madelinekelly

There were two books I forgot to mention in my last "what I've been reading" post: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, and The Sixth Seal by Mary Wesley.

Both books disappointed me for reasons that I find very interesting. You might not be quite as enthralled, however, so I shall put it all under a cut.

( Read more... )

What I read from September to December 2008.

( Not as many books as usual under the cut. )

I also tried to read the latest Charlie Bone book by Jenny Nimmo, but I got bored halfway through and never finished it. I think I've finally run out of steam on that series, which is probably a good thing since I have a couple of dozen unread books scattered around the house that I need to read before I think of getting any more from the library.

Typing of the library, I read 26 library books this last year, which totally makes the £8 membership fee worthwhile. I also read 3 books as downloads, which was a cheap (ie. free) and interesting experience but not one I'd like to have for every book I read. And the other 26 books were my own copies.

That's 55 books altogether, which is a smaller number than usual for me. This is because near the end of the year I discovered my OTP and I'm afraid I've been immersed in the smutty world of fanfic ever since. :D

On Open Book (on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday afternoons) last week they were talking about the Harry Potter phenomenon. Barry Cunningham, the man who accepted HP and the Philosopher's Stone for Bloomsbury, was on the programme and he actually sounded pretty depressed about the whole situation. On the one hand it's great because boys are reading again, and children are apparently greedy for more things to read after finishing the HP books. On the other hand, no-one had any hard figures to show if, aside from HP, more children's books were being sold.

The whole panel agreed that it was very sad that the release of each new title in the series wasn't actually bringing any money in for bookshops. The only people benefitting financially are Bloomsbury and J.K.Rowling. In fact, it'll keep people OUT of independent bookshops since they won't be able to offer it at a discount. And it'll probably keep some people out of the larger chains, since there are supermarkets offering it at less than half-price. And Amazon have admitted that they won't make any profit on the ones that have already been ordered.

Oh for the good old days when new books were sold at the RRP, no matter what shop you were in.

I've got this book -- actually, it belongs to my chicken-killing friend but he doesn't seem to want it back so it's been sitting on my bookshelf for three years -- called Manx Personal Names, by J. J. Kneen.

It was written in 1937 so there's a strong bias towards MALE Manx personal names. ( Read more... )

As well as discussing the origin of Manx surnames this book also covers first names and, wonderfully, nicknames. Apparently people were more likely to be known by their nicknames than their 'proper' first name-surname conjunction. Here are a few from the book that stood out for me:

Robert Kissage, Drake
John Maddrell, Supple
Juan-Jack-Ned
Philly the Tweet
Silvester Quiggin, Quarter
John Crideen, Smile
John Corlett, Munlaa ("Mid-day". He was able to discern the exact dinner hour, at all seasons, without the aid of a watch.)
Illiam Beg y Vrandy ("Little William the Brandy")
Jem-Jemmy-Jem-Jem-Jem
Ocky-Dick-beg-Dick-Bob

They're just begging to be stuck in a story, aren't they?

What have I been reading since the start of the year? ( The answer is 'not much'. )

Well. That was fun. Come back in four months for a not dissimilar experience!

( Book list! )

And that's it for 2006. Of all the new (to me) books that I read last year, I'd recommend The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones, Shade's Children by Garth Nix, Moondust by Andrew Smith and Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters.