Genesis 1:21-23

"21So God created the large sea animals and every living thing that moves in the sea. The sea is filled with these living things with each one producing more of its own kind. He also made every bird that flies, and each bird produced more of its own kind. God saw that this was good. 22God blessed them and said, "Have many young ones so that you grow in number. Fill the water of the seas, and let the birds grow in number on the earth." 23Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fifth day."

I love sea animals the best of all animals, I think that they have a grace and beauty which cannot be reproduced by anything which is land based. The birds have a similar sort of beauty. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that they have freedom. They can go anywhere, at any time, no fences to stop them or people to control them. They have a freedom which we have taken from or denied to many of the animals who cohabit the dry land with us.

Rowen

Genesis 1:20

"Then God said, "Let the earth be filled with living things, and let birds fly in the air above the earth." "

This gives the impression of a small child who has a pet and decides he wants more, however it is tempered by God's reasoning which is simply for love.

Rowen

Church Fete

      Yesterday was my village's Church Fete, it is what I think could only be described as a traditional English Fete, one run by the village for the village. It is comprised of a BBQ, a Cake stall which always sells out, a china elephant stall, a book stall, an Ice cream stall and a refreshments stand. There are a number of games including; China smash, tombola, wheel of fortune, bouncy castle, ten pin bowling, darts and tombola. There are also two raffles; one run by the mother's union which gives away two hampers, and one which is run by the Church, full of prizes donated by Church members and Local businesses. It raises a lot of money which sometimes goes towards enabling the Church building to remain a safe environment for the villagers many of whom use it at least once a year and sometimes it gets donated to a Charity chosen by the PCC. I didn't actually take any photos of the Fete, although I took my Camera to do so. I was on the BBQ.
     I actually started this post because while I was there I visited the Book Stall which enabled me to purchase three books for only 60p... the fete is full of bargains if you look for them. Of the books I bought two were Mills and Boon Omnibus' because I like to have a number of them in reservse in case of emergencies but at the moment I resent buying them full price. I buy them second hand from the Village Fete and Bazaar and Charity shops, a number of the ones I have my mum had growing up, and then I was given bags full by my Great Aunt who I believe gets them second hand herself, and by my friends Grandmother who was going to get rid of them... my friend claimed them on my behalf. The third was a completely unexpected bargain at only 20p as I would have probably paid full price for it at some point.

  

   The First Omnibus is titled 'Blackmailed Brides' and is comprised of novelettes by Kim Lawrence, Carole Mortimer and Kathryn Ross. It was published in October 2006 I think, however it's hard to guess as you can only work from the dates on the adverts in the back which span a period of about 3 months. Carole Mortimer is one of my alltime favourite Mills and Boon authors, writing a few of the books which I have enjoyed the most.

   The Books appear to be about women who were blackmailed into being a bride or a similar situation, to save either their own or family pride, or even their job. These books are a sort which I fully expect to enjoy, they will be about three women who will be strong-minded and unwillingly coerced into spending too much time with an overpowering man. They will begin to fall in love against their better judgement. The men meanwhile will have been in love with the women from afar for a long time, but will have seen this as the only way to get the women to reciprocate.

 The second omnibus is titled 'Summer of Love' and it is made up of four novellettes by Candy Halliday, Holly Jacobs, Cathis Linz and Elise Title. They don't really seem to have any common quality except for the fact that they would all be incredibly easy to read whilst lying on a beach and getting a suntan. At a guess I would say they're probably all set at least partially in either the tropics or Australia.

    The first novelette is about a girls secret and much despised crush on the man who is living next door to her. Chances are they'll keep bumping into each other and she will at some point need his help. They'll soon become friends, but on their first outing together the sexual chemistry will erupt.

     The second is about a woman who is pretending to be pregnant and the chivalrous man who rushes to her rescue. My best guess would be that he becomes extremely cross when he finds out that she isn't and whisks her away to a secure place to demand answers.

     The third book is about a man who wants a wife just to be able to inherit his fortune. I once read a similar book and if it's anything alike the sworn bachelor and world-weary woman will fall in love far too quickly and wonder if it's fate which brought them together.

    The final book in the omnibus is about a private investigater who is going to turn on the charm for a one time crush. I'm not sure if I can quite guess the plot of this, but I have to say it intrigues me.

The final book and true bargain which I picked up is 'Tom Jones' by Henry Fielding. The reason that this is a bargain is because it appears in my 1001 books meaning that I would have had to've bought it at somepoint and would willingly have paid the full price of £5.03 as currently found on Amazon. I'm not entirely convinced I'll enjoy this book, however I'll read it anyway, hopefully it's purchase will help me to maintain a healthy momentum, and at only 20p I really don't mind. It is 854 pages long and was written a long time ago.

    Tom Jones is  a 'high-spirited' 'foundling of mysterious origins'. It describes how he falls in love with a woman who is unattainable, as the heros of these novels so often do. If nothing else I would imagine the book will shine a light on a number of habits and attitudes around at the period.

Rowen

Silhouette; Same Time, Next Year - Debbie Macomber; Hot Blooded - Carly Bishop

      Mills and Boon type books are an old favourite of mine, because they require so little effort to read they allow you to do nothing more than simply relax. At some point in the relatively recent past, in terms of the companies, Mills and Boon became a sub-publisher (not sure of the technical term) under the same people who publish silhouette books. They are relatively similar, following the same basic formula with the main difference being that Silhouette books are more often than not set in America while the Mills and Boon books tend to have heroines based in either Europe or Australia. The second difference is that Mills and Boon tend to be more traditional with rich do very little heroines and CEO's for leading men, while both partners tend to be working in the Silhouette books. Although I've read both and mind neither on the whole I've found I actually prefer MIlls and Boon books.
     I was in two minds about whether I should blog about these books, as I'm not entirely convinced I class them as real books, they're published for short periods of time only and as they were both published in the mid-90's the only places you'd find them nowadays are on ebay or in a Charity shop. As one of my original aims was to make my opinion of the books I read available to people who wanted to buy them I thought that I probably shouldn't post, however one of my other aims was to post about every book I read, and they may decide to reprint them at some point in the future so I thought why not. And hence there are two books being posted about together.
    There are two reasons I read these books in the past couple of weeks. The first reason is that I have exams for another week and have been in exam period for a while now, it wears me out and means I need a little bit of light relief every now and then. Secondly the book which I'm currently reading, The Riddle of the Sands, is incredibly slow paced and I just keep needing to take a break from it.

Hot Blooded - Carly Bishop
November 1995

     This book was ok. I actually tried to read it once before a couple of years ago, but got distracted and wandered off. Therefore I found it slightly repetitive as I started reading but that was left behind soon enough.
     My least favourite part of this book was that the way it was written it came across slightly muder-mystery styled. Murder mysteries aren't a style of book I particularly like so it had that detracted from it at the start. I also didn't particularly like the fact that they both had relatively important jobs in a research hospital yet never appeared to be working.
     I did quite like the essence of the story however, it fulfilled all of the basic required criteria, and I got something in the region of what I predicted I would. I was slightly disappointed with the ending because it didn't seem to complete, however I have the feeling that this is due to 'Hot Blooded' being the first of a trio of books. As I only have this one I'll never know if it completes itself fully, unless I manage to get hold of copies of 'Breathless' and 'Heart Throb' by the same author which were published in the successive months.
     The 'Pulse' series isn't my favourite of the series available to read, I think that could be because the hospital setting reminds me too much of watching episodes of Casualty on a saturday night. I prefer 'Desire' which tends to be much more fantastical.

Same Time, Next Year - Debbie Macomber
July 1995

    'Same Time, Next Year' was more the kind of book I love. I wasn't thrilled with it but it had the typical whirlwind romance/deep-seated attatchment that I was expecting. The storyline was fairly good for the first half of the book, but then the typical dilemna/major problem which always crops up in the second half of the book I felt was resolved far too easily and as a result was rendered lame.
    It was a book which once I picked up I didn't really want to put down, which can only be said to be to it's merit. As a result I finished reading it in about a day, luckily it was a friday, as I didn't put it down for the last time until about 00:30.
    I like the cover art this book has, as it more resembles that which was found on Mills and Boon in the 70's or 80's than many which can be found nowadays, and I think they really had some lovely covers then. Also I think that the picture actually shows people who are very similar to those described in the book. My only issue is that the female looks a bit like she is plotting something.

Rowen

Genesis 1:14-19

"14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night. These lights will be used for signs, seasons, days and years. 15They will be in the sky to give light to the earth." And so it happened.

16So God made the two large lights. He made the brighter light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17God put all these in the sky to shine on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that all these things were good. 19Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fourth day."

      When reading about day three I always forget that there is no light at that point. The image in my head is sunny and warm. God however did not forget. He was aware that there was no light, and he was also aware that life on earth would struggle without the warmth from the sun to keep it going. Therefore he created the sun which gave us warmth, the ability to grow things and the things needed to stay alive. He also created the moon, the body just beyond our planet which creates the seasons and the tides.

Rowen

Genesis 1:9-13

"9Then God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered together so the dry land will appear." And it happened. 10God named the dry land "earth" and the water that was gathered together "seas". God saw that this was good.

11Then God said, "Let the earth produce plants - some to make grain for seeds and others to make fruits with seeds in them. Every seed will produce more of it's own kind of plant." And it happened. 12The earth produced plants with grain for seeds, and trees that made fruits with seeds in them. Each seed grew its own kind of plant. God saw that all this was good. 13Evening passed, and morning came. This was the third day."

       The third day was always one of my favourites in this story. It was the one which saw the beginning of tranquil, undisturbed beauty. It saw the lands separated by sea, creating a home for many thousands of nations over many thousands of years.

      The thing which I love the most about this image is the fact that there are no people, no-one to mess it up. No one to drop litter and leave it there. No-one to be slowly killing this delicate, beautiful world. Just the plants which speak of life, the full cycle of life,  but at the same time everlasting life. When I hear this passage my head is filled with images of tendrils creeping towards the light. Neverending greenery.

Rowen

Genesis 1:6-8

"Then God said, "Let there be something to divide the water in two." So God made the air and placed some of the water above the air and some below it. God named the air "sky". Evening passed, and morning came. This was the second day."

       The second day of Creation and already God was creating the ability for life to come. The separation from the water, some below the air and some above it, was the basis for the water cycle, something which the planet needed if it was ever going to be able to support life.

       Personally I am of the opinion that the '7 days of creation' are metaphorical days, which in reality refer to large periods of history much longer, possibly as long as millenia. As God didn't actually create man until much later in the period it is possible that they refer to Days as God would view them. I once read a trilogy of books, by Terry Pratchett which was comprised of 'Truckers', 'Diggers' and 'Wings'. Those books were about people who were only 10 inches tall, or somewhere in that region, they were similar to the Borrowers, but for them a single one of our days lasted in the region of a week. I may be getting the details incorrect, it's been a while since i read them, but it gives you an idea. Anyway the reasoning for this is that they were smaller so for them time passed faster, they still noticed our night and day, but they also noticed more minor fluctuations in the light which we take no notice of. My reason for bringing that up is because I think it's a valid comparison between ourselves and God. We are so much smaller, so much less significant than him, that what would be a day for him would last a phenomenal amount of time longer for us, and as he was the only one around it would be he who would tell us, and he would tell us in terms of his own time span.

     Using that as my scenario I would place this 'Day' of creation at roughly the couple of millenia where Carbon started to come out of the rocks and form into CO2 which would in turn support my theory both Scientifically and Philosophically.

Rowen