Idling without tent
No Technical Writing Tuesday today, because I was due to have a guest post from Tam of Fighting With Writing - I think that’ll be going up tomorrow instead.
So, at this late hour, I thought I’d waffle about nothing much instead - actually, no, I just wanted to proclaim my love for some random things.
The book I am currently reading, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway (his promotional MySpace). I have an advanced reading copy and I’ll be posting a review next week once I’ve finished reading. So far, so very good, particularly the bit about sheep in minefields which made me laugh my socks off at the black humour.
I’ve been getting a few search hits already looking for reviews of it, so I will post one soon. For once though, it’s taking me quite a while to read something new - I haven’t really been in the mood this week to read unfamiliar books despite having a stack of them waiting for me.
Which leads me onto my second thing: BookMooch. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but I was put onto it by Ken, and you may have noticed my widget in the top left showing some of the books I’ve made available for mooching.
Basically, it’s a way of swapping books around the world. So far I’ve got rid sent off about 7 books, and so far received 3 (which are the ones forming my to-read pile). There do seem to be waiting lists for some of the popular stuff, but you can create a wish-list of books and be automatically emailed when they become available if you want. Best of all, it’s free - you just pay for posting things out.
Thing three on this list is the blog BritishSpeak. Billed as one American’s quest to understand British English, it’s branched off into all sorts of discussions about British, Australian, South African and Canadian language and life (to name just a few of its directions). Its humor (and its proprietor) can get quite crude sometimes, but it makes me laugh, and makes me think, and it’s generally a very friendly blog to hang out on. I’ve been mulling over a piece about Northern Ireland slang to contribute, but we shall have to see whether that makes it to print or not at some point.
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on May 20th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I’m reading ‘Duma Key’ at the moment and it’s finally getting going. Bookmooch is good crack isn’t it? I treat it like a second hand book shop, I mooch around a lot with my moochcredits in my paw and I rarely splash out and order anything.
Ken Armstrong’s last post: The First Night of Alien
on May 21st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
In the past I’ve been a keen member of Bookcrossing as a way of decreasing my pile of books. At least that way I don’t have to receive any in return. Books seem to gravitate on to my shelves without my noticing until suddenly there is no space left - again.
As for Britishspeak
I go offline for a couple of days and he goes and decides to put it into mothballs without even asking!
A.’s last post: From my garden tonight