'Cause it's been too long since the last pointless but fun meme-thing!

So, the quite-flexible rules:

1. Pick 10 11 ... 14 of your favorite books or series
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books!


1.  The corridor was long, and it was a good place to pick up speed, but the stone floor was covered in rugs, and a rumple at this point could be fatal.

2. It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind.

3. **** sped on up the hill. Every now and again he bent to the ground. **** go light, and their footprints are not easy for even a **** to read, but not far from the top a spring crossed the path, and in the wet earth he saw what he was seeking.

4. My Dear ****, I note what you say about guiding our patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf?

( Number 5 through 12 )I expect some of these to go completely unanswered. And I tried to make the obvious ones less so, to make it more interesting, so... go to, guys!

PS: For those that are from series or sequences of books, extra credit for guessing the specific book/segment!
PPS: Anyone who gets number 11 wins an internet.

I'm home!

Exams are oooover, and I survived my first trimester at University. I'm quite proud of myself, but am reserving final judgment until after exam results come out. After exams I went out with some old friends and new for a post-mortem and dinner at Nando's (Take note, Sounisian people. I totally only went there because I heard you all talking about it) and then gelato and bubble tea (NOM NOM NOM!) I also had my own private celebration by ducking into my favourite second-hand bookshop and buying myself two Dorothy L. Sayers books I'd put on hold. The joy of possession - I has it.


Three Whole Weeks. To do Whatever I Want. I think the occasion merits the gratuitous capitalisation. 

What have I done with my freedom so far?

Some looong over-due editing, some slightly tardy betaing, and even some of my own writing has finally been done. Yeah! I am accomplishing stuff!

I got sick. Blech. Every time I travel from home to uni or back again, I end up a sniffing, miserable mess. Could it possibly be the climate differences? Pass the echinacea, plz...

( I read Memory and Forged In The Fire and witter about them here in a slightly spoilerific way ) 

My school friends Ducky and Bear and I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies, back to back. Note well, not only did we watch all three, but they were the mega-awesome extended versions. We started at 6.10 in the evening and finished at 5.30 the next morning, still arguing over who was best: Aragorn, Boromir, or Faramir. (Yes, that is the kind of deep meditation Tolkien's epic inspires in our fangirl-y hearts. I am only slightly ashamed.) By the time we finished, we were holding our eyes open with our fingers, although I had slept right through Helm's Deep. That's what comes of living near a hospital - when the emergency helicopter doesn't wake you at night, it's a fair bet that 10,000 screaming Uruk-hai won't either.

( I baked, and took pictures )

Matariki, the Pleiades' rising, and Maori New Year, has come and gone. It's not an official holiday in NZ, but not for lack of trying, and has got increasing press these last few years. Seeing as we live in a part of the world where Christmas falls in Summer and Winter has no bright spots, my family always celebrates with a meal for the extended rellies, games and general jollification. We had a hangi (Maori roast, traditionally steamed underground, but we do it in an old beer keg with manuka sawdust) for dinner, and included mussels. Look what I found in one:
( Warning: may include close-ups of a crab ) 

And, just to complete the pic-spam, tiegirl  asked for some non-identifiable pictures of the area I live. Excited at the thought of exercising my camera, I immediately dragged tencups_i_swear out to take some snaps. We only managed to get a couple before the batteries died, but I found some other fairly generic pictures kicking around the hard-drive. They're all from around my home-town, not the city where I go to Uni.

.( Image-heavy! )
( Image-heavy! )
And that's all, folx!

*which exists in fiction only, yo. London in real life still looks pretty good.

PS: Happy Independence Day, Americans!

I'm living with family who are very scientifically-minded, and put up with my Arts degree with some joking eye-rolling. When I moved in, I bought a bookcase just so I could fit in all the books I brought from home. I've also been book-shopping today, to spend the book vouchers I got at my school prizegiving last year.


Tonight I had this little gem of a conversation:

Sceintifically-minded Uncle: It's nice having you, Te Aroha, cause you've brought all these great new books to the house.
Me: (looking around happily at my stacks of books) Yeah, they're fun reads. Feel free to borrow...
S-M U: It reminds me of when (Scientifically-Minded Aunt) was studying environmental sciences. She'd bring home all these books...
Me: Environmental Sciences?
S-M U: Yeah, great books, and - (catches sight of my face)
Me: *Is laughing hysterically*
S-M U: What? What?

To each his own, I guess...



For anyone interested, today I bought:
 A lovely copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S Lewis, my absolute favourite of the Narnia series, and the indispensible Penguin History of New Zealand, by the great and sadly lamented Historian Michael King. This is pretty much required reading for New Zealanders, and still in the top 100 NZ best-sellers list 5 years after publication. Not bad for a History book :D