nourareads:

Book description:

Anne Fadiman is—by her own admission—the sort of person who learned about sex from her father’s copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate’s 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice. This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. 

Favorite quotes:

“If you ever break the spine of one of my books, I want you to know you might as well be breaking my own spine.”

“I don’t wish to be melodramatic, but you should know that if I can’t read or write, I’m finished.”

“Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.” 

Rating:

4 out of 5

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I’m back! (yay?) Sorry that it took me around 3 or 4 months to get back into the ‘swing’ of things but a lot has been happening and I didn’t have much time to read let alone ‘review’ anything. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little rusty.

So, Confessions of a Common Reader  was exactly what I needed to get out of the reading slump that I was (somewhat still) going through. It’s a collection of 12 essays about Fadiman’s life long journey with books, her love for the written word is almost tangible and as a fellow bibliophile I couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship towards the author. It’s like my love of books was finally validated by someone and that was nice. My only complaint, if at all, is that this collection was too short but now that I have read it I will definitely be looking for Fadiman’s other work.

Also, a huge thank you to the wonderful Meshari for getting me this book as a birthday present.

noura is back from her hiatus, everyone, go follow this brilliant human being for splendid book reviews since i’ll only be posting the books rated 4 or 5. 

Classic Novel iPad Covers | Holycool.net

b is for bad poetry by pamela august russell

Forget Shakespeare. Don’t count on Donne. Shelley and Keats: banished! And there’s absolutely no poet laureate from the golden or any other age. So fawning PhDs in love with little-understood verses by long-dead writers should go elsewhere. This is poetry for the rest of us—bad poetry

Pamela Russell’s unexalted (but thoroughly hysterical) poems mock, chide, accuse, tease, joke, undermine, point, and laugh at the world around us—and at anything that takes itself too seriously. Her non-canonical oeuvre includes: Tea For Two (A Tragedy); Nietzsche And The Ice-Cream Truck; Capitalism Can Fall Not Like I Fell For You; Inappropriately Touched By An Angel; Love Is Like A Toilet Bowl; and many more.

Who knew bad poetry could be so good!

very short and enjoyable. i didn’t laugh out loud but there were a few chuckles and a couple of ‘awwhs’. 

on goodreads
buy
writer’s blog

visual-poetry:

by pete spence

from the book »10 poems« (free download)

the strangers project - anonymous journal entries from complete strangers collected from all around the world

i was going to post this after i was done with my midterms, but this can’t wait. this project is absolutely beautiful, raw, real and at some times, sad, heartbreaking and joyous. you never know with these strangers. 

i love how anyone (including you, dear reader) can submit journal entries (handwritten or typed); some of them are even compiled into a book that you can buy or (download free digital version (limited time, so go download!)).

follow @StrangersProj on twitter for more information, thank yous and appreciation for this heartwarming project. 

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

f-f-t-t:

The complete short works, 65 short stories, in .epub format.

This collection gathers every short story written by V.N., including those originally written in Russian, those he wrote later in life in the English language, and also his single story written in French (Mademoiselle O). 

Nabokov’s short fiction works are like tiny, daunting puzzles. They dare you to attempt to unravel their linguistic and structural complexities, only luring you further down the rabbit hole.

Read More

update: this week is all about books and graphic novels

submit your favorite books and graphic novels as guest reviews. short reviews, nothing fancy (or making it fancy, it’s up to you)

the physics of imaginary objects by tina may hall.  

The Physics of Imaginary Objects,  in fifteen stories and a novella, offers a very different kind of short fiction, blending story with verse to evoke fantasy, allegory, metaphor, love, body, mind, and nearly every sensory perception. Weaving in and out of the space that connects life and death in mysterious ways, these texts use carefully honed language that suggests a newfound spirituality

guest reviewer #3: hayat. (@hayat_as)

Once you open the book, you are hauled by the titles like “How to Remember a Bird”, “A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Long-Gone Love”, “In Your Endeavors, You May Feel My Ghostly Presence” her pieces are beautifully detailed, so detailed it makes your reading breaks feel a bit more than closing a book then going back to it, she details the littles we barely notice so perfectly that when you finish a piece, every step of yours, every breath will taste/feel different.

The characters stay on you, not as a burden but they stay beneath your finger nails, they are there when you wake up and there to tell you her stories about them to sleep.

As a writer, it’s hard to figure out which detail to write about and which to leave unwritten. And Tina’s choices were brilliant. 

on goodreads
buy (via amazon)
download (message me)

jtotheizzoe:

Dreams of Space

A design and space science grand slam, behold these 1965 Looking Into Science textbook supplements. Originating in California, they are a memory of a time perhaps more creative and ambitious, in science and in art.

But as any reader of this or the many other blogs who feature science art knows, the talent evident in today’s works signal that there’s a wave of change coming. Sometimes, the best way to inspire the mind is to inspire the soul, for they never truly act alone.

If you love these, then immerse yourself in Dreams of Space, a blog dedicated solely to nonfiction children’s space flight books from 1945-1975. Especially be sure to check out this Czech pop-up book.

the boy in striped pyjamas (2008) (book) (film)

Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

on imdb
download ebook (message me)

the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky (film)(book)

Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. 

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix-tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. 

But Charlie can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up

both book and film made it to my top ten films. the film did the book justice (the book is always better, but some parts in the film made the book more ‘alive’?). overall, great everything. thank you mr. chbosky for a lovely (sometimes heartaching) experience in both the film and the book. a huge thank you to the actors and actresses who were absolutely perfect and true to the book. 

on goodreads
on imdb

bonus: here’s charlie’s mixtape. 

Charlie’s mixtape from insomwayne on 8tracks Radio.

Download free books!

stayy0ungandwild:

A fuckload of classic literature:

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
4. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5. Aesop’s Fables by Aesop
6. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
7. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
8. Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
9. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
11. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
12. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
13. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
14. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
15. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
16. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker
18. Dubliners by James Joyce
19. Emma by Jane Austen
20. Erewhon by Samuel Butler
21. For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke
22. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
23. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
24. Grimms Fairy Tales by the brothers Grimm
25. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
26. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
27. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
28. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
29. Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
30. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
31. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
32. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
33. Middlemarch by George Eliot
34. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
35. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
36. Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard by Joseph Conrad
37. Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
38. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
39. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
40. Paradise Lost by John Milton
41. Persuasion by Jane Austen
42. Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
43. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
44. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
45. Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
46. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
47. Swanns Way by Marcel Proust
48. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
49. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
50. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
51. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
52. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
53. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
54. The Great Gatsby
55. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
56. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
57. The Iliad by Homer
58. The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
59. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
60. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
61. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
62. The Odyssey by Homer
63. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
64. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
65. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
66. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
67. The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli
68. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
69. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
70. The Tales of Mother Goose by Charles Perrault
71. The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
72. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Duma
73. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
74. The Trial by Franz Kafka
75. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
76. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
77. Ulysses by James Joyce
78. Utopia by Sir Thomas More
79. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
81. Women In Love by D. H. Lawrence
82. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Click on the motherfucking Hypelinks bitches.

Here! Have a fuckload of modern literature, too!

1. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
2. A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
4. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
5. Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
6. Bossypants - Tina Fey
7. Breakfast At Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
8. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
9. Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
10. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
11. City of Bones - Cassandra Clare
12. Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare
13. Damned - Chuck Palahniuk
14. Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
15. Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris
16. Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
17. Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
18. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
19. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
20. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
21. Go The Fuck To Sleep - Adam Mansbach
22. I Am America (And So Can You!) - Stephen Colbert
23. I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore
24. Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
25. It - Stephen King
26. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
27. Lolita - Vladmir Nabokov
28. Marked - Kristin Cast
29. Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden
30. My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult
31. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
32. One Day - David Nicholls
33. Paper Towns - John Green
34. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief - Rick Riordan
35. Pretty Little Liars - Sara Shepard
36. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
37. Snow White And The Huntsman - Lily Blake
38. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
39. The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
40. The Giver - Lois Lowry
41. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
43. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
44. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks
45. The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
46. The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
47. The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot
48. The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien
49. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
50. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
51. Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom
52. Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
53. Vampire Diaries: The Awakening - L.J. Smith
54. Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
55. Wicked - Gregory Maguire

(Source: nachosauruz)