Author: bundleofbooks

Bookwise – Southwell

bundleofbooks 14 Comments

Recently, a couple of friends and I took a much needed day off. We didn’t want to travel too far from home, but wanted to get away from the same old cafés in the centre of Nottingham. We were hoping to spend the day drinking tea, eating cakes and having a good old girlie natter and catch up. At the suggestion of one of our parents, we drove over to the nearby town of Southwell, which seems to be the land of lovely tearooms.

We did indeed spend a couple of hours eating, drinking and chatting, but left enough time to have a little explore. Southwell is a picturesque town with a beautiful minster and some interesting shops. Of course, my eyes were kept peeled for a good bookshop, and as luck would have it, I did not need to look very far!

Continue reading →

The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey

bundleofbooks 18 Comments

I was thrilled when The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey landed on my doorstep free from Waterstones! It was also followed by perfect, wintry weather but for some reason, winter slipped past and before I knew it spring was blooming all around me, and I had still not picked the book up! So at the beginning of April, when the weather surprised the whole of the UK with a couple of days of unexpected snow, I was secretly quite pleased. This book is definitely meant to be enjoyed on a snowy day whilst wrapped up in a comfortable blanket or duvet.

This magical story was inspired by the old Russian fairytale of Snegurochka, or The Snow Maiden. The fairytale is about a lonely, old couple who make a little daughter out of snow. Although, I had never heard of this particular fairytale, when I was younger I used to love Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen. There is something about a cold, icy setting that is just perfect for a magical tale, and when reading The Snow Child, I felt all of those fond memories coming back to me. Continue reading →

Gigi and The Cat – Colette

bundleofbooks 15 Comments

I can’t believe I had never heard of Colette until a couple of months ago! Of course I recognised the film posters for the musical of Gigi, but had never seen it and wasn’t even aware that it was based on a book. I feel as though I have been living on another planet!

As soon as I read this review of The Cat at Literary Relish, I knew I had to give Colette a go. This is the second book that I have read for the Pay It Sideways Challenge.

This book is made up of two short stories and is the perfect introduction to this brand spanking new (for me, anyway) author. In a short amount of pages, Colette manages to show off her power over the written word. She sets the scene, creates an atmosphere and then whisks you through bizarre situations with some witty dialogue to keep things interesting. Continue reading →

Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

bundleofbooks 38 Comments

So, it’s been a whole year since I first started Bundle of Books and I’m so glad that I’ve stuck around! It’s been a fun year and I’ve read some great books! I’ve also enjoyed some interesting bookish discussions with other book bloggers out there and learnt a lot from comments people make on the blog.

I first started Bundle of Books in April last year with a review of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. I was working in a very uncreative and frustrating environment at the time and was desperate for a creative output. Bundle of Books has been great for that. I was also pleasantly surprised with all the other book lover bloggers out there! Continue reading →

The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht

bundleofbooks 11 Comments

Apart from winning the Orange Prize for Fiction, I didn’t know much about this book. It was lent to me last year by Mr. and Mrs. S when I spied the attractive cover on their coffee table. It took me a few months to finally get around to reading it, and now that I have finally finished, I’m still not sure what to make of it.

It took me a while to get into The Tiger’s Wife – even after two weeks, I had hardly read two chapters. By this point I realised that I would have to make a conscious effort to carry on, or I would be stuck on one book all month! I did eventually start to enjoy the book, but the plot was patchy; at times intriguing and magical, at others I found it dull and long-winded. Continue reading →

The Slightly Foxed Bookshop – London

bundleofbooks 15 Comments

*** Please note: Sadly The Slightly Foxed Bookshop on Gloucester Road is now closed. Please visit this website for more information. ***

During the two weeks of my work experience at Slightly Foxed, there was one thing on my list of things to do that I really had to do – even if it took me all the way to the other side of London following a complicated route chosen for me by the Transport of London website – and that was to visit The Slightly Foxed Bookshop. Located a stone’s throw from Gloucester Road tube station, the shop is very easy to find, even if you are new to London and useless with a map! As an added bonus, there is also a conveniently placed Caffè Nero next door so that you can enjoy a well deserved hot drink whilst reading through your purchases.

The shop was originally Gloucester Road Bookshop, owned and run by Graham Greene’s nephew, until Slightly Foxed – the ‘real readers’ literary quarterly magazine took it over in 2009. In the few years that it has been open, it has become a much loved part of Gloucester Road, holding events and launches, not just for Slightly Foxed’s own editions and magazines, but also for other like-minded publishers such as Candlestick Press.

Continue reading →

A Clash of Kings – George R. R. Martin

bundleofbooks 20 Comments

I do love discovering a new series, especially one that has me completely hooked and needing to read the next book. The A Song of Ice and Fire series is the first in a number of years to have captured my attention in this way. (NOTE: If you have not finished the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, you will find some spoilers in this post).

So we left the characters of A Game of Thrones in a variety of different states. The Starks of Winterfell are dispersed across the Seven Kingdoms, in shock and mourning the death of Eddard Stark. In King’s Landing, Eddard’s daughters are seperated; Ayra hiding from King Joffrey’s men and Sansa alone amongst the Lannisters. In the north, Bran and Rickon remain in Winterfell with their trusted Maester Luwin and their direwolves. Further north still, Jon Snow is growing into a man, about to leave the safety of the Wall and plunge into the unknown, icy lands beyond. And an exhausted and emotionally drained Cateyln Stark watches as her eldest son is hailed King of the North by his followers. Continue reading →

Camden Lock Books – London

bundleofbooks 9 Comments

A while ago I heard rumour of a wonderful little gem of a bookshop in one of the tube stations in London. Because I was nowhere near London at the time, I promptly forgot all about it. When I was offered a work experience position at Slightly Foxed, ten minutes from Old Street Station, I heard it mentioned yet again and was told that I simply had to visit. It sounded brilliant, and so off I went one lunchtime to check it out.

Strangely, the bookshop is named Camden Lock Books, as that was where the owner, Jason Burley, opened his first bookshop in 1984. The name is a bit odd as it is located nowhere near Camden, but little quirks like this are always appreciated by a bookworm like me. Continue reading →

Top 5 Blogs – Award Time!

bundleofbooks 11 Comments

A few weeks ago I was delighted to find a lovely comment on my blog saying that I had been awarded the Liebster Blog Award. Thank you very much to Literary Relish, who has brilliant taste in books and her own fantastic blog here!

A couple of weeks later I had another reason to be happy when I was awarded the Kreativ Blogger and Versatile Blogger Award by the wonderful A Novel Place… who runs a superbly bookish blog here! (Thank you!)

The idea of these awards is to spread the blogging love and show appreciation to fellow bloggers. So, after a very pleasant afternoon browsing through all of my favourite blogs, I have finally whittled my list of favourites down to 5 (it was so very difficult!). I would like to note that it is very hard to guess how many followers a blog has, so I have concentrated on blogs that I think deserve recognition, no matter how many followers they already have.

Please scroll down for the rules!

Continue reading →

Adaptations – Birdsong

bundleofbooks 8 Comments

I had mixed feelings about Birdsong when I first read it last year. I have always enjoyed reading Sebastian Faulks but I often find his melodramatic storylines put me off. So when I heard that there was a new two part drama out on the BBC, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found the love affair between Stephen Wraysford and Isabelle Azaire to be over the top and unrealistic in the book, but maybe this storyline would be interpreted better as a filmed drama? And could the BBC pull off the horrors of the First World War scenes in the same harrowing and detailed way that Faulks did? I was eager to find out.

In the end, it took me a few days to finally settle down to watch Birdsong, mostly because I wanted to be in the right frame of mind to sit through an hour or two of depressing war scenes. It wasn’t actually the war scenes that I should have worried about – it was everything else. I was pre-warned that there was a lot of ‘staring into space’, but this did not fully prepare me for the huge amount of blank faces… sorry, I mean ‘meaningful looks’. I also wasn’t prepared for the loud and dramatic music that was constantly building up and up and up to… another scene of the two lovers staring into each other’s eyes. Continue reading →