Delain and unpacking

My room (and my brother's room which I'm using at extra storage space while it's empty) look like a bomb has hit them. I'm moved back from uni at the weekend, and somehow the wardrobes and drawers are already too full.

On the plus side, while searching for the envelope I need to hand my old house's keys in tomorrow I found my £10 voucher for Waterstones; another excuse to buy some more books, not that I often need one.

Saying that, I've managed to buy 10 books and two magazines over the past few days, I'll post a picture after I get back from my two day trip to uni.

In yesterday's song, the band's name is actually related to books. Delain is the name of a realm in Stephen King's series "The Dark Towers", and "The Eyes of the Dragon" is set entirely within Delain. I'll confess to not having read a Stephen King book yet; it's on my to-read list. I'd quite like to complete the challenge of reading all my already-bought unread books first.

Melodic Monday

I've seen memes on other book blogs, so I thought I'd try creating one.

Each Monday (I'll try to make it each Monday anyway) I will post a music video which will be in some way related to books. Some songs will be very obviously 'bookish', others might be a bit obscure. The link could be anything, something in the video itself, the lyrics, etc.

I shall leave it up to anyone to guess, otherwise I'll tell you in my next post.

Today's video is Get The Devil Out Of Me by Delain. (They're brilliant live, by the way)

Comment with what you think the link is.



If you want to take part:

• Post a music video that in some way links to the theme of your blog (or if it's a general theme, choose a subject)
• Link back to this blog in your post to say where the meme comes from.
• Comment and include a link to your post and I'll pop along and try to guess the link in your song.

Eurovision!

I love watching Eurovision each year. Usually I'll print off a scorecard to rank the countries, and then settle down for a three hour marathon of silliness and the odd catchy song.

Sweden definitely deserved to win. I loved the song, Euphoria by Loreen, yet the dancing is bizarre; it seems to be interpretation but only vaguely ties in with the lyrics. Check out the 'crab steps' at 0:55.

But wait.....this post has a link to books. Cyprus had a europop catchy song titled La La Love, sung by Ivi Adamou; not the best vocals but not the worst song on the night. And....... they are dancing on a table made out of books. Now I can't work out how this is relevant to the song apart from the backing dancers whose clothing may be based on school outfits. But here's the song for your enjoyment anyway (or not depending on your musical tastes).

Who was your favourite?

What I'm reading....

As far as predators go, I find Red Kites quite cool.

My university isn't far from a Red Kite feeding station, so last weekend as a revision break I went down to the site with my Mum. They feed the birds in the afternoon to encourage natural hunting in the morning, and there was a cafe (no trip is complete without something sugary and a cup of tea - in this case: cream tea)

Until about 30 years ago this beautiful bird was almost extinct, and it was fascinating to watch as many as 50 of the birds performing acrobatics in order to get some meat.

The book covers a brief history of Red Kites, their plumage, where you can find them, what they eat and some lovely pictures of the book. If you ever want to find out more about them, I'd recommend this book.

Exams...

The blog will be a little inactive till Sunday, as this is my final week of exams, and on Saturday I move back home.

It seems a little strange to some of my friends but I'm really looking forward to living back at home. I'll have my card-making supplies, which were too bulky to come to uni with me, and more importantly my books.

As my spending will be curtailed until I find a job, I'll use this as a challenge to try and read all my unread books. I have a habit of going into a bookshop and buying at least one book, which then gets slotted in and lost amongst the others at home.

So to conclude, I'll be writing more next week when life has calmed down. Enjoy the sunshine.

Question time

A chance for anyone who stumbles across this corner of the internet to comment....

Do you prefer physical books or e-readers? Will the latter be the death of the former?

This is what's on my mind at the moment...

A hit of sugar......and a visitor.

It's revision time, and I've succumbed to my favourite treat: Digestive biscuits covered in a generous blob of icing. I've always joked about being a sugar addict but according to this article it may be possible.

Plus....I appear to have had a visitor. No-one, as far as I knew, was aware of this blog so whoever you are, thank you for making me smile.

A picture is worth a thousand words?

I am a comic convert. They are a stereotype of geeks (and I don't like the negative implications of that word either, though I like the actual word - why not say geek and imagine a cool knowledgable cultured person?) and in the past i've thought they're nice for a quick read but not worth searching out.

Growing up I loved collecting Meg Cabot's books and my copy of Avalon High was well-loved. So when a sequel was announced, I duly bought it as soon as it came out.

Yet after reading the book in about half an hour, I felt disappointed and let down. The story didn't seemed to progress much, especially compared to the first book, and as a 16 year old whose only income was pocket money, £8 seemed a lot of money.

(Note: I have searched on the internet and it turns out there are two further 'manga' books that I missed after becoming disillusioned with the first.)

I spent my childhood devouring thick fantasies such as The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, with the occassional glance at comics such as Peanuts, so maybe the attraction of this particular genre passed me by...

I have recently begun to read 'Vampire Knight' and I have now bought Volumes 1 to 5 and to my mind it is worth the money. It's a different slant to the now overhyped 'Twilight Vampire' and the characters are beautifully drawn. It's also interesting to read into the emotions and how the picture is set up to get the story.

I do read manga faster, but it's a nice experience to slow down and really look at the story. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Doctor Who/Star Trek Crossover Comic due out in October. Though a novel containing my two favourite series would be even better...

Naming a blog....

I've read many a time that choosing a blog name is important; I wanted to choose something book-related as this is what I wish to write about (among other things).

It appears many many people have got there before me and come up with brilliant and witty titles.
I visited this ranking site to see what was already out there and my favourite title on the list is Omnivoracious.
(I also googled potential names to see if someone already had that blog out there)

Nightwish are one of my favourite bands, and there you have my blog name, with the small change to mountains as.....there was already a blog with the song title.

If ever they made soundtracks for books, this would make a good "final charge to the death" song.

As for linking to books, although it doesn't include the specific word I hope it puts you in mind of a story set in a different world far far away....