Rainy Day Reads

So I did end up catching that flu bug that’s going around. My immune system held up for over 2 weeks though, so that’s rad. What’s not rad is how this flu is STILL going around even after more than two weeks. Anyway, I’m holed up in bed, because I’m too sick to get up and do anything remotely productive in between naps, and that's driving me nuts. So what better thing to do than to discuss all of the artsy books from 2017? {NOTE: And then I waited a FULL week to edit. Write when sick and delirious, edit when lucid and well is my personal version of that Ernest Hemingway quote, apparently} These are the books that are hard to describe under any other category, and are works of art. Or just the ones that are really, really, pretty. You know, artsy . And as usual, this isn't in any particular order. Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady My biology teacher from a couple years ago recommended this to me. It's absolutely beautiful. The author, Edith...

I buy most of my books used. And one cool thing about used books is that they already come with personal histories. Books with histories are the ones where previous owners have left fun inscriptions or bookplates, and are most likely purchased at a used bookstore. You can tell that they've already been read and loved. They've been dog-eared, annotated, and have the names of previous owners written on the title page. Sometimes I buy books mostly because I think that the bookplates or inscriptions are really interesting. Sometimes I buy books then add annotations, bookplates, and stories of my own. Some of the previous owners have cool names, or someone wrote an interesting note on one of the pages, then obviously gifted the book to someone. I usually take hipster Instagram pictures of cool used books, or of the bookplates. I decided to start sharing these books' histories.

This is my very large and very beautiful volume of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. It's seven hundred pages, with embossed, intricate Celtic designs, gold edged pages, and the size of an old church bible. I purchased it shortly after Christmas last year, and have been chipping away at reading it for the last five months (according to my Goodreads activity). I got it because I love me some Irish folklore; I find it fascinating. You can't go wrong with folk tales that tell the legends of a giant named 'Finn MacCool'. There's a fantastical 'magic-is-always-around-the-corner' feel that permeates these tales, and they have a very 'telling stories passed down from generations past around the family hearth' vibe. I find short story compilations slightly discombobulating. I have no problem with a 700 page book when it's all one linear plot, but to have roughly 70 10(ish) page stories makes it hard to stay focused, because you're always ...