Books out week ending 17th January

Hitman agent 47 - DVD

Downton Abbey series 6 - DVD 

Best of Bowie - CD

Lord Lansbury's Christmas Wedding

The Captain's Christmas Bride

Lady Rowena's Ruin

A storm

Recently I read Tim Minchin's Storm and I largely agree with him. Yes grasping this life is important, and maybe it's all we get but I felt a need to explore a few things.

While I agree that most if not all psychics are cold readers making a buck, I also have see people conduct interesting dialogues with their subconscious through the medium of Tarot cards, and paid me, well I had to start charging, I was putting in effort, they were not paying attention, until I charged, a cup of coffee. Yes 40p (old money, it was the 90s) made the difference between attention and inattention, thanks capitalism. And yes, once someone started latching onto certain words or phrases I'd start using the theme more. Was I cold reading, yes. Did I have repeat customers? Yes. Would I lapse into a slightly different consciousness sometimes? Yes. Did I rely on it or encourage others to do so? No.

Later, pre-cancer diagnosis, I was under the weather and a friend offered me a reiki session. I took him up on it, there was a preliminary diagnosis that involved my liver and the friend said afterwards, I don't think that what's wrong with you is liver, I think it's more widespread than that, get those tests done, it's important. Yeah it was, I had hodgkins lymphoma. More dispersed indeed.

These two are, yes, anecdotes, but what's in common is the ethical attitude of the person involved. The labourer is worthy of their hire too.

Secondly, he lumps medicine into proven and unproven ignoring the third, complicated category, still under research, and sometimes that third category gets lumped into useless superstition, much like generally regarded as safe and hypoallergenic doesn't mean no one will have adverse effects to a drug or cosmetic. I had a skin condition that could be linked to my blood pressure medicine. Actually to the added padding or sawdust as my dad calls it.

Overall, storm is interesting but simplistic to a degree and he's probably preaching to the choir.

Books out week ending 10th january

Books borrowed from the library this week
Gizzi's Healthy appetite by Gizzi Erskine read good reviews of this online

Handmade Gifts - looked pretty, for reviewing some of it on my knitting site.

A bird in the Hand by Diana Henry - chicken recipes

Warrior of Fire by Michelle Willingham historical romance set in Ireland, usually a how badly do they get it check...

Iceman a DVD

His Christmas Countess by Louise Allen another historical romance

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin - I read Fifth Season over the Christmas and was very impressed

Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal having read the book previous to it, again over the Christmas.

The Immortal Hunter by Lynsay Sands - predictable vampire romance crack

The magpie and the wardrobe - Sam McKechnie sounds very interesting, looks pretty.

Silk Roads vs Mills and Boon

I do this pretty often, read two, or more books at the same time, often a very light book with a heavy read, one that is occupying a lot of my thoughts. This is the case with The Silk Road by Peter Frankopan and the semi-random Mills and Boon Modern Intrigue that is bedside at the moment.  The Silk Road is making me think and I'm reading it at work. After all it's a weighty hardback of 600+ pages, so I'm reading it at work. It also belongs technically to another authority I'd rather not damage it in transit. The cover is lush, but that half-sleeve thing is just asking to be torn in library use. The cover doesn't have the title on the front, just on the spine.

So yes, the topics from this are mostly occupying my brain while I let it spin in idle over the adventures of a rich woman and her missing sister with cultish leader bad guy plotting .. I have to find the name now, mystic something.. ah Mystic Isle by Joanna Wayne, a pretty predictable romance adventure cross that is the perfect tool to let me wind down at night.

Frankopan is interesting, the way he is re-orientating history, quite literally is making me think, though some of it is definitely in the realm of yes, yes I knew that, and? And then people remind me that what I think is common knowledge isn't, my brain has too much stuff lodged in it, stuff that makes me a bit different from most.

Tonight I will finish Mystic Isle, I'm nearly at the end, and I'll pick something else to read. Something else to let my brain wind down.