3 Books I Want To Re-read Soon-ish

I recently re-read One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. The previous and only other time I read it was in July 2014; I know this because I reviewed it in one of my very first blog posts. (The review is actually surprisingly good: it uses smart words like ‘corporate hegemony’ and only has one spelling mistake.)

One of the main things I discovered while re-reading the book was how little of the story I actually remembered. Most of my memories were linked to the feeling of the book, the epic writing style, the elements of magical realism etc. I had forgotten most of the characters and events.

20 Books I Will Always Recommend

I love lending books to people. It makes me very excited to share books I enjoyed with other people and even more excited to pick out a specific book I think they’ll like. One of my friends has been borrowing books from my personal library very frequently lately and we’ve gotten to a point where she only asks for ‘a new book’. She has no idea how AMAZING this is for me! I pick out books and she reads them without question!

I really love the book-recommendation function of the book blogging community, but I’ve realised that I myself hardly ever write posts that do that. To change that, here is a short selection of the books from my library that I often recommend to people ‘in real life’.

Annual Austen Binge & Rearranging My Top 3

** Contains spoilers for most Austen novels ** (Do I still have to warn you when a book is 200 years old?)

It is one of our family traditions to love Jane Austen. With a grandfather who has re-read Pride and Prejudice every Christmas for the last 50+ years to set the tone, how could we not? My mum showed me Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (the film with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman) when I was 14 years old, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I regularly watch adaptations of each of the ‘great six’ and started reading the books as soon as I had learnt enough English to understand them. I even used to have a habit of watching the 2005 BBC mini-series of Emma every time I got my heart broken by some boy, because “let us think of superior men, there are plenty more suitable suitors around”.

I’ve recently been listening to Austen’s novels as audio books. I found a recording of Pride and Prejudice on Librivox, an app with public domain audio books that I cannot recommend enough, and listened to it over the Christmas holidays. I had to get used to the American narrator for a few chapters, but after that it was very enjoyable. A few weeks ago I listened to Persuasion, then Sense and Sensibility and I’m currently listening to Emma. Someone has just gifted Jane Fairfax a pianoforte, but who could it be?!

Book | Halfway Into Vanity Fair (And A Bit Stuck)

A few months ago I felt a sudden urge to read a classic. (My taste for them was quelled for a while, but apparently it does return some two years or so after completing one’s English degree.) Fortunately, my love for books and my very well-read grandfather have supplied me with a decent collection (see below) so I only needed to take the two steps to my book cupboard and pick a volume off the shelf. Having heard it praised quite often throughout my studies, decided to read Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray.

My Weekend As A Candle-Waster | Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon

(I came across the word candle-waster on Twitter. Apparently it’s Shakespearean for bookworm. Tsss. We’re putting those candles to good use!)

This weekend I participated in my first-ever readathon. For those of you wondering what that is*: a readathon is an event where lots of booklovers gather on the internet to read intensely for a certain amount of time and post about it on social media.

*Probably only my family members who are so supportive that they read my blog but have no other exposure to the book blogging community. Thanks guys! ❤

Yay! These Books Were Made Into Films

Now that cinemas have started showing more ads and fewer trailers before their main films – has anyone else noticed this or is it just in Brussels? – I am more reliant than ever on the internet for suggestions for new films. Fortunately there’s always the YouTube algorithm to help me out ;). Here are some 2018 releases that I came across and I’m already looking forward to:

First of all, the film adaptation of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This book has been a favourite of mine for a few years so I’m very curious to see what they did with it. The music and scenic shots sound and look amazing!