Historical Fiction

I didn't participate in the last Weekly Geeks on historical fiction, but I've been going through the posts of those who did and had so many books to add to my list that I decided to put them in a separate post. Much more fun this way.

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough (Ancient Rome, via Maree)
A Woman's Place by Lynn Austin (WWII, via Becky)
Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher (WWII, via Becky)
The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason (Regencyy, via Chris)
I, Claudius by Robert Graves (Ancient Rome, via Coversgirl)
Imperium by Robert Harris (Ancient Rome, via Coversgirl)
Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (Medieval, via Robin)

Weekly Geeks: Passions

Although I'm very, very late, I decided to participate in this week's Weekly Geeks event. Basically, I've been wanting to start participating in Weekly Geeks in general and I figure now is as good a time to start as any!

This week's assignment is this:

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea.

Tell us why you're passionate about it. Post photos of what you've made or of yourself doing whatever it is you love doing.

#2. Get us involved. Link to tutorials, recipes, Youtube videos, websites, fan sites, etc, anything that will help us learn more about your interest or how to do your hobby. Maybe you'd like to link to another hobbyist whose work you admire or tell us about a book or magazine related to your interest.

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've peaked your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow afincionado among us, link to them.

Well, let's see now. I'm passionate about a lot of things that don't involve reading or blogging about reading! I suppose first and foremost, I am passionate about the performing arts. I sing, I act, I dance, I direct - I participate in both straight theatre and in musicals and I also sing with a small choir that ca be hired for events and that also organised its own concerts sometimes. All this happens within an English-speaking theatre community in Belgium. It's great because the various groups here stage tons of shows in English, so expats have it easy.

Here's a photo of me singing and acting the part of Peep-Bo in The Mikado:








And here's a very different photo of me dancing the part of Vibrata in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum:













I really love the stage and I'm always happy rehearsing and performing.

As you can imagine, this takes up a lot of my time, but I do still have some passions left. :-) I love food and cooking. I love recipes - I buy magazined and cookbooks like crazy and love looking through them over and over. I wish I had more time to devote to cooking, especially to healthy cooking - that's one of my resolutions for this year.

I enjoy loads of other activities, but I think that this post is long enough! :-) Can't wait to go see what everyone else has posted about!

Weekly Geeks #10: Magazines

I couldn't resist joining in this week's Weekly Geeks about magazines - I love them! I actually have to consciously make sure that I control my magazine habit because it gets so expensive - English-language magazines are so expensive here!

The magazine I read regularly, i.e. I buy it pretty much every month, is BBC Good Food - full of recipes, ideas and food news. I love cooking and I have another blog about cooking and food, but I don't update that nearly often enough. I must get on that actually. Anyway, Good Food is really great - the recipes range from simple and quick to more elaborate so I'll always find something I want to make. They have a great website too, registration is free and they have a fantastic recipe collection on there. But I still buy the magazine, nothing beats sitting down with a cup of coffee and the new issue on a Saturday afternoon!

Through Melody's Weekly Geeks post, I found Bookmarks magazine. I hadn't heard of it before, but it looks amazing. I'm considering subscribing to it - perhaps I'll forego my monthly allowed Amazon order in August and subscribe to Bookmarks instead!

Weekly Geeks #9: Challenges

I haven't participated in this for quite some time, but I'm able to fit this in since this edition lasts for 2 whole weeks because Dewey has been busy with the 24-hour Read-A-Thon (wow, by the way, I'm very impressed with that!).

I've been really busy lately, looking for a new job (found one) plus on holiday last week - which means I read a lot, which is good. My challenge list is growing steadily, but I completed quite a few as well, so I'm feeling optimistic. I hope to do fairly well in the end! :-)

This week's topic is challenges and we are asked to get organised, update lists, catch up on posts, etc. For the full description, go to Dewey's post.

Right, so these are the challenges I'm participating in:

Finished:
Banned Books Challenge
Numbers Challenge
Eponymous Challenge
Novella Challenge
Once Upon A Time Challenge (done, although with only one book!)
Spring Reading Challenge
Title Master Reading Challenge


In Progress:

8 months left (till end February '09):
1% Well-Read Challenge - 3/10 done

6 months left (till end of '08):
100+ Reading Challenge - 41/100
888 Challenge - 20/56
A-Z Challenge - 27/52
Chunkster Challenge - 3/4
Decades '08 - 4/8
Man Booker Challenge - 1/6 (yikes again!)
Mythopoeic Challenge - 2/7 (hmmm...)
Orbis Terrarum - 3/9

5 months left (till end November '08):
342,745 ways to herd cats - 0/3
Initials Reading Challenge - 2/5

4 months left (till end October '08):
10 out of 100 out of 1001 - 4/10 done

3 months left (till end September '08):
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - 1/6 (yikes, not looking good!)
Non-Fiction Five - 1/5

2 months left (till end August '08):
Chick Lit Challenge - 1/3
Southern Reading Challenge - 2/3 (ends 15 August actually)


Starting soon:
Classics Challenge (starts 1 July)
Book Awards II (starts 1 August)

and a few others that I'm just getting ready to post about...

Whew. Organising this is actually quite informative! :-)

Weekly Geeks #4: Things that matter

This week’s theme for Weekly Geeks: Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Find several books addressing that issue; they don’t have to books you’ve read, just books you might like to read. Using images (of the book covers or whatever you feel illustrates your topic) present these books in your blog.

Well, Dewey is certainly making me think! This has been on my mind for a few days now, just because there are many things that I care about. Then it was on my mind because I was trying to find the right words for the social issue that concerns me most. I couldn't come up with a word, but here are two: consumerism and commercialism.

These two concepts encompass so much, I know, but then all of these social issues are related to the state of the world and its future, sometimes it's hard to separate things.

Now, I am certainly not a minimalist person and I definitely like shopping as much as the next girl, but I don't understand why people need absolutely everything in double or in triple and in the largest size available. I don't understand why everything is reduced to having money. I don't understand why I have to pay for drinking water, why every event I go to means I am bombarded with advertising and why any kid can buy cigarettes. I don't understand why in a debate about GMOs, the argument 'for' consists of 'but otherwise trade would suffer'.

I think we've passed a line and if more people don't start to live life a tad differently then our world will change into something we can't even imagine.

I'm currently reading Jennifer Government by Max Barry. It takes place in a future where everything is run by big corporations - even the government is a big corporation and only has funding for crime prevention, but not punishment. So if a family member is killed, there can be no investigation until you put up the cash. It's a strange world, but some details about it make me think of today's world already. Probably not a good sign.

Along the same lines, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas deals with how the world around us evolves. I read this a long time ago but I still think about it, it was powerful. This is the second time today that I plug it so if you noticed that know that I just really liked it, I'm not getting paid for publicising it or anything! The part of Cloud Atlas that takes place in the distant future shows us a world where fear and inhumanity are normal. Is that where we're heading?

Inhumanity and the concept of what exactly we're prepared to ignore to keep our own lives as comfortable as possible is also dealt with in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. A chilling book, it depicts a certain state of things that at first glance seems unthinkable - but I don't think I'd be that surprised if I found out that it happens already.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser really illustrates how industry works in the US and how people with no morals decide about things that affect our everyday lives. I read this book a long time ago and still think about it - very powerful. Not to mention that I haven't been able to set foot in a McDonald's since I finished it.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is one that I haven't read yet, it's planned for this year and I hope to get to it soon. All I know is that it's about going to the beginning of our food chain, which seems like a smart idea to me!

Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence is another one I've been wanting to read for a while. The subtitle is 'what really goes in the food on your plate' so I'm sure I'll find it interesting. All this concentrating on making money had made people stop thinking about simple things like this.

I can't think of any more so maybe it's time to get down from my soap box. I hope my contribution to Weekly Geeks will be accepted, even though I didn't list ten books!

April Round-up and Weekly Geeks #2

I'll start with this week's Weekly Geeks challenge, because I think the idea is really fantastic. Dewey got this week's idea from Darla at Books and Other Thoughts. When Darla reviews a book, she also includes links to other bloggers' reviews. The reasons for why this is so great are well-explained by Dewey here - and we are encouraged to try this idea. As a new blogger still making a lot of new contacts I think this is a brilliant way of being part of the greater book blogging community. I'm going to try this so if you see that I reviewed a book that you also reviewed, leave the link in the comments and I will add it to my original post. What do you think?

And my round-up for April - these are the books I read:

1. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume (C+)
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (A)
3. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (A)
4. The Xmas Factor by Annie Sanders (C+)
5. This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes (C)
6. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (A)
7. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (B+)
8. The Speckled People by Hugo Hamilton (B+)
9. Like Life by Lorrie Moore (D-)

Not too bad and I was lucky enough to have had a good amount of very good books last month!