Twilight and Philosophy, Vampires, Vegetarians and the Pursuit of Happiness - (ed.) Rebecca Housel & J Jeremy Wisnewski

I've always been interested in philosophy, not in an academic way, but the broad ethics and ideas involved; so this book certainly looked of interest.

Part of a series of philosophy and popular culture books, this volume draws together 18 articles from leading academics around the world to look at the philosophical themes within the Twilight series of books.

The articles are short and easy to read, and they certainly added depth to my reading of the Twilight series and their characters.

Themes such as whether immortality is something to be desired, what can the books tell us about god, is Carlisle really compassionate and the morality of Edward.

A number of the articles explore the theme of feminism in the Twilight books, even going so far as to discuss the similiarities between Bella Swan and Sarah Palin!

Actually when I stop to think about it Bella is very much not an empowered young woman; she moves to Forks so that her mother's new husband can move in, she has few interests or hobbies (other than Edward), she is able to walk away from her life both in Pheonix and Forks with no-one appearing to be bothered (friends?), and the only things she seems capable of doing are the laundry and cooking for her father - for everything else she asks a man (vampire or werewolf). It is as if Bella has no purpose or meaning except for that bestowed on her by the men who surround her.

As the article points out; her mother on seeing Bella and Edward together comments - 'the way you move - you orient yourself around him without even thinking about it ..... You're like a .... Satellite'.

I've never really been one to read 'notes' about books, or to study the stories in much depth, but these articles were really interesting and in my opinion added to my enjoyment and understanding of the series. I certainly came away from this book with a changed view of the characters that Stephanie Meyer's book - many of them not very flattering!

There are a number of philosophy and pop culture books available, I will be ordering some more (House, Alice in Wonderland, and possibly The Simpsons!).

Bought in Blackwells
12 - 26th January 2010

Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

So, for the first book of the year I decided on something reasonably light, but also informative and interesting - not to mention extremely funny (Adams' writing, not the subject matter which is, of course, very serious). I've been meaning to read this book for years but never quite got round to it. I haven't seen the recent BBC programmes by Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine revisiting some of the species from this book - but it's on my Amazon wishlist now!

The basic premise of the book is that a writer and a zoologist travel around the world visiting very endangered species in order to make a radio programme (for the BBC) and raise the profile of the animals in danger.

Animals such as the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the helpless, flightless kakapo of New Zealand (the descriptions of their mating techniques had me crying with laughter!), the white rhinos of Zaire and the blind river dolphins of the Yangtze River in China (which they never did get to see, and I'm sorry to say now never will).

I've always been a fan of Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of the few books I've read more than a few times, and The Meaning of Liff is a work of genius. Although the book is obviously about the loss of species across the world, and the fact that humans are to blame for the plight that many find themselves in; this book is more of a travel journal recounting the trials and tribulations met by Douglas Adams and Mark Carrardine as they try to visit the animals.

The book has also certainly met one of it's aims, my interest has been sparked enough to make me go and look for further information on each of the animals featured.

Had in my library for sometime (think it might belong to an ex-boyfriend!)
1st - 7th January 2010

At the beginning of last year I decided to keep a record of the books I read, so that I could count them and also see what the breakdown would look like. So I set up this blog to record them.

I actually had no idea how many books I was reading (although I knew it wasn't as many as a few years ago when I was getting through at least one a week), and also I wanted to review them (partly so that I could remember them!).

So, since January last year I've read 26 books, above shows that the majority were fiction (17), below shows a genre breakdown. Remember that some books fall into more than one catagory.

Now, I must point out that the 'teen' and 'vampire' books are one and the same, and they predominate as I've read two 'series' of books, namely Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse novels - both very different!

I've really got into popluar psychology and will be exploring more of that this year. I think I'll leave off the vampires for a while, and I want to try some more autobiographies too (not a genre I've read before).

John says that I'm being completely anal about this, but I think it's really interesting - and a natural extension of my blog and reading.

If you are interested at all there is also my LibraryThing, a great cataloging site for book lovers.