My reading routine

My reading for the day sometimes starts at around 6-7am, when on a good day (ie. I've slept well and am up early) I'll make a cup of chai tea and take it back to bed.  This reading, however, is likely to be a handful of pages at most, and occasionally not even that (the 'staring into space until the caffeine kicks in' mornings...).  

My reading usually begins in earnest over breakfast.  This inevitably means a warm chocolate chip muffin (Sainsbury's finest, microwaved for a few seconds) and a big mug of coffee.  I generally sit on the floor, between my sink and the bedside table (a handy breakfast storage device), with my back to the radiator, and read until it's really time to get up and finish getting ready for work.  I'm tend to be half-ready by this point (teeth brushed, washed, semi-dressed) so on a good day I can keep reading until about 9am before I need to put my book down!

The reading then continues at work.  I tend to be most efficient first thing in the morning, so I try to get any book orders, book pricing and shelf-filling done as soon as we open.  Then it's time to catch up on a few blogs.  After that it's right back to my book, as much and as often as the customers allow!  If my eyes are getting a bit tired I might stop and play a game of Spider Solitaire, and at this time of year there are plenty of customers to serve and shelves to be refilled - but generally I can squeeze in a good few pages if I just settle down and make the effort.  This is my reading spot, behind the counter:

And this is what the shelf under the till often looks like!  Graze snacks, a tub of Vittoria vine tomatoes, a stack of books and notebooks (all lugged to work every day in a Bodleian Library tote bag), my Paperblanks diary, plus all the regular shop paraphernalia!

After work, or on days off, most of my reading will once again happen sitting on the floor, coffee or tea on the bedside table, occasionally supplemented by pizza or toasted teacakes or whatever else I'm using as reading fodder that day.  I love to read while I eat - I actually read with more focus if I'm eating or drinking, I don't know why - and only make an exception for a 'proper' meal or something a bit messy, like garlic bread.  Something that requires two hands and would probably end up coating my book!  That's when I catch up on programmes on 4oD or iPlayer, or watch an episode of Nurse Jackie or Gilmore Girls on my laptop instead.

If my bum's getting a bit numb from all that sitting on the floor, or if I just want to stretch out somewhere where I'm less likely to get unexpectedly spidered, then I shift up onto the bed.  I have the rather bad habit of lying flat out on my front like a little girl, book on my blanket, feet on my pillow, which probably does my back no good but DAMN it's comfy for reading! 

Sometimes one of the cats will join me, offering a handy back massage service, eagerly reading over my shoulder, or just zonking out in a ball within stroking distance.

I don't really read downstairs much, even though my two awesome chairs from the flat are now sitting in our living room awaiting moving day.  I do like to read in the garden though, either flat out on a sunlounger on a hot day, or perched on our wooden seat as the sun goes down after work, with a mug of coffee, keeping ever-vigilant for the wasps that like to come down and strip the wood for their nests.  It's peaceful and relaxing, and it gives me a focus I don't always get inside with everyone bustling around.

Aaaand that's my reading life!  Obviously I've not covered things like occasional train or plane travel, holiday reading (roll on October!) and other miscellaneous reading opportunities, but I think this pretty much covers my general reading routines...

Do you have particular places, snacks, times or other routines that have become reading habits for you?

15 Bookish Confessions

1.  My book-buying has all the qualities of a bona fide addictive behaviour.  If I haven't been book shopping for a while, I start to get twitchy and obsessive about what I might be missing in the charity shops and remainder stores.  I sometimes hide the fact that I've bought things (that time I wedged a copy of Naked Lunch down the back of my jeans so Mum wouldn't see it was a particular low point).  And once I start buying, I can't stop - by the end of a shopping trip I'll be dropping cash on as many books as I can carry!

2.  I hate how slow I am at reading these days.  Until a couple of years ago, I could sail through books, no matter where I was or what was happening around me.  While singing along to music.  While someone was watching telly.  Late into the night.  Whatever.  Now I get so easily distracted that this has become impossible, AND I often have to read a book under my breath in the right accent to make sure it all goes in.  Despite my best efforts to start to fix this, by reading inspiring bookish memoirs and how-to blog articles, and trying to read silently as much as possible, 2013 has been my slowest year of reading since... well, probably since I started reading.  It's so frustrating!

3.  I once tore a page out of a school library book on the 60s because there was a glossy picture I desperately wanted for a big collage I was making for my wall.  I still feel a bit sick about that.  What makes it worse?  I was in one of my weird manic obsessive phases.  The picture was... I can't believe I'm telling anybody this... the picture was of the frickin' Osmonds.  Because I'd picked up on the fact that my mum loved Donny as a teenager and got really obsessive about it.  *runs away and hides forever*

4.  When I visit someone's home, I can't help but zero in on their bookshelves.  If there are shelves in the hall, I WILL look en route to the bathroom.  While you put the kettle on, I WILL be perusing the bookshelves in your living room.  In your bedroom, my curiosity about what's on your bookcase will always need to be satisfied before my curiosity about your photos or pretty trinkets.  I can't help myself - other people's shelves just sing to me.  Which leads me to...

5.  While we've been house hunting recently, my feelings about a house and its owners have been influenced by their bookshelves.  My gut feeling about a place has correlated directly with the contents of the current owners' bookcases.  A good mix of books, and lots of stuff I've read or own or have wishlisted?  YES.  A couple of ramshackle shelves of condensed volumes and Danielle Steel novels?  NO.  Like, for me, part of the whole vibe of the place is set by books, even though those books wouldn't be there by the time we moved in.  Ridiculous, moi?

6.  I'm ridiculously bad at buying books that "I must read, now!" but then not reading them for five years.  This is particularly stupid when I've pre-ordered a book months ahead of its release date - I've got a bunch of those still sitting on my shelves.  Since I discovered Ariel's devastatingly truthful video about TBR books, I'm trying to remedy this by either not buying the books yet, or at the very least, by keeping my newest books near the top of Mount TBR so that I can read them while my enthusiasm is still strong!

7.  I match my bookmarks to the books I read.  I mean, not EVERY SINGLE time, but enough to make it a notable habit.  Cheerful chick lit novel?  Gerbera daisy bookmark!  Serious non-fiction?  Map and compass bookmark!  Funny non-fiction?  Tree frog bookmark!

8. As soon as you say the words, "I only read..." or "I never read..." we're not going to get on. People always seem to say this as a way of sneering at OTHER books and genres, but to me it just shows how closed-minded they are, and it gets on my nerves, big time. "I don't really read much fiction," fine. "I read mostly paranormal romance," fine. But as soon as you say "I ONLY read X genre" or I NEVER read Y genre", I don't like you. Deal with it.

9.  I'm really looking forward to being back on the OTHER side of the counter.  I've done my stint behind the desk, but I've got to be honest - all the fun's on the other side.  I like exploring a bookshop, I like discovering what's on their shelves, I like the new and shiny and the second-hand and well-loved...  Soon enough, when I visit a bookshop I'm going to be visiting without trade-weary eyes, and I'm going to treat the person behind that counter like frickin' ROYALTY.

10.  I find it really hard to visualise characters.  Quite often they'll either appear like a person in a dream - a kind of faceless shape in an appropriate outfit - or I'll automatically picture them as a particular famous person.  Most often it's an actor or actress, especially if I've seen them in something recently, and once I've settled on someone no amount of physical description will change that character in my mind.  If I know the book is being adapted for the screen, my mental cast is created for me!  A bunch of characters in the same book can be a mixture of actors and dream people.

11.  I have a love/hate relationship with dust jackets.  I love a beautiful dustjacket, particularly on those lovely smaller-format hardbacks.  These days publishers are putting so much work into creating gorgeous dustjackets, particularly for literary fiction, and they're usually much more striking than the paperback covers that follow.  That said, I CANNOT read a hardback book with the dustjacket on.  I have to take it off and stow it safely until I'm done reading.  The only exception is library books, because they're covered and usually already 'broken in', so they feel more like an organic part of the book and less like something to be ruined.

12.  I can never decide how I want to shelve my books.  By colour or size?  Should fiction be divided into genres THEN alphabetised?  Should non-fiction be alphabetised or just shelved by subject?  What kind of bookcases or shelving do I want?  Does it matter if the shelves start neatly but get messier?  Should they be casually messy from the start?  Should the books just be mixed up and stuck on a shelf, so that I have a complete mishmash of subjects, authors and genres to explore on each shelf?  Am I more likely to read 'outside the box' and pick up something random this way?  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I spend so much of my life sitting on the floor, surrounded by book piles, rearranging them...

 

13.  School/university texts and ARCs aside, I've only ever annotated two books.  One was An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison, which I wrote in and underlined before I passed it on to my mum to read.  It was when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder; I was seeking validation, and she was trying to understand what was happening!  The other book was The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which had such wonderful little moments in it that I couldn't NOT respond in the margins, even though I felt weird about it!  Both were annotated in pencil so I can change things next time I read them if I want to.

How I felt when I wrote my first margin note in Perks.  What a revelation!

14.  Sometimes when I'm reading something really exciting, the urge to know what's going to happen just gets too much.  If I'm reading the page on the left, I find my eyes flicking across to the page on the right, instinctively seeking answers.  Maybe this is a bad habit brought about by too much fast skimming of information online, who knows?  Occasionally I will flick forward a few pages or even towards the end of the novel.  Sometimes this is because I'm tempted to give up on the book and want to know whether to read on; sometimes it just stops me wondering long enough to enjoy the story without my mind racing too far ahead.  Either way, it never ruins anything for me!

15.  I love watching movies and TV shows that are based on books.  I will always try to read the book first, on principle - though I occasionally break this rule for epic novels and classics where it can be easier to have people and plots roughly in mind before you tackle the original.  I inevitably look for my favourite scenes and lines in an adaptation, but other than that I'm very easy-going about them.  I prefer to see book and movie as source material and interpretation, two different incarnations and experiences of the same vision, so it doesn't matter to me if things are chopped and changed and shifted around a bit.  You can't cram a 500-page novel into a 2-hour movie without making compromises.  If a movie sucks, it sucks - but it won't be because I've relentlessly compared it to the book.

Soooooo, those are my fifteen bookish confessions!  Some of them are more like bookish habits, but either way they offer some insight into my reading life, I think!

What customers say vs. what they really mean

They say:  "I'm just here to browse!"
They mean:  "I'm not going to buy anything."

They say:  "Oooh, a 10p box!"
They mean:  "If I can buy something and get change from 50p, it doesn't matter if the book is unreadable."

They say:  "I do like a book with a good story."
They mean:  "I only read Maeve Binchy and Mills and Boon novels."

They say:  "Where are your true stories?"
They mean:  "I only read misery memoirs."

They say:  "Do you not have any non-fiction here?"
They mean:  "I'm surrounded by non-fiction but I have no idea how a bookshop works."

They say:  "Is this the price inside the cover?"
They mean:  "I don't like the price inside the cover."

They say:  "I've never read a book in me life!  Waste of time..."
They mean:  "I prefer to spend my time perusing The Daily Mail, and I watch Jeremy Kyle religiously."

They say:  "Can you knock me anything off the price?"
They mean:  "I'm so rich that I'll be paying with a £20 peeled off a huge roll of notes - but I'm also a tight bastard."

They say:  "Have you got one of those Daphne du Maurier books?  The Laurence Olivier one?"
They mean:  "The movie was showing on Yesterday last night."

They say:  "I was just wondering, do you buy books?"
They mean:  "I've never been in here before, and I never will again, but I've had boxes of books in the garage since 1976 and I'm too lazy to have a car boot sale."

They say:  "Do you give a 10% discount for paying cash?"
They mean:  "I last went shopping in 1943."

They say:  "They're too good to just give to a charity shop."
They mean:  "I have inflated ideas about my books and I'm going to be loudly and righteously horrified by the amount you offer me."

They say:  "They're in pristine condition!"
They mean:  "I have no idea what 'pristine' means but I heard it on Antiques Roadshow and I thought it might get me more money."

They say:  "Look but don't touch, darling!"
They mean:  "I'm just going to be round here ignoring my child while she picks up every single thing in the shop and tries to get into your stock cupboards."

Did I miss anything?

 

Carnival Day: The Live Blog

It's Carnival Day here in TouristTown.  One of our busiest and most bizarre days of the year, and one that this year I've been dreading because Vaguely Manic Ellie + An Entire Town in Noisy Chaos is not a happy mixture.  Soooo, in an attempt to keep my sanity more or less intact, I've decided that it would be a stellar idea to live blog the day.  If it gets too boring I'll just delete it!  Enjoy... 

9:45am - At work.  Coffee made.  Feverishly listening to Gary Numan and Amanda Palmer in an attempt to calm my nerves a tiny bit before we open.

10:15am - The first glowering old man has stood in the doorway, glared around the shop and huffed away again.  I do so love it when people do that.

10:40am - Ahhh, it's not only me that gets the James Bond theme tunes stuck in my head every time I go near one of our JB cover Penguin mugs.  A lad's just scared his mum to death by twirling round the corner and singing "LIVE AND LET DIIIIIIE!" at full volume, with a kind of air-guitar riff to finish it off.  Nice.

11am - My coffee tastes very faintly like mint.  Weird.

11:05am - The first parade float has done an early tour of the town.  Mary Poppins flying above what looks like the top half of a garden shed (nope, no clue), complete with rock music hastily switched to the annoying 'Um diddle-i' section of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  It's good to have advance warning of which irritating songs are going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the weekend.  Plus, it's also a good indicator of which float... personnel?... are going to be struggling to walk in a straight line by show time.

11:30am - I can hear ethereal music coming from somewhere.  Reminds me of last year, when a little old couple wandered into the shop looking puzzled.  "Is something going on in town today, love?" asked the woman, "only... there's a space shuttle parked outside the pub down there.  So we just wondered."  I know southerners often THINK we're from another planet, but really?   

11:45am - Wiggling around the bathroom upstairs, singing Cars to myself.  Much more fun than being downstairs in the shop.  I love 'bathroom breaks' on busy weekends.

12:10pm - Three Oompa Loompas have just wandered past pushing their float, with 'Kitkat' painted up the side of it and The Candy Man Can blaring out.  I approve.  "Who can take a sunrise?  Sprinkle it with dew?  Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two?"  All together now!  "THE CANDY MAN CAAAAAN!"

12:30pm - The Oompa Loompas have teamed up with the Mary Poppins chimney sweeps to get pissed outside the pub over the road.  At the moment we're alternating between Step in Time, hip hop and dance music, Pure Imagination and pop cheese, all played at eye-watering volume.  It's keeping some of the grumpy biddies away (YOUTH MUSIC!  NOOOOOO!) and me and Mum are dancing and singing along in the privacy of the shop.  Brilliant.  I think I may have pulled something trying to do 'Kick your knees up, step in time!' WHILE keeping my ballet pumps from flying up onto the top of a bookcase.  The kid in blue's dancing like a boss, occasionally while wielding a chimney sweep's brush.  OH MY GOD MICHAEL BOLTON.  My day is made.

12:50pm - The chimney sweeps have moved off, presumably to go join the rest waiting near the park.  A big white truck barrelled past a few minutes ago with three 'princesses' sat up high on the back.  I'm fairly sure they were blokes, but they went past too quick!  The Oompa Loompas have marshalled the troops and are heading out with their float, entitled "Willy Wonka and the Giant Kitkat."  THIS IS WHERE I WORK EVERY DAY AND THEY WONDER WHY I'M MAD.

2:30pm - All quiet on the carnival front...  A couple of bizarrely decorated cars have gone past, but everyone will be gathering across town to get organised for the parade now.  More customers around though, especially folks on their way back to their cars to get out before the roads close.  People will be starting to line the pavements soon - scoping out a good spot then wasting a little time in the nearest shops until around the time the parade starts at 3 o'clock.  Could be busy! 

2:35pm - Oh goody, my favourite kind of customer.  A gentleman who can't find anything for himself and needs me to literally walk him to each section and point at it expansively.  NOT ONLY THAT, but we don't have the particular book he wants on cars, we don't have anything on or by D.H. Lawrence, nor do we have anything on fairgrounds or circus skills.  All of the above are grave personal faults of mine.  Obviously.  Dickwad.

3:05pm - The parade should be on the move!  One question: why do people come to town on Carnival day if they're going to stay stubbornly in the shops during the focal point of the whole Carnival week?  It pisses us all off something chronic when we all want to shut up shop for a bit and go out with everyone else!  Oh, and here's another one.  Please, do, come in...  It's not like there's sunshine and music and fun out there or anything... I'LL JUST SIT HERE IN THE SHOP SHALL I?  No point going out now, I'm too short, I won't be able to see.  And I can't see from in HERE because some charming individuals have arranged their children along every windowsill so all I can see is a row of small arses wiping against the windows we cleaned this morning.  DICKWADS.

3:20pm - BREAKING NEWS!  The town brass band have FINALLY switched up their repertoire!  For the first time since we opened, they're not playing Mucho Mambo Sway on our corner!  I think their rendition of Is This The Way to Amarillo is very jaunty, and I'd rather have the latter stuck in my head than the former, I think.  Good call.

3:25pm - Oh, and hey, the blue-coated Musketeers from the next town are sounding awesome too!  I do love me a good old-fashioned band.

3:35pm - Well, I can HEAR the Mary Poppins float, even if I can't see it!  Lots of whooping and cheering going on from the roadside.  There are grumpy-looking people wandering in and out of the shop (presumably people who didn't know about the carnival and are allergic to fun of any kind.  And smiling).  And a fully grown man is now STANDING on our windowsill taking photographs.  If he comes through the window I think I'd be justified in finally flipping my lid, right?

3:40pm - This is the first year I've not been on the edge of the pavement with pockets full of change and my camera.  I feel weird.  Like the whole town's having fun and I'm the kid stuck inside doing her homework or something.  This is the view from our doorway right now, but I can't even stand there now because a delightful couple have let their children go in here and I have to keep an eye on our stuff.  I want to kill them a little bit.  Okay a lot.

3:45pm - It's a Long Way to Tipperary, played on something that sounds like a xylophone.  Or maybe a really clever triangle.  Hmmmm.

3:50pm - Jailhouse Rock, that's more like it!  I'm going to sing along a little bit EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A WOMAN IN THE SHOP.  Fuck 'em.

4:00pm - My favourite Highland band have been and gone.  A giant wheel has rolled past, no idea how or why.  And these STUPID OLD WOMEN keep coming in and complaining that the town's too busy.  In fact this one woman has just said to me, "Oh, is there a parade?"  FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT DO YOU THINK IS HAPPENING OUT THERE?!  Here's an idea folks - don't come to town on Carnival day if you don't want it to be hot, noisy and busy.  Hey, hey, did you see where my 'let's dance to all the things' happy mania switched to 'let's kill all the tourists' angry mania?  Isn't this fun?

4:05pm - An entire float filled with people riding inflatable ponies, to the tune of Crazy Horses, blasted out at decibel levels roughly akin to a fighter jet flying over.  Now there's something you don't see very often...

4:07pm - Aaaand a giant John Deere tractor attempting to manoeuvre an articulated lorry-style float around the tight corner.  Always a highlight of the parade, watching it squeak round about an inch from the toes of the children on the front row of spectators.

4:10pm - OMG DON'T YOU DARE LET YOUR KIDS PISS IN OUR DOORWAY!  Bastard!

4:20pm - God, we're so British.  The parade is over, therefore a third of the crowd have instantly started a stampede for the car park.  Another third are charging into the nearest pubs to refresh their plastic beer glasses.  And the final third, it seems, have poured into our shop.  There's a kid moaning, "Can we gooooooo?" over and over.  Everyone who's got too hot outside has come in here to take it out on us.  This is where every last vestige of my happy mood drains away and becomes jittery, unpleasant, "Oh my god please go away now and take your children with you" panic.

4:40pm - Why yes, this DID used to be a charity shop, thank you SO much for mentioning it!  I had no idea!  We've only been here four years this weekend!

5:00pm - The gate is officially SHUT.  Now I just need this last couple to twig that we've closed, finish time-wasting and go home, and we can cash up and do the same.  It's oooooooooveeeeeer!



6:00pm - Home.  Safe.  Showered.  Show's over everyone... off you go... DON'T CAUSE A STAMPEDE TO THE BLOGGER CAR PARK PLEASE, YOU'LL ONLY GET STUCK IN TRAFFIC ON YOUR WAY OUT!  :)

I survived.  One more weekend day to go, and then it's my appointment, and THEN I can concentrate on the readathon and my day off and packing and everything else.  READATHON!

The Depression Diaries: Aaaand CRASH

12:45pm: No.  Just... No.

Today's going to be a bad one.  Is already a bad one.  I've completely crashed after yesterday.  I didn't sleep that well.  I snapped at Mum in the car on the way to work, then she bought me beautiful flowers while she was at the Co-Op this morning and I felt terrible.  I snap at her, she buys me a bouquet with gerberas in it.  Nice going, Ellie.

Not only that, but the customers thus far today have been a special breed of hellish too.  In fact, one group with two revolting children literally had me tearing my hair out.  I had my hands clutching my head, my hair, elbows rooted firmly on the desk, trying desperately not to go down there and kill the little bastards.  I may have actually hissed the words, 'For fuck's sake!' at one point, possibly within earshot of one of the party, but I don't care.  The brats were twanging the coil doorstop over and over again, running round with the chairs, hitting each other with books, screaming, crying and generally being awful, while the adults cooed over them like they were the cleverest beings ever and said things like, "Awww, bless his little cotton socks!"  NO, LADY.

The kitten on the left's called Philip.  I'll try to think of him every time I feel burning rage towards people who might spend money if I don't kill their children.

So, in summary: Today Is Not Good.  I am angry and sad and antsy and tired and I have a colossal case of DO NOT WANT and I want to eat myself into a coma except I DON'T want to do that and I've just about done some admin stuff but I genuinely wonder if the next badly behaved child (or adult) will be the one to tip me over into 'Nope. Not happening today.'  *think of Philip, think of Philip, think of Philip, think of Philip...*


3:00pm: Customer Relations Fail

I've reached zero capacity for customer service this afternoon.  No, I lie... I can JUST ABOUT manage to semi-smile through a fast transaction with no questions or small talk.  But thirty seconds is your lot.  Our resident bore came in and Mum had to go out to the post office and LEFT ME WITH HIM and I just... couldn't.  It was painfully obvious that I had nothing to say, no vaguely positive facial expressions, no way of filling in the yawning gaps in conversation like I normally have to, and it still took him ten minutes to finally get up and leave.  Book-free, as usual.

I'm munching my way slowly through a Graze punnet - the one with whole hazelnuts, raspberry-infused cranberries (they really do taste of raspberries!) and white chocolate buttons - and keep getting gratefully distracted by how beautiful hazelnuts are.  The little squat round shape and the wood-grain pattern, they're cute.  Maybe I was a squirrel in a previous life.

Ohhhhh dear.  "There's a step here!  It doesn't tell you there's a step anywhere!  That's dangerous!"  THERE ARE TWO FUCKING MIND THE STEP SIGNS ON THE DOOR.  "Oh, I've got my wrong glasses on."  Well, that's a good reason to be an asshole about it then. 


Excuse me while I go smash my extremities against a hard surface.  *think of Philip, think of Philip, think of Philip...*


3:50pm: My Jack Sparrow Moment

Okay, so I just came out of the office and there were two kids messing about with all the pricier gift stock on the table halfway down the shop.  I walked towards them, to go back to the desk, and I was walking quite slowly because my new boots are still rubbing a bit, and the heels were cracking against the hard floor, and I was taller than they were, and I'm wearing long black boots and black jeggings and a jumper that's shaped a BIT like an old-fashioned men's shirt, and I probably look a bit dishevelled at this point, and I swear... those kids looked up and this look of vague fear crossed their faces and they backed right off and stopped messing about with everything.  I felt like a frickin' pirate.  That was fun.


9:00pm: Depression Is Confirmed

Mum told me on the way home that she wasn't going to bother speaking to me if I was just going to snap or grunt a reply, or NOT reply, because it "wasn't worth it".  I tried to point out that non-responsiveness and irritability are par for the course and that it doesn't mean she's offended me or that I'm being deliberately hostile or mean.  In fact, mentally I might have responded quite well, but it just never translates properly onto the outside.  Alienation of well-meaning individuals due to poor social interaction, you say, Allie Brosh?  CHECK.

In other news, I'm DEFINITELY depressed.  Sometimes inside my tired head I worry that I'm just being stupid, that I'm just lazy or selfish or silly or petulant or WHATEVER.  But people, there is one sure-fire way to diagnose yourself as officially depressed, and that's the When Something Goes Wrong Test.

This something can't be a major event that actually warrants an extreme reaction.  This something might be... dropping a glass and breaking it.  Spilling your coffee.  Forgetting some little errand that doesn't matter.  For me, it was not getting my prescription after work.  I'm running really low on a routine IBS medication I take before meals to keep my stomach calmer.  The surgery has had my prescription for over a week.  But when I got there today, intending to pick it up and fill it over the road at the local chemist, there WAS no prescription, just a note saying I needed a GP appointment before I could get my medication again.  No one rang me to tell me this earlier, and there were still two 'issues' left on each item on the prescription according to my last slip.

Where a regular person might have asked some stern questions about certain elements of this disappointment, sighed, made an appointment and moved on, my mind went dead in a vague mixture of panic, anger and despair.  I asked a couple of vaguely aggressive questions, got embarrassed, huffed a bit, sighed "shit..." into my own arm, stuttered that buying medication to tide me over for a few days would cost a fortune, and generally narrowly avoided sitting down in the middle of the foyer and sobbing.  I sat stricken in the car, growled "I could have done without a 9am appointment on my one FUCKING day off," nearly cried again (but didn't - still no crying happening in Crazy Town), then suddenly got very tired and sloped wearily inside to put my flowers in a vase.  I got all sad again because I couldn't seem to get the gerberas to sit quite right, plonked them in any old how and gave up.  Then I had a slow, miserable, exhausted shower.

And that, folks, is depression.  Little issue, HUGE reaction, followed by a crushing need to just go to bed.  Final note:  I gave up on the healthy dinner I had planned and I've had a choc chip muffin instead.  The same as I had for breakfast, only without the caffeine in my coffee.  Fuck it.  

Penny feels my junky needs. And hey, at least I put mine on a plate first.

The Depression Diaries: Bank Holiday Monday

1:00pm, aka Maybe The Lunchtime Lull

Yeah, hi.  So, it's Bank Holiday Monday here in Tourist Town, which is a fantastic time to be... 'off colour', shall we say?  From the moment we arrived this morning, all we could see in every direction were hoardes of determined bargain seekers heading for the car boot sale, hoardes of blue-rinses shuffling towards the market, children everywhere and bad drivers veering all over the place.  Good times.

Happily I spent the first hour of the working day in the office, getting a stack of books ready to overhaul the YA shelves, sifting through boxes and pricing up a couple of board games we were given to sell on if we could.  This meant that I only had to listen to the small Tasmanian devils in the children's section through the door, rather than first hand.  During this hour Mum read as much of my Nora Ephron book (I Feel Bad About My Neck) as I've managed to read in about a week, and when I came back out into the shop we were full and I wanted to hide under the desk.  Oh well.

Weirdly, I'm actually hungry right now - very unusual at the moment - so I'm having an early-lunchtime Graze box.  It's the first time in days I've really fancied one, but it's yummy.  The 'Bounty Hunter' - coconut slivers, dried cranberries and chocolate drops.  And my favourite customer came a-visiting and I just about stayed friendly and chatty.  Well done me.  He doesn't like Bank Holidays here either, wise man.

Next phase:  Operation Find Projects To Distract Me.  Things like editing my Twitter feed, combing my LT library for books to go, maybe editing a Pinterest board or two?  Filing but on the netbook, essentially.  Anything to avoid sitting here with my heart pounding, wishing everyone would sod off.  :)

On a sidenote:  Being depressed makes it MUCH EASIER to respond firmly to people attempting to get discounts on books.  I think it's the 'I don't care' factor.  I'm not bothered if they get shirty about it, because I don't care.  Makes me less likely to get all British and embarrassed.  Just a straight-up, slightly weary "No, sorry, not on a book this age with such a good dustjacket."  Simple, clean, to the point.

2:30pm - Afternoon Madness Begins

Half past two.  One hour until my unofficial 'depressed state' tolerance cut-off point.  I can just about scrape through until 5pm on a good day, but it winds back to 3:30pm when I'm in a bad way  There's a child throwing (heavy) books around in the children's section.  Oooh, and a game too, goody.  And picking everything up.  And one's run outside.  The mother's yelling like a banshee.  Will I even make it that far today?! 

There's an old lady glaring at me from the doorway, that's always fun.  Two hours left, two hours left, two hours left... *repeats like mantra while rocking slowly, gritting teeth and clenching fists firmly*  The child is now running and throwing books outside.  And opening and shutting the cupboard doors.  If you don't hear from me, I'm at the police station being charged with braticide.

4pm:  Almost There

Iiiiiinteresting.  So, as it turns out, the 'comfortably numb' stage of depression is actually WAY better for Bank Holidays than the 'EVERYBODY SHUT UP AND GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME' stage.  Less rage, less angst, less upset.  Just me sitting blank-eyed behind my netbook quietly thinking, "You know what, do what you want.  Look at every Paperblanks journal then don't buy one.  Mess up the books.  I'll just wait until you've gone then drift round and tidy up really slowly.  Whatever."

I'm still eating that Graze box.  I've also eaten seven cherry tomatoes and drunk multiple cups of decaff coffee and chai tea.  That's it.  The appetite thing's clearly still a bit slow despite its early buzz today.  My sister's made four different kinds of cookie while we've been at work, though (two of them involving Nutella and ALL involving chocolate) so I'm sure I'll manage to sample one of those with a cup of something hot and another episode of 2 Broke Girls at SOME point this evening.  It's the little things...

6pm: Home and Dry

Made it.  Naturally the whole world poured into the shop at quarter past four, but in a VERY unusual stroke of amazing timing, they all left again dead on half past and I scurried out and closed the door.  One of the very last customers was a fellow bookseller.  He came to the desk with three HUGE books and said, "I'm in the book trade, I don't know if that gets me anything off..."  As soon as he said it I knew he'd bought books from us before and said, "Ohhh, I thought I recognised you!"  "Was it the sullen expression on my face?" he said with a grimace.  I actually laughed and said, "Aaaah, now I KNOW you're a fellow bookseller."  He got his 10% off and it was still a £30 sale.  He had a glass of water before he left and while he was sitting drinking it a woman piped up, "Excuse me, love, but are these books alphabetical by title or author?"  "Author," I said, rather shortly.  "So, if I'm looking for Lesley Pearse, would that be under L or P?" she called.  THE GUY LOOKED HEAVENWARD AND ROLLED HIS EYES.  And I smiled again.  Good man.

And now I'm home, my laundry's in, I'm in my PJs and dressing gown, and Mum and I have already shared one of my sister's Nutella-filled cookies.  GOOD SHIT.  I'm not entirely sure how to fill my evening now.  I'm flat out on the bed and I've got music on but I'm skipping half the songs that come up, in that way you do when you don't really want to listen to music at all.  Should I watch a film?  A load of back-to-back sitcoms online?  Try to read a bit?

Miscellaneous good news: my library books have, by some miracle, renewed hassle-free for another three weeks so I can keep plodding on without rushing or being annoyed that I'm halfway through two and don't want to take them back until I'm done.  Because it might take a while.  PRESSURE OFF.

~ Journal extract ~

(from a week or two ago)

"Yesterday was terrible.  It was such a beautiful day, and it felt quite productive really.  I got up a little late, had breakfast, and cheerfully did some of my cleaning.  Then I went and sat outside in the sun, nursing a headache, sipping coffee and reading and watching the cats pretending to be flowers so they could watch the blackbird.  So far, so good, right?

But for the whole day there was pain throbbing just under my skin.  It's barrelling upwards towards fever pitch.  There's so much wrong, and I think having to keep it bottled up is taking its toll.  Living in close quarters with my family, there's no space to FEEL without being checked over and asked questions and seeing worried glances following me wherever I go.  So I don't really feel.  I keep everything pushed down, so that instead of crying and watching sad movies and dancing and generally getting it out of my system, I'm letting it eat its way through my chest until my heart flutters and the pain spreads like ink in my blood until my hands are shaking and my breath catches in my throat.

A while back I watched Russell Brand's documentary on addiction, and something he said cut to my core.  He said that addiction, and addictive behaviour generally, happens because there's something sad and empty inside us and we're just trying to fill it.  For me, it's a sad and empty place where life should be.  Life, and people.  Is it any wonder I rattle from one obsession to another, one means of control after another, one means of escape after another?  Anything to try to forget the howling void left behind by having nowhere to go, no autonomy, no one to call, no one to love, no one to make me feel loved and special and worth knowing, quirks and demons and all..."

I really think it's important to be honest about this stuff sometimes.  Otherwise, how will anyone else ever know they're not alone, that other people feel it too?

Top Ten Books For When You Need Something Light And Fun

 

 TTT is hosted by the lovely ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish.

 

This week we're talking light reads... books that are easy to read, fun and good for a giggle.  I tend to turn to super-light books when I'm tired or the shop's crazy busy, when I'm ill or miserable, or occasionally as a bit of light relief alongside heavier reading fare.  These are some of my favourite go-to choices!  I missed off Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country, just because it appears on these lists a LOT... but that would totally have made my top five otherwise.  :)

 

 

The Undomestic Goddess

by Sophie Kinsella

Yeahhhh, this one again.  SHUT UP IT'S AWESOME.  If I'm still in the mood for an actual novel, but I want something with a serious feel-good factor, then this is usually at the top of the list.  The story of a woman on the run from her high-pressure work as a lawyer, it makes me want to slow down and be domestic and bake things, and generally relax and enjoy life and the countryside and good food and good company.  Perfect.

 

The Pirates! series

by Gideon Defoe

Yay pirates!  Chris Addison first turned me onto these books when he was a guest on My Life in Books, and then Hanna got hooked on them, and then I read The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists from the library, and THEN she sent me the first book in the series for my last birthday, and THAT'S where we're at right now.  They're funny and ridiculous and occasionally a tad Carry On, and I think Gideon Defoe might be a bit of a genius.

 

 

The World According to Clarkson, vols. 1-4

by Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson's a pretty divisive bloke, especially on telly when his mouth runs away with him, but his collections of newspaper columns are really quite hilarious.  Occasionally a particularly un-PC moment might make me cringe, but mostly they're just deliciously earthy and make me laugh when I need it most.  There are four volumes of 'general' columns (ie. not all car and transport-related) so far!

 

 

The Mighty Book of Boosh

by Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and Dave Brown

This is a new one for me, but it's what's putting a smile on my face RIGHT NOW so it's getting a mention anyway.  I'm a few years behind everyone else with The Mighty Boosh, it seems, but now I've discovered it it's my favourite form of escapism of a tired evening.  The book's crammed with art, funny stuff, photos, comic strips and everything else under the sun, and I love it!
 

 

Anything by/featuring Karl Pilkington

by Karl Pilkington and/or Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

I've read two of his books now: Happyslapped by a Jellyfish (a bunch of his travel anecdotes, diaries and little poems), and The World of Karl Pilkington (scripts from The Ricky Gervais Show).  Both have been funny, ridiculous, easy to read and a great dose of light relief on a bad day.  Next up will be An Idiot Abroad, which is waiting patiently on Mount TBR!

 

 

Deric Longden's cat books

by, ummm, Deric Longden
Like The Undomestic Goddess, these are for when I still want an actual narrative but also want to smile and laugh and be happy.  Mum gave me my first one (The Cat Who Came In from the Cold) as a kid and I still reread them on a regular basis, giggling at the antics of Deric's very anthropomorphic cats, and snorting at his wry take on life and his warm sense of humour.  Read 'em, cat people!
 

 

It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit

by Steve Stack
Subtitled 'A Guide to All Things Nice', this is a kind of counter-volume to the two Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit? encyclopedias (which I've also read!).  Rather than a guide to everything annoying in life, it's a celebration of all the happy things that cheer us up but sometimes get taken for granted.  Things like David Attenborough, crumpets and bubble wrap.  I love it - and it's how I first heard about LibraryThing!  :)

 

Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

by Nigel Slater

I read and reviewed this one back in 2010, and it was so delicious that I knew I'd be keeping it as a comfort read.  With bitesize morsels on everything from seaside rock to strawberry picnics, old-school puddings to supermarket shopping, all written with warmth and humour, it's guaranteed to make me smile AND make my stomach rumble, all at the same time.

 

 

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction

by Tom Raabe

 A book about books can usually be relied upon to make me feel relaxed and inspired.  This one has the added advantage that it's very relatable and really funny!  It's about due a reread actually, but from what I remember I recognised myself all the way through and had a good chuckle along the way!  The alternative history of the book was particularly brilliant, and the little quiz to find out if you're a biblioholic (I scored impressively on that one!)...
 

 

The Babylon series

by Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anonymous

In the middle of summer, when I need something cheerful and light and utterly scandalous to while away some hot days in the garden and manic days at work, I could do much worse than these books.  Structured as semi-fictional 'week in the life' exposés, written with the input of various top industry insiders, the series is fun, insightful and occasionally damning.  I've already reviewed Beach Babylon and Wedding Babylon here on the blog, and I have Fashion Babylon waiting on Mount TBR!

 

 

These are some of the books that I turn to when I need a light, easy and uplifting read - what would make your list?

DOUBLE REVIEW: The History Boys, by Alan Bennett (4*)

I bought the movie version of The History Boys years ago - I think I was at uni, so it was probably when it first came out on DVD - but I barely remember a thing about it.  I think I attempted to watch it with my ex, who wasn't exactly keen on 'smart movies', plus I'd never actually read the play and struggled to keep up with the quick-fire banter and the many literary references!  In case you haven't come across it before, it's basically a play about eight boys trying to get into Oxford and Cambridge, under the watchful eyes of old romantic Hector and young tutor Irwin.  Anyway, I DO remember chuckling away at the boys' cheek, and Richard Griffiths being wonderful, so when I heard that he'd passed away recently it seemed like revisiting it would be a fitting tribute.  This time I hit the library and got hold of a copy of the book first, hoping that I'd maybe catch some of the wordplay and nuances better that way, and then I dug my DVD out again at last!

~ THE BOOK ~
The History Boys, by Alan Bennett
(Faber and Faber, 2004)

"How do I define history?  It's just one fucking thing after another..."

The first thing I have to say about this book is that I really enjoyed Alan Bennett's introduction.  Obviously the point of a play is to be watched, and reading the script isn't for everyone, but a good introduction is always a valuable addition to the experience, as far as I'm concerned.  Bennett's is wryly amusing and very interesting, particularly for someone younger, like me, who tripped into higher education in the noughties when the whole process and meaning was rather different.  It explains the play's firm roots in Bennett's own journey through the education system, and points out little elements of various characters that come from the playwright's life and the people he knew.  It was nice having that context in mind when I started reading!

Now, onto the play itself.  I thought it was wonderful!  As with so much of Bennett's work, it managed to combine provocative thought and deep themes with giggle-aloud humour and irresistable literary eloquence.  Although several of the boys took a while to straighten out in my mind, the majority of the characters (both students and teachers) are larger than life and so utterly real that I felt like I was sitting in that classroom listening to the banter and the ribbing, rather than reading a script.  And it's so FUNNY!  I'm sure we all remember certain people - boys, in particular - who lit up a classroom with their sense of humour, were often a bit racy or pushed their luck on occasion, but who charmed everyone including the teachers.  These boys are like that, and it made reading the script such a delight!

In between the hilarity, there are also some really interesting points and discussions about education and history.  Irwin's introduction of original thought by asking the boys to turn questions and concepts upside down and attack them head-on taught me more about critical thinking than I ever learned at school; if I'd read this before university my essays might have been much better!  The tension between Hector and Irwin, between educational styles and purposes, between jumping through hoops and being deliberately provocative, all mixed together into one big discussion of what elements of education are more important - and indeed, whether the mad push to get to university is worth it at all.  What I particularly liked was the way the very moving ending suggested how meaningless much of the boys' education really was, yet the memories of Hector and Irwin and the underlying lessons they taught still stood firm.  I've found that to be quite true in my own life, and it felt like a fitting conclusion!

Favourite moment:  Probably Hector's lesson, entirely in French, where he takes Dakin's sly 'brothel and client' scenario suggestion and runs with it.  The boys all join in with some delight, until the headteacher arrives and they hastily switch to a very theatrical war hospital theme.  It reminded me of some of the most funny and memorable lessons I had with certain classes and teachers at school!  Fortunately I remembered enough high-school French to get all the jokes... :)

Notable Quotables:

• "The wrong end of the stick is the right one.  A question has a front door and a back door.  Go in the back, or better still, the side.  Flee the crowd..."
• "The heart has its reasons that reason knoweth not..." - Blaise Pascal
• "I count examinations, even for Oxford and Cambridge, as the enemy of education.  Which is not to say that I don't regard education as the enemy of education, too."
• "The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you.  Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead.  And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours."
• "Our perspective on the past alters.  Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.  We don't see it and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past and one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be..."
• "History's not such a frolic for women as it is for men.  Why should it be?  They never get round the conference table...  History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men.  What is history?  History is women following behind with the bucket."
• "Clichés can be quite fun.  That's how they got to be clichés."
• "I hadn't realised how easy it is to make things happen.  You know?"

~ THE FILM ~
The History Boys (directed by Nicholas Hytner, 2006)
Starring Richard Griffiths and Stephen Campbell Moore

A brilliant adaptation of a brilliant play.  It's a very faithful shift from page to stage to screen, only really diverging from the original in order to set up the construct properly (as you'd expect) and to take the action out of the classroom every once in a while.  Rather than a video montage, we actually get to see the boys exploring the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, for example. 

The genius of the film, in my opinion, comes from the decision to keep the theatre cast intact.  Because it's a fantastic ensemble piece, and these characters are perfect.  Richard Griffiths is a jovial Hector, Stephen Campbell Moore is the perfect mix of bold and nervous in his portrayal of Irwin, and Frances de la Tour's Miss Lintott is an absolute delight.  And then there are the boys, many of whom are now household names and familiar faces from television and film.  Dominic Cooper, who plays the cocky young stud Dakin, is a Hollywood actor.  James Corden is everywhere.  Russell Tovey is a popular television star.  Sam Barnett was a superbly naïve Millais in Desperate Romantics.  I could go on.  Thrown together as the History Boys of the title, they breathe such life and personality into a mismatched group of bright and quick-witted students.

Bottom line?  I laughed, I cried twice - at Hector's classroom breakdown AND at the deeply moving ending, which reflected the stage directions much more thoroughly than I'd expected - and I was SO GLAD to have gone back and revisited this film properly years after I first saw it.  I'll end by linking to James Corden's tear-jerking tribute to Richard Griffiths, which is one of the things that prompted to me to read and then re-watch this superb play in the first place.  It's a beautiful tribute, do read it...

The Verdict

So, should you read or watch this one?  I'd say to do both, if you don't mind reading scripts on the page.  When I was reading the book, I appreciated the wit more, enjoyed the copious literary references and had chance to 'get' the genius of Hector's French lesson, which was hilarious.  The film then brought it all to life (as a play deserves!), separated out the characters more fully in my mind, and was more moving than ever...  Both options come highly recommended, whichever you choose!

REVIEW: Carrie, by Stephen King (4.5*)

(Hodder, 2007)

*** There will be SPOILERS in this post, and more ranting than reviewing, because it's too anger-provoking not to talk about these things.  I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS! ***

"They've forgotten her, you know.  They've made her into some kind of a symbol and forgotten that she was a human being, as real as you reading this...  Nothing can change her back now from something made out of newsprint into a person.  But she was, and she hurt.  More than any of us probably know, she hurt.  And I'm so sorry and I hope it was good for her, that prom.  Until the terror began, I hope it was good and fine and wonderful and magic..."

Before I read Carrie, I expected it to be exactly as popular myth seemed to dictate: a book about a monstrous girl in a dripping prom dress, destroying a town with her telekinetic powers.  But as is so often the case with these culture-pervading novels, it is so much more than that!  Just as Pet Sematary isn't really about a mystical graveyard, and Frankenstein isn't merely about a lumbering humanoid, Carrie isn't really a book about supernatural horror.  No.  It is about a young girl tormented by years of bullying and abuse and humiliation, who finally snaps and has a mental breakdown.  The telekinetic powers are just the apocalyptic icing on the cake of ritual high-school cruelty...

I think this is probably one of those books that people respond to largely based on their own experiences at high school.  Although it's set in the 70s, there's a sense of the futility of high school posturing; despite the decades that have passed, high schools are still dominated by the same people, the same patterns, the same problems...  For those who sailed through their teenage years, it's very much the cult novel about a girl developing powerful telekinetic abilities when she (finally) hits puberty and getting revenge on the people in her town who have always laughed at her.  For those who were more like Carrie than her tormentors at school (which I'm guessing might be a fair few of us bookish types), it's the heartbreaking story of a victim at the end of her tether. 

So many moments from my teens were driven back into my head while I was reading, and considering how nervous King claims he was about trying to enter the mysterious world of the high school female, I thought it was painfully truthful.  I remember sitting at home and devouring junk food to make myself feel better.  I remember wishing I had better skin and swishier hair and a thinner stomach so that people would like me more.  I remember moments where the panic was so intense that time slowed down and faces blurred.  I remember moments when chanting and singing echoed in my ears until I wanted to run away.  I remember the day I finally turned around and faced my principal tormentor, and the surprising switch of allegiance amongst some of the watching spectators as they realised that maybe I had some small dignity after all.  I also remember watching another, deeply unpleasant but vulnerably small, girl being bullied at school, and feeling a strange sense of shameful satisfaction.  Just like Sue.  Because it wasn't in my nature to be cruel, but I stood back anyway.  All of these things were echoed in the novel, and it was profound and honest and miserable and sickening and angering, all at the same time.

Of course, not only is Carrie constantly humiliated by her peers, but let's not forget the religious and domestic abuse she is regularly exposed to at home by her violently 'Christian' mother.  If I thought Oranges are Not the Only Fruit was bad, Carrie takes the religious indoctrination and abuse of children and drags it to a whole new level.  Of course, this isn't autobiographical like Oranges, but as you read you can't help but think that there are people this religiously crazed out there, and those people do have children.  Children who are being raised in the same madness, and punished if they dare to show signs of thinking for themselves.  I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of any child being indoctrinated into religion before they're old enough to have any kind of say in the matter, but when it comes to extremism it's outright dangerous. 

Right, that's my righteous anger done.  Back to the writing itself!  One thing I really loved about this book - in the same way that I loved the similar structure in Palahniuk's Rant - was the way it was composed of all kinds of different 'source material' alongside the regular progression of the plot, pitting post-Carrie academic speculation against the human story.  Even though I knew roughly where the novel was going, getting clues and insight into the sheer scale of Carrie's destruction and the involvement of other characters via the 'book extracts', interviews, reports, dictionaries and other excerpts scattered liberally throughout the normal prose helped to ratchet up the suspension to an unbearable pitch by the time that bucket upturned over the stage.

Skipping between characters - Carrie, her mother, Sue, Chris and Billy - gave a rounded version of events, allowing the reader to see the 'big picture' as events unfolded, and tightening that tension even further.  I also liked the way King uses parentheses to insert little snippets of impulsive thought, flashes of pure gut feeling.  It's not a technique I've ever seen before, but I thought it was a really deft way of showing how instinctive thoughts pop into someone's mind even as they're reflecting on something else.  As if that wasn't enough, King introduces so many opportunities for things to turn out differently.  Every time a character pondered intervening, every time someone had an inkling something might happen, every time someone thought about showing kindness but didn't, every time a bad decision was made, EVERY SINGLE TIME, I wanted to scream.  And Carrie's blossoming happiness and perfect Prom night broke my heart because I knew what was coming.  It's that kind of novel.

I actually found that this wasn't as much of a horror story as I'd expected, which was quite refreshing.  It had its moments, of course, as Carrie weaved her way across town wreaking havoc, projecting her fractured mind into everyone else's, imagery hot with the colours of fire and blood, but really it was more horrific.  Subtle difference.  Maybe this surprise was due to my preconception of Carrie as 'the bad guy', the monster of the piece.  In fact my heart went out to her, and just as I enjoy the downfall of the villain in any story, I felt quite pleased when Chris, Billy and even Margaret White got what they deserved.  Then I felt bad because it was going against pretty much the entire ethos of the novel...

Okay, I think I've rambled quite enough... but suffice to say that if you haven't already read this one, I'd definitely recommend it.  It's not the best novel I've ever read, and there were some fairly horrendous typos all the way through, but it made me think and feel so very much, and I found myself constantly mulling over the events and issues and moral dilemmas in the novel even when I wasn't reading.  What was right?  What was wrong?  How many girls are there out there who have been stamped on like Carrie?  How many times do those girls wish they had some small dose of power that would turn the tables at last?  How many Prom Nights would there be if these poor souls had the opportunity to get their revenge?  How did King manage not only to get so perfectly inside the minds of a series of high school girls, but to nail the way the horrible little popular cliques work and drag this reader kicking and screaming back into the past as he went?  Brilliant.  Wrenching, but brilliant.

One small thing...
I just have to share this with you, which I found scribbled in my review notebook as I was writing this post: "This is a Cinderella story - only instead of running and crying when her ugly sisters humiliate her, she reveals herself to be a ninja and kills them.  Cinderella Goes Wild."  :)

Notable Quotables:

• "Real religious nuts are nothing to fool with."
• "They were almost certain to be voted King and Queen of the high school Spring Ball, and the senior class had already voted them class couple for the yearbook.  They had become a fixed star in the shifting firmament of the high school's relationships, the acknowledged Romeo and Juliet.  And she knew with sudden hatefulness that there was one couple like them in every white suburban high school in America."
• "High school isn't a very important place.  When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great..."
• "It seemed like... oh, a big laugh.  Girls can be cat-mean about that sort of thing, and boys don't really understand.  The boys would tease Carrie for a little while and then forget, but the girls... it went on and on and on and I can't even remember where it started any more."
• "And then this other thought crept in, and it was as if it wasn't my own at all.  I was thinking about Carrie.  And about God.  It was all twisted up together, and it was awful.  Stella looked over at me and said: 'Carrie's back.'"
• "She sat quite still, letting the noise wash over her like surf.  They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.  In this one she would bite a poison apple, be attacked by trolls, be eaten by tigers.  They were laughing at her again."
• "I feel that I would kill myself before ever teaching again.  Late at night I keep thinking: If I had only reached out to that girl, if only, if only..."

Source: I bought this book from Amazon UK several years ago.