Gearing Up

Everyone loves a good gear up scene, so I thought I'd talk a bit about some gear I've been acquired over the last few months which, frankly deserves a bit of raving about. There are more pictures of all of these things at the bottom of the post, but the images, er, could be better.

First, the new bag. A couple of weeks ago, I got my Bag of Holding - something made by the excellent US company ThinkGeek, which I've been ogling online for a number of years. It's both a bag that's suitably capacious to hold the vast array of junk I tent to cart around with me from place to place and its own geek fashion statement.

There are a variety of video reviews online where you can get a good look at the bag, but it can fit A LOT of stuff in. I tend to carry around with me an iPad (dedicated tablet pocket FTW!), my work phone, my Kindle, and often a laptop as standard, not to mention various other smaller items (see below). The BoH comfortably holds all these, with plenty of room spare for whatever else I need to bring, though that does rack up the weight pretty quickly.

Speaking of all those small objects, here's a sample of what I aim to have with me on an everyday basis:

- torch

- 1-2 notebooks

- pens

- pencil

- portable battery (for phone/tablet charging)

- cables for kindle/Apple tech

- work ID & passes

- mouse

- headphones

Now, that's not actually that much stuff. It's just lots of small, fiddly things. The BoH can easily accommodate all of this, but you run into trouble trying to find any of it. Enter: the Grid-It!

This isn't actually full... I was using a few things at the time I took the picture.

I came across these some time last year, and recently got around do to buying a couple. It's a cross/cross of rugged, variously-sized elastic straps which an comfortable hold any small item in an organised fashion, meaning that they don't disappear into the depths of your bags, or smash into each over if they're breakable. 

A corollary benefit of this is that I tend to switch bags quite a lot. Previously, I'd often forget something in another bag, or spend a lot of time repacking them. Grid-It means I can swap it all out at once. I really can't recommend them enough for general utility, and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes (or as part of a bigger gadget case).

The tin in the picture above actually contains a whole bunch more stuff - a variant of the urban altoids survival tin.

From this post so far, you've probably got the impression that I'm a bit of an over-prepared gadget nut. And that's a fair reaction, and something that leads me onto my last two things. 

A small but surprisingly handy one - it's always good to have a pen on you, but they're so easy to lose, and often just a bit too much of a pain to have in your pocket. True Utility's Telepen is the perfect answer to this. Clipping onto your keys, this tiny capsule extends into a small but functional and easy-to-grip pen, giving you something both forgettably portable and functional, since it's still easy to use despite its small size.

Lastly, my hoody. Another thing I've ogled on ThinkGeek for years, but made by a different company - Scottevest. The microfleece hoody is comfortable and very warm (meaning it's been a bit out of season recently, but still). Scottevest garment are extremely practical and functional. This hoody has about ten pocket or other functional compartments. Handwarmer pockets with magnetic closers, including a water bottle strap, velcro coin pouch and slipcase section. A double-ended zipping pocket on the side. A sleeve pouch. A sunglasses segment, connected to a transparent, touch-friendly phone pocket on the inside. There's even an extendible key-holder in one of the handwarmer pockets.

I'm aware that this picture does not do it justice.

All of these pockets have small slits to feed your headphone cables through, which you can then wire up into the cable management system in the neck of the hoody. Since I usually only have one pair of functioning headphones, I haven't wired them up too much (too warm at the moment for them to stay in there for long!), but the system works very well.

The whole hoody is great, and helps enable me in carrying round useful things on an everyday basis - notebook, pens, coins, glasses, etc. all fit snugly without overly distorting the lining, or being too heavy.

Right, I'll stop raving now, but all this stuff has proved really nifty and practical so far.

Snappy title to follow

Last night we held our inaugural Sci-Fi and Fantasy Google Hangout (still working on a snappy name...) to chat about Ray Bradbury's 'The Illustrated Man'. It was pleasing that, though we just picked the most convenient date about a month in advance, it ended up landing on Ray Bradbury's 93rd birthday.

This is the point in most of my posts where I wish I had more pictures to suitably illustrate what I'm talking about. Instead, here is a picture of a kitten who thinks that a duck is a button.

It was an interesting talk - 'The Illustrated Man' is a very interesting book. It's wildly inconsistent in quality - there are some amazing stories, some which feel very underdeveloped, and others which are just plain sub-par. I've been writing a lot about books this year (though I'd still love to be doing more), but it was nice to be able to talk at length with people, 'face-to-face' (sorta).

Looking forward to the next one...

The Cathedral at the End of the Lane

Last night, I got to meet Neil Gaiman again, almost two years to the day since I did the first time around (not that I'm obsessive enough to have realised that. No, sir!). He was doing a talk and reading from his new novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I talked about a few weeks ago.

I don't want to spend much more time enthusing about Gaiman and his work - I've done plenty of that on this blog already this year, but he gave a great talk. It was pretty short, and mostly repeated things I'd heard and read in recent interviews, but he also answered a few dozen questions from the audience, which was unique and insightful.

Beautiful surroundings for it

'This is my first cathedral.'

Some highlights included him dropping hints about some upcoming stuff - a short story set in the Neverwhere world (How The Marquis Got His Coat Back); 'expect some non-fiction books from me in the next five years' - thoughts on children's literature (let them come to the books that they enjoy; don't give your small child Stephen King's Carrie to read just because she enjoys Goosebumps), and what Alan Moore hides in his beard - 'the wisdom of the world'.

Neil also did a reading from his new children's book 'Fortunately, the Milk...' (or 'Fortunately, the Milk' if you live in the US), which actually sounds amazing. I'm still yet to read any of his children's fiction, but the section he read was hilarious (both in content and delivery). He's doing a full reading of the book in London in October, along with the illustrator Chris Riddell and 'special guests'.

After the talk, Neil did a signing session for the 1000+ people who were there. This took...a while. All told, I think he was signing until 2am. We were due for a signing slot at 10pm, but didn't get to the front of the queue until past 11.30. This was (probably) his last ever signing tour, so it was worth it. He was signing as many copies of Ocean as you brought along, as well as one item precious to you. I considered getting my Kindle signed (which looked really good - see below), but in the end, got my laptop lid signed, since that's something I see every day.

I reversed gravity so you could see the signature better

Neil was making a real effort to get some kind of connection with most people coming through - with me, he started a (very brief) conversation about MacBooks, and what he was using. A small thing, but something which makes the encounter that bit more memorable. It's a real feat that he can keep up that volume of signing while still making that level of effort.

Thanks for everything, Neil.

Method and Madness

I'm still a little behind on #GRaBaW blogging, but that's because, as I mentioned before, I'm working on some other writing projects which I want to get 'finished'. It's also down to that fact that some of the books I've read recently will require some more interesting write-ups, which I haven't had time to do yet.

Just a quick note, then on my reading process. You may remember that I've previously expressed my obsession with audiobooks and that I recently acquired a Kindle. The Kindle really has made a big difference in the last month or two. I'm not a new convert to ebooks, by any means - I've previously used a Sony Reader, and my iPad and iPhone have served well in this regard also. 

The Kindle, though, has really set itself apart - just so small and easy to hold (important to be able to do so comfortably one-handed on the tube) and to buy/load books onto (almost too easy, in fact - curse you, Kindle daily deal!). The fact that you get a sense of how long you have left in each chapter, time-wise, also makes it easy to work out if you can realistically get through a section in whatever time you have. The WhisperSync aspect also means that I don't worry if it's not practical to bring it - I'll always have access to whatever I'm reading via my phone, in a pinch.

Audiobooks also make life very easy. I've done the same with podcasts for years, but an Audible account has come as a real blessing. It's good to be able to get lost in a book while doing housework, some other mindless task, or walking on the commute. I like the fact that I can listen to one book on the way to the tube, whip out my Kindle on the train for another, then instantly switch back when changing trains (or if the tube is too crowded to have free hands!).

Okay, it's also nice to be unplugged sometimes, or to listen to music, but it's good to be able to make use of 'dead time' in this way, and it's harder to have an excuse to be bored. 

I'm currently at 37 books, at the end of week 33, so am doing pretty well. I've had a burst of acceleration and travel in the last week or two, which has helped that figure enormously.

For what it's worth - I pretty much always post my blog entries on Facebook, but if you want to follow the blog and get all the updates when they go up, you can follow with your Google/Blogger account, or latch on to the RSS feed here: http://altthoughtprocess.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default. If you're not already following me on Twitter, you can find me on @mastergeorge.

If you enjoy reading, it's always awesome if you can share or retweet the links to the posts. That shows me that I'm doing something right - or, at least, what's working and what's not!

How the Other Half Read: The Mortal Instruments books - read them; read them now!

The Mortal Instruments series can roughly be divided into two trilogies (book 6: Heavenly Fire is due next spring; hurry up, hurry up!) is fantastic. Thematically, it's sort of a cross between Buffy and Harry Potter, with a bunch of angelic influence thrown into the mix. The Shadow-Hunters are a race descended from a human who drank the (willingly-given) blood of the angel Raziel in order to give him and his descendants the strength to fight demons. There also exist warlocks, vampires, werewolves and fairies (known as Down-Worlders) who are descended from demons but keep an uneasy peace with the Shadow-Hunters. Since the film of the first book (City of Bones) is out this month, I don't want to say much more about the plot, because spoilers, Sweetie :) The film, incidentally, contains such acting gods as Lena Headey and Aidan Turner, and I am really looking forward to see it.

My favourite character is definitely Isabelle, not just because she's tall and has an amazing dress sense, but more because she is clearly the most sorted character of the lot - and that includes the adults; as everyone else blunders about trying not to tell their best friend/sibling that they're in love with them, trying to come out ("I'm gay!"; "I'm a vampire!") to their parents and generally wreaking bloody havoc in an exciting and violent manner, Izzy is calm, kick-ass and shod in the best heeled-boots an author can imagine.

Another fist-punching-the-air thing about this series is that there is diversity in the characters (Not like at Hogwarts where there are a pair of Patels, one Irish guy, one black guy, everyone has (or had) a pair of parents and everyone is straight; correct me if I'm wrong - it's been some time since I read it!). TMI has plenty of people of different ethnicities, a guy who loves glitter, mixed-race relationships (even including living/undead, mortal/immortal and many other combinations), single mums, girls who don't want relationships, gay guys, gay girls...basically it's not a cis-white-straight party, and that makes things more believable. This isn't to say there isn't any prejudice against a bunch of the stuff I've mentioned, but the experience of dealing with this makes the characters even more interesting.

The Classicist in me loved the occasional Latin and Greek (Shadow-Hunters are well-versed in these and well-read in their ancient authors) and I'd be curious to hear how the suspense in these sections worked for those who had to wait for a translation. The fifth book finishes with a one word cliff-hanger which is, I truly believe, the most exciting cliff-hanger I've ever read/seen. (OMG, OMG, OMG! Can't wait till next March! Thankfully, there are various other connected series of prequels to keep me going until then.)

The character-development, relationships and twists in the plot are brilliantly done and I honestly cannot conceive how one person has an imagination big enough to create five such incredible books' worth of story. Countless times I ended up kicking myself because I was so excited to find out who so-and-so was or what was about to happen that my eyes skipped down the page and spoiled the surprise (delayed gratification is difficult when the thing is right there in front of you!).

Seriously, go and read the first three books. Then KEEP READING!

Georgia's list as it stands:

Stabat Mater, Tiziano Scarpa (2011)
Facing Violence, Rory Miller (2011)
Un Lun Dun, China Mieville (2007)
Open Secrets, Alice Munro (1994)
The Dragon Queen, Alice Borchardt (2001)
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Walters (1998)
The lost books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason (2007)
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, (1937)
The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman, (1991)
The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler, (2012)
The Strain (2009), The Fall (2010), The Night Eternal (2011), Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman (2010)
Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger (1997)
50 shades of Feminism, ed Lisa Appignanesi et al (2013)
Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid, R O A M Lyne (1987)
The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling (2007)
Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud (1992)
Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan (2007)
Disgrace, Jussi Adler Olsen (2012)
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
Romanitas, Sophia McDougall (2005)
Selected Poems, Sophie Hannah (2013)
The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett and Steven Baxter (2012)
A very short introduction to the Roman Republic, David M Gywnn (2012)
The Gift of Rain, Tan Twan Eng (2007)
The Mortal Instruments 1: City of Bones, Cassandra Clare (2007)
The Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare (2008)
The Mortal Instruments 3: City of Glass, Cassandra Clare (2009)
The Mortal Instruments 4: City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare (2011)
The Mortal Instruments 5: City of Lost Souls, Cassandra Clare (2012)
The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury (1952)

How The Other Half Read: Trouble at the Top: Sex, Drugs and Rockin' Romans

Crikey, its been a while since my last post! I have read lots of books and am going to try to keep my discussion fairly brief, particularly as some of them are book club books, or so good you really ought to read them for yourself!

The the first group of books I'd like to talk about is linked by corruption in the aristocracy. The books involved are: The Journal of Dora Damage, set in the Victorian era; Disgrace, set in modern Copenhagen; and Romanitas, set in an alternative present where the Roman empire never fell. Dora... is not your typical Victoriana - true, it does have some wonderfully evocative scenes of what working class life in London was like for its dear protagonist, struggling to run her ailing husband's printing business without anyone finding out (Women? Working? Don't be daft, Son!) whilst caring for her epileptic daughter.

However, the premise of this book is much darker; Dora finds herself keeping her business afloat by printing pornography for a ring of upper class gentlemen, who will do anything to keep their niche, sexual interests private. Plus, Dora experiences the thrill and confusion of desires of her own which society deems inappropriate. Gripping, engaging and occasionally causing one to cross one's legs in sheer terror, this book is a real page-turner.

Disgrace IS your typical Scandi crime-thriller; blackmail, gruesome murder and very grumpy cops who reside in untidy offices and survive on poor-quality coffee. Carl Mørk is a believable (if grumpy) detective who, along with side-kicks Assad (questionable background) and Rose (maddeningly competent with a furniture fetish), has to tiptoe through his investigation of some of the most powerful families in Denmark. And, yes, something definitely is rotten in the state...

Romanitas is a dangerously enjoyable book which has all the political intrigue, suspicion and suggestion of Tacitus, coupled with freedom-fighting and rage against the oligarchy. I don't want to say too much about this one, as it may be a book-club offering, but the world-building of MacDougall is fascinating and compelling. It's the first of a trilogy, but, as you'll discover in my next post, I'm doing alright for series at the moment, so I may put the rest of this series on hold for a while!

I'm just going to slip a non-fiction book in at the end here: A very short introduction to the Roman Republic. This is a GREAT introduction to a period of Classical history which is really interesting; often people know a fair bit about the end of the first century BC (assassination of Julius Caesar, subsequent war between Octavian/Augustus and Mark Antony and the foundation of the Principate), but this book goes right back to the beginning, expanding on topics such as the Etruscan kings of Rome, the Conflict of the Orders (the unwashed masses going on a strike from military service until the patrician class gave them some rights), the rise of the war-lords such as Marius, Sulla and Pompey, right up to Augustus. This is an engaging, informative (and short!) introduction to what is often viewed as the less interesting bit of Roman history and it is well-worth reading.

Next time: a series so good I read all five books in a week!

Literary love xxx

Intermittent

The blog might be a little quiet over the next week or so. I'm still reading apace (currently on 33 down, and we're about to hit week 32), and so do want to share my thoughts on some of these soon, but I'm working on some other writing projects that I barely seem to have the time for, so want to take a little time to focus on those!