The Three Incestuous Sisters - Audrey Niffenegger

Rating: 4

Best known for her novel The Time Traveller's Wife, Niffenegger's next publication is this unusual, gothic "visual novel". Obviously a labour of love for Niffenegger, Sisters took several years to finish. The images are full-page sepia aquaprints, accompanying her haunting tale of three sisters, Ophile, Clothilde and Bettine, who live together in a "lonely house by the sea". The images are beautiful, showing the sisters with tall lithe figures, long clingy dresses and long colourful hair.

When the lighthouse keeper dies, he is replaced by the young Paris, who quickly falls in love with Bettine, the youngest and prettiest sister. The eldest sister, Ophile, is also in love with Paris, and her jealousy of Bettine takes a tragic turn. However, redheaded Clothilde is the most interesting sister, forming a psychic relationship with Bettine's unborn child. Clothilde is the heart and soul of the story, and it is her regret and hope that brings the story to its beautiful conclusion.

Though also highly original and melodramatic, Sisters is very, very different from The Time Traveller's Wife. Sisters is a grim yet thoughtful fairy tale whose evocative images will stay with you long after you have finished it. Niffenegger's talents certainly are not limited to her storytelling.

Other blog reviews:
Rhinoa's Ramblings
Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot
Kim at Bold. Blue. Adventure

Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe - Danny Wallace

Rating: 4

"Danny Wallace wanted to write about a place so special and so crucial to our existence that it had never before been tackled: the Centre of the Universe. But then, he realised that getting there might be a problem, and when he did, there'd probably be nothing much to write about. Until, he heard about a manhole cover, on a small street, in a small town, tucked away in a remote part of Idaho. The manhole cover had been declared the Centre of the Universe. The mayor had the science to back it up. The town rejoiced. And the name of the town? Wallace. It was a cosmic coincidence Danny couldn't resist..."

Those of you who have not already heard of Danny Wallace should look him up immediately. The man is a genius. Part of the new wave of documentary comedians, such as Dave Gorman and Louis Theroux, Wallace has already related some of his previous adventures in his books. "Join Me" is about how he started a cult, or collective, "Yes Man" details his 6 months spent saying yes when he once would have said no, to make his life more interesting and positive, How To Start Your Own Country" is about becoming king of his own country, and "Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways To Make The World A Better Place" is about the obvious. His latest book, "Friends Like These" is about finding his old address book, and deciding to look us all his old school friends.

The Centre of the Universe is a quick read produced for World Book Day a few years ago, and chronicles Wallace's discovery of the cosmic phenomenon in Wallace, Idaho, and his 24 hours spent there meeting the residents, being interviewed by the local paper and being made Ambassador by the Mayor. He will make you want to visit this small town in the middle of nowhere, and discover the centre of your universe!

The man is hilarious! Some of his adventures are a little pre-determined, but it is his gentle, innocent excitable nature that makes him so endearing. He loves everyone he meets and everywhere he goes, and this ardour is very infectious. He himself is truly loveable! A highly recommended quick read, and I will definitely be reading about his other adventures!

Orcas, blogging, and a nasty bout of seasickness

Some people have expressed some curiosity about what I do, so I thought I would describe my last week and its ups and downs..

I'm not a blogger who posts everyday..sometimes I forget, sometimes I'm far too busy, sometimes I just don't have anything to say..but I do like to blog at least 2 times a week, and I like to read a lot of other blogs daily, scribbling down those all important book recommendations! But this past week has been a big challenge! As I've mentioned before, I work at sea, 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week (depending on the weather), so on a good day there's not a lot of "me" time. I don't usually get seasick, so even in the bad weather I'm using tippy tapping on my keyboard quite happily, but this job has been something else! I've spent the last week desperately trying to keep meals down. I say meals in the loosest term, as I'm on a very small ship (compared to the usual things I sail on!) with 5 crew plus my colleague and I, and as the crew are Danish/Estonian/Filipino, they don't really cater for vegetarians! So I started on a diet of lettuce and potatoes, which didn't last long in this weather, I've not been at my best! It doesn't help when my colleagues on the main vessel are radio-ing about the fabulous lunch and ten hours uninterrupted sleep they just had! Plus I've still had to do my 12 hour shifts after very little sleep, staring at two laptop screens, trying not to be sick, and pretending to be excited about listening for whales and dolphins. Hence the lack of posts!

It all started so well...our first day sailing from Bergen, watching the QE2 sail past (wow!), glorious sunshine...we approach out survey site, only to encounter 3 pods of orcas playing and breaching near the ship, over 1500 Atlantic white-sided dolphins swimming all around the ship (by which time we had the hydrophone in the water which is a lot of dolphin chatter!) and perhaps most excitingly (for a marine mammal nerd like myself !), Sowerby's beaked whales! What a treat! And that was it...ten days later, and we haven't heard or seen a thing. And the weather has been rubbish. And the tin can we are stuck on (see below!) doesn't have a stability tank, so you have no idea how much she rolls. I really don't know how those guys on Deadliest Catch do it!

Wow, after that woe is me post...yes, I did get to see orcas, white-sideys and Sowerby's, so I can't complain, and probably would have done it again..another species to cross off my list! And the weather is now glorious, we should finish the survey tomorrow and I can either go home, or transfer to the main vessel for the next job...either way, I still get t'internet! Fabulous. (I hear they have ice cream on the other ship!).

Cue gratuitous orca photo ;)

Fun Photo Meme

I saw this fun meme on Becky's Book Reviews. Love the randomness!

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into flickr search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush/hero?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (I don't have one, so I used one of my internet usernames.)

Booking Through Thursday

Clubbing

A combo of two suggestions by: Heidi and by litlove

Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (ot, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?

Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

Curious. This is actually something I have been thinking about recently. I have never been a member of a book club. It's not that I'm adverse to them by any means, I just genuinely, honestly do not have the time. I have a very strange job, which leads me away from home sometimes up to 10 weeks at a time, so it is impossible for me to be part of any regular group meetings or sports clubs. I love books, I love reading them, discussing them, sharing them, buying them...heck just sitting there and looking at them! But when I go away, I have only a finite number of books that I can carry, and often with the people I work with, noone to talk about them with. So, I was intrigued by my best friend's blog, and decided that this would probably be the best way for me to meet people who actually enjoy talking about books as much as I do, share recommendations and just generally drool over them! I must admit, I didn't expect to enjoy the blog world this much. In a way, the internet has become my substitute for a real world book life...how ironic.

Having said all that, if and when I get a normal job, I don't know if I will jump into the book club world. I have so many books on my own shelves and on my TBR list, that I would be quite content for several years! Having joined this site, that number has gone up drastically..thanks everyone! So in terms of finding things to read and having people to talk about books with, I don't "need" a book club. But I guess that isn't the point. My aunt is an avid book club goer (her quartely lists make christmas presents real easy I tell you!) and part of the draw for her is learning to read outside your safety zone. Having other people recommend things that you would never have picked up, if you found the book in the first place! Admittedly they do read bestsellers sometimes, and award winners, but often these are in genres my aunt would not normally touch, such as Maus by Art Spiegelman. In her group, members nominate a certain number of books per year, some of which end up in the final list, the rest pushed to next year, or discarded. I even persuaded her to nominate Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi as a slightly more unusual book idea. The idea of having some of my reading selected for me doesn't really appeal, but who is to say I wouldn't love the books chosen, that I wouldn't discover a passion for a new author, or a new genre? Another big draw is having so many people reading the book at the same time, you can really get a rounded interpretation of the book and its impact on the reader. And of course this all comes with tea and cake...

I guess you never know unless you give it a try!

Readathons, challenges and giveaways..

Its soon time for the big 24-hour readathon, hosted by Dewey on 28th June. See here for more details and to sign up. Although I would love to participate, I work 12 hours shifts 7 days a week, and have a very limited supply of books with me! Depending on our workload, I may be able to pop in as a cheerleader to support you hardy readers! I look forward to all your readathon updates.

Valentina is celebrating her 1st blog birthday by giving away any book she has reviewed to three lucky readers. All you need to do is post a comment on her page, and if you post about it, your name will get thrown in the draw twice! The deadline is Friday 13th June at midnight (GMT+1).

To encourage people not to dismiss graphic novels without giving them a try, Dewey is giving away a copy of We Are On Our Own by Miriam Katin, a graphic novel about Katin's childhood as a Jew in World War II Hungary. All you have to do is visit the Graphic Novels challenge blog and read and comment on at least two of the posts there, and write a post in your blog letting your readers know about the Graphic Novels challenge and telling them that they can join at this half-way point through the challenge and read only half the books required (i.e. three). Don't forget to write a comment on Dewey's giveaway page afterwards. I would join the challenge right now if I weren't on a ship West of the Shetlands with no graphic novels to hand! I'll have to wait another couple of months!

Booking Through Thursday

Trends

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

Interesting question, and not something that I had ever really thought about until now. My book tastes have grown in scope over the years rather than changed. I still love childrens' and young adults' books as well as fiction, but my reading has become a lot more literary and more diverse.

Over my teens I started reading more biographies and travel books, and in my twenties I got into Ancient History, poetry and short stories. I have always however, read anything to do with animals. As a child that was Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, then Willard Price, Joy Adamson and then more factual chunky hardback books about African wildlife, tropical rainforests and David Attenborough's wildlife books. I still devour such books now, but only at home as they aren't usually as easy to carry! At university I started reading Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, but I tend to avoid books that are too sciencey now as I read so many journals for my job. I have travelled a lot over the past 10 years, so a lot of my reading reflects that countries I have lived in and the cultures I have experienced (China, Pacific Islands, USA) as well as the ones I want to learn more about for the future.

Over the past year or so I have started getting into more adult fantasy, such as Karen Miller, Anne Bishop and Juliet Marillier, rather than the young adult fantasy I restricted myself to in the past. Childrens books and fantasy are like comfort food for me, they keep me happy and occupied for hours! However, the books that I have always avoided and can't see myself reading in the near future are "chick-lit" romance novels, science-fiction and business!

So yes, my reading has evolved, for want of a better word, but the same themes and topics of interest have remained. Perhaps my taste has just matured somewhat, like cheese. Mmm, cheese...