My Book Collection

My book collection.... plus Will's. Kinda. He has Game of Thrones! 

Mind the ill plants.

A List of Books

I am allowing myself to bring back 5  3 4 books from the Uk. Yes. Your heard me right. BRING back five books, when I am going back to work for an enormously well stocked used book store.

What a silly notion you say. I think it too, but alas that seven hour plane ride, airport walk, and devastating departure from my husband for the next four months, is not going to be helped by anything less than a book.

So what to bring?

Well I'd like to avoid books that I can get in the book store.

I've built a meager collection over here through serious scrounging and bringing with my from my Canadian collection. This makes my decisions hard because I don't want to diminish the glory of it.

Books I'm bringing:

- Deerskin, Robin McKinley. - If you haven't seen me go on about this book I'll take this chance to do it again! It is a fantasy book that strikes the most amazing female protagonist. Robin McKinley is one of the few authors I've seen taking the fantasy genre and make it fresh, exciting, and yet grounded in the realities of life people face everyday. It's woven so well, and her love of animals shines through too! I'm bringing it to read for the third time.

- The Elements of Style by E.B White and William Strunk, Jr.- This book I've had for some time. Its a really good book for grammar, sentence structure etc. It is also really small and light so I don't need to worry about the weight on the plane. Plus reading it puts me to sleep despite the quality content.


- Morning on Horseback by David McCullough - It s a book I start
ed while reading Gloryland which gave amazing counterpart to the reconstruction or Post Civil War era in America. Gloryland  was about a black man born just after emancipation, while Morning on Horseback is about the Roosevelt family, who were white and very wealthy. It really puts history into perspective. Gloryland is finished but not this book.

- Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton - Its not a novel, its a comic series by an awesome web comic, which for those who do not internet much, is an excellent way of getting the funny papers with out wasting paper. Kate Beaton is from my home country and a History graduate who has taken her talent to some awesome place. Must recommend!

AND! And... hmm. And?

At this point in my list I'm struggling because I actually don't want to bring any back, because if they're all good, then they're coming back across the ocean with me. There are two others that will bring over for juicy credit at the book store to full my addiction.

(Will, if you are reading this, just bring you're kilt, leave room in your bag for all books and canned ravioli)







Books I'm bringing for the credit

- Carpet People Terry Pratchett
- The Orenda

Mucking About.

I am a cat whisperer. I am made of cat whisper qualities. Mainly rage. My associates, whom I live with are filled with patience and a kind of softness clouds only dream of. 

I am filled with rage, tempered with a mutual understanding that you, cat, are in fact a small tiger living in my house. Not you think that you are a tiger, but that you are, in you're little furry heart, an untamed beast. 

Perhaps this is the reason cats gravitate towards me. 

Oh yeah. We have a cat. His name is Muck, which, in Uk style slang means messy or dirty, or getting in to mischief. 

If its not waking me with a sound wack in the eye, it harangues my house plants and drawing the googly 'oohs' and 'aws' from others when you and I both know you're just an asshole. 

For this, I command most of your cuddles, whether I want to or not. 

Not Working

I am not allowed to work. Not for the last 3 months, or for another month. I'm not really travelling either, to save much needed money for life.

Thus, I have been faced with the ultimate problem that has faced me all m life. Focus.

I've watched all the youtube there is. I've played enough video games that any parent would give me the diagnosis of square eyes. I've read books, but the one thing I haven't done, is focus on my art.

By art I mean drawing and writing.

I am a creative person but it sometimes requires other things to be happening at the same time. Like math class, or an essay that will prove my final grade. Thus sometimes I struggle with focusing. (It has taken me three days to write this).

Anyway, I have found some other mediums I enjoy now, and not every one will agree or understand them, but I'm still really in to watching gamers play their games.

Unrelated, I'm working on this YA style novel I wrote back in university, which had been a way of me revisiting the silly antics and pronounced stereotypes of my teen years, but now I think could be a good way of looking at it all in a different light.

Additionally I saw some cool snow leopard art on deviant art's facebook page that made me want to keep plucking at  a story on snow leopards and snow hares.

Listening to the vlog brothers and some rock and roll, counting it down to a month before I have to leave the coutnry. I'm sad and excited, but I'm struck by this personal fear I've developed of the government. A sort of paranoia. I'm following the rules, but I'm just fearful of being taken away, a black bag in the night.

Internet Merch.

I've picked up a few books, and a mug recently, from the internet. A few of some of my favourite artists and creators have put out some excellent books on the subjects they loved.

Kate Beaton and Randall Munroe produce webcomics Hark! A Vagrant and XKCD. The first approaches a great deal of history and literature in a wide range of years. The later takes on the sciences, with both merging ideas of human interaction and life observations in between. They are well worth a look, taking a

Unrelated. Its spring and I want pumpkin pie in the worst way. Britain has no pumpkin pie filler. None that I can fine. This is a crime. Everything else is there, including things I don't want like canned hotdogs and other mystery meats. But no pumpkin.

So, I'm gonna make butter tarts tomorrow. Apparently all of Europe is missing out on this. Finally an export that doesn't revolve around cheese fried and gravy.