Christmas Gift Ideas

I am really getting in the festive mood this year, and with less than 20 days until Christmas, I thought I would share some gift ideas for anyone struggling for inspiration. One of my favourite things about Christmas is gift shopping, and while I usually would head out to a shopping centre for that one of a kind Christmas vibe, I will be doing all of my gift shopping online this year. Yes, I will miss all the beautiful displays at Liberty’s, Selfridges and Harrods, the carol singers on the streets, random acts of Christmas kindness and the struggle of shuffling in and out of your coat every time you enter or leave a store. But for me staying COVID free and spending time with my family is far more important than the annual Christmas Shop experience. So without further ado, I present 8 gift ideas to get you inspired and ready to shop!

1. Untold Day and Night by Bae Suah | 2. Kate Spade Nicola Micro Crossbody Bag | 3. Chanel N°5 Perfume | 4. Anthropologie Bistro Tiled Margot Monogram Mug | 5. Avène Refreshing Eye Contour Care Cream | 6. BY WISHTREND Green Tea and Enzyme Powder Cleanser | 7. Kate Spade Star Studs & Pendant Boxed Set | 8. Normal People by Sally Rooney

The above links are affiliate links so I do make a small commision if you make a purchase through them.

Other gift ideas:

A Mubi subscription for an Art House Cinema lover, Spotify Premium for a music nut, Wine for a budding sommelier or help save an endangered species with WWF.

November Books

It would appear that I have lost my reading mojo, gone are the months of reading five or more books. But I feel like it is important to realise that reading 1 or 2 books (or even none) in a month isn’t so bad. It would appear that I just simply wasn’t in the right mood to juggle several books this month. And spending more time with a book allows you to absorb it and deconstruct it’s affect on you better anyway.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Essential reading. The Fire Next Time is a book containing two letters written 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Baldwin explores racism in America, and how very little has been achieved in the way of equality within the 100 years since. This needs to be read by anyone who is looking to understand (not that it’s hard to understand basic human rights) the Black Lives Matter movement because it’s 157 years since 1863 (the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation) and it’s also quite hard to see that much progress has been made since Baldwin’s time!

Get your copy:

Waterstones

Abebooks

or check in with your local library via the Libby App

At Least We Can Apologize (사과는 잘해요) by Lee Ki-ho

At Least We Can Apologize follows two characters as they re-adjust to life after being released from a strange mental hospital. As they have minimal skills and are in dire need of money they wander around their town gathering clients to apologize on behalf of. This book is a satirical look at the expectations and pressures of Korean society and post-modern commodification culture. And while I understand what Lee was doing with this novel I just can’t say I liked the execution of it very much.

Me throughout the book.

Get your copy:

Waterstones

Abebooks

or check in with your local library via the Libby App

*Please note that some links are affiliate links and if you do decide to make a purchase through them I earn a small commission.

More Bookish Content.

Book Club: Announcement + The Prose Edda

I am starting a new Book Club. It’s all about global literature.

It will allow me to curate the reading list around one of my biggest passions in reading, World Literature. I love exploring different cultures through their literature, and it again fits in with the ethos of this Book Club, epic stories and ‘seeing’ all the world has to offer through books.

Just check back here at the end of each month to discuss the book and find out what we’ll be reading the following month.

The first read of the Book Club will be none other than The Prose Edda by Icelandic historian, poet, and politician Snorri Sturluson (there is debate around whether he wrote the whole thing it or just compiled it and wrote the last section). It is the most comprehensive collection of Norse Mythology that has survived to this day.

Where to get your copy from:

Free copy from Project Gutenberg

Second hand from AbeBooks

New from Waterstones

Our journey so far:

October Books

October seemed like such a fast month, it was as if I blinked on the 1st and suddenly when I opened my eyes again it was the 31st. I also hit a bit of a reading slump this month as I only managed to finish 2 books.

Exciting Times by Noaise Dolan

Touted as the next Sally Rooney, Noaise Dolan’s debut novel Exciting Times has been sitting on my TBR list for quite some time. I finally got round to reading it and found that while it was a little like Rooney’s work it was also very different in many ways. While I enjoyed the book and its presentation of modern relationships and sexuality, I did think that it could have perhaps been a little more concise.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I really enjoyed this book, and I was actually quite surprised at how readable Brave New World is considering that it was written in 1931. The concept of control through pleasure and complete balance in society is utterly compelling and quite scary and I really enjoyed Huxley’s witty jabs at consumerism and modern life which eerily seems more and more accurate nowadays! My one criticism about the book would be the idea of the “Savage Reservation”, this hasn’t aged very well at all and could be seen as highly offensive to Native Americans. While I am aware that the Savage Reservation represents an antithesis to the highly controlled World State and is most likely used as a satirical device Huxley nevertheless descends into damaging stereotypes of Native American culture.

September Books

Full disclosure, I have been reading a little less recently because I have been watching too many films (although the Swedish master director Ingmar Bergman would disagree, the man was known to watch three films a day when he was alive!) but nevertheless I did manage to read four books in September.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

I really liked this novel and I feel like I am going to devour more of Flaubert’s prose ASAP as I really enjoyed his realism and wit. I also found Madame Bovary to be a bit alarming too as I found myself sympathising with Emma quite a bit even though she was ungrateful, adulterous and selfish. But I could understand her distaste for the banality of marriage and provincial life because of all the exciting and sweeping romantic novels she read in her youth.

Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous

This is quite a naked novel, in the sense of rawness that is. However, a review on the blurb does claim it to be a ‘kinky, artsy’ novel which I didn’t really see myself, but perhaps that’s because I’ve watched far too many European films for me to consider something like this ‘kinky’. Mostly, I am intrigued by the fact that this novel (and its sequels) was published anonymously, I wonder what possessed the author to detach themselves from the work.

All in all, Diary of an Oxygen Thief is not spectacular writing but it’s an interesting portrait of humiliation and human fragility and that was enough for me.

Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz) by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Yes, the surname of this author is why Masochism is called Masochism. And while you might think Venus in Furs must be a rather depraved book as a result, you must remember that this was published in 1870, so by modern standards, it’s pretty tame. Go read Bataille if your looking for something more transgressive. Overall, I found this book rather dull, in some places the writing was beautiful but for the most part, it was too repetitive and I found myself willing the story to end.

Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年) by Haruki Murakami

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve read Murakami, which was completely intentional as I want to slowly plod through his work as he is one of my favourite authors. However, I found Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki to be quite a mediocre entry into the author’s oeuvre, sure I read it all and enjoyed it but it didn’t hit me with anything new or particularly profound (not that all literature needs to do that) which I guess I was expecting. I don’t know, there was a great passage towards the end but, the novel as a whole…it was fine, I guess.