Unexpected Breaks and Autumn Reads

Where have I been? And what have I been reading?

15 Favourite Bookish Magazines

Here is a list of fifteen of my favourite bookish websites and magazines. The ones that publish original short-stories which I sometimes like to read are marked with an asterisk.

Remixing Books

Occasionally when my mom sings to herself she often forgets the song lyrics and adds her own lines. She calls it a remix. When I’m telling a story to someone I often forget the details and may add my own details. Another kind of remix. Today I bring you book-remixes, where I combine the plots of two different books to make a new story.

I Can’t Wait for… Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about

New Books Acquired for the Hoard this Month (July 2018)

I haven’t been reading much lately due to being unwell and having recently started my book blog – ironic really. But getting a stack of precious new books is always fun and comforting.

Books are our Time Machines

“We all have our time machines, don’t we. Those that take us back are memories… And those that carry us forward, are dreams.” – H.G. Wells

Memories Within Books

This week’s topic  for Top Ten Tuesday is “Books with Sensory Reading Memories.” But what are sensory memories?

When information is brought in and retained by the senses, this is what is known as sensory memory. The effects are extremely short term with this information forgotten within a few seconds.¹

Sensory memories are short-lived however books can help us retain our sensory memories. Reading is a complex process and engages all of our focus/senses for a prolonged experience. So the information brought in by our senses during this time gets better retained in our memory when it becomes associated/connected to our reading experience. This can also work in reverse with a sensory experience reminding us of certain books or stories.

To me, the books with sensory reading memories are older books such that when you take them out of your bookshelf and open them you are filled with a strong feeling of nostalgia for the all the times you read it before.

All the scents, sounds, temperatures, feelings you experienced earlier come rushing back to you at once and you get this strange feeling in your heart.

The Smell of Old Books

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

― Arthur Conan Doyle,  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)

I love the smell of old paper: sweet, dry and nostalgic.¹

Some people, of course, dismiss it as the smell of must, mould or decomposing wood.

But to me, it is also walking through a copse of trees in summer, climbing into a wooden treehouse, browsing the shelves of an old library, sitting down on old furniture, searching through the storeroom in your old house, a secondhand bookshops’ cosy atmosphere, and smelling chocolate or coffee beans.²

Quotes from Summer in Orcus

Cover detail from Summer in Orcus By T. Kingfisher

Sometimes, when you are looking for a new book to immerse yourself in, reading a description or review of a book doesn’t work: it can be too vague or confusing, it may sound uninteresting, or even turn out to be deceptive in some cases. Sometimes going straight to the text is much more satisfying. Here I present to you 21 quotes from the book Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon

Literary Journeys: Travel Around the World in Books

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