Sunshine - Sunday Sensations

Happy Sunday everyone!

The sun is shinning like crazy here, the temperature is up a bit and the sky is clear blue. My faith in spring is restored!

This will be a very short post, because I am going for a walk. No time to waste inside on such a lovely day. I will bring my book with me and I will sit and read by the river. I have a secret spot near here which is so beautiful and serene. I wish I could take you all there, but if I did you would see it's magnificence and it would no longer be peaceful. I can however show you what it looks like in the early summer.

Nice huh?

Have a nice Sunday.

Edit: I am now back from my walk and some noisy kids had decided to hang out in my secret spot *Shakes fist* "Damn kids, get of my lawn".
Instead I found a nice tree stump with plenty of ducks running around it. It was acceptable, but not quite the same *sigh*.
I did however get my walk on, and took a tour of the neighborhood after my bum got too cold to sit still any longer. All in all a good Sunday afternoon.  

Of sins and darkness - 2012 Book Quest

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned.

Yesterday I was doing really well on the quest. After finishing Heart of Darkness I had bought 9 books and read 6. Then the used bookstore happened, and then my roommate wanted books from Amazon and today I found a thrift store that had books. So now I am at 13 bought vs. 6 read. Whoops...

I bought Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises at the used bookstore, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on Amazon and at the thrift store I got The Shining and Grapes of Wrath.
Now my "To-read" shelf is looking crowded as ever, I mean just look at it:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies not pictured because it has not come yet. (And my camera sucks, I know I know)

As I wrote above, I read Heart of Darkness, but I don't really want to write about it. Let it be enough that I tell you I didn't like it. Not one bit.There was no story, no counterpoint, no points of no return, nothing. And when an author goes out of his way to write the title of the book in the book, it pisses me off! I feel like shouting "I get it dammit! He is in the middle of an undiscovered spot on the map, no civilization, everything is described as gloomy and the people there are "in the dark" when it comes to the modern world. There is absolutely no need to point it out even further by repeating the title of the book every 30 pages or so."

And I ended up writing about it anyway... Well on a much happier note, I am reading a book I quite enjoy so far. Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott. To no ones surprise I really like Jo who is a tomboy and finds female ideals silly and restricting. Go Jo!

In other news nothing particularly exciting has happened here lately. And with that I shall leave you.
Till next time, stay safe and read the manual!

Books - Sunday Sensations

I figured it was about time I spend a little time explaining why I love books so much.
I was sort of an outsider when I was a kid, I only had a few friends, very good friends, but not too many. When I was 12 we moved, not far, just one town over, but I did not know anybody and I had a lot of free time on my hands.
I found sanctuary in the local library, it was dusty and dark, and just how a library should be.

I had always read a lot, it is what we did in our family, especially my mom. I remember going to the library to get her books whenever she was home sick from work. I would get three or four books and she had usually read at least two of them before.

A little while after the school year had started a classmate who had noticed I read a lot, handed me a book. She told me to read it and bring it back the next day. I looked at her like she was crazy, I mean the book was 300 pages. How would I ever get through it in one day?
I did however. I finished it at 2 AM that night and when Harry beat back Professor Quirrell and Lord Voldemort and Gryffindor won the house cup, I admit, I cried a little.

That was my first "big" book. 300 pages is not a lot, but when you are 12 and you have mostly read 150-200 page books, it is overwhelming.

From then on, there was no stopping me. Later that year I read Bent Haller's Lille Lucifer which is a 850 page tome filled with pure, golden awesome.

I read just about everything I could get my hands on and it has been like that ever since. I find it hard to explain exactly what it is about books that make me happy. But I stumbled upon this image the other day, and it is the closest I have ever come to an explanation.




If any of you Danes out there remember the old Bookie bookmarks they had at the libraries, they were sort of the same. I was actually looking for images of those when I found this.
I used to have a ton of them, now I cannot find a single one, it makes me a little bit sad.

The bookmarks had a drawing of a boy reading a book on the front. He would be lying in a bathtub or sitting under a tree, and on the other side, he would be diving under water in a submarine or exploring through a jungle.
And that is exactly what books are like. They are a gateway to a world beyond this one. A place where magic is real and evil pirates kidnap wenches, where good always triumphs over evil and where everyone gets exactly what they deserve, good or bad.

I believe I just answered my own question; I love books because when you start reading, anything is possible.

Who needs linear progression? - 2012 Book Quest

I finished Catch-22 last night and man, Joseph Heller must have had notebooks full of time lines!

                                       

The central premise of the book, to expose and ridicule bureaucracy in it's most extreme forms, made for a lot of laughs and since it mostly took place in two locations, the sense of never quite knowing when you were was very interesting.
The characters were all crazy in some way, even the ones who seemed rational were crazy. I guess we are all crazy in some way or another.
There were a couple of things that confused me, words and expressions that hardly seemed fit for the 1940ies. But I guess writing a book 15 years later, it must be hard to keep it completely era-correct. Or you know, maybe I am mistaken in thinking the words and expressions came later.

I had a little poll this week to see what I should read next. The result was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, so naturally I have started on that one.

There really is nothing much to speak of lately. It's raining outside, ah the wonders of a Scandinavian winter, snow, ice and cold, miserable, unrelenting rain. I am not much of a winter fan, the short days seem to rush by and the nights are so dark and cold.
Summer and autumn are my favorite seasons. The summer days here are so long, 18 hours of daylight, it makes me feel so light. And it usually stays warm far into the autumn, no bulky jackets or gloves, no freezing wind tearing the flesh from my face.

So I am looking forward to May, when the temperature climbs and there is only a slight breeze. When the green grass on the banks of the river looks fresh, and tempts you to throw yourself down with a book and a cold beer.
Ah May, please come back soon!

Lambda - Sunday Sensations

I hope you have all had a good week and that you are enjoying your Sunday.

I volunteer at the local LGBT organisation. It is called Lambda and apart from running a café, a group that do talks at local schools and an advice phone service, we do parties. Big parties. We actually do the biggest LGBT parties outside Copenhagen.
All these different groups and events, along with many more, was the reason for the honor that was bestowed upon us Thursday night. Lambda won the prize for Best Organisation at this years Axgil Awards, the Danish gay chamber of commerce yearly LGBT awards.
We were all overjoyed and very proud, and I had the honor of hosting our Valentines party the day after.

It was a great party, everyone was in a good mood (some more drunk than others) and the party went remarkably well with hardly any glitches.

I am very proud to be a part of the LGBT community here in Odense, and I am only happy to do a lot of hard work, when I see it grow into something as beautiful as these parties, that draw crowds from all over the country. I am especially proud, when a small, provincial organisation, through hard work, endless promotion and untiring volunteers, gets noticed by enough people that we can win such a prestigious award. 

To all the hard working people that, through the years, have kept Lambda going: This is all you!

Fahrenheit 451 - 2012 Book Quest

My internet connection has decided it is a woman, and is now acting accordingly. It is unstable, moody and pissing me off!
I have gone so far as to actually draw eyes and a mouth for the modem (no pictures because I am terrible at drawing and you do not need to see that!). My roommate was eyeing the modem suspiciously and kept insisting the eyes were following him.

On a totally unrelated note I finished Fahrenheit 451 and I was a bit confused until my aforementioned roommate explained the concept of science fiction to me. I have never read much science fiction, and for some reason I had got into my head that it was all about space and aliens. Turns out it is not. Who'd have thunk!

The book was good though a bit confusing at times. It did not appear to the Author that it might be nice to know who was talking once in a while. Apart from that I liked the Orwellian feel of the future society. And for someone like me, the whole concept of burning books seemed very frightening. What if they came here and took my books? Burned the all in front of me? Scary stuff!

I am now reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. So far it is very humorous especially when he explains the different catches. Like this one, Catch-22:

 There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

I had to read it twice because at first my reaction was "Wait, what?".

The lack of internet is proving very healthy for my reading, and I have already read a fourth of the book. So naturally I am starting to wonder what I should read next. So I have started a poll over here ---------------------------------------------------------->
What do you guys think? please help me decide by voting for your favorite, or tell me in the comments what I need to read next.

Till next time.

Notebooks - Sunday Sensations

I really enjoy writing things down. Random notes, lines from poems, quotes, stuff that gets stuck in my mind. I write them down in notebooks and forget about them, then come across them months later and smile.

Mostly I like writing things down by hand. My handwriting is horrible and oftentimes people have trouble reading it, but when I decipher some scribbled passage, and discover something that used to be on my mind ages ago, it makes me happy. Somehow, some little part of past-me survived and made it all the way to future-me.

I have tons of notebooks, different sizes and covers (I was going to say shapes, but they are all rectangular). But lately I have found that at the post office they have the old "China books" from my childhood (only in slightly worse quality and often blue instead of red). So I have started to use them again. Here is an old one:

As you can see it is pretty worn. I used to decorate them like this, with cool things I would find while I was using it, but after a while it annoyed me. Every time my notebook would be perfect, I had to get a new one because it was full.

Now I usually just staple a really thin plastic folder on the inside cover to keep track of loose papers.
I guess we all grow up sometime...

As I add to these notebooks quite often I sometimes find it hard to find one simple thing. So to combat this I try to keep notebooks for specific things. I have one for recipes, one for drink recipes, one for books and one for computer stuff.
They all look alike so it can be quite a gamble to find the one I need. I really should find some stickers...

That is all for this Sunday, now I am going to go back to considering going for a walk.
(Spoiler: I wont go)

Have a great Sunday.

School Shootings and Book Burnings - 2012 Book Quest

I finished this one yesterday:

It was amazing. I cannot wait to see the movie, I hope it is just as good.

I liked the "twist" though, like most twists, I had figured it out early in the book. It still kept me wondering all the way till the end, which is what a twist should do, if  it cannot take you completely by surprise.

I wonder how they are going to pace the movie, because the book is completely in letter-form. Letters from Kevin's mom to his dad. And I hope they treat the school shooting right and don't glance over it. That would be tragic.

Next up is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (or 233 Celsius as I found one copy titled in the used bookstore).
It is set in the year 2000, but quite a different 2000 than the one we know. The main character is a firefighter, though they do not fight fires anymore, they light them.
Dun dun duuuun!

Nothing much else to report. Have a good one!