Couple of books recently read

Including: 

• Lego: A Love Story (Jonathan Bender);
• Labyrinth (Kate Mosse); and
• Paula Spencer (Roddy Doyle)

Lego: A Love Story is an interesting book. Jonathan Bender spent some time with AFOLs (Adult Fans Of Lego), attending their conventions, building their challenges and just generally falling back in love with Lego (though not quite to the same extent as some of the others described in the book). Nicely written, it's a really intriguing and at times puzzling story about how grown-ups still play, model, and build with what is traditionally seen as a child's toy.

He describes the model Titanic built for a convention, the input that the AFOLs have on the kits that Lego develop and the obsessive compulsions suffered and enjoyed by collectors and builders as they buy and sell individual bricks and pieces over the internet. I recommend this for anyone who is still a little bit of a child, and for anyone who isn't (yet) still a little bit of a child. Enjoyed, 4/5.

Labyrinth is a Grail tale - 2 stories set centuries apart in and around Carcassonne in Southern France. One woman is a modern day archaeologist, another a mediaeval woman living in the time of the Crusades. I read this, and I think you might like it if you like the grail legend type of thing, but it was just too long for me. I had stayed attracted to it for about half of it and so I finished it but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me either way. So, I suppose 2.5 out of 5. 

Paula Spencer - fans of the Van, the Snapper and the Commitments might be surprised by this book, as it doesn't quite have the same style as those. An excellent character study, it watches Paula (a recovering alcoholic who's just got out of a difficult relationship) for a year of her life. Really astute dialogue between the characters (mostly Paula's children and sisters) builds their personae into something really believable. This one was well able to keep my attention and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 4/5 

I'm finally reading Catch-22, and enjoying that. It's superficially zany, but I think there's a deeper commentary on madness in there. I can see how it's such a classic, and I love finally understanding the phrase! More on that later.

And lo, there was some nostalgic reading

I'll have to get off this nostalgia kick, it's getting in the way of photography... Just as a "challenge" I re-read "Danny the Champion of the World" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl recently.....and thoroughly enjoyed them. Yes, it brought back memories, but also, they're great stories. You all know about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, maybe you've also seen the films, but Danny is a brilliant story.

A mechanic and his son live in a caravan next to the workshop, scratching out an honest living off local and passing trade. As the son grows up, he realises that his father loves poaching, and catches him sneaking off one night. So the tale goes, and they describe many ingenious and clever (and Dahl-esque) methods of catching the pheasants - you may recall if you've read it that some of them involve horsehair and raisins - and how pleasurable it is to take a pheasant out of the forest belonging to the local nasty rich chap.

The story climaxes as the rich chap prepares for the annual shoot, that hundreds of the pheasant have been reared for. Danny and his father want to scotch the shoot (having rightfully developed a dislike of this guy during the book) and so they set about plotting to sabotage the whole thing by poaching all of the pheasant! Needless to say it is a success, but it's brilliant the way it all works out in the end.

I commend them both (and all of Dahl's stuff, I suppose!) to you, even if you're a "grownup". Enjoy! And yes, they were the original copies I had as a child....even seeing the illustrations brought some of my childhood back with a jolt. Great stuff.

Mullaghreelan woods, Athy, Co. Kildare

Today we went for a walk in the woods, just a short one in the Mullaghreelan woods in Kilkea - between Athy and Castledermot in Kildare. It was a lovely day for it with nice bright low sunshine.

The woods themselves are small enough in area, mostly deciduous but with some coniferous stands centred around an old Rath believed to have belonged to the O'Tooles in times past. There's a short walk around (though you can extend this by taking the leg towards the castle, sadly no longer a hotel), illustrated with some informative signs.

And of course, there is no woods complete without it's own abandoned cottage.

In other news, this weekend I finished Iain M Banks' "Surface Detail," his latest Culture sci-fi novel. Based around the idea of a war between pro- and anti-Hell (Hell being a constructed reality in this novel) forces. Brilliantly written with the usual mix of technology, and the wry personality of the Ship Minds. Highly recommended. It's quite long though, so you get a bittersweet feeling at the end, slightly relieved you've got the story finished, but wanting for more. Enjoyed occasionally with an Erdinger Cristal. Lovely beer. MMMMmmmm.

And thanks to Coillte for allowing us all onto their lands.

Playing with fire

Today I was playing with a candle and some long exposures to yield some interesting results. I know there's probably some white balance issues maybe, but they're at least visually different!

Maybe I'll play some more with light over the coming week. Nobody can hold a candle to me....

Room by Emma Donoghue, and some useful links

I read Room, by Emma Donoghue, a couple of months ago. It's one of the books that stick in my mind, like the Life of Pi, or Sunday at the Pool in Kigali - well written, well driven and to reuse an oft-mentioned word, compelling. Room tells the story of a young boy who lives with his mother in a small room - this is (for most of the book) the entire realm that these 2 characters exist in.

The story is told from Jack's 5-year old viewpoint, so everything has a character and is anthropomorphised in the way that 5-year old boys do (well, as far as I can remember anyway) so well. But you can probably guess that Jack and Ma aren't in the room naturally, so to speak, though as usual I'm loathe to give away much of the plot as if you haven't read it I'll spoil it on you.

This book raises your heartbeat and is truly edge of your seat reading. I read it in one sitting, pretty much, only putting it down half way through to catch my breath. Definitely one for the must-read pile. Shouldawundabooker.

So, while you're reading that curled up next to a fire while the weather outside continues to freeze and snow and do unspeakably wintry things to us, you might be looking for some information on roads and stuff. These links below might be of use:

Kildare Co. Co. Emergency News webpage

Bus Éireann's travel information

Met Éireann's interactive 5-day forecast (winds, precipitation and temperature)

Irish Weather Online

Dept. of Transport Scary Weather Information Page with other links and stuff

AA Roadwatch (as if you didn't know this one already)

RTÉ's weather and transport feed

Monasterevin in the Snow

Well, I've been taking some pictures around town whilst the snow is all nice and white and fluffy, some can be seen here. It was cold today, but thanks to my layers I was able to stand it.

Now that I've been enjoying the library again for a couple of weeks, I've been thinking about a reading challenge for myself - I'm going to try and read as many of the Booker Prize winners as I can, though I've already found some aren't available in the library. At this stage I've gone through 1 or 2 so far (though that includes that blasted The Sea thing that won a couple of years ago), so maybe i can capture my thoughts here.

The list is taken from ye olde wikipedia, if you want to have a look. Where I can't find a year's winner, I'll read one of the others.

Bookses.

So, yeah, where have I been? Doing the same old thing, mostly. Just not talking about it here!

I've become a more regular library user, though, since. Which is brilliant. Our local library service (www.kildare.ie/library) allows you to search the catalogue online and make requests online. IT's brilliant! And much less damaging to my book budget.... Though I still love books, giving them back is a little cheaper.

I've also been discovering some "unusual" board games - Carcassonne (town building) for one, Ticket to Ride (Train building) and a new arrival, Memoir '44 (World War II them) which we haven't really broken in yet. There might be more on those later. We'll see how

Pizza n books.

Barbecues with too many charcoal briquettes and pizza are not good friends, unless you want the pizza to be utterly nuked... It looked fine 2 minutes ago, honestly... Oh, I dunno. Not fun. I might try again, with less coals, but next pizza will be from the ordinary oven anyway.

So I've released 3 books today, trying to revive bookcrossing singlehandedly. Chat n chew coffee shop in Newbridge has a book swap shelf already, so that's the drop point of choice. It's kinda handy, though I had a look through some of the books and none of them had a bookcrossing ID, so maybe it's not caught on.