R is My World

I kind of disappeared from my blog about seven months ago. A lot of things happened and a lot of things changed. So what really happened? The short and long answer is I fell in love. I started running to become fit and before I knew it I was running five times a week and getting better with every run. I still enjoyed reading books, but didn’t talk or write much about them. From one book and run to another I became more secluded in my own world and I realised I was missing something from my ‘previous’ life. I have missed talking about books and meeting people who, like me, attend book events. I went to Peter V Brett and Joe Abercrombie events and it jerked me out of my sole fitness obsession back to what I have always loved. Now, I try gradually to get back to talking about books here on my blog.

Peter V Brett

Joe Abercrombie

I have booked lots of Edinburgh Book Festival and Bloody Scotland events and am really looking forward to getting immersed in the bookish ambiance. I can’t wait to meet old friends, who I used to attend events with, and new ones. Another exciting thing is that I am a juror for the British Fantasy Awards again this year. Together with two other jurors we are going to pick the best fantasy novel:

Best fantasy novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Breed, KT Davies (Fox Spirit Books)
City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Jo Fletcher Books)
Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s Books)
A Man Lies Dreaming, Lavie Tidhar (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Moon King, Neil Williamson (NewCon Press)
The Relic Guild, Edward Cox (Gollancz)

All six titles are great books and it is going to be extremely difficult to pick just one winner, but I am looking forward to the book banter with my co-jurors. 🙂

The Guardian on the British Fantasy Awards shortlist: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/21/british-fantasy-awards-shortlists-lavie-tidhar-man-lies-dreaming?CMP=twt_books%5Egdnbook

R is my world – I love getting up early for a run and that’s something from someone who is not a morning person. I fall asleep happily after reading that one more chapter. The biggest problem I have had is finding the right balance between my running and reading. Reading past my bed time and getting up earlier than usually has made me feel like a zombie occasionally. My training for my very first half-marathon leaves me totally exhausted sometimes and finding time for more reading is not easy. I am not even going to mention how I neglected my amazing partner who has been very supportive throughout my whole journey – for that I love him even more; if it’s possible. The positive thing of the whole personal journey is that I not only got really fit but also did find something new I love and something that makes me really happy. I realised how much more I am capable of and that I love seeing myself getting better than my yesterday’s self – even if my legs do hate me sometimes. 😉 So if you see me reading a book in my running shoes just steer me towards the nearest coffee shop for my fix of caffeine and cake. Another bonus of running is this incredible amount of cake that can be consumed guilt free. Yesterday I had a brilliant day – a 10 mile run, then cake, coffee and my feet up for reading.