Day 1 (or 1.5?): London.

Friday, April 18, we packed up the car and drove up to Canada to pick up my grandma and then go to the Vancouver Airport where our flight to London was taking off. (Wow, what a cool airport. The international section has a fish tank and a "river" in it!)

Our plane:

On the long, ten hour flight, I mostly slept. But I did sample the wide variety of movies and TV shows (they had Sherlock season 3. Isn't that crazy?) the airplane supplied for free... I watched Frozen! What a gorgeous movie. I did, however, think that it had a lot of unused potential plot and character wise.
Amazingly, I woke up right as we were passing over the final corner of Greenland! I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures of the ice. How beautiful!

It doesn't look green to me...

We landed 2:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, London time, which, for us, was about 5 AM. But you don't want to waste an entire afternoon sleeping, so, after checking into our hotel, St. David's, my mom and dad and I went to hit a few shops.
First on our list was... THE TINTIN SHOP!!!!!!! =D On Floral Street. This is one of the major reasons we made this side trip to London.
If you ever go to London, and are a fan of Tintin, GO HERE! It's a teeny tiny little shop, about the size of two hallways side by side. It's got tons of Tintin books and merchandise everywhere. Behind the counter hang Tintin t-shirts and in the counter's glass display case, there are ton of miniatures from the books. Mostly cars and XFLR-6's. The whole time we were in there it was packed.

 (Me, my dad, and Tintin. Am I short, or is he just tall? Either way, Tintin's the smallest.)

After the Tintin shop, we walked through the packed streets to Forbidden Planet, which is a huge sci-fi/fantasy store (with a basement full of sci-fi/fantasy books!). 

Along the way we saw many beautiful buildings (I think the architecture of London is going to have to be a separate post). We also saw some picture-worthy sights...

 

This is a street in Covent Garden where seven roads converge. In the middle of the circular area is this monument, unveiled by Queen Beatrix (who abdicated her throne to her son last year) of the Netherlands!

We also found a cool stature honoring Agatha Christie:

And we saw the funniest - if you are a fan of the show Sherlock and/or Elementary - sign on the side of a car. (There are hardly any billboards in London - all the advertisements are either on the sides of cabs, buses, or in shop windows. Strangely, this was how it was over 100 years ago too! In the 1900's, 'omnibuses,' which were double-decker carriages pulled by horses, would have advertisements on their sides as well!)

Anyway, on the side of this van we saw this picture:

An advertisement for Elementary, America's modernized Sherlock Holmes, which says "believe in better." This is ironically funny because England was the first to have the idea of modernizing Sherlock Holmes (with their show "Sherlock") and when America announced their intention to do one as well, there was some tension, and a lot of uproar from the fans of Sherlock (myself included... though now I'm not really into either show).

Forbidden Planet was a pretty cool store. It had a huge window display with this epic statue of Sauron (not the Eye; the one who had his finger chopped off), an equally cool statue of Chewbacca, and a giant paper cutout of the Fourth Doctor, with a reproduction of the Fourth Doctor's scarf draped around it's thin neck. 

Inside was chaos. Lots of people looked here and there and dashing about. When you first walk in you are wowed by a huge glass case filled with figurines. The shop also boasted many t-shirts, a giant section of Doctor Who stuff, some pretty neat Star Trek and Lord of the Rings stuff, and merchandise from other fan bases as well. My mom wasn't too interested, so she sat and read her quilt magazine underneath a giant model of the Enterprise-D.

Downstairs, as I mentioned, there was a bookstore. I don't read a tremendous amount of modern fantasy and sci-fi, which is what they had a lot of, so we went pretty quick through that corner. Another section was devoted to comics and manga. They had a huge section for DVDs and an equally huge section dedicated to guides about certain TV shows and movies. I bought a Tolkien journal to take notes of our trip in.

Fun fact: 30 years ago, when my dad went traveling around Europe for a year, he had the same journal! Of course, they've given it a new cover, but the inside drawings are all the same!

Our final stop Friday night was Foyles Bookstore, one of the hugest bookstores in the world, I believe! (Though Powell's in Portland, Oregon could definitely rival it. Plus, Powell's has better prices. If London is too far away, go to Powell's! And give me a call. I'll meet you there and we can spend the day riffling through shelves and shelves and shelves and shelves [and shelves and shelves] of books and ignoring each other because of all the books!). 

I wanted to go to Foyles because, well, it's a giant bookstore! But also because I knew they would have The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (all his Jeeves and Wooster short stories, save one, in one volume). I could have ordered it from Half Price Books.com, and probably saved some money, but I thought it would be fun to buy a book in London! I ended up getting three (all Jeeves and Wooster, because they are harder to find in the USA... or, at least where I live. I'm determined to read the novels in the right order and our silly library system has the first one, but not the second! For another of Wodehouse's series, the library has the second book, but not the first! ARGH!)

 

 

Four stories of bookish bliss. Since it was getting late, however, and we wanted to turn in a bit early, we didn't stay too long, and soon meandered back to our hotel, after nabbing some dinner. 

Thus ended our first day in London!

P.S. I do believe this marks my 100th post with the tagline "books"! *confetti*

Nightstand Books: The First

Nightstand Books is exactly what it sounds like: a post of what books are on your nightstand! This fun, new linkup is hosted by the fabulous Jenelle Leanne Schmidt and DJ Edwardson.
The first Wednesday of every month, you simply take a picture of the books that are currently on your nightstand, and write a post about them! (and link up with the others doing it)
You know me, I love talking about the books I'm reading... and this is the perfect opportunity to!
Without further ado... my nightstand:

 

 

Starting at the top, we have Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I'm reading this for literature class and really enjoying it so far! Technically we're still on Wuthering Heights (which I also enjoyed... review coming in the nearish future) but I really wanted to get Great Expectations finished before the middle of this month, for secretive reasons I shan't disclose at the present. (Mwahahaha.)

From what I heard about Dickens, I had great expectations for Great Expectations (see what I did there?). Alright, maybe not great expectations, per se... But from what I had gleaned from other readers, Dickens is really super tough to read and get through. That had me apprehensive, but I was happy to find that he's not so difficult to understand after all! His writing style is similar to Jane Austen's in that it's old fashioned, but not indiscernible.

Next there is Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. I discovered the world of Wodehouse in February and have fast fallen for his brilliant writing style and characters. His Jeeves books are definitely not to be taken too seriously and they make excellent brain candy reading. Thank You, Jeeves is the first Jeeves and Wooster novel (before it come several short story collections) and I'm enjoying it tremendously! My favorite episode of the TV series is based off of this story.

Third down is Jane Austen's Letters which is exactly like it sounds: a collection of Jane Austen's letters. Most of them are to her sister Cassandra and are, altogether, very interesting! I love reading people's letters or autobiographies, especially if the people lived in a historical time period. Textbooks and Wikipedia pages can only tell you so much about that time... but reading the everyday occurrences of someone who actually lived at the time can be so enlightening! It's like a peek into a different world.

Which brings me to... Agatha Christie's Autobiography. Everything I said about the above also applies to this book. Wow, what an interesting person Agatha Christie is! I recently finished a book of her letters to her mother when she traveled around the world with her husband in the 1920's (it was so so so good) and figured I'd just move right along into her autobiography. I haven't gotten too far into her life yet. She's only just entered the teen years. Did you know she never really wrote much as a child? She loved to read, and she had many make believe worlds and friends (including several imaginary train tracks in her backyard), but she never wrote. Instead she played piano, acted, danced, swan, and learned French. She wasn't an outstanding child - actually, she was rather normal. Her childhood games reminds me of my own.

Underneath those four books are three or four notebooks, several pieces of paper, and a folder or two. All are filled with stories or story ideas. Aaaand up in the left hand corner, you can see Dori photobombing. I decided to have his make a cameo appearance instead of the other half of my nightstand, which is the top of my dresser. It's rather messy, filled with bits of paper and bookmarks. I didn't think you'd be interested in that.

So what are YOU reading?

Live long and prosper!

A bookish linkup!

Cait and Mime, over at the Notebook Sisters (which looks like a rather fantabulous blog, by the way, even though I haven't full explored it yet) are having an end-of-the-year bookish linkup!

Basically you have to answer the following questions and then link up your own post to their post. I'm doing the reading one... but there's a writing link-up too, which I might or might not do. I haven't decided yet.
Without further ado... the questions!

1. What was your overall favourite book this year? (Yes. Pick one.)
Hmmm... I'm going to go with Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I really, really enjoyed that one.

 2. Favourite debut(s)? (Author must have been first published in 2013.)
Can I pick myself? :P Because I haven't read any books by newly published (in 2013) authors. I can get close, though! Miss Jack Lewis Baillot was first published December 14 of last year.

 3. Which books did you reread this year?
A lot.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (actually, I'm hoping to start this one again soon because IT'S AMAZING).
Ruby Holler, Replay, and Bloomability by Sharon Creech.
The American Girl Samantha series (which is technically 6 books, but I'm counting them as one, since they're so short).
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (also an amazing book - and movie).
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (does this count? 'Cause I read it... and then a few days later re-read it).
A Long Way From Chicago and A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck (x2. I re-read them twice this year).
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (though I don't really remember the first time...).
Ecclesiastes by Solomon (?).
The Penderwicks, the Penderwicks on Gardam Street, and the Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall.
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards.
The Two Towers and The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson (I love this book).
and
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Phew!

 4. Favourite cover(s) this year!
I'm guessing this is favorite covers of the books I've read this year...?

 5. Worst cover(s)?
I don't really have any worst covers... If I have to pick, though, I guess I could go with the cover of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It's an alright cover, but I prefer the one with the gears. And the Canterbury Tales Penguin classics version. That one has the author on the cover (to be fair, though, he is in the book as well).

 6. What self-published books did you read this year?
Kat and Kadet by J. Hammond (AKA Hailey Jenkins).
A Stretch of Loyalty by Miss Jack Lewis Baillot.
Abolished Impracticality by Miss Jack Lewis Baillot.
Sew, It's a Quest? by Kendra E. Ardnek.
and
Do You Take This Quest by Kendra E. Ardnek.

 7. Which book(s) gave you a massive hangover?
I'm not really familiar with book hangovers (or any hangovers for that matter...) but Abolished Impracticality left me going:

 

(I'm the one on the right. The one on the left is The Author, who can't comprehend my frustration)

 8. Best standalone you read?
I read a lot of great standalones. I'll go with one I haven't mentioned yet... Crater by Homer Hickam.

 9. Biggest book(s) you've read this year?
Moby Dick by Herman Melville is a clear winner! Followed up by Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and the Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.

 10. Book(s) you followed the hype for and then loved!
The books my friends write I eagerly follow the hype of, and then love their books.

 11. Most disappointing book(s) you read this year?
The No Place Like Holmes books I was expecting more from.

 12. Favourite leading-female character?
Fanny Price from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. You can read why on my review of Mansfield Park a few posts back.

 13. Favourite leading-male character?
Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Beware future-firstborn-son-that-I-will-have-eventually—your name will be Atticus. It will!
I also really like Bilbo from The Hobbit by Tolkien... and Mr. Satterthwaite from The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie was pretty cool too.

 14. Best romance(s)?
Alek and Deryn from the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld!

 15. What book(s) hit the DNF list? (Did not finish)
Hmmm... lots, probably. The only one I can remember, though, is The Princetta by a French lady. I started it when we were visiting family across the country, and then never finished it when we came home.

 16. What book(s) did you read out of your comfort-zone?
I'll say Heist Society by Ally Carter. I don't normally read YA books and I tend to be a little wary of them...

 17. Which author did you read the most from?
Agatha Christie! I started reading her in the spring and have read seven of her books now. Second place is J.R.R. Tolkien, of whom I have read five books this year (The Two Towers, The Return of the King, The Father Christmas Letters, The Hobbit, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).

 18. Top 5 books you'd recommend from all the books you've read this year?
Oooo, hard question!
Probably...
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - because I love love love that book.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman - because I also love love love that book and any fan of the movie will be equally impressed with the book.
Crater by Homer Hickam - this is a great space adventure with amazing world building.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - every fan of mystery should read this. Any fan of amazing writing should read this. Only, don't do it while you're camping on an island.
aaaannndd...
The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby - this was a really fun adventure-read. I really enjoyed it.

 19. How many books did you read this year all up?
66, so far! That's amazing! I don't know if I've read that many books in a year before. And I know for a fact that I will be finished one or two more before the year is up.

 20. What's a book you're hugely excited for coming out in 2014?!
The fourth Penderwicks book!

Live long and prosper.

What I've been up to the past month.

Writing: I didn't get too much done in the past month. I did, however, make good progress on a short story. And also have been doing some editing of Part Three here and there - though not as much as I should be doing.

Reading: I finished six books in July, as well as finishing one today. Overall, I rated them 9/10.
Books keep getting marked off on my reading list... Observe:

The Future Door by Jason Lethcoe - A good sequel to a good book.

Crater by Homer Hickam - Loved this book!!

A bunch of random Agatha Christie - I've read three now. Murder at the Vicarage, the first Miss Marple mystery; And Then There Were None, an amazing book that every mystery fan should read! and Death on the Nile, which I just finished about half an hour ago. It was very good and had a very great ending!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - Brilliant book, if you can get past the swearing and slang phrases. (By the way, I LOVE the idea of blotting out bad words. Thanks Writer4Christ!)

Emma by Jane Austin - I haven't been able to finish this one yet, but I'm still enjoying it! I just need to find time to enjoy it....

Sew, It's a Quest and Do You Take This Quest? by Kendra E. Ardnek - Check! These are great books. I especially liked the second one.

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss - We're going to try and take this one out of the library, to listen to in the car on the way to my Grandma's.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - LOVED this one! Great.

Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox - I exchanged A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court for this Star Trek novel.

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien - now that I've finished with The Two Towers... I want to take on the final part in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm planning on reading this one next month.

I took Anne of Green Gables off of the list because I know I'm not going to get that one read this summer. Perhaps this coming fall or winter... or even next spring or summer.

Nerd Life:
Nerd Life (hosted by Clair over at Working Title) is sadly over. I had lots of fun doing it and actually got quite a few of my books read! Plus I got to write up some nerdy articles about the Enterprise and StarGate.
Here are the books - and their mini-reviews - that I read and finished for Nerd Life!

Crater by Homer Hickam. I already did a review for this book, that you can find somewhere. Just a recap, though.... Crater Trueblood is an orphan living and working on the moon. He is given the dangerous mission of accompanying the convoy across the lunar plains to the great Armstrong City. Crater runs across many adventures and enemies and must choose who to save, and who to ally himself with.
I really really enjoyed this book. It was right up my alley - a sci-fi adventure with quirky elements that defied the current expectations for novels. It had some violence, but nothing was described in too much detail. Go find and read this book!

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Oh my goodness. If you need a thrilling, spine-chilling, adventure mystery, this is the book for you! Caution: do not read this book while camping on an island, it will make you frightened for your life.
Ten people are invited to an island by the mysterious U.N. Owen. There is no way off of the island and one by one people are being killed off.... The only logical solution is that the killer is one of the ten. But which one?

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. I just finished this one tonight, so I'm not sure it counts.... But I'm going to count it anyway.
Poirot, the detective, is on holiday. He's taking a tour up the Nile, in Egypt. Also on the boat is the extremely rich heiress, Linnet Doyle, recently married and on her honeymoon. Unfortunately, she also proves to be the perfect incentive to murder....
This book moved very slowly at first. Nothing really exciting happens until about halfway through the book. But, considering that there's probably fifteen main characters, this might be a good thing. We get to know the characters, we get to know that some of them aren't all they seem, and the tension builds.
The ending was very satisfactory, I enjoyed it. And I'm always a fan of how Agatha Christie puts so many characters into her novels that she has the reader running in circles trying to figure out who's who and if they're important or not. Also, I loved the setting. I used to want to be an archaeologist when I was younger, and though that ambition has flown away, I still retain my love of Egypt.
Though this wasn't my favorite Agatha Christie that I've read, it certainly doesn't fall short and would greatly enthrall any mystery and Egypt fan!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I still can't wrap my mind around this book. It was so brilliantly written and thought out and executed... And so sad. Yet, it has a lot wrong with it as well.... Mainly the swearing and slang words.

Emma by Jane Austin. I haven't finished this one yet, but I'm getting close. I have about 21 chapters left (out of, like, 50).

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I really enjoyed this book. I think it's a sweet novelette that anyone should read if they need something short, sweet, and easy to read.

And finally... Assignment: Eternity by Greg Cox. I didn't get to this one. I might wait until fall to read it.

And there you have it!

In the coming month I hope to finish Part Three of After the Twelfth Night. I would also like to finish Emma, read another Agatha Christie, read (and finish!) The Return of the King, and read Crescent (the sequel to Crater) by Homer Hickam. As I said above, we're getting The Swiss Family Robinson out of the library to listen to in the car, so hopefully that gets done. Also, I'm hoping to get The Phantom Tollbooth out of the library, after reading Kendra's blog post on the world of that book. It interested me and I decided to randomly get it out and read it!

So there you have it!

Live long and prosper!

What am I currently.....

I've seen these around and since I want to blog about something tonight I thought I would do this. I'm kind of making up my own questions though....

What am I currently:

Reading? I just finished an Agatha Christie novel today. 'Death in the Clouds.'

 

Yup, the one the Agatha Christie Doctor Who episode was sort of based on.... I personally loved that episode (although the shapeshifting bee was a bit much....) and it was what got me interested in Agatha Christie.
I absolutely LOVED Death in the Clouds. It was really good! Although there is a bunch of D-words and H-words throughout the book.... which was really annoying The rest of it was amazing, though. And I even guessed the murderer! It was just a feeling I had when I started the book... and it turned out to be right.
Now I'm going around talking like Poirot: "My estomach."
I'm also reading House of Mirth by Edith Wharton for literature which I am enjoying.... And War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells which is pretty interesting. I'm not too far in it. I think I shall read some more of that tonight.

Listening to? The Only Way to Have a Friend is to Be One by the band AD. They were around in the '80's and I loooove them. I'm also listening to Ken Medema at the moment. He's a blind pianist/singer who is Christian and AMAZING! I think it would be really cool to see him in concert. He's pretty old, though, so I don't think I'll get the chance.

Writing? Camp NaNoWriMo! I reached 21,000 words today.... I'm about 2 1/2 days ahead, which is good. I was DETERMINED to introduce my plot today and I did it! HUZZAH!!! At 20,600 words... my plot was finally introduced.... I'm going to be doing a LOT of editing in those first 20k words. Although who knows, maybe I'll keep a lot of it in. I did want it to be more of character building novel than a mystery novel.
Also, I finished editing Friend's Project and will start on Kat and Kadet by Miss Jessica Hammond tomorrow (or Friday....). She introduced me to a knew way of editing which sounds a lot easier than anything I've done in the past so HUZZAH once again!
Overall, I'm feeling really good writing-wise. Sometime in the next few days I hope to write up a (second) Character Encounters for this month. I say second because I already wrote one... but it contains spoilers so I have to do another to post here, which I don't really mind. It will feature my mysterious character that I mentioned once upon a time.

Studying? I dissected a frog today. It was SO. COOL! I found its brain and saw the different brain lobes.... Also, I cut open its stomach. She GORGED herself before she died! It was amazing how much stuff was in there!

Watching? Well, Mom watched a Star Trek episode tonight. I wasn't really watching it... though I did catch a sentence here or there. It was the episode where they meet Abraham Lincoln and have to fight to the death.

Eating/drinking? Not eating anything currently. I did just have two cups of water, though.

Live long and prosper, image of Serek! (quote from the Star Trek episode).