Infographic! Q4 2016

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What are my other infographics for this year, you ask?
Q1 2016 Infographic
Q2 2016 Infographic
Q3 2016 Infographic

December Reading Wrap-Up

December is juuuuuuuust about over but I'm not getting any more books finished before the year ends, so why not start with my December Reading Wrap-Up a bit early. Cos really, aren't we all ready for this year to be done?*

December was swell. There was Christmas which is always a good time. Tom got me tickets to see Book of Mormon so A+ work there. (He also got me, or I guess us, a smart thermostat and I realize I am officially an adult because I'm legit excited by this.) We went to Hawaii and that was super fun. Personally, good month but still ready for this year to be over. So let's jump to the stats AND KNOW I'm gonna have just a BUNCH of infographics coming up. And perhaps I'll get around to writing some reviews again.

Total books read
5
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
Virgin Envy by ed. Jonathan Allan, Cristina Santos, Adriana Spahr
Something New by Lucy Knisley
Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran

Total pages read
1,387

Fiction
0%
I had to double check this. Really. Wow. No fiction. I don't think that's ever happened before.

Female authors
100%!!!
OK, technically one of the editors of Virgin Envy is a guy BUT the way my tracking is set up does not take into account multiple authors and it was two to one. So.

White authors
100%
Dammit

US authors
80%

Book formats
ebooks: 60%
paperback: 40%

Where'd I get the book
Indie bookstore: 40%
Kindle: 40%
NetGalley: 20%

Rereads
0%

Bookclub/readalong
0%

Blogger reco
20%

Translation
0%

Review book
20%

Books by decade
2010s: 100%

Books by genre
Biography: 20%
Essays: 40%
Graphic Novel: 20%
History: 20%

Resolution books
20%
Only one, Moranifesto, cos she is a non-US lady.

Alright, January. Let's be better.

*Even if some personally awesome things happened, as Tom keeps reminding me. We saw Hamilton, went on some super fun vacations, Seton Hall won the Big East Tournament which means Tom has some fancy basketball bling.

They saw what they wanted to see, blind to the inconvenient, implacable truth

I know I'm roughly 100 years behind the times but I finally read Cuckoo's Calling by nudge nudge wink wink Gailbrath. I'm also roughly 100 years behind the times in terms of reviewing, since I read this back in October. Haha whoops

I feel like at this stage you've either already read it cos it's Rowling and gotta read her, or else you're in the "what is Rowling doing, this isn't HP" camp and you're not going to read this. I was in the middle. I wasn't going to rush out for it (obviously, given I just read it) but I also wasn't avoiding it. I didn't expect it to be HP like, not only because obviously the story is much different, but I also wasn't expecting to have the same connection to the characters or world. And I didn't. Which is fine cos I still had a good time with the story.

Overall I liked the story. I wanted to know what happened next, which is always key for a mystery. The characters were fun and well drawn and I wanted to spend time with them.

Cormoran Strike is a private investigator and in the mold of typical PI's he has his troubled past and his tumultuous love life and his connections and his ways of conducting his investigations that aren't necessarily by-the-book. There's also his temporary assistant, Robin, who has been placed with him because he forgot to cancel his work with the temp agency. He really can't afford an assistant right now (add to list of PI tropes), but keeps her on when an old friend shows up with a job. His sister, super model and general famous person Lulu Landry, is dead. Her death, a fall from the balcony of her apartment, is ruled a suicide but John Bristow believes otherwise and wants Strike to prove what happened.

This gives Rowling a case to do what Rowling does best, which is come up with lots of characters for Strike to meet. There are clues and epiphanies and red herrings and false starts and suspects and people with lots of secrets.

I won't give away more cos, you know, mystery. It wasn't a particularly profound story but it kept me guessing and I had a good time with it. And I'll probably pick up the other Cormoran books in the series.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 80, location 868

Galbraith, Robert. The Cuckoo's Calling. Mulholland Books, 2013. Kindle

Tuesday Top Ten: Bookish Christmas Gifts

I haven't done a Tuesday Top Ten in I don't know how long. A million years? Roughly. I mostly stopped because things got busier and I got worse and worse about checking on the new topic and being able to do the hop part of things, so I figured it was unfair. But I'd like to try to get into this again, so hey, let's see how this goes.

The topic is Top Ten Books (or non-book bookish items) would I like Santa to leave under my tree.

Typically I don't ask for books for Christmas. I usually don't have a lot of books I am like MUST HAVE THIS so I prefer to just browse and buy books on a whim. So let's see what I can come up with.

1. Social Justice Reads - I thought I'd keep this as a single item because I literally just wrote a post about the SJRs that I want, and it seems silly to repeat that. But if these were to show up, I wouldn't be upset.

2. Book gift card - I was looking through my TBR list to try to find some other specific books that I'm like "Not only do I want to read this, but I want to read it IMMEDIATELY" and I'm not really coming up with much, so let's go with a gift card to somewhere like The Strand. See now I HAVE to use this money on books. No choice, really.

3. Litographs - We already have a print of a scene from The Great Gatsby made up of the text of The Great Gatsby so why not get more of that? I'm loving the Midsummer scarf. Or maybe The Tempest t-shirt.

4. Shakespeare insults mug - While we're on the topic of Shakespeare stuff, why not a mug made up of Shakespeare's insults? OH WAIT, I already got that as an early Christmas gift. Win win win.

5. A metal thing to use my Shakespeare fridge magnets - Remember that word poetry stuff that was so great? There's a Shakespeare version of it and I have them. BUT my fridge does not work with magnets. Which I guess makes it look nice and clean and whatnot but means that all my cool magnets are homeless. So I guess in this sense the item itself is not bookish but would facilitate bookish stuff. Though I guess I'm sort of just asking for a piece of sheet metal. maybe gussy it up a bit?

6. Bookish socks - I am in need of socks pretty much all the time. I don't know what I do to them, wear them EXTRA HARD, but pretty much all of my above-the-ankle socks have holes in them. If I have to get new socks, why not make them awesome ones, like the banned book socks?

And here we go. I'm already running out of ideas. I'm sure there are more, but I can't come up with them now. And really, item 1. is really multiple items, so I've made it beyond 10 items, so I'll stop here. What are your bookish wants, that I'll prob steal. (Not the items, the ideas. Just to be clear.)

Hawaii!!

If you follow me on various social media, you may have seen some posts about Hawaii. Cos I got to go to Hawaii.

Tom had to go for work (#roughlife) and as long as I paid my own flight out there, I'd get to tag along. I managed to find a flight that was not bank breaking and so tag along I did. Tom works for Seton Hall and the men's basketball team played in a Pearl Harbor anniversary tournament. And here's how that trip went

Friday
Got into Hawaii after two very long flights. We had to leave for the first flight at 5am and since Tom didn't get back from work until midnight, we decided we just wouldn't go to sleep so we'd be tired and sleep on the plane and hahahaha that is never a good idea. Tom and I flew separately (he with the team, I by myself cos it saved me a bunch of money).

Some pretty views

I didn't sleep much on the flights but I did sleep like a log that night so that's something. We had dinner with a few of his coworkers and unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the food but OH MAN, it was good. I had butterfish with a miso sauce on wasabi mashed potatoes with swiss chard. Then there were some fireworks on the beach after which I immediately fell asleep.

Saturday
We got up early cos of timezones and the whole going to sleep at 9 thing. Tom had to go to practice with the team so I was ambitious and went to the gym before wandering around the resort and then hanging out by the pool reading Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes

Tom's schedule was clear the rest of the day so we decided to do the hike up Diamond Head. It's only about 1.5 miles round trip but you're hiking UP and there are a bunch of stairs, so it feels like more. Also adding to the challenge is doing this in the afternoon, just get the sun blazing right down on you. But look at these views. Worth it.

After making our way back down we decided "Let's make the 2 mile walk to get lunch!" Cos sure, why not. So we walked over to Rainbow Drive-In for lunch plates which were amazing and after all that walking/hiking, we deserve fried food + rice + macaroni salad.

Back near the resort we found this bar Tom had been talking about for awhile (Rum Fire, though he didn't know the name) and got mai tais. (I got the original '44 recipe which is pretty much just alcohol with a squirt of lime juice so, that was fun.)

We walked along the beach and hung out by the pool till it was time for more eating and hit up a sushi place nearby. We split toro nigiri (which Tom repeatedly called the best he's had ever) a couple rolls (spider and shrimp tempura) and some tempura veggies. That was enough for the day so we headed back and went to sleep.

Sunday
The next morning, there was more practice for the team and more gym for me. Being that this is a trip for the team to play in a Pearl Harbor tournament, a tour of Pearl Harbor was on the itinerary. I got to join on this trip so we took a boat ride to the USS Arizona Memorial which was the most somber point of the trip.

Following the tour was a reception. But not just any reception, A RECEPTION ON AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

There was food and music and a tour of the carrier that was very cool. I felt kinda bad for the team because carriers are not made for basketball player sized people. Though it was kinda funny to watch them have to limbo their way around.

After this there were more mai tais cos they're so good.

Monday
Tom had yet to get to the beach on this trip but he had more work to do so we got up early to head to the beach around 8am which is fine by me cos I am pale. The water was lovely, the beach was gorgeous, I believe they were filming an episode of Hawaii 5-0 at the end of the beach.

Good morning. Eventually I was driven to the shade but Tom had to go work anyway so fine by me. I spent the time hopping between pools, reading and drinking coconut smoothies, eventually deciding I should do some holiday shopping. Or at least holiday shopping planning.

Tom came back and had found this restaurant called Nico's Pier 38 so we headed out there for dinner and again, amazing. We had: poke, rare tuna coated in seaweed and sesame seeds with a ginger garlic cilantro dip, green peppercorn swordfish, rice, veg, and more mac salad because that is a thing I am apparently down with.

There was some adventure with our Uber (it involved getting lost and driving on a sidewalk for a brief time) and then we made it back and had ice cream in fresh waffle cones.

Tuesday
GAME DAY! Which meant morning beach time and some quick gift shopping before grabbing lunch.

We went to a noodle place and I was a bit skeptical about cold noodle soup so Tom and I decided to split one hot and one cold and my skepticism was COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED. Oh man, these noodles might have been the best thing I ate while over there.

After we had to head back and get ready for the game. And by "getting read for the game" I mean I had to do nothing but Tom had stuff to prepare before we joined the team on the bus to head over to the base.

There is a whole basketball arena on the Pearl Harbor base, if you're curious. It is also not an air conditioned building. So. The poor players who actually had to run around in that, but hey, Seton Hall won so SUCCESS!

Enough with the sports, let's talk about how after the game and all the other after-game stuff was done, we went to a burger place near the hotel and I got some amazing thing that was burger + pork + pineapple and very good and greasy.

Wednesday
The saddest day because it's the day I have to leave. We spent the morning doing some last minute gift shopping, grabbed some coffee and a snack, and then I had to pack and Tom had to get ready for the second game they were playing. I enjoyed some last minute reading by the pool and finished Unfamiliar Fishes before it was time to head to the airport for a direct flight back to NJ and ugh that was a lot of travel time. But I had plenty of stand up downloaded to make it through.

And now I'm back in NJ procrastinating getting anything done, pretty much for the entirety of the month. And the day I'm finishing this, it's snowing so. I made a mistake coming back

Social Justice Reads

You guys, I am bad at posting. I am going to go ahead and blame vacation time (Hawaii post coming. I swear. It is like 85% written and I am trying to get that last 15%) but I have been lazy and unmotivated and have spent a lot of time watching episodes of Big Fat Quiz of [blank] on YouTube.

Me, basically

So while I work up the energy to actually get something real written, let's crowdsource some social justice reads. Because yeah we should probably have a better understanding of some of the terrible things happening in society. You know, other than the other terrible things happening

I have some stuff on my radar but what else should I add? Here's what I've got

Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael O. Emerson
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

So WHAT ELSE? TELL ME YOUR RECOS

Dream Book Panel

I'm working on my Hawaii post (cos hey, I was just in Hawaii and that was swell) but in the meantime I got an email from Eventbrite, with a post topic about my dream book panel and after not finding a catch I thought that was a pretty cool topic and I'm looking for writing prompts so yeah, let's do this thing. And also you guys should write up your panels cos I am super interested to hear who you would have or what questions you'd ask. Everyone play!

The prompt is "What if you could plan the perfect panel of authors or characters to speak at a conference?" OK here's my panel

Christopher Moore, Jasper Fforde, and all of my favorite authors get together to talk about how cool I am and also send me all of their future books as they're released. Oh also Bill Watterson decides to write new Calvin & Hobbes and that is how society will begin to heal. Right? That sounds fun for everyone.

OK FINE, let's do this thing for real.

Since I am deep into my feminist rant reading, let's take the topic of feminism with maybe some intersectionality thrown in there because yeah, we need that. And since this is my perfect panel, I'm thinking this can include both dead authors as well as characters. LET'S SEE HOW THIS GOES

Up first: Octavia Butler. I need to hear her thoughts on everything really, but particularly her thoughts on gender and race because she has some thoughts here, if her books indicate anything. Plus she was a black female author writing science fiction starting in the '70s, which I know, sounds like THE most welcoming environment.

Next Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because have you read We Should All Be Feminists yet? Or seen her beautifully shut down the idea that Drumpf is not racist including the line 'As a white man, you don't get to define what racism is." And also all of the other line and laughter. It's wonderful.

How about some Sarah Vowell to add some history to the mix? Plus I feel she would bring some levity to the proceedings, cos things could get real heavy.

Speaking of people who can balance the serious and the funny, let's have Roxane Gay join as well. She will have lots of insightful things to say and then she can bring up House Hunters when we need a break. (But seriously, her live tweeting of HH is amazing.)

And then let's add Hermione because one, wouldn't it be awesome for Hermione to be on a panel? Also I think she could learn something. Yes, maybe she would bring some interesting thoughts to the mix but I would also like her to learn a bit about maybe not seeing herself as a white savior (thanks, Witch, Please)

Then let's include Celeste Ng because while I haven't written it yet I very very much enjoyed Everything I Never Told You and think she could bring some interesting thoughts about race and family and what is expected/allowed of women.

Crap, should there be a dude here? Umm, OK, Chuck Wendig cos from his blog and social media he seems like he gets it. He can come too.

Alright, I should probably stop here. But yeah, this seems great and if this could happen, that would be SUPER KEEN.

Thanks for the post prompt, Eventbrite, and hey people, if you need to manage an event or conference, they seem like a way to help with that so maybe check them out.

Pretty excited about my current to read list

I just got approved for a couple NetGalleys and, you guys, I am preeeeeeetty excited about my current reading stack and thought I would share. Plus this buys me some time to work on my Cuckoo's Calling review, which I should really get to. #procrastinationftw

But anyway, check out my current "I am reading this" list:

The Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik (this one isn't a NetGalley but I'm reading it now and it fits)

It's Up To The Women by Eleanor Roosevelt

Virgin Envy: The Cultural (In)Significance of the Hymen by Jonathan Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr

I am going to be SO MUCH FUN. The books are all on my ereader so unfortunately people won't get to see the covers but maybe people will ask me what I am reading. And then regret interrupting me.

November Reading Wrap-Up

November. You were the 2016th-iest of all the months, weren't you? But hey, there was Thanksgiving and that's always fun because food is delicious and there were puppies.

They were all interested in something just to the side of me

Let's focus on the stats

Total books read
4
The DUFF by Kody Keplinger
China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
Danse Macabre by Stephen King
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

Total pages read
1,471

Fiction
50%

Female authors
50%

White authors
75%

US authors
75%

Book formats
ebook - 50%
paperback - 50%

Where'd I get the book
borrow - 25%
indie - 50%
Kindle - 25%

Rereads
0%

Bookclub/readalong
25%

Blogger reco
25%

Translation
0%

Books by decade
1980s - 25%
2010s - 75%

Books by genre
Essays - 25%
Horror - 25%
Rom Com - 50%

Resolution books
50%

Not 80% from last month but hey, not too shabby
Danse Macabre was published in 1981 so hey, published before 2000
China Rich Girlfriend is by a non-white AND non-American guy so double win

Alright, December. Be better. For reading but also just in general.

You are a servant of Destiny, not its agent. Get over yourself

Have I mentioned before how much I love Christopher Moore? Because it is a lot.* So of course I picked up Secondhand Souls, the sequel to A Dirty Job, which is one of my favorite Moore books. More Charlie, more Minty, more Lilly and Sohpie and the hellhounds and the Emperor and all of those other fun characters? SIGN ME UP.

But here's the thing, I felt like the book was lacking a bit of...soul

HA, I'm hilarious. But seriously though, there was a lot of stuff going on here, with a bunch of subplots and set up and it just felt like there was so much it was trying to do that it didn't get a chance to really spend much time in any area so things weren't as developed as I hoped. A Dirty Job focused a lot on the idea of death and loss and was really moving in between the funny and, yeah, sophmoric humor. There was a depth to the story. Here it seemed that he was setting things up so more would be at stake but ultimately I cared less about everyone this time around.

I was going to say there are some spoilers here for the first book, but I'm not giving away anything the back of Secondhand Souls doesn't already tell you, so I guess mild spoiler warning.
In A Dirty Job, beta-male Charlie Asher is dealing with the death of his wife Rachel, who died giving birth to their daughter Sophie. As if that wasn't enough to throw at a guy, it turns out he's a "little death". He's not the Grim Reaper but he's sort of like a mall Santa, collecting souls and helping people pass on. His daughter, it turns out, is Big Death (the Luminatus) and there are a group of creatures looking to take over San Francisco and Charlie saves the day but gives his life in the process (again, spoilers all revealed on the back of this book so).

This time around, Charlie is back, his soul being housed in one of the creatures his girlfriend Audrey, a Buddist nun, managed to create. He's hidden away while they try to find a body to move his soul into. But in the meantime, it seems that souls in San Francisco aren't being collected and something bad is brewing in the city's underbelly.

While that sounds simple enough, there are a lot of subplots jammed in (Audrey's creatures deciding maybe they could have something better, the Morrigan are back, a big black guy dressed all in yellow seems to know something is going on, souls aren't being collected, a bridge painter at the Golden Gate Bridge starts talking to ghosts, Sophie has lost her hellhounds, Charlie trying to get a body, Lilly and Minty break up but is there still something between them) and while these do tie together, none of them really get a chance to breath.

There was actually one subplot that I think if it was more the focus of the book, it would have been more successful. A painter for the Golden Gate Bridge is strapped into his harness when he's visited by a ghost. She tells him her story about her life and how she died and she believes there's a reason he can hear her and wants him to listen to the stories of other souls who seem to be trapped in the bridge. I'm still not 100% sure how the stories of each of the ghosts he talks to tie into this main story, but I would have liked more of that and maybe less of the other subplots going on.

In the end, it's still Christopher Moore and I still enjoyed it. It was just not a favorite. Perhaps I'll go read A Dirty Job again.

Gif rating:

*What are some of his other books that I've reviewed? Oh well I'm glad you asked: Bite Me: A Love Story, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Coyote Blue, Fool, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Practical Demonkeeping, Sacre Bleu, The Serpent of Venice, The Stupidest Angel, You Suck: A Love Story

Title quote from page 2.

Moore, Christopher. Secondhand Souls. William Morrow, 2015.

Thaaaaaaanksgiving

For those celebrating, hope you have a happy and non-stressful Thanksgiving full of good food and minimal fighting.

There are good things out there or things you can do to make good things happen, so let's focus on that.

And also the pie. Let's all focus on pie.

I see [the Icarus story] as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive

Do you know the xkcd comic series? Because if not, I recommend it. Even if there are many comics that are extra science/mathy and go over my head. And if your wondering, I started clicking around on that site and got distracted for like 10 minutes, so maybe go to that link after reading this review. Yes, that's it.

ANYWAY, Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd wrote a book! And instead of it being just a collection of webcomics, which still would have been pretty awesome, he takes ridiculous hypothetical questions and uses science to answer them. If you're wondering most of the answers are "We would die horribly" but it's OK because it's pretty fun to see in stick figure webcomics. And don't worry, he doesn't just end there but gives detailed answers for exactly what would happen.

Door busted WIDE open

What are these questions, you ask?

• What would happen if the Earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning, but the atmosphere retained its velocity? (Nearly everyone would die. Then things would get interesting)
• What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface? (Assuming you're a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel in the bottom.)
• What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world? (What a nightmare that would be.)
• Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns? (I was sort of surprised to find that the answer was yes!)

And of course, being an artist, there are the comics. I had been waiting to pick up a physical copy of the book but it was on sale for Kindle and sales win. Luckily, even on my old Kindle, the images formatted fine so I got to enjoy stuff like this:

See. Delightful. 

The book is funny AND informative.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 141, location 1873

Munroe, Randall. What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Kindle

Where some stand out, I stand back

This was a creepy book and teaches you the lesson of change your locks after moving into a new house.

The main character, Mr. Hemings, is a realtor in a small town who prides himself on knowing everything about the town and the people. How does he do this? Well, in part because he's been there for awhile and as a realtor he's responsible for selling many people their homes, so he gets to know them. But the other part is that he's a super creepy crazy person who keeps copies of everyone's house keys so he can go in and rifle through their stuff whenever he feels like it. (Don't worry, this isn't a spoiler.)

One day a dead body is found in the backyard of one of the houses he's sold and dun dun duuuuun! Murder mystery plus worry that people are going to discover his secret.

I believe I have determined for myself that reading creepy books from the POV of the villain is not my thing. And I don't mean in the style of Wicked where you're seeing a different perspective that even if you disagree with the villain, you understand perhaps why they made those decisions. Those are fun. I mean, when you are in the head of a psycho, of a murder, of a legit creepy person and no. Think American Psycho or Zombie. I now have a third example to add to that, so now it is a trend and no thank you.

That doesn't mean the book isn't good. I mean, it's not great and certainly not a favorite, but it kept me reading. Sure, I never sympathized with the character, despite all the flashbacks to a troubled childhood and spent pretty much the whole book wanting him to get caught, but I wanted to know what happened. I've read reviews that say this is funny (including the back summary which calls it "darkly funny" but I tend not to believe those anyway) and...I mean, no? I certainly never found it funny but I also never got the feeling it was supposed to be. Maybe it was but he failed so spectacularly that it didn't harm the story. Or maybe if the funny stuff had landed I would have had a very different opinion of the book. I guess some of the stuff Mr. Hemings does is so crazy that it runs into the absurd and that's the darkly funny part. Here's an example

Mr. Hemings sees a man from the neighborhood hit a woman's car and drive off without leaving a note. Mr. Hemings already doesn't like the guy and believes he doesn't belong in the neighborhood, so he confronts the guy, who claims he didn't hit the car and refuses to pay for the damages. OK, that is a super asshole thing to do. Here's how Mr. Hemings responds.

• Fixes the woman's car secretly (so that's sweet).
• Breaks into the guy's house and loosens the buttons on his shirt so they'll ping off when he puts it on (haha, OK that's funny)
• Cuts the guy's shoelaces (still in the fine, creep you broke into his house but mostly harmless)
• Steals the guy's favorite Rolex and pawns it (slightly less harmless but I mean, the guy had multiple so he can afford to be without one)
• Continuously breaks the radiator in the house so they keep having to get it fixed (OK, multiple breakins now)
• Keeps breaking fuses so electricians have to keep coming in (haha OK now, maybe we're done?)
• At this point he quits breaking into the house and starts having stuff delivered, like a 14-year-old-troll. This includes: a washing machine, rowing machine, teak furniture, electric piano, wedding dress, statue, and horse saddle (the guy and his wife have to keep canceling credit cards and arguing with company's about these crazy purchases)
• THEN he starts signing them up for things (again, using the credit cards that he keeps stealing from them): vacations to Mauritius, New Zealand, Norfolk, multiple tickets to musicals, tickets to sports festivals (which again, the guy and his wife have to keep canceling credit cards and arguing to get their money back)
• OH DID YOU THINK HE'S DONE COS HE'S NOT. When the couple are gone for a long weekend he breaks into the house, lures a bunch of cats in and then locks them in so when they get back their house is ruined and full of cats
• Mr. Hemings pays a landscaper to rip up their expensive paving stone driveway and lots of hedges
• Lastly he steals the man's car, fills it up with gas but drives off without paying and returns the car to the house so the police show up.

Because Mr. Hemings is internet vigilantism. By the way, none of the above has to do with the body or any of that story line. This is just to explain the type of guy you're dealing with. BUT despite the above and the weird creepiness, the guy at times is painted as this super sexy guy that some women just can't wait to jump and that stuff does NOT work for me. You can't make your guy out to be creepy and off-putting and then suddenly women are like "Yes, that is the one for me!". Even the author at one point concedes this makes no sense by having the character say "Perhaps there are still those who find it hard to reconcile my unconventional lifestyle to my success with women" and yeah. Of course. He claims it's cos he's not constantly trying to sleep withe women that he gets to constantly sleep with women.

So this has gone on long enough. The book was fine. Not great, obviously. But fine. And change the locks on your house.

Gif rating:

Title quote from page 92

Hogan, Phil. A Pleasure and a Calling. Picador, 2014.

Read Up

There's a new group, #ReadUp. The description: Online social justice readings to better educate ourselves about the world, what we can do, and how we can help.

If this sounds like your thing, join up.

First book is Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit, which is currently available for free as an ebook