Scattered Strawberry Summer

For my trip to Spain, I bought DK Eyewitness Pocket Map and Guide: Madrid. We going to be there for a very short time, but I hope to see a thing or two. I like DK Eyewitness guides, I have a small collection of them, I have used other guides but I didn't like their format as much as DK Eyewitness. I bought this one on Amazon, thank god for amazon prime or otherwise I would have to rely on print outs. I also could go to a bookshop, but I have no time and it's usually much more expensive.

I also bought a used copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I have read it but I would like to read it a few times and I saw a used copy under £3 with prime delivery.

Speaking of books, I'm sure you have noticed I have posted about my project 52 lately, well the things with my time away and sickness I got very behind my schedule I decided to drop it. I will be  aiming to read more still, but I need a different system.

Continuing on last week's theme, I read The Children of Men by P.D. James. I've seen the film and I love it, I thought it was exciting, suspenseful and terrifying. Now I've read the book it was based on, I can tell you they are are definitely two separate entities. While the basic premise remains the same, they are very different and I  discovered this novel is one of the rare exceptions where the movie is better. The book just does not have the same effect.

I always take a book on any trips as there is always a lot of waiting around and I don't want to waste my time like that. On my trip to Lithuania this Monday, I brought with me Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

 After years of hearing people refer to Brave New World, often compared to 1984, which I love, I decided to read it myself and find out just what all the commotion was about. I liked this book but I felt a tiny bit disappointed. Although the book brings up questions regarding totalitarianism,and freedom of thought, there is hardly any plot and is used as a vehicle to describe the world and the philosophy of the new society and it was hard to relate to the characters, however it still absolutely worth reading.

I haven't been posting as much this week, I've been away a lot and been ill the whole weekend- not so much fun and yes I'm still going to work tomorrow, it's not bad enough to take call in sick.

I went to library and got a bunch of various books for this project. This week's read is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

" <...> it traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, and culminates with his self-exile from Ireland in Europe."

This week I'm reading The Great Gatsby. I've been meaning to read this way before the film came out but never got to it. I still haven't seen the film and I want to, but I'd like to read the book first. Unlike some other lucky people, we didn't get to read it at school. I always thought our literature lessons didn't cover enough of world literature.

When I was Brighton a few weeks ago, I had to kill sometime while waiting for my friend who missed the train, I stumbled a market on my way to North Laine. I found my this week's read- an early edition of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. In case that wasn't obvious form my previous blog posts, I'm quite a fan. I haven't finished yet (I know!), but my weekend technically doesn't finish till Tuesday, so I still have time.

I haven't selected my next book yet, I went to library and struggled to find any of the books I had in mind, so end up with nothing. I might have to switch to ebooks.

This weeks book is Nothing to Complain About?: Outlandish Letters for Implausible Problems by Michael A. Lee.

It's a collection of witty, outrageous letters, some are just weird requests to a range of people and organisations, including a  letter of complaint to his dentist after a young neighbour's milk tooth is ignored by the tooth fairy and he received some funny responses too.

I read it front to back on my train journey home from London and chuckled quite a few times despite my my best efforts not to.

I've been travelling more with work and I spend a bit of time on train, I use that time to read. Time passes much more quickly and I can keep up with my long year project too.

This week I'm reading a book my SO got me for Christmas. It's An Appetite For Wonder: The Making of a Scientist - an autobiographic memoir by Richard Dawkins.  As you know, I love Richard Dawkins so I was very happy with this present.  

As part of my New Year resolutions, I decided to do project 52. At first I was thinking to do portrait every week but I think I won't be able to keep this up for the whole year and I'd rather actually read a book each week.

This week I read Happyslapped by a Jellyfish: The words of Karl Pilkington. I read it on our flight back to UK and it definitely made it more bearable. The first bit I laughed was this: "...I have been on quite a few holidays. Not cos I've wanted to, but because my girlfriend Suzanne likes it, so I always end up getting dragged along". It's the same with me and my SO.
The book is rather funny,same old Karl, some stories are quite familiar as he has already told them on Ricky Gervais Show, but it's still  laugh out loud funny.