Book 32 of 2012: Inkdeath

I completed my read of the series of Inkworld books with Inkdeath, the third in the trilogy. This follows on from Inkspell and follows Meggie, Mo, Fenoglio and crew as they try to solve the troubles caused in the previous.

Resa is pregnant, difficult decisions must be made about whether they stay in this other world or go back, Elinor is pining for her family and longs to visit the Inkworld. Mo takes on the persona of the Bluejay and Dustfinger is brought back from the dead, Farid and Meggie have relationship issues and a new character is introduced.

I realise I'm skimming somewhat on the story, but I honestly can't remember that much of the details, it just wasn't that memorable a book. It was very much along the same lines of Inkspell which just seemed to go on and on without actually advancing the plot particularly. Considering the fact that it was only about three weeks ago when I read it (from the time when I actually wrote this review), I don't really remember that much of it.

I spent a good chunk of the story just feeling really annoyed with Fenoglio and Meggie for meddling so much. I think that was the main thing I took issue with, both with Inkdeath and Inkspell, the characters started interfering with something they should have left well enough alone. Unfortunately it made me kind of feel that way towards the books themselves; Inkheart was a wonderful, magical book, it was certainly open for sequels, but it didn't really need to be fiddled with, it was perfect without them.

Another aspect that I didn't like was the introduction of the shape-changing. If it had been mentioned in the past two books I might have felt a little happier about it being brought in, but because it suddenly appeared in this book, it just felt contrived. It was a very convenient way to get the characters where they needed to be, to keep them hidden, to keep other characters from realising who they were.

That said, I don't think I've mentioned one of my favourite things in the series before; the illustrations. Cornelia Funke did the illustrations in the book herself, which is pretty impressive. They are truly beautiful and fit in with the tone of the story perfectly. I think I was aware that she had done the chapter heading illustrations in The Thief Lord so I'm not sure why it surprised me that she had drawn these ones. I like it because you know you're seeing pictures which detail things in exactly the same way that the author herself pictured them.

This book began with a note explaining that Funke's husband had become seriously ill and died during the writing of Inkdeath which may have influenced it's darker tone. The darker tone might have worked well, but the characters annoyed me so much during this one that I don't think I paid it much attention. As much as I loved the whole series, the books themselves are wonderful, the chapter quotes are great and the idea is totally magical, I really don't think the sequels are as good as the original. Despite that, it's not put me off Funke as a writer, I've still picked up a copy of Dragon Rider which is happily housed on my bookshelf waiting for me to get around to reading it.

"Almost five months later a baby will be born at the lonely farm where the Black Prince once hid the Bluejay. It will be a boy, dark-haired like his father, but with his mother's and sister's eyes. He will think that every wood is full of fairies, that a glass man sleeps on every table - so long as there's some parchment on it - that books are written by hand, and the most famous illuminator paints with his left hand because his right hand is made of leather."Page 697

Reading Revolution

So, as I posted earlier in the week, I decided to treat myself to an eReader. I’d considered the various different ones on the market and eventually settled on the Kindle (in part because that was what several people at work had received for Christmas and so I’d seen more Kindles than any other eReader).

I was all set to go for the original one but Mr. Click pointed out that I wouldn’t be paying that much more for the Touch version and it would give me rather more space for reading material. And who was I to argue? I also treated myself to the mains adaptor for it and also to a cheap and cheerful protective book-style case.

I didn’t go for the extra postage fee for quick delivery because I’ve learnt in the past that this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to get to you any quicker. And I suspect I was right there, having ordered it on a Sunday night, the day before a Bank Holiday Monday, I was told it would get to me on the following Saturday. Instead it showed up on the Thursday.

I have to say that I was very impressed with the packaging. It’s all very environmentally friendly. I was a little confused by the massive Amazon style cardboard package it came in, like an oversized DVD packet. But inside was a neat little box which you tore open and there it was nestled inside. Even the polystyrene insert appears to have been recycled. The cable held together by a strip of cardboard, and a couple of little sheets about the set-up and warranty tucked neatly away too.

It came to life as soon as I took it out the box, recommending that I connect it to my computer via the USB. I fiddled with it and discovered the power button on the bottom; in true modern gadget style it doesn’t actually come with any instructions beyond telling you to attach it to the nearest PC with the appropriate cable. It started up wonderfully and immediately brought up the User Guide.

I skimmed through that and very quickly got a feel for it. Having had an iPhone in the past, it’s very easy to get an idea of how to work it. The button on the bottom is the ‘Home’ button, taking you back to main screen where all of your books are listed. To go back or forward you swipe your finger across the screen, alternatively to go back you tap the left edge of the screen. Clicking at the very top of the screen opens your options giving you a menu, search options as well as various other features depending on what it is you’re looking at. I also discovered, quite by accident, that you can adjust the font size by making a ‘pinching’ motion with your thumb and forefinger, just as you would zoom in and out on an iPhone/iPad.

Not having internet access at home, I wasn’t able to register it immediately. So I also couldn’t download any books as I didn’t have any eBooks saved onto my computer. I did however connect it to the computer and transfer my OU course books, assignment guide and EMA guide in PDF format onto it. It seemed far too easy, plug it in, let it install, click and drag the files into the folder on the Kindle. No special software required at all.

I was a little bit surprised at the lack of specific software, I’d been at least expecting something with the user guide actually on the computer rather than just on the device itself. But I suppose that they expect you to have access to the internet where presumably there is a whole lot more information. It’s something I can live with, it’s such a simple thing to use anyway, and the search function is great. When I wanted to check how to transfer PDF documents, I just opened up the guide, ran a search for ‘PDF’ and there it was.

I’ve not had much of a chance to explore it properly yet, but it certainly seems easy on the eyes. Having seriously strained my eyes reading A Christmas Carol on my DS screen, as well as giving myself headaches lying in the dark playing with an iPhone, already I feel like this is gentler for me. I’m looking forward to trying it out over a longer period of time to see how it compares, but I’m already thinking this’ll be so much better for me.

As of Saturday I started reading Dracula on it, which I got as a free download from Amazon; they have loads of ‘classics’ available for free download. I’ve found the dictionary function really invaluable, I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I go back to reading a paperback after this and I can’t just press on a word to bring up a dictionary definition, hehe. You can also highlight blocks of text (which is very useful for my book journal quotes, I just highlight any passages that catch my eye and then when I’m ready to copy them in, I just flick through all the highlighted bits and pick the one I like best).

It’s not backlit, which makes it very easy on my eyes. When I was reading with the lamp off, I just had to grab my little book torch and kept going. Having a backlight on it would definitely not help with my eyestrain.

There’s also an amusing little feature which you can turn on with certain books, you can have the book read to you with the ‘text-to-speech’ feature. Reading Dracula I deliberately picked a page with a man speaking in a North Yorkshire dialect, it did a surprisingly good job of it… even if it did sound rather like Stephen Hawking was reading to me!

Right now I’m planning on alternating between reading one book from whichever shelf I’m on and one book on my Kindle. So far I’ve not actually bought any books, all of the ones I’ve downloaded have been free (I have no idea how many I actually got in the end, but there were so many that I had to learn how to set up ‘Collections’ to stop my Home Page from getting too cluttered). Several of the books I’ve downloaded I actually already have in hard copy. Dracula takes the form of a lovely red book which has a slightly battered dustjacket from the last time I read it and which just isn’t practical to carry around; likewise Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which I’ve had for years as part of a Complete Collection of Lewis Carroll with beautiful illustrations but which I can’t fit in a bag to actually read it outside of the house.

I’m really enjoying using it and any doubts I had about it are being quickly dispelled, but I’m glad that I didn’t rush in to buying one and that I took my time to figure out exactly which one would suit me best.

Project 365+1: Days 127 - 133

Last Sunday the weather was lovely and sunny, nice and warm, almost like summer. Today, not so much. No chance of running around the garden with our pup in the hopes of snapping some good photos of Tara, but last week I got loads. It was really tricky choosing which one would be the actual picture of the day, but in the end I settled on this one:

Day 127: Enjoying The Sun

There was another which featured Madam laying on the grass with her eyes closed, sort of sun bathing but I liked her expression in this one more. One day I will write a post with nothing but photos which almost made the Project, so many of Tara would be perfect if she was in focus or hadn't blinked or done something daft which couldn't be captured properly on camera.

Day 128: Overflowing

On Sunday I decided to invest in an eReader, and this is the reason why. This is only a small portion of our collection, the rest are in boxes upstairs. The second shelf up from the bottom is Mr. Click's but since this photo was taken I've finished the Stranger Than Fiction set on the second shelf down and so things have been rearranged slightly; Mr. Click's now got a few inches on the shelf with my Lord of the Rings books.

Day 129: Waiting Patiently

Tara loves Mr. Click. She'll follow him around and gets quite frustrated when she can't go wherever he's gone. On a morning when he goes to get breakfast, she'll lie by the door (which has resulted in some juggling escapades when he can't open the door when his hands are full of bowls and mugs); when he goes to the bathroom, she'll lie outside waiting for him; and when he's cooking tea, she'll lie outside trying to sniff her way under the door. Mr. Click was not moving quick enough for her and she did not appreciate me taking her photo while we were waiting.

Day 130 - Almost Ready

After ordering my Kindle on Sunday, I had to patiently wait for it to actually arrive. Unfortunately its expected delivery date was the 12th of May, the Saturday I was supposed to be off the island for my tutorial. Just to taunt me the case and magentic light thingy that came with it arrived on Wednesday. Tempted as I was to jam a paperback in there and pretend it had already arrived, I controlled myself.

Day 131 - New Toy

Totally not expecting it to arrive until the Saturday when I was off the island, it arrived. I got a message to say that I had a package waiting for me at home. I was ever so slightly tempted to check and see if there were any holiday hours going that afternoon so I could go and play with it, but I controlled myself. Of course, not having internet access at home, there was relatively little I could actually do with it. I did transfer my OU books across onto it and started getting the hang of how to work it, then decided I had better hurry up and finish Seabiscuit so I could make use of my new toy.

Day 132 - Beginning Of The End

Got myself all organised the night before my tutorial and even printed out a copy of my EMA guide. It's quite scary to think that this it pretty much the end of my course, I've just got to get this last essay written and submitted and then that's it for the linguistics strand of the course. This summer I'll be preparing for studying literature and hopefully two years from now I'll be getting ready for my final exam/essay. That's a scary thought!

Day 133 - Everything's Better With Cake

We had E301 themed cake at my tutorial. One of the women, who was also on my last course, is completing her degree with this one so she made cake. It tasted great and looked good too. Having almost completed this course I could say an awful lot about the creative language use on this cake. I won't because it probably won't interest many people unless they are as geekily obsessed with language as I've become.

Unfortunately my last course for my degree will be a children's literature one, and I'm not entirely sure I could make an edible cake as well crafted as this. Might have a go though... maybe some literary-themed jam tarts...

Come To The Dark Side... We Have eBooks

I got some money for my birthday and so had to make a decision about what I was going to put it towards. At the time I was thinking that perhaps I was going to need to invest in a new mp3 player as my Zen was feeling a little bit under the weather, but once I'd got that up and running again I decided to put investing in new music media devices on hold until something came along that was a bit more suitable (or my Zen totally gives up).

The other options then; clothes or DVDs. I tend to get most of my clothes from charity shops and I tend to just pick up what I fancy as I go along. Generally whenever I go near a charity shop, I'll look out for something I can take away with me. On occasions I've been charity shopping with the intention of buying a bunch of clothes but aside from needing some new jeans and a summer jacket there's nothing I can't wait for.

And DVDs, well, we've been buying DVDs from charity shops just recently (spent a small fortune the other week when I had my hospital appointment, but got some good DVDs out of it). We tend to buy Disney blu-rays and other films as places have them on offer, but there's none at the moment that we really want or need. Though having said that, I have just forked out for series 10 of Spooks so we can finish watching the series and file them away in our cupboard ready to watch Tales of the Unexpected.

So that left books. The problem is, we've only got one bookcase at the moment (Mr. Click is only allowed one shelf because all of my books take up the rest of the space). I'd like to get another one but that would cause a problem with where our Christmas tree would go in December so we've held off until we can get something which would suit better.

In the spare bedroom I have four boxes of books. I had a massive clear out when we moved almost a year ago and only brought about two boxes with me in total, so since then I've acquired quite a few more. There's also a bunch of books which are waiting to be sold or passed on to someone who will love them more than me. I regularly reshuffle my bookcase to make space for the books in the boxes waiting to be read, and to move the books that have been read recently back upstairs.

So I made a spur of the moment decision and decided to go for a Kindle. Now, when I say it's a spur of the moment decision, I've actually been weighing up the pros and cons of getting an eReader since some time around last November. A bunch of people at work got them for Christmas and starting singing their praises, I played with them and told myself I really didn't need one.

I mean, there's nothing quite like a book. The smell of a well loved book, the feel of the paper in your hands, the satisfying thunk when you toss an annoying book across the room (only kidding!) Plus, you can't browse a secondhand bookshop or charity shop and come away with a bunch of bargains on eBook, can you?

Plus I have so many books still to read, there's a teensy little part of me that argues that I should really work through that backlog first, but it's neverending, there's always new books coming out. And I do have a course starting in September which will give me extra books to read (required reading which isn't about linguistics, I'm a little bit excited).

I'd been determined to make use of the library, because who needs an eReader when you can read books for free (or 75p order fee) from the local library. However, it was a little disheartening to go searching for books which are fairly popular only to find that my council area doesn't recognise them or their authors. So I went back to charity shops and secondhand shops, hoping to find copies of the books I was wanting to read.

But then I kind of checked out the books available through Project Gutenberg. I've been trying to read more classics, and I've got a lovely copy of Dracula on my shelf to read which weighs about half a tonne and doesn't actually fit into my work bag... and I spotted it there... plus I realised that I have quite a few books which I might want to pass on to someone else and rebuy in eBook format as and when they're available to save us a little bit of space.

Obviously, I won't be getting rid of all of my books. And it won't be the end of buying books. But it'll be so much more practical for work, for travelling, for taking up space on the bookshelf and bedside table.

Sadly all of the accessories I bought have been arriving this week, but I'm still waiting for my new toy. It should arrive today, but I'm off to Glasgow so won't get a chance to play with it right away. At least it's given me time to finish my proper book-book that I'm reading (Seabiscuit for those who are curious), so I can be all ready for getting on with Dracula once it's arrived.

Book 30 of 2012: Monday Mourning

Another series I’ve been getting through very swiftly has been Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan books. The most recent of these that I’ve read being the seventh, Monday Mourning. Despite not remembering so much of the last book I read, I remembered quite a lot of this one; mainly the finding of the women and the fire.

This book begins with three girls bodies being discovered in the basement of a pizza parlour. Claudel believes that they are an archaeological find but Tempe believes otherwise, a mysterious phone call makes her more certain. The investigation goes on to find a man who kidnaps and holds girls captive… except there’s slightly more to it than that.

This one had rather less of an element of suspense to it. As I said, I could remember more of it, especially the ending so I didn’t feel quite the urgency when I was reading it that I’ve had with previous books. It’s for this reason that I’m really looking forward to getting beyond the next book and on to the five or six that I’ve never read. It’s so good reading these books for the first time when you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.

I think that the way this one was done was clever, there was a good build-up and as usual there were the classic Reichs cliffhangers. It’s a little bit tiresome having Claudel and Tempe always sniping at each other, especially as the previous books often end with some sort of taciturn understanding being reached between them, only to have it dissolve by the next book. Claudel did seem to be friendly with Tempe by the end of this one, so we’ll have to see how that plays out in future books.

It did also follow the classic formula with three chapters from the end, Tempe winds up in hospital. I remember when I was first reading these books, by the time I got to this point, reading them one after the other, I was getting a bit fed up with this always happening to her. I can see that it is a nice and easy way to wrap up the case and tell the reader the outcome without Tempe having to recount it all. I’m curious to see if this trend will continue with the future books.

One of my favourite things about this series of books is the relationship between Tempe and Andrew Ryan. They’ve got this sort of not-quite-on, not-quite-off thing going on. In this one it’s definitely veering more towards the side of not-quite-on, Ryan spends most of the book being rather distant. I did kind of want to give Tempe a thump and tell her to just ask him outright but it all comes out in the end. I vaguely remember being a bit disappointed by them in the next book, though I don’t remember exactly why. Plus, there’s only so far they can really go with the back and forth stuff, sooner or later they’re either going to have to hook up properly or else move on. I realise these are crime books first and foremost, but Reichs does the slightly mushy romantic stuff pretty well, so I always look forward to it cropping up.

“Waking to the Tuesday morning weather report, I knew I was in for killer cold. Not the occasional mid-forties damp with whine about in January in North Carolina, I mean subzero cold. Artic cold. If-I-stop-moving-I’ll-die-and-be-eaten-by-wolves cold.”Page 13

Project 365+1: April

Is it just me or is this year just whizzing by? How can we be into May already?

Anyway, once again, made a little collage of all thirty of April's photos.

Project 365+1: April

As you can see, a certain black labrador is kind of dominating things this month. I'll have to get some photos of my girlie!rats in this coming month!

Project 365+1: Days 119 - 126

Another week, another batch of photos which I've just this minute finished editing ready to post up here... so, without further ado.

Day 119: Party Time

On my birthday we completely forgot to crack out the cake, so we had it for breakfast the next day instead. Figuring that it had made a good breakfast on Saturday, we had it for breakfast again the next day... and the next. I never blew out any candles though, so we've got them stuffed in a drawer ready for the next time we're having a party and need cake.

Day 120: Feeling Zen

Earlier in the week, I plugged myself into my Zen ready to take the dog for a walk, when I noticed something a little odd; rather than showing the track title, album and artist it just said something about selecting music from the music library. Despite the illusion that there was no music on the player, it carried on playing just fine. However, when I plugged it into my computer it couldn't find those tracks in the folder, even though it told me that there were more folders than it was actually showing.

Sunday then became the day of figuring out how to make it work properly (all the while pricing up new mp3 players which weren't produced by Apple). About seven hours later, I had it fixed which is just as well because Creative have dropped out of the market of 30Gb+ size mp3 players and I'm not sure I could live with iTunes on my laptop again.

Day 121: Birthday Wishes

When I got to work on Monday there was a little envelope wedged into my keyboard; a card signed by the rest of my team. One of the women in our team always organises a card and a cake for birthdays. Unfortunately mine was organised for my birthday... which I'd taken off... so the cake was rescheduled for the following week. It was lovely.

Day 122 - Not Quite Six

This was taken as proof for a friend that I did in fact take the dog out for a walk at 5:30 in the morning. I meant to take the photo before we left, but as Tara was getting a little bit desperate I had to settle for leaving it until I got back. But, yup, I do get up insanely early and tire Tara out so that we can eat breakfast in peace. Of course, I needed to be up early anyway for work, this weekend when she started bugging me and I told her to go back to bed, she did, so she's learning.

Day 123 - All Fenced In

We have a garden fence again, and the gate is has something to close against too. It blew away in the bad weather and we've been hoping to get something put up for Tara soon and so it was a pleasant surprise when we came home and found an unexpected fence there. The old one was like the gate, but this one is wire so hopefully won't be as likely to blow away as the last one. It also makes it incredibly difficult to photograph, but presumably I won't be taking too many fence photos in the future so it doesn't really matter.

Day 124 - Linked

Mr. Click picked up a little treat for me in Oxfam. A Links of London necklace (I wouldn't know anything about them if it wasn't a friend who's very up on her jewellery). It's lovely and it matches the top I picked up in Dunoon a few weeks back. It's also reminded me that I really need to get my jewellery all sorted so that I can actually wear it occasionally, especially as I didn't in fact strangle myself with it and my pass at work as I'd predicted.

Day 125 - Shadows

Having been settled on the bed studying for a fair chunk of the evening while Mr. Click took Tara out for her before-bed walk, I noticed that the sun was making pretty pictures on the wall through the window. So the OU was abandoned while I dashed off to grab my camera to try and figure out the best way to catch it.

Day 126: Are We Done Yet?

Yesterday I was determined to get a good photo of Tara, unfortunately I left it a bit late in the day and so was having to use the camera flash (which can make her eyes go funny). I took dozens and dozens of photos, lots of which were blurred or out of focus or didn't actually have a dog in them because she moved just as I pressed the button. Tara found the whole ordeal a little boring, which ironically was the last picture of the set and my favourite!