postcards from the edge – queerying literature

Now that the stress of moving is over I’ve had the chance to review the books that I own and pull out all of those that I no longer want. Some of them I’ve read, some of them have been ignored for years, and others I’ve picked up recently.

They were all dropped off at my local little free library which I found this morning on my way to work.

A Woman’s Age – Rachel Billington
The Craft Bible
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Discovery of Mr Nobody – E. F. M. Smith
The EU an Obituary – John R. Gillingham
Flowers for the Judge – Margery Allingham
The Galaxy Primes – E. E. ‘Doc’ SMith
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
Mad, Bad and Sad – Lisa Appigananesi
Persuader – Lee Child
Platform for Strategies in the Augment Era – Adera and Anders Ewerman
Postcards From the Edge – Carrie Fisher
The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine – James Le Fanu
The Sea Chase – Andrew Geer
Still Missing – Beth Gutcheon
Tender is the Night & The Last Tycoon – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Tiger in the Smoke – Margery Allingham
Twelve Days on the Somme – Sidney Rogerson
Vegan Baking
Young Stalin – Simon Sebag Montefiore

Hopefully these books are enjoyed by their new owners!

Here I am, wrapping up the last week of March, and rounding off the whole month. There’s just too many posts that I want to write to justify splitting things up.

Another pretty good week of home-cooked meals. I am actually so good at cooking. I didn’t get around to baking the battenberg cake though because I’m lazy and the cupcakes lasted way longer than expected. Apparently I’m the only one in the house who enjoys the taste of marzipan.

Even better though were the places that I went to this weekend. As my mom was visiting for her birthday we went all out. I had so much good vegan junk food!

Hummingbird Bakery – I got the vegan vanilla because it was topped with sprinkles and I haven’t had sprinkles in years because they’re almost always coated in beeswax. This was the ideal treat during the intermission at 9 to 5! Also, on Friday’s if you say ‘Treat a Friend‘ you can get a second cupcake for free.
by Chloe. – A healthy take on fast food. We visited the branch in Covent Garden and thanks to google maps it took us three times as long as it should have to get there. It was a little overpriced at almost £15 for a meatball sub and fries, but it tasted so damn good!
The Diner – I love a good vegan hotdog and oh boy did they deliver. The menu isn’t just vegan, but the vegan menu is h u g e. I got a hot dog, cheezy chips and onion rings and I already can’t wait to take Matt on a date there to try out other items! We also had the nicest server known to man.

Antonia Fraser Mary Queen of Scots Cover

It’s not been a very progressive week for me. I’ve been slowly working my way through this across my commutes, and due to a few busy evenings and a packed weekend I haven’t had the chance to get through much.

Right now I’m on page 481 of 707 so hopefully I’ll have finished it by the end of the week. Saying that though, Fraser’s written style makes me want to only read histories written by her for the rest of time.

I really do love the the scathing take downs of inaccurate sources.

Images soured from Goodreads

I’m definitely going to pick The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs up next, which will be followed by Queens of the Conquest as ideally I want all my current library books to be returned next Friday before we go to Paris. That’s a good thousand pages of reading but I can definitely do it if I waste a little less time. Postcards from the Edge and Alan Turing will probably be put back on my shelf for the time being.

Images soured from Goodreads

I realised that I left off Fateless in my earlier wrap up. I actually read it in the middle of the month before I went home to see my family.

Eleven books across the month is pretty good going considering the amount of breakdowns that March has contained. I’m gonna give myself a pat on the back.

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Images soured from Wikipedia

LEGO Batman Movie – I watched this on Amazon Prime, or more accurately I watched about 70% before I fell asleep and forgot I’d started it until now. It was alright, definitely not the best LEGO movie, but I will finish it.

Get Out – In preparation for seeing Us I finally watched Get Out. I’d put it off as I’d seen the majority of the movie in snippets that I’d watched whilst working at a cinema (read: watched when I should have been doing other things). I’m not sure enjoyable is the way to describe the experience, but it was certainly a masterpiece within the horror genre.

Us – A different experience to Get Out, being far less obvious in its commentary. There were moments that felt a little off, and at times it felt a little too drawn out but that may have been because I’d been up since five that morning and went to a late show. Peele in undoubtedly talented and I’m stoked to see what he delivers next.

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Decrease my TBR: I mean I read a fair few books, but I did also buy a lot and take more out of the library than I can realistically handle.
Be more involved: I definitely read more blog posts, I tried to read a couple a day on my lunch break at work but I mostly just realised that I don’t follow enough people to have a constant feed of posts to read. So, feel free to shamelessly self promote your best posts in the comments!
Design some graphics: I did! They’re a million times better than the ones on my last monthly wrap up. I’m still not 100% there but for now, they’ll do.

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Catch up with reviews – I need to stop starting a new book as soon as I finish one. I should take a hot minute to reflect and write up the review or analysis.

Read and return my library books – I’ve got tons of stuff to do from mid-April onward so I cannot have them around or I’m going to end up with a ton of fines.

Reset my routine – Right now I’m going to bed around 9 pm and waking up at 7:30 am. It’s not good for me and is the result of Matt having to get up at 5 for work and disturbing me so then I drift in and out of sleep. I need to get up at the same time as him, create a routine and reclaim the hours I’ve been losing out on. Only have two me hours a day is not enough, especially when I have to squeeze dinner into the small time frame.