#Christopher brookmyer

[hotguynextdoor2]

“Whatever she told herself, she still knew that the fact she was meeting him was governing her thoughts. She didn’t have any daft, girlish feelings….”

pg 79, Chapter 13

quite ugly one morning (1996) by Christopher Brookmyer

Previous 2 paragraphs: she can’t decide what to wear to meet a journalist [they met at her recently murdered, ex-husband’s flat, both trespassing].

In conclusion, she’s presently falling for Parlabane:

A man who is on the run from a hit man, stumbled upon a murder scene in his boxers, was arrest in boxers while stepping over a corpse, breaks into hospitals to speak to potential leads, confesses that he has a hobby of picking locks when he’s bored and this is the man she’s trying to impress.

It’s wack.

It’s crack.

I love it😍

10/10

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

Hello! This is random but what are your Top ten favourite books of all time? Also do you have any book recommendations?

Ohmygod this is such a difficult question, because my answer is almost always 'whatever book I have just finished" but! I have pulled from my bookshelf the top 10 that have had the biggest impact on my life, behold!

The Classics™

1. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen

When I was 18 and fresh out of school I set myself the arduous challenge of reading 3 'classical' books before I died. I struggled halfway through P&P thinking what an arsehole this Darcy boy was, until I got to "lydia will have to come upon the town". And I sat on the bus going 'Does... does Austen mean, lydia will become a hooker? Surely she can't mean that, it's a ye olde book!'

And I checked the notes and she DID. I was shook, I restarted the book and as I'd gotten used to the language I realised there were jokes!? And snarky comments!? And ridiculous people! And I LOVED IT

I realised that the classics were The Classics™ because they are good, and it opened a world of reading to me that I will never be able to repay it

I've read all her completed works, except Emma, and i love them all so much. (I'm saving Emma for the day I know I'll want a new Jane Austen book, cos one day I will and she ain't exactly writing any more)

2. Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

Your self worth, your integrity, your ability to be a good person are attached to neither your station in life nor your beauty?

This message was completely foreign to me, I'd never seen it before and it latched on to my soul and stayed there

"Reader, I married him" is a single line that made me close the book and hold it to my heart while I recovered

3. Poor Miss Finch: Wilkie Collins

False accusations of murder, saved from the gallows by a mantelpiece clock, keeping secrets from your truest love, your identical twin living a life that is rightfully yours, the worlds more biased narrator, the most celebrated and wondrous Doctor Pratolungo, weird 18th century descriptions of medical conditions, poisons, cures, and their costs, a suspicious trip to the seaside? This has it ALL

It is a CRIME this book doesn't have its own film

Scottish Books

4. Quite ugly one morning: Christopher Brookmyre

This murder mystery is set in my home city of Glasgow and opens with the line "jesus fuck" as police officers try to long jump their colleagues and witnesses vomit to get a view of the crime scene and try not to add to the pile

It is fantastic and hilarious and is only surpassed by the later in the series "A big boy did it and ran away" which I no longer have as I grievously damaged it when I threw it across the room at the best/most gut wrenching plot twist I have ever experienced

5. Harry Potter and the philosophers stane: J. K. Rowling, translatit intae Scots by Mathew Fitt

Harry Potter was released while I was in high school and I loved it, lived for each release. But this version is in Scots, not gealic, proper Scots, which I have always been surrounded with but my parents forbade me to learn or speak because 'that's slang, if you speak slang you'll never get a job, speak properly'

And reading it was an indescribable feeling of understanding and coming home, like everything I'd ever read previously had been translated in my head into my own internal Scottish language. It was transformative and shaped my understanding of my own culture, language and upbringing

Also, every single insult is 100x funnier and I love it

Books I have never met another reader of

6. All my friends are superheros: Andrew Kaufman

I picked this book up in a shop while waiting for a train and stood transfixed until I absolutely had to leave. In a world where mildly extra ordinary superpowers are common, a man's marriage is ruined by his wife's ex's superpower of suggestion.

It's 108 pages of a man desperately trying to show his wife he's Right There, and it is gut wrenching and glorious and so very very clever

I cried on the train home

7. Kane: Stephen A Jennings

I met a guy at work who just casually mentions in conversation he's a published author, he lent me a copy of his book about a small town American family

The sacrifices needed to keep your head just above the poverty line, the way your roots often suck you back in, the sometime too high a price needed to pursue your dreams all hit a little too close to home

I loved it and have been completely in awe of Stephen ever since

Cult books

8. The Princess Bride: William Goldman

I'd seen the film 50 times before I ever knew the book existed, it is everything the film portrays and more. The purchase was worth it for Inigo Montoyas backstory alone.

The shrieking eels bit genuinely pulled me back into the room with columbo grandpa in a way I have never experienced with any other book

9. Guards! Guards!: Terry Pratchett

I only picked this up because of all the fuss on tumblr about the new adaptation and I am SO GLAD, I laughed all the way through and fell hopelessly in love with Carrot Ironfounderson (as everyone does)

I've recently finished the whole watch series and am on to new discworld books, but I'll always thank this book and the righteous anger over that bbc adaptation for bringing these books into my life

Books that made me goddamn angry

10. Invisible Women, exposing data bias in a world built for men: Caroline Criado Perez

Fuck me, honestly I haven't even finished this because every chapter fills me with an all consuming rage the likes of which I have never experienced before.

Criado Perez just calmly lists data, statistics, and processes, each one showing how 51% of the population is underrepresented or completely ignored in anything from kids cartoons to medical studies for the pill. And ohmyfuckinggawd I knew it was bad for us before, but i didn't know how bad.

Now I have numbers and I am filled with rage.

I'm only stopping now because of the picture per post limit, I love stories and will recommend almost any book I've ever read either because I loved it or hated it

[bellie-simpson]

Screaming into the void with a very niche meme. Has Tim Vane ever been able to enjoy a weekend off without it going horribly wrong? I mean once is bad luck?