Very Much So....: November 2012

Wednesday Challenge Update 21.11.12

A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin

From Goodreads:
Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King’s Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world...

I was unsure whether to read this instalment or not as Matt and I are watching Game of Thrones but I just couldn't resist. Then I got disheartened part way through as it seemed to be taking me a long time to read it. I was really enjoying it but I'd got used to a faster pace of reading. I think part of the problem was that I was reading it on the Kindle so I couldn't see the size of the book. Once I'd looked it up and found 'Storm of Swords' word count was over 400K I stopped feeling bad that it was taking me a couple of weeks.
I'm really enjoying seeing how the different story lines are developing for each character and how they are slowly interlinking. I think I'll read a couple of other different books though before I read the next instalment in the song of ice and fire saga.

This is the first book I've read since I finished the challenge and I'm still finding myself just as eager to pick a new one up straight away. As always you can keep up with what I'm currently reading on my Goodreads page or look at all of the past weeks of the challenge here.

Being Outside

On holiday we tried to spend as much time as we could outside. I find that being out in nature is the best thing possible for my soul. If I'm sad or stressed a walk through the park is really the only cure for me. To spend all day on walks through the forest and then the evening chatting with good friends was perfect for me. My heart feels full again and I feel ready to conquer our day to day problems. Just looking at these pictures makes me smile and I'm excited for our next adventure.

Morning Spider Webs

When we were away Matt and I tried to go out for a walk every morning whilst everyone else was getting up and ready. The first time we went out we came across this field of spider webs. It was truly magical to see them covered in dew with the morning sun shining through the trees. It was one of those moments where I squeezed my husband's hand a little harder and found myself thankful for this world that I live in, this life that I have. And then I ran off to take these photos. I found myself smiling and giggling like a child and I think I carried some of that magic through the rest of the day.

Book Challenge Completed October 2012

Image from Goodreads

Mucho Mojo - Joe R. Lansdale

From Goodreads:
Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duo's last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend, and when the two are cleaning up Uncle Chester's dilapidated house, they uncover a dark little secret beneath the house's rotting floor boards—a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard, being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chester's name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves.

This is the second in the Hap and Leonard series and I think I enjoyed it even more from the first. Since all of the characters were pretty well established the story got started much quicker than in the last book. The only slight problem with this one was that I didn't find it too much of the mystery, I could see the plot twist coming but that said it was still very enjoyable.

Image from Goodreads

Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan

From Goodreads:
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.

This was one of Matt's wild card recommendations for me because he thought I might maybe like it. And he was spot on. Although I like science fiction this isn't the sort of book I'd normally pick up and I'd been putting off reading it after glancing at the back cover. I did find it a little hard going but I really enjoyed it. It felt like more of a crime novel once you'd got over the whole 'consciousness is stored and so can be transferred to different bodies'. I'm not sure if I'll read the rest of the trilogy as they seem more military but I certainly liked this one.

Image from Goodreads

This Book is full of Spiders - David Wong

From Goodreads:
WARNING: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR. You will dismiss this as ridiculous fearmongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fearmongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection-the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That's just as well, since the "cure" involves learning what a chain saw tastes like. You can't feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings. You can't see it, because it decides what you see. You won't even feel it when it breeds. And it will breed. So what happens when your family, friends, and neighbors get mind-controlling skull spiders? We're all about to find out.

Matt surprised me with this last week and I was so excited. John Dies at the End was one of my favourite books this year so I was excited to get stuck into this, the sequel. It also felt right that this would be my last book of the challenge. It certainly didn't disappoint. Just as strange as the first one and just as addictive, I didn't want to put it down. I loved it, maybe even more than the first one.

So that's it. I completed it. 50 books this year. I'm really proud of myself and I'll definitely be doing this again next year as I've discovered so many different books. I've learnt a lot about the style of writing I enjoy and, equally important, what I don't. I'm going to continue to do updates for the remainder of the year because I want to keep in the habit of doing them and I'm not going to stop reading.

As always you can keep up with what I'm currently reading on my Goodreads page or look at all of the past weeks of the challenge here.

Our Anniversary Weekend

We had such a lovely weekend to celebrate our first anniversary. We kept it pretty low key but it was nice just to spend time together. We bought Halo 4 as a little anniversary present to ourselves so Saturday was pretty much spent playing that together. Saturday night was full of beer, party food and Halo 4 and we actually saw in our anniversary before we went to sleep. When we woke on the Sunday we had sparkling wine that was left over from the wedding as well as cake we’d bought from the same patisserie that provided our wedding cakes. After a little more Halo we headed out for an autumnal walk in the sunshine before popping in a pub that we’ve been going to since the beginning of our relationship. To finish off the day we went to a Thai restaurant that was also the scene of one of our first dates.
All in all it was a fun trip down memory lane whilst discussing the future that we have together. What more could I ask for out of an anniversary?

Halloween

Let's just pretend that it's the 1st of November and I'm telling you about our lovely day yesterday. Halloween was amazing. It fell smack bang in the middle of our week away with friends and we spent the day carving pumpkins, eating pumpkin soup for lunch, covering the whole cabin in Halloween decorations, dressing up and eating too many snacks and sweets. We don't usually do anything for Halloween so it was fun to do it all for once. Matt and I really were not prepared for the pumpkin carving and so we're going to need to get some practice in before next year so we don't show ourselves up again. In fact, I don't know why I'm saying 'we' Matt's came out lovely but it makes me feel better if I pretend it wasn't just me letting the side down. We may not be the best pumpkin carvers but we totally pulled off our fancy dress, even if Matt looked so creepy he kept scaring me all evening!

Sorry for my Absence....

I'm back now. I'm not sure why I was gone so long. After I'd missed a couple of days it became harder and harder to get back into blogging. I've set myself some weekly guidelines now though and I feel that I'm ready to jump back in so here I am. I'll try not to put up too many out of date posts but Matt and I have just spent a week away in Ringwood Forest and I have hundreds of photos from there so I'm going to blog about that. This is my apology in advance, you're going to have to look at our Halloween photos almost three weeks later. We have been up to other fun little adventures since I last wrote on here so here's just a quick photo update of our life to get you up to date....

A weekend in September. We baked bread together and then went on a local walk. A beautiful, perfect weekend spent walking hand in hand talking of our future.