Rubyjeans Writing

Summer Reading Challenge – August Part 4

Beach Bum: Read a book that could be considered a ‘beach read’

This is a very short review because annoyingly I didn’t understand this book at all. I can’t even remember why I thought it would be a good choice for this category, to be honest, I just picked it up in a charity shop and by that justification thought it would be a good ‘beach read’. How does anyone define a beach read anyway? Take a…

Summer Reading Challenge – August Part 3

The Colours of Summer: Read a book that features a yellow, green, or sandy cover

For this prompt I read The Japanese Loverby Isabel Allende, another author that has been on my bookshelf for a very long time, since I was maybe fifteen, probably the longest time out of any of them. I remember receiving one of her books as a gift, although I cannot remember which one it was, but this one I bought…

Summer Reading Challenge – August Part 2

I Feel a Breeze: Read a book that takes place at a nudist colony or features nudists

I seriously cheated at this prompt. I don’t care though because I literally could not find a book that I thought I’d like which actually had nudists in it, or had nudity as a central theme. Does anyone even have any suggestions that aren’t porn or nudist manuals or something?

Anyway, yeah I gave up on this prompt…

Summer Reading Challenge – August Part 1

I’ve finally reached my August Reading! Yay! I’m still a bit behind and am not even sure if I’ll get to finish it before the end of August, ten days left and nine books still to read.

I’m also behind on my writing, but I’ve been productive recently and mostly just need to edit what I’ve already written. I don’t often have the motivation to edit, I think this challenge has been good for me.

Red,…

Summer Reading Challenge – July Part 5

Finally, we’ve reached my last July post. I’ve already read two books in August so there will be another post very shortly after this one.

In the meantime…

Get Your Grill On: Read a book that features summer recipes or outdoor summer activities

For this I read Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris, who also wrote Chocolat. I actually picked this book up from a box of books left backstage by the…

Summer Reading Challenge – July Part 4

I know it is now August, but this isn’t even my last July post. In my last blog post I said I’d taken a breather from reading, and almost immediately after writing that I lost my motivatioin to keep writing. So I’ve recovered from my reading blog but couldn’t find the energy to write about the four or five I’ve read since. In my defence, I’ve been too busy being on holiday, spending time with my…

Summer Reading Challenge – July Part 3

It’s been a while. I finally got a bit fed up with reading so much which happens all the time with me, but I’ve caught up a bit and have some more material to blog about again. I’m still on track to finish before the end of August, I’ll just have to do more reading than Fringe-ing during the festival. I haven’t yet got my hours for the festival though so this might be a relief. Haha!

Sports-a-hol…

Summer Reading Challenge – Progress

I thought I’d just type up my progress here in a single post instead of linking back to the Goodreads page (which I haven’t been doing, oops).

The Expert challenge is divided into the three months of summer, June, July and August, and there are 31 books in total. So far I have read 8 books, 7 of which are part of the challenge. I’ve mostly planned books out for June and July, but not yet for…

Summer Reading Challenge – July Part 2

Take Pride: Read a book written by an LGBTQIA author or that features an LGBTQIA character

I was really excited to read this next book because while I’ve read countless LGB books there have been none with transgender characters (I think), and I’m always keen to read about people who I struggle so hard to understand and yet desperately want to understand. It also had great reviews and a very…

Summer Reading Challenge – July Part 1

Hook ‘Em: Read a book that features fishing or fishermen

The first book I read this month was The Fisherman by Chigozie Obioma and it was staggering. I gave it 5 stars on goodreads and even left a tiny one-sentence review: I feel emotionally shredded.

This was basically the first book that popped up when I googled ‘books with fisherman’, and it immediately grabbed my attention because I love…

June - I didn't spend the whole month of June sitting around and doing nothing: I managed to get four books read whilst I was very importantly sitting around and doing nothing.

I didn’t spend the whole month of June sitting around and doing nothing: I managed to get four books read whilst I was very importantly sitting around and doing nothing.

Father Knows Best: Read a book that features a father

The first I decided to read not because of the reading challenge, or because of any reason actually other than I had heard of the book – and the film coming out – and was…

Greetings!

I have a new series of blog post ideas to work with, the first one being the Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge. After reading about it and seeing the sheer number of books on the expert list (a total of 31 to read in 3 months/92 days) I thought ‘I must complete this!’ I first thought I’d try the easier, beginner challenge because I do have other things to do you know… but the Beginner…

Usher Reviews – Old Blind Dogs

My first impression of this group was that they played cooler, more upbeat versions of Dougie Maclean’s acoustic tracks. The sort of music that seems to resonate through the ages, incorporating a celtic past and present of the rugged beauty in the highlands (cliche).

My second impression was that, while they are all clearly excellent, experienced musicians, and have a natural stage presence, they…

Usher Reviews – Liane Carroll & Brian Kellock

I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time now, since I got a job as an Usher last October, as I am now getting to see lots of free shows and I wanted to share some of the truly wonderful ones (as well as some of the truly terrible ones).

Unfortunately, most recently they have either been truly truly terrible, or I have been on an ‘out’ position and I can’t write a review of the tiny sound…

My dream of being a fiction writer is a quiet one. Although authors nowadays are expected to have a personality, a media presence, a charismatic skill at promoting ones own work, it is still largely a quiet profession. There are long hours of reading and researching and sitting in secluded corners of cafes frantically scribbling in a notebook or typing in a netbook (at least that’s what I do).

My…

This dream was dreamt in the early hours of the morning while I was feeling horribly ill and dehydrated and as such it was possibly trying to comfort me in some way. It was quite hallucinatory and very sentimental for myself towards the end.

I dreamt I was partying with angels that had most likely fallen from heaven. They appeared to be in the bodies of everyday women, mostly in their thirties or…

A Poetic Finish...

Wow! I am done with university! Handed in my last essay ten days ago, actually, just been sending off applications and browsing through jobs and generally having a bit of a holiday. The day after I handed my last essay in I got one of those facebook memory notifications telling me that four years ago I had just heard that I’d been accepted into Edinburgh University! That’s a pretty poetic…