Reading up my Greens

I was in a bookshop a little while ago (I know - shocker, right?) and came across a bunch of Henry Green novels. I bought an old Penguin edition of Loving a while ago, but, for some reason, it wasn't calling out to me. I love old Penguins sometimes, but they're so plain that if I don't know much about an author beforehand, they probably won't tempt me.

And these were rather pretty editions - lovely American paperbacks, which have a much nicer feel to them than modern British paperbacks. [EDIT: I am selling my country short! John Self points out in the comments that these editions are actually from The Harvill Press in the UK]


I stood in the shop for quite a few minutes, reading and re-reading the blurbs on the back of the five Henry Green novels they had in stock, trying to decide which was the most appealing. I put one after the other back on the shelf; picked them up again; put them back...


Well. As you can see - in the end, I bought the lot. I just couldn't decide. Doting, Back, Party Going, Concluding, and Blindness are now on my bedroom floor, waiting to be added to LibraryThing.


Have you read any of them, and which should be my first Henry Green novel? (Please say one of these five... I don't want to buy any more until I've read at least three of these!) Thoughts?

Waiting on Wednesday # 47 ~ Blood Wounds

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My pick:

Summary from Goodreads

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa’s peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother.

Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie? As Willa sets out to untangle the mysteries of her past, she keeps her own secret—one that has the potential to tear her family apart.

Susan Beth Pfeffer

September 12th, 2011

Goodreads / Amazon

What do you think? The cover isn't amazing but I still like it, and I always love a good mystery.

The laptop returns, and this is what happens...

I am back in the land of the living! Or back in the land of the blogging. I got rather carried away with it all... if you want to read my thoughts on Reading in Phases, then scroll down past the ramble...

Somehow being without a laptop for any length of time feels more or less the same as being stranded on a desert island. People are always 'stranded' on desert islands, aren't they? I think I'm going to be sequestered on one, if that ever turns out to be my path in life. By the by, I would last something under four hours in any sort of situation which required Great Survival Techniques. Case in point (and a neat circle to this paragraph): the Great Laptop Withdrawal.

(photo source)

My screen broke. Not sure how. I probably stood on it in the night, or something, but I woke up on Thursday morning to find that it was all sulky and broken, so trotted off to a computer fixy man. It's lingo like that which makes their eyes light up, and start suggesting I have the filange looked at. (Give yourself ten points if you recognised the Friends reference). Except, the eyes of the man in the first repair shop would only light up if he were set on fire. He was astonishingly unfriendly. I'm one of those guys who will always choose cheeriness over competence in a customer care situation. Both is nice, but if I have to pick one, I'd definitely come away happier from someone who hadn't a clue what they were doing, but smiled a lot.

So, I went off to another laptop repair place. The man there was much friendlier. Turns out it took longer and cost more than Unfriendly Company would have done, but... this is the price a pay for a smile. To cut a long story short, my laptop is back.

And I have managed to get through four computerless days. The main deficencies I noticed were (a) not being able to blog, (b) not being able to finish writing my chapter by my deadline, (c) not being able to check silly little facts which normally I'd just Google, (d) not being able to watch DVDs if other people were using the living room, (e) not being able to watch DVDs whilst I baked, (f) not being able to Skype my friend Lorna in Paris. That's probably about it.

On the plus side - I read more, slept more, procrastinated less, and generally made a better use of my time. I finished Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude (might have to delay my review, though, as I have lent it to Harriet), read most of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and other stories, fell further in love with The Element of Lavishness: the letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, and left piles of books all over my floor, waiting to be added to LibraryThing.

I'm not sure you required such a thorough update, did you? Clearly being away from blogging has left me a little unhinged. (Incidentally, appropos of nothing, I've always thought it would be fun if a song rhymed 'lachrymose' and 'bellicose'. But I don't think it's worth my while going into the singer-songwriter business just to make this happen.)

Onto the second, more bookish, section of The Blog Post That Will Make You Wish Simon's Laptop Had Never Been Fixed. Especially if it draws confessions out of you that you'd rather keep undrawn. I'm going to give it a little subheading, for those who've scrolled down to find it...


Reading in Phases

I used to be a very obsessive reader. I'm still obsessed with reading, of course, but I used to read everything in one series, or by one author, and fixate on that - until the next one came along. I now read much more widely, which can be quite frustrating sometimes as I might find an author I love (say, William Maxwell) and discover two or three years later that I've still only read one thing by him. I miss the opportunity of bouts of reading one author. Being 'well-rounded' and having 'broad reading interests' sounds good, but I'm pretty certain it has its downsides. Not that I do have especially broad reading interests, since about 85% of the books I read were originally written in English. But you understand my meaning... or you will, when you see how my reading life went until I was about 18.

learning-to-read until could-read-proper-books: Mr. Men
age 5-9: Enid Blyton
age 9: Goosebumps
age 10-11: Point Horror
age 11-12: Sweet Valley High
age 12-14: Agatha Christie
age 15: (meandered a bit)
age 16-17: A.A. Milne & Richmal Crompton

I simplify a bit. But generally those years were focused upon those authors, and it was only when I was 17 or 18 that I really started to read a couple of books by an author here, one by another author there, etc. etc.

But the reason I bring this up is because Verity lent me the new Sweet Valley Confidential: 10 Years On, because I was intrigued to see how it lived it up to my memories, but not quite enough to buy it. And I have been surprised, amused, and delighted by how many other bloggers remember Elizabeth, Jessica et al with affection.

Well... I got to p.40. It was awful. Utter drivel. I suspect I might feel the same if I went back to the original series now, and it just goes to show how tastes change. I'm always a bit surprised by well-read people who like to kick back with Mills & Boon or similar - I'm all for relaxing reading and comfort reading, but I don't find reading bad books relaxing. I just find it annoying. Give me Diary of a Provincial Lady any day - comfort reading that is still brilliantly written. (On the other hand, I love relaxing with bad films - I love good films too, but bad ones are great sometimes.)

Did you read in phases? I suspect every child and teenager goes through that stage, but perhaps it isn't simply a stage - there is something to be said for immersion in a single author or series, and perhaps some of you still do this now? I'm very tempted to set aside a few weeks just to read, say, William Maxwell or Milan Kundera or Muriel Spark or Barbara Trapido or EM Delafield - any of the many authors I've been stockpiling on my shelves. But I probably won't. Book group titles always seem to be obstacles to those sort of spontaneous reading projects.

This post will have to end sooner or later, won't it? And I suspect it should be sooner. Sorry again that it's been a huge messy ramble, and shows all the signs of having missed my daily (more measured) blogging. Promise I'll be more composed and contained tomorrow. In fact, I have a post planned, and it will almost entirely consist of a photograph.

Somehow I'm still typing...

...but I will stop...

ever so...

ever so...

soon.

Book Review: Nine Rules to Brake when Romancing a Rake (Love By Numbers #1) by Sarah MacLean

Title: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake

Author: Sarah MacLean

Series: Love by Numbers #1

Release Date: March 30th, 2010

Publisher: Avon

Age: Adult

A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club.

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried - and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.

But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss - to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston - charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.

If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all - the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love...

I'm new to historical romance genre but Love by Numbers is already my favorite series. I already read the next two books, Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord and Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart, I just couldn't wait until I wrote a review. But let's focus on this book...

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell is unmarried. She definitely has the status and the money to be an eligible wife, but she's old and not as beautiful as the others. But now that her little sister is getting married, she feels so unsatisfied waiting for someone to notice her that she wants to do something else in her life. She wants to break the rules.

It has been a while since I loved a female character as Callie. She isn't young and isn't going to be engaged any time soon. She was innocent, insecure, but at the same time brave. She thought very low about herself, but I loved the way she evolved into a full secure woman.

Gabriel is a dream come true. Really, he is sexy and totally the bad boy. I was crazy about him. He is wicked and naughty and when he sees Callie, he just can't believe someone as her is wanting to break the rules. So they make a deal, he will help her does what she wants, while she teaches his sister the rules of London's society.

Sarah MacLean definitely knows how to write romance. I felt excited with their relationship (stomach butterflies and all), it was romantic but with the right amount of sexiness. They are definitely one of my favorite couples, I was desperate for them to be together and was mad every time one of them misinterpreted the other.

Overall, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake is an excellent first book for the Love by Numbers series. I just started reading it and couldn't stop. If you are wanting to read historical romance but aren't sure where to start, I recommend it to you.

More about this book at macleanspace.com, Goodreads, Amazon, The Book Depository.

1st Blogoversary Giveaway!

{{CLOSED! Winner TBA}}

Today I'm celebrating my first blogoversary! Wow, isn't it amazing? I can't believe it has been a year since I started blogging at Oh My Books! I was so excited and nervous about my new blog.

Before we start partying, I just wanted to say to all of my followers, readers, visitors ....THANK YOU! Without you, Oh My Books! wouldn't be the same :)

I wish I could give each one of you a gift for your support. But since I'm not a millionare, I'm just going to have to giveaway a 20$ gift card from Amazon or The Book Depository to one of you. It's open international and you just have to fill out the form below to enter. Ends June 16, 2011. The winner will be chosen via random.org and I will notify the winner via email.

In My Mailbox #26

In My Mailbox is a weekly bookish meme hosted @ The Story Siren

I actually got these a long time ago but forgot to add them to my last IMM post.

Across The Universe by Beth Revis (Thanks to Book Quoter)

Soy el Numero Cuatro (I'm Number 4) by Pittacus Lore (Thanks to my boyfriend :P)

Cool bookmarks from Libros Perdidos

What did you get this week?

Unplanned absence...

I shan't be blogging for a few days, it looks like - my computer screen broke, and went in to be fixed on Thursday. But now they're saying it could be Wednesday before I get it back...


Doh! Hope they do it soon. You might be forgiving, but my thesis chapter isn't... still, I seem to faff a lot less without my laptop, and get more reading done in bed. Currently loving Shirley Jackson's short stories, fyi.

See you soon...