i have a few addictions......

but the one i'm going to talk about today is books.......my relationship with books, yep it's sad enough that i actually think i have a relationship with them, is frankly, obsessive! not obsessive in a technical definitional sense, but i do have 'issues' shall we say in relation to them.......

just ask my Mum: her and i had one of our biggest fights (well maybe not quite our biggest, but a big one all the same) over a book - yep Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac (one of her best, in fact probably the best as all the rest have sadly been about sad women who never seem to have relationship success - frankly she's a whinging old woman who in my humble opinion, should have spent more time trying to get laid than writing sad books) - i conveniently forgot that Mum returned it, i on-lent (is that a word??) it to another friend and when a year or so later i accused (strong word, but she says that was how it came across) her of not returning it...............well as you can imagine, not pretty!

i have so many books that i had to move houses to house them all, comfortably......periodically i inventorise them and even more often i not only sort them in alphabetical order, but also in genre alphabetical order!!!! just ask my friend Kirst: she's had to assist with the inventorising (and here's me thinking i'm a fun friend to hang out with!)

so as someone who puts a lot of time and effort into making sure her books are comfortable i expect something in return - i expect them to be a good read......with realistic storylines, plausible characters and frankly, better grammar than i am capable of - is that asking to much? i don't think so.....

so you can imagine my disappointment when i finally select 'Atonement' from the shelf - it's been there for years - unlike some, I don't read stuff when it's popular: for instance, i have never and will never stoop to reading anything by Dan Brown and if that makes me a book snob, perhaps even a literary snob, then la de bloody la! i don't care.....i'm not reading it.

also i like to read more than i like to see the movie adaptation of any book - and i say adaptation as that's exactly what it is - somebody elses adaptation, and whilst i will admit that some adaptations are good, most are frankly crap! and not worthy of my $15.50 and the two hours i spend in the cinema.....

so, sorry, got a bit distracted there. 'Atonement' by booker prize winner Ian McEwen, finally gets it's moment of glory - how long it had patiently sat on my bookcase waiting to be selected i'll never know. anyway, the recent hype of the movie made me think it was about time i finally read it. it took some getting into (and by that i mean it didn't have me hooked from page one) and i don't actually mind that - one of the reasons i read is to be educated, to learn new words, and as a wannabe writer to experience different ways of writing and expression, in particular i am usually interested in imagery, characterisation and momentum......

anyway, i digress! after the first 50 pages i was hooked, the switch from the end of their childhood to the protagonist at war (ie some 5 or so years later) was very well handled (apparently this is called transition - anyway, it was good) but frankly, the end was not. it not only came out of the blue, but felt to me like there were loose ends - kinda like he ran out of typewriter paper or something so just wrote whatever came to mind in order to have it over and done with????

kinda like an afterthought, which after such a fabulously good story (and one with the potential for a truly great ending) was just downright disappointing :-( disappointing that i invested all that time and effort into to a book that just did not meet my expectations......

wonder how long i will feel the need to atone for my very public slagging of not just one, but two, Booker Prize winners.........