December 18: Top Ten Books I Read In 2012.

1. My absolute number one this week is We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Hands down one of the best books I've read in many years, not just in 2012, every single word Shiver writes seems important and integral to the story - there is such a powerful weight to her writing and the story is just as incredible. If you've not read this yet - please do, it's brilliant.

2. Life Of Pi - Yann Martel - I'm cheating a little with this one because it really wasn't this year that I read it, but I'm re-reading it now. I took this book out of the library two summers ago and it was one of the most moving things I'd ever read, and recently with the trailers for Ang Lee's absolutely mesmerizing looking adaptation of the story I've been desperate to read it again, I swear I tear up and shiver every time I see the trailer and I can't wait for the film to be released, I'm almost positive it's going to be my film of the year because the story really does leave you with something special.

3. A Storm Of Swords - GRRM - Book 3 of the series, I got this for Christmas last year and *may* have finished it before the years end, but I'm still counting it. The Red Wedding blew me away, and for that reason  it's this book and not A Dance With Dragons that 'll add from GRRM, though as you probably all know, I love the whole series and it's been a highlight of my year. 

4. Damned - Chuck Palahniuk - When I read this I didn't actually think it had been a read that would stick with me, and I didn't instantly love it as much as some of Palahniuk's other books such as Haunted or Survivor  but it's a book I go back to in my mind quite a lot and think about and it was actually quite a fun tale despite the story and setting. 

5. The Reader - Bernherd Schlink -  I really loved this book, I read in in one sitting in bed one night and instantly passed it on to my mum, whose opinions were less than enthusiastic than mine but, still I think this is wonderful. The writing is great to me because it is quite stiff and gives of the impression of being translated which I felt really immersed me in the story as it was set in Germany. Hard hitting and emotional, a great take on a war novel.

6. Tess Of The D'urbervilles -Thomas Hardy - I had wanted to read this book for a long time, I already knew the story and had seen various adaptations, but I really wanted the book, which I was given for my birthday back in February  I love this story and I always have, Tess is probably one of the worst treated females in classic literature, but she always has faith and I like the ending, though it's not a happy one.

7. The Gum thief - Douglas Coupland - I really like Coupland's books, and I found this is a charity shop. Great read, an unlikely friendship always wins me over.

8. The Fault In Our Stars - John Green - I'd read Green's books before this and although I liked them, they weren't for me the huge blow-you-away  type books I was expecting from the hype. I did like this one though and thought it was a very sad, beautiful story.

9. Perv: A Love Story - Jerry Stahl - I can't tell you how long I had waited to read this book! There were absolutely no copies for sale in the UK and the shipping price from the states was insane so I put it off for ages, I actually think this was the first book I purchased in the new year, telling myself it was acceptable as it was Christmas money, and I did really love the book, plus it's lead me onto other books by Stahl which I've enjoyed too so I suppose it was worth it

10. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things - J.T. Leroy - It took me a very long time to assess my feelings for this book but I eventually decided I liked it. The story is difficult but I couldn't put it down. Very honest and I'm definitely glad I read it.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Two Most Anticipated Books For 2013

I'm going to assume that this prompt means anticipated as in, books you're waiting on being released, but personally I'm not so good with the shall we say "new releases". I very rarely wait for a book to be released because I tend to have so many titles on my "to read" list that have been out for a while. I think this past year I bought two books on or near their published dates, which were; A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin, and Damned - Chuck Palahniuk (which I actually think I pre-ordered.) Getting down to it I think there's only one new to be released book I'm waiting for this coming year and it's (absolutely no surprise here)...

The Winds Of Winter.

Shocker right! Yes, book six is (hopefully) going to be released in 2013, which I am more excited about then I can eloquently say, as I presume, a lot of us are. (If you've not read the sampler on Martin's website you can find it here.) I do fear I'm being a bit optimistic with this choice, and in all likelihood the book won't be out next year at all, but dammit, I can hope!

And again, (I see a pattern here) I'll most likely be awaiting Palahniuks new novel which is said to drop next year and is a sequel to Damned. I really tried to think of a couple more titles but I can't! I have a pretty hefty list of book to get through at the minute anyway, so this is probably a good thing.

Also, I really like the look of new movie; The Silver Linings Play-book, (and if you follow Brett Easton Ellis on Twitter, you'll know he hasn't stopped raving about it being one of the films of the year) has anyone read the novel it's based on?  I had a sneaky peek at a few pages and it looked interesting, let me know!

Top Ten Tuesday

November 13: Top Ten Books  I'd Want On A Deserted Island

1) Lord Of The Flies - William Golding. Hey, you could kind of use it as an instruction manual...or a what not to do...

2) Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk. I'm desperate to re-read this at the minute but I've a pile of new things to read and I'm barely getting through those, so it's going to have to wait a while. I'd want it on an Island because maybe I got there via a plane crash, which is a running commentary throughout this book, seems like it'd fit in well, plus I always class this as a kind of hopeful story.

3) Batman Series - Frank Miller. These graphic novels always leave me feeling really inspired and "fired up", that motivation may do me good on a deserted island.

4) Ulysses - James Joyce. Purely because I own it and have never gotten round to reading it. I've read so so much about this book and  think I've put it off because of all the hype.

5) Fevre Dream - George R.R. Martin. ABookwormBelle just wrote a review on this and now I'm dying to read it! 

6) Some Stephen King - I'm always a bit wary of delving into horror as I've said before, and so many people rave about King, maybe somewhere well away from society would be the place to start...

7) Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen. Just because I probably couldn't go the rest of my life without this book, although the romance may make me a little maudlin...ah well.

8) The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling. To keep my childlike sense of wonder...plus, I could fashion a wand from any trees on my deserted island...Lumos my nights away!

9) Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer. To boost my adventurous spirit! 

10) No surprise here! (I think I mention this every week...) - A Song Of Ice & Fire series - George R.R. Martin. Again, I couldn't not read these books ever again, plus reading the whole series would really pass the time - though imagine if you were deserted before the final books are published - you might never know how things end! Now that's something I don't want to think about...

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Favourite Authors In X Genre (Ex- Top Ten Favourite Science Fiction Authors, Top Ten Fave Contemporary YA authors)

Another Tuesday means it's time for me to not be able to fulfil this weeks prompt! This time because ..I never know what genre I'm reading! (I am clearly terrible.) I think I'm going to do Love, so without further ado;  

My Top Ten Favourite Love Story Authors

1) Chuck Palahniuk - For writing love and romance without Hollywood sickliness an adding a dose of realism into his couples. "If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes."

2) Charles Bukowski - He may be a "Dirty Old Man" but I just love the way he writes women and his obsession with chasing them "I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, “I’m going to pee..”’ hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carring on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together"

3) Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights is the greatest love story ever. (In my opinion!) "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable."

4) Anaïs Nin - Her prose is so dreamy and beautiful, when I read Nin's stories it's always like wading out to sea, her work is utterly captivating. "How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself. "

5) Henry Miller - I adore the hopeless way he writes women, he's jaded but in a way that really works in the stories he tells. "There's something perverse about women... they're all masochists at heart."

6) Lionel Shriver - For We Need To Talk About Kevin, which I find beautiful and captivating in terms of the romantic love story in main protagonists relationship with her husband, but also the issues she faces with familial love in her children. "I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But what kind of love is that?"

7) Vladimir Nabokov - Because anyone who can make me forget that the relationship I'm reading about is that of a paedophile and a young girl is worthy of this list. "There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey"

8) Jane Austen - Who doesn't love period romance? "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

9) Cormac McCarthy - He writes beautiful stories about familial love - The Road being a fantastic example. "Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you."

10) George R.R. Martin - For Jon and Ygritte. "There's been no one," he confessed. "Only you."

(P.S. Does anyone watch Downton Abbey? If so I feel we need a discussion group of some sorts because this week KILLED ME!)

Autumn Wishlist

The leaves are slowly browning and beginning to fall, Starbucks have begun serving spice pumpkin latte's, and the nights are creeping in...that means only one thing - Autumn! Autumn and Winter are my favourite seasons, they hold all of my favourite things; Halloween, Christmas, Birthdays, Snow, Hats, Gloves...Oh the list is endless! Here's a few things I'm excited about buying/wishing for this season.

1) A Clockwork Orange Fleece Jumper - Out Of Print Clothing. 2) Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters Remix. 3) Italo Calvino - If On A Winter's Night A Travleller. 4) Will Christopher Baer - Godspeed. 5) George R.R. Martin's Tales Of Duck & Egg.

Blog Hop, Sept 7 - 13

What book series do you never want to see end? 

I NEVER want the Song Of Ice And Fire series by George R. R. Martin to end! They are so entirely enthralling and captivating, I love the twists, I love the Characters, I love the writing. There are still 2 books to go and I'm yet to read the prequel books so hopefully it won't end too soon for me! Do you love life in Westeros too? Recommend me some series to tide me over till The Winds Of Winter.

A Song Of Ice And Fire Series - George R. R. Martin

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."

I was going to undertake the rather mammoth task of reviewing all 5 of the currently published books in the Ice and Fire series in one post...but to those who haven't read it, it would be impossible to do without ruining the plot of further books. So instead I'll go into the main plot of the first novel in the series for those who want to know more about what the story it's self is about, and then I'll discuss the series as a whole at the end.

I confess it was HBO who turned me onto the series, Sean Bean in anything is going to be my cup of tea but Game Of Thrones especially is just an amazing show, and after watching series 1, I had to find out how the story continued so I picked up the novels.

The books take place in  the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a fictional land similar to medieval Europe which in the first book is mainly separated into two areas; The North And The South. Though the whole of Westeros is ruled by one king, Robert Baratheon, he resides in the south. There is a man titled Protector of the North who acts in the Kings place in those lands, Eddard Stark.

In each progressing books more and more "main" characters come into play, but in the first, A Game Of Thrones, the main characters surround these two men; Baratheons wife Cersei Lannister and her brothers, Jaime Lannister, a member of the Kingsguard, and "The Imp" Tyrion Lannister, as well as Cersei's eldest son Joffrey Baratheon.

Eddard Starks family are also major characters; his wife Catelyn Stark, his bastard son Jon Snow (bastards in the kingdoms last names are given in juncture to where they were born, e.g. Snow for the north, Rivers for the riverlands), some of his other children Rob, Sansa, Arya, and Bran, and his ward Theon Greyjoy who he took from the Iron Islands as a boy. Other main characters in the Stark family are their "pets". The sigil of house Stark is the Direwolf. Each of the children, including Jon, have a Direwolf for a pet.

Eddard is appointed Hand Of The King, and must go to the south, to Kings Landing to serve for Robert. He takes his two daughters with him; Sansa who dreams of Princes soon fancies herself in love with Joffrey Baratheon and a betrothal is formed. Arya however dreams of archery and sword fighting...

There is a place in the north where Westeros comes to an end at the foot of a great wall made of ice, The Wall is manned by The Nights Watch, which Starks bastard son Jon joins. The brothers of The Nights Watch must vow to dedicate their lives to the wall, which they man in hopes of protecting Westeros from what lies beyond it.

Westeros

Across the seas in the east there are two more major characters, Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen. Their father, the "Mad King" Aerys Targaryen sat the Iron Throne prior to Baratheon, who won the seat during war. Aerys son Rhaegar kidnapped the woman Baratheon loved, Eddard's Sister, Lyanna Stark. When Eddard's father and elder brother asked Aery's for Lyannas return he executed them, leading the north into an uprising in which Aerys murdered Rhaegar's infant children, before Jaime Lannister killed him, earning the title of "The Kingslayer". Baratheon murdered Rhaegar himself after Lyanna was killed, and Stark and Baratheon were left to claim the throne. During the war, Viserys and his pregnant mother fled to Dragonstone where one night during a violent storm she gave birth to Daenerys, who was given the name "Stormborn". Their mother died during the birth and the two children fled east where Viserys became known as "The Beggar Prince", using his family name and his idea of being the rightful heir to the throne to secure homes and allies for he and his sister. Viserys, tired of waiting for his throne sells his sister to a Dothraki horse Lord in exchange for an army to take to Westeros. The Dothraki are savage tribes who worship horses and roam the lands in the east pillaging for their city of Vaes Dothrak. Daenerys and her intended, Khal Drogo surprisingly form a real connection, and fall in love, much to the ire of Viserys.

That isn't nearly all of the plot of the first book in the series but to those who haven't read it, I hope it's enough to make you want to pick it up. As you can tell from the rather heavy description above, there is a lot of plot to these books, I was reading a review by Joshua Chaplinsky the other day over at The Cult which pretty much summed up what a heavy read the series can be;

"For those looking to dip their toes and test the waters- you're gonna get your foot bit off. If you are lucky enough to recover it, you can keep it in a jar as proof of the encounter, hobbling around with a smile on your face, content in knowing this is only the beginning."

This series was really my first foray into medieval fiction and I have to say I was absolutely enthralled by these books. First off Martin is just an absolutely beautiful writer. He writes with real complexity and intellect, in that everything is researched down to a T; the writing really feels authentic, and he has so many characters, none of whom really feel like any of the others. What I mean by that is, you start reading a chapter from Daenerys and you absolutely know it's her, not any of the other number of female protagonists in the book. That's what's really astonishing to me, how many main characters there is by the fifth book, and each of them with their own distinct personality and voice.

Something else I really admire about Martin is that he's really not afraid to kill off any major characters. With most books you form an attachment to a certain character/s and because they are such a huge part in the story you feel some security in thinking that they can't be killed off: they're too important, well, Martin smashes that theory. There have been several, weak (and short) moments for me while reading this series where I have exclaimed that I simply can't read any more, because I couldn't stand the thought of loosing another important character. 

Martin has definitely fleshed out a very realistic Westeros for us to explore and I really recommend that you do so. I for one feel like this is a series I'll be going back to and discovering more things about for many years to come. The sixth book in the series, The Winds Of Winter is thought to be out next year. An excerpt from the book can be read here.