Hello 2018

Hello everyone, 

Firstly: Happy New Year! I hope you all saw in the new year with family and friends around you. I had a lovely quiet evening of drinks chatting with my friends and Mr. GingerSnap :-) 

It's quite hard to believe that 2017 is already over, it was such an exciting year for us. I finished university after 5 years, got my dream job, travelled around the world with the man I love and then we moved to Devon to start a new chapter in our life. At the beginning of last year I thought that with such a busy year ahead I wouldn't have much time for reading and in some ways I was right, in others I was very wrong. The evidence is featured below! 

I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books, which thinking back is very un-ambitious. I ended up reading a phenomenal 113 books, which is more than I ever imagined myself reading! When I say I didn't have much time for reading, I promise I wasn't exaggerating. That fact can be seen in how low my average page length was. Due to lack of time I read a lot of novellas, poetry, plays and Penguin Little Black Classics. I really enjoyed most of the books I read this year and choosing a top 5 feels impossible, but I'll give it a try: 

1. The Truth by Terry Pratchett 

2. The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

3. Within The Sanctuary Of Wings by Marie Brennan

4. Villette by Charlotte Brontë

5. The Reader On The 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

So now that 2018 has unexpectedly rolled around the corner I am at my usual loss as to what resolutions to make. Every year I find myself scrambling for resolutions and choose ones unreasonable or impossible to achieve. 2018 will be different, I am going to set myself five bookish resolutions not only achievable, but fun to carry out. 

    1. I will try not set myself silly goals and challenges for my reading, they push me into a slump and suck the fun out of it for me. I am only going to take part in challenges I enjoy :-)

  2. 2018 is going to be the year of the big books. I want to read 5 BIG books. Now when I say big, I'm talking over 700 pages! 

3. I would like to read between 10 and 30 (or more, more is good) Penguin English Library titles. This list has so many amazing authors and stories featured, it will be perfect for expanding my knowledge of classics :-) 

 4. I would like to finish reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Last year I made it through just over half and I enjoyed every minute of it. Sherlock, this is your year!

  5. So often I end up reading authors I know and love, leaving me feeling guilty for not exploring new writers. I will remedy this by reading at least 5 books by authors I have never heard of. 

Those are all my sensible resolutions for the next year. I am so looking forward to getting stuck into these and feel like I am already making great strides towards this in today's read. I started and finished Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome today and am planning a review for later this week, so keep your eyes peeled bookworms! 

What have you been reading and what are your resolutions, bookish and non-bookish, for the coming year? Let me know in the comments below :-)

xoxo

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Christmas Reading List

Hello everyone! 

With Christmas just around the corner, I am very much looking forward to a few days off to enjoy the festivities. During the holiday period I like nothing more than cooking for my family, spending quality time with them and getting down to some good books.  

For all of us Goodreads fanatics the approach of Christmas often means the winding up of reading challenges and, for some, frantic turning of pages to reach a target. I don't like to set too high a target for myself, it puts the pressure on too much and I end up in a reading slump! This year I finished my goal in good time so am quite merrily ticking along reading whatever I feel like :-) That being said, I love thinking up reading lists for myself, so here is my rather ambitious Christmas tbr: 

- The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien

- Farmer Giles of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien

- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

- The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

I am already into The Swiss Family Robinson and Mansfield Park and very much enjoying them both. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion Mansfield Park may creep into my top books of the year! 

What have you got planned to read over the festive period? Let me know in the comments below :-) 

xoxo

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November Book Haul

Hello everyone! 

How is everyone doing? Not getting too frozen in the cold weather I hope :-) I'm back today with a little, okay maybe fairly big, book haul. I love going book shopping, to be honest even if I'm just browsing I love it! For me books are the ideal winter hobby, you can curl up with a blanket, a hot drink and enjoy a good story. It's complete heaven! 

At the moment I have been really into classics, something about winter and the back to school vibe always makes me want to read them. Also the Penguin Clothbound Classics are simply divine! They are seriously not helping my bank account or my rapidly diminishing shelf space. As you will no doubt have seen from the photo, I treated myself to a trio of these...

I just love the covers of these books, Coralie Bickford-Smith designs the most beautiful artwork. I think this collection is a triumph, and I am now the proud owner of four of them. Hopefully with more appearing on my shelves in the future! Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is decorated in pink and purple pomegranate patterns, these colours and the fruit of passion perfectly portray the very passionate nature of the heroine of the story. I'm hoping the red and orange fiery colours of Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence mean the story will also be fiery. In its day it was considered quite the scandalous tale, so I'm quite looking forward to comparing it to modern times. Now when it comes to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the cover speaks volumes (anyone like the bookish pun? No? Okay...). The anatomically correct hearts on the front give it such a dark edge and lead perfectly into the dark sciences the story is based on. 

The next book was a second hand bookstore find, which I'm actually really pleased about. This is one of the original hardback designs of the Discworld stories by Terry Pratchett. The Last Continent is one of the editions missing from my best friend's collection so I'm super excited to give it to her for Christmas :-) 

Finally, leaving the best to last really, is The Original Screenplay of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them by J. K. Rowling! I have been beyond excited about reading this since it was first announced. So yes I bought it yesterday and have already read it, I make no apologies for this! The design of this book is gorgeous, so I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak before I write a proper review later this week! 

Have you read any of these? Let me know what you've been hauling in the comments below :-) 

xoxo

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The Fox and The Star

Hello everyone! 

I hope you are all looking forward to the weekend, I know I am! The first week back at university is always quite intense and this year is certainly no exception. I haven't really had time for any long stints of reading so instead I turned to the short stories and wanted to share this review with you.

The Fox and The Star is a stunning debut book by Coralie Bickford-Smith. I had never heard of this author before, so here is a little about her. Coralie currently works at the Penguin Books publishing house designing covers and graphics for other books. Some of you may recognise her work from the gorgeous cloth-bound Penguin Classics released not too long ago, you can check out some of her work here. The Fox and The Star is her first published book and my word what a book to start on! I have to admit I didn't know anything about the story before I opened the book, I was drawn in by the cover art alone. 

The fox and The Star is a modern day fable, not dissimilar to the works of the celebrated french story teller Jean de la Fontaine. The story follows the journey of a young, timid fox guided by his friend Star. She lights his way and helps him to feel brave in the darkness, until one day she disappears. Fox is crushed and hides himself away deep in a burrow, but that is no life for a young fox so he ventures out to seek his star. He searches high and low, asking many creatures if they have seen her. Eventually his quest brings him to a new part of the forest, taking pity on him the forest shakes off her leaves to leave Fox a message. The message tells him to look up, he does so and his breath is taken away. His star was not alone in the night sky, she is one of millions, learning this gives Fox the courage to explore the world, safe in the knowledge that his star is up there somewhere watching over him. 

I loved this story so much that as soon as I had finished reading it, I turned back to page one and read it all over again. The art is so beautiful too, each page is a delight and made grin from ear to ear! I also love the morals behind this fable, I think taking a moral from a story is very personal, but I would like to share mine with you. Courage in even the darkest of times will be rewarded and that there is always light and joy if you only look for it hard enough. Some people will read this and just hear a nice tale, others will find deep meaning...isn't it wonderful that we all see something different? 

I'd love to hear what you guys thought of The Fox and The Star, did you just enjoy the story or did you read more into it? Let me know in the comments below :-) 

xoxo