Review Smog – Baggage of Eternal Night

This is another of the Double Down series that delivers two novellas in one neat little package.

Smog by Lisa Morton was a really easy read that flowed beautifully.  Set in the 1960’s when everything was more innocent and the only thing to fear was the Russians. This little slice of Americana becomes the setting of a chemical induced lord of the suburban flies where the main character , the tomboy Joey, has to fight for survival and deal with her first period.  A fun take on the coming of age story.

Baggage of Eternal Night by Eric J. Guignard is less of an easy read but a far grittier story. This story touches at the hoarder and collector in all of us. Charlie’s friend, the recovering problem gambler Joey Third, gets more than he bid for  on the purchase of a suitcase from the hotel auctions. Feeling a bit like House of Leaves, this story uncovers the things in the shadows that we don’t like to think about to truly giver the reader the yips.

The two novellas are certainly worth the Sunday afternoon perusal.    

I received this book to review through Library Thing Early Reviewers  

Musings on why my favorites are my favorites

I can always list what my favorite stories are when asked, but reading a discussion board today has made me realise why they are my favorites.

They are the stories and worlds that have been integrated into my own life, weather by a message or an ethos of the way i live, or by determining the relationships i have with other people or just simply by providing me with jewelry themes and dress styles.

Hence my favorite stories are:

Book: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (the trilogy in are we up to 5 parts now?) by Douglas Adams.

Why: I'm Dyslexic and it was a wonderfully complex story that was in an easy to read format. It was so important to me that I carried an omnibus around with me as a teenager for ages. When I met my partner, I found it was his favorite book too and that sparked our relationship. Now as an adult, every towel day I walk the halls of the school where i work with a towel in hand, proudly remembering the great man. (this is also my favorite radio program because it is slightly different in dramatic ways)  

Movie: Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton.

Why: Other than having everything nightmare before Christmas that i can get my hands on, i re-watch this every Christmas and it still gives me the same feelings of childlike joy about Christmas that it did when i was young. Its been out for 20yrs now and it still works! Which is especially telling since i was born and have grown up in Australia, where it is not unusual to have a +40 degree Celsius day and i have never seen snow.

TV: can not split Dr Who and The Simpsons

Why: I love the Simpsons, they tell so many stories and drop so many references that you end up looking it up and learning new things left, right and center. Than and i love Simpsons quotes so much i have on occasions, gone a whole party speaking only in them! If your a fan, give it a go, its a lot of fun.

Why: Dr Who is so important in my life that it may just be the reason why my best friend is my life long best friend and it definitely is the cause of her and her husbands relationship.

Oh and the Curse of Monkey Island because its funny.      

Why I Read Comics (The One That Sparked It All)

So I used to read Catwoman on and off as a teenager and I decided recently to get back into it since we had the reset of the new #52. I am not sure how I fell about the new #52 reset of comics and I have deliberately avoided reading any commentary on it, so I don't even know how I am expected to feel, so I will leave that discussion to another post.
 
As a kid and early teen, my mum would drive us the two hours to the city for the second hand card fairs and they were always one of the best days on the calender. It started out with trading cards and that gave me an appreciation for art no matter how small or mass produced the medium.  Pretty soon the trading card hype peaked and petered out but I still had a hankering for the art that I once got from trading cards.
In stepped the comic book!
Sure, having a mum that was into trading card (she was collecting them as well, there was a self serving motive to her motivations of persuading us to start a collection too,) we had comics in the house and i had read them in passing but they hadn't grabbed me yet. So, as the desks of trading card sellers shrank and the space was taken over by boxes of comics, well naturally I was attracted to the $1 comics boxes for a) a bargain and b) something to browse after I had finished looking at the cards.  One auspicious day I found this comic;

I'll admit, I judged a book by its cover, but what a cover. I had never been a traditional superhero comic book reader because they had never appealed to be with the big steroidy muscle men always doing the right thing and beating up the bad guy. But this was different, no brightly coloured cover with a suited man doing what suited men do. No this was the "hero" vulnerable in the distance being visited or haunted by a ghostly visage. As a teenage, I thought i could relate to this sort of "superhero" and she was a she and in purple (my favorite colour.  

And I have never looked back, with my stacks of random comics I have collected over the years, literally judging comic books by their covers and buy with that instinct and feeling I had back then.

Now I am going back to my comic book roots with Catwoman Vol 1 of the new #52.

I look forward to reliving the feelings of old.

Dipping My Toes into Writting

So in my constant pursuit of articles about reading and the latest book and comic releases, I stumbled upon this concept of MOOC. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course and I have found one at iversity on the "Future of Storytelling" that is free and starts tomorrow.
Link below
https://iversity.org/courses/the-future-of-storytelling?enrol=true&signup=true#shareCourseModal

As I have never done and tertiary writing courses, being a high school maths teacher with a degree in chemistry, and wanting to get into writing the stories that float around my head, I'm really excited to get started on this.

As an added bonus, it might also improve my blog!

Yay for further education and here we go.

Do the world and your stress levels a favor...read a book, or 2

Found this today. I always knew my hermit like reading patterns were actually doing the world a favor, and my stress levels.

This week’s acquisitions.

My local comic book store’s very helpful staff tell me that there will be a Harley Quinn series starting some time in November so got the one off to get back into the swing of things. I have to admit I quite enjoyed it and am now looking forward to the series…hopefully.

I also picked up the first of The Hollows, even though there was 1-4 on the shelf, just to see how it goes. i really liked the story line. Set in a post apocalyptic Japan where the lucky survivors live in gargantuan, genetically modified trees high above the not so lucky survivors who need to scratch out a life whilst protecting themselves from the soul sucking Hollows.  

I could be good, i will tell you how it goes. 

Ok, so I know I said that I was going to start reading The Eye of the World but it turned out that I was in a graphic novel mood and not a long read mood this week.
 Just finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz graphic novel by Eric Shanower and have been reliving the feeling i had as a child watching the movie. The land of Oz and Wonderland are always going to be my favorite fantasy lands and i will always be a sucker to read/watch/listen to any adaptation, interpretation or re-imagining just to visit these worlds again. 

The old book I am starting now.

I am going to start this blog off with what I am lead to believe is a classic. Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World, book one of the Wheel of Time.

It's formidable size is what has put me off in the past, (being dyslexic and a reader has caused a lot of problems over the years.) But, I think I am willing to give it a crack now, especially considering my head of department bought it for me.

I also want to read some thing that isn't firmly in the category of young adult fantasy as i have just come off a binge of the genre having read just finished Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.

So the rest of the evening will be spent making a dent in The Eye of the World
  

First post and a Hello

Hi internet.
This is my first blog and I want to make it all about one of my most beloved things...reading!

First I would like to introduce myself.  I'm a high school maths teacher, so not much reading in my work time.  However in my own time I like to read science fiction\fantasy, primary with a bit of crime/murder mystery thrown in for good measure. I am most happy reading these things with a small chihuahua x dachshund called Colin curled up in my lap.

What is this blog is going to be about?

I will be posting things like new acquisitions, reviews of new and old books, and links to other book and bookish  related things.

I would also like to know about and start events that are happening in this country because I am truly sick of the jealous feeling i get in the pit of my stomach when I am reading about people in the US and the UK who have just got a new signed book from Holly Black and Neil Gaiman to name a few.  We need our fan girl moments down here too please.  

So to close out my first post I would like to introduce you to my reading companion, Colin.