loveliness.

Category: books

• we were liars

  Posted at 12:54 pm by jasminedesirees, on December 11, 2014

  I just finished reading We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. The ending wasn’t quite what I hoped it would be, but the writing and the style were so beautiful, I couldn’t get enough.

  I started it in the afternoon, and finished it by the next evening. Without giving anything away, here are some of the passages I liked best.

  “IN EUROPE, I vomited into small buckets and brushed my teeth repeatedly with chalky British toothpaste. I lay prone on the bathroom floors of several museums, feeling the cold tile underneath my cheek as my brain liquefied and seeped out my ear, bubbling. Migraines left my blood spreading across unfamiliar hotel sheets, dripping on the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies.”

  “I suffer migraines, I do not suffer fools.”

  “If you want to live where people aren’t afraid of mice, you have to leave the palace.”

  “Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.
  Also, here is a green toothbrush tied in a ribbon.
  It expresses my feelings inadequately..

  Better than chocolate, being with you last night.

  Silly me, I thought nothing was better than chocolate.

  In a profound symbolic gesture, I am giving you this bar of Vosges I got when we all went to Edgartown. You can eat it, or just sit next to it and feel superior.”

  You can buy the book here.

  Posted in books | 0 Comments | Tagged books, E. Lockhart, reading, we were liars, writing

• goldfinch

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on September 8, 2014

  I just finished reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I really liked it, I’d definitely recommend it. I really had no idea what the book was about before I started it, so I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

  Isn’t it funny how when you read a book that someone recommends to you, or go to see a movie, one of the first questions people ask is “what’s it about?”. As if we only want to see a movie or read a book if we already know what’s going to happen.

  The book takes places across several decades, and in many different places, so it’s very unpredictable, and I thought the ending was perfect, which is not something that I say about endings very often.

  Especially towards the end of the book, everything is very tense and you are sure everything can only end in complete catastrophe, but then there is a deliciously simple but completely unforeseen twist.

  This excerpt was on of my favourites:

  “Because here’s the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence– of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do– is catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculous ‘Our Town’ nonsense everyone talks: the miracle of a newborn babe, the joy of one simple blossom, Life You Are Too Wonderful To Grasp, &c. For me– and I’ll keep repeating it doggedly till I die, till I fall over on my ungrateful nihilistic face and am too weak to say it: better never born, than born into this cesspool. Sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins and broken hearts. No release, no appeal, no “do-overs” to employ a favored phrase of Xandra’s, no way forward but age and loss, and no way out but death….And maybe it’s ridiculous to go on in this vein, although it doesn’t matter since no one’s ever going to see this– but does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end–and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it’s possible to play it with a kind of joy?”

  The Goldfinch plot centers around a famous painting. The story contained a lot of discussion about art history, and different artists and painting styles, which was really interesting to me.

  I had been wanting to check out Khan Academy for awhile, so I went on there once I finished the book, and saw that one of their courses in an intro to basic art history, so I’ve been working my way through that in my spare time.

  They also have math, history, and science courses, and courses on taking test like the SAT’s, LSAT’s, and GMAT. Definitely check it out if you feel like doing some book learnin’.

  Posted in art, books, quotes | 0 Comments | Tagged art, art history, books, donna tartt, goldfinch, khan academy, reading

• just kids

  Posted at 1:42 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 23, 2014

  I haven’t had time to read very much lately, between packing and making plans for our trip, but I did recently finish Just Kids by Patti Smith. The memoir documents the relationship between artist/singer Patti Smith and artist Robert Maplethorpe in New York City in the late sixties and seventies.

  I had definitely heard of Smith before, but I wasn’t very well acquainted with any of her work, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Her memoir was interesting, I’ve always been fascinated by that time period, and Patti Smith goes into great detail about what it was like to live in New York then, and her encounters with icons like Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin.

  If you’ve read Just Kids and liked it, I also recommend Wonderful Tonight, by Patti Boyd, she was married to George Harrison of the Beatles, and later Eric Clapton, and she was a model in the sixties and seventies in London.

  She also has a lot of interesting stories about the time period, and it’s just neat to read about these incredibly famous and talented people that I’ve heard about all my life, from her perspective, hearing stories of them not as giants of art and entertainment, but friends and acquaintances.

  Posted in books | 0 Comments | Tagged book, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Just Kids, memoir, Patti Boyd, Patti Smith, Robert Maplethorpe, Wonderful Tonight

• favourites

  Posted at 9:18 am by jasminedesirees, on April 18, 2014

  Here are a few things that are making me happy right now:

  The complete collection of Grimm’s fairy tales, a first birthday present for my niece.

  

  West Coast, best coast. Love her.

  This list of the top 20 TED Talks, I’m slowly working my way through all of them. The range of topics is really interesting, and I like how they are able to take a unique point of view on everyday experiences and really open your eyes to different perspectives.

  A sweet bridal shower favour, rose shaped petal soaps

  

   

  Posted in books, favourites | 0 Comments | Tagged favourites, Grimm's fairytales, Lana Del Rey, TED talks, West Coast

• a house in the sky

  Posted at 8:46 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 25, 2014

  I recently finished reading A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout. The memoir describes her time traveling the world as a freelance journalist, and her eventual kidnapping by Muslim extremists in Somalia, where she was raped, beaten, and held for ransom for over a year.

  Amanda is a Canadian girl, she grew up only a few hours away from me, so this story hit home for me even more. She came from an unstable home, and moved out as soon as she was old enough. She spent time as a waitress in Calgary, and managed to save a lot of money. She had never left the country, or done any traveling, but she booked herself a ticket to South America, where she traveled around for months.

  She began returning to Calgary to earn enough money to travel, and then spending six months at a time away traveling the world, eventually making her way to the war torn countries of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she began working as a freelance journalist and photographer as a way to earn more traveling money, even though she had no experience or schooling.

  From there, she went on to Somalia, hoping for her “big break” as a journalist. After only 3 days in the country, she was taken.

  It was a really great read, I knew what the memoir was about before I started reading, but even though I knew where her story would eventually lead, I was still envious over her travels, and entranced with her descriptions of her adventures and all of the amazing places she was able to visit.

  It was difficult to read about her terrifying ordeal, every time it seemed like things were about to turn around for her, they would actually get worse, but she was very brave, and lived to tell her story.

  Amanda still travels the world, and she started a non-profit foundation to help provide education and aid in Kenya and Somalia.

  You can order A House in the Sky here.

  Posted in books, travel, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout, books, Canada, Journalist, memoir, reading, Somalia

• tartine

  Posted at 10:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 23, 2014

  Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we’d like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I’ve been wanting, or a few things if they are small.

  Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn’t anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I’d had my eye on for awhile,  including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.

  

  It came in the mail two days ago, and I’ve pretty much been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don’t think mine will look the same and I wouldn’t want anybody to be able to compare.

  I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I’ll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.

  They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I’m assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.

  I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.

  
  Posted in books, chocolate, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged baking, chocolate, recipes, tartine

• read me

  Posted at 6:03 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 2, 2014

  Now that the holidays are over and I’m back from vacation, I’m kind of excited to do nothing. This time of year always makes me reflective, and I tend to want to stay home, make plans, and focus on projects and things I’d like to accomplish over the upcoming year.

  We just got back from Mexico last night, and with only two days until the weekend, there isn’t really anything that sounds better to me than snuggling up under my new fuzzy blanket with a mug of hot tea and reading a good book.

  Here are some that I am excited to read in the next little while. I wish I was patient enough to try and wait my turn and get them from the library, but since patience isn’t among my many virtues, I will likely end of paying $10.00 each and downloading them onto my Kindle.

  Instant gratification may be expensive, but it is oh so sweet.

  The Summer We Read Gatsby– Danielle Ganek

  We are Water– Wally Lamb

  Manuscript Found in Accra– Paulo Coelho

  I am Malala– Malala Yousafzai

  Ordeal– Linda Lovelace

  Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy– Helen Fielding

  Posted in books, life | 0 Comments | Tagged books, bridget jones, Gatsby, reading

• the fault in our stars

  Posted at 12:42 am by jasminedesirees, on August 13, 2013

  I’m reading The Fault in our Stars by John Green, and I’m pretty much obsessed with it. I’ve basically given up eating, bathing and talking to my husband because I can’t put it down.

  I’ve always loved to read, but a lot of the time, books are somewhat predictable. You can tell right away what’s going to happen, or else it starts out really well and you start to get excited, and then the ending feels rushed and contrived, and it’s really disappointing.

  I should probably finish reading it, I suppose, before I write something about it, but writing a book is hard. Like really hard. It’s easy to get distracted, or to get pulled away from your original idea, and before you know it you don’t have any idea who your characters are, or why they are doing what they are doing.

  A lot of the time I will read a book and think “That’s not how I would have done it” or “I could definitely write a better novel than this.” It’s easy to criticize when it’s not your work.

  But sometimes I read a book like this one, and instead of being filled with questions or criticism, I am just utterly content because somewhere out there is someone writing the story exactly the way you would do it, and it gives you hope that it is actually possible to do, and to do well.

  It seems like all of the good stories have already been told, every movie you see is a sequel or a remake, every book you read follows the same plot lines and has the same type of character. But this one is special. I almost don’t want to finish it because either it will not be as good as I thought it was and that will be sad, or it will be, and then it will be over and that will be even sadder.

  Posted in books | 0 Comments | Tagged books, john green, novel, reading, Shakespeare, the fault in ours stars

• book worm

  Posted at 4:55 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 19, 2013

  I’m a huge book nerd, I love to read, always have. When I was younger and got in to trouble, I would get grounded from my books, because usually that was a worse punishment for me than not being able to watch TV, or go out.

  The library is my happy place, whenever I am feeling overwhelmed, or lonely, or sad, or grouchy, or if I just want to be someplace familiar I go to the library. The great thing about libraries is that once you feel comfortable in a library, you feel comfortable in ANY library because, basically, they are all the same. You can walk in to almost any one and find your old friends Anne Shirley, Katniss Everdeen and Scout Finch just waiting for you to pick them up again.

  I will literally read anything, mystery, history, biography, self-help, chick-lit, the classics. Every once in awhile you can find me curled up in the YA corner, checking back in with The Baby-Sitters Club. When life gets crazy, nothing will make take you back to being 13 again faster than the books you loved at the time.

  I’m always looking for new books, the feeling you get when you find a random book in the library, bookstore, or flea market and it turns out to be one of the best books you’ve ever read, that has to be one of my absolute favourite feelings. So here are just a few books that I love, in case you are looking for a new book yourself.

  A Northern Light– Jennifer Donnelly: one of my favourites

  Firstborn– Doris Mortman: This novel was written in the 1980’s, it’s sort of a trashy beach read, but I loved every second of it, there are several main characters that take you from Hollywood Glamour, the fashion industry, a multi-billion dollar hotel empire, and everywhere in between. It has murder, jealousy, seduction, intrigue, a little bit of everything. It’s delicious.

  White Oleander– Janet Fitch: you’ve probably read this, but if not, definitely check it out

  Wonderul Tonight– Pattie Boyd: This book is really neat, Pattie Boyd was married to George Harrison of the Beatles, and also Eric Clapton and she was a model in London in the 60’s, so it’s kind of neat to read all about that era.

  Belle de Jour- Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl: This is a collection of blog posts written by a London call girl, there is lots of sex in it (obviously) but it’s also really smart. This is probably one of my favourites, I tend to re-read it when I’m in between books

  Marisa De Los Santos: Love Walked in and Belong to Me: I recently discovered her books, they are maybe a little chick lit-ish but they are really well written and almost poetic sometimes, I really enjoyed both of these.

  I just finished reading Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, it’s a best seller so you may have already read it. I liked it because it was different than anything I’d read lately, and the writing was really smart and insightful.

  I also just finished all of the Game of Thrones books, I really liked them, especially the first 3. Even if “fantasy” isn’t really your thing, it’s still really amazing when you are reading it to think of one guy writing the book from all of those perspectives (like 30 different characters) simultaneously and being that detailed.

  I also love to read historical fiction (I’ve had a very long running obsession with Anne Boleyn), Phillippa Gregory is one of my favourite authors, all of her books are pretty great but I really liked The Queen’s Fool. She does an excellent job of using historical characters and events, and filling in the blanks to round out the full story, and she will often write several books on the same event, showing it from different view points so you can see how everything happened for all of the people that were involved, instead of just a one-sided view.

  And I haven’t read this yet but it’s going to be my next book I saw it at the airport last week- If I stay by Gayle Forman. I thought it looked good, kind of The Lovely Bones-ish, I’ll let you know how I like it.

  If you are looking for some classics to check out, I found this list on Pinterest last week, all of the books that Rory Gilmore read or mentioned during the entire series of The Gilmore Girls, one of my favourite shows when I was younger.

  Posted in books | 0 Comments

• favourites

  Posted at 3:53 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 8, 2013

  Here are a few things that are making me happy right now:

  This excerpt from Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn:

  “We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can’t recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn’t immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blase: Seeeen it.

  I’ve literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved ones dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

  It’s very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real actual person instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.

  And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls.”

  I love writing like this, the first time I read this passage I got chills all the way down to my toes.

  

  Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I get this book for every person I know who is having a baby, it’s the greatest children’s book ever written. I can still remember my mom reading it to us when I was little. Robert Munsch has tons of great children’s books, my favourite are Moira’s Birthday, The Paperbag Princess, Something Good, and David’s Father.

  A list of the best children’s books would not be complete without There’s a Monster at the End of This Book, with a shout out to my auntie Sherri, who does the best Grover voice, ever.

  This book, Life: The Classic Collection that I bought as a birthday present to myself 2 years ago. It has all the most famous photographs ever printed in Life magazine, and some of them are removable so you can take them out and hang them in your house. I recently rediscovered it (we will have some unpacked boxes) and put up my favourites right away. I need to get frames, but every time I go to Target I end up buying a toboggan, a fishing rod and a new serving tray, so I just stuck them up with fun-tac for now.

  

  

  This video (apparently there is a bit of a literary theme for this post):

  I like a girl who reads:

  Posted in books, favourites | 0 Comments

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