Tag: Books

What I am reading, have read and plan to read

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Currently Reading …

Writing The Long Way Around

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco This has been lying in my to-read pile for about three millenia and I finally picked it up last night. I am still reading A.S Byatt but I felt I needed something else. Every once in a while I read something I wish I had written. I have only read the first chapter of TMFofQL, so can’t yet say I wish it were mine, but I do wish I had thought of a character who wakes from a coma with no memory of himself or his life but who does remember … Continue reading Currently Reading …

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More on Street Reading, Street Reviews and e-reading

Writing The Long Way Around

I found this article among many in my Reader this morning and it got me thinking again about book covers, synopsis and street reading. I picked up Jarful of Angels by Babs Horton at least 1,000 times in Waterstones over the course of about three months. I liked the book cover but hated the synopsis so much that I always put it back down. Finally I bought the book and loved it; the cover was right but the synopsis was wrong. I now trust Babs Horton and won’t even look at the synopsis when I see her work;  although I … Continue reading More on Street Reading, Street Reviews and e-reading

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Oh my, Omar …

Writing The Long Way Around

I watched an interesting programme about Omar Khayyam last night which chimed with some of the things we have been looking at in our Theory and Authorship module. One of the first things you need to know about Omar Khayyam is that he was super smart. He was a mathematician and did something cool with the ‘cubic equation’. This means absolutely nothing to me; even after a demonstration with two rods, a length of string and a hula hoop, but apparently it was groundbreaking.  Khayyam was also a meticulous astronomer responsible for the calculations that provided a calendar year more … Continue reading Oh my, Omar …

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Research and Evil Dolls

Writing The Long Way Around

Really, I ought to be grateful for the past 36 hours of rain as it has made it almost impossible for the snow to lie. Last week I inadvertently watched the movie The Day After Tomorrow and am now terrified when I see large blocks of cloud forming. Living in the UK it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between large blocks of cloud heralding catastrophic shifts in weather conditions and a new ice age, and plain old large blocks of cloud. Although I am leaving it until tomorrow to be unspeakably fatal, I achieved a few things today which, really … Continue reading Research and Evil Dolls