Verdant Mountain

So Monteverde is a cloud forest. Like a rainforest only inside a cloud, which means you get perpetual horizontal drizzle. Rubbish for al fresco reading but great for orchids. There are some ridiculous orchids here; I saw one that was so small a hummingbird's tongue would have smothered it.

So yeah, saw some more of that nature: Kill Bill toucan (sic), howler monkeys, agoutis and enough makes of hummingbird to fill a baguette. Got a bit more of a sloth fix, saw a two-fingered sloth (sic)

curled up in a slothball, almost touching distance from the side of the road, then got to see it slothing a few hours later. They are peculiar animals.

Stopped for lunch at one of those cafes set up for tourists - nothing Costa Rican on the menu, but a suitably fruity bird table outside. There was a patio of people waiting for the motmots and toucanets to come down from the trees, only to see two capuchin monkeys pillage the tables and make off with a fruity bounty. For the record toucanets are brilliant, they look like a disdainful, furry melon with a beak.

It feels a bit ungrateful to whine when I saw so much of that nature, but I'm going to anyway. I didn't see any frogs. Not one. I checked lilypads and bromeliads and the closest I came was a cane toad. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a cane toad as much as the next man - they are a no nonsense kind of animal - but they aren't the colourful frogs that the postcards promised.

Bromeliad

Bromeliad is a word that I didn't know four days ago, but am now using with gay abandon. Ever since noticing out-of-place pineapple heads on a massive guanacaste tree a couple of days back, I've been looking at trees a bit more closely. I was aware that in the tropics trees were their own ecosystem: like a simpleton I'd assumed that this meant the big trees - those trees which reached all the way up to the canopy. Now that I've used my eyes, it turns out that it's all trees; that a privet hedge will be spotted with epiphyte bromeliads; that an orchid will be growing out of a croton's armpit.

Anyway, I'm on the slopes of the Arenal Volcano and it feels like Costa Rica proper. No offence to the cities from the last post or the towns from the journey (Sarchi for oxcarts; Zarcero for bushes - I know you don't care either, it just feels bad to expunge whole towns from the holiday), but this is more what I came for.

Some nature that I've seen so far:
1. A mummy and baby sloth having a scratch at the side of the road.
2. A coral snake wriggling across a pond and into a field.
3. A toucan, singing for us as we soaked in hot springs.
4. A caiman, getting snappy because we were too close to her babies.
5. Two iguanas having a cuddle.
6. An absolute deli-worth of colourful songbirds hanging out on a table round the back of a restaurant.
7. A cane toad.

All in all, well Costa Rica.

The Way to San Jose

I'm in Costa Rica. I've eaten rice and black beans and tortillas and I've seen a yellow bird and a bird with an orange head and a sparrow with a quiff, so it's sort of what I expected.

So far I've just been in the Central Valley - the bit where everyone lives - which is squidged between a mountain range where they have lots of volcanoes and a mountain range where they have lots of earthquakes. Consequently it's been all about the cities. I've whistlestopped both Cartago, the old capital, and San Jose, the current capital. Neither city would've great for Spiderman. Best building in Costa Rica (I've been in at least three buildings, so I'm an expert) is the Basilica of our Lady of the Angels, a grand, wood-panelled hang out for a small, stone icon (with a good story) which is chock full of knee-crawling pilgrims. 

Oh and turns out the way to San Jose is a direct flight from Gatwick. Can someone let Dionne Warwick know?

Do This

So the battle of the big plays with the all-star casts. Pinter v Shakespeare. The Birthday Party v Julius Caesar. Do this.

Given that The Birthday Party is Pinter's most famous play, and probably the most famous play I hadn't not seen, I was a bit surprised at how little I knew about it. In my head it was an Ayckbourn-esque comedy of manners. Out of my head it's very different. I didn't enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, it was well acted and amusibg enough in places; I just felt a bit cheated at the end.

Julius Caesar (with Cat Stark, The Guv'nor and, erm, Paddington Bear) was a bit less of a wild card - although when I first stepped into the Pit at The Bridge it was channelling the spirit of Brixton Academy and that wasn't how the RSC version started. Anyway, the Pit was ace; got right into the civil war. Made it the most immersive Shakespeare I've seen since That Macbeth. Boom. Quite literally.

Tjitlering

One week ago: So this year I'm not going to travel so much, I'll try and reduce my carbon footprint.

Now: I'm in Denmark.

And what's more I've got a new starting point on my world city alphabet: Abu Dhabi is kicked into second place. And I reckon that this one is going to take some beating, maybe when cities start having numbers in the title 3Mobile Presents Milwaukee.

Anyway, Aalborg - Denmark's fourth city - doesn't seem to be that much on the tourist trail. It's a pleasant enough though, with its old, colourful houses and fancy new harbourfront re-gen. It had a park where a tree played Bob Dylan christmas songs, an art gallery with a Thilo Frank swing through mirrored infinity and a fifteen-meat barbecue buffet. All of the main ones. Get me a roast crocodile and make it snappy.

2017 Reading challenge

Last New Year's Eve (I was going to say New Year's Eve last year, but realised that that would be yesterday, which would make the rest of this post a lot more impressive) Carys gave me a reading challenge, and I bloomin' love a challenge. Here's the result in all its self-indulgent glory.

A book you read at school: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck.
Now I seem to remember this taking most of a term to get through, this time it barely lasted a commute.

A book from your childhood: Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
I had a pop-up book of this as a kid but had never read the actual novel before. I didn't enjoy it very much.

A book written more than a hundred years ago:
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
I figured I should read it, but did so under a bit of self-imposed duress but I really enjoyed it. Turns out there's a reason why some of these classic books are classics.

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
I was riding high on Great Expectations so I busted out a second Dickens, why not hey? Got an embarrassing story about this book, I'll tell you if you ask nicely.

A book written in the last year:
Turtles All the Way Down - John Green
A book that I was pretty excited about reading, it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. The perils of too high expectations.

A non-fiction book: 
That's the Way it Crumbles - Matthew Engel
I learnt quite a lot from this, although I'm not certain that any of it is useful.

A book by a male author: 
Plot Against America - Philip Roth
My first Philip Roth book.  That's a box tick, right there.

A book by a female author: 
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
What a lovely book. Fairly sure that if I say much more I'll spoil it.

NW - Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith seems to write a novel that I really enjoy and follow it with a novel that I don't. I really enjoyed her third book, On Beauty. This was her fourth.

A book by Someone who is not a writer:
A Book for Her - Bridget Christie
Animal - Sara Pascoe
How Not to be a Boy - Robert Webb
Three books by British comedians. Enjoyed the Bridget Christie book as much as you can enjoy a book about FGM. The Sara Pascoe book is possibly the most important book I've read this year. So when Robert Webb's book was being touted as a manifesto in a similar vein I snapped that up. It's not, it's just self-indulgent ramblings. You should read the other two though.

A book that has been made into a film:
The Lost City of Z - David Grann
I've not seen the film - although it is supposed to be ace. But enjoyed the book a lot - again I learnt a heap of stuff and again it will almost certain;y never be useful.

A book written in the twentieth century: 
Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler
Impressively prescient with the whole "Make America Great Again" thing - but I think I've said that before.

The Red Pony - John Steinbeck
I'm quite a fan of Steinbeck, but this was less a novel and more a collection of loosely related short stories. It was also bleak. And just not very enjoyable.

A book set in your home town or region:Want You Gone - Christopher Brookmyre
There aren't that many books set in Essex. I did try to read the Essex Serpent but I just found it boring, and when I was told it wasn't worth the effort I didn't need to be told twice. Anyway this was set in London but they take a day trip to Braintree. That's Essex enough for me. And it was a Christopher Brookmyre so it was ace. 

A book with Someone's name in the title: 
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle is one of those authors that I feel like I ought to like. I'm not sure that I do.

Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin
There was a spoiler for the final twist of the book on the front cover - how is that allowed?

A book with a number in the title:
36 Arguments for the Existence of God - Rebecca Goldstein
This is the cleverest book that I read this year. By which I mean it made me feel stupid. Barely a page went by where I din't have to look up the meaning of a word. It didn't endear me to the book...

A book with a character with your first name:
Stepford Wives - Ira Levin
Given I have a fairly standard first name, it's surprising how few characters there are with my first name - if only I'd been called Pressia or Katniss.

A recommendation:
The Lie Tree - Francis Hardinge
This has made me just want to devour Francis Hardinge's back catalogue.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness
Out-John-Green-ing John Green. Really liked this book - I really should read more of his stuff.

Down too a Sunless Sea - David Graham
A fun, apocalyptic, action book but I really didn't like the main protagonist, so it took a bit of time getting into it.

Fiend - Jon Stenson
And talking of fun apocalypses: Zombies versus meth addicts. Nice.

A book with more than 500 pages:
The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell
I drank the first three David Mitchell books right up, then sort of lost interest - not really sure why, because this was a riot.

Twilight Robbery - Francis Hardinge
My start on the Francis Hardinge back catalogue was a bit of a misstep. Not that I didn't enjoy this book, I just probably shouldn't have started with the second in a series.

A book that you read in one day:
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
A couple of hundred pages of stating the obvious it may be, but enjoyable enough that I smashed it in a day.

A banned book:
Ulysses - James Joyce

A book with a one word title: Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater
I just don't think werewolf fiction is for me.

A non-English book: Core of the Sun - Johana Sinisalo
Handmaid's Tale with added spice. Give it a read.

A book to improve yourself: Gut - Giulia Enders
What a peculiar treat of a book.

A Memoir:
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
So whiney.

Oranges are not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
One of those books that I thought I should read, rather than wanted to read. It was flimsier than I expected.

A book by someone younger than you: The Last One - Alexandra Oliva
Slightly flawed but I did like this a lot.

A book set somewhere that you visit this year: Kim - Rudyard Kipling
Does this get bonus points as I bought it in Shimla where a chunk of the novel is set?

A self-published book: ZA - Molly Looby
This probably should have been one of the more challenging ones, but I accidentally bought a self-published book off the back of a Waterstone's recommendation.

Award-winning book:
The Bombs that Brought us Together - Brian Conaghan
I read this right at the start of the year and don't really remember anything about it. Something about chairs and apples.

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
Two of the big books from the last couple of years. People have said enough about them that I don't need to. Both get a big fat thumbs up from me, they're not exactly feelgood fun, mind.


So that was that, 39 books and some of them biggies, not too bad a haul for a year. OH, hang on a minute in the spirit of making people read more-different books and because I'm that kind of idiot, I added another ten categories of my own (taking it to 51 for the year, tantalisingly close to the book a week mark - can I count Ulysses as two?):

A novella: The Last Day of Christmas - Christopher Brookmyre
Not sure how I missed this when it came out. I stumbled on it when i was trying to find the release date of Want You Gone.  Fortuitous that I did, seeing as it was the prequel to Want You Gone.

A graphic novel: Paper Girls - Brian K
Vaughan
Technically this is a compendium of comics rather than a graphic novel. I still don't get graphic novels: I just don't know how to read them. I think I treat them as a novel rather than a work of art. It's not that I didn't enjoy Paper Girls, it's just that when you compare it to a novel it seemed a bit disposable. Kind of like comparing an episode of a sketch show with a film.

A trilogy of novels: Leviathan, Goliath, Behemoth - Scott Westerfeld
Swash bucklers that I'm far too old for.

A book that's been made into a long-form TV show: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
I read this on a tablet and made full use of the look-up tool.  So many references to obscure gods, I could have really done with a theology A-level. Or paying attention in RE lessons at school - although I'm not certain that they taught us about Slavic gods - fairly sure I'd have remembered a Czernobog.

A book with a non-human narrator: Contagion - Teri Terry
Wasn't sure about this at first. Took a fairly big suspension of disbelief to accept that it was from the point of view of a ghost, but by the end I really enjoyed it. And then Tery Terry first-in-a-series cliffhangered me. What a bounder?

A book from a genre you've never read before: Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I have never read a utopian novel before; turns out utopian novels just aren't as interesting as dystopian because everyone's hanging out having quite a nice time, thank you very much.

A book with more than one author: Swarm - Scott Westerfeld / Margo Lanagan / Deb Biancotti
Not sure about this co-writing malarkey, but I enjoyed Zeroes and I enjoyed this. Presumably three authors means that they get churned out quicker - bring on the third in the trilogy.

A travel book: Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Always dangerous to read books about travelling as it makes my feet all itchy. Fortunately travelling to the Midlands is a whole heap easier than, erm, BIOT.

A book you judged by its cover: The Hate U Give: Angie Thomas
This was in the YA section and it really shouldn't be, just because the protagoonist is sixteen doesn't make it YA any more than Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a kids' book. Everyone should read this book.

A book that fits into at least five categories: The Belle Sauvage - Philip Pullman
An award-winning, male-written 500+ page recommendation from the last year. An a book that has had so much press lately that i just don't need to write about it.