Tag: Weather

ARC, Books

Book 330: Waiting for the Flood – Alexis Hall

Geoff W

If I didn’t know better I’d say one of my good friends from high school (cough Alexandra cough) was writing under a pseudonym, “Alexis Hall” – HA! But that aside, I requested a copy of this novella from the publisher as the synopsis (Publisher’s website) caught my attention. I received a copy from the publisher and below is my honest response.

This is the story of Edwin and how he’s finally ready to get over his 10 year relationship which ended, not on bad terms, but on terms that he wasn’t able to comprehend. Having never been in a 10 year relationship (holy shit that’s 1/3 of my life – and Edwin’s!) I can’t really relate, but I can relate to coming out of a relationship not knowing what happened because it ended in a way that didn’t make sense and we apparently both thought and had different feelings on where things were and were going.

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ARC, Books

Book 327: What Matters in Jane Austen? – John Mullan

Geoff W

Neither a bad end to 2014, nor a bad start to 2015, this was well worth the read. It wasn’t all I thought it would be, but considering it was a galley I got ages ago (2012 I think) and never read (Sorry!) I’m glad I finally read it. I think I’m going to spend a lot of time with Austen this year. A few friends and I are doing a Jane Austen book club and I have quite a bit of non-fiction I’m looking forward to reading about Austen and her life. I hope everyone sticks with me throughout! I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received nothing in return for my honest response.

What worked best for this book was the selecting of 20 themes and then talking about them across Austen’s novels. I’ve read all of her novels at least once and a few of them much more. You can look at the chapter titles to see the themes, but the ones that stood out most to me where when Mullan spoke about Austen’s mastery of novels and groundbreaking skills as a writer.

“She did things with fiction that had never been done before. She did things with characterization, with dialogue, with English sentences, that had never been done before.”

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ARC, Books, Quotes

Book 302: Stone Mattress – Margaret Atwood

Geoff W

Atwood is an incredible writer and story teller and there’s really not much more that needs to be said, so when I saw her newest collection of short stories I knew I had to request it! I received a copy from the publisher, in return for my honest opinion:

Spectactular.

That would be a little cruel, to leave it just at that even though it would still describe it perfectly. Below, you’ll find a one-to-two sentence review of each of the nine tales and a single quote from each.

On a different note, if you haven’t heard Margaret Atwood is the first author of the future library! This is a project where authors are asked to write a work and it won’t be read for 100 years. This makes me both incredibly happy, as she writes such fantastic speculative/near future fiction, but also sad that I won’t be able to read it! It’s a fascinating project and I could go into it in detail, but really you should just read about The Future Library at The Guardian.

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Updates

February 2014 Recap

Geoff W

The Monday of 2014 has come to an end. January and February are always the hardest months of the year, to me at least. Winter has dragged on for four months and the daylight, even though it’s incrementally getting longer, feels like it’s all been sapped from the world.

I mean look at it. Would you want to go out in that? Would you want to get out of your cozy warm bed to shower and then have to go out in that weather?!? It seriously makes exercising and going to work a chore and even makes interacting with friends a pain because no one loves it. But that is slowly coming to an end! The last weekend in February I was actually able to have my windows open and it was great! The temperature did proceed to drop down to 12ºF again, and we had a random snow shower on Thursday, but baby steps!

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Random

Three Shopping Days Left…Wait a Second…

Geoff W

Why would that matter when clearly my Birthday (aka today) is MUCH more important than that 😀 This is mostly just to show I’m alive and busy enjoy the photos while I lounge around in my pajamas and do NOTHING for a few more hours and then spend time with my sister and friends!

Gallery One: Baby It’s Cold Outside…no seriously I refused to get out of bed twice in the last two weeks until it hit 10°F (-12°C).

Seriously? It wasn’t even officially winter until 12/21!
Remember the beautiful fall path? Just as beautiful in Winter.
Creepy. Yeah. Should be Doctor Who villains.

Gallery Two: Because of the above snow storm my first 5k was postponed until tomorrow (12/22)! I’m totally excited and ready for it and have done a LOT of prep work.

Finally finished the Couch to 5k! Tried multiple times over the past few years, but this time did it!
And I walked/ran/jogged/shuffled 500 miles since July 1st.
Awesome t-shirt for the Jingle Bell Run!

Gallery Three: So far it’s been a very Star Wars and Literary Christmas/Birthday. The only thing missing is my dear Jane, but I can handle that since we share a birth month and can never be separated. Just goes to show my friends, family and coworkers know me WAY too well.

Star Wars Coasters, AMAZING birthday card from my grandparents and a Shakespeare’s Star Wars and a coming out novel.
New Desk Toys: R2D2 Candy Despenser and awesome PEA Kikkerland PEA windup toy.
Never say no to a free book. Not a present, but got this from seeing “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” which was my Birthday movie.