[BOOK REVIEW] "The Death of Grass" by John Christopher

First impressions when I heard the title of book #3 for book club weren't particularly good; I thought it sounded awful, to be honest. I was at the book club get together for "The Shadow of the Wind" and we had all put our suggestions into the bowl and they were getting read out in reverse order. Naturally, my choice, "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, got picked first meaning it was not going to be the selected reading. 

When "The Death of Grass" got read off that little bit of paper, there was a slight pause followed by nervous laughter.

I'm sorry, what? That sounds... bad...

The culprit was a guy by the name of Scott who, when asked, described the synopsis in just about as many words - it's about the death of grass.

Skip forward to the book club meeting where several people, myself included, praised Scott for picking such a fantastic book. Amazing, we said. Perfect! we said. The best book club book yet! 

NEXT BOOK FOR BC: The Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl. 

No NaNoWriMo

This blog post is going to be about time management (or lack thereof)... and light. It's also going to mention the lack of natural light that Scotland sees at this time of year.

This blog post is going to be about the lack of stuff. For the record, I didn't mean to come across as quite so depressed. After watching the footage back I must admit I was sitting there thinking, Sheeeesh! Get a grip! It's just a bit of light! But there you go!

The basic gist is this: it's been just over three whole weeks since I posted my Thank You video to theclaudereads (who I absolutely adore!) and while, for the most part time was a big issue what with job/college/friends/etc taking priority, I was also having difficulty with my lighting. The video for Claudia was done using a lamp and a white bed sheet in the hopes of making things a bit less gloomy but November is a gloomy looking month in the city of Edinburgh. It was just proving to be quite difficult. And not to mention the fact that pretty much any free time I did have was spent sleeping or reading. Such is life, huh?

Anyways, the result is this: a poorly lit video moan about NaNoWriMo (see below). I just can't do it. Sucks to be me!

On a brighter note, Priscilla is now following me on twitter! Eh, what? I know. I got a little buzz from that. I'm a bit curious as to why she didn't subscribe to me on YouTube because I so very rarely use twitter but I'm still happy about that!

Anyhoos, this is my attempt at trying to keep up what I said earlier. You know, about how this blog needs a good dust down (even though no one actually reads my posts lol)

^.^

October Book Haul

Wowzers, I look tired! This whole work/college scheduling of my life has started to take its toll, not only on my sleeping pattern but also on the time I spend reading. I get home from work and I'm exhausted. I get home from college and I'm shattered. I feel like all my time is spent doing stuff that needs to be done.

So naturally, I went on a book haul! 

^.^

Dusty Blog

I keep forgetting I have this blog.

Basically, I wanted all my blog posts to be pretty with lots of pictures of beautiful books and witty stuff written but then I quickly discovered that Scottish weather really is as bad as we say it is and I can't really rely on natural light (mainly because we rarely get any).

Sooo, I have had to reevaluate what my posts are going to be like and I think, for the time being, until I have invested in a decent set of lighting equipment, I'm just going to post links to my videos here with a bit more of a blurb about each one etc etc.

That's the idea anyways.

Here's a heart.

[BOOK REVIEW] "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk

rating: *****

You've seen the movie right? Come on, everyone's seen the movie! And, to be honest, I reckon most people that have read Chuck Palahniuk's debut cult classic novel probably saw the film first. Fight Club (the film) is basically one of my all-time-favourites; it's just so cool! 

Now, because I'm such an advocate of "read the book" when it comes to movie adaptations, I'd been meaning to read Fight Club for some time (I mean, the film was released in 1999!) so when I saw a slightly battered copy in a charity shop while wandering through the high street in Portobello, I instantly knew I would end up owning it. 

If you've seen the film, then I can't really tell you anything about the plot that you don't already know but for those of you that maybe haven't seen it, the basic gist is this: Our nameless protagonist starts up a club for men to basically beat the cr*p out of each other to escape their "consumer driven lives". The novel is written from the perspective of our narrator and, as the book goes on, we get to sit back and watch as he slowly loses his mind. 

I feel it important to point out that this is definitely not an "easy read". If you're wanting something lighthearted, this might not be the book for you. Yes, it has lots of humorous elements but on the whole, Fight Club is a dark book filled with heavy messages and, at points, deeply depressing. Also, the narrative style itself is like nothing I've ever experienced before; fragmented and disjointed, it was quite difficult to "go with the flow" as it felt extremely turbulent with several elements overlapping one another. 


But never mind all that! Go read it and make up your own mind!


^.^

"The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling

I'm not going to lie, I'm gutted that J.K. Rowling's new book isn't another Harry Potter book. I'm not one of those people that thinks more Harry Potter books would ruin the original series (hell no, the more the bloody merrier!) but that being said, I'm still REALLY EXCITED about "The Casual Vacancy" getting released later this year. Life will probably be put on hold till that bad boy is read.

^.^

Thank You to AurasBookBox!

Christ! I never thought keeping up with a blog would be such a challenge for me! Turns out, that once I've scripted, recorded, edited and uploaded my video, I can't be bothered doing anything else and I always think, I'll write the blog post soon/later/during the week/next weekend/never.

Sigh.

Here's a video for AurasBookBox. It's the first booktube giveaway that I've won 

^.^