City Adventures

Hello everyone, last week for my day off I headed into the city and I thought that I would share my fabulous day out with you all. I headed in a bit later than expected so my first order of business was lunch. I had been reading about a small cafe hidden away called The Manchester Press. It has brilliant reviews and the menu looked really good. It is located off of little Bourke street and despite being tucked away in an alley it was really busy. I highly recommend turning up early for luch. There is only communal seating available and as such it has a very vibrant atmosphere. The menu is quite small, it has a breakfast section however when it comes to lunch the options are between salads or bagels.

Despite the lack of option the food is really very good, fresh and flavoursome. The coffee that I ordered with my lunch was expertly prepared although for the size it was a little bit pricy. All in all I really enjoyed this cafe and am definitely looking forward to going back. My next stop was Target. Due to the fact that I have sensitive eyes and with summer coming I was in desperate need of new sunglasses which I found in no time. I also wanted to try out a brand called urban ritualle and from them I brought a perfume that smells like summer, fruity and floral at the same time.

Of course I had to visit a bookstore during my visit to the city so I went back to my favourite, The Book Grocer. The store has stopped moving around so much and the books are more consistent but they're all still $10 or under. I picked up 'Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley' by Alison Weir. I adore reading about Mary, queen of scots and despite this being a non-fiction piece I'm really excited about it. My other purchase was 'A Name in Blood' by Matt Rees, this is a historical romance with a mystery twist, right up my alley.

A quick trip to Lush to purchase some bath and body goodies and then back home. I hope you all enjoyed this post. Until next time,

Catherine

Current reads and piling books

My this week has gone quickly! Work has been keeping me very busy and very tired. None the less, in the time I've had to spare I've been reading 'Emma' written by Jane Austen. I was a bit stuck on what to read next, despite my piles of unread books, however that day I saw the very first episode of the web series adaptation of 'Emma' on YouTube and my mind had been made up. I'm really loving the book so far which is just a very typical Jane Austen, beautifully written and wonderfully descriptive. Not that there is anything at all typical about Jane Austen.

As for my other books they are still multiplying faster than I can read them. A couple of weeks ago I was at the market browsing the book stalls when I found a copy of 'The Scarlett Letter' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I've been looking into this ever since the movie 'Easy A' came out so I was very much pleased to find it. 

The week before last I spent the day out with my mother, we went shopping and I found some more Wordsworth editions that I couldn't pass up. The first was a collection of some of Charles Dickens shorter novels including: 'Oliver Twist', 'Hard Times', 'A Tale of Two Cities', and 'Great Expectations'. I do already have a copy of 'Great Expectations' but none of the other three and the Wordsworth editions are such good prices. 

The second was a complete collection of all of Lewis Carroll's writings which I was also excited to see. I really do enjoy reading Lewis Carroll so this was another must buy. I have also recently discovered that I am due for a free book at QBD and recently I have really been wanting a copy of 'War of the Worlds'. I read about the radio hoax again about a week ago and I've wanted to read it for quite a while so I've decided to finally get it.

Well that's all of my news for this week. What are you guys currently reading? Until next week,

Catherine

Of beasts and beings

A couple of weeks ago I purchased the novel 'Of Beasts and Beings' written by Ian Holding. I was fairly excited to read this as it looked really interesting but I was very close to being disappointed. Up until about the last three chapters I was fully prepared to give this a negative review, I stuck with it because the events were interesting but it was almost boring to read.

Whilst reading this I found the characters incredibly dull and emotionless. The words were there but there was no passion, no connection behind them. The story is told in two different perspectives by two different characters. The first is a slave who tells his story in a very cold and distant way. None of his companions are given names and are just referred to as 'he', 'she' and 'them'. This distant way of narrative is confusing because at one point he speaks of losing emotion along his journey. However the emotion was never truely there in the first place.

The second nararator is a school teacher in the process of packing up his life, selling his house and moving on. The lack of feeling here is appropriate for two reasons. First, the narrative is told in a journal form which is kept mainly for the purpose of recording rather than revealing secrets and true emotions. The second is that with this character he is experiencing a lack of care and overall feeling for his own life. However there are times in which emotion should have been present and wasn't. 

Yet I stuck with it, determined to finish the book and I'm glad that I did. The end revealed an incredibly surprising plot twist which explained the overall style of the novel and why emotion was all but abandoned.  For the serious reader, this book will be a worthwhile read and the ending will be much appreciated as it was for me. Until next time,

Catherine

Reading confessions

Following on from last weeks post I thought that I would write up some more of my reading trivia for you guys.

1. I used to mistreat books horribly as a child. I loved them but I never took very good care of them. Now I can't stand to see dog-eared pages and even lending out my books gives my heart palpitations. 

2. Because I have now become obsessively protective over my books I always have to use a bookmark. However sometimes I don't always have one near me. I will use anything as a bookmark so long as it's not the page itself. I'll use dust covers, spare bits of paper, receipts even clean, folded tissues. 

3. I buy books about three times faster than I read them. And occasionally I will buy a book that I know I will never read properly just because it looks interesting or is cheap.

4. I have a lot of trouble getting rid of books that I don't like. I have several books that I hated to read but every time I go to give them away I somehow talk myself out of it, I convince myself that maybe I will go back to them.

5. I hate borrowing library books. I tend to borrow a lot each time and I never have time to get through them all. In addition I hate time limits when it comes to my books and I'm always changing my mind about what I want to read.

6. I don't think I will ever buy a kindle. I will read the occasional online novel however it is only out of complete desperation. I still hate reading on a screen and I do think that if I were to buy one it would spend far to much time sitting unused.

Until next time,

Catherine

7 deadly sins of reading

Hello everyone, I thought I'd try to think outside the box this week and do something other than a book review. I know this tag circulated ages ago but I love watching and reading tag responses so I thought it would be fun to do. So without further ado here are my seven deadly sins of reading.

Greed. What are the most expensive and most inexpensive books in your collection?

The most expensive book in my collection is probably 'The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires' by Theresa Cheung. These element encyclopedias usually retail for about $50 in store but they are well worth it, they are stocked with information! As for my most inexpensive I actually have a collection. A couple of years ago my schools library decided to downsize (horrible I know) and they tried to sell as many books to students as they could. Toward the end they were selling them at 5c each. I still remember walking the 20 minutes home trying to carry up to 40 books in various bags.

Wrath. What author do you have a love/hate realtionship with?

For me this is Cornelia Funke the author of the Inkheart series. I really adore this series and her writing however she is one of those authors that messed up an important detail within her own story and this annoys me endlessly.

Gluttony. What book have you devoured over and over again without remorse? 

For me this is not one book but a series. I tend to reread series more than single books because I am the type of person who cannot just read the newley released book in a series, I have to go back and reread everything that happened up until the new book. So for this question I will choose 'The Rangers Apprentice' series. This is huge, with about 11 books to the whole series and I've reread it so many times between books that I think it must be the most read in my collection.

Sloth. What book have you neglected reading due to laziness? 

A couple of months ago I was reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and at the time I wasn't reading very often. It may sound bizarre but I got so frustrated that I was reading it slowly and I didn't want anyone to comment on how slowly I was reading it that I stopped and moved on to another book. I haven't gotten back to it yet.

Pride. What book do you talk about in order to make yourself sound like an intellectual reader?

Not so much one book but more of a selection. I will go on about my classics to make myself sound super intellectual. Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Oscar Wilde, the list goes on. I do genuinely enjoy reading them but I will bring them up to make myself sound smarter and more well read.

Lust. What attributes do you find most attractive in male or female characters?

Romance!! Most people who know me will know that I am a complete sucker for romance. However I always like to read about a strong female character. I talked ages ago about a romance book that I absolutely hated because the female character was so very weak willed, she pushed everyone away and spent time feeling sorry for herself. Wasn't a good read.

Envy. What book would you like to recieve as a gift?

I love a beautifully bound hardback. I've also really gotten into fairy tale collections during this past year. But I think that right now I would really love some more Jules Verne novels, I want to read them all!

Well that's all, let me know if your prefer these posts and what are some of your deadly reading sins? Until next time,

Catherine