February was

February was a month with some lovely sunny days to enjoy a walk and coffee on the go.

February was a month with lots of cold and wet days, perfect for staying inside to read and crochet and watch TV.

I read 5 books, all by authors I had enjoyed before.  Alternating crime mysteries with women adventuring into the unknown.

Tired of standing looking at shelves of books with no idea of what to pick, I got organised and set up notes on authors that I have enjoyed with a list of their works that I have already read or got on my shelf waiting.  I also added some from lists of prize winners, best books etc.  All of these notes are on Evernote so that I can read them on my phone when I am faced by shelves of books but I can also update it on my desktop.

On the crochet front my on-going project was a striped, small blanket – finished now.  At the start of the month I made an amigurumi weeping angel (Dr Who character).  In the last week I started experimenting with multi-colour spirals.  First 2 stripes, then 3 then 4 stripes then 6.  I’m thinking about creating a big sun inspired mandala to hang up instead of my winter wreath.  At the moment I’m thinking the 2 colours on the right but with more stripes, maybe even 12. 

February was also a month of great light

creating lovely colour on the beach

and beautiful soft sunsets

would you like to live in a book?

it’s one of those fun questions – which fictional books would you like to live in? –which seems easy but actually I found quite hard to answer

About a third of the books I read are from the crime / police / detection genre which while they make a good story are not my idea of a great situation to be living in.  Although taking the idea more broadly, I already live in the city that provides the setting for two of my favourite crime authors – Ian Rankin and Christopher Brookmyre.

Another third of the books I read are of the imagined world genre and here I do have some candidates for places I’d consider living – I’d love to be a dragon rider in Anne MacAffrey’s Pern books or live in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover world or Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld and some of Melissa Scott’s artificial intelligence / steampunk worlds appeal.  Jasper Fforde’s wacky world also appeals, but seeing as one of his plot lines is an organisation which sends operatives to live inside novels, it feels a bit weird to be thinking about living there.

But a lot of imagined world fiction is post apocalypse or dystopian and deals with a breakdown in the old order – which I find fascinating as a the setting for novels but I’m not at all sure I want to live in the world of the Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) or Divergent (Veronica Roth).  I have the same problem with Tolkien’s Middle Earth – at the time he is writing about it there are big wars and upheaval, perhaps I’d like to live there after the end of the Lord of the Rings (and I did live in New Zealand!).

Looking at the other books I read last year, a theme seems to be how people cope is trying circumstances – civil war in Nigeria (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) or moving to China from USA (Andrea Barrett) or the New Zealand goldfields (Elanor Catton). Again I was fascinated to read about these situations and how people react, but I don’t want to live in them.

Even old favourites like Laura Ingles Wilder and Louisa Alcott and Jane Austen don’t appeal as places to live because life was hard and women had restricted choices. And I realise that one factor in my thinking about which books I would like to live in is the presence of strong women characters.

So, starting from a fun question I end up realising that I’m not drawn to happy, idyllic life books.

How about you?  Are there books you would like to live in?