Second attempt at a YouTube channel

A while back I started a YouTube channel to accompany this blog but I felt that I needed to have a very specific topic to cover instead of just a mix of my various interests (like this blog).

I've been spending a lot of time lately watching book review videos and even book hauls (these are strangely addictive) and so I thought I would contribute to the Booktuber community and start my very own channel.

So here's my first video. Enjoy!

Sports and beauty

I'm finally branching out and trying a genre I've never really had any interest on: sports biography. Maybe it's because of the upcoming Olympics or the 'athletic chic' fashion trend or maybe my mind's way of subconsciously telling me to start exercising but I'm really getting into sports and fitness lately. I'm actually annoyed at the fact that we don't have a sports channel.

So I'm just making do with reading sports biographies. Starting with Nadal: My Story. How could I possibly resist that cover. I'm really enjoying it so far. Nadal has always been one of those athletes that fascinated me. He just looks like one of those public figures who actually has a compelling story to tell, one that exists beyond the fame and what we see in the media.

I've recently formed a book club with some friends and our read of the month is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've attempted to read this before but I found it to be such a bore but now that I have matured (I hope) I've found it wildly funny. The characters are brilliant and the lines that come out of their mouths are just delicious. No wonder quotes from the book seem to appear all the time on my Tumblr news feed.

50 Books // The Bell Jar // # 4

Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar was written in the first person and it couldn't have been written in any other way. The immediacy  and urgency of the words allows the readers to feel exactly what she is feeling. Most books allows its readers to sympathise and relate to the characters they describe but this managed to make you feel like you are the character. So when she was descending into madness you felt like your mind was slowly eroding as well. When she doesn't sleep you suddenly felt lethargic. This is a dangerous book to read but it is well worth that risk.


The very first sentence mentions the Rosenbergs, a couple sentenced to death by electric chair for passing on sensitive information to the Soviets. It sets the scene perfectly. Historically, it reminded readers of the post-war ennui, the paranoia, the simmering panic brought upon a looming nuclear war. The image of the electric chair foreshadows the shock treatments Esther, the protagonist, undergoes. The execution, an untimely death, seems fitting for the story of a woman faced with the recourse of self-execution. 


The writing is what you would expect from a poet. Heavy use of imagery and emotive language but there is a plainness and frankness to it that made the prose complex without being overly rich. Plath's voice is strong and unique. I have not come across a narrator or a character like her but one thing that caught me by surprise was the humour she managed to inject into it. At times she was incredibly witty and darkly funny. Her sense of humour added another layer to her character I was not expecting and fortunately it did not disrupt the heavy, dire tone of the novel.


This is a hard book to recommend but it's one of those books everyone should read at least once in their life.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Top image was edited by me. Bottom image is owned by me.

50 Books // Jane Eyre // # 3

Reading Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre makes me yearn for a time when people spoke to each other with such grace and elegance coupled with an intensity of passion that is intermittently laced with the words they speak. It doesn't matter whether they are being cruel or nice or loving. Their utterance between one another never fail to express a potent emotion. Romantic passages like this:

"I sometimes have a queer

feeling with regard to you

- especially when you are near

me, as now: it is as if I

had a string somewhere under

my left ribs, tightly and

inextricably knotted to a

similar string situated in the

corresponding quarter of your

little frame. And if that

boisterous channel, and two

hundred miles or so of land

come broad between us, I am

afraid that cord of communion

will be snapt and then I've

a nervous notion I should take

to bleeding inwardly."

SWOONGASM.

I really like how it's in equal parts violent, romantic and dark. The entire novel feels like this with its gothic, romantic mood. It was perfectly balanced. Less gothic and dark and it would have been too sickly sweet to me.


The other thing I love most about this novel is the central heart, brain, soul and lung of this story: Jane Eyre herself, of course. Right after I finished the book, I posted this on my Tumblr:

"Just finished this last night, or rather, early morning at 4am.

I am in love with Jane Eyre. Not just the book itself but also the character. She is fiercely independent, burning with passion, highly intelligent, unpretentiously artistic and utters some of the sharpest, wittiest lines in literary history. 

The final half of the book gave me multiple heart aches from pure excitement, heartbreak and overwhelming happiness. 

This goes on my list of books I would recommend to anyone.

There are multiple film adaptations of this book. Please don’t use those as excuses to not read this. The book will always be better. Always."

I'll just leave it at that. 

I write on the books I read and I revisit those notes to write these posts. But for this one, every single time I open the book, as if by magic, I find myself re-reading parts of the novel. And I end up getting nothing done. That really shows how powerful Ms. Bronte's novel is. How it can just draw you in, and ask you to bring its story and its characters back to life. This is the kind of book when it is inappropriate to put the words 'The End' at the end because it just doesn't. Its traces will linger with you long after that final page is read and the book shut.

Links:

About the 50 Books Challenge

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Image was edited by me from this original source.

50 Books Challenge

In 2012, I've decided to take part in the 50 books challenge.

It's simple enough, finish 50 books from the 1st of January to 31st of December. After I finish a book I will write a post with thoughts, criticisms, and my general experience reading the book. I will also be posting a 'book poster' which will add a visual touch to the blog post, as well as an Instagram of the book cover. 

I may succeed, I may fail or the world may end (see Mayan calendar apocalypse).

Now I must confess I've kind of cheated already.

Bad start, I know, but technically it's not cheating. I think.

The books I'm reading this month (December 2011) I'm going to hold off finishing until January next year and since I'm over halfway through about seven books already, I'll be able to get a massive head start during January. 

So, it's not cheating. Just very cunning.

Have a Merry Christmas and a safe, wonderful New Year.

Links:

Most recent blog posts 

Goodreads account

List of the books I've read so far

Image edited by me. Original image here.

Norwegian Wood and marginalia

Reading as a little boy I always wondered why there were blank pages at the end of books. Wikipedia offers us a technical explanation. Those blank pages are a result from the convention of printing books in large sheets of paper and therefore sometimes one or several pages are left intentionally devoid of content at the end. 

When I was ten years old however, I concluded that those pages were meant to be written on for the reader. Sometimes I would write alternate endings for books. For someone like me who was left utterly depressed by the endings of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, I found joy in writing a happier conclusion for the Baudelaire triplets. 

Or I would play pretend-critic and wrote what I thought about the book or noted down chapters and pages that I know I would want to revisit later on. 

Now I've moved away from writing solely on the end pages and now habitually write on the margins of all pages in the book, underlining quotes, writing of-the-moment reactions (usually immature) or just thoughts inspired by the writing. 

It made reading an active experience which is an essential part of this pastime. This is important especially for younger generations who are used to media acting as interactive spaces for them. 

I found this act particularly useful when I read Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. A deeply saddening story about damaged, fragile minds. I found myself angered, depressed, amused and frustrated and writing about my thoughts was completely liberating. His writings are so beautiful that so many passages bore the underlines signifying their amazingness.  Murakami writes in a way that even the descriptions of the most banal object, character or setting can instigate a cleansing weeping session in one's room. It's like his words are stained with melancholy.

He is also quite blunt. He declares a character's death as if he was proclaiming the day's weather. The first sentence of the last chapter was written so plainly I had to re-read it several times to grasp what it actually meant despite its simple statement. A combination of shock and mournfulness swallowed me and I had to close the book to give me time to breathe. It was the first sentence of that chapter.

The characters are colourful, dark or just plain bizarre and they go in and out like ghosts. Once you start reading about one you end up forgetting about the others until you are jolted back to them.

Murakami is also a master of time. The narrative would weave the past, the present and the near future so seamlessly. It feels tightly constructed without being too antiseptic. 

If you have ever been interested in human beings and their minds and feelings, then please don't neglect reading this. 

All images are owned by me and cannot be reused without permission or crediting the original source.

Little White Lies

Look what came in the mail today! This is Issue 36 of Little White Lies. Yes, I know Issue 37 is already out but it takes forever to send a magazine from London all the way to Down Under. I love the films of Pedro Almodovar and I'm glad the very first issue I'm going to be reading is focused on his new film The Skin I Live In.

I have a thing for magazines with beautiful matte pages that feel more like you're holding a book than a magazine. Who likes glossy pages anyway? Not me.

On a side note, I've noticed that my blog has evolved and has turned more visually orientated so I've decided to create a Flickr account to accompany this blog.

Click here for Flickr. Add me as a contact/friend!

Make sure you catch up with the latest movie releases and enjoy your favourite movies again at lovefilm.com. Visit the site today and take advantage of a free trial when you sign up!

All images are owned by me and cannot be reused without my permission

Read Forever

This makes me want to make myself a cup of hot cocoa and snuggle with a book (or my iPad).

I don't like the assumption that e-readers are killing off physical books. Unless someone discovers that paper is poisonous and are a danger to our health, books are never going to go away. Sure, we may buy less hard copies of books if we opt to purchase a digital copy instead but I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm sure there's enough room for all formats. I can already hear the trees breathe a sigh of relief. Think of the paper we save!

After purchasing my iPad and using it to read books I've actually found myself purchasing more physical books because the iPad has instilled inside me this intense hunger for reading. Now I can call myself a voracious reader - I've always wanted to say that!

Currently reading at the moment:

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

Various university textbooks and academic readings.

Magazines I Religiously Read

frankie

Doesn't take itself too seriously. Ridiculously cute. Beautiful matte pages. The kind of magazine you would want to read in a quiet meadow where the rays of sunshine are just perfect - not too bright, not too dark. Think doves and butterflies flying overhead while a steaming cup of English breakfast (in a hand painted teacup, of course) sits next to you while you snuggle up in an oversized quilt made (with love) by your grandma.

RUSSH

This never fails to get my creative juices flowing. It just embodies cool. Every issue is dedicated to something different but always relates to creativity - 'The Art Issue', 'The Birth of Cool', 'It's Iconic' (influential people) and 'Fan For Life' (music fans and followers) are just a few things the magazine explores. 

Wallpaper*

The most expensive out of the bunch (which is why I only purchase the price-reduced semi-old issues), but well worth it. The pages burst with colour, ladened with beautiful and innovative design. It's inspirational, informative and extremely entertaining. 

Vogue Australia

I don't wear the clothes they show in their pages because a) I'm not a woman and b) I can't afford it. It is useful because it provides me with the inspiration to be experimental and fearless with how I style or present myself. Trends in womenswear can always translate to menswear and one doesn't necessarily have to purchase expensive designer clothes to convey a good sense of style. All you need is a thrift store and an unrestrained sense of imagination.

GQ

This is like a go-to guide. It is packed full of handy information every young man such as myself need to know. Whether it's finding the right suit or knowing which drinks are which, there's always something I didn't know (or didn't think I even need to know).