and then tonight's Doctor Who confirmed that yes, he did.

I ended up spending an hour at the train station because I got there just in time to miss one train. The next one was half an hour later, which I missed because I got distracted by reading and then the train left a minute early (when does that ever happen?). But it was just as well because I was tired and dizzy by that point and needed a rest and Waterstones only really make a token effort towards seating among the books.

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Chicks Dig Time Lords
This book is basically stories of Americans who watched Tom Baker on PBS and then got into fandom. Which is interesting the first time, maybe even the second, but then gets a bit samey. It is interesting to see what they got up to back in the 70s and 80s, but once the new series starts it's pretty much all talking about how much they love it, but the new Doctors aren't as good as their Doctor and how they go to conventions. Which isn't anything new.

There were a couple of pieces where people just picked holes. There was one that was purely about why Martha's not as good as Rose and there was all this stuff in one of them about how RTD is having a go at black people, or some such nonsense. I can't be doing with it online, I certainly don't want to read it (or debate it in any form, in case anyone gets any ideas in the comments). So I did skip those, but it just annoyed me that someone would print that rubbish.

Apart from that, it was probably about half interesting.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
I wanted to read this for ages because it has the magic words 'time travel' in the title. But the trailer for the film looked awful and I heard that it was basically a romance, but the book was better. Having now read the book, I'm worried how bad the film was...

Basically, the plot is there's a bloke who has a rare genetic condition that means he time travels randomly in times of stress. And there's some interesting things about what he gets himself into and how he uses knowledge of the future etc. But most of it is a romance with a woman who has no personality. It's not even a very good romance - they have lots of sex and he creepily spends lots of time with her as a girl, in between having lots of sex with her as an adult. It just came across as a bit creepy to me. And it doesn't help that all I can tell you about her is that she loves him and worries when he disappears. And has long hair. That's as close to telling you anything about what she's like as I can manage.

What also annoyed me is the number of times their names are repeated in the narrative. I think he has 'Clare' in pretty much every sentence, so after a page or two it doesn't sound like a proper word any more.

In summary: this book annoyed me because it could have been so much better. All it needed was the romance removed and the rest would probably have made up a slightly short book on its own.

The Guides of the Chalet School by Jane Berry
This is a Chalet School book written by someone else and published by Girls Gone By. It's set when the school is in Austria, which is my favourite period of the books. So I loved this. I loved all the little details, such as first aid advice being so terribly wrong by today's standards. And all the notes at the end where the author said what decisions she'd made about various things and how Guides were in the 1930s.

It probably says something about how long it's been since I read any Chalet School that at the start Joey spends some time with Miss Maynard and Miss Maynard's brother Jack is mentioned. And all I could think of was what a coincidence it was that he was also called Jack...

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I'm having a week's holiday from work at my parents with the new kitten. Who is mad. He was scared of me at first, but this morning, just after I'd caught up on my sleep and then stayed up late listening to the tennis, he wanted to play with me at 7am. Whereas I wanted to sleep... But I have been putting up photos of him on flickr. Basically, he's small, sweet, talkative and a complete pest. Whatever's going on, he wants to be in.

In between playing with the kitten I have read the latest Discworld book, I Shall Wear Midnight, which was good. And I've been reading lots of LOTR fic. Well, lots of Elrond fic, to be specific. I'm on the MEFA nominees that haven't been self-nominated now. I intend to write some reviews, but then I intended that the first year they ran and I still haven't written any...

At some point I will write some fic. But I looked through my archive and I have written a lot of drabbles. So I really want to write stuff that isn't drabbles. And I've decided to take this month off to do other stuff, like go through my bookshelves and get rid of some rubbish because I know the telephone manual is there, I just can't find it. And play some games - I've played a bit of The Fellowship of the Ring the Lego Harry Potter so far. I like that the former is third person but has a first person option. The latter is a bit of a pain because it doesn't recognise the mouse, and I'm used to using it to move with.

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And it's not just facts I've forgotten either. I'd forgotten how funny and brave Pippin was, how loyal Sam was, how pretty Anduril was. And Elrond. I don't think he was right in the film, in terms of looks -he was too old and not pretty enough. But he spends most of the last two angsting over Arwen, and for that, I can forgive a lot.

I stopped writing in the fandom because I thought I've said everything I could about Elrond and Estel. Well, Elrond in general, but those two especially. And now I'm thinking there are loads of things I didn't write. Which could have been because I read them instead, but, that was years ago anyway.

I am currently re-reading Nilmandra's History Lessons because it's good and has lots of Elrond, but also because I've forgotten a lot and if LOTR is hard to get through (and it is - I hate description, Tolkien loves it...), The Silmarillion is worse.

I did, however, manage to write a drabble: My Heart and in the words of Samwise Gamgee: I'm back. Or at least, I intend to be.

And I leave you with my new found screen capping ability of one of my favourite scenes (despite not being in the book) as it features Elrond, Aragorn and an exceedingly pretty sword.

Elrond, Aragorn and a sword

Elrond, Aragorn and a sword

Elrond, Aragorn and a sword

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50.22 / 50kg (100%)

Simon's Cat by Simon Tofield
This is funny - which isn't a surprise if you've seen any of his films. The book is images, some of which are funny on their own, some of which tell a story. They describe cats so well - like taking over the whole bed and getting a big new toy and playing with the box it came in. I kept laughing out loud when I read it.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
Well, of course, it's good. I don't like football and I liked it. The main characters are the Wizards and some new ones who work at the Unseen University and the new characters are all really interesting and I really liked them.

Blood Atonement by Dan Waddell
I really like this. This is this bloke's second book with the same characters and he mixes crime and family history. It's really well done.

Victorian Farm by Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn and Ruth Goodman
This is the book of the series. Some of it I skipped over (like recipes and detailed farming descriptions), but a lot of the rest gives you more detail about what went on and how they felt about it. The most useful thing I learnt was that when you wash your clothes you only need to use washing powder on the stains - your clothes are washed by the water pushing the dirt through the fabric. Ruth said she'd stopped using any washing powder and hasn't needed to use any for three years. I stopped after Christmas and everything is just as clean as before, so it's really true.

Bernice Summerfield: A Life Worth Living
I totally read these in the wrong order, as I bought a bundle of seven from Big Finish and picked them up randomly. This one is a collection of short stories set after the war. I quite enjoyed them.

Bernice Summerfield: Life During Wartime
This is the preceding one set during the war. Each story comes after the next in time and it's really interesting to see how it all progressed and how the war affected them all.

Bernice Summerfield: Something Changed
This one is just weird. There's one story of set-up and the rest are what-ifs coming from that. Some of them were alright, but mostly I just found it strange.

Bernice Summerfield: A Life in Pieces
This is a trilogy of novellas all telling bits of a story. It's quite interesting, but I think you really need to read other books/listened to other audios to work out what was really going on. I found the style of the first one very odd for a published book.

Bernice Summerfield: Parallel Lives
Another trilogy of novellas. The first and last ones are really good, but the middle one is terrible. Nothing happens in it at all, which is the point of it, I think, but I struggled to get through it.

Bernice Summerfield: The Big Hunt by Lance Parkin
This was quite interesting. It's odd having a whole story being only about 160 words because it felt quite short, but at the same time it also felt like it could quite happily be shorter. It's alright, but nothing special.

Bernice Summerfield: The Tree of Life by Mark Michalowski
I wasn't that keen on this one at the start and I hated it more as I went through. I hated the descriptions of where they were, the plot was cliched and it was a real struggle to get through.

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44.96 / 50kg (90%)

The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of my Father by Jim Wight
I really liked this. When I first read the books I didn't even realise that he'd changed the names of any of the people in it. It was only recently, when I watched all of All Creatures Great and Small that I looked on the internet and found out more. This book was really interesting to find out more about the people in the vet books, what they were really like and what James Herriot's life was really like.

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
I liked this much more than the TV series because I got confused between all the characters on screen. Although a lot of things in the book confused me - for example instead of writing 2nd it had 2d and it took me a while to work out that did mean second and wasn't just some sort of code. There were all sorts of names in there I'd never heard of and I never got to grips with the different elements of the US army. And, of course, being an American book, the Americans won the war. But on the whole it was interesting to read about what it was really like and what the people were like.

Spooks: Harry's Diary
There's nothing quite like a new series of Spooks starting to make me want to re-read this. It was long enough ago that I'd forgotten bits. It was quick and easy to read, but has been outdated by the last few series because it doesn't mention Lucas or Connie anywhere in it.

Spooks: The Personnel Files
I've had this for a while, but had only read the section on Harry. The rest were really interesting and it was good to see how they tied into each other and the episodes. I did get a bit sick of all these people getting 1st from Oxbridge until I got to Danny who sounded a lot more normal in terms of his exam results.

Winds of Change by Mercedes Lackey
This was hard going. The first part in this trilogy was hard enough, but it was long enough ago that I read it that I'd forgotten who some of the characters are. This one being the second in the trilogy meant that even less happened in this one. The third looks like it'll be set in a new location, so that might be more interesting, once I get hold of it (I can't quite bring myself to pay money for it just at the moment).

The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long
The Colour of Love by Preethi Nair
While I was ill I decided I needed something easy to read and really wanted something that wasn't science fiction, fantasy, crime, children's or a classic. So of my book collection that's here, that left these two. I enjoyed them just as much the second time round. I feel like I need more books that are just straight fiction, as long as I can narrow down what I might like.

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42.30 / 50kg (85%)

The Children of Húrin by JRR Tolkien
I saw this at the library and thought I'd try it. I find Tolkien's books quite hard going because the language is so flowery and there's so much unneeded description going on. I had trouble with the introduction, so I thought it was only going to get worse from then on, but no, it was actually quite easy to read. It helped that it was quite short. Towards the end I recognised the story as well, once she'd accidentally married her brother. The annoying thing about it is that there's a map at the back, but none of the places mentioned in the story are on it, so it was completely useless! There's bonus Elrond in the family trees at the back too.

Doctor Who: The Green Death by Malcolm Hulke
This is an interesting novelisation when it comes to the relationship between Jo and Cliff. It has something going on between them much earlier and the ending is really sudden. I suppose you won't get the same sort of poignancy in a short book as you do on screen when you can see they're all a bit upset. But even so, I think I preferred the TV version - not least because it implies that Jo's going because it's something she wants to do, the marriage is incidental.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
I hadn't read this at all or seen the film and I wanted to see what it is that has everyone reading it. I knew from I've Never Seen Star Wars that it isn't great literature and I'd agree with that because it is quite badly written. There's one part where there's two lines recapping what's just happened in the last two chapters - there's no reason for that! I had also heard that the plot's really gripping and I agreed with that - but only once I was on about page 450 of 600. Overall, I thought it was quite boring and I intensely dislike all the characters. Dan Brown desperately needs a beta reader and Brit picker.

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40.53 / 50kg (81%)

Doctor Who: The Last Dodo by Jacqueline Rayner
I liked this. But I think I've liked everything Jacqueline Rayner writes - which is why I got this one out of the library.

M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman
This was a set of short stories that I don't really remember, but definitely enjoyed - as I have of everything I've read that Neil Gaiman's written.

One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens & One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens
I really enjoyed these two. They're written by the (great?) granddaughter of Charles Dickens. She doesn't need to work, but she's bored, so first she gets jobs as cooks and in the second book she gets a job as a nurse. They're really interesting looks at what life was like back in the 30s and 40s and she writes in such a way that even disasters are funny to read.

Doctor Who: Harry Sullivan's War by Ian Marter
I read this back when it was too hot to do anything except watch Wimbledon and I fancied something easy to read. Also, I wanted to see if it was as bad as I remembered. It was. It's not badly written per se, it's just the plot that's so utterly ridiculous.

Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey
I don't know why but Mercedes Lackey books are so hard to get into. This one swapped between two different characters and I couldn't decide which one I was less interested in. Until halfway through when there was a big revelation and it got interesting. I enjoyed it in the end but I could have done with a lot less set-up.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein
I heard about this one in one of the book panels at Redemption, although couldn't remember why I liked the sound of it. It's set in the future on the Moon, which is a former prison colony, where they have a revolution. I never quite knew whether it was going to succeed, it could have gone either way. The plot was a whole lot less interesting than the intelligent computer though who was definitely the most interesting character in it. I wish there'd been more of him.

Tennis Shoes, Family Shoes and Apple Bough by Noel Streatfeild
More Shoes books. I do like these all, but you can't read too many at once because they're so samey. And so unlike real children and real families.

Heaven to Betsy and Betsy's Wedding by Maud Hart Lovelace
It's been a while since I read my Betsy-Tacy books, but I remembered them quite quickly after starting these. I enjoyed Heaven to Betsy, about her going to High School. It's interesting to see how things have changed in the time since the book was written - and yet people essentially haven't. Betsy's Wedding I enjoyed less. I know this is set during the First World War, but I kept wanting Betsy to grow a pair and she never did.

Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story by Simon Guerrier
Despite the size and weight of this book, it didn't actually stop me from reading it lying down or taking it to work. I really enjoyed it - it's interesting to see how Benny came about and evolved and what decisions were made and why. The downside is that it made me want to read the Virgin books that are hard to find - and the couple I've read that aren't hard to find I didn't think that much of. The audios I just buy a season of when Big Finish have a sale.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Una McCormack
I was already going to buy this one before I saw the back of it. And got quite depressed by the bit that said $7.99 US/£6.99 UK. Thanks for fleecing us on that one, book industry. But when I read the blurb I knew I was going to like it - it's about a Cardassian boy who's been brought up as a Bajoran by Bajoran parents, but then is discovered and sent to his Cardassian father on Cardassia. I love that sort of thing. And then there was all this war and revolution stuff going on that I vaguely remember from the series and I was gripped. I was hoping for a happy ending after he believes everyone he knows is dead and although he didn't get the ending I was hoping for, I think I much preferred the one he got.

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36.81 / 50kg (74%)

Doctor Who: Catastrophea by Terrence Dicks
A Jo book courtesy of Bookmooch. I really liked it, it felt a lot like an episode.

Doctor Who: Millennium Shock by Justin Richards
I looked something up in this for hhertzof for her Sarah Jane Smith timeline and since I was ill decided I could justify re-reading it.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
I never intended to read this but there were so many copies on Bookmooch that I thought I might as well. It's alright, but nothing special. I could have quite happily lived without it.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Part of my quest to read some Neil Gaiman. I only vaguely remember seeing it on video years ago, but I did know that the book's quite different. Except my memory of it is so vague I have no idea to what extent this is true, though. But I liked them both.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
I liked this one too, which worried me slightly because surely at some point Neil Gaiman is going to write something I dislike.

The vet books by James Herriot (If Only They Could Talk, It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet, Let Sleeping Vets Lie, Vet in Harness, Vets Might Fly, Vet in a Spin, The Lord God Made Them All, Every Living Thing)
Since I'd watched a lot of All Creatures Great and Small I wanted to re-read the books to see how they were different. I've read them enough times that I recognised a lot of the things in the TV series, but it was interesting to see what they changed. I nearly read them all over Easter but now somehow they've become mine instead of mum's...

The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell
This is a combination of a crime book with genealogy. I loved it, it was great. I didn't think they could be combined, but it was really well done how the murders related to the past and how the genealogist went about finding that information out. Dan Waddell has a second book out in August, which I will definitely be reading.

Timeline by Michael Crichton
This was recommend (and lent) to me by someone on the basis it had time travel in it and I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. I liked how he made the time travel fit with how we know it could happen, although I could skip quite a few pages of the physics explanation. I also liked how the characters dealt with being in the past. But he did miss out one really important point in his time travel explanation and I spent the whole book waiting for it to be explained and that he didn't means the whole thing falls down, in my opinion, much as I enjoyed the story (once it got going - it took a while).

A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick
This is a fictionalised story of someone who was involved with the Steven & Matilda civil war. It's interesting to see how it affected people, but other than that the story seemed to mostly revolve around John's wives and I wasn't really interested in that.

Bible and Talmud Stories by Hyman E Goldin
This is my shortcut to never having read the bible - read the stories for children. Which made it nice and short. If it was marketed as fiction it would clearly be fantasy. Most of the stories I didn't know, or only knew bits of, so it was quite interesting to see how all these people fit in.

The Sharing Knife: Legacy and Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold
It's amazing how little happens in these stories yet they're long and I enjoy them anyway. I can see how they're leading up to the final book, I'm just waiting for it to come out in paperback because I am cheap like that.

Horrible Science: Deadly Diseases and Horrible Histories: Cruel Kings and Mean Queens
My sister recommended the Horrible Histories and then I discovered there are Horrible other subjects too. Deadly Diseases did have some things I didn't know in it, but not much. The Kings and Queens one was mostly just a reminder, since it's been ages since I read anything on them. They're alright, but I can't say I feel the need to read any more.

Does Anything Eat Wasps and Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?
Two New Scientist books where people ask questions such as in the titles and people give answers. Some of the questions I have no interest in, but there are lots of questions that give an interesting way of looking at science. Such as what you could make a surfboard out of to surf a lava flow and what would happen if aliens stole the moon (everyone agreed it would be a catastrophe but I was particularly amused by the editor's note pointing out that they don't know of any such alien plot).

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Apparently this is a well known children's book in America. It's an interesting format because it's entirely letters than a girl writes while she's at university in the early 1900s. I enjoyed it up until the reveal at the end of her mysterious benefactor when I just felt a bit cheated.

Dancing Shoes and Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Similar plots to the rest of the Shoes books and definitely easy reading, but I like them all the same. There's something to be said for reading something that doesn't require too much effort now and again.

Doctor Who: Winner Takes All and Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner
Jacqueline Rayner writes all the best Doctor Who books (and audios) as far as I can tell. I found a load of New Who books in the second hand bookshop and limited myself to these two because I thought a load of crap books will make me hate the series. But I really liked these two - the stories are interesting and the relationships between the characters feels really real and a reflection of how it is in the series. I ended up feeling more excited about Doctor Who after reading these.

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It was a good day and we somehow managed to avoid the worst of the weather. I was really tired when I got home, which I expected. What I didn't expect was how dizzy I felt Sunday. All I ended up doing on Sunday is lying on the sofa reading and watching tennis because I wasn't capable of doing anything else. Fortunately, there was tennis on - exhibition matches under the new Centre Court roof at Wimbledon and I enjoyed them, although I could have done without the camera moving so much. I didn't even feel like I'd done that much either. I'm less dizzy now but back to going to bed at 10pm.

But on Friday I'm going to see if I feel well enough after work to go and see In the Loop, which wasn't at the cinema walking distance from where I live now. But it is at the cinema walking distance from work on Friday and Saturday. Then it is at least a three day weekend, although I plan to do things with it - not least find a place for all these books to live...

Also, in the unlikely event that there's anyone left who doesn't have a Dreamwidth account that wants one, I have four invites. And, it turns out, Trillian Astra invites, since it's now in beta. And probably has been for a while, I've just failed to notice, just gave them money...

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• I pick up my new car on Friday
• I found a flat, curvy, full length mirror to put on my wardrobe, so I can finally see my reflection without standing on tip-toes and leaning over the bathroom sink
• I discovered why, in the late-70s All Creatures Great and Small episodes I can quite happily see Peter Davison as Tristan, yet in the late-80s episodes I struggle to see him as anything other than Peter Davison: it's because he changes the side he parts his hair on. It started off as the other way to Robert Hardy and ends up the same way.
• Neil Gaiman's books are really good. I read Neverwhere and am halfway through Anansi Boys
• The Sarah & Harry marriage fic seems to have gone down really well. Which made me happy.

Bad news:

• I'm still ill and the latest doctor I went to said it could take 6-8 weeks to go away. I'll have it for 5 weeks come Monday
• My whole social life consists of Rotaract meetings. I only really leave the house for work, food shopping and Rotaract meetings. I just can't plan to do anything until I know I can survive without a lie down for more than a couple of hours. I'm still recovering from helping out at the World Pooh Sticks Championships, where I stayed for three hours and it was too long really.
• The mirror dropped off the wardrobe and broke at 5.30am and woke me up with such a fright. It was not a cheap mirror.
• I'm really feeling like I don't exist to most of the people at TR (one of the LJ roleplaying games I'm in). I come up with plots that no one is interested in until someone more popular suggests them. I rarely get anything in a meme of give and take - even the most recent one I wrote eight drabbles and only had four replies. Even if they hated them you'd think they'd at least be grateful they got one because not everyone did. I'm still a bit miffed that when they did a meme of giving people stuff and kudos etc I got nothing. I liked RPing there, it just feels like if I left, I could count the number of people who would care on the fingers of one hand and I don't know how to change that.
• Relatedly, as much as I like RPing, people dropping threads without saying are driving me mad. I have tried reminding them, but then I either get a reply saying they're going to tag, but they don't, or I get one tag. I know people will put plotty threads first, but if my characters can't get to know people, how can I have plotty threads?
• Also relatedly, but less specifically, why is it always me that has to think up plots? Okay, so I like doing it, but sometimes it would be nice if someone would contact me about a plot instead of the other way round.
• Also relatedly, I miss RS. I don't know if it's ever going to come back/be as good as it was, although I don't know how much of what I remember was good is nostalgia. But I still have the jamfish icon.
• BST. I no longer know what planet I'm on

OK, so that's a lot of bad things, but the labyrinthitis is allowing the things that usually just irk me a bit to really get me down. And I didn't even include any work things on that list, purely because they would be too much effort to explain.

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28.87 / 50kg (58%)

Chalet School books by Elinor Brent-Dyer:
Joey & Co in Tirol
A Leader in the Chalet School
A Future Chalet School Girl
The last three Chalet School books I had left to read! So I've now read them all. These were fairly standard Chalet School books, really.

Road to Avonlea: The Journey Begins
This was cheap, short and didn't take up much space in my suitcase. It wasn't terribly exciting though, I just picked it up to see what it was like. And left it in Montreal.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnet
This was quite interesting. I was a bit unsure about this because The Secret Garden was quite hard going, but this wasn't so hard to read. It wasn't the most exciting book ever, though.

By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey
This was the first Mercedes Lackey I read and I really liked it. It was a stand-alone, rather than a Valdemar book, so it was a good introduction to her writing. I will have to read more.

The Thief's Gamble by Juliet E McKenna
I did get to the end of this but it wasn't half hard-going. The trouble was that I never really cared about any of the characters or the plot.

Family Trust by Amanda Brown
I've read this before but had been looking for it to re-read for a while. And now I have it. It was just as good the second time round and definitely needs to be made into a film.

The Sharing Knife Volume One: Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold
I am behind on my Lois McMaster Bujold reading. When reading this I was convinced there wasn't enough plot to sustain one book. And then they got to the end and hadn't finished the plot and I hadn't really noticed. It was really good and I definitely need to get hold of the second book.

Spooks: Harry's Diary
This is written as if it's Harry's diary, starting from his marriage in 1977 and going up to series 5, I think. It's really interesting how he talks about real life events and Spooks events and other things that happened in his life before Spooks.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier
I still can't decide about this one. I liked it, I just don't know if I liked it enough to read more in the series. I might have to read more in the series to help me decide.

So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane
I saw this book on selenay936's bookshelf and thought the title was interesting. Sadly the book isn't. I just didn't care about the characters or the situation they were in. So I won't be reading the rest of that series.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I really liked this. Which isn't much of a surprise really, because I keep reading Neil Gaiman books and liking them.

Party Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
It's pretty easy to guess how Noel Streatfeild's books are going to turn out, but it's always interesting to see how it goes on the way. I liked the way this changed as it went along and although it was obvious that it was going to be alright in the end, you could never be quite sure of how that was defined exactly.

The Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies
I won this in a competition, which was just as well because I was quite interested in reading it, but not enough to spend £30(!) on it. I had intended to save it for the Christmas holidays because it's far too big and heavy to take into work, but I ended up reading it while I had to internet. And it's really interesting reading about how Russell T Davies writes (which sounds a lot like pulling teeth) and the decisions he makes. I have a lot more respect for what he's done after reading it, even if I disagree with some of the decisions he's made.

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I also finished the book I started while I was away and it felt never-ending. I'm now a third of the way through The Graveyard book. I have two piles of books from the ones I bought in Canada and the Pratchett I finished just before I went. They're just the right size to fit my laptop on in front of the TV, so I can plug the TV into it. Now I've changed the books the two piles are more level too.

I made the mistake, when I got back, of watching all four Spooks episodes, which included the one from BBC3. So although I put it on last Monday because I was too tired to take it in much the first time, it's not the same as watching it new. So now I am back on watching them on Mondays because Monday needs something to look forward to, since I only watch SJA every other week. Suffice to say I enjoyed tonight's, even if I spent most of it wondering where I knew the bad guy from. Turns out it was one of the recent Poirots.

And just to make all the other people doing Yuletide jealous: I have a first draft of mine. At 1200 words I'm doing better than last year where I managed 1006 (but any padding to that one would have been just that, padding). I'm aiming to get it finished by the end of the week and hopefully writing every night will get me back into it and who knows, I might even get round to the requests I asked for back in June that are sitting in my inbox...

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Books, Fan fic, Life, TV: Books, Life, Spooks, Yuletide

23.19 / 50kg (46%)

Doctor Who: Theatre of War by Justin Richards
I was quite surprised to like this because I didn't think that much of the other NA I've read. I think it helped that it had lots of Benny in it and I loved her in it. Apart from that the story was a bit odd, but in all fairness it was fairly in keeping with the sort of stories Doctor Who did around that time.

Script Doctor: The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1086-89 by Andrew Cartmel
I bought this when the Friar Street Bookshop was closing down and I got loads of books at about £1 each. So I didn't know until I started this that it's essentially the script writers diaries from when Sylvester McCoy started being the Doctor. And it's really interesting to see how the stories evolved and were filmed. It's interesting how much he's disappointed by the same flaws in the stories/costumes/special effects that everyone else is.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
I was put off from this by the lack of page numbers - I do like to know how far through a book I am. But I persevered and it turned out to be quite short. I have seen it on TV but that was long enough ago that I've forgotten all the details. I was really interested by his descriptions of Lilliput and Brodbingnag (which I was convinced was Brobdingnang) because he compares them to the Author's England, which has changed a lot since then in some ways and not at all in others.

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Having taken those ten books out of my to charity bag I can now lift it!

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So which ones do people use? Bearing in mind I have to be able to swap with people in Britain - I'm not planning on sending any overseas because that'll just be more expensive than buying them.

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