Apocalyptic Sunset

This year I decided to get back into painting. Well...I say 'get back into'...the last time I painted anything was in my first year of 6th form when I was taking AS Level Art. And I wasn't technically 'into' art - I just did it at school. But I guess that's the thing about studying, it can take the fun out of your passion!

So I've found that it's something I love doing whenever I get a spare couple of hours. It's definitely a great outlet for me to be creative in any way I want to be. So far I've painted three painting this year, and I'm hoping to add to this collection asap! Here's my second one that I finished last week:



I find it really satisfying painting sunsets and blending a mish mash of colours. My sister said it looks like the End Of The World. An Apocalyptic Sunset, if you will. And I'm quite liking that dramatic description I have to say!

I've nearly finished my third painting. It's a lot more subtle than the one above, but hopefully still quite atmospheric. Shall post it soon.

The Atonement

So...to be honest I hadn't even heard of this book until the movie came out - yup, I've been living under a literary rock. Took me quite a while to get into it, but once I did, I couldn't put it down! I even found myself getting strangely annoyed whenever I reached my stop on the tube - a first.

At first I thought it sounded a bit too much like a period drama, which is generally not my cup of tea. But then, out of the blue, you're suddenley presented with the 'C' word - IN CAPS. Average period drama yawn fest this is not!

It's a love story, written from three different perspectives to give you the all round picture. We've got Cecilia and Robbie, our lovers, and Briony (Cecilia's younger sister) who, in a terrible act of childish naivity, commits a crime that will effect all three of their lives in ways she could not have foreseen. It's set in the 1930s and continues through the second world war, right up until 1999 when we're greeted with an aging Briony, still striving for atonement.

The most touching and emotional parts of the novel were, for me, Robbie's desperate journey from France back to England. The vivid descriptions of the war torn country really hit home for me. I felt as though McEwan stripped back all the layers and left us with the raw and tender wounds of the war, right there on the page. Those wounds are not only of the war, they also symbolise the anguish and gut-wrenching pain experienced in their (Robbie and Cecilia) personal lives.

And the ending! One of those bitter sweet endings. Hope and grief, regret and nostalgia, contentment and loss...a perfect recipe which leaves you still wanting more.

The National Year of Reading is coming!

Did you know the National Year of Reading is next year? Nearly a decade since the last National Year of Reading, the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency is aiming to put reading high up on the agenda once more. Their intention is to get more people aware of the benefits of reading for pleasure and purpose.

I think this is great news, reading has so many benefits that many people aren't even aware of. A lot of people think it's quite nerdy or boring. I went out on a double date about a month ago - shock horror (I'm quite wary of these kinds of things!) My best friend and our respective other halfs went out for drinks and dinner and got onto the subject of reading. My friend's boyfriend is really into working out, bulking up and looking good - he would never step foot in a library. Which is fair enough; I'm not particularly keen on the gym myself, although I have tried it and made my mind up for myself! He would probably quite correctly label me as a 'book worm', and I would probably quite correctly label him as a 'meat head' - as a mutal agreement of course!

Anyway, he is totally against reading for pleasure and just doesn't understand it. My friend has tried to get him interested as she likes a good book every now and then herself - but it's just not happening. Everyone has their own interests, and there are loads of people out there who hate reading - but that doesn't mean you should knock it!

I personally think reading for pleasure is a fantastic way to open your mind and start thinking about issues that effect all of us in one way or another. A thought-provoking book can help you to form your own opinions and shape the way you think about things - that's quite a powerful tool. And a powerful book can get turned into a powerful movie (although as we all know, that's sometimes not quite the case!) allowing it to reach even more people.

Not to mention the escapism. I hadn't read a good book for so long after a left university. I've just realised how much I've missed it and how much my state of mind benefits from it. I have an incredibly busy mind and find it quite hard to switch off at the best of times. So finding a book that captures my imagination and entertains my mind is brilliant - and necessary! I guess everyone needs a form of escapism, whether that be through reading, watching a good film, listening to music or switching off at the gym.

My mother started reading to me from a very young age, and I'll definitely do the same with my children - the house will be filled with books! There's a whole multiude of wonderful things to be gained from reading, so I think it's wonderful that the whole of 2008 will be dedicated to it. Click here to find out more about The National Year of Reading.

Book Club Meeting: Number 1

Ok so one month later I finally get a chance to blog about the first book club meeting I went to - there really are not enough hours in the day!

We went out for a glass of Rose and picked our first book, The Atonement by Ian McEwan. It was really nice to get to know some other people in our company - and no, we didn't just sit around talking about books for an hour and compare reading glasses! It's a great way to meet some new faces so I'd definitely recommend it.

I think everyone was keen to read The Atonement thanks to the movie that's just been released. To be honest, I hadn't even heard about The Atonement until the film was released - I've definitely been out of the literary loop for far too long. Had it not been for the book club, or indeed the film, I doubt I would have picked up this novel any time soon - and that would have been a shame because it's absolutely brilliant!

The next book club meeting will be in November sometime - ages away. I might have forgotten about all those little details that make a novel a novel by then. Is everyone really so busy these days that we need to give ourselves 2 months to read a book?! Actually, probably YES.

When we decided to meet in Novemeber I was strangely relieved - it's so hard to find time to just sit back and get stuck into a book. I guess that's the curse of working life, especially when you've got a mammoth commute and other things going on when you get home - like building work, family commitments, cooking, friends dramas, laundry and fun stuff like that going on (it's been a tough couple of months!) On the plus side, the mammoth commute does mean I can sit back on the tube and get absorbed in my book - in the hope that I've managed to get a seat of course. In fact today was the first day in well over a week that I listened to my iPod instead of reading! Hooray, I'm getting there...

Over the weekend I picked up The God Delusion - time to see what all the fuss is about.