Tea and Cakes

Where’s this so called heatwave? Everyone else is as tanned as me, i was promised sunshine, and instead it’s raining. Bah!

Ahhh, the first cup of tea after a holiday: there’s nothing like it.

Just back though, and still have to unpack, do the washing etc etc etc, but also have to be in work first thing tomorrow.

Will catch up with the internets and hopefully get a few posts up tomorrow.

When I travel I like to sample delicious things that I can’t get at home. Here you see a Plopp bar, which is chocolate with a caramel centre. Imagine a cheap version of a Cadbury’s caramel bar.

It’s resting on a Dalecarna horse, the symbol of the part of Sweden we’re in, sitting on the windowsill of our cottage.

This is the second in a set of three books that take place in the same world. The first, Perdido Street Station, was great, although quite intense at times and a bit hard to get into. This was a bit more accessible, but kept the intensity and the huge, huge amount of detailed ideas, which he seems to have in bucketloads to just use up so many on such small things. The different creatures in the world he’s created are all so clever - detailed and humanoid but disturbing at times too. If I had to have a complaint it would be that I don’t really find any of his characters particularly likeable, and I do like to be able to relate to at least one character on some level. That’s just me though, I don’t think it’s a measure of the quality of the book.
The writing’s fantastic, so descriptive, the plot is interesting, and although I don’t necessarly warm to the characters they’re really so well realised.

Ohhh, just read someone’s review on Amazon and they described the style as industrial fantasy. I think that sums it up well.

Anyway, this was good. It took me a while to get through, it’s definitely not a mindless holiday read sort of a book.

At the end of Persepolis, the author, aged 14 at the time, was sent to Austria to live with a family friend, as her independence and rebelliousness was putting her at risk in Iran. This takes off from there and covers her return to Iran a few years later. Again, the graphic medium is really successful, and, again, this was fascinating to read and completely shocking at times. I would totally recommend these two books.

Persepolis is a graphic novel / comic (depending on what you want to call them) telling the story of the author’s childhood in Iran.
This was great on so many levels. The comic as a medium worked really well for telling the story, it gave me a good insight into the changes she experienced as Iran changed, and seeing everything through a child’s eyes is always interesting. Iran as a country was interesting because I know so little about it - “Not without my daughter” (book, not film) being the sum of my knowledge. I think I’m less ignorant now.

One of my wonderful birthday presents, this is a selection of comics based on Belle and Sebastian songs. An inspired gift for me, and a really interesting idea, and most Belle and Sebastian songs tell stories.
Some of the interpretations I really liked and were really moving; some, I wasn’t so keen on, mainly because they didn’t match my interpretation of the lyrics.
Dog on Wheels is a favourite song of mine and the comic was so, so far from my thoughts that I couldn’t finish it, but some of the others I loved and made me hear the song differently.

Up in the mountains on the Bergen-Oslo line. Sock’s coming along nicely.

This is one of my all time favourite books, and I wanted to read it again after reading My Invented Country.
It’s a fabulous tale of family, history, love and politics, with a tiny little bit of magic thrown in for good luck.
Just wonderful.

I’m a big fan of Isabel Allende - she has a wonderful way of telling a story - and I picked this kinda autobigraphy up on sale - it seemed like a good deal, so I bought it. It was interesting to read, and gave me an interesting insight into Chile as a country as well as how she became a writer.
At times it was pretty reminiscent of The House of The Spirits, unsuprisingly as parts of that are slightly grounded in reality, and it made me itch to read it again, so I did…