Spreading the meme love (aka Meme with Relish)

Every so often you happen across something on the internet that you can really sink your teeth into. I found this meme on Dave's blog (who in turn got it from Floor to Ceiling Books who got it from Un:Bound), and it made me think.


So the questions asked here was:

Name:

1. One book that changed your life
2. One book that you have read more than once
3. One book you'd like to have on a desert island
4. Two books that made you laugh
5. One book that made you cry
6. One book that you wish you'd written
7. One book you wish was never written
8. Two books you are currently reading
9. One book you've been meaning to read

Let's see where I go with this. It was surprisingly difficult to think of some of these answers.

1. One book that changed my life.
I would have to name the Terry Brooks novel, Sword of Shannara in this category. Before this book, my reading scope was limited to Enid Blyton and the like. I read The Sword of Shannara at the tender age of 12, and immediatly fell in love with the Fantasy genre. I have since devoured every book in that series, apart from the last trilogy, and the Word and the Void trilogy. But believe me, they're on my to be read list!

2. One book that you have read more than once
Soliloquy  by Stephen Finn. This is a brilliant book about a boy who was bullied at school, who ends up murdering his tormenter. It is beautifully written and very sad. The back cover blurb reads:

"I'm sixteen years old and I killed a boy of seventeen. Yes, I admit it. I stabbed him in the heart with a knife which happened to be in my pocket."

3. One book that you'd like to have on a desert island
This one was easier than expected. An Idiot’s Guide on Surviving and Enjoying a Deserted Island (how to live life to the fullest until rescue arrives without anything at hand). But seriously? It's hard to ignore Dave's brilliant suggestion of The Passage by Justin Cronin, because it is easier to lug around than my Wheel of Time collection.

4. Two books that made me laugh
I'm not sure whether this means books that made me laugh because they were written in a humourous style or books that made me laught because they were so blatantly implausable or stupid. I'll name one of each then.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy can definitely be rated up there in the humourous books category. I first got this as an audio book, way back in the day, and I've loved it ever since!

The Twilight series rates up there as the most humourous implausable series of all time. I started reading it with a glimmer of hope that the idea can be salvaged into something less ridiculous. I was sadly mistaken. And I have to say, I think I laughed for 5 minutes straight when ol' Edward stepped into the sunlight and sparkled. It was just too much for me. Then when the movie came out, I went to watch it again, just for that scene. And it did not dissapoint,they added little bell chimes to it and made me laugh all over again.

5. One book that made me cry
Only one? You see, I really live my character's lives. I experience their emotions with them, I laugh with them, I cry with them. (One reason I don't like reading first person POV, It takes me weeks to get rid of the character in my head.) So I cannot name one book that made me cry, the most recent one was The Passage by Justin Cronin, and that was only last week.

6. One book that I wish I'd written
Now this one is a doozie. How do you single out a book that according to you was the biggest literary accomplishment? It is hard. If I'd have to choose, I would choose The Lord of the Rings. It has been hailed as the Romeo and Juliet of the Fantasy genre, and I'd have to agree. Tolkien shaped the fantasy genre for years to come. We're only now beginning to see a proper breakaway from a tolkienesque way of fantasy writing. For that sir, I commend you.

7. One book you wish was never written
This one was equally difficult. I would have to say any book written by Dan Brown, they were truly aweful, and made my life hell as a bookseller (one person referring to it as Dan Brown's Da Vinci Bible, and many people not realising that it was a work of fiction). I hated that book with a passion!

8. Two books that I'm currently reading
Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes and Spellwright by Blake Charlton


9. One book that I've been meaning to read
Anything by David Gemmel or Steven Erikson - Many people will most probably stone me for this, but I've never read either of those authors' and I've really been meaning to!

So that's my take on it. If you see this and would like to use it, feel free - it's a meme after all.

Keep it real!

Book to Film adaptations - My love/hate relationship

I like my job, I really do, but sometimes it frustrates me. You see, before I was in this position, I was completely oblivious to some of the sacrilege going on out there. But now that I'm in a position where I have to be up to date on these kinds of things, it has really hit me: A great film adaptation is a rarity.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand the issue of adapting a novel into a film, there is just no way you will be able to fit everything into a two hour movie. Add to that the fact that actors, directors and the other creative people in the have their own interpretations of the material and you can very well end up with a film that does not even remotely resemble your favourite novel.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to see that James Rollins' Sigma series has been optioned for film. And this is not the normal we're-going-to-mutilate-your-book-and-call-it-an-adaptation film option. No, Dino de Laurentiis, the producer wants a completely new story, which, it appears James will have a hand in writing.

This excites me to no end, and not because I am a fan. I have never read a James Rollins book, but fans of the series assure me it is brilliant (hence the fact that they're fans). It excites me because the story would be an expansion on the series, not an adaptation. Chances of people walking out of the cinema going: "The book was better." has been severely reduced.

Sure, some people just nit-pick. I recently heard someone walked out of Kick-Ass because the main character's hair colour changed. But there are some valid issues as well. Take My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, for instance. To make the movie "more acceptable" for the Hollywood market, they changed the ending completely, losing most of the punch of the book. That, to me, is completely unacceptable.

Books that get film options are usually picked because some big wig number cruncher spoke to some creative person and realised that creatively the movie is a viable cash cow with enough fans to make it worth making the film in the first place. But they tend to forget that people became fans of a book for a reason: the books characters and storyline(s) appealed to them. Changing that is like taking someone's idea of a perfect partner, changing the personality and looks and telling the person that this is the love of their life. Seriously, did you think we wouldn't notice?

Books also appeal to people for other reasons. When I read a book, the story comes alive in my imagination. I see the characters, experience their world and share their trials and tribulations. These characters become my friends. When they get transported to screen, it loses the magic. I cannot read a Harry Potter novel without seeing Emma Watson. I cannot read Lord of the Rings without Elijah Wood's sitting in Frodo's place. I hate the movies for this.

On the other hand, I love them. I get to see other people's interpretation of ideas, and sometimes they enrich the story for me. Let's take Harry Potter for example (again). When I read the part about Dumbledore dying for the first time, I was in shock for about a page and a half. It never occurred to me the pain and anguish that the characters had to go through. Everytime I read that part, it shocked me again. When I finally saw the film, I realised that my shock as a reader was not half as bad as the pain that the characters had to go through. My subsequent reading changed my perspective of the scene, and it has become one of my favourites in the series.

I wanted to put a nice cartoon here that I saw a couple of years ago, but I was unable to find it. So I'll just describe it to you.

An old woman and her husband is walking out of a cinema complex, the banner showing that they have just watched The Passion of the Christ. The old woman has her Bible clasped firmly under her arm as she loudly proclaims: "The Books was better!"

I thought it would have been appropriate. If anyone can find that cartoon, mail it to me and I'll post it here.

There we go, some random musings to start this Tuesday.

Keep it real...

The making of good food

Yes, I have that bee in my bonnet again. I'm cooking anything and everything I can think of. My family absolutely love me for it! In the last week or so I cooked an amazing lamb and chickpea stew served on cous cous and roast veg, made a lovely chicken carrot and parsley soup and made my famous patchy Sheperd's pie.

I'll quickly run you through the recipes, and they are really simple, since I do not believe that anyone should work too hard to make good food.

Lamb and Chickpea stew with Cous Cous and Roast Veg.

What you'll need:
4 lamb shanks
250ml red wine
fresh rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cans of chickpeas, drained
4 Potatoes - chunked
Salt and pepper to taste
Instant oxtail or beef soup

Combine the wine, rosemary, lemon garlic, salt and pepper and marinate the lambshanks overnight.
Place the lamb and the marinade in a slowcooker the next morning, and set it to cook on a low heat for most of the day.
Add the potatoes and chickpeas 3 hours before you want to dish up.
Keep an eye on the fluid levels and top up with water if needed.
An hour before you want to dish up, mix the instant soup with 250 ml of water and add to the stew. Stir and cook till the soup has thickened.

For the Cous Cous and roast veg you will need:
Cous Cous
Mixed vegetables
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Butter

Sprinkle the veg with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes.
Cook the cous cous according to the instructions on the packet, adding ample amounts of butter when it is done.
Combine the cous cous and the roast veg and serve with the lamb stew.

My wine of choice to enjoy with this: Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon


Chicken, Carrot and Parsley soup


You will need:
200g chicken, skinless and deboned but not chopped
12 Carrots, peeled and cubed
1 onion, diced
2 handfulls of fresh parsley
Celery, chopped
1 potato, cubed
1 block of instant chicken or vegetable stock dissolved in 300ml boiling water
1 packet of white onion soup
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups of milk

Combine the chicken, carrots, onion, celery, potatoes, salt, pepper and stock in a pressure cooker and cook for about 20 minutes.
In a blender, blitz the parsley and the onion soup with 150ml of milk.
When the veg and chicken is done, add all of the chicken and 3/4 of the veg to the blender and blend till smooth.
Add the purée back into the stock along with the rest of the milk.
Cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve and enjoy.
Great with a loaf of rye bread, or Portuguese rolls.

Patchy Shepherds Pie


You will need:
1 kg of lean mince
1 onion chopped
3 tomatoes peeled and chopped
1 greenpepper cubed
250 ml red wine
4-6 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tablespoon of cornflour, dissolved in 25 ml of water.
200 g mixed veg
6 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
10 olives, stoned and finely chopped.
milk
butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1 roll of readymade puff pastry

Fry the tomatoes, onions, greenpepper in a bit of olive oil till the tomato starts to lose consistency. Add the mince and fry till the mince starts to brown. add the red wine, sugar, mixed herbs, mixed veg, salt and pepper and boil on a medium heat.

Meanwhile add the potatoes to a separate pot of boiling water and season to taste. Boil till the potatoes are cooked through. Drain and mash. Do not at this point be tempted to blitz the mash in a food processor - that's cheating. Use elbow grease and get the job done manually. Add about 2 tablespoons of butter and enough milk to change the consistence to that of a medium thick porridge. Finally, Add the chopped olives to the mash.

Thicken the mince with the cornflour.

Spoon the mash into a greased ovenproof dish, and top it with the mince. Cut the puff pasty into chunks and strips and layer it over the mince. Bake at 200 degrees for 40 minutes till the pastry is cooked through and starts to brown.

Serve and enjoy.

Well' that was a blogpost and a half. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you tried any of these recipes and tell me what you think!

My writing life

It seems to be the thing to do these days, blogging about writing. At least for me. Since I started taking this writing "career" of mine seriously, I am learning a lot from the other people. So I thought I'd chronicle my experiences on this blog, amongst all the other things I blog about.

Writing time
In the last few weeks, I've gained truckloads of respect for some of my fellow writers. I'm talking about the brave guys and gals holding down a day job, running a family and keeping up with the Joneses inbetween producing staggeringly beautiful and creative works of fiction (and non-fiction).

As many people here in South Africa know, full time writing as a South African is limited to a privileged few. Many SA authors have to have a day job, or at least do freelance work in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. Include in this those pesky social responsibilities and you're not left with much time to do what you love.

Most of us, I assume, try to do the next best thing. We declare "me-time" or "writing-time" where we switch off the internet, hide our cellphones and lock ourselves in a room to write write write. We also steal a few moments here and there. A quick email to oneself with a great line you thought of while stuck in a meeting, planning characters while stuck in Joburg traffic or making a quick note in one of the myriad of notebooks secreted in and around your daily living space.

Thanks to these moments, I have a wonderfully developed world for my Fantasy novel, with many fine details ironed out, and although my word count hasn't even broken 10 000 (officially) I have a good idea where this story is going.

Now if only I could find a way to make it unnecessary for me to sleep, and all will be well in this world.