My book reading has been all over the shop, in both quantity and genre, since my last post. In the week ending October 25 I read seven books but in the week ending November 8 I read none. There've been huge chunks of sci-fi interspersed with crime fiction, graphic novels and YA supernatural nonsense. Plus, for the first time since being an undergrad, I've actually been on a big non-fiction kick. And whilst all of this has been going on, my to-be-read pile(s) has spiraled out of control.

244. Dark Water - Koji Suzuki
245. Cobweb - Neal Stephenson & Frederick George
246. Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
247. Amnesia Moon - Jonathan Lethem
248. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
249. John Constantine, Hellblazer: Chas, The Knowledge - Simon Oliver & Goran Sudzuka
250. Idlewild - Nick Sagan
251. John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Roots of Coincidence - Giuseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini
252. Auggie Wren's Christmas Story - Paul Aster
253. Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
254. A Matter of Death & Life - Andrey Kurkov
255. Evermore - Alyson Noel
256. Generation Kill - Evan Wright
257. One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer - Nathaniel Fick
258. Marvel True Believers Retro Collection: The Fantastic Four Pop-Up - Caroline Repchuck
259. The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq - Graham Dale with Neil Fetherstonhaugh
260. Sniper One - Sgt. Dan Mills

( So, let's talk about some of these for a bit )

Related only in the sense that books are involved, apparently Borders is teetering on the edge of going into administration. And I know it's mean spirited of me, but I'm actually kind of glad about this. I hate Borders. The one in Glasgow is fucking massive but you can never find what you're looking for and it's not really good value for money. There's no such thing as the personal touch and trying to speak to a member of staff is nearly impossible. I won't miss it.

Between my excellent housewife-like exploits of the past few days, I've been reading Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick. Both books have hammered home how little I actually know about Afghanistan and Iraq. I consider myself to be fairly well up on things. I read the newspaper. I watch the news. I discuss political situations with people. But, seriously, I have giant glaring holes in my knowledge. Reading Fick's book especially made me realise that I didn't actually remember the chain of events that happened after the September 11th attacks in America. I don't remember the retaliatory events in Afghanistan directly afterwards. I just remember the move into Iraq and the massive protests here and Hans Blix completely failing to find weapons of mass destruction. The whole bit between September 11th and the invasion of Iraq is oddly blank in my memory.

In a way, I'd like to blame this on the fact that I was on a dig in Hungary on September 11, 2001. I had spent my day excavating a Neolithic shell midden in the blazing sun on the edge of the great Hungarian plain. Back at the hunting lodge we were staying at, we were all looking forward to showers and cold beer only to be told by the people who'd stayed behind for finds processing that someone had flown a plane into the twin towers. Which we thought was a joke. I remember genuinely not believing what they were saying until I followed them into the common room and saw the images on the TV. It was like a demented sci-fi movie. Now, the problem was we were in the middle of nowhere in Hungary and the only news we could get was German and I was the only person with any German at all and school-level German doesn't really cover death and destruction. So, I'd like to say that it was this remoteness from my usual surroundings that led to my absolute lack of memory of what happened afterwards. For me, what happened afterwards is that we all eventually dragged ourselves away from the TV, had showers and went about our business as usual the next day. A week or two later flying back to the UK was extremely complicated and involved armed soldiers which was in direct contrast to our flight into Hungary which had involved a member of our party making it through passport control with an out of date passport. Then, protests and Iraq. Nothing in between.

What I worry about is that I don't remember the bit in between because it didn't seem important and so it floated right out of my brain just as soon as it entered. I had some personal stuff going on around that time but you would I think I would have retained some information relating to America and various coalition forces bombing the shit out of Afghanistan. Of course, all of this has helped clear up the burning question of why, exactly, British forces were first sent to Afghanistan, which is something I've never really been sure of despite the huge coverage that war is getting at the moment.

Last night, like a good, conscientious girl, I changed the time on my phone to take account of the time change and set my alarm. I, I thought rather smugly at the time, was not going to be one of those people who flailed around on Sunday morning, early for work because I had thought ahead and taken things into account. Only my phone took things into account too and, at some unknown time through the night (3am? I thought the time change happened at 2am, but 3am probably makes more sense because of licensing laws and whatnot.), pushed the time back another hour, with the result that I was late for work.

Plus, when I woke up, my right eye had tried to glue itself shut throughout the night and continued the attempt throughout the day. Which was not fun. But, on the upside, I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so that was nice.

ALSO, I HAVE NOW WATCHED THE WIL WHEATON EPISODE OF THE BIG BANG THEORY AND IT IS AWESOME SQUARED! HOW IS WIL WHEATON SO COOL?!?

And, last but not least, I'm enjoying Grey's Anatomy so far this season, especially because MITCH FUCKING PILEGGI keeps showing up!!!

I kind of forgot that I was in the middle of a trouble check over at TFL... So my update has come a few days late, but it's done so I feel like I've achieved something. And to further this paltry sense of achievement, let's talk about the books I've read recently (I'm still mostly waaaay behind on TV).

230. Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
231. Big in Japan: A Ghost Story - M. Thomas Gammaring
232. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Devil in the Sky - Greg Cox & John Gregory Betancourt
233. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Laertian Gamble - Robert Sheckley
234. Stories We Could Tell - Tony Parsons
235. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Objective: Bajor - John Peel
236. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Heart of the Warrior - John Gregory Betancourt
237. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Wrath of the Prophets - Peter David, Michael Jan Friendman & Robert Greenberger
238. The Host - Stephenie Meyer
239. Broken Angels - Richard Morgan
240. The Snow - Adam Roberts
241. Berlin Blues - Sven Regener
242. Budapest - Chico Buarque
243. The Final Solution - Michael Chabon

( Some musings and whatnot )

I seem to have read a fuck load of stuff in the past month. This partly down to the amount of graphic novels I went through this month but I read actual books too, honest!

198. The Invisibles: Say You Want A Revolution - Grant Morrison et. al.
199. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita - Andrzei Klimowski & Danusia Schejbal
200. Cycle of Violence - Grayson Perry
201. The Sandman Presents... The Furies - Mike Carey & John Bolton
202. Point Blank - Ed Brubaker & Colin Wilson
203. Sleeper: Season One - Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
204. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
205. Vampire Kisses - Ellen Schreiber
206. Love Story - Erich Segal
207. Tomorrow is a Stranger - Geoffrey Trease
208. Janes in Love - Cecil Castellicii & Jim Rugg
209. Connect - Nan McCarthy
210. The Three Incestuous Sisters - Audrey Niffenegger
211. The Regeneration Trilogy: The Eye in the Door - Pat Barker
212. Life Class - Pat Barker
213. The Friendly Young Ladies - Mary Renault
214. Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens: Changeling - Stephen Leigh
215. Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens: Renegade - Cordell Scotten
216. 40 Years of Original Prints - Edinburgh Printmakers
217. Model - Lee So-young
218. Cover the Mirrors - Faye L. Booth
219. Stargate: Atlantis, Angelus - Peter J. Evans
219. Twilight - William Gay
220. The Salon - Nick Bertozzi
221. The Regeneration Trilogy: Regeneration - Pat Barker
222. The Regeneration Trilogy: The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
223. 1985 - Mark Millar & Tommy Lee Edwards
224. Vimanarama - Grant Morrison & Philip Bond
225. Moomin Book Four: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip - Tove Jansson & Lars Jansson
226. Their Finest Hour and a Half - Lissa Evans
227. The Naming of the Beasts - Mike Carey
228. Vampire Dance - Sergio Bleda
229. Stargate: Atlantis, Entanglement - Martha Wells

( Related Babblings )

Why have they made the covers of all Young Adult novels look exactly the same? In Borders today (and to a lesser extent, in Waterstones, which is where I actually bought the books I was after) I was confronted with a wall of titles that were incredibly difficult to differentiate because they all looked so similar :/ And it's not just recently published titles that have been given the 'black background with partial face or generic strong woman' look, they've rereleased some older stuff with new covers - new covers that are nowhere near as eye catching as the originals.

Obviously, the recent LJS reprints suffer from this, but you've also got Tithe and Ironside by Holly Black, Glass Houses, The Dead Girls' Dance and Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine, and Marked and Betrayed by P. C. & Kristin Cast. They're all oversized paperbacks (and when did we decide to default to that size? There was nothing wrong with the old paperback size) and they all look EXACTLY THE SAME. Do they think that by cunningly making all books look alike (aka like Twilight) that we'll buy them automatically without actually stopping to wonder if they're any good?

Dear Publishers: Please to be using more imagination with your book covers.

It turns out that it's absolutely ages since I've posted about my amazing reading habits. So sad.

158. An American Dream - Norman Mailer
159. Salomé - Oscar Wilde & David Shenton
160. The Seventh Tower: The Fall - Garth Nix
161. Juliet of the Chalet School - Caroline German
162. Harlequinn Valentine - Neil Gaiman & John Bolton
163. Queen & Country (Definitive Edition), Volume 1 - Greg Rucka et. al.
164. Queen & Country (Definitive Edition), Volume 2 - Greg Rucka et. al.
165. A Woman In Berlin - Anonymous
166. Thicker Than Water - Mike Carey
167. A Disease of Language - Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell
168. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening - L.J. Smith
169. The Vampire Diaries: The Struggle - L.J. Smith
170. The Vampire Diaries: The Fury - L.J. Smith
171. The Vampire Diaries: The Return - L.J. Smith
172. All Fires the Fire and Other Stories - Julio Cortázar
173. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
174. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
175. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
176. The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
177. The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
178. The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
179. Tuned Out: The BBC's portrayal of lesbian and gay people - Katherine Cowan & Gill Valentine (Stonewall)
180. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
181. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
182. Stardumb - John Defazio & Dave Hickey
183. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë
184. Villette - Charlotte Brontë
185. The Professor - Charlotte Brontë
186. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Section 31, Rogue - Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin
187. Queen & Country (Definitive Edition), Volume 3 - Greg Rucka et. al.
188. Stargate: Atlantis, Blood Ties - Sonny Whitelaw & Elizabeth Christensen
189. Stargate: Atlantis, Mirror, Mirror - Sabine C. Bauer
190: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Proud Helios - Melissa Scott
191. Love Thy Neighbour: What people of faith really think about homosexuality - Ruth Hunt & Gill Valentine (Stonewall)
192. Rainbow City: Stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh - Ellen Galford & Ken Wilson (Remember When Project)
193. A Fistful of Rain - Greg Rucka
194. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
195. Shooting at Midnight - Greg Rucka
196. The Maintenance of Headway - Magnus Mills
197. The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg

( Some thoughts and general ramblings )

EDIT: Holy cliffhanger, A Town Called Eureka!

I'm just home from work and I have two things to say:

01) Dermatologists are really used to getting their own way. Cajoling, threatening and/or complimenting me will not get me to bend the rules for you. So get over it.

02) I don't think I can ever forgive my flatmate for suggesting I read Villette. I want to kill myself and I still have at least 100 pages to read :/

I just watched an entire episode of Nigella Express and I don't really know why. Okay, that's a lie. I do know. I was flicking and they were showing a preview of her making chocolate chip cookies and they looked fucking good. This is not an excuse for the feeling of powerless that came over me once the thing actually started. Jesus. It's so smug. My forehead actually hurts from the unimpressed frowning I sustained throughout.

Anyway, let's catch up on my reading list (because I know you're all riveted when I do this bit).

127. Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
128. The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall - L.J. Smith
129. Forever Odd - Dean Koontz
130. Brother Odd - Dean Koontz
131. This Is War - Georg Bush (as told to Dr. Parsons)
132. Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka
133. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Avatar, Book One - S.D. Perry
134. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Avatar, Book Two - S.D. Perry
135. The All New X-Men Pop-Up - Caroline Repchuck
136. The Last Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
137. Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence - Nick Bantock
138. Star Trek: Titan: Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
139. Star Trek: Voyager: Mosaic - Jeri Taylor
140. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ghost Ship - Diane Carey
141. Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Eyes of the Beholder - A.C. Crispin
142. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q in Law - Peter David
142. Star Trek: Titan: The Red King - Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
143. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Imbalance - V.E. Mitchell
144. Star Trek: Titan: Orion's Hounds - Christopher L. Bennett
145. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Here There Be Dragons - John Peel
146. Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
147. Resident Evil: Underworld - S.D. Perry
148. Veronica at the Wells - Lorna Hill
149. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
150. Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours - Jim Butcher
151. The Sea - John Banville
152. The Human Stain - Philip Roth
153. Only You Can Save Mankind - Terry Pratchett
154. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: What You Leave Behind - Diane Carey
155. The Ipcress File - Len Deighton
156. Pharos: A Ghost Story - Alice Thompson
157. The Ladies' Paradise - Emile Zola

( Some ruminations on some of the above mentioned books )

YA books meme fun, yoinked from somewhere. Which books have you read?

1. Bold the books you’ve read
2. Bold + Italicise the books you loved
3. Underline the books you plan on reading/would like to read
4. Tally how many books you've read at the bottom

( The List )

I question whether some of those books were actually written for the YA market...

I brought The Vampire Diaries - The Return: Nightfall into work today and spent my whole shift laughing my arse off as I read it (most disconcerting for the people actually looking at the art, I have no doubt).

Dude, seriously?

( Spoilers! )

But my general response: HILARITY!

EDIT: Also, why couldn't this whole thing have been wrapped up in the one volume? What exactly are they all going to be doing for two more books? My mind cannot comprehend the joys of discovery that await them (and us!).

Well, holy fuck I haven't updated my reading list since July. So let's catch up. My overriding memory of my reading from July until now is that somehow I kept reading books that I just didn't like which a) pissed me off and b) slowed my reading down considerably. That said, I read some fantastic books that I cannot recommend highly enough.

101. The Twilight Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
102. Evelyn Finds Herself - Josephine Elder
103. Mystery of the Glowing Eye - Carolyn Keene
104. Better Than Life - Grant Naylor
105. A Fourth Form Friendship - Angela Brazil
106. The New Girl at Melling - Margaret Biggs
107. Supernatural: Witch's Canyon - Jeff Mariotte
108. Circle of Three: So Mote It Be - Isobel Bird
109. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Strike Zone - Peter David
110. The Poe Shadow - Matthew Pearl
111. Friends Like These - Danny Wallace
112. Supernatural: Nevermore - Keith R. A. DeCandido
113. The Ghost - Robert Harris
114. Incompetence - Rob Grant
115. Hogfather - Terry Pratchett
116. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
117. When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
118. The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
119. Something Borrowed - Paul Magrs
120. Small Favour - Jim Butcher
121. Once Upon A Time In The North - Phillip Pullman
122. Tales of the Beedle Bard - J.K. Rowling
123. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
124. Nation - Terry Pratchett
125. 30 Days of Night - Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith
126. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days - Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith

( Further thoughts... )

zomg!

EDIT:


Oooohh!

I've been adding music to my iTunes for the better part of the day and I am bored witless. Music is great and I love it, but adding stuff to iTunes is tedious in the extreme. On the upside, I've finally listened to Patrick Wolf and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Plus, I listened to lots of Christy Moore which made me nostalgic for home.

So, before I go crazy and start relabelling everything 'Britney Spears' or something let's talk about the books I've read recently, continuing from this post.

44. A Certain Slant of Light - Laura Whitcomb
45. Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
46. The Devil You Know - Mike Carey
47. Vicious Circle - Mike Carey
48. The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
49. The Day Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
50. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
51. Imperium - Robert Harris
52. Shade's Children - Garth Nix
53. Looking For Alaska - John Green
54. The Missing Link - Kate Thompson
55. A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
56. The Sign of Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

( A few random thoughts about some of the books )

I've done quite a bit of reading lately. The amount of reading I've done is clearly directly proportional the amount of work I have not done.

29. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - Anne Rice
30. Beauty's Punishment - Anne Rice
31. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
32. Blood Brothers - Nicholas Adams
33. War Crimes for the Home - Liz Jensen
34. Vampire Twins 1: Bloodlines - Janice Harrell
35. Vampire Twins 2: Bloodlust - Janice Harrell
36. Mary Reilly - Valerie Martin
37. Me and Mr Darcy - Alexandra Potter
38. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
39. Skullduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
40. Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill
41. Stormbreaker - Anthony Horowitz
42. Fluffy - Simone Lia
43. The Dead Girls' Dance - Rachel Caine

(List is continued from the last post.)

( Thoughts on some of the books )

I know I've become a bit of a posting machine over the last few days, and I put it down to good old 'avoiding work syndrome', so apologies.

Just been over to check the post list and I had a lovely package from Amazon (does anyone remember when Amazon used to send you free post-its and stuff with your orders? I miss that. Now all they do is send excess packaging and ads for stuff you don't want) which included the new Vampire Diaries 2-in-1. It's just as sexy as the preview images suggested. However, it is American, and not British as I'd previously thought. I've uploaded it, along with a preview for the next 2-in-1 to The L.J. Smith Cover Resource. But I'm going to share the sexy here too. The first one can be clicked for a much larger version, but the second is just a thumbnail.



I'm not too sure about the cover for the second volume. It doesn't quite live up to the first, but at least they've managed to stay away from goth!Elena ;) The book is the newly popular oversized paperback, by the way, unlike every other LJS book ever which is going to play havoc with my shelving system.

And should anyone be interested, my other Amazon purchases were:
Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
A Certain Slant of Light - Laura Whitcomb
Fluffy - Simone Lia
Looking for Alaska - John Green

As evidenced by my drunken post last night, my Harry Potter plans went slightly awry. I had intended to have one single pint, pick up the book and spend the night reading. Instead, I had four pints, spent an hour and a half queuing for the book, had another pint, went to a Chinese retaurant/disco (seriously), had three double vodkas, bought chips and onion rings, came home, drunkenly (and unsuccessfully) attempted to watch Big Brother, and fell asleep.

Good times, my friends, good times. I was a bit disappointed by the launch party at Borders which was a bit... well, rubbish. The staff had made amazing attempts at dressing up, so fair play to them, and it was clear that they were all working really hard, but it just lacked magic. There weren't too many kids, and they were playing a strange selection of music. Plus, the queue was absolutely mental, wrapping its way through both floors.

The free goodie bag, though, was surprisingly good. There was some promotional stuff for the Spiderwick movie (I didn't even know there was going to be a Spiderwick movie), three samplers for upcoming kids/YA books (one of which claims to be 'Ideal for the reader who has outgrown Harry Potter' which has completely put me off, because who outgrows HP?) and a full copy of Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz. So I was pretty impressed. I also bought The Devil You Know by Mike Carey and Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Shockingly, they didn't have a single copy of the new L.J. Smith reprints OR anything by John Green. Bah!

This morning, I was woken up when SOMEONE THREW A PIECE OF FRUIT THROUGH MY WINDOW AND IT LANDED ON MY HAND. I swear to God. SOMEONE THREW FRUIT THROUGH MY WINDOW. What the fuck is that all about? Needless to say, I was utterly confused by the whole thing and just stared at the fruit on my hand for a while.

Once I'd gotten over the shock, it was time to start reading Deathly Hallows - yay!

( Clearly, there will be spoilers under here )

I've just noticed that the icons I've used in my last two posts follow each other brilliantly. First we have Alan Rickman as Snape saying 'I say we get pissed because I'm all out of ideas' which is followed by Alan Rickman as Metatron saying 'very drunk'. Ha!

I've just finished reading The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger from cover to cover.

Oh god.

I'd more or less avoided it for no better reason than it was a pick of the Richard & Judy Book Club. Not to be overly negative towards Richard & Judy, but I wouldn't trust either of them to suggest a good book. I would expect a book recommended by them to be cloying and sickly sweet and full of the type of morals that help you grow as a person. Despite these - valid, in my opinion - concerns, I bought it a few months ago when I saw it in a Charity Shop, going for the astronomical price of 75p.

Best 75p I've spent in a long time.

( Not really spoilers, but a cut just in case )
Despite my absolute inability to vocalise what I think about this book, I highly recommend it. I've read quite a few good books in the last year or so, but I've not read one so satisfying in quite some time.

(As I was reading the last few pages, 'Orange Sky' by Alexi Murdoch started to play, and if I'd tried I couldn't have come up with a more fitting song.)

Just finished rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and, god, Harry is annoying for most of that book. Seriously, Dumbledore should have bitchslapped him, rather than trying to teach him. Still, you do get the hopeful feeling that he's grown a bit by the end of the book. I'm quite impatient for Deathly Hallows now because I just can't 7map out where JKR's gonna go with this. I really should prebook my copy for a midnight release *makes note to self*

Over the past few years, I've been reading more and more fan-fiction. Which means that I've been reading fewer books. I've been buying as many as ever, I've just not necessarily been reading them. I've been trying to get back into the swing of reading this year (but have failed miserably over the last two months or so), and Half-Blood Prince brings me to a total of 28 books read since January. Which is pathetic.

Books are good. I know this. So I should read them more. I rarely come across a book that pisses me off/outrages me/disappoints me as much as fan-fiction can, so I should be reading more books. Books are love, damnit!

( Ze books I have read this year, should anyone be interested )
EDIT: BTW, does anyone want a copy of Philosopher's Stone with the original back illustration (the one with a funky young Dumbledore - this one)? The spine's a bit faded, but it's in decent overall condition. I'm doing a post office run soon and I can send it to you for free since I recently bought a non-faded-spine-edition.

While I was in town earlier today, I took rinabell and marimac's advice and bought a copy of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Actually, I was surprised to find it in not just one, but two bookshops. Usually I have to order in the books I want. At home, I watched some TV and then settled down to finish Terry Pratchett's Going Postal which I start back in August and then completely neglected to finish. About an hour later, book read, I started on Twilight.

And couldn't put it down until I'd finished it.

I was actually disgusted when my reading was interrupted by the arrival of dinner time! I can't really express how much I enjoyed it. I absolutely loved it. I read most of it with a happy half-smirk on my face, and I felt it. Everything about it seemed so real, so tangible. I believed everything that Bella felt, and I believed that Edward was utterly dangerous. With Ash, my one-true vampire love, I know he's dangerous, but I don't think I ever really believe it. Ash and Edward do share a delightful sense of humour though, and I'll always treasure Edward for the following:

"I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly."

The cover (here) slightly weirds me out, but I like the unreal feeling of it. It says a lot to me about Bella and how she feels through the book, and you can't usually say that about a cover. Naturally, I am unmoved by the North American cover which, in true NA style, just doesn't match up to the wonder of the UK one ;)

Book devoured, I then went to her website (here), which is just packed with wonderful stuff, including some details of its two upcoming sequels. Although I'm not too sure about a movie version. I can't visualise it somehow.

In summary, I loved this book and I love rinabell and marimac for recommending I read it. If I could, I'd force everyone on my friends' list to read it!