Stuff I've been Reading- January

I've kept this up for a full year, that was unexpected. Making an even fifty, a shade under a book a week. Anyway...

Me - Elton John
Cilka's Journey- Heather Morris
The Hidden Half - Michael Blastland
Testaments - Margaret Atwood
Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
Man vs Toddler- Matt Coyne

Where to start? 

The Hidden Half blew my mind. The opening chapter with the crayfish-as-metaphor put down a marker and the book built from there. Left me feeling a lot more ignorant than I did at the start of the book. Wowzers.

I went through a bit of an Ira Levin phase a couple of years back - Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby almost back to back. The trouble with both of those is that the twists are so well known now that they undermine the story. The fact that the whodunnit plot stayed a mystery meant that I enjoyed this one a whole heap more. 

And the Testaments. Probably the biggest book of last year. It was fun enough, but I don't understand why it joint-won the Booker. 

Talking of big books from last year, the Elton John book got a few plaudits in the year end charts, I read it and, aside from the constant name dropping, quite enjoyed it. I'm not going to say too much more about it as you will either read it or you won't and whatever I say won't change that. 

Cilka's journey is the sort if sequel to the Tattooist of Auschwitz. And again it is ridiculously easy reading for something that is very, very bleak. 

And let's finish with another sequel. Me reading the Matt Coyne book annoyed Carys as I kept on waking her up with my chuckling (and I thought I was being a giggle ninja). Any book that can consistently do that is a good thing. 

Three Tall Things

London, heh. I go a fair bit, but have barely scratched the surface. Time for some surface scratching:

Orbit - Anish Kapoor. Carsten Holler. Well art. I've never been high up in this part of London before, so that was a thing. I've also never been down such a long slide. Also a thing. 

The Monument - How have I never been up the Monument? Three hundred and eleven steps for a view of the City. Which means a view half way up...

SkyGarden - I've been failing to get tickets to the SkyGarden (up the top of the Walkie Talkie since you ask) for ages. Turns out the effort was probably worth it. 

And one less high thing - Brewdog AF. An actual bona fide alcohol free bar. I'm still not certain about alcohol free beer, still I had Lervig's No Worries and it smelt really good. Like a proper beer. 

Three Islands

Shameless box ticking ahoy. Let's squeeze in another country to make it up to a nice-ish round-ish number before a hiatus. 

Valletta is about the only thing I knew about Malta and even then it turns out I didn't know much. I knew about a beige (there's probably a better description), fortified waterfront, but didn't really appreciate it was a tiny nub in the middle of a harbour. 

We're staying in Mellieha, which is about as far from Valletta as it's possible to be without leaving the island (which let's be fair isn't that far). So we have ajad a bit of an explore of non-Valletta Malta. It appears to be a mix of small villages with big churches and towns filled with names that evoke the 5000 years of Maltese history, like Churchills and Diana's Bar. (Thanks Bugibba).

The other advantage of staying in the north of the island is that you are a hop and a skip away from the two other (major) islands in the archipelago. 

First stop Comino, an island where everyone is a tourist. And what a lot of tourists there are, all drawn in by the blue lagoon and its Caribbean waters (copyright everything written about Malta). The island is just about deserted and full of crags and lizards.  

Then Gozo, bigger, just as craggy and a lot less deserted than Comino. A bit more like the Malta that we had hoped for rather than the England on a rock of the mainland. 

Anyway, Malta, you craggy little monkey, welcome to the gang, you are country number 90. 

Christmas Mischief

I know I have said this before, but I don't understand why I find the things Mischief Theatre do so funny. 

I mean Magic Goes Wrong was, like Comedy about a Bank Robbery before it, probably more clever than funny. The magic itself was super slick, but still I laughed. But the Goes Wrong Show, that really tickled me. Tickled to an embarrassing level I'd say. 

Anyway, what have I read in December? 

Slade House - David Mitchell
The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Wilson
The City of Brass - SA Chakraborty
Bearmouth - Liz Hyder
Twas the Nightshift before Christmas - Adam Day
Release - Partick Ness

After having another attempt at the Jacob de Zoet book I figured I should probably give up on that and switch to the David Mitchell (the other one) book that I hadn't read. I really enjoyed it, which only makes me wonder why I found Thousand Autumns so unexcitedly unreadable. Weird. 

Another book that took two attempts was Bearmouth. I was put off by the phonetic spelling, then saw it bubbling away in the end of year charts, so figured it was worth the perseverance. 

By any standards I should have quit City of Brass. The premise is brilliant (it's basically a Middle Eastern Daughter of Smoke and Bone) but the set up was frustrating and by the time the ending came I had stopped caring about any of the characters. 

I finally got round to reading the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Whilst it was absolutely brutal, it was a much easier read than the genie book, which I guess is why it's been in the best sellers chart for a couple of years. 

I suspect I'm not the only person who has read the Adam Kay book in the ladt couple of days. It had me chuckling. Not as much as Mischief, mind, but some good solid chuckles none the less. 

And Release, which embarrassingly I had read before. I don't remember reading it, but as soon as I started everything seemed familiar. Often on a re-read it is the other way round. I remember the act of reading but not the story (I've read both The Alchemist and the Great Gatsby twice, and have no idea what happens in either). Still, thoroughly enjoyed this the second time. 

Stuff I've been Reading- November

Tenth of December- George Saunders
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Everisto
Snowflake AZ - Marcus Sedgwick
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro

Happy advent people. Got some biggies in the reading bucket this month, Booker Winners a-go-go. Check me out. 

But let's start with the YA. We are both more comfortable starting there. I say YA, Marcus Sedgewick is very much at the literary end of YA. Snowflake AZ was a curios book. It was about something that a cynic like me sneers at, but managed to do it in a way that stopped me sneering. Which is no mean feat.

I got George Saunders the wrong way round. If I had my ear to the pulse I would have read this before Lincoln in the Bardo,  rather than a year or so after. Ho hum. I always struggle with short stories and whilst some of these were ace. It generally came across as a smorgasbord of good ideas, rather than a coherent meal. 

Girl, Woman, Other could have beem the same. It wasn't. It was brilliant. You don't need me to tell you that, she's just won the Booker. Oh no wait, Booker prize winners often come across as more pretentious than fun - this might be the best Booker winner I've read. 

And that includes English Patient. I know it's a modern classic, but I just didn't care about any of the characters. And call me old-fashioned but I find that pretty important in a book  

That and believability. It felt like When We Were Orphans got bored of being believable at about the half way point. It then became silly and I wanted it to be over. 

All the Santos

And let's end the Mexican trip in Todos Santos, a dusty town straight out of a western - cactus, vultures, cow skulls, all the cliches - and populated by American expats. The town itself is pretty horrible,  but it's a hop, skip and jump from a massive, massive empty beach and a lagoon where ospreys hang out, eyeballing mullet. 

Time for one more experience before we leave? Oh, go on then, let's release turtle hatchlings into the Pacific sunset. I thought it was going to be unpleasantly touristy, turns out it was ace. Turns out baby turtles are cute enough that even someone as jaded as me can't help but be won over. 

So here's a question to end with. Is Mexican food actually not as spicy as its reputation? Nothing has been that spicy, so far. Is it just that I don't look Mexican, so have the toned down, bland tourist version of all the foods? 

Baja California

I'm in La Paz. Apparently that's Spanish for The Paz. To clarify, that's La Paz, BCS, Mexico, rather than Bolivia. 

So yeah, Baja California. That's where you go to see wildlife, right? I got a boat trip yesterday, I passed the kind of wildlife people go crazy for in most places: frigate birds; blue-footed boobies; noone even noticed. Never seen a boat load of people more non-plussed about dolphins. Everyone likes dolphins. It's like they had bigger fish to spy... 

So swimming with whale sharks. That's kinda weird. They are very big. And I'm not great at this seeing business, plus the water was generally a bit murky, so the whole experience was grey and grey and FISH. Still, whale sharks, box ticked. 

Spent today up in the highlands, Sierra de Lagunas, trying to find more wildlife. Found a whole heap of kestrels, turkey vultures, a ranch and some views. Well cowboy. 

So what have I eaten:

Cactus - specifically paddle cactus. It tastes of green and goes well with a steak. 

Corn-flavoured ice cream - I was sceptical about this (the corn juice I had in China has put me off any maize flavoured, well, thing), but this was good. Tasted like popcorn (the dirty kind) which is kinda strange as popcorn doesn't contain the corn that Mexicans know as corn. 

Fish tacos - so these are a La Paz thing. Again I was sceptical, but they are a straight translation of fishfinger sandwiches, and who doesn't like that? 

One last thing, for anyone who actually uses this blog for useful travel advice (first piece of advice, don't use this blog for travel advice) La Paz is the first place I've seen communal play equipment for wheelchair users. That's pretty cool, right?