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Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Pink Literature

Pink Friday's a day late!


The ladies and I have finally managed to get our act together and set up a book club. Hoorah!  

Our first meeting will take place this Sunday where we'll be discussing the finer details like how often we'll meet, how we'll choose the titles and all that jazz.  The founding members and I have decided which book we're going to read first just to get the ol' ball rolling.

It may not be the most obvious choice for a book club (or the cheeriest read!) but it's a classic and it's the book most of us already own.  Are you sitting at the edge of your seat yet?  

We'll be reading Ernest Hemingway's 'A Farewell To Arms'.

In honour of this momentous occasion I've chosen some pretty cute pink books for Pink Friday.  Click through their captions to find out how you can buy these gorgeous editions.

Have you read 'A Farewell to Arms'?  What did you think?? 

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10 Reasons Why I Don't Own a Kindle

And never will.

 
Found on We Heart It

As someone who loves to read and is always reading multiple books at one time,  you'd think a Kindle would be at the top of my Christmas wish list.  Not only was it not on my Christmas wishlist it but it will never be on a wishlist of any kind.

To be honest, I haven't done much research into e-readers and maybe once I do, I will be convinced otherwise.  I think the pros are obvious so I won't go into them here, but below are the reasons I won't be purchasing an e-reader anytime soon:

1. Your book collection is something to be proud of.   You can have fun arranging them by topic or colour and they instantly become decorative items.

2.  You can tell a lot by someone's book collection and I love having friends peruse mine. I can suggest ones for them to read and they're a great conversation starter.

3. Which brings me to my next point in that you can actually LEND books to friends and then spend hours talking about them.

4.  I am a consumer victim.  I am so easily taken in by book reviews, advertisements etc.  If I could purchase a book and have it within my reading grasp within seconds, I'd hate to think of the potential damage caused to my bank balance.

5.  You can use a real-life PEN to actually WRITE real-life notes on the side.  Truth be told, I almost NEVER write in my books but I like to keep my options open. 

6.  Is there anything more exciting than getting that Amazon box in the post filled with new goodies to read?!

7.  I already spend so much of my time reading a screen.  I don't need to be doing that during my downtime as well.

8.  Book covers = pretty.  So useful to judge them by.

9. Bookstores and libraries.  If I had all the time in the world I'd spend it surrounded by books.  I hate hate clothes shopping but try keeping my out of a bookstore.

10.  My absolute favourite thing about books: they smell WONDERFUL.  Reading a book is as much a sensory experience for me as it is about the story itself.  Dipping my nose deep into the folds of old and new books is one of my favourite things to do.  You'll often see me flicking the pages quickly in front of my face as I breathe in the glorious smell.   Feeling the paper as I turn the pages and then the corners to save my spot - it's almost a ritualistic thing.  And I love the sense of achievement you get when you see the turned corners move further down the pages as you near the end.

Although... I said similar things about switching over from CDs to digital downloads and now I can't remember the last time I bought a CD....

Only time will tell.  But for the moment, I am sticking firmly with the bricks and mortar variety of reading.


Where do you stand on the Kindle vs. Real Books debate?

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Made in America

Where else!?

If you've wandered down to the bottom right of my blog lately you may have noticed that I am currently nose-deep in Bill Bryson's Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.  This little beauty is a bit of a drip-feed of a treat.  It's easy to jump in and out of and every time I do I learn something new and interesting.  So, what I thought would be cool is if I added a little tit-bit of something I learnt at the end of each of my daily posts.  That way, you guys can learn something new every day too.

To start things off, one of my favourite topics: chocolate.

Has the idea of chocolate-covered ants or chicken and chocolate sauce ever put you off the good stuff? Well, in the early days of chocolate bars, when they were first unleashed on the nation in the 1920s, they couldn't wait to cover things with chocolate.  One such candy bar was the Vegetable Sandwich, which, as you may have guessed was made of chocolate covered vegetables.  It's biggest selling point? 'The solemn assurance that 'it will not constipate'.  It contained cabbage, celery, peppers and tomatoes.  YUM!


Another such treat was the Chicken Dinner candy bar, "so-called because it was supposed to engender the feeling of well-being provided by a steaming roast chicken dinner.  Though few people were able to make the leap of imagination necessary to equate a chocolate peanut roll with a well-balanced meal, the Chicken Dinner sold well and survived well into the 1960s."

Are there any strange and wonderful chocolate related goodies where you're from? Would love to hear about them!
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Re-reading and all that jazz

I am, therefore I read.

I envy those people who have the patience and endurance to re-read books they once enjoyed.  I just can't bring myself to do it.  There are so many books out there that I'm just dying to sink my teeth into so I see it as a monumental waste of time to re-read a book - admittedly one I enjoyed immensely at the time - when I have already gotten everything I can out of it,  learned everything I ever will from it.  I have an unquenchable thirst to constantly learn and experience new things and because of this, re-reading just doesn't appeal.  But then, I know so many people who do it.  One of them being my Mister, who only really ever reads books he's already read. And it kinda makes me angry.....

I even considered once devoting a whole year to re-reading books.  This is kinda what that year would look like:


Cloud Atlas: A Novel

There are no words. Oh, wait, maybe one - EPIC.  And now The Wachowski Brothers, of The Matrix fame, are making a film to star Tom Hanks (could I BE more excited?!), Halle Berry and Jim Broadbent (l.o.v.e him).  More on that story here.


The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

It will inspire.  Fact.  Gretchen also runs a blog to help everyone keep up with their happiness resolutions.  You can follow that here.


The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us

Positively fascinating, whether you like bees or not.


A Short History of Nearly Everything

Easily accessible - and very very funny -  tome on the history of the creation of the earth. It will blow your mind.  I couldn't put it down.


Don Quixote (Penguin Classics)

It is BIG. I know.  But the comedy is so ahead of it's time.  A Monty Python movie set in 15th century Spain.  And you'll be so proud of yourself when you finish it.


Life of Pi

The ending of this book has stayed with me forever.  Absolutely haunting.

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What do you say, is there true value in re-reading books?

Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth

1000 ultimate travel experiences.


Find it here on Amazon

 Yesterday, the Mister and I decided to chill by my sister's roof terrace pool.  It was positively gorgeous.  As I was coming to the end of my highly enjoyable 'Eat, Pray, Love' I came across the above delectable tome of absolute JOY in her library.  I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and devour every single one of the '1000 ultimate travel experiences'.  Believe you me, I plan to read this little beauty from cover to cover.  And if you're interested, I'll pick out my faves and share them with you all.

Can. Not. Wait.

Hugs and cupcakes, 

Maria xx

Read-a-long

I should be planning a wedding but instead I'm reading these beauties.
 

 









Books I'm hankering to read this summer.








Again, cos it's THAT good


Keep track of what you're reading with GoodReads.com.  Very good stuff.



Thanks for checking in and have a great week!
Maria xx