Giveaway!

Penguin Classics

! ! ! THE PROBLEMS SHOULD BE SORTED OUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AFTER WHICH YOU'LL BE ABLE TO ENTER ! ! !

As I told you yesterday, I've got some exciting news, and as you can tell from the title it's a giveaway! Beware this post will be filled with exclamation points...

So Penguin kindly provided me with some Penguin Pocket Classics to send to one lucky winner! And let me tell you, I'm ecstatic!

For the prize, one of you will be winning these:

  A Little Black Classic: Three Tang Dynasty Poets
                       This has loads of poems by these three chinese poets, and I really enjoyed it!

  A pocket book: n.27 Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Most of us have read The Little Prince, which I adore, and this one is a non-fiction book:

The aviator and author of The Little Prince describes vast,

otherworldly landscapes, crash landings and magical encounters

in his transcendent account of flying over the Sahara and the Andes.

  Another pocket book: n.10 The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
I chose this for some variety and I hope the winner will get lots from this book:

Set in a crubling Spanish mansion, this gloriously comic and

gothic novel follows the fortunes of an innocent young priest as he

enters a world of moral decadence, sexual intrigue and corruption.

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At this point you're all wondering how to enter the greatness, and I decided to do it on Goodreads, since that is the place I go for all things books: catalogs, lists, new releases & other people.

So the link is on the top right side of this page!

-> you just follow the link and press the button to enter the giveaway, no commenting or following needed for entry :D
You've got til the end of the month + a week & all the countries eligable will be listed there as well.

Read on lovelies & good luck to you all,

Sally

Penguin Classics : Metamorphosis

Pocket books, little black classics & review

A new series of thirty distinctive, unforgettable Penguin Classics in a beautiful new design and pocket-sized format, with coloured jackets echoing Penguin's original covers.

www.pocketpenguins.com

From the classic orange paperbacks to the clothbound covers, the Penguin that we all recognize has lots to offer. Penguin launched a new set of classics in the classic design, with the covers coloured to show the original language.

Among this new set of pocket classics, they launched a set of 126 short books - the Little Black Classics. Like every girl needing a little black dress, these tiny books are a fantastic way for diving into the world of literature. I've only read a couple, but I am officially in love with them! Poems, short stories and other stuff (though some only have a chapter or few from a whole book and I don't know what to think of that, maybe as a sample to see if you like the style?)... You can chuck one in your bag for wherever you go and read them in a moment. That is also the beauty with the sizes of the pocket book series.

www.littleblackclassics.com

I live in the faraway country of Finland and wasn't sure if these new books could be found. So I went to Helsinki and strolled around through multiple bookstores - and there they were, in Akateeminen kirjakauppa. A table of pocket books adorned with a penguin. The pricing is also very affordable - considering the quality - and the thing that sold them for me is the floppiness! Yup, you heard me, unlike most mass market paperbacks, and small paperbacks in general, these are not the stiff ones that are hard to read and inept to keeping a clean spine. And for that I give it an A+.

Then to the review of Metamorphosis:

*book kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review!*

  This pocket book: n.8 Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Featuring an ordinary man who wakes up to find himself turned

into a giant cockroach, Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black

humour, Metamorphosis, is brought together here with the best of his short stories.

I'd heard lots of things about this particular novel and had been wanting to read it for quite some time now. And at the same time it was worth the wait, but on the other hand, why didn't I pick this up sooner? So, yes I really liked the book and do recommend it. Also the fact that between the covers, this edition has lots of other goods to offer.

Goodreads' link & text:

From Meditation, a collection of his earlier studies; The Judgement, written in a single night of frenzied creativity; The Stoker, the first chapter of a novel set in America and a fascinating occasional peace, and The Aeroplanes at Brescia, Kafka's eyewitness account of an air display in 1909.

       Metamorphosis brought change, and alienation to a whole new level. As a cockroach one does not exaclty continue on like before. Then again a good way to impact people is to magnify and highlight the problems.

       The main character Gregor has to work through alienation and the disgust toward him from his family, not to mention trying to roll out of bed when your stuck on your shell.

    Kafka's imaginative ideas really brought to life the unforgettable struggles and thoughts that are enclosed in this book, and I think by reading it, one can learn quite a bit.

'I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.'

And for some exciting news come back tomorrow!!

Read on lovelies & good luck to you all,

Sally

Series I'm in the middle of

Currently

This won't be updated, last update: February 7th 2018

I've been trying to finish series, so here's a list that I'm currently reading (though most of these I am up-to-date with). And I didn't put the series that I don't plan on continuing! (I made one October 2016 though link, but for updated ones for both finished and the won't continue series go to my Goodreads shelves link)
Red marks that they're all out

   Kiss of Deception 2/3

The Raven Cycle 2/4

Pennyroyal Academy 2/3

An Ember in the Ashes 2/4?

The Fray Theory 1.5/?

My Lady Jane 1/3?
Renegades 1/2

    And I Darken 1/?

    Three Dark Crowns 1/?

    A Court of Thorns and Roses 1/?

    Throne of Glass 3/6

Will these continue?
Heist Society 3
Imposter 2

Graphic Novels
Fables 8/22
Batgirl 1
Bombshells 1
Ms Marvel 3

Read This Month

August

1. The Last Star, (Series Finisher)
2. Glass Sword
3. Ice Like Fire
4. Heart of Betrayal

Though this is the least amount of books I've read a month this year, I'm quite surprised by the amount since I'm in the middle of finals for school, so that's something. But three weeks and I'm free! Before the actual last ones next February, that is...

In any case, read on lovelies,

Sally

Book Craft

Folding

For some reason I decided to do a folding book craft, of which I've seen plenty of pictures. And so the journey began


1. Google & Decisions
I grabbed a book that I had DNF'd and was planning of getting rid of, and I started writing a list of options that I could do and questions I needed to search.
I'd recommend writing straight to the cover of the book since from that you can find out if you are actually capable of potentially destroying the book!


2. Math

So after those decisions and googling for answers, I started making claculations.

So the book had 336 pages and so 168 foldable ones.

Then I had four letters, and three spaces in between those letters so (168-3x4)/4=39 pages for each letter and that is easily dividable with 3 so the letters'll go well and always sectioned to 3 x13 pages.

3. Lines for help

I saw lots of different ways to start the folding, with an extra paper with the outlines, by drawing it straight to the pages etc. but I decided to just go with it and see how it went.

So I added guide lines in where to fold the top and sides (see picture) and started with the straight beginning of the letter L.

And then I started the smaller section for the bottom of the L.

4. Between letters
For between the letters when I fold the 4 pages I took the whole page and folded it in half to the spine and that brought some volume  and separation witht the letters.

5. O whole?
Then the tougher part. An O has a line at the top and bottom at the same time! So some more googeling and results - you fold one paper to make the top line and the next the bottom, and you rotate those.

6. Slants
In the O it was quite easy to just take the third of the pages and gradually make the edge wider to make it shape up, then make the whole and slant the other side in a similat fashion.

But with the V on the other hand, oh boy there were some problems. So the first third I folded from the top line I sketched in the beginning and same with the third third. Then the second third from the bottom. Then from the middle of the second third I started the slants going upwards. And in similar fashion the edges to the bottom. Makes sense right? Try to look at the pictures to figure it, I can't really explain it.

7. E with three lines?
So the E was easy again with the first straight line being the same with the L and the ending part the same with the O whole alternating with the top and bottom lines.
But in between these two parts (the one left and not folded in the picture) there are THREE lines at the same time. So I decided to do the same as with the two line whole but with alternating with the three instead (so first the left then middle and lastly right and again and again).

8. Tadaa?

So now it was done, but I decided to paint the edges with a red/black/silver concoction to bring that out even more.

And from this last photo you can see that when folding the top parts I didn't exactly follow the line I sketched in the beginning and that really didn't matter.

Read on lovelies,

Sally

Top 10 : Non-fiction

Non-fiction

If you've been reading my blog or Goodreads you might now that I don't really read non-fiction... So i decided to make a list of my top ones that I have read, since that makes sense right?
      And in no particular order:

1. We Should Hang Out Sometime, Josh Sunquist
        Comedy, stories about failed dates

2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling / Yes Please, Amy Poehler
        Comedy and thoughts (in the same since I remember them being good, but disappointing)

3. Seriously I'm Kidding, Ellen DeGeneres
        Comedy and thoughts

4. Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank Gilberth Jr. & Ernestine Gilberth Carey   link to my review
                 The title might ring a bell, and yes the movie is (losely) based on this book
        Comedy and thoughts to their father (of 12), a efficiency exprt

5. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
        Comedy, thoughts - graphic novel-ish

6. Soul Surfer, Bethany Hamilton
        Surfer + shark attack = adapting

7. Going Solo, Roald Dahl
        Roald Dahl as a pilot and such in the second WW

8. What If?, Randall Munroe
        Serious scientific answers to ridiculous questions

9. Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
        Explaining hard things with only the most common words used

10. Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik
        Exploring science and materials, in a really interesting way

Read on lovelies,

Sally

Bookish websites

/things you should check out

1. Recovering the Classics has all kinds of new covers for classics, and let me tell you: they are so well done! One of my faves is Dracula by Steve St. Pierre.
The website works by showing fan made covers for classics in an attempt to spread the joy of them.

2. From Cover to Cover is an ongoing project where the maker designs new covers for books they've read.
One of my faves is the Book Thief.

3. For great bookish ideas to buy and see RedBubble & Bookishly are the ways to go

4. For keeping up with all my readings/new releases & other fun stuff I use Goodreads (link to my page).

5. For finding free & cheap eBooks I use BookBub, where you sign up (for free), pick the genres you read and your preference on what platform you read on (kindle, kobo, etc.), and they send you lists of ebooks you might be interested every so often you want.

6. If you are a writer and/or just simply love writing, NaNoWriMo is for you. During November you have 30 days to write a 50 000 word novel. They boost you up and though it might not be for you, you should still check it out.

7. And lastly the place I go to for bookish pictures, text posts & randomness is Tumblr (link to my page).


BONUS:
Nothing to do with books BUT it is just amazing:
27 Incredible Views You'd Only See If You Were A Bird link
&
giant hyperrealistic scluptures of everyday objects by Rmulo Celdrn link

Read on lovelies,

Sally