Posted by hobbitnotes | Filed under literature,books,crazy things,
It seems crazy, but then again I she is a family friend and this is a small country where even the big publishing houses aren’t really that big. Oh, and she was really happy that I had a recommendation for her. apparently that’s something they do relay on quite a lot these days.
Mine was Zoya by Danielle Steele (meh).
Second was Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (better!)
Mine was The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Interesting :)
IT by Stephen King. Holy crap I’m scared of that story! I was forced to watch the movie at school years ago and wouldn’t want to go anywhere close the book or the movie ever again.
Day 14 — A non-fictional book
I was first thinking that I’d choose something that I have in my shelf but then I remembered I don’t really own the best non-fictional books I have read, so screw the rules I make to myself.
What I ended up picking Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. I’m a sucker for biographical books, travel books, memoirs etc. and I think (and I know I’m not alone with this) that Bill Bryson is the best current travel writer. He has written quite a few books about his travels and English language. He is funny and clever and he has unbelievable ability to fill the books with all these crazy details without making it heavy.
Notes from a Small Island, I think, is the most legendary of these books. Bryson is an US citizen who has lived most of his adult life in UK. Notes is a story of him traveling around UK before he and his family were going to move to US. He visits places that have some importance for him or that he has always wanted to visit. He stays in cheep B’n’Bs and walks to everywhere. I think it’s as much a story of his life in UK as it is about the island itself.
The book made me fall even more in love with UK than what I was before. And it made me all giggly and still kinda does. A truly good book I have to say. :)
Day 13 — A fictional book
This one was freakishly hard. I mean, if you tell me to pick a favourite something, I might say it’s hard, but at least I have a criteria of a sort to use. But when you tell me just to pick something, my head starts to get ingredibly cluttered and it come almost impossible for me to actually pick something.
I ended up choosing Slam by Nick Hornby. It’s a story from a perspective teenage skaterboy Sam, who meet a nice girl, gets together with her, break up with her and then learns that he got her pregnant. It’s a story about growing up faster than you should, learning that life doesn’t always give you what you want and hove to live with what you get.
I read this book last summer while I was travelling in Europe. I wasn’t planning to buy any books during the trip, but me being me, I ended up buying many. I bought Slam from a huge bookstore in Hamburg, Germany. The book was really touching and to me one of the strongest works of Hornby. It had the right kind of flow, a wonderful combination of reality and fantacy and such honesty that many writers can’t achieve. It was one of the best books I’ve read last year and I’m bit sorry that I didn’t keep the book but gave it to a friend. But still I’m pretty sure I’ll read it again at some point.
Posted by hobbitnotes | Filed under 30 day challenge,literature,books,Watership down,
So you might think that because I’m a bookworm and own several hundred books this would be a hard question for me to answer, but actually this is rather easy. Of course it’s not like I wouldn’t have many favorites or there wouldn’t be the seasonal favorites too. But Watership down by Richard Adams has been a clear number one for me since I first read it back when I was 14. That’s actually rather weird for me since I’m one of those people who have really hard time choosing a favorite of any kind when asked.
It’s actually pretty hard to say, what makes this book so special for me. On the surface it doesn’t really look superbly extraordinary. It’s a book about some rabbit colony that has to relocate because humans destroy their habitat when doing construction work. The relocation is not easy nor is their struggle to rebuild their colony and they face many hardships. I think it’s actually rather sharp picture of how communities work but also a beautiful portrait about how the rabbits learn about the world and how to cope in it.
I’ve always found it bit weird that this book is usually located to the fantasy section of libraries. I think that is because Adams has given the rabbits some human like emotions even tough I think it’s also rather true to the nature of rabbits. And I guess to me fantasy literature is more about witches and magic, mysterious creatures or parallel worlds. It not that I’m going to fight for this book to be transfered to the general fiction even tough I think that the fact that this book is located in fantasy alienates some readers that could really love this book. And that’s a pity.
Edit: I have the book as a Finnish paperback edition with this cover. Not the pretties, but don’t you dare to harm it, I love it so dear. (I’ve also “stolen” it from my parents, but I don’t think they miss it.)
brilliant folded paper animation
Would love to try making something like this…
Oh my god, this just blows my mind! I just wish I could be so talented that I could create something like this.
The Fiat Lux Lamp by Constance Guisset and Grégory Cid uses magnetism and a floating orb “switch” to fill your room with light. See that floating ball a few inches below the lamp? That ball remains fixed in space when the light is illuminated, and as soon as its user pulls that ball from orbit, the light turns off. When not in use, the ball rests magnetically attached to the side of the lamp, waiting to return to its glowing orbit. The photo gallery after the jump will give you a better idea of how this lamp works.
That’s just so cool…
By Georgia Russell
actually this is from Su Blackwell. here is the link: http://sublackwell.co.uk/gallery.php?item=15&id=6#15
I love these things!
This book was a true surprise to me how much I liked this book. I had no real image about what the book would be about and had never read any books by Paul Auster before. But this book was absolutely marvelous. The story was so light and still tasted so much like real life that it little by little sucked me into Brooklyn New York and to the diners, to Brightman’s Attic and to Hotel Existance. It made me feel warm and happy but still it was able to make quick turns and take me by surprice.
To me the core in this book was that no mater who people are and what they do they usually have good hearts and do not wish bad to others. The combination of two heroes and main characters, Nathan and Tom, worked to me very well. There was great dynamic between these two, Tom young and lost and Nathan retired, wise but pessimistic in the beginning. It’s wonderful how they meeting again changes the course of the life of both. Also I loved the variety of other characters in the book and definitely want to be Honey.
All in all this has definitely been one of the best books I’ve read this year.
(the picture was copied from http://meerchant.wordpress.com/ )
(via kindelling)
