Dear Reader,
I think I'm going to turn this into an annual thing, and let see how long I can keep it up. If you, dear reader, are new to my blog and don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you click on the links for my 2011 and 2010 "my Space editions". But you don't have to, it's entirely up to you.
1) So I thought that this year, I'll start with my favourite part of my bedroom: the Fantasy Corner.
2) I think that no contemporary Fantasy shelf would be complete without Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle or the Twilight Books. So just opposite my Fantasy Corner, is a wardrobe on which I keep these particular books.
They are all the way up there, not because I have any particular fondness for them that greater than my love of lets say The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy by Kristen Cashore (trust me, I really love those 3 books), but only because they're all so large and I have nowhere else to put them. By the way, if you dear reader are having doubt about my completionist-obesseion, I'm telling you now that Breaking Dawn and Inheritance are only missing because they are currently on loan of a friend and a cousin, respectively.
3) I'm rather embarrassed to show you the next picture, as it is evidence to the fact that I do, on rare occasions read icky-romance books.
Actually, to tell the truth, I've only ever really read Julia Quinn's Regency Romances, and I'm a bit addicted to them: they are my guilty-pleasure. But not for the reasons your thinking. I can't get enough of these because they're so light-heart and humorous. In fact, Terry Prachett aside, I thinkJulia Quinn is the funniest writer I have ever read. As proof, I give one line from What Happens in London, that had me laughing weeks after I finished the book:
"She is beautiful," Harry went on, "so beautiful it makes my teeth ache, but that's not why I love her."
This is where all the Classics (like Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens,Tennyson, Harper Lee) and some of my all-time favourites have ended up: Philip Pullman,Susanna Clarke, Peter Pan, Alice's Adventure in Wonderland (plus my favourite spin-off/retelling by Frank Beddor).
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5) This next section used to contain books mostly concerning WW1 and WW2, but now it holds all the books that I own, that I have found really thought provoking, e.g. The Alchemist, Sophie's World and The Book Thief. I recommend all three to anyone who's out doing some soul-searching.
6) Next to these thought provoking books is a section of shelf that I have dubbed in my mind as 'Books That are Not Just for Children':
Initially it was my 'fairy-tales' shelf, since it includes collections by the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and Selected Tales from 1001 Arabian Nights (the translation by Andrew Lang). But then I added books by Jules Verne (Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea) who is known as the 'Father of Science Fiction', and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. And I had some space left at the end just big enough for my Narnia Box-set. So 'fairy-tale shelf' became an inappropriate way to refer to it.
So while procrastinating one, I began to wonder why (aside from convenience) I had grouped these books together. These books are typically classed as children's stories, and while I had heard and watched many Fairy-tales as a child, I only began reading them and understanding them for myself, as an adult, and now anyone who knows me personally knows how much I love fairy-tales.The same goes for The Jungle Book, the Jules Verne novels and the Chronicles of Narnia, and I enjoyed them even more with the maturity of age. You see, I realised that despite the simplistic and innocent nature, these books were 'not just for children'.
Now I wish I could add Peter Pan and the Alice in Wonderlands books to it as well, but unfortunately lack the space.
7) Speaking of C.S.Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia), I found quite a bit of irony in the fact that those book ended up just underneath my J.R.R. Tolkien Collection, seeing how the two authors had been friends in real life.
8) If you dear reader, have been following this blog, even for a little while, you'll know how deeplypoetry is entrenched in my soul. However, other than these few books, there isn't much evidence of that in my room. Though you can obviously see the Shakespeare's Sonnets that I spoke about inthis post.
9) And after all that, the miscellaneousbooks that I had left over, especially those that didn't seem to fit any of the genres above, seemed to end up opposite my non-fiction books, with my DVD collection of my favourite BBC Adaptations somehow separating the two from an all out brawl.
10) The final, and most important shelf in my room, is the one that sits peacefully on my desk and contains all of my Islamic Books, close at hand for whenever I need them.
By the way, the first two books on the left hand side are my note books for my "big" novel Life in Conversations. The ring-binder next to them, contains the entirety of Honour and Honesty, while the fat grey one next to it, is where my poetry is housed (2004-2012).
And that's all.
A bit long this time, I know. But only do this July next year if there is popular demand, or if my bookshelves have dramatically changed (which is unlikely, but you never know).
Nida
"We arrive in this life not knowing the length or shape of our future ... but sometimes we find out."
- Lisa K. Madigan
"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings."
- Hodding Carter
"And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
-Khalil Gibran
"When I want to read a novel, I write one,"
- Benjamin Disraeli
"Don't worry about biting off more than you can chew. Your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger than you think."
- Texas Bix Bender
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde
"We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."
- Percy B. Shelley
"Evil is not a cultural phenomenon. It's a human one."
- Jason Gideon
"Is this a piece of your brain?"
- Basil Fawlty
"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
- Charlie Chaplin
"My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green;
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done."
- Charles Tichbourne
"Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well."
- Sylvia Plath
"Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality."
He kindly stopped for me;
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality."
- Emily Dickinson
"Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein