One of my new year’s resolutions was to read an average of 2 books a week, and see an average of 1 new film a week. I’ve managed the books this month, but I haven’t seen any new films. I caught up on about 20 hours of Scandinavian detective shows and watched a lot of tv documentaries though, so it’s not like I didn’t see anything. I just have to see one more film each of the rest of the months this year.
Category: Books
Books of 2012
I started using Goodreads this year to keep track of my reading. Here’s my list of books. It looks like a lot, but over a year it’s only just over 1 a week, which isn’t that good going, seeing as I’m a fast reader (more visual than auditory).
Death and the Penguin
I set myself a project recently of doing mock book covers. First up is Death and the Penguin, by Andrey Kurkov. I did both English and Russian versions of the cover. I’m not sure how successful it is, though. The map I used in the collage is of Kiev.
Golden Hands Monthly
got this stack of 70s craft magazines in a junk shop in Devizes a few years ago. That place was amazing, a multi-floored cavern of junk. It’s gone now, I think. Here’s some photos.There’s the usual ultra-cheesy raffia work projects and crocheted plant holders and so on, but the clothes patterns are actually mostly pretty nice, which is why I bought the magazines. What I’ve scanned is a mix of nice things and weird stuff though. I also couldn’t scan double page spreads very easily, because the binding on the magazines is dodgy, and I didn’t want to pull them about too much in case they broke. These issues are from 1972 and 1973. I have another issue from 1976, but it’s printed on much cheaper paper (the paper quality wasn’t sterling to begin with) and the contents are pretty dull.
Visual Diary
As part of my MA, we were required to keep a creative diary keeping track of the professional practice lectures, research, reading, exhibition visits and general inspiration. I finally got around to scanning some of the one from my second year. In the first year I used blog posts for the same purpose, but I felt the need later on for a physical record.
Costumes for Plays and Playing
When I was a kid I used to borrow this book again and again from the local library. The first thing I ever sewed myself was from it. A friend of mine at junior school’s older sister was in a school play of Toad of Toad Hall, and we went to watch. When you’re 7, 13 year olds seem incredibly impressive. What impressed me even more were the weasel costumes. I wanted one for myself. Armed with an offcut of brown fabric and a toy sewing machine I’d got at a bootfair, I made a hood with ears like the ones in the book. It was wonky, and I was a bit ashamed of it though, and wished I knew how to sew straight (looking back, I’m not sure the toy sewing machine was actually capable of a straight seam). My opinion of my sewing projects has improved slightly since.
70s craft books ahoy
I like buying 70s craft books from charity shops. I’m not sure what it is about them, but maybe it’s the colours and the quite often bizarre project suggestions. Here’s 2 of them scanned in.
Puffin book scans
Here’s some Puffin books I scanned so I could stick the pictures in my art college diary.
Nature All Around
These are some pictures I scanned from a 1970s kids book at my dad’s house called Nature All Around. My uncle used to work for a non-fiction publisher and we always seemed to have strange free books from his work around the place. It has drawings and photographs of things children can spot around the average british garden/field/beach and information about the lives of the various creatures.
Exploring the World of Robots
I’ve had this book since forever. It was part of a set of educational books that were a hand me down from my cousin. The others in the set were pretty standard, on topics like animal migration or cars, but this one is a bit odd. The others in the set have long gone to the charity shop or another relative, but I’ll always keep this book.
Being Editors #1- Diana Wynne Jones
So I’ve got the first issue of my children’s literature zine done. The first issue is devoted to Diana Wynne Jones. There was a lot more I wanted to say on the topic, but it just kept growing and growing, so I cut it short at 60 pages, and I’ll probably do another DWJ zine in the winter. (The next issue of this zine is about Oliver Postgate). Thank you to the contributors.
All the cheesecloth & macrame you can eat
I got this 70stastic book for £1 from a charity shop, mainly because of the pictures. The textual parts are worthy and Blue Peter-ish, with lots of making things out of tea chests and copydex (why doesn’t tea tend to come in chests these days?), guides to home tie-dying, and sentences like “and kitchen foil gives a touch of glamour”.
As though of hemlock I had drunk
3 colour risograph print based on “Fire & Hemlock” by Diana Wynne Jones (one of my all-time favourite books)
Like the librarian said … everyone respects the dead
Yesterday I got the dvd of Kids for £2, and I watched it with Vicky & Tukru. V had somehow never seen it, and the last time T had seen it was about 10 years ago when her down-with-the-kids history teacher had played it at school (yeah, Finland …). When I was about 15 or so it was my all-time favourite film along with Heavenly Creatures. I don’t know what that says about me. If I’d seen the film now as a 26 year old, it wouldn’t amaze me (maybe creep me out instead). I think what made the impact on me at the time was that in the age before cheap DVDs and easy downloading, it was the first really raw film I’d seen, and I was obviously longing for rawness at the time. Glossy Hollywood high school films had absolutely no relevance to my life
Not as sad as Dostoyevsky, not as clever as Mark Twain
10. Alias Grace- Margaret Atwood
11. Notes from Underground- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12. Seeing Things- Oliver Postgate
13. Letters from a Lost Uncle- Mervyn Peake
14. Queuing for Beginners- Joe Moran
Livre, buch, kitab
8. The Atom Station- Halldór Laxness trans. Magnus Magnusson
9. Sweets: the History of Temptation- Tim Richardson
There’s More To Life Than Books You Know
6. Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did it Go?- Michael Bywater
7. Exercises in Style- Raymond Queneau trans. Barbara
More books
4. 99 Ways to Tell a Story- Matt Madden
5. Fragile Things- Neil Gaiman
An exciting life lived in the world of books
I got this idea from Lee. Keep a running list of the books you read in one year, with a brief (or in depth depending on your whims) comment on each. I’m hardly a literary critic, so don’t go expecting devastating incisiveness.
You couldn’t peel me away from a book when I was younger. I still read plenty, but I do squeeze a few other things into my life here and there.
I reregisted with the local library, now I’m back in Kent til whenever. When I asked how many books you were allowed to take out, they told me “30, and please make full use of it, we need the borrowings”. So I did, although I could only physically carry 16 home, because too many of the books I wanted were hardbacks. I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and not much money, and I’m feeling a little anti-social/misanthropic of late, so the library is my friend.
You couldn’t peel me away from a book when I was younger. I still read plenty, but I do squeeze a few other things into my life here and there.
I reregisted with the local library, now I’m back in Kent til whenever. When I asked how many books you were allowed to take out, they told me “30, and please make full use of it, we need the borrowings”. So I did, although I could only physically carry 16 home, because too many of the books I wanted were hardbacks. I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and not much money, and I’m feeling a little anti-social/misanthropic of late, so the library is my friend.
Toy Theatres
Here are some pictures I scanned from a library book about toy theatres.
Fiction chromatically
Tidying up books. After moving house multiple times and getting rid of a lot, I’ve got a weird selection left. Also photostitch likes the break the laws of physics.
Books
Since becoming unemployed I’ve applied for a lot of jobs, wrangled with the job centre, read quite a lot of library books, done some drawings (more of that later), tried and failed to do a sour dough bread starter and started freaking out about applying for a masters.
Here’s some of the books I’ve been reading or re-reading. Brief descriptions only, because I’m not particularly in the mood for writing.
Book Nook
I’ve got a book nook on the landing up to my room. I organised all the books by colour. The penguins classics etc are on the other bookshelf because they have boring black/silver spines. A pity, because my favourites are mostly amongst those. I got the poncho/blanket thing at the last Sue Ryder sale I went to. I think it’s pretty much what you’d get if you asked someone’s nan to knit you an Irish superhero outfit.
Lady into fox
I’m off work with a stomach bug today, I’ve been under the weather all this week. This morning I read Lady into Fox by David Garnett. He’s one of the Bloomsbury set who isn’t really famous (apart from the indignity of having a less popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on one of his books). The book was brilliant, about a bourgeois 1880s country couple and their life after the wife suddenly turns into a fox.
Right now I’m doing lots of laundry, writing about Roman emperors, and working out what bland food I can have for lunch.
Book Cover Archive
This website is ace. It’s just loads of scanned book covers, but really beautifully designed ones.