What We Read: 2013

It has been a huge year for my reading-life.  I've branched out way more than ever and had a terrific time.  Here is my 2013 book list  plus the year's Highlights and Lowlights.  

What We Read 2013:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

• The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling

• Mr Penumbra's 24 Hr Bookstore by Robin Sloan

• The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

• Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

• Dracula by Bram Stoker

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

• Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

• The Adventures of Tintin Volumes 1 - 7 by Hergé

• Atonement by Ian McEwan

• Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

• The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

• Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

• Sin City: The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller

• The Adventures of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith

• This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

• Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

• Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

• Esio Trot by Roald Dahl

• Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Lowlights:

These are the books I didn't enjoy and would not read if I went back in time.  Forgive me if any of these are your favourites!  

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan is talked up a lot, especially as a past Booker prize-winner.  However I  guessed the plot twist almost as soon as the characters were introduced so it was a big anti-climax.  Ultimately it's no more than a hiccup in my longterm love affair with McEwan as a writer.  

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany was the 2013 winner of the Stella Prize for Australian women's fiction.  The tone and mood feel like an imitation of Tim Winton's work.  Besides being unsatisfying and offering no room for empathy with the characters, I felt it portrayed a poor ideal of what it means to be Australian.  

Highlights:

These are the books that made me think and feel, new favourites to revisit forever.  

The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling is so different from her other work, but incredibly thought-provoking.  It is an edgy and often confronting read with a good pace driven by character and plot development.  Notions of privilege, justice and family are challenged by this depiction of truth.  

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky had a huge resurgence in 2013 due to the release of its film adaptation.  It's a young adult fiction that tackles some controversial and topical subjects, while at the same time reopening timeless ideas of love, family and identity in a way that guarantees its status as a contemporary classic.  It's emotionally engaging and memorable.  

Atonement by Ian McEwan is an epic masterpiece that redefined my standards for fiction.  It is sensationally well written.  Its tragically beautiful plot left me hopelessly moved. 

White Teeth by Zadie Smith is a brilliant début.  It is sassy and cunning, memorable for its wit and ingenious way of tying up threads.  It also boasts one of the most engaging openings to any novel I've read.  

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh is grit and filth and so much fun.  Unique in every way, the genius of this confronting little book cannot be silenced.  The prose is addictive.

Cloudstreet by Tim Winton is an Australian classic that I feel pristinely defines what it means to be alive.  This book is written with love and pain, and the magic and earthiness of its prose will colour its reader's perception of life.  It is an experience and a supreme gift of literature.  

So thankyou for coming along on my reading adventures.  Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to recommend each other plenty of great new reads for 2014.  

Bouquets Turns One!

One year is a long time.  Remember my first post?  That night I sat up late after my brother and sister were in bed.  It was a school night, mid term.  What was I thinking?  What was I feeling?  I was frustrated I couldn't word my thoughts quite as elegantly as I had imagined I would.  So I started to sum up my hopes, instead. 

Everyone says that the first blog is the hardest. Of course it is. The key, they say, is to state all the things that I aim to achieve through the publishing of a blog. Well, I reply, I would like people to get to know me better.

THEY: Yes, what else?

ME: Oh, also, I would like to encourage people to read classic literature.


THEY: Indeed, that's a good one; is there anything else?


ME: Well yes, I would like to journey through the books I read and share with people the things that deeply delight me.


THEY: Genius! Now put it into words.

Here lies my dilemma. I could wrack my brains for creativity that is finally and frankly not home at the moment, or I could present the situation to you in exactly the light it has occurred to me. There you go. Here is the first oppertunity for me to lie to you, but in all honesty, my dears, I'll start being creative tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just bothered with beginning.

So shall we?

How much of that have I achieved?  Any at all? 

Since that night three hundred and sixty-six days ago, we have:

• Been romanced by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Savoured the flavours of France with Julia Child,
• Suffered the stains of George Orwell and the cuttlefish, 
• Taken two job interviews,
• Turned into true patriots, 
• Been bored and bothered in turns by the Woman in White,
• Technicolour yawned all over English assignments,
• Bid the Void 'goodnight' with our most vulnerable thoughts,
• Buttered the sky,
• Read poetry to the symphony orchestra,
• Been as cool as cucumbers,
• Red Leaped into The Arrival,
• Opened the sesame,
• Sung odes to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in my Armpit One Midsummer Morning,
• Failed to panic even though the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was horribly unsatisfying,
• Quested to Mount Doom with the wonderful Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee,
• Fought for the humans in the War of the Worlds,
• Captured Every Minute with ABBA while enjoying the finer pleasures of sobbing like a girl,
• Caught a Storm in a Teacup,
• Put Sherlock Holmes in a 'Whopping Big Nutshell'
• Daydreamed about a perfect Anne Shirley moment,
• Discovered the beauty of true friends,
• Spent forty hours blind,
• Shamelessly skinny-dipped,
• Experienced the revelation of mortality with Dorian Gray,
• Wandered in a Woody Allen World,
• Fully learnt that life is actually too short to read anything you don't enjoy,
• Became more human with James Herriot,
• Wondered over words,
• Got Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close with ourselves,
• Eaten Animals,
• Counselled neurotic elevators,
• Learnt to read and write in a language invented by J. R. R. Tolkein,
• Written with calligraphy pens,
• and lastly, baked a blog a birthday cake.

Two hundred and ninety-two posts.  Have I encouraged people to read classic literature?  Have I journeyed through books and shared with people the things that deeply delight me? 

I have.  But I have also proved that I am still growing.  Actually, now that I say that, I think that that is what the moral of this blog is.  I'm still growing.  I will always love books, but as we keep on sharing and delving and loving and feeling, we'll keep growing, and with that comes the fact that we'll be changing, too, becoming, if not better humans, more human. 

When I first started, I thought that it would be nice to refer to you affectionately as "my dears".  I wonder now if it was a prop to make me feel more comfortable, more a part of something.  I see now that I was already a part of something.  A part of my life.  And I can't thank you enough for being a part of my life, too.  You've made it less of a Void. 

James M. Barrie, that beautiful man who wrote Peter Pan, said

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

Tonight, I look back and compare.  This blog hasn't been the door to oppertunity, but it has been the window.  Leaning out as far as I can on tiptoes, I can almost see blurred in the distance my very image, at the kitchen table, stressing about how to begin. 

Happy Birthday Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils.  My birthday wish is that this is just the first paige of a beautiful story.

Shall we continue?

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils

You're My Cup of Tea

I had my birthday party last Saturday evening, and I've been excited to tell you about it, but I've been waiting on my friend for the photos.  Here they are at last! 

Firstly, the most decadent chocolate mud cake on the face of the planet.





Puppy Birthday Cake

And secondly a beautiful birthday surprise! It seems only yesterday I was remarking to my friend that the only person who can do things perfectly for you... is you, and already I have been proved horribly wrong!  I am not the only one who knows me, and I am definitely not the only one who knows how to do beautiful things for me. 

Literally a Bouquet of Sharpened Pencils

Isn't this the most thoughtful and beautiful thing?  She literally gave me a bouquet of sharpened pencils, and I burst into tears when I realised what she'd done.  By now, the flowers have died, but the pencils live on in a bouquet tied with light blue satin ribbon on my book shelf.  It's amazing, though, that when Tom Hanks, Joe Fox, says those lines: I love New York in the fall.  It makes me want to buy school supplies.  If I knew your address, I would send you a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, the idea in itself is so picturesque and whimsical.  But in real life, it's almost more so.  My bouquet of sharpened pencils is so fresh and woody and full of crisp suggestion that every time I look at them all, with their different levelled points bared like the swords to which J. M. Barrie compared them, I feel beautifully in love with writing and reading and being alive.  They are just so perfect, and the gesture in itself was perfect too.  Like something out of a chick flick. 

It turns out that my friends have been paying a lot more attention to me than I realised.  Almost all of them gifted me with some sort of reference to an inside joke, some sort of little token that they have indeed been listening and loving me.  Packets of mini-Oreos, tissues, highlighter pens, notebooks, and a beautiful tea cup with a Paris motif.  Not to mention a box of Melbourne Breakfast tea leaves that seduces you with vanilla aromas, and a card written all in Elven.  (Yes, wasn't it just the most perfect day?)  And funnily enough, two people  gave me a card with the same sweet message: You're My Cup of Tea.  No, you're my cup of tea.

The Boat

I don't have all that much time to devote to talking tonight, so I will quickly rattle off the things upmost in my mind.

1. No body has thought to suggest a book for the 100 Books to Read Before You Die list in such a long time.  I know that I have hundreds of books that I think you should all read before you die, so you must have at least a couple.  So why don't you think of one, or two, or even three of your favourites, the ones that you want to make the world acknowledge, ones that have slipped through the fingers of society and have settled at the bottom of the shelf to be discovered for its greatness by YOU.  Those are the ones that you just have got to share.  I know that you know what I mean. 
2. I would like you all to know that I am someone that you can just ramble about what you're reading to.  I do it to you, so you can certainly ramble on back.  What are you reading at the moment?  What do you love about it?  What is it that is burning on your mind to just say, but no one you know would value hearing it?  That is the sort of stuff you can unload here, because we're book-lovers and I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads Bouquets is in the same boat.  That's what Bouquets is trying to be - the boat that we're all in.  Hmm.  That kind of cute and comical.  Is it just me?

That's all that's floating about on the surface of my mind right this moment!  Do you think maybe we can achieve some of these things? 

Straighten Up and Fly Right

Brace yourselves, my dears!  Part 3 is a doozy!  In a couple of days, those of you who were reading along will all be finished and we can move on completely.  But now that we are in the final stages of 1984, and nearing the very end, I would love to hear what your thoughts have been on this book, on the process of reading along, and the way that I am interacting with you.  What would you like to see me do, or god forbid, stop doing!  I want to get a better idea of what it is that I'm trying to achieve, and what it is that will be fun for both you and I. 

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils is not restricted to being the ramblings of a reading addict, and I'm going to try to develop it a bit more.  More anecdotes.  More funny, little, sweet, nice things that will be worth your while to hear.  And I think that this development is going to work both ways.  I am going to develop Bouquets, and you my dear followers, can retaliate by sharing your general thoughts, anecdotes, recommendations, reviews etcetera.  They are going to be extremely valued here - another flower or branch in our bouquet. 

I really have noticed that I've dawdled from my original intentions, and become really extremely hard core focused on reading.  So lets freshen up, finish this damn book, talk about it and MOVE ON.

My Title

I think there are many sides to my title.

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils to me stands for a handful of really good points. 

Or a clump of something fresh and cheering, like not-yet-used pencils. 

Or a gift of inspiration - the "means to express" amd "receive and enjoy" creativity.

Or something given in love from one person to another - a beautiful word or phrase that changes their perspective, and perhaps even opens up a new road for thought or passion.