If Music Be

Archive for December, 2009

Read Books for 2009: Favourite reads marked in bold

Shakespeare ~ Bill Bryson
The Wastelands ~ Stephen King
Wizards and Glass ~ Stephen King
The Name of the Rose ~ Umberto Eco
Fragile Things ~ Neil Gaiman
Smoke and Mirrors ~ Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys ~ Neil Gamian
Remember Me? ~ Sophie Kinsella
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar ~ Roald Dahl
Switch Bitch ~ Roald Dahl
Playing for Pizza ~ john Grisham
The Appeal ~ John Grisham
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Lolita ~ Vladimir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men ~ John Steinbeck
Things Fall Apart ~ Chinua Achebe
Cirque Du Freak ~ Darren Shan
The Vampire’s Assistant ~ Darren Shan
Tunnels of Blood ~ Darren Shan
Vampire Mountain ~ Darren Shan
Trials of Death ~ Darren Shan
The Vampire Prince ~ Darren Shan
Hunters of the Dusk ~ Darren Shan
Allies of the Night ~ Darren Shan
Killers of the Dawn ~ Darren Shan
The Lake of Souls ~ Darren Shan
Lord of the Shadows ~ Darren Shan
Sons of Destiny ~ Darren Shan
The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy ~ Fiona Neill
The Accidental Wife ~ Rowan Coleman
Pastures Nouveaux ~ Wendy Holden
Gold Diggers ~ Tasmina Perry
Man and Wife ~ Tony Parsons
The Infidelity Chain ~ Tess Stimson
The Jane Austen Book Club ~ Karen Joy Fowler
An Absolute Scandal ~ Penny Vincenzi
Dime Store Magic ~ Kelley Armstrong
Industrial Magic ~ Kelley Armstrong
Living with the Dead ~ Kelley Armstrong
Haunted ~ Kelley Armstrong
Men of the Otherworld ~ Kelley Armstrong
The Awakening ~ Kelley Armstrong
Exit Strategy ~ Kelley Armstrong
Skin Trade ~ Laurell K Hamilton
If you could see me now ~ Cecelia Ahern
Pillowtalk ~ Freya North
A Russian Affair ~ Anton Chekhov
Bodily Secrets ~ William Trevor
Doomed Love ~ Virgil
Eros Unbound ~ Anaïs Nin
Forbidden Fruit ~ Peter Abelard
The Seducer’s Diary ~ Søren Kierkegaard
The Virgin and the Gipsy ~ D. H. Lawrence
The Women Who Got Away ~ John Updike
Bel Canto ~ Ann Patchett
Empire of the Sun ~ J. G. Ballard
Miss Garnet’s Angel ~ Salley Vickers
Skarlet ~ Thomas Emson
The Book Thief ~ Markus Zusak
Wedding Season ~ Katie Fforde
Queen of Babble ~ Meg Cabot
Queen of Babble in the Big City ~ Meg Cabot
Coraline ~ Neil Gamian
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The Magician’s Apprentice ~ Trudi Canavan

The Secret Garden ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Made to be Broken ~ Kelley Armstrong
When I Found You ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde
Wuthering Heights ~ Emily Bronte
Library of the Dead ~ Glenn Cooper
Frostbitten ~ Kelley Armstrong
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ~ Jane Austen and Seth Graham Smith
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters ~ Jane Austen and Ben H Winters
Dracula: The Undead ~ Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt
Sepulchre ~ Kate Mosse
The Hollow ~ Jessica Verday
Malice ~ Chris Wooding
Eternal ~ Cynthia Leitch Smith
The Crusades ~ Thomas Asbridge
Highland Fling ~ Katie Fforde
Flora’s Lot ~ Katie Fforde
Filthy Rich ~ Wendy Holden
Fallen ~ Lauren Kate
The Nearlyweds ~ Jane Costello
Destinations ~ Sheila O’Flanagan
Just a Family Affair ~ Veronica Henry

Total so far: 86

Re-Reads:

The Devil wears Prada ~ Lauren Weisberger
Chasing Harry Winston ~ Lauren Weisberger
Everyone Worth Knowing ~ Lauren Weisberger
Dracula ~ Bram Stoker
Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic ~ Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic Abroad ~ Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic Ties the Knot ~ Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic and Sister ~ Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic and Baby ~ Sophie Kinsella
Skin Trade ~ Laurell K Hamilton
Little Women ~ Louisa M Alcott
Anybody Out There ~ Marian Keyes
The Other Side of the Story ~ Marian Keyes
Sushi for Beginners ~ Marian Keyes
Last Chance Saloon ~ Marian Keyes
Ralph’s Party ~ Lisa Jewell
Vince and Joy ~ Lisa Jewel
One-hit Wonder ~ Lisa Jewell
A friend of the Family ~ Lisa Jewell
Angels ~ Marian Keyes
This Charming Man ~ Marian Keyes
Bread Alone ~ Judi Hendricks
Life Skills ~ Katie Fforde
Thyme Out ~ Katie Fforde
Stately Pursuits ~ Katie Fforde
The Rose Revived ~ Katie Fforde
Wedding Season ~ Katie Fforde

Total so far: 27

Open University Course Books:

Music, Words and Voice: A Reader
Words and Song
Song, Performance and Ritual
Musical Narratives
Mansfield, K Selected Stories
Chekov, A Five Plays
Du Maurier, D Rebecca
Beckett, S Waiting for Godot
Eliot, T S Prufrock and Other Observations
Dick, P K Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ginsberg, A Howl and other poems
Puig, Manuel Kiss of the Spider Woman
A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates
Woolf, V Orlando: a Biography
Gurnah, A Paradise
Brecht, B (tr John Willett) Life of Galileo
Barker, P The Ghost Road
Gibbon, Lewis Grassic Sunset Song
Skelton, R (ed) Poetry of the Thirties
Heaney, S New Selected Poems, 1966-1987

Total: 20

Grand Total: 133

I’ve updated my book list for 2010. So far it contains only the books i already own that i plan on reading in 2010 but it will be added to as soon as i get new books to list.

I will be trying to review all the new to me books i read this year.

Yesterday’s post focussed on online changes for this place and things i am planning to do for 2010 in that respect (incidentally i already have a book ready to give away on my review blog so stay tuned for that).

Today, i am going to focus on changes i plan to make to my physical life over the next 12 months. These are not resolutions because realistically, who sticks to those, but instead they are a list of things that i plan on doing/changing or making better in my life in the next year.

It’s been well documented here that i am financial meltdown at the moment and this will continue to be the case for the next few months. I do however, have a plan so here it is.

January 1st – March 1st. Spend nothing; buy nothing that is non-essential, travel nowhere that is non-essential. Pay minimum payments on everything possible.

March 1st – July 1st. Restructure some existing debt to free up some money to allow additional payment for sofa to be met with little problem. Single purchase in this time new mobile phone. Hoping for free upgrade so no expense incurred.

July 1st – October 1st. 1 Loan paid in full by this point so plough 90% of that money into paying off other debt. leads to; Spend nothing; buy nothing that is non-essential, travel nowhere that is non-essential.

October 1st – February 1st 2011. Sofa and OU final course paid for by this point so all additional money saved from that going into paying off other debt. By Feb 1st final large loan paid in full so that additional money can then be going into paying off other debt. If finances work correctly only 2 debts left to pay at this point, can be paid off in full in an additional 4 months.

by May 2011 if finances work correctly will have approximately £900 more per month than currently available (which is £0 a month).

It’s going to be tough but it is doable if i knuckle down and don’t spend money when i don’t have to. I will try and give a monthly (as that’s when i get paid) update on how the financials are doing and when i reach any kind of milestones.

Somewhat incongruously given what i have just posted above, i would also like to meet some new people in 2010. I am aware that my social circle is very small and because i have such a fear of getting out and meeting new people i find it difficult to change that. I am unable to spend any money to achieve this goal for new people but i know that i can get out and do it if i try. So i would like to extend an invitation to you, my lovely blogging friends, to look me up if you are in the area and we’ll do something fun and free and get to know our actual faces not just our blogging faces. It’ll be a giggle.

Also, and possibly most significantly, in 2010 i will graduate from the OU. I will get a third class honours (unless something miraculous happens in the meantime), which, while not being a great result, is plenty good enough for me considering i have been working full time while i have been studying as well as having changed jobs and as it is non work-related been given no time off to study or revise. I have loved the study and would recommend it to anyone who is looking fora brush up on skills right up to a degree qualification. Finally i will have a BA in Literature.

My reviews blog will give you all the info on how i did on my book list this year as well as what i am hoping to do for next year. Having said that, i already know i have beaten my reading target for this year so go me!

so that’s it. My plans for 2010 and a little bit beyond. Of course i’d like to meet a non-crazy man to have fun and frolics with, and i’d like my Mum to win the Lottery (i don’t play) so that i don’t have to worry about cash, and i’d like to be headhunted to a massively well paid job with great benefits that i enjoy but i thought i’d at least attempt to keep things realistic for now.

Much love, and a huge thank you for coming on the journey so far with me. Here’s to 2010

by Veronica Henry (available here)

Synopsis from Amazon: In the Gloucestershire village of Honeycote, country life is anything but quiet. Maybe it’s something to do with all that fresh air, but it’s the kind of place where passions run high… The Liddiard family are well known in Honeycote – and now there is to be a big wedding. But will everything go according to plan? Lucy Liddiard knows her husband is no saint, but isn’t prepared for his latest confession. Bride-to-be Mandy has no idea what joining the Liddiards really means. And local girl Mayday, wild child, rebel and free spirit, is thinking the unthinkable – with unimaginable consequences . . . JUST A FAMILY AFFAIR is a glorious, all-consuming story about finding out the truth, finding a husband, or perhaps just finding yourself.

Review: This is the second Honeycote book i have read by this author and it was really easy to slip back into the lives of these characters. What she has done well is to use the characters from the previous story but not make everything about them so that the new characters, around whom this story centres, have their own voices. It’s a very compelling read and it’s easy to see why Henry was so sought as a screen writer

Starring: David Tennant, Patrick Stewart, The RSC Cast

It’s the story of Hamlet done as a TV version of the multi award winning production by the RSC. Tennant is very Dr who in the title role, he’s fine until he ‘goes mad’ and then he’s all japering and capering and very Whovian for the rest of the play. Stewart, while good, is largely absent but the star of the show is Oliver Ford-Davies as Polonious. He’s old, doddery with a razor sharp mind and a great sense of his own place in the society.

The RSC supporting cast are, by and large, excellent; John Woodvine is criminally underused as the Player King and Ophelia is a little wet for my liking but overall very well played by all concerned.

The set is cleverly done, it still works as a theatre set but a lot of television extras have been added to make it work. The gold and black designs are very well contrasted.

Overall a well crafted production, somewhat let down by it’s ‘star performer’.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman

Synopsis from IMDB: Each winter, alone in the pitiless ice deserts of Antarctica, deep in the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, a truly remarkable journey takes place as it has done for millennia. Emperor penguins in their thousands abandon the deep blue security of their ocean home and clamber onto the frozen ice to begin their long journey into a region so bleak, so extreme, it supports no other wildlife at this time of year. In single file, the penguins march blinded by blizzards, buffeted by gale force winds. Guided by instinct, by the otherworldly radiance of the Southern Cross, they head unerringly for their traditional breeding ground where–after a ritual courtship of intricate dances and delicate manoeuvring, accompanied by a cacophony of ecstatic song–they will pair off into monogamous couples and mate.

Review: Harsh, very harsh. Ok so i knew that penguins don’t always survive but by god there was a lot of death in this. You do root for them all to survive, at the same time thinking that they are a bit daft for doing this complicated routine for so many hundreds of years but they’re lovely and make sweet courtship. It’s a really insightful film well told by Freeman