This Reader

If we've never met I will excuse you for not knowing that I love books above everything else in this world. If we have met then there is not much chance of you not already knowing this about me.
There aren't many things that I don't read. I'm not a big fan of modern crime. Horror has to have great reviews for me to buy it, though I will often grab them from the library. I'm not a D.H. Lawrence fan. I don't like Philip Pullman's books generally. I point blank refuse to read the so called tragic-life-stories and it still pains me to see a full wall of them in their own little section in the bookshop. Other than that - give me a book and I'm happy.

Some of my books currently in exile in my parents attic while I am in-between houses

Quite often I will have re-reading weeks. This past week was one, I re-read Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper, Spellwright by Blake Charlton, The Painted Man/The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett and part of The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (Oddly enough, he's not got a webpage I can link to). As much as I love finding new books it still gives me a lot of pleasure to go back to books that I know I will enjoy. It takes me less time to re-read books because I already know what is happening. The second time I read a good book is usually my favourite. You know the end result and can therefore spot the hints and clues that the author has left behind but you missed the first time around. Golly, I do like clever authors who can put in something that seem innocuous the first time around but jumps out and screams at you when you can see the relevance later on.



One of the nicest things about this week was receiving an amazing parcel from Chloe Healy over at Tor, UK A little while back I won a great raffle prize at the Other Worlds Alt.Fiction event for a year's supply of Tor books. There was quite literally squealing when the postie arrived with said parcel. (I'm not sure he'll deliver here again) Much fun to be had here and I cannot wait to get reading them.
A very big thanks to Chloe and the Tor team as well as everyone at Alt.Fiction for such a fab prize. You made one very happy reader over here.

In other book related things (and because I had to link to Etsy in here somewhere) I made an Etsy treasury for bibliophiles all about typewriters. I have a Corona, it's beautiful but needs new ribbon at the moment.

I also had a very lovely surprise yesterday when going to pick up some books I ordered from the library they had twice as many as I was expecting. Happy days. So I now have eight books sitting looking lovingly at me (yes they do, yes of course they can).

The un-avatar-ed version

Oh, and my profile picture has now changed to a head-shot so that I can use the same picture across all of my net wanderings. I obviously didn't take it because a) it's a much better photo than I take and b) I'm frigging in it and I'm certainly not that good with a timer. My super-talented cousin took the photo on Christmas Day and THIS is his website. Have a look, he does science things to save the world and there's lots of pretty pictures as well.

Vick.

vclinde@gmail.com
www.vclinde.co.uk

http://www.etsy.com/shop/vclinde
@vclinde