Booklog #16 - plus a special request

I'll be honest with you, I haven't the heart to write much this week.  The earthquake/tsunami in Japan has really upset me - I love Japan (even though I haven't been there yet) and to see it being ripped apart and all those people killed or losing their homes just breaks my heart.  I just feel so powerless to help.  And even worse - because it's a wealthy and technologically advanced country (unlike Haiti for example) I worry that people will assume it can take care of itself, when in fact the combination of all the factors (quake, floods, nuclear issues) have made it a bigger disaster than I think even the Japanese could have been prepared for.  I want to ask whether you will consider donating to the organisations helping with recovery? 

In the UK: British Red Cross
In the USA: American Red Cross (or you can text REDCROSS to 90999 and it will donate $10)

There are also Save the Children and Shelterbox

I'm sure other countries also have charities that are helping, so if you're from elsewhere please do Google it and see what you can do to help.  Even if you can't help financially, please just help spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, anywhere you can. 

Just to keep up to date with the books...

This week I've finished:

* Where Angels Fear to Tread ~ E.M. Forster
Similar to A Room With A View, in that it concerns social niceties of an era gone by and doing what is perceived as The Done Thing, but I have to say that I didn't enjoy it much.  None of the characters have any redeeming features, they're all pretty selfish and self-absorbed and as such it was virtually impossible to identify with them.  The basic plot is that the daughter-in-law of a family goes on tour to Italy after the death of her husband (their son/brother) and while out there falls for and marries an Italian.  The very notion is abhorrent to the prim English family and they disown her, till they discover that she has died in childbirth, after which it becomes their mission to 'save' the baby from being brought up Italian.  While I don't think Forster is agreeing with them - rather he's showing them up - it's still pretty hard to read in this century without thinking "how xenophobic is this?".  It just didn't sit right with me.  2/5 (for the wonderful descriptive language)

* Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom ~ Cory Doctorow
I couldn't resist a Disney-related read, however small the link, but didn't quite know what to make of this.  It's sci-fi based - set about 100 years in the future, in a time where death no longer exists because people can upload their consciousness as a backup, so that if their body dies they can be downloaded into a new clone and carry on living.  This is a really clever idea, and it is well developed, but the hero, Jules, is more of an anti-hero (the 'down and out' of the title) and I don't really enjoy reading about those - they're all "woe is me".  He lives in Disney World and is trying both to solve his murder (he's just been rebooted in a new body) and also defend the Haunted Mansion from a rival team of ride engineers, who want to change it from a physical experience of the senses to a purely mental one where the experience is sent straight to your brain.  I loved the references to Disney World attractions, lands etc, and Jules' passion for keeping the Mansion close to what the original Imagineers created, but I just didn't like him or the other characters at all.  It did make me think though, and has inspired me to maybe write my own Disney-based story, even if just for my own enjoyment.  3/5

This week I've started:

Nothing new this week.

I'm still reading:

* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard
* The Best of Times ~ Penny Vincenzi
* Styx and Stones ~ Carola Dunn

Once again, please consider donating - anything, no matter how small, will help a beautiful country that really needs it right now.  Thank you.