Bookshop Spree

I haven't been able to find much at my favorite bookshop, Brook's Books (a.k.a the staff bookshop), recently.  I don't know if it's because Matt moans at me every time I bring home new books, or if the novelty has just worn off - but I'm thinking that the warehouse staff just aren't finding damages of the books I want to read...

Saying that, I found so much today and spent a grand total of £3.00 (I had one book of my allowance left to use, and two were in the proof section which means freebie!).

• Marco Polo New York & Lonely Plant USA - a girl can dream, right? I think I only get travel books to look up where's good to eat - everything else is irrelevant.

• Cat Out of Hell - Lynne Truss - I got serious Hell Train vibes from the title alone.

• Under My Skin - James Dawson - I really liked Say Her Name, so thought I'd try out some more Dawson!  Not that I don't have enough Dawson in my life already (Creek, Books, etc etc)

• The Well - Catherine Chanter - This is a birthday present for my Mum, as the book I had originally intended to get her was out of stock.  I liked the cover, and it sounded interesting so home with me it came.

• The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein, Illustrated by David Wenziel - I had reached the point where I had picked up a lot of books and needed a distraction for Matt.  I have found that if I bring him home a book, he's much happier to let five others in to the house....He loves The Hobbit so this was perfect. 

Week Ahead 23/07 - 29/07

The three books I aim to read by the end of this lovely sunny week.

Having read Janet Evanovich's Wicked Appetite earlier on in the year, I was happy to find it's sequel Wicked Business waiting for me on a library display.

Lizzy Tucker's once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel. 
  When Harvard University English professor and dyed-in-the-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust.  Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth-century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences.  On their way they'll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.
  Diesel's black sheep cousin, Gerwulf Grimoire, also wants the Stone.  His motives are far from pure, and what he plans on doing with the treasure no one knows...but Lizzy Tucker fears she's in his crosshairs.  Never far and always watching Grimoire has a growing ,vested interest in the cupcake-baker-turned-finder-of-lost-things.  As does another dangerous and dark opponent in the hunt - a devotee of lawlessness and chaos, known only as Anarchy.
  Treasures will be sought, and the power of lust will be unmistakable as Lizzy and Diesel attempt to stay ahead of Anarchy, Grimoire, and his medieval minion, Hatchet, in this ancient game of twisted riddles and high-stakes hide-and-seek.

Next is Lolita byVladimir Nabokov.   This was a spur of the moment pick, and the copy I have is part of the Penguin Essentials collection that are pocket sized with beautiful covers.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor.  In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her.  Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.
  Is he in love or insane?  A silver-tongued pet or a pervert?  A tortured soul or a monster?  Or is he all of these?

Last up Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiwan.  This is the first book I've ordered based on a recomendation through Good Reads.  If it's any good, I may have to try more of their suggestions!


To Meridia, growing up with her father Gabriel, who vanishes daily in clouds of mist, and her bewitching mother Ravenna, the outside world is a refuge.  So when, as a young woman, her true love Daniel offers her marriage, it seems an escape to a more straightforward experience.
  Yet behind the welcoming facade of her new home lies a life of drudgery and a story even stranger than that she left behind.  Aged retainers lurk in the background; swarms of bees appear at will; and, of course, there's he indomitable mother-in-law, Eva, hiding secrets that it will take Meridia years to unravel.  Surrounded by seemingly unfathomable mysteries, can Meridia unlock the intrigues of the past, and thus protect her own family's future?


Happy Reading! x

The Week Ahead 25/06

I have a confession to make: I'm running behind schedule.  I finished Down the Rabbit Hole, went to start Open City, and somehow got caught up with Louis Theroux and his Call of the Weird.  Therefore, I've tried to reduce the list this week with books I have already made an attempt at reading, so I can try and catch up.

First up is Tender Morsels.  I've had this for a while after seeing it in a 'fairytale twists' display in Waterstones Norwich, and started it a month ago, but couldn't gain any momentum when reading, and ended up passing it over for other books. This week is Tender Morsels last chance to impress me before it has to be returned to the library.


In her inspired re-working of the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red Margo Lanagan has created characters that are vivid, passionate, flawed and fiercely devoted to their hearts' desires, whether these desires are good or evil.  It is the story of two worlds - one real, one magical - and how, despite the safe haven her magical world offers to those who have suffered, her characters can never turn their backs on the real world, with all its beauty and brutality.

Next is Atonement.  I saw the film when I was at University, with no knowledge of Ian McEwan,  and then separately started reading other McEwan books (I read Saturday in conjunction with my Modernism and the City module and last year I read and reviewed Solar).  As there was a copy available in the library, I thought, why not?

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briny Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.  Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.
  By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed for ever.  Robbie and Cecilia will  have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination.  Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Finally, a change from novels I ordered Jo Shapcott's Of Mutability, which happens to be part of the Summer Reads Program '12.

In a series of fresh, unflinching poems, the author movingly explores morality and the nature of change: in the body and the natural world, and in the shifting relationships between people.  By turns grave and playful, arresting and witty, the poems in Of Mutability celebrate each waking moment as though it might be the last, and in so doing restore wonder to the smallest of encounters.



Happy Reading, and here's hoping I don't fall behind. x

Spell Bound

Starting directly after the events of Waking the Witch, Savannah Levine has lost her most powerful asset - her magic.  With a witch hunter after her, and something much bigger brewing in the supernatural world, now is not the best time for her to feel powerless.


Kelley Armstrong's penultimate Women of the Otherworld series did not disappoint.  If anything I grew sadder that the series is about to end when she can deliver a novel like this.  It was filler, tying up loose ends and setting up the endgame, but proper filler with a core story: Growing Up.  Yes Savannah is 22, and she's an adult in a literal sense but emotionally she's still been that cocky twelve year old girl I first read about in (book 2) Stolen.  Nearly everyone from the series makes a cameo of sorts, but it never felt forced or unnecessary, each meeting was helping the story edge along.

I was getting to the end and was like, hang on, I want more!  Which is always a great feeling.  I hope Armstrong can wrap up the Otherworld, not neatly or too mushily, but with the amazing flair that has kept me hooked for 12 books.