I've got some time free today, so I thought I'd catch up on some book memes (all nicked off other blogs/sites). Feel free to join in, I'd love to see what your answers are.
What is your favourite:
Work of historical fiction?
The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill
Piece of comic writing?
Any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books that has Gytha Ogg in it; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Work of poetry and/or book of poetry?
OMG, too difficult, too many! I recently re-read Mark Doty's My Alexandria, and got a lot more out of it than I did when I was eighteen.
Essay?
Lady Love Your Cunt by Germaine Greer
Science fiction novel?
Neverness by David Zindell, A Scanner Darkly By Phillip K. Dick, Rogue Planet by Greg Bear (which I think was a huge influence on James Cameron's Avatar); The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Fantasy novel?
Any Tolkien; all Terry Pratchett; Robert Holdstock's Mythago Cycle is a big influence on my own writing
Romance novel?
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Book about food?
Food For Free by Richard Mabey
Epistolary novel and/or novel in diary form?
Dracula by Bram Stoker (not too sure I've read many, to be honest. I loved Adrian Mole when I was a kid, but Sue Townsend's books about him being in his thirties are just plain boring)
Murder/crime novel?
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Work of classic fiction ?
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, or Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Horror novel?
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, genuinely scares the hell out of me!
Biography or autobiography?
I'm not really one for biographies, but I did enjoy Mozart by Peter Gay (so much so that I bought Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life by Professor Robert Spaethling straight away)
Work of children's literature?
Harry Potter, obviously; Hobberdy Dick By Katharine M. Briggs; The Tree That Sat Down (and The River That Stood Still and The Mountain of Magic) by Beverley Nichols; The Hobbit (of course); I also love Rupert the Bear
Piece of young adult fiction?
I Am David by Anne Holm; Toby's Lie by Daniel Vilmure; The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick (the rest of the series is pretty damn good too)
Short story?
Ping by Samuel Beckett; Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad by M.R. James; Pastoralia by George Saunders
20th century novel?
Queer by William S. Burroughs, heartbreaking; The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by JT Leroy (or whatever her real name is) - I don't care that she made it all up, her writing is superb, and I appreciate what she was trying to do. The whole JT Leroy literary scandal says a lot more about us as readers, than it does as her as a desperate writer. Think about it.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Monday, 19 July 2010
8 questions
Questions from Annekata (go and look at her lovely, lovely blog)
1. If you could have a dinner with a famous person (alive or dead) who would you choose?
There are so many people both dead and alive that I would love to answer for this question! Alan Turing. He's the father of computer science, and sadly he killed himself because society was so against homosexuals at the time. A great man, and we share the same birthday.
2. Where would you have that dinner?
There's a lovely little restaurant on the Rue de L'Eglise in St Généreux. It hasn't got a name, or a menu - you just get whatever they decide to make that day. Six courses of good French country cooking, vin compris. C'est magnifique!
3. What book written (in the last 300 years) had a real influence on your life?
There are many books that have influenced my life. Here are a few, in no particular order:
Folk Music by Sheenagh Pugh, and
Kirstie's Witnesses by Sheenagh Pugh
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (yes, really)
1984 by George Orwell
The Poems of Max Ehrmann
The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (it was after reading this, and all his other novels in quick succession, that I decided to concentrate on being a writer)
4. If you could live anywhere, in any time, what place and time would that be?
I like living now, and where I am, is that weird? I'd like to visit loads of different times, I'd love to be a hunter-gatherer living in Wales in the Neolithic (is that when hunter-gatherers lived?); I'd also like to go and visit the 1700s, just so I could wear some fantastic clothes! There are also so many turning points in gay history that I'd like to visit - being a young man paired with a strong Roman warrior as my teacher; learning Polari and visiting underground gay clubs when gay culture was still being created, also seeing it being decriminalised would be amazing; I'd also love to go back to June 28th 1969 to be part of the Stonewall riots.
5. What season would reflect you best?
Autumn. Cold, sunny days made for scarf-wearing, long walks, fruit-picking, blankets, knitting, making dens, hot tea, baking cakes, warming stews, game pie, blackberries, gloves, Halloween/Samhain, fires, fireworks, lots of soup and reading stories. That's me.
6. What do you wear when you don't want to think about what you wear?
Boring. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.
7. What does craft/making mean to you?
Literally everything. All the creative stuff I do, whether that be writing, sewing, painting, pyrography, knitting, crochet, sculpting, soldering, drawing, folding, sticking, is a part of who I am. I make, therefore I am. Lolz.
8. If you project yourself into the future. Is there anything you would like to achieve in the next 2 to 5 years?
I want to get one of my novels published. I'm over halfway writing one, and about a fifth of the way through the other.
1. If you could have a dinner with a famous person (alive or dead) who would you choose?
There are so many people both dead and alive that I would love to answer for this question! Alan Turing. He's the father of computer science, and sadly he killed himself because society was so against homosexuals at the time. A great man, and we share the same birthday.
2. Where would you have that dinner?
There's a lovely little restaurant on the Rue de L'Eglise in St Généreux. It hasn't got a name, or a menu - you just get whatever they decide to make that day. Six courses of good French country cooking, vin compris. C'est magnifique!
3. What book written (in the last 300 years) had a real influence on your life?
There are many books that have influenced my life. Here are a few, in no particular order:
Folk Music by Sheenagh Pugh, and
Kirstie's Witnesses by Sheenagh Pugh
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (yes, really)
1984 by George Orwell
The Poems of Max Ehrmann
The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (it was after reading this, and all his other novels in quick succession, that I decided to concentrate on being a writer)
4. If you could live anywhere, in any time, what place and time would that be?
I like living now, and where I am, is that weird? I'd like to visit loads of different times, I'd love to be a hunter-gatherer living in Wales in the Neolithic (is that when hunter-gatherers lived?); I'd also like to go and visit the 1700s, just so I could wear some fantastic clothes! There are also so many turning points in gay history that I'd like to visit - being a young man paired with a strong Roman warrior as my teacher; learning Polari and visiting underground gay clubs when gay culture was still being created, also seeing it being decriminalised would be amazing; I'd also love to go back to June 28th 1969 to be part of the Stonewall riots.
5. What season would reflect you best?
Autumn. Cold, sunny days made for scarf-wearing, long walks, fruit-picking, blankets, knitting, making dens, hot tea, baking cakes, warming stews, game pie, blackberries, gloves, Halloween/Samhain, fires, fireworks, lots of soup and reading stories. That's me.
6. What do you wear when you don't want to think about what you wear?
Boring. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.
7. What does craft/making mean to you?
Literally everything. All the creative stuff I do, whether that be writing, sewing, painting, pyrography, knitting, crochet, sculpting, soldering, drawing, folding, sticking, is a part of who I am. I make, therefore I am. Lolz.
8. If you project yourself into the future. Is there anything you would like to achieve in the next 2 to 5 years?
I want to get one of my novels published. I'm over halfway writing one, and about a fifth of the way through the other.
Tools
I went home for the weekend to say goodbye to my parents (they're off to France for five weeks), and to see Justin, Gail and Jess (and get stupidly drunk on cola cube vodka); and my Dad has given me a toolbox full of useful tools to help with renovating the new house. Here is a list of things Patrick and I will be doing in the next five weeks:
*Stripping wallpaper
*Taking up carpets
*Knocking down a partition wall (to open up the living room)
*Knocking plaster off the walls downstairs
*Damproof course (but we're getting someone in to do that)
*Start digging the garden
That's pretty much all we can do without my Dad there, but he'll be busy drinking copious amounts of red wine and eating out in restaurants!
I'm going to book Tuesday (a week tomorrow) off work; Patrick and I are going to sleep in Aberystwyth Street on Monday night in a sleeping bag, I'm so excited! We're going to spend the day mapping out all the rooms on graph paper, and all our furniture as well, so we can start planning where everything is going to go. Fair play, we started off with just a bed and a kitchen table, and we've already got a houseful! Unless we start refusing furniture, we're going to end up living in a junk shop. A beautiful, shabby chic, country living-style junk shop, but a junk shop nonetheless!
Friday, 16 July 2010
Folksy Friday *16th July 2010*
I’ve missed quite a few Folksy Fridays, been busy with house stuff and work has been hectic! But I’m glad to be back in the swing of it again.
No theme this week, just fab shops that have sold under 10 things.
Okay, from top left:
Wonderful Edgar Allan Poe art box from a fantastic shop. It appeals to the goth in me (there are some awful photos of me with eyeliner and lace from when I was about 15!)
Quite possibly the cutest thing on all Folksy: Awkward Turtle. He is beautiful, not awkward at all! Everything in this shop is ridiculously low-priced, so if you want a turtle-shaped bargain, go and snap one up quick.
Beautiful watercolour from a beautiful beautiful shop. Just lovely!
I know it’s the wrong time of year, but these Easter eggs are lush. I love pretty Easter eggs and these one are amazing.
Buy 'em quick before they go!
No theme this week, just fab shops that have sold under 10 things.
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Okay, from top left:
Wonderful Edgar Allan Poe art box from a fantastic shop. It appeals to the goth in me (there are some awful photos of me with eyeliner and lace from when I was about 15!)
Quite possibly the cutest thing on all Folksy: Awkward Turtle. He is beautiful, not awkward at all! Everything in this shop is ridiculously low-priced, so if you want a turtle-shaped bargain, go and snap one up quick.
Beautiful watercolour from a beautiful beautiful shop. Just lovely!
I know it’s the wrong time of year, but these Easter eggs are lush. I love pretty Easter eggs and these one are amazing.
Buy 'em quick before they go!
Thursday, 15 July 2010
More mood boards
Monday, 12 July 2010
Y Gegin
Y gegin is Welsh for 'the kitchen', which is what I'm thinking about at the moment. Our new house has a teeny tiny kitchen that we are going to extend in a few years time, so we need to design a dros dro (temporary) kitchen that has maximum storage, and is easily-wipe-down-able. This is because I'm a skinflint who won't pay to have a damproof course done in the kitchen walls, as we are going to knock them down in 2 years time!
I've seen some lovely (and cheap) galvanised shelving units in Ikea. They're £6.99! I want them to store food - cans and things like that.
I love this tiny kitchen redesign. It's actually smaller than our kitchen! If you Google image search 'small kitchen ideas', all the kitchens are huge, not small at all - so I was really pleased to see a proper tiny kitchen, and it's just lovely.
No good for my kitchen, but I love this idea of using an old chest of drawers as an island. I've filed it away in my head for future use.
I've seen some lovely (and cheap) galvanised shelving units in Ikea. They're £6.99! I want them to store food - cans and things like that.
I love this tiny kitchen redesign. It's actually smaller than our kitchen! If you Google image search 'small kitchen ideas', all the kitchens are huge, not small at all - so I was really pleased to see a proper tiny kitchen, and it's just lovely.
No good for my kitchen, but I love this idea of using an old chest of drawers as an island. I've filed it away in my head for future use.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Badly want
I want all of these drawers in my new house. There'd be no room for a bed or kitchen, but who would miss those things when you could spend all day looking at these beauties!
Monday, 5 July 2010
Mood boards
Well I'm still not in my house. The date is now 26th of July, and they can't change it because we've exchanged contracts. Anyway, I'm still not shutting up about this forest room, and I've discovered a really cool site called Olioboards, where you can make and save your own mood boards.
Here are my first two efforts. If you sign up to it (it's free) look for me, my username is 'fflwcs'.
Here are my first two efforts. If you sign up to it (it's free) look for me, my username is 'fflwcs'.
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