Monday Amusements 17

I love the barcode scanner on the Goodreads app so much.

YA Contemporary is currently celebrating a School Days Theme Week. I really liked this post by Liz Filleul about how British boarding school stories have changed since the start of the millennium.

Jo of weartheoldcoat reviewed Stone Cold by Robert Swindells, as part of her I Dream of Carnegie challenge, and brought back the memories I have of reading it for the first time!

Unpacking why adults read young adult fiction is an amazing piece by Malinda Lo that pretty much does what it says on the tin. I'd really love to steal that PhD idea!

Call Me Maybe – a quiz of literary pseudonyms (via @bookriot). I got 6/10, which I'm quite surprised by! But I can't answer any of the questions in So Many Books, So Little Time's Book Quiz!

The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't - sadly, not all that surprising.

I could read about cool libraries all day. 4 Innovative Libraries Transforming Lives Around the World, at Mental Floss.

The Bookette's Guide to... Where we are with children and eBooks and School Libraries is really interesting. I loved my school libraries but remember that they didn't seem to acquire new books very often, unless there was some kind of donation promotion event going on. My secondary school library seemed to be mostly stocked with random adult fiction donations (I read some very odd stuff as a teen thanks to that), and this was long before the recession, so I'm not surprised that they're still short on cash.

Book Review: Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, by Martin Millar

My most mundane review photo yet?

I was still ill when I finished Persepolis. I wanted to keep reading, but I didn't want to dive into anything too long and taxing in case my slightly-feverish brain couldn't keep up with it. I surveyed my shelves until I spotted Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, Martin Millar's first novel. I read the book that he is  probably most well known for, The Good Fairies of New York, a couple of years ago, and have slowly been collecting more of his work. Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation is very short - 152 pages - and knowing that it was likely to be easy going, surreal, and silly, I decided that it was perfect for the occasion.

Alby Starvation, the main character, is a small time drug dealer living in Brixton, hiding from an assassin sent by the Milk Marketing Board. At first I thought he was just paranoid, but as the book switches viewpoint and introduces all the other characters, we find out that there is a Milk Marketing Board, and that they are pretty evil. It's not all so unrealistic. There is also a supermarket manager who mainly just wants to buy a hot tub, and his wife, dreading it. Two men, one desperate for attention, the other a master of meditation, battle each other in the video game arcade, with a crowd of fans cheering them on.  Professor Wing is secretly hunting for the crown of Ethelred the Unready, having stolen council equipment for digging up roads. Okay, I'll admit, that's a weird one, but June, the Brazilian assassin, is pretty normal, except for that whole killing people business!

There is only a little magic, in the form of a nurse with healing powers, but most of the events have at least a touch of the surreal. I did find it a bit confusing at the start, as there are a lot of different characters and the narrative jumps around in time a bit, especially in the sections from Alby's point of view. It's very fast paced, but eventually everything falls into place.

If you like stories in which one coincidence after another pushes the characters together in ever more entertaining ways, you'll probably love this. If you need a clear and definite plot and don't like silliness, this won't be the book for you, especially as it ends quite suddenly. Little is resolved, but there are clues that suggest how the characters will end up. The Good Fairies of New York has more of a plot and a more linear narrative, so if you're not sure, try that one first.

I finished this book in a much better mood, and resolved to a) make more of an effort to track down copies of Martin Millar's other books, and b) convince more people to try his work! I should probably hurry up and review The Good Fairies of New York already...

Reading in the Afternoon, Blogging in the Evening

I've been a slow reader for the last couple of years. If I remember rightly, in 2009, the year I finished my MA, I read 91 books. That's my all-time record. I've hit 50 a few times, but that year I read books like it was my job, because it was my job.

My MA is in Creative and Life Writing, and for me, reading and writing are co-dependent. I've never been one of those writers who has to put reading on hold when they're working on a project. Reading helps me to write. There are other things that help me write quickly - green tea, walks, anger, the sudden resurfacing of ordinarily-buried memories. But I have to keep reading too. I can't go too long without it. I have to fill myself up with words to compensate for those I'm putting out. Writing requires reading, and reading induces writing.

Only, there's this thing called blogging...Oh, blogging! How I love you! It's kind of like creative writing, except with almost-instant gratification thanks to comments and retweets. It's very easy to get carried away with it. To find yourself making schedules and other plans and ignoring the little voice that says 'Can we PLEASE work on the novel now?'.

So I get up in the morning and do my morning pages and look at my blog schedule and go 'Oh yes, I must write that before Friday' and I draft whatever it is and then I go to work. I come home and finish it and post it and then I'm too tired to do anything else so I play Flash games on the internet until it's time to go to bed. Or if I don't have work, I fit in some procrastination and some more Flash games instead.

And I don't read any books, and I don't write any books.

After deleting a load of old feeds from my RSS reader a few weeks ago I reached Peak Internet. This doesn't happen very often, but it's a powerful state to be in. Basically, I'm bored of the internet. I can hardly bear the sight of it anymore. I don't want to surf Wikipedia or read depressing articles on The Guardian or play Flash games for longer than ten minutes at a time. This has freed up my mind to do some problem-solving.

I need to read so I can write. I prefer not to read under the light of my yellow lightbulb, which is right above my bed so I can't lie on my back to read without it blinding me. Therefore, I've started reading in the afternoons, after I've done some writing.

IT'S AMAZING. I still manage to blog, but now I'm forced to be more organised, and to procrastinate less. Excellent.

When do you prefer to read? Mornings? Evenings? Afternoons? Do you get most of your reading done during your journey to work, or do you read more at home in the evenings? I read a lot more during the week than at weekends, when I have more social activities competing for my attention. How about you?

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Memorable Secondary Characters

How many secondary characters are all that memorable? Often the most important secondary characters are love interests, or parents, but I deliberately didn't pick them, as I'm sure they'll be popular choices. I went through my 'read' list and chose best friends, sidekicks, and enemies. On to the list!

Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary Characters

1. Meghan, from the Ruby Oliver Quartet by E. Lockhart - Ruby's perception of her goes through a dramatic change. In The Boyfriend List, Meghan is just the boy-obsessed girl that drives Ruby to school, but they become closer in the following books and in Real Live Boyfriends Meghan is just awesome! I loved Meghan so much by the end of this series and when I next re-read it I will be paying much more attention to her character.

2. Scarlett, from Adorkable by Sarra Manning - Scarlett is the quiet, pretty, popular girl who (sort of) 'steals' Jeane's boyfriend. She's silly but funny and I quite liked her.

3. Felicity from the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray - Felicity isn't nice. In fact, a lot of the time she's quite horrible. But oh, she is interesting, and finding out her secrets and watching her develop is one of the best things about this trilogy.

4. Oona, from the Kiki Strike series by Kirsten Miller - Oona is a wonderfully cunning girl who runs a beauty salon where the staff all pretend they don't speak English in order to gather lucrative gossip about their patrons' husbands' business deals. I am looking forward to seeing more of her in the other books.

5. Grace, from Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry - Most people would probably choose Echo's best friend Lila, or Noah's friends Isaiah and Beth, and they all have their own books now. But I would love to find out more about Grace, the enemy of everything that dares to be unpopular, the girl who is so terrified of being tainted by Echo's outcast status that she refuses to look at her in public.

6. Marron, from Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi - For some reason, I was not expecting a character like Marron or a place like his enclave of technology to exist in this book. He was one of the highlights for me and I'm hoping we get to see more of him in the rest of the series,

8. Jo, from Night School by C. J. Daugherty - How could anyone forget Jo and her many troubles and dramas? At first she seems quite normal, with just a few family problems, but as Allie persues the truth about Cimmeria Academy Jo starts to lose control of herself.

9. Laney, from Saving June by Hannah Harrington - Laney, Harper's best friend and co-conspirator, was my favourite character in Saving June. Unfortunately as she wasn't a love interest she spent a lot of time off-scene. I would love for her to get her own novel.

10. Finnick, from Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - Finnick first appears in Catching Fire, but it's not until Mockingjay that he really comes into his own as one of the most charismatic and tragic characters in the Hunger Games trilogy.

I'm sure half the blogosphere will pick Finnick but I'd love to know if anyone else really wants to find out more about Pushing the Limits' Grace! Do you agree with my choices, or would you have chosen other characters from these books?

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by its fabulous creators at The Broke and the Bookish. This is my twenty-sixth Top Ten Tuesday so please do check out the others if you enjoyed this one!

Monday Amusements 16

Happy Monday! If you're in the UK chances are you might be enjoying a bank holiday right now, just as I am. I'm going to be playing board games again, yay! If you have a job that requires you to work today, you have my sympathies, as my current job is the first job I've had that didn't count bank holidays as an ordinary day of work. Regardless of whether you're at work or play, I hope you enjoy my link selection.

First up is the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of The Book Thief, which I do not like at all.


Maybe it's just the voiceovers, but it looks so cheesy. Yes, I said voiceovers. The man's voiceover at the end is bad but Liesel's introduction at the beginning is pretty corny too. Hopefully it's just this trailer and the actual film will be better!

Why Keep Books? I keep books for all of the reasons listed by Tasha Brandstatter at Book Riot, and also because I want to share them with friends. I like to lend books I loved to other people, so they can enjoy them too. I also lend books that I had mixed feelings about, because I want to know what the other person will think.

I'd love to visit Hay-on-Wye, but I think it will have to wait until I acquire a lot more bookshelves! If I do go, I want to visit The Bookshop Cafe, as reviewed by Anushka Tay. The food and the books look delicious.

I really enjoyed Raimy's thoughtful post about being an adult reader of children's books. I don't read many children's books, outside of the teen age category, but I absolutely loved those that I have read in the last few years.

A Guide to YA Novels with LGBTQ Characters (via @Caroni_Clarke) is a graphic guide that will help you find just the book to match your tastes! If you're looking for a feminist YA novel, Sophie at So Many Books, So Little Time has put together a short list of her favourites. On Twitter (@sophie_waters) she shared this fantastic piece about Sarah Dessen and her recent revelations about her past, which I totally agree with.

Jessi at Auntie Spinelli Reads posted the first review of The Bone Season, by Samantha Shannon, that I've seen, and made it sound so intriguing I must get my hands on a copy!

At Winged Reviews, Jack poses the question Do Authors Deserve a Second Chance? Personally, I am open-minded and will pick up a second book by an author if the reasons I didn't like it were relatively superficial. If I didn't like the protagonist or the ending then I'm happy to give them another go. But if the book was badly written, or if the author was pushing a point of view that made me feel uncomfortable, it's very unlikely that I'll try their work again.

Have you written or read a great post in the last two weeks that I've missed? Let me know in the comments, and check out the Monday Amusements archive if you want more to read!