Books

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No Learning for You

Tomorrow I am supposed to hand in my last workbook, thus gaining a certificate in He Papa Tikanga (Maori culture). William has other ideas.

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Scary Stories for Tiny Tots

My sister is having a baby so Pigalina and Mummy Pigalina are in buy-cute-things mode.
I have got the baby the complete Peter Rabbit collection. Then I was thinking about it and some of the stories are quite scary – Peter Rabbit is chased, naked, by a farmer who is trying to kill him; Jemima Puddle Duck’s eggs (babies) are eaten by a fox.
At least it isn’t complete Grimm’s Fairytales…

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365 day photo challenge November 29

A friend phoned me from another part of the office to see if I could answer a couple of his Hobbit questions. Wonder why he thought I would know anything about it…

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365 day photo challenge May 25

As a person who, as a child, dreamed of having her own library room at home I look forward to the 24 hour book sale every year. However my loyalty is waning – they have started to get greedy. Gone are the days when all of the books were 50 cents and I would spend a couple of hours selecting 40 books for my self-imposed $20 limit. A couple of years ago they increased the price to $1 per book. All of the books are donated to them and the sale is staffed by volunteers.

There has always been a few books that cost more in a special section but imagine my rage when I went today and practically any decent book was in the specially priced section. I bought one for $6 today and my total haul was a measly 9 books. Greedy, greedy Regent theatre! Good luck shifting the Pam Ayres collection I see there year after year.

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True Twilight

Vampires eh? Quite popular at the moment aren’t they? I will freely admit that I read, and loved, The Twilight Series. Yes, I even own them all. I have just read the first True Blood book and I have one big fat question – Who copied whom?

***********SPOLIERS AHEAD!!***********

Twilight True Blood
Hot vampire boyfriend Hot vampire boyfriend
Main character who is “different” Main character who is “different”
Friend that is in love with her and is a werewolf Friend that is in love with her and is a shapeshifter
Main girl’s mind cannot be read by vampires Main girl can read minds – but not those of vampires
Head vampire wants use of main girl’s power Head vampire wants use of main girl’s power

I don’t know about you but if I had never read either of the above two books/series and I sat down to write a vampire novel I would probably not come up with mind-reading and shapeshifting friends with unrequited love for my main character.  I know they are aimed at different demographics but there has been some copying going on and I am suprised I have not heard more of an uproar about it. I enjoyed True Blood but found myself going “hang on a minute” quite a lot. From what I could gather in my very brief look online it True Blood came first. Someone’s got some splaining to do.

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The Pigalina’s Progress

Having achieved one goal in my life – moving from South Dunedin I am now embarking on fulfilling another – having my own library! Being a nerd child (who me?) I used to play libraries with a springy coat-hanger acting as the stamp. I think I played it by myself… (Someone at work used to play it way more professionally though with tickets and actual lending. Maybe I’m not that geeky after all).
So, here I am procrastinating in a tiny space on the floor in the room that has been designated “The Library”. I unpacked all of the books about two weeks ago and shoved them willy-nilly onto the shelves. I soon discovered that I had outgrown the three bookcases that we had. Today we bought a new bookcase which will house all of the childrens book that I have hoarded since my childhood and others that I have aquired along the way. They will go into another room for when children come to stay. (They never have yet but it sounds good doesn’t it?)
I placed my “Complete Works” books onto the top shelf of one book case, then my boxed set of Lord of The Rings books with my Aragon and Bilbo figurines (I already said I was a nerd). Then I paused. There is a big gap in the middle but what should go there? I also have the complete set of the Harry Potter Books, The Twilight Series and the Adrian Mole books but all of then don’t fit and my Adrian Mole books are unfortunately all different shapes and sizes. Plus, if I dared to put Twilight in a hallowed top shelf spot next to Lord of the Rings I know some people (who haven’t even read it) would be very scathing in their criticism.
So here I sit, wasting time to avoid the rest of my job. I still have to decide how to arrange the rest, Fiction and Non-Fiction obviously but then we must worry about height, hard back or paper back, biography, manual…

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Doubleday Suck

I joined Doubleday Book club ages ago because you could pick 4 books for $1 each and then you never had to buy anything again.  For some reason I decided to cancel my membership but rejoined last year when they sent me a pack saying that if I rejoined I could get more books for very cheap.  (I have the complete works of Shakespeare and it was $1!).
 
Too good to be true?  Turns out yes. It so happens that I didn’t read the terms and conditions properly.  They say: “You don’t have to buy a book from each magazine and you never have to buy a book you don’t want. So if you don’t want the Editor’s Choice, just say so on the order form.”  This is where I must have stopped reading.  It goes on to say “All we ask is that you buy 6 books in your first year of membership”.  DAMN DAMN DAMN. 
I do not however, recall buying 6 books the first time I was a member. 
 
I got a letter today saying they are about to charge me $190.70 if I don’t buy 5 books out of a rubbish selection of books each priced at $20.  So, $100 wasted on rubbish books or almost $200 for nothing.  Looks like I am taking the books.  I will also be cancelling my membership.  Scare tactics!  They are a book club and are going to be coming round knee-capping if I am not careful.
 
The thing is, I may have been more inclined to buy more than the 1 book that I bought all year if they hadn’t given me the choice of the History and Military Book club or the Fantasy and Romance club.  Hardly exciting categories.  If they had sent me the “General” selection I would have had more to choose from therefore been more likely to buy.
I am now faced with the task of selecting 5 books out of a yawn-inducing range.  Anyone for Titania’s Star Tarot?  Thought not.