End of Year Reading Cram: Days 6-7

Saturday

In the penultimate Saturday before Christmas, of course work was ridiculously busy. The good thing about weekends is that we don't have deliveries then, so there isn't the mad rush to get that all put out before the next lot comes in, while juggling a dozen jobs and all the customers. I was pretty much tied to the counter from ten till about half past 3, but though there was a constant stream of customers, they were pretty manageable on the whole. We had enough staff in, for once, and at least the day goes quickly when you're working non-stop.

Most of my day's reading took place over lunch. I was grateful to have the staff room to myself for most of my break, so I got stuck back into The Explorer Gene, reading about Jacques, the second generation of Piccards, who took over his father's work building a "bathyscaphe" (a kind of submarine) and being one of only 3 people ever to go to the bottom of the Marianas trench. For science, of course!

Saturday evening was the shop's Christmas meal out, which was delicious, enormous and a lot of fun. My manager (nattily dressed in a Christmas snowman jumper!) brought his girlfriend along, who I actually knew from school. It was good to catch up with her after ten years. Towards the end of the evening, probably as revenge for being outed as a former kissogram (which I think was pretty much common knowledge, but she looked shocked and embarrassed for the first time since I've known her) my colleague Joan made us all share stories of things we've done after drinking too much. Simon had woken up one morning to find a pub's hanging sign at the end of his bed, while James went missing for two days while his wife was pregnant. My story, of rambling at length to a new acquaintance about all the rude bits in Chaucer and Shakespeare, must have confirmed the impression I'm convinced my colleagues have of me as a weird academic type who doesn't really know how a twenty-mumble-year-old girl is supposed to act. (To be fair, that's not an inaccurate picture of me, only I don't think I'm all that clever, I just find books more interesting than the real world.)

What I've read today: The Explorer Gene

Number of pages read today: 50

Running total: 557 pages

Number of mince pies consumed during readathon: 5 1/2

My life outside books: Work's Christmas meal out. We've earned it.

Sunday

7 PM: What a miserable old day it is outside. But though I love summer for its bright sunshine and outdoorsiness, I've come to appreciate the winter for lazy afternoons with a book in front of the fire, perfect conditions for a readathon. I've lit some Christmassy scented candles, put some more baubles and ornaments on the tree and tinsel everywhere, and spent the afternoon sprawled on the sofa catching up with Perdido Street Station. I'm about halfway through the book now, and Isaac and his friends have been set against the government in their quest to end the giant moths' reign of terror. There has been betrayal, the sentient hoover has made its changed condition known - though who programmed it is still a mystery - there is a capricious and crazed giant spider-creature who seeks for the world to be woven into patterns only it can see, and terror has ensued. What has not happened is a lot of action centred on the station itself, and I have yet to find out why the book is titled as it is.

10PM: Mum cooked a delicious roast beef dinner this evening, which was a lovely surprise. I carried on with Perdido Street Station for another hour or so. Isaac and his comrades have certainly got in over their heads with regards to these moths. After a shocking turn of events, the plot seemed to wander off in favour of some really horrifying parasitic hand-creatures doing battle with the dementor-moths. Mieville has a very warped imagination when it comes to peopling his world with beings other than the fantasy stereotypes. Also, the "cleaning construct" has led our protagonists to a junkyard of sorts, to a meeting of its own kind, the sentient machines. Quite what these machines have planned is not yet clear, whether they are friend or foe or have a completely alien agenda. I've started to feel my attention waning, so I'm thinking I'll get ready for bed and then put on Love Actually and do a bit of knitting. I'm not back at work until Wednesday now - nice long weekend - so I can afford a late night. 

What I've read today: Perdido Street Station

Number of pages read today: 199

Running total: 756 pages

Number of mince pies consumed during readathon: 7

My life outside books: Decking the halls with boughs of... tinsel and baubles... fa la la la la la la la.

Bout of Books 8.0: Sunday

This morning was a grey, dull day and impossible to wake up. A single coffee wasn't enough, and unfortunately I've been feeling and acting somewhat like a she-Hulk this morning. Sincere apologies to those who were on the receiving end. Have a Nutella cupcake as a peace offering. She-Hulk likes baking cake, apparently.

I haven't done a lot of reading, again, today, because I got stuck writing a new scene for my Rilla of Ingleside adaptation. (Actual writing, guys! Two days in a row!) Where yesterday's work involved a lot of typing up from the original work, reworking speeches and scenes, today I had to use my imagination to flesh out characters who are important in the series but don't have an awful lot of on-screen time in the novel. In particular, though this is the story of the younger generation, I wanted to make Anne and Gilbert still recognizable as the characters countless readers have fallen in love with. In Rilla, they are mostly just Doctor Blythe and his wife: wise and patient and lacking the spark that makes their personalities so, well, them. 

I'm up to the 19th century in Necropolis, which has described the shift in people's attitudes to death over the years, from pragmatic acceptance to sentimentality, from memento mori to lavish memorials. The book also, briefly, told of 23-year-old Jane Webb, author of a book

Set in 2126, in an England that had reverted to absolute monarchy, this featured prototypes for espresso machines, air-conditioning and, most prophetically, 'a communication system that permitted instant world dissemination of news.'

This chick predicted the internet. Why have we never heard of her? And they say there's no place for women in science fiction!

I don't expect to finish Necropolis tonight. I plan to watch a couple of episodes of one of my many box sets, then have an early night. (It may be a bank holiday tomorrow, but I still have to work. Here's hoping for a sunny day so that everyone'll go to the beach and let me make a start on my huge list of things to be done this week.)

All in all, it's been a good readathon. I didn't expect to read all of the books on my list - Cuckoo's Calling and Perdido Street Station are still outstanding - but my to-read pile is starting to look like it's getting under control now. I must rectify that.

Bout of Books 8.0: Saturday

9PM

After a lovely - but too quick - day off with plenty of reading, I was back at work today, where I spent much of the time manning the front till. This is not one of my favourite jobs as I'm not allowed to wander off and get anything productive done, but just have to stand there and serve customers. Most are friendly or neutral - I haven't had any really unpleasant people for a while - but smiling at everyone is tiring. Still, the coming week has plenty of other work to do, and I spent the last part of the afternoon making lists with bullet-points, trying to organise every small detail of what I have to do on each day. (I am a fervent believer in lists. They make the jobs feel less overwhelming, and it is a nice feeling to cross items off.)

I couldn't get to sleep for ages last night, for no one's fault but my own. I tell myself that the computer must go OFF at 10PM on a work night, and that I must wind down with a book for half an hour to an hour before switching off the light, but that time crept to 10.20... 10.30... 10.45... I was in bed by about 11, but my mind was still whirring. So I made a start on my next read: Necropolis by Catharine Arnold. It is a beautifully macabre history of London, the people who died there and the burial rites throughout the centuries. I continued with this book at lunch time, and have got up to the various plague epidemics before the Great Fire of London. Having lived in London for a few years, I do love to find out about the stranger things in its history. It is a very strange city.

I had intended to read more when I got into work, but instead, inspired by the video I watched and shared yesterday, of Neil Gaiman's advice for budding writers, I brushed the cobwebs off an old project: a screenplay adaptation of L. M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside. My recent "work" on this project has been a scene-by-scene outline, but though I hadn't finished the planning, I felt it was time to jump in and actually do some writing. First drafts can be edited, but blank pages can't.

The Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson

What is a psychopath? That is the question at the heart of Jon Ronson’s book which is advertised as: “A journey through the madness industry.” What is a psychopath, how are psychopaths diagnosed, is there a cure, and what is the difference between psychopaths who are institutionalised, and the psychopaths at the top of the institutions: politics, business, entertainment and so on? These are just some of the questions Ronson explores in his study in madness.

In his research for this book, Ronson meets a man who feigned madness to try to escape a prison sentence – only to discover it is impossible to prove his sanity. In a chapter that reads more like the “madness literature” of Catch-22 or One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, every action “Tony” takes to show that, in fact, he is not insane, is taken as evidence that, in fact, he is. Or that he is not mad, but still a psychopath.

Ronson catalogues historic diagnoses and attempts at treating psychopathy – and his findings are surreal, sometimes disastrous, often seeming more like a skewed fiction than reality – interviews the psychologist responsible for coming up with the definitive psychopathy test, and starts applying the test to various people he meets: the mass-murderer, the top businessman with ruthless ambition and a love for firing people, the M15 agent-turned-conspiracy theorist. And yes, it certainly seems that the same traits that label some people as “psychopaths” are those that are encouraged in the people judged as “most successful.” Is society really run my psychopaths?

At the same time, Ronson argues, it is easy for people to be misdiagnosed, and especially in this day and age, any strangeness or eccentricity is easily – too easily – categorised as “mental disorders,” sometimes with disastrous results. Where do we draw the line? is the question we are left asking, in the fragile balancing act between “madness” and “sanity.”

I’m not a natural reader of non-fiction, but I found Ronson’s style to be easy-going, understandable considering I have no background in psychology, a curious and fascinating, if somewhat frightening insight into the world of diagnosing psychopathy.