Picture of the day 29/05/2011

Lovely evening spent with The Boy, drinking cocktails in a a lantern lit garden.

This bookworm’s blog

This little blog started out as just a place for me to talk about books. At the time, I didn’t have many people in my life I could have literary conversations with, so blogging was an outlet for all my bookish thoughts, raves and rants.

What kept me blogging, albeit a bit sporadically at times, was the interaction with all the bookworms out there. I’ve met some wonderful people and I’ve come to think of them as friends, even though The Boy insists on making the distinction between real life friends and my “book-friends” as he calls them. I don’t share his opinion. I mean, as time went by, I got to know not only what books they like and don’t like but also about their jobs, their pets, their lives. I talk to some of them on Twitter about everything under the Sun, practically everyday, which is a lot more often than I see some of my friends.

Eventually, I stopped blogging only about books and now I just write about anything, my travels, my studies, my shoes, The Boy. And because I fancy myself a photographer, I post many, many pictures. It feels like I’m sharing my life with good friends. This is why I’ve greatly enjoyed this ArmchairBEA, it was an amazing opportunity to meet incredible people and socialize, and even attend my very first Twitter party.

Anyway, I think I’m going to wrap up this random post and go read some of the many new blogs that are threatening to make my google reader explode. What do you love most about the book blogging world?

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

If I had to describe this book in one word it would be brilliant. It really is very, very good and I can’t recommend it enough. It was my first Atwood who I think along with Isabel Allende is my big bookish discovery of 2011. I loved the way she writes and this book drew me in instantly. How could it not? After all, the first sentence is intense: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge”.

I suppose that line sets the tone of the whole book because it is intense and hard and sad throughout and yet written in a very simple, clean way. The narrator, Iris, now a very old woman, is remembering her life with her sister, and it is an intriguing tale. Knowing that Laura dies right from the start only made reading the book more exciting, I was constantly trying to guess what happened to lead to that tragic event.

Iris is not a particularly likeable character, at least for me. She has redeeming qualities, like how people always thought she ought to protect Laura and how pressured that made her feel, and the fact that she is dying of course made me sympathetic towards her. But I still can’t get over how apathetic and passive and lacking in courage she was. It seems to me that she lived her life letting things just happen to her, not really ever taking action and doing what she knew was right.

What I loved most about this book is that there is a story within the story. Interwoven with Iris’ memoirs is the novel called The Blind Assassin, that is attributed to Laura and was published after her death. Inside that book is yet another story, one set in a different world and actually involves a blind assassin. The succession of chapters from these books gradually reveals what happened to the sisters in a genius way that kept me hooked.

A few passages that I liked:

“Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence.”

“More and more I feel like a letter – deposited here, collected there. But a letter addressed to no one.”

“… I spent the interval reclining on the parlour sofa, like some vaporous heroine who’s been forgotten in the pages of her own book and left to yellow and mildew and crumble away like the book itself.”

EDIT: Just yesterday I read a post by Kristie where she mentioned she wants to read The Penelopiad. I immediately made a note to hunt this down at the library, I’m very keen to read more of Atwood’s books. Has anyone read this?

Best of 2011… so far

So I’m supposed to pick my favourite book of the year so far and I find myself in a bit of a bind. You see, most of the books I read this year I loved. In fact I was thinking the other day that I need to post some bad reviews to have some balance. Also, it seems to me that roasts are more fun to write (insert evil laugh here).

Anyway, I managed to pick one book as my best book of 2011 so far, and that book is The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. It was the first of her books that I read and I’m still kicking myself for avoiding it for so many years.

It’s an epic family story, spawning many generations. My favourite thing about this book is how effortlessly the author manages to intertwine a few supernatural elements with the real world. The book is very much about harsh realities like war, rape, revenge, and yet there is also Rosa, the gorgeous, green-haired creature and Clara who communicates with spirits and predicts the future.

I think Allende did a brilliant job transporting the reader to a time and a place long gone and I found that the book and the characters stayed with me after I was done reading. This book is highly recommended, and I would love to hear your thoughts if you do read it. If you want to know more, here is my full review of the book.

And just because I couldn’t resist: honourable mention goes to The Help by Kathryn Stockett (read my review here) and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (review to come).

What was your favourite book of the year so far?

This bookworm…

… owns too many books and too few bookshelves

… considers London her home town

… will read anything that strikes her fancy

… enjoys long walks in the countryside

… has “proximity to the library” on her list when looking for a flat

… loves not-so-sensible shoes, charm necklaces and MAC blush

… dreams of travelling all over the world

… adores Bertie Wooster and his words of wisdom

… thinks that pretty flowers in vases are worth the hay fever

… will be a doctor, the Ross Geller kind

… wishes she had freckles

… has read The Iliad and The Odyssey in ancient Greek

… would like to make your acquaintance, so why don’t you come and say hi? Are you excited for the Armchair BEA?

This post is the first in the week-long series for Armchair BEA.

Escape to the countryside

Just as planned, I managed to avoid the royal wedding mania that took over London and escape to the countryside for the second long weekend. And it was perfect. It was extremely relaxing and only made me want a cottage in the country (or at least a garden) even more. You see, I may have always been a city girl, but I just adore the english countryside. These are a few of my favourite things about Spring in the countryside…

The sun shining over delicate white flowers sprinkled all over meadows. Walking under the shade of tall trees, their leaves rustling in the wind to sound almost like waves on the sea.

Long strolls through the woods, taking care not to step on the myriads of bluebells. Cycling from village to village with stops at proper country pubs. Walking down leafy country lanes to reach medieval parish churches.

Enjoying the late afternoon sun among the wild flowers by a tiny little lake. The flowers on the hedge enclosing a cottage that looks as if it belongs in a fairytale. The luscious green of the forest after a spring shower.

What do you love most about the countryside? What are your favourite things to do in the Spring?

All pictures taken by me in Suffolk.