The Cardturner- Louis Sachar

Uncle Lester has always been Alton's favourite uncle. Alton's mother would thrust the phone at him.

'Tell him you love him'.
'I love you, Uncle Lester'.
'Tell him he's your favourite uncle'.
'You're my favourite uncle'.

So when he is designated cardturner for the blind, elderly and very wealthy bridge playing relation, his mother gives him some words of advice:
'Don't screw it up, Alton'.

The Cardturners is not just about inheritance obsessed mothers and strangely named teenagers though. It is fundamentally a novel about the card game Bridge. It also contains family secrets, lunatic asylums in the 60's, girls, and a snippet of Nixon.

As you get to know Alton a bit better, and he gets to know Lester as more than just the old guy he has always been forced to have stilted phone conversations with, they begin to form an eccentric bond. The family secrets begin to unravel, slowly and full of suspense. Bridge terms become less of a foreign language and part of an exciting and frankly, bloody difficult, card game that eventually seduces Alton into playing himself. It also began to seduce me until I remembered I have the attention span of newt, and therefore not much chance of learning all the rules.

Sachar has created another funny, well written, utterly believable and very intriguing novel that is definately just as good as, if not better, than Holes. Just with a few less deadly lizards and more old people.
Highly recommended, I loved it.

excitement!

ohwow! ohwowowow!
super excited.
why?
because...

HILARY DUFF IS WRITING A BOOK FOR YA!

apparently it features photojournalist Clea Raymond. and it sounds very interesting. okay, mostly it's interesting cos it's lizzie mcguire writing a book. and lizzie is my fave hollywood child star. but... YAY!

snug as a bug in a very warm and book infested rug

mmmm i love winter. yes it took a lot of effort to haul my warm and tired self out of bed, specially with my gently snoring bearman snoozing adorably next to me, but now that i'm at work i have the heater pumping, coffee, a packet of turkish apricots and a reading list for the day that includes:

Captivate, trashy glittery pixie romance that is the sequel to Need, by Carrie Jones (read the first one and while it's not brill, it's nice escapism for a wintery Melbourne day).

re reading The Glass Demon, Helen Grant, cos it finally got released, is sitting on the table looking seductive with its sparkly cover, and i already know that it is freaking fantastic.

Happyface, Stephen Edmond- another new release and i'm intrigued by this one. on quick inspection it looks like a sort of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but more cynical and for older readers.

and of course the obligation to help customers find the perfect book. have already sold one copy of Princess Smartypants to a pensive looking minchkin who took the bag with eager fingers. Yay! cos every little girl needs to read this.

the lying pyjamas

so last night i bought some pyjamas at coles with a dear friend of mine (flannel, purple and with bicycles on). they were $10 and when we got home we put them on and jumped about in our matching jim jams feeling like we were on school camp. only without the shampoo bottles full of vodka (i never actually brought these, the cool kids did, but i like to pretend) and better food.

ANYWAY half an hour later, after we had stopped jumping and settled down to watch One Tree Hill (shuttup) my dear friend discovered (it wasn't me that discovered this as i am notoriously unobservant) that the pjs were bedecked not only with bicycles, but cats. skanky looking cats riding bicycles, wearing hats and high heels, and walking poodles. a cat in heels and a hat riding a bicycle or walking a poodle. a poodle! what kind of self respecting poodle would let a cat put it on a leash and then prance about prattishly? no poodle.

well, maybe a really stupid poodle with no self respect.

but what kind of cat would ride a bicycle? no cat. therefore, the pyjamas lied. and i don't like them nearly as much cos i am a hardcore fan of honest pyjamas. no deceitful nocturnal sleepwear for me thankyou!

AND NOW, for some more poodles, lauren child's book Who Wants to be a Poodle, I don't! about a poodle that says Pah to it's fancy owner, and returns to its roots as a puddlehound (german for poodle) is pretty ace.

as a rule i'm not a huge fan of LC, i think the Goldilocks she did with the photos as pictures was insanely creepy. Goldilocks looks like she is going to leap up out of the elaborately created scenes and stab me ninteen times with her porridge spoon.

but her poodle book i like. i haven't read it in a while. possibly i should not speak about it till i do reread it. but Meh. i like the pictures inside, and the lady in her big furry coat with her small furry poodle on the back cover is ver ver cool. and any poodle that reconnects with it's puddle hopping roots is ok by me. and that's enough for now, i think i have rather outdone myself in the pointless ranting stakes. au revoir!

with lovely straw hats... for GOATS

right. so i'm the first to admit that overall i'm rather crap at this whole blogging thing. i'm not in the least bit dedicated, even though sometimes i pretend to be (april was a big month for me, a whole six posts). i see everyone elses beautifully designed and executed blogs, with well thought out and intelligently written posts (with a few exceptions that i will not mention cos i don't want to cause a storm in the blog world, not that anyone reads this anyway). and i think, shit, i sound like a mad bogan pretending to talk about books. HOWEVER. i have decided fuck it, that i will no longer try and censor myself and attempt to veil my general idiocy. instead, i will embrace it. ima proud of it y'all!

and now here is a snippet of quentin blake:

Angelica Sprocket's Pockets

Angelica Sprocket has lots of pockets. What's inside them? well. there is a pocket for mice, and a pocket for cheese (hahahahah imagine a pocket of cheese. quite daliesque really, melting clocks, melting cheese... perhaps this not censoring myself is a bad idea...) and a pocket with lovely straw hats.... for GOATS.

hilarity ensues. he is brilliant. not only at creating lively if a wee bit insane stories, but also at illustrating them with such expression and scrawliness that they leap off the page and dance about madly in front of your eyes, infecting your world with the whimsical genius that is Quentin Blake.

love it. not as mindblowingly exquisite as Mrs Armitage (although probably just because i'm biased with Mrs A cos she was a childhood book character), but still a darn good romp of a picture book. Angelica Sprocket herself is another delightfully humorous and eccentric character, and her coat is reminiscent of Mary Poppin's carpet bag in that is able to neatly bypass the tiny matter of physics to carry some alligators and even the kitchen sink.

hmmmm....

went for a wee drink on saturday night, and when i got to my third cranberry vodka, found out that a girl i used to go to school with ACTUALLY SLEPT WITH HER TEACHER. well, thats the word on the street. and it comes from a believable street. hence, gospel.

so! she was in year twelve and seduced her business teacher. apparently they flirted alot and then she emailed him asking for private tutoring and he replied and was all 'yes lets have sex' or something similar. his wife and children don't know the reason for the up and coming divorce, just that it's up and coming (ooh err).

CREEPY.

it was ok on never been kissed cos drew barrymore was actually a journalist and like thirty years old. but i dont think its ok when she is seventeen, he is mid forties, married, and her first.
apparently she has a rather severe older guy complex. well, good. go watch a george clooney movie. dont fuck your teacher.

any thoughts anyone?

slice- juicy moments from my impossible life by steven herrick *june 2010*

darcy is your average 16 year old. he goes to school, he plays chess with his social pariah of a mate noah, and he loves audrey, his beautiful meditating neighbour. unlike most 16 year olds however, he cannot keep his mouth shut. well, he can, but as soon as he thinks anything he says it, promptly and uncensored. this makes even the most mundane, like the receiving of maths exam results or the sex talk from parents, humourous and enjoyable.

this was the first steven herrick i have ever read (what!? complete travesty according to a colleague), and im going to have to hunt him down and read all his stuff. he has a really honest funny voice, without any of the bits where you think, hmmm that didn't actually need to be said, and i wish you didn't say it cos now i don't like you as much. there was none of that! i sense a new favourite author person coming on...