Oh I’ve gotten really bad at updating this blog with diet posts. My official weigh-in is still Friday and today’s Tuesday.
I think I may switch to using MFP as my diet blog. Maybe I’ll still post notable milestones here once a month or so.
My MFP blog is here.
Here are week 15 – i.e. last Friday’s figures:
Lost: 0.4lbs
Lost so far: 22.4lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 1.49lbs
Weight: 260.8lbs (18st 8lbs)
Created by MyFitnessPal – Nutrition Facts For Foods
I bought this book because it was deal of the day a little while ago, and because it sounded like I might like it. I wasn’t aware of who Mark Watson is (though I might have confused him with Mark Haddon of Curious Incident fame). Turns out he’s a stand-up comedian and I have seen him on TV. His one of those people who are not quite a household name but you’d recognise from being on Mock the Week or whatever. Anyway all this is just to say I’m glad in a way that I hadn’t known/remembered that and read this as “just” another book.
Eleven is the story of Xavier Ireland who is originally from Australia but living in London and working as a DJ on a call-in radio show in the early hours of the morning. Whilst on his show he’s happy to dispense “common sense” advice in his life outside work he takes a much less interventionist approach. He’s happy to let things lie and not get involved. Whether that’s in the lives of his neighbours or the course of his own career. Then one day he goes to a speed dating evening where he doesn’t find a date but does find a new cleaner.
I enjoyed this book a lot and to be honest I wasn’t sure I was going to. For one thing it’s written mostly in the present tense and I find that a little irritating. However once I was engrossed in Xavier’s story that slipped away and I soon forgot to notice. For another the book does a thing where we are shown a series of apparently unconnected characters and what they are doing at a particular moment in time – near the start of the book. Throughout the book we then keep revisiting these characters and start to see the connections. I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy this structure because I was mostly interested in Xavier. However this took up less time than I thought – there was still plenty of space for Xavier, including his backstory and why he left Australia. Also there were some funny and touching moments in the others’ stories.
This is a book about consequences. It’s about the unfathomable chains of events that can occur and not only how we can be connected in surprising ways, but how one can never really predict the outcome of our actions, and so ultimately how it’s not necessarily “safer” to not get involved than to be more proactive.
I liked this book because of the characters. Not only were the main characters well drawn they were sympathetic and likable. I also felt that the book was warm about all its characters, even the ones with less going for them. It felt humane and hopeful and I liked that. I had a slight problem with the very end which I can’t really talk about without spoiling. But let’s just say I choose to put a certain interpretation on the events at the end of the book because it’s the way I want it to be.
8/10 – a warm-hearted web of inter-connected stories.
TBR still at 256 – which I’m happy with.
No, I haven’t stopped dieting. I considered stopping updating this blog about it. A week ago I deliberately didn’t post about it for very specific personal reasons that I won’t go into. Then Friday just gone I forgot and when I remembered I thought, well I do most of my logging on MFP so maybe I don’t need to do a weekly update here.
But… I feel I need to get back on track a bit. Things weren’t slack exactly but my motivation was slipping. So recording progress here is a way of re-establishing routine and that’s helpful.
The figures below are based on Friday’s weight and the loss is compared with week 12 so it’s two weeks’ worth.
Lost: 5.4lbs
Lost so far: 22lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 1.57lbs
Weight: 261.2lbs (18st 9lbs)
Created by MyFitnessPal – Nutrition Facts For Foods
When I read Revellian’s Remix last year I enjoyed it well enough but it was enough outside my personal tastes that I didn’t think I’d be picking up another of her books. However when I came across Ice Diaries as one of the February picks for the UK Amazon Kindle group on Goodreads I was intrigued by the concept and so I decided to give it a go.
The year is 2018 and shortly after a pandemic has wiped out most of the population a shift in the climate, what looks like a mini ice age, occurs and within a few weeks the UK is under 20 metres of snow. A small group of survivors are living in what were once luxury penthouse apartments. The have to forage for supplies by raiding the buildings that are still accessible i.e. the tall ones, or ones they can get to through them. How long this lifestyle is sustainable if the climate doesn’t change back is a question they ponder and the main character, Tori, would like to head south for warmer climes. Into this a stranger arrives bringing questions and violence in his wake.
The main thing that Ice Diaries has going for it is scenery. The idea of an almost empty London which consists of only the tallest buildings is quite a cool one. Unfortunately the book itself doesn’t do much with this idea. As post-apocalyptic novels go this definitely falls on the “cosy” side. The group have dinner parties, a book club, musical and poetry recitals – and this is the less well organised of the two communities in the book! Also although there’s talk of frostbite and of course mention of the depth of the snow, you get more of a sense of people surviving in what would be a normal, but on the very cold side of normal, British winter. I’m no expert but surely the kind of change that could deliver such a radical change in the landscape would mean the kind of climate where keeping warm, keeping fed and generally keeping on guard against the elements would be a constant struggle. However it seemed like so long as they wrapped up they could mostly move about outside ok and once inside it was sort of assumed that they could dress how they liked.
Of course this kind of thing normally doesn’t bother me and I wouldn’t be thinking about it if the writing was better. It was easy to read but the dialogue seemed obvious and on the nose and the plot was often predictable. Whereas Remix had some plot twists and turns and the pace quickened, Ice Diaries felt very sedate. There were whole sections where the action conveniently paused so that the main characters could spend time together, or explore a new venue. Never mind that they were being pursued by someone who potentially wanted to harm them. It felt very odd.
I see that I noted in my review of Remix that “some of the characterisation was lifted from a chick-lit novel and placed in a crime story“. Here I felt the same way and because of the setting it jarred more. One of the male characters literally was a tall, dark brooding character with a mysterious past who was potentially dangerous, and he was contrasted with a safe, sensible type. When Tori broke off from musings about how to escape to somewhere more sustainable, or where to get the next load of firewood from, to compare these to potential mates, or talk about how she went weak at the knees at his touch – it felt very odd indeed.
All of which makes it sound like I disliked this book. I didn’t really. In its favour it’s a quick read. I just didn’t find much to enjoy about it.
5/10 – a romantic scifi thriller in a snowy future London.
Current TBR count is 256 which is up from 253. I blame book groups and Amazon’s deal of the day!
So, I’ve been looking forward to this book for some time. It’s one of Melissa’s favourite books and she’s not the only one to tell me that it’s one of the best Discworld novels.
Night Watch, unsurprisingly, is a Watch book. In particular it’s a Vimes book. It’s very much a Vimes book in fact. Whilst chasing a murderous thief Vimes gets caught up in a magical storm which sends him back in time. He gets to experience a period in the history of the City of Ankh-Morpork from his youth. A time when rebellion is fomenting in the streets and the Watch must protect the public from, well, the public.
A lot of the enjoyment of this book lies on whether or not you enjoy the character of Sam Vimes. Fortunately I do. Here he is at his most Vimes-y. He’s alone in the city but quickly becomes part of, then effectively runs, a Watch house and plays a major role in the ongoing historical events. His sense of command of the situation, his common sense and level-headedness in general, along with the fact that he clearly cares about people, all go to make you like Vimes in this book. There are also younger versions of a few familiar faces from the Ankh-Morpork based books, which is fun.
It is quite a serious book. The jokes don’t flow as quick and fast as they do in other Discworld novels and there’s some grim business takes place. But that didn’t particularly put me off.
However I did fail to see the greatness of this book (and I’m sure it is my failure rather than the book’s). For me it was merely good. Very good perhaps but not great. Still well worth a read though.
8/10 – Vimes on top form.
Among Others is a pick from my currently reading shelf (i.e. it’s one I’d started before and now finally finished.) I originally bought it when a friend from work suggested it a) because he knew I like SciFi/Fantasy and b) because it was Amazon’s deal of the day that day for 99p.
Among Others tells the story of Morwenna Phelps. She’s a twin whose sister died and she herself was injured in a car accident. She loves to read and specifically she reads SciFi/Fantasy which she devours at a scary and intimidating rate (5+ books a week!). Oh and she sees fairies and can do magic.
Which makes it sound more about that than it is. If it’s about anything it’s about books and stories and how they make you see the world a certain way. It’s also about how that can be a refuge. I think the book makes a case for it not being a withdrawal as Mor, as we come to know her, is always really trying “to live” and it’s not that she abandons ‘real life’ in favour of books, it’s that she has expectations of what life should be that come from books and these expectations cause her to reject certain things about ‘real life’ – things she sees as trivial perhaps.
The book is told from her point of view, in fact it comprises her diary for a period from the autumn of 1979 to the end of Feb 1980. This places some of the books she references very specifically in their time.Which is also the right time for when I was growing up and discovering books and SciFi books in particular.
A big question that arose for me was whether or not the magic was real. Did she really see fairies or did she merely think she did? Was her mother really a dangerous witch or simply someone with mental health issues? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the book never steps outside of the point of view of Mor, so that question if it arises for you – and it may not – is left open to interpretation.
I enjoyed this book. It’s very good on her everyday life. She’s been shipped off to an English boarding school and is having trouble fitting in – because she’s Welsh, because she reads, because she neither cares about nor can participate in sport. So the sense of a lonely outsider is well drawn. I did feel that she was somewhat ‘spiky’. I felt I ought to have liked her more, on paper she had a lot of stuff going for her – a tragic back-story, being the outsider, being picked on, being bookish and smart. But I never quite got over the slight sense that she felt herself better than all these other girls who weren’t into books and SciFi.
Another minor irritation – and it is no more than that – was the book references. There were so many and I’d read a handful, had heard of most but not heard of a few. However I got most of what I needed to know about them from context. Which was fine but it rankled every time she compared her situation to characters I knew of but hadn’t read, or concepts I didn’t know from SciFi novels. (If you’re thinking of reading this for example and you don’t know what a karass is then I’d look it up. She explains toward the end of the book but uses it a lot before that.)
As I said though, I did enjoy it. And if you ever felt yourself out of step with others because of a love of books, and especially SciFi/Fantasy then this might well be the book for you.
7/10 – a book about books and about magic (which may be the same thing)
TBR has gone back up to 253 because having finished one book I’d bought two new ones. Need to be careful about that deal of the day. Currently Reading holding steady at 10 because my next book is not from that list. I feel like I’m doing well but then I remind myself that this time last year I’d read 7 books. However that slowed down considerably. Plus I’m reading with an eye to enjoyment not (purely) book count this year.
No I’m not switching back to Mondays I just forgot on Friday and the weekend was busy. Not much to say. Still losing – good, slowly – good in reality but not-so-good in my mind.
Also I think I’ll stop calling it the Accidental Diet because I’ve been doing it on purpose since week 2. (actually week 1 really)
Lost: 0.6lbs
Lost so far: 16.6lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 1.38lbs
Weight: 266.6lbs (19st)
Created by MyFitnessPal – Nutrition Facts For Foods