bookgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookgazing) wrote2010-06-21 12:47 pm
bookgazing) wrote2010-06-21 12:47 pm
Today's letter is the letter 'S'
Speedway
Lots of speedway have been cancelled this week because the organisers don’t think they can compete with the group stages of the World Cup. I find it a little sad that other sports have to make way for the football obsession and that they don’t get the same kind of support (financial or otherwise). Still the speedway Grand Prix series forged ahead (for once being on Sky is a good thing). It was nice to see the motor sport worlds come together this weekend, when Mark Webber turned up at the Polish Grand Prix last weekend, supporting his friend, current Speedway World Champion Jason Crump.
Only three weeks until and my dad are at the British Grand Prix in Cardiff! And yes we are following in the footsteps of all those English people who continue to be confident that England will pull of a shock win in the football. Hoping (probably a little unrealistically) for a British win at Cardiff again and looking forward to some great racing.
Serious decisions
If you like having opinions about the strange results this World Cup seems to be throwing up, how would you like some more odd tournament decisions to discuss? There’s a Terry Pratchett World Cup running right now to decide which of his Discworld novels is the best ever and the results so far are...interesting (read not what I would have picked AT ALL!). The contest has reached the quarter final stages and there’s still time for you to vote on what makes it through to the semis.
And have you heard Terry Pratchett is going to be returning to sci-fi for his next novel? Not sure how I feel about that as Strata is the only one of his books that I didn’t like, but always happy to give his books a try.
Singledom and Books
Occasionally times in single land are not so good, readers. Yes, sometimes being single means wondrous fun involving beery nights organised at the drop of a hat (there has been a lot of hat dropping recently) , but sometimes it mean doubts and fears about whether you are making the right choices in life. Now in times of trouble I usually, among other things, immerse myself in a good book that doesn’t speak to my exact troubles, but it seems that books and romantic troubles almost always come into conflict.
Every freaking novel of every genre now seems to contain a happy love story, or a tragic love story where hope reappears at the end, or a moral about how romantic love is what matters and how you’ll never really live if you don’t find it. I know that some single people like and need these kind of stories when they feel down and out in single land, because they provide the comforting idea that romance is just around the corner. I am not one of those people. I adore love stories in books during my general, stable state, but when I begin to doubt how my single life is going I need to be as far away from romance as possible.
So I’m not saying ‘Kill All Romance Because Sometimes it Makes Me Feel A Bit Bad’ or anything drastic like that, but I am adding another line to my diversity rally call. Perhaps when authors sit down to write their next book they could think about single girls who stay single and how they occasionally need a book where they can see themselves reflected.
Does anyone know of any good novels about single women who do not find themselves miraculously swept away into a love affair? It would be preferable if they didn’t die, or go crazy and it would be nice if they were happy, but feel free to mention books about unhappy single women who don’t meet a partner because I’d just like to see what fiction there is about single women who don’t become part of a romantic relationship. Tales of real life single women are always nice, but I think there’s more balance in non-fiction and there’s been a mini explosion of social histories focusing on single women in the last few years. Is it so much to ask for a little balance in fiction as well?
‘S wholesome kitty fun right?
Everyone has been linking to this, but just in case you haven’t seen it one more won’t hurt. Brent from ‘The Naughtie Book Kitties’ talks about being a gay teenager and trying to find books to read in a really honest post. In the article he references ‘What They Always Tell Us’ by Martin Wilson, as a break through discovery for him and his friend. I judged Martin Wilson’s first young adult novel for last year’s NerdsHeartYA. It’s good, not a perfect book, but still very good and I just thought I’d mention that again.
‘...scary became a fluid term’
Another excellent excerpt from Coleen’s manuscript ‘The Map of My Dead Pilots’. If only one of my friends had grown up to be a publisher.
Lots of speedway have been cancelled this week because the organisers don’t think they can compete with the group stages of the World Cup. I find it a little sad that other sports have to make way for the football obsession and that they don’t get the same kind of support (financial or otherwise). Still the speedway Grand Prix series forged ahead (for once being on Sky is a good thing). It was nice to see the motor sport worlds come together this weekend, when Mark Webber turned up at the Polish Grand Prix last weekend, supporting his friend, current Speedway World Champion Jason Crump.
Only three weeks until and my dad are at the British Grand Prix in Cardiff! And yes we are following in the footsteps of all those English people who continue to be confident that England will pull of a shock win in the football. Hoping (probably a little unrealistically) for a British win at Cardiff again and looking forward to some great racing.
Serious decisions
If you like having opinions about the strange results this World Cup seems to be throwing up, how would you like some more odd tournament decisions to discuss? There’s a Terry Pratchett World Cup running right now to decide which of his Discworld novels is the best ever and the results so far are...interesting (read not what I would have picked AT ALL!). The contest has reached the quarter final stages and there’s still time for you to vote on what makes it through to the semis.
And have you heard Terry Pratchett is going to be returning to sci-fi for his next novel? Not sure how I feel about that as Strata is the only one of his books that I didn’t like, but always happy to give his books a try.
Singledom and Books
Occasionally times in single land are not so good, readers. Yes, sometimes being single means wondrous fun involving beery nights organised at the drop of a hat (there has been a lot of hat dropping recently) , but sometimes it mean doubts and fears about whether you are making the right choices in life. Now in times of trouble I usually, among other things, immerse myself in a good book that doesn’t speak to my exact troubles, but it seems that books and romantic troubles almost always come into conflict.
Every freaking novel of every genre now seems to contain a happy love story, or a tragic love story where hope reappears at the end, or a moral about how romantic love is what matters and how you’ll never really live if you don’t find it. I know that some single people like and need these kind of stories when they feel down and out in single land, because they provide the comforting idea that romance is just around the corner. I am not one of those people. I adore love stories in books during my general, stable state, but when I begin to doubt how my single life is going I need to be as far away from romance as possible.
So I’m not saying ‘Kill All Romance Because Sometimes it Makes Me Feel A Bit Bad’ or anything drastic like that, but I am adding another line to my diversity rally call. Perhaps when authors sit down to write their next book they could think about single girls who stay single and how they occasionally need a book where they can see themselves reflected.
Does anyone know of any good novels about single women who do not find themselves miraculously swept away into a love affair? It would be preferable if they didn’t die, or go crazy and it would be nice if they were happy, but feel free to mention books about unhappy single women who don’t meet a partner because I’d just like to see what fiction there is about single women who don’t become part of a romantic relationship. Tales of real life single women are always nice, but I think there’s more balance in non-fiction and there’s been a mini explosion of social histories focusing on single women in the last few years. Is it so much to ask for a little balance in fiction as well?
‘S wholesome kitty fun right?
Everyone has been linking to this, but just in case you haven’t seen it one more won’t hurt. Brent from ‘The Naughtie Book Kitties’ talks about being a gay teenager and trying to find books to read in a really honest post. In the article he references ‘What They Always Tell Us’ by Martin Wilson, as a break through discovery for him and his friend. I judged Martin Wilson’s first young adult novel for last year’s NerdsHeartYA. It’s good, not a perfect book, but still very good and I just thought I’d mention that again.
‘...scary became a fluid term’
Another excellent excerpt from Coleen’s manuscript ‘The Map of My Dead Pilots’. If only one of my friends had grown up to be a publisher.