Category: For Fun

Top Ten Tuesday – Non-Bookish Hobbies

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s Top Ten Tuesday post!

Today’s topic is actually a little premature as it’s earmarked for Tuesday 3rd November. Unfortunately, I have a blog tour that day but I really wanted to share the post anyway. It’s especially relevant at the moment as I am finding myself turning more to non-bookish hobbies.  I also think this post is a fun way for you to get to know a little more about me!

So, here are my top ten non-bookish hobbies, and for fun, I’m posting them in reverse order: –

 

Logic Puzzles

From classic puzzle books, Sudoku, codebreakers and hanjie are puzzles I really enjoy trying to decode. Classic games like Minesweeper are fun too. I think it’s fair to say that I don’t have a particular bias towards numbers, words or pictures when it comes to employing logic to solve a puzzle – I just enjoy the challenge of using the clues I’m given to complete a puzzle.

I haven’t done a logic grid puzzle in a long time, but those are good too! Half the battle with those is reading the word clues very carefully to make sure you got all the information out of them.

 

Watch documentaries

I don’t watch much TV, but lately, I’ve taken to watching documentaries. I’ve watched nearly3 series’ of Blowing Up History over the past couple of months, as well as David Attenborough’s The Galapagos Islands docu-series. I’m sure I watched these years ago, but I enjoyed it again! I also enjoy TV mystery/thrillers and dramas, but I haven’t watched so many of those lately.

 

Watching YouTube

From instructional videos to watching people play games like Minecraft, I enjoy watching a video or two on YouTube… especially when I’m eating.

 

Play Minecraft

Playing Minecraft is something I also enjoy, although I haven’t logged on for a little while now. The last time I went to play I discovered my wireless mouse was broken. That was the end of August. I tend to play Minecraft for a bit and then stop, but then get back into it again. I haven’t played all that much since the Nether update went live, so maybe that’s my excuse to get back into it again! The next update has just been announced and sounds great, so I’ll definitely be getting back into it again when that’s released!

 

Listening to music

I almost forgot to add this to my list even though it’s something I do every day. That’s precisely the reason I overlooked it – it’s an ingrained habit. I love music across a variety of genres. From some of the more modern music to singer/songwriter, musical tracks and even soundtracks (I’m sure you’ll be REALLY surprised to know I have all the Game of Thrones soundtracks downloaded… NOT!) I really enjoy a variety of music. It depends on my mood as to what I listen to.

 

Writing

It’s hard to think of writing and blogging as separate to reading given that the two have gone so hand-in-hand for such a long time. But, they are technically different hobbies. I like taking the time to share my thoughts on something, whether it’s a book, an idea – you name it… I’ll have an opinion on it! Taking the time to write several times a week over the course of a few years stacks up and consequently, I find it a lot easier to write now than I did when I started blogging in 2017.

 

Knitting

Knitting is a new hobby I’ve taken up in the last month or two and I’m enjoying the challenge of it. I learned the very basics of knitting as a child, so I’m not completely new to it. I think my knowledge of it only went so far as learning the garter stitch and figuring out (the hard way) how not to add or drop stitches. That first ‘scarf’ I made, was awful. I can still picture that first section I did in brown, full of holes and scruffy as anything. In hindsight, the colour choice was a premonition for how it was going to turn out…

I still make plenty of mistakes now, but I’m also taking on more stitches and more complicated patterns… so that’s my excuse.

 

Crochet

I’ve been crocheting longer than knitting; however, I love the two just as much!! Ironically, crochet is the more complicated of the two crafts (in my opinion) as there are more stitch types and combinations etc but I found that easier to learn than knitting.

A little weird fact for you – I learned how to do these crafts at different times and in different ways, so I knit right-handed but crochet left-handed.

 

Learn new things

I guess you have probably figured out from some of the entries here that a lot of my ‘motivation’ behind them is learning new things. More than anything, I love to learn – whether it is picking up a new skill or just finding out something I didn’t know yesterday. I enjoyed going to school (for the most part) and so I try to make everyday a school day!

 

Spend time with friends/family

Above all these things, my friends and family mean the most to me and so spending time with them is the thing I look forward to most. I am very lucky to be close to my family and we see each other a lot! I also have a close-knit circle of friends that are great fun to spend time with. You see a lot of jokes about readers and avoiding socialising in favour of staying home and reading. I’m really not like that at all. I do enjoy socialising and I’m grateful for the wonderful people I have in my life. I’d give up every hobby in this list for them if I had to, so of course they take the top spot on this list!

 

What are your hobbies? Let’s chat and get to know each other!

 

 

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First Lines Friday – 09/10/2020

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Happy Friday everyone and thank you for joining me in today’s First Lines Friday post! On Sunday I promised a spectacular feature in today’s post and I hope you won’t be disappointed. I for one think this could be one of the best books on my TBR right now.

This book is affiliated with a main, well-known series that I talk about a lot here on Reviewsfeed. If I had to choose one book series to read for the rest of my life, this would be it! So, am I biased about how good this week’s book is? Yes. Do I care? Not one bit! My blog and my rules, right?!

So, without further adieu, here is this week’s extract: –

 

The maesters of the citadel who keep the histories of Westeros have used Aegon’s Conquest as their touchstone for the past three hundred years. Births, deaths, battles, and other events are dated either AC (After the Conquest) or BC (Before the Conquest).

True scholars know that such dating is far from precise. Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of the Seven Kingdoms did not take place in a single day. More than two years passed between Aegon’s landing and his Oldtown coronation… and even then the conquest remained incomplete, since Dorne remained unsubdued. Sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm continued all through King Aegon’s reign and well into the reigns of his sons, making it impossible to fix a precise end date for the Wars of Conquest.

 

 

If you know me or recognise those names you probably have a good idea as to what today’s book is!

 

Fire and Blood – George R. R. Martin

Goodreads – Fire & Blood

With all the fire and fury fans have come to expect from internationally bestselling author George R. R. Martin, this is the first volume of the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens in Westeros.

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire and Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why did it become so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What is the origin of Daenerys’s three dragon eggs? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty all-new black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

With all the scope and grandeur of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Fire and Blood is the ultimate game of thrones, giving readers a whole new appreciation for the dynamic, often bloody, and always fascinating history of Westeros.

 

I love everything A Game of Thrones (aka A Song of Ice and Fire) and if you are a regular reader, you may know that I completed my re-read of the published books in the series earlier this year. Now with the TV series over too I need to get my fix of fire and blood somewhere!

I am a huge fan of novels and series’ with detailed backstories to the current narrative. The main series itself is rich in detail to the events that lead up to the wars/struggles we read in those books. I always thought the history of the world was so detailed that it could be a story in its own right… and now it is!

This book has over 600 pages of the history of Westeros to dive into, and judging by the synopsis Fire and Blood goes into more detail about events that are only ‘comparatively’ touched on in the series, such as the Doom of Valyria. I can’t wait to read this – I hope it’s every bit as good as the rest of the books. I don’t have any real reason to doubt why it wouldn’t be!

 

What did you think of today’s First Lines Friday post? As always, I would love to hear from you!

 

 

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Shelf Control #24 – 25/09/2020

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Happy Friday everyone! Welcome to my first Shelf Control post in a little while. It’s actually my first post of this type in over a month! Since I have been taking part in blog tours this regular feature post was temporarily put on hold – but we’re back!

In case you haven’t read one of these posts before, Shelf Control is a meme run by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies. It’s a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up!

For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out Lisa’s introductory post.

Today’s featured book is part of a genre that I don’t read all that often. I really should make more of an effort to read it because I really enjoy it when I do! I like the sound of this book in particular as I think it includes a lot of humour.

Shall we check out today’s featured book?

 

You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself – David McRaney

You are not so smart

Goodreads – You Are Not So Smart

An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise.

Whether you’re deciding which smart phone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic, but here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us–but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human.

Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them, but often these stories aren’t true. Each short chapter–covering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency–is like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out.

Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.

 

My Thoughts…

Psychology is the main non-fiction topic that I’ll read, but picking up a non-fiction book in itself is rare for me. More often than not I read to escape reality, and so I find myself reading more fiction. I do want to make more of an effort to read different things though and I think You Are Not So Smart will be a perfect read for me. I like the psychology element, but also the humour and wit implied in the synopsis.

Have you read You Are Not So Smart? Is it as good as it sounds? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday – Fantasy Novel Covers

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Hello everyone and welcome to today’s fun Top Ten Tuesday post. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. Whilst I don’t take part every week, I do enjoy some of the topics that are chosen to feature and this week is one of those. It is one of the broader topics I have seen for a while as the topic centres around book covers. Which ones are entirely at my discretion!

In today’s post, I have decided to feature my top ten fantasy novel covers. Whether it’s just the aesthetic or artistic appeal of a cover or the clues they give as to the plot, characters or tone of the novel, I love each and every one of the covers listed below for a variety of reasons. I have read the vast majority of these books, with just one exception. There are also a couple of entries where I share a series because I couldn’t narrow it down to just one book! They all have a similar style, so I think it’s only fair to share them all.

Shall we find out my top ten fantasy book covers?

 

Mistborn Trilogy – Brandon Sanderson

 

 

Caraval – Stephanie Garber

Caraval

 

The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson

 

The Black Prism – Brent Weeks

 

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

 

Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor

 

King of Thorns – Mark Lawrence

 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor

 

Circe – Madeline Miller

 

The Relic Guild trilogy – Edward Cox

 

So, here are my top ten book covers! Do you agree with any of my selections? What is your favourite fantasy novel cover? It can be featured here in today’s Top Ten Tuesday post, or any other cover you like! As always, I would love to hear from you!

 

 

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Book Subscription Boxes – Yay or Nay?

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Book Subscription Boxes have really taken off in recent years. If you are stuck for finding a new read, need a push to pick up something different or are just curious, book subscription boxes are a good way to expand your reading horizons.

Just to give an idea of how many subscription services there are, and the themes/genres they cater to, here is a list published by the Independent that may be of interest. I couldn’t possibly list them all here, but to summarise – if there is a niche, it’s probably catered for.

I’ve toyed with the idea of one before; I’ve even done a decent amount of research to find one that’s a good fit for me. I always find myself talking myself out of it, however, and for the same reasons. I’m not saying that books subscription boxes aren’t great – others really enjoy them. If you do, I’d love to hear why! But here are my reasons and reservations over signing up to one personally: –

 

Books

I don’t like the idea of not having a choice over the books I would get. There is nothing worse for me than not liking a book, especially when I’ve paid for it. I say that at the risk of sounding tight-fisted, but that’s not the case at all. I spend more than enough on books. In fact, I buy a lot of the books I read and feature on my blog in one format or another. But if I spend my hard-earned money on a book and then I don’t enjoy it, or can’t read it, I feel cheated. Even I get it wrong. There are books I have ‘vetted’ and bought expecting to love them but didn’t. It’s disappointing, but it happens. I did the best thing I could with them and donated them to charity.

With a book subscription box, I’m one further step removed from the book or books I’ll receive. I’m pretty open-minded about what I’ll pick up, but that doesn’t mean I’ll read and love everything I get. I’m of the opinion that with a subscription box, I’m at more risk of getting something I wouldn’t want than if I just went to my local bookstore and chose something for myself. For the same reason, I don’t get on with book clubs. Ultimately, I don’t want to invest (financially or my time) into something I don’t want to read. There’s plenty more out there I will want to read. It’s as simple as that.

Yes, subscription boxes are more likely to encourage you to broaden your horizons. I don’t dispute that. If you love that then a subscription might work for you. Personally, if I want to try something new or that I’m unsure of, I’m more likely to try and borrow it from my library instead. That way if I don’t like it, I haven’t lost anything.

 

Book Related Merchandise

I have watched a good few ‘unboxing’ videos on YouTube and some of the subscription boxes are really cute with their themed book and extra goodies. From bookmarks to badges and beverage samples, they have an array of complementary items perfect for book lovers.

My personal bugbear is that after a year of subscriptions I’d be fast on my way to clogging up the house with, for want of a word, crap. Yes, themed bookmarks and little candles are cute, but can I possibly use them all? No. I don’t even have particularly like-minded friends I could pass them onto. Some come with some beautiful stationery, which I admit I would like. Let’s be honest though – I’m a stationery fiend and I don’t need any help hoarding more!

 

Pricing

Can I talk about the elephant in the room and say that some subscription box services are really expensive?! Not all of them are – I feel the need to jump in with that in case there are those interested that haven’t really done the research into it to know the market. But still, how some of them justify the price, I’m not sure.

The prices of the subscription range featured in the Independent’s article range from 9.99 to 34.99 per month. I find the top end of that to be quite pricey. I have found other boxes advertised for as much as £49 online. Fair enough, quite often they feature new or exclusive stuff. I suppose what it boils down to is whether you are willing to pay for that. That’s an entirely personal choice, but for me, it’s a no. I’d rather spend my money on another book instead.

 

Have you received a book subscription box before? What do you think of them? I’d love to hear your experiences or thoughts about them!

 

 

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First Lines Friday – 21/08/2020

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Happy Friday everyone! It’s the end of the working week again and so it’s time for another First Lines Friday post! I hope you have all had a good one and are looking forward to the weekend?

In last week’s Sunday Summary post I committed to another theme for today’s book selection. This week’s choice is a little easier as the genre I picked (crime) is one I read a reasonable amount of. Today’s featured book is one I read and was blown away by recently. Can you pick up on the hint in the intro as to which book it is?

 

Greg Adams stared at the crime scene photos of the four dead girls. He recalled the words of his mentor during his first criminology one-on-one.

‘The dead don’t lie.’

‘The trouble is, they don’t speak either,’ Greg had replied.

Now, fifteen years later, the taut faces of four teenage girls, eyes wide with shock, stared back at him. If they could speak, he knew exactly what they would say.

Find him.

Soon there would be another photo on the wall of New Scotland Yard’s Evidence Room 3A. Officers of all ranks were out searching for the next victim but, like Greg, they had no idea where the next kill would happen. For the hundredth time scanned the photos, the map of London and it’s outer suburbs stabbed with four red-topped pins, the scrawled ideas in his notepad, the fragmentary remarks on his laptop, the cryptic clues left after each killing.

He had nothing.

Neither did the dozen others working the case. But unless he came up with something in the next hour, another girl would die.

 

 

Which book am I featuring today?

 

The Dead Tell Lies – J. F. Kirwan

Goodreads – The Dead Tell Lies

Greg Adams, a criminal psychologist at Scotland Yard, specialises in bringing serial killers to justice. He tracks down a spree serial killer nicknamed the Divine, who has already killed six teenage girls and is about to kill a seventh. Greg works out the location where he is hiding and joins a raid. The police capture the Divine and save the girl, but on the very same night, Greg’s wife is brutally murdered by another serial killer, known as the Dreamer.
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A year later, unable to bring the killer to justice, Greg has quit his job and is ready to end it all, when he receives a phone call from a man who tells him the Dreamer is dead, and that he didn’t kill Greg’s wife, Kate.
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Greg returns to Scotland Yard to work for Superintendent Chief Detective Donaldson in the hope he can re-examine the case with the help of two new detectives, Finch and Matthews.
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As Greg delves into the case further, he becomes more convinced that the Dreamer wasn’t the man responsible for his wife’s murder.
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But if it wasn’t the Dreamer, who was it?
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In order to solve the mystery around his wife’s murder, Greg is going to have to delve even deeper into the mind of a terrifying psychopath. And this time he might not make it back in one piece…

 

I read The Dead Tell Lies to take part in last month’s blog tour for the book. If you haven’t already read my review, please go and take a look at that! As you can tell from that, I loved the book. The storyline was twisty and the narrative cleverly written. At times you don’t even know whether to trust Greg or his actions.

If you enjoy edge-of-your-seat whodunits, I think you’ll love The Dead Tell Lies. As a former psychology student, I really enjoyed the criminology aspect and Greg’s approach of trying to get into the killer’s head to understand his motives.

 

What did you think of today’s First Lines Friday post? As always, I would love to hear from you!

 

 

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Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

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Hi guys and welcome to today’s Unpopular Opinions book tag! I knew I wanted to put together a bit of a fun post today, so I shopped around for some inspiration. I found this tag written by Erin at Book Loving Nut and thought it would be fun. Please go and check her answers to the below questions as well, and if you like the sound of taking part then please tag me so I can see your answers!

Shall we dive in?

 

A popular book you didn’t like

I couldn’t get on with Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

There were recognisable glimmers of Terry’s classic humour and shenanigans in the tale, but I’m sorry to say I just got bored. I have struggled with another book by Neil Gaiman in the past (American Gods) and I think it’s his writing style that I don’t get on with. I did actually finish American Gods, but I was disappointed by it.

I couldn’t finish Good Omens. The book eventually got DNF’d at 40%, so I had a decent stab at it before throwing in the towel.

 

A book series that everyone hates but you love

I couldn’t think of an obvious answer to this question so I resorted to trawling through my read books list, sorted by average rating, to find this answer. Can I say I’m shocked by this one!

The Relic Guild is a fantastic series and I am amazed that the first book’s average rating is only 3.5 stars. The second and third book fare better with an average rating of 4 stars each. I personally rated them all five stars and I really think they are under-rated.

 

A love triangle where the MC ends up with the person you didn’t want them to end up with

I rarely read books with love triangles in them. Even where I have (Hunger Games I’m looking at you), I don’t really care for this aspect of the novel. I don’t enjoy romance novels so it stands to reason that I don’t engage with this part of a book.

Probably sounds callous, but when this is going on I’m just wishing it to get resolved so we can get back to the main plot.

 

A popular genre you rarely reach for

Again, I probably have to say Romance here. It’s cringy and makes me feel really awkward reading it. I just don’t enjoy it, so I don’t bother.

 

A popular character you didn’t like

I wasn’t as much a fan of Circe as I was hoping to be, purely because I didn’t really like Circe herself. She may be the daughter of a God, but she’s mean, vindictive and overall pretty uninspiring. Since Circe spends a lot of her time banished, the narrative is very dependent on her. If her character was better I’d probably have liked the book more. But she wasn’t, and I didn’t, so that’s that I guess.

 

A popular author you can’t seem to get into

the eye of the world

On the recommendation of a friend, I tried to read The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. Keyword there is tried. I think I got most of the way through the book, but in the end, I had enough and DNF’d it.

I got very Tolkien-esque vibes from the narrative. It’s very descriptive, almost to the point of frilliness. If you have read The Lord of the Rings you might understand what I’m saying. It’s not the easiest of reading. I can manage about 400 pages of it, but The Eye of the World is a behemoth and is over twice that length. In the end, I got bored of the overly descriptive book as it put a dampener on what was actually going on.

I’m not even sure I remember what happened…

 

A popular trope you’re tired of seeing

Since I read a lot of fantasy, it will probably surprise you to read that I’m a little tired of the coming-of-age trope. It’s everywhere within the genre, so to an extent, it’s unavoidable. But particularly the versions where there are prophecies and an unlikely hero… these are the types I’m thinking here.

 

A popular series you have no interest in reading

Twilight. That’s an easy one, and particularly topical since another book has just been released. The series didn’t appeal to me as a teenager and it still doesn’t now. You can keep your sparkling vampires thanks.

 

The saying goes “the book is always better than the movie” but what movie do you prefer to the book?

The Hunger Games books are good, but I think I preferred the movies slightly. Watching the action play out at a faster pace is more exciting, in my opinion. The characters are also portrayed really well in the movies, which I think gives them the edge over the books.

 

So that’s the Unpopular Opinions Book Tag. If you are inspired to take part, please share your answers below or tag me in your own posts! I’d love to know what you think.

 

 

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Shelf Control #24 – 14/08/2020

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It’s Friday – welcome to a slightly later than usual Shelf Control post. Apologies it’s a little late – normally I draft these on a Thursday night but as I was working on yesterday’s Spotlight Feature post, I didn’t get round to it.

We’re concluding the run of classic books in today’s post. I went through a phase of adding quite a few classic novels to the TBR, as you have seen over the past several weeks.

In case you haven’t read one of these posts before, Shelf Control is a meme run by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies. It’s a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up!

For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out Lisa’s introductory post.

Shall we check out today’s featured book?

 

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Goodreads – The Book Thief

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

 

My Thoughts…

I’m a huge fan of historical fiction novels based around WW2. I’ve read and featured many on my blog over the past few years, so it’s not exactly a secret. Combine that with the main character who reveres books… I’m bound to love it!

It astounds me that the book has a rating of 4.3 on Goodreads and nearly 1.8 million ratings. That’s mad! If it’s rated that highly I have a lot of confidence I will feel the same way about it. Almost all of my Goodreads friends that have rated the book have given it 5 stars.

Have you read The Book Thief? Is it as good as it appears? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

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First Lines Friday 07/08/2020

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It’s Friday, so you know what that means – it’s time for another First Lines Friday post! I hope you have all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend! The weather is looking pretty good for a change, so I might get the chance to sit out in my garden!

In my Sunday Summary post last Sunday I set myself another challenge for this week’s book selection. I also made it pretty difficult for myself, as I chose a genre I don’t pick up very often – non-fiction. It’s fair to say I’ve been inspired to feature it by my recent read of This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay (which is not this week’s featured book, before you start wondering!)

This is a book I have read and featured on my blog previously; can you guess what it is, or who it is by?

 

These days the origin of the universe is explained by proposing a Big Bang, a single event that instantly brought into being all matter from which everything and everyone are made.

The ancient Greeks had a different idea. They said that it all started not with a bang, but with CHAOS.

Was Chaos a God – a divine being – or simply a state of nothingness? Or was Chaos, just as we would use the word today, a kind of terrible mess, like a teenager’s bedroom only worse?

Think of Chaos perhaps as a kind of grand cosmic yawn. As in a yawning chasm or a yawning void.

Whether Chaos brought life and substance out of nothing or whether Chaos yawned life up or dreamed it up, or conjured it up in some other way I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Nor were you. And yet in a way we were, because all the bits that make us were there. It is enough to say that the Greeks thought it was Chaos who, with a massive heave, or a great shrug, or hiccup, vomit or cough, began the long chain of creation that has ended with pelicans and penicillin and toadstools and toads, sea-lions, seals, lions, human beings and daffodils and murder and art and love and confusion and death and madness and biscuits.

 

Any ideas what book am I featuring today?

 

Mythos – Stephen Fry

Goodreads – Mythos

Rediscover the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths—stylishly retold by Stephen Fry. This legendary writer, actor, and comedian breathes new life into beloved tales. From Persephone’s pomegranate seeds to Prometheus’s fire, from devious divine schemes to immortal love affairs, Fry draws out the humor and pathos in each story and reveals its relevance for our own time. Illustrated throughout with classical art inspired by the myths, this gorgeous volume invites you to explore a captivating world, with a brilliant storyteller as your guide.

 

Having read a historical fiction novel by Stephen Fry previously, I picked up Mythos as an entertaining way to learn more about Greek myths. I have read a few novels now in which the Greek Gods feature, and yet until reading this I had very little knowledge of the tales.

As I am sure is the case with many of you, I was familiar with a couple of stories. Pandora’s box, for example, and Prometheus gifting fire to mankind and his subsequent eternal punishment by Zeus. I didn’t really know much else though, and after the basic story of Persephone was included in the plotline for another novel I had read, I decided I wanted to read more.

I enjoyed Stephen Fry’s retellings as the narrative is full of witticism and laugh-out-loud humour. The narrative is written quite conversationally, so you could imagine the book being narrated and it would feel natural to listen to. It made a subject I knew very little about very approachable, and the maps and diagrams at the beginning were great help with working out who was who and the hierarchy of the Gods.

If you haven’t checked out my full review, you can find it here.

 

 

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First Lines Friday – 24/07/2020

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Happy Friday everyone and welcome back to another First Lines Friday post! I hope you have all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend! I certainly am!

Before we start wishing our lives away though, it’s time to share the opening lines of another fantastic book. In my Sunday Summary post last week I set the criteria that this week’s featured book would be one I physically own. I’ve had a quick peruse and found an intro with a particular line I love. It was the selling point for making this today’s chosen book.

Can you guess what it is, or who it is by?

 

It was her third time with live ammunition… and her first time on the draw from the holster Roland had rigged for her.

They had plenty of live rounds; Roland had brought back better than three hundred from the world where Eddie and Susannah Dean had lived their lives up until the time of their drawing. But having ammunition in plenty did not mean it could be wasted; quite the contrary, in fact. The gods frowned upon wastrels. Roland had been raised, first by his father and then by Cort, his greatest teacher, to believe this, and so he still believed. Those gods might not punish at once, but sooner or later the penance would have to be paid… and the longer the wait, the greater the weight.

 

 

 

So, what book am I featuring in today’s First Lines Friday post?

 

The Waste Lands – Stephen King

Goodreads – The Waste Lands

In the third novel in King’s epic fantasy masterpiece, Roland, the Last Gunslinger, is moving ever closer to the Dark Tower, which haunts his dreams and nightmares. Pursued by the Ageless Stranger, he and his friends follow the perilous path to Lud, an urban wasteland. And crossing a desert of damnation in this macabre new world, revelations begin to unfold about who – and what – is driving him forward.

 

I absolutely love the last line of that extract. Don’t you?

I’ve read the first couple of books in the Dark Tower series already. This is the next one I am due to pick up. I bought the rest of the series a good few months ago (pre-pandemic) with book vouchers I had. Since I started the series in paperback (as I love Stephen King and I tend to buy physical books of favourite authors) I like to be consistent. I read in all methods, but if I start a series in one way then I have to finish it all in the same medium.

Stephen King’s writing is some of the best and fantasy is my favourite genre of all-time. I really couldn’t ask for more with this series! I am seriously going to have to pick this up soon; it has been over a year since I read the previous book The Drawing of the Three. I wouldn’t have guessed it was that long ago!

Have you read The Waste Lands or any other books in the Dark Tower series? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

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