Joy!

Courtesy of the Valentine weekend bookstore sale, 
  a present from my book-loving friend, Joel.   :)

It's certainly helped to pass the time whilst working on Hay Fever.

Happy 200th Birthday, P&P!

Zafon.

I fell in love with this book. Its characters.
The plot-line. The mirroring of stories. The suspense.

 

It comes to you highly, highly rated.
It's already left my shelves for the home of another, I believe in it that much.

 

Newly Revised Bookcase

I buy from charity shops; I'm rarely a giver, a passer-on type book-reader. I keep 'em all. Not unless I really disliked a read. In which case, I'd bag it up & leave it on a bus, a train, a bench on the Meadows. One woman's doom is another woman's escapism.
   I had a dream of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Of sliding ladders and coffee tables and comfy chairs. Of my very own library space with books going back to childhood & the ones I'd managed to retain from then. 
  The dream diminished about 7am this morning in the name of self-storage and Going Away. Hence this post is being written as a Holding Place to list all that I'm parting with (to Oxfam/friends over Amazon/eBay) so that one day when I'm less nomadic, I can rebuild and restructure again. Some of them I may well be happy with having read once, others I will want to own again & have in my possession. Frustratingly, some of them I've still not yet got round to* but this way I may yet still get there, one day.
  Although I feel to be parting with a lot, it's actually what I'm holding onto, what I don't want to Second Copy - aside my obvious favourites - which feels more telling: Drina Ballerina (the complete series), my C.19th US Writing & Culture texts, Riverside Chaucer...

Here we are then. 

The Ones Which Got Away:

Summer Reading, 2012

A Room With A View:

' .. But to Cecil, now that he was about to lose her, she seemed each moment more desirable. He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art. His brain recovered from the shock, and, in a burst of genuine devotion, he cried: 'But I love you, and I did think you loved me!'
  'I did not,' she said. 'I thought I did at first. I am sorry, and ought to have refused you this last time, too.'   (169, Penguin)

2012 thus far:

* Anna Karenina - read at intervals backstage throughout Act 1.
* Hallam Foe.
*  Quick skip & a dance through both The Paris Wife & Fifty Shades of Grey (meh).
* War & Peace, resumed reading from July 2010.

Meanwhile, Munroe's comic strip the other day amused.
(Disclaimer: Closest I've got to Atlas Shrugged is Cloud Atlas or Greek myth. 

But still,) I laughed.:

http://xkcd.com/1049/

Burgess | Update

I am going to brave A Clockwork Orange, if only to liberate it from my bookshelf, take out of my 'Recommended List' & send it to a better home over the ocean once I'm done. 

Not sure how much pleasure there is to be had in the reading of this one...

Beautiful! :)

Book Sculptures left all
across the City of Literature

Mystery book sculpture artist blazes a trail with amazing gifts

fifty poignant poem beginnings..

Book Backlog Which I Really
Need To Write About:

1. The Eyre Affair
2. The Book Thief
3. The Song Is You
4. So Many Ways To Begin
5. Redeeming Love
6. War & Peace

... but for now, I leave you with this, from the Stylist -

50 of poetry's most poignant lines

Enjoy! ... I did! :)

from the Stylist:

100 Best Films From Books We Love
Literary adaptations that stormed the big-screen

Although for me, there's definitely an I Capture The Castle-shaped hole.
Personal preference.

Hurrah for my other 2 big favourites though:
Cunningham's The Hours & The Princess Bride amongst others.