Happy International Women’s Day! This is an important day to celebrate female achievement and how far we’ve come, whilst also acknowledging how far the world still has to go before we reach gender equality. In honour of this day I am about to start reading Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates, a shocking book cataloguing the normalisation of sexism in modern society. It’s going to make me angry and sad in equal measures, but The Everyday Sexism Project is very important. Learn more about it here.
Happy World Book Day everyone! What are you reading today? At the moment I am really enjoying Anjelica Huston’s memoir Watch Me, a journey through the glittering world of Hollywood and her tempestuous affair with Jack Nicholson!
How are you celebrating the world of books today?
As I was reshuffling the ridiculous amount of books on my bookshelf to make room for some more, I came across The Complete Yoga Tutor, and decided to give it a go. It’s a really interesting book which explains the history and origins of yoga as well as the anatomy behind it, and includes detailed pictures and instructions on how to perform both beginner and more advanced moves. Sadly I am not as flexible as I would like to be! But I am looking forward to progressing using this guide.
The Complete Yoga Tutor Mark Kan Gaia Books
Having been so impressed with The Fault in our Stars I decided to take a look at what else John Green has written, and really there’s no better place to start than with his debut, Looking for Alaska. I must say I am becoming quite a fan of his as I really enjoyed this novel too.
While both are YA fiction, this is where the similarities end. In Looking for Alaska Miles ‘Pudge’ Halter arrives at Culver Creek looking for the Great Perhaps – great adventures, great friends and good times. This he finds in the Colonel, Takumi and the unforgettable Alaska Young. The narrative follows them through the trials and tribulations of boarding school – dodging authority figures, pulling legendary pranks and getting even with the ‘weekday warriors’.
So I’m half way through reading Tom Barbash’s collection of short stories and I really wanted to talk about it. It’s very, very good! Another internship freebie, Stay Up With Me features thirteen short stories about love, loss and trying to connect with the people around us. So far it’s hard to pick a favourite! From the mother interfering in her son’s love life as a consequence of her marriage breakdown in The Break to the pain that the protagonist carries following the death of his brother in Howling at the Moon, this collection is incredibly moving. I finish each story eager for the next, which is definitely the mark of a successful short story collection.
I would highly recommend it.
Stay Up With Me Tom Barbash Simon & Schuster
A new internship means new books! And I’m really excited to have nabbed this one. The Hourglass Factory is Lucy Ribchester’s debut novel, and it sounds right up my street. Synopsis below:
1912 and London is in turmoil…
The suffragette movement is reaching fever pitch but for broke Fleet Street tomboy Frankie George, just getting by in the cut-throat world of newspapers is hard enough. Sent to interview trapeze artist Ebony Diamond, Frankie finds herself fascinated by the tightly laced acrobat and follows her across London to a Mayfair corset shop that hides more than one dark secret. Then Ebony Diamond mysteriously disappears in the middle of a performance, and Frankie is drawn into a world of tricks, society columnists, corset fetishists, suffragettes and circus freaks. How did Ebony vanish, who was she afraid of, and what goes on behind the doors of the mysterious Hourglass Factory?
From the newsrooms of Fleet Street to the drawing rooms of high society, the missing Ebony Diamond leads Frankie to the trail of a murderous villain with a plot more deadly than anyone could have imagined…
There’s a real buzz about this book and it’s had some great reviews, so I’m looking forward to reading it next.
Angela Carter is an incredible author, and The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is one of her most interesting works. In this collection of 10 short stories, Carter takes on a number of well-known fairy tales and reimagines them with a feminist slant.
The title story is Carter’s version of Bluebeard’s Castle, in which a young, poor, virgin girl weds the formidable Bluebeard, and is whisked off to his isolated, imposing castle. After disobeying her husband’s request not to explore the locked rooms of the castle, she stumbles upon his secret torture chamber, and learns the fate of both his previous wives and herself.
The new year brings new beginnings, new challenges and new resolutions! One of my many goals for this year is to learn to cook, and I have received two very beautiful and exciting books to help me on my way. The first is A Soup for Every Day from the New Covent Garden Food Co., which features 365 different soup recipes. These recipes are tailored towards the time of year and the food that is in season, and my attempt at New Year Root Vegetable soup was a great success! The recipes have simple instructions and are easy to follow, which is perfect for a total novice like me!
The second book is Honestly Healthy: Eat with your body in mind, the alkaline way. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book on social media, and I was drawn to the fact that all of the recipes are vegetarian. It arrived today and I’m really excited by it! Some of the ingredients may be a bit of a struggle to find (not sure my local Tesco stocks pink Himalayan salt!) but all of the food looks delicious, and healthy too. The section about the alkaline way of eating also looks interesting, although I’m not looking for a new ‘diet’ as such.
This was a really nice, unexpected present. From the Desk of Jane Austen is a beautifully presented collection of 100 postcards, decorated with quotes from the great writer. Beautiful illustrations and some great quotes.
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you are having a wonderful day, whatever you are up to. In our house we aren’t allowed to open presents until this afternoon, but on Christmas Eve we do get to open one gift. I received this book, Dogs Hanging Out of Windows and I love it! In my opinion there is nothing funnier than a dog with its head out of a moving car window, with the wind in its fur!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all.
literarylights 