Hop Along, There's Nothing to See Here...

Except, oh wait, these blog hops I'm going to be doing today! And may I just say, TGIF! Even if this weekend is going to see me building a bed, probably with hilarious consequences (for everyone else, obviously. For me it's obviously just going to be traumatic.) But while I'm not being crushed by a bed frame, I'm going to make the most of bloggerising and participating in the ever exciting Friday blog hops.

Firstly is #fridayreads, hosted by the picky girl, in honour of the twitter tradition (is twitter even old enough to have traditions yet? Who knows...) where we all say what we're reading at the moment, and everything is all good and happy and stuff. So, since I've just finished two books that I was reading simultaneously, I thought, why not start reading three new books..? I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm really not. I should probably be put down. But anyway, today I'm probably going to try and finish An Education by Lynn Barber, and then (and then, Laura, not at the same time as!) I'll probably move onto Firestarter by Stephen King, which I already started last night like a complete moron. Ahem. Moving on...

Crazy-for-Books this week asks: What keeps you reading beyond the first few pages of a book, and what makes you want to stop reading a book and put it back on the shelf? Being literally incapable of not finishing a book pretty much keeps me going throughout the whole thing! I seriously have to finish a book if I've started it, and there are only a very few times when this hasn't happened (Tristram Shandy and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I'm looking at you...) Other than that though, I always give books a fair chance to get good anyway because, I'm pretty sure you've probably read the first Harry Potter book, and the first few chapters are really not that good, and then the rest is so utterly amazing that I can hardly stand it! So there's not that much that would make me put the book back on the shelf once I've started reading it.

And, this week, at GReads, the question of the moment is: Who are your favourite book couples? This is a tricky one because there are so many couples in books that I really love and continually root for. I think the obvious answer has to be Mr Darcy and Lizzie Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, because, let's face it, they're utterly brilliant, but then I also adore Scarlett and Rhett from Gone with the Wind, and Eddie and Susannah from The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (you knew he was going to come up, didn't you?) So I guess my answer is them and then some! There are too many fabulous couples in books to name them all.

So, I hope you're all having a wonderful Friday, and that the weather is as nice for you as it is here! And happy July! If you're a new visitor, then welcome! Please have a little look around, and if you see anything you like then feel free to follow- more of the same is sure to come! Happy hopping everyone!

Devouring Stephen King: The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone ended up being a lot different from what I had expected of it (and indeed what I expect from any Stephen King novel) but this was not at all a negative thing. On the contrary, to have less horror and more thriller aspects to his work was a refreshing change from what I had grown to expect, and I found myself continually being sucked into this book, and resenting having to set it down at the end of the work lunch hour.

Without wanting to give anything away (like the back of my copy did, damn publishers!) the story essentially revolves around a man who has psychic powers that manifest themselves when he touches people, allowing him to see into the future and to warn people about bad things that are going to happen. This alone sounds pretty paranormal and all freaky and stuff, but really, this is sort of a minor plot point. Bear with me, because I know that sounds ridiculous, but really it's more of a story about the invasiveness of the media (something that is much more relevant now, I think, then it would have been in the late 70s), and about political power, and what some people will do (anything) to get it.

The invasiveness of the media part comes in when our psychic hero (I don't really want to tell you his name, although I'm sure you'll guess right away if you read it) is completely hounded by the press, chased down even to his fathers home, and first celebrated and then humiliated for his gift/curse (however you choose to see it). It's an interesting phenomenon that we see practically every week, how the press builds someone up just to knock them down again, and we can see through the firsthand experience of the main character just how damaging it can be.

Intertwined with the story of our protagonist, there is, as ever, an antagonist, who is generally rather unpleasant, threatens teenagers, businessmen etc; whilst also gaining in political power (which will probably not surprise you at all). If I was going to criticise the story, these bits would be it- they are very separated from the main thread of the story and, although they are needed for the (very dramatic!) conclusion of the story, I can't help but think there might have been a better way to include them that might have been a bit more polished and more integral to the main story. Quite frankly, our psychic friend could basically have just seen inside him and into his evil, and that would have been enough justification for the ending that we get.

What is interesting about our villain though, is that he lacks any kind of supernatural qualities, something which I have essentially come to expect from Stephen King. He is just, essentially, a very unpleasant man, who should not be allowed any kind of power in any way. The supernatural element, then, comes from the hero, and in what is possibly a unique situation, the supernatural is used only for good purposes in The Dead Zone, and not at all for bad, as in basically all his other novels (that I've read so far, anyway). This is an interesting kind of twist on what people tend to think about the supernatural, and makes it, in this instance, something to be harnessed for good, and not just for evil purposes. This is something that has been explored before by King, notably in Danny's psychic abilities in The Shining, but it hasn't before been the only supernatural thing about a Stephen King story, and that's what makes it especially interesting to me.

In spite of this though, I did really enjoy The Dead Zone, and want to thank it for not scaring the crap out of me, and for actually making me think about stuff. There's quite a lot more to it than I've actually talked about, and I have been deliberately obscure because I really don't want to ruin any of it for you! Just trust me that you'll like it, and add it to your wish list immediately if not sooner!

Devouring Books: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I'm not sure I've ever met a book that I wish I'd read when I was a little bit younger quite like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Primarily a tale of a young bookish girl growing up in early twentieth century Brooklyn, it reveals to us the lush inner life of our heroine, Francie, as she slowly sees changes in the world around her, and more importantly, in herself and what she feels and believes. Supported by some wonderfully drawn lesser characters (in length they are in the novel rather than in their personalities), Francie is able to grow and flourish as the novel progresses, and, by the end, I almost felt proud of her and how far she had come since the start of the story. This is what this novel does to you guys- makes you feel like a proud parent to a fictional character. Can you really ask for anything more from a novel?

I think it's pretty clear that I adored this book, and most of that was down to Francie. If there's a character out there that I can relate to more, than I haven't read that book yet, and I've read a whole lot of books. Her imagination, her sense of the beauty in things that other people might not think are beautiful, and above all her love of books and her wallowing, almost even hiding in them- I'm not a stranger to any of these things, and I was definitely a lot more like her when I was younger. Watching Francie grow up, then, was almost like watching myself grow up, feeling proud of her maturity almost like being proud of my own (ah, if only I was as mature as Francie is by the end of this book!) She is a fabulous character, and I hope that Smith is as immensely proud of her as I also am.

This is not to put down the other characters in the novel however, since the supporting cast of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is just as vividly drawn as Francie, and equally great. My personal favourites were Francie's Aunt Sissy, a promiscuous lady who is also basically the nicest person to have ever existed (at least in my brain!). A more crude reviewer might call her a 'tart with a heart', but I call her simply lovely, helpful, and extraordinarily human. I also adored Francie's father, an incorrigible drunk, but one who is always always striving to do better and to be a better person, however difficult that may be. This supporting cast really makes the novel what it is, as without the side stories that the family presents, we wouldn't be able to see as clearly how Francie becomes the person she does. Also, some of them are just purely and simply hilarious! (I'm not going to ruin anything for you, but just trust me on this one.)

It is my personal belief that novels cannot exist on grand sweeping statements (fabulous though they may  be) alone. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, fortunately, has a wonderful story, as well as giving us many valuable insights into the nature of life itself. Thus, we have things like this, on being truly alive:

"'Dear God' [Francie] prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay, let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry... have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honourable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.'"

 And this, on saying goodbye to something:

"The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, [Francie] thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything, as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day."

That last one is actually my favourite, because it strikes me as being so true- how quick we are to take everything for granted, until we are about to lose it, and then what we had immediately becomes the most wonderful thing that has ever been. It's essentially, I suppose, the equivalent of 'you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone', but stated so much more eloquently and beautifully.

I'm going to stop soon, although I could probably go on for days, but I just have to share one absolutely brilliant moment in the novel that illustrates how, even though society changes so much and so quickly, things are always essentially the same, because, let's face it, people are people. Towards the end of the novel, the US (finally!) joins World War One, and a frenzy of German baiting ensues, best displayed by this little chestnut:

"'The last time I asked for sauerkraut he chased me out of the store,' complained Neely.

'You've got to ask for Liberty cabbage now you dope,' said Francie."

Sound familiar, American readers?! May I remind you all of freedom fries, about 8 or 9 years ago?! This just struck me as utterly hilarious, and really an indication of how pathetic people can be in terms of patriotism. Very uncool, but also very funny.

There is so much about this novel that I haven't discussed; it's portrayal of poverty, why I don't really like Francie's mother even though she's probably the bravest character in the novel, or how much I love that there are, I swear, at least three Christmases in the book (this isn't just me right? I've always loved descriptions of Christmases and birthdays, and how other people celebrate them and what presents they get and things like that. It just pleases me!) But I think that these are all things that you have the right to discover and learn by yourself, and chances are you'll have very different favourite parts than me. But that's the way it's supposed to be! I just hope that you really do love it as much as me, because it has quickly made its way onto my favourite books list (that exists only in my brain!)

Note: I wish I could remember the blogger that wrote a review of this that I read and that inspired me to get it for my birthday, but I really can't. BUT whoever you are, if you're reading this, thank you, and I love you!!

Top Ten Tuesday

Another week, another Tuesday, another list of extreme awesomeness and wonder, hosted, as ever, by the incomparable The Broke and the Bookish (will they have to change their name when, inevitably, they all become wealthy because they are amazing? Just a delirious heat thought...) I've more or less ignored the instruction for this week's list because, basically, I don't use any bookish applications. I am signed up to Shelfari, but I haven't used it since I got it to participate in a discussion of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, basically because, if I have computer time, I'm generally updating my blog, reading everyone else's blogs, or on twitter. In the spirit of that, then, I'm going to share with you my top ten bookish (ish... you'll see) things I follow on twitter! Fun, huh? Oh, and if you want to follow me on twitter, I'm @LauraRowsell, and I generally blabber on about things and talk about True Blood and Lush a lot. Who doesn't want to see that on their twitter feed?! Anyway...

Top Ten Bookish Things/People I follow on Twitter


1. The Strand Bookstore (@strandbookstore)- I may have mentioned once or twice my undying devotion for New York City, and The Strand is probably one of my favourite things in the entire city (and, indeed, the world!) While I can't go to any of the events they promote on twitter, I can imagine that I can, and that's almost as good, at least for now!

2. Penguin Books (@PenguinBooks)- They tell me about new releases, sometimes start fun twitter discussions about books, and there's always the chance that they'll see my fabulous tweets and just hire me immediately and pay me millions of pounds to read. This is something that happens in real life, right?


3. Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks)- Constantly providing links to really really interesting articles about all kinds of books, interviews with authors, things like that. They also happen to be part of my favourite newspaper, so there's that too.


4. The New Yorker (@NewYorker)- Possibly my favourite magazine (I'll tell you about the other contender in a bit), The New Yorker twitter generally directs you to interesting and relevant things on their website, which is pretty awesome for a twitter dweller such as myself.


5. Diablo Cody (@diablocody)- The writer of Juno and United States of Tara is possibly my favourite person in the world (that I don't actually know) and my little twitter stalkee (that doesn't sound at all creepy!). She doesn't tweet as much these days, but when she does, it's still pretty awesome and hilarious!


6. New York Public Library (@nypl)- A similar twitter follow to The Strand Bookstore, the New York Public Library often tweets about things that I can't go to, but just by knowing about such things, I feel a part of them. Sad? Definitely, but it makes me feel better while I'm stuck in England.


7. Bust Magazine (@bust_magazine)- My probably actually favourite magazine, Bust tweets about things that I'm definitely going to be interested in, plus posts links to their blog which always has stuff on it that I enjoy. It gets me through the times when there's not a new Bust making its way towards me (and since it only comes out once every two months, that's a lot of time!) Go follow them, subscribe to their magazine and revel in the fabulousness- you'll never want to buy Cosmopolitan or any other magazine ever again!


8. True Blood (@TrueBloodHBO)- Not strictly about books, but hey, I talk about films and (rarely) TV on here too! The official True Blood twitter is awesome because it basically gives you links to every article written about True Blood, which is definitely useful for a crazed Eric fan like yours truly. In the times when the show isn't on, it can get a little annoying (mostly just quoting lines from the show) but it really is worth following for the links to videos on HBOs website, recaps on other websites, and other general good things like that!


9. Feminist Hulk (@feministhulk)- If you don't follow the feminist hulk, you've really been missing out! Feminist sentiments expressed in CAPITALS, reminding you to keep on fighting the good fight. Just amazing.


10. Vanity Fair (@vanityfair)- I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Vanity Fair as a magazine because, on the one hand, they're completely liberal (and therefore awesome) but then they also extol the fabulous excesses of rich people in, as far as I can see, a completely uncritical way. It's slightly perplexing, to say the least. Vanityfair.com, however, which their twitter feed handily prescribes me links to, almost always has things I want to read on it, and, once, even had Charlie Sheen Madlibs. Awesome? I think so! They also employ one of my favourite reviewers (and their resident recapper of True Blood) Mike Ryan (@mikeryan), and so without them, I would never have found him! So yeah, good times all round!

So that's my top ten, who do you love to follow on twitter? Let me know in the comments and, you know, maybe I'll go check them out and stuff and think about offering them my much sought after followership. Or, you know, follow them and then be too shy to say anything to them and stuff. I'm really looking forward to reading all of your lists today, because clearly I need to get me some bookish apps if I'm going to keep up with the big kids! Have a fab Tuesday everyone!

In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday (Stephen King Special Edition!)

Greetings fellow book buyers! I tell myself every week that I'm not going to take part in IMM/Mailbox Monday, and every week I end up buying so many books that I simply have to share. It's shameful but true... Now, who wants to see the books I bought this week?! Definitely not my mum haha! As you may have guessed from the title, I have bought quite a few Stephen King books this week in preparation for the rest of my Stephen King Challenge, but I've also branched out a tiny bit and bought some books by *gasp* other authors too! I hope you'll all enjoy reading about them, and then be inspired to read them all, and then tell me I'm a genius for buying them! Or, you know, just read this...


So, the books I got by the King were:


























The Tommyknockers
























The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon
























Everything's Eventual


Of these, I've only read The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon (so far), which I wasn't all that impressed with, but I will give it another go for the sake of completing a challenge properly! But I think I got all three for a total of about £2, so either way I'm not complaining! I'm quite sad that I couldn't find Firestarter though, which is the next book I have to read after The Dead Zone (which I'm progressing with quite nicely!) so i guess I'll just have to keep looking for that one...

There was still space in my reading heart for books not by Stephen King though. These were:

Literature and Gender ed. by Lizbeth Goodman- This book is like a dream- feminism, reading, feminist critiques of novels, feminist novels!! It could prove to either be really boring or really amazing, but either way it cost me 20p (!) and retails on amazon.co.uk for £20.98... I'm either going to make a spiritual profit or a literal one, let's put it that way!













Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome- My sister thought it prudent to tell me (after going through my personal things without asking) that Swallows and Amazons is 'really boring'. As she reads what I can only describe as crap, and didn't really even get Never Let Me Go, I'm not going to let that stunning assessment put me off this book.













An Education by Lynn Barber- I watched the film of this not so long ago, and it wasn't until someone alerted me to it in the comments that I even knew it was a book! Fortunately they did (thank you teadevotee!) and now I can read it and make it be part of Two Bibliomaniacs Books to Movies Challenge! Two birds with one stone or what?!







And, finally, I got Hood by Emma Donoghue. If I haven't yet mentioned enough how much I love Room, let me direct you to my review and save you the giant gush that is bound to eminate from me if I talk about it here. The point, anyway, is that I thought I'd stick with what I know, and take the chance that Hood is as good (could it possibly be even better?!) as Room. Fingers crossed for that!

So these are the books I got this week. It occurs to me now that I got more non-Stephen King than Stephen King books this week, so it feels like the title is a bit erroneous now... but three books by the same author is still a lot, right?! If you're a new visitor here then welcome, please tell me what you think of my reading tastes, and feel free to follow if you see anything you like! I like you already, probably!

Hop Hop Hop Hop Then Fall Over Because You're Bored of Hopping

The great titles just keep coming guys! I know, I know, please save your applause and just send money and/or gifts of high monetary value. As you may or may not have realised it's Friday, which means only one thing here at Devouring Texts- it's time to hop in various ways that you all definitely love. I've only just realised that this title makes it seem like I'm bored of hopping, which, interestingly, I'm actually not. But I am adding an extra hop to this weeks load, so maybe I am feeling the need to spice things up a bit!

First up, as it tends to be is #fridayreads, hosted by The Picky Girl in a nod to the trend on twitter to say what we're reading on a friday. I do this on twitter too, but right here I can go into more detail and just generally ramble because, really, who doesn't love reading that?! Anyway, today I'm going to be reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, something I've been reading and enjoying a little sporadically over the past few weeks, and so I really want to get my teeth into it! Interspersed with that, I'm probably going to be reading The Dead Zone by Stephen King, which I've started this week and have been really enjoying! (The fact that I'm reading these, and 2 other books all at once should give you some indication of why I hardly ever end up posting book reviews these days... I have no focus!) But anyway, I'm going to give these two a really good go today and over the weekend, and hopefully report back next week! Good plan, huh?

This week, Crazy-For-Books asks: When did you realise that reading was your passion, and a really important part of your life? Amazing question! I guess I can't really remember a time when I wasn't reading, and when I didn't bug my mum to take me to the library on Saturdays so I could get the maximum 9 books out and read them in, I swear, a week. So I guess it's kind of always been there, and was just naturally nurtured by having amazing English teachers throughout school and college, and then choosing to take it at University, so that reading really has become a vitally important part of my life!



And Parajunkee asks: What is your favourite fairy story or story that revolves around fairies? Hmmm... Well, my favourite fairy is probably tinkerbell (don't you love how original I am and all?) because, seriously, that girl's got attitude coming out of her ears! My favourite fairy tale is possibly Hansel and Gretel, even though it's really intrinsically horrible, although, I guess all fairy tales are really. But there is the house made out of sweets in Hansel and Gretel, so yeah, maybe I just like that bit about it!

And: BRAND NEW FEATURE (for me) is TGIF at GReads- I only discovered this last week, and it was extremely exciting (favourite quotes, which I just LOVE) so I figured, why not take part this week? So, this weeks question is: Where is your ideal place to take a summer vacation and get lost in a book? This is a bit of a tricky one for me to answer, since when I go on holiday, I tend to go to cities and basically not stop for a week. AND I barely read, because, you know, I'm in an exciting new place, and I really want to be there, rather than getting lost inside a book. Clearly, I don't do holidays properly. Having said that, I probably can't think of a better place than Central Park in New York City, sitting in the shade under some trees, for reading. Sounds utterly perfect to me!

So, these are some thoughts and things going on with me this Friday! How about you? Also, new hopperinos, welcome! Please have a look around, if you desire, and please feel free to tell me how you adore me (it's a lot, right?)

Literary Blog Hop, June 22-25

Ooh, it's Literary Blog Hop time again! I have already had my say a little bit in the comments of this week's question, but, you know, I have more than a sentence-worth of thoughts (well, sometimes anyway). So, this weeks question is:

Should Literature have a clear social, political, or any other type of agenda? Does having a clear agenda enhance or detract from its literary value?
I basically have two divergent viewpoints on this, but they both add up to the same thing- literature must be well written above anything else. What I think is this. A bad writer with some kind of political or social chip on her shoulder is probably going to write something that is overwrought with a political message and that treats this as more important than the story itself. This is something that should not be done, and just completely makes the idea of political or social based fiction something that turns people off, and makes them think of badly crafted stories, and of books that should be avoided.

BUT- this is a mistake! I essentially think that the word 'agenda' in the question gives one an immediate reaction to go 'NO! Any prior/hidden/whatever agenda is bad! People should just write what they feel, man.' But the thing is, literature is supposed to reflect, or enhance, or just be related to life, and what is life if not played out against a massive political/social backdrop? So, in a way, I feel that authors of great literature can't really help but put some kind of political and social slant on their writing, more by accident than anything else- there is no way for us to live without the constant political and social aspects to life, and so any literature that deliberately tried to leave out such things would instantly not ring true, and we perhaps would not accept it as good literature. Some sort of political and social awareness, then, is necessary for a good novel.

But that's not really what the question is asking either. The question really is, I suppose, can a work of literature be mostly focused on a political or social issue, or trying to make a point in these areas, and still be good? My answer to this is just (as Connie at The Blue Bookcase pointed out) 1984 (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Animal Farm) by George Orwell. The entire basis and clear agenda behind these books is clearly political, and yet you can't say that these are not great works of literature- I would put them amongst my favourite books, and the reason for that is that they are incredibly political, but they are also incredibly well written, and engaging, and just everything that you could want from a work of literature, in spite of and/or because of the fact that they are incredibly politically motivated.

So, I guess the point is, write well and you can basically write whatever you want. Write badly and just give up and actually become a politician or something. The importance of literature in affecting people's thinking about politics and social issues cannot be overstated, but it can have no effect if handled badly. The moral of this story, really, is don't bother writing anything at all if you can't do it well, and shouldn't that just be a rule for literature anyway? I think so!