84, Charing Cross Road

I've wanted to read David Lodge's Changing Places for ages and was beyond myself when i found it in the Library. However, if I try to force myself to read one more page without being in the mood for it I'm going to throw it through my window. And never look back.

Sooo, for my own sanity, I gave good Mr Lodge an extended holiday from this household and brought in Helene Hanff 'cause I needed a dose of whimsical reading and strongly believe in the healing powers of 84, Charing Cross Road. 

Take for instance, this passage:

I hope you and Brian have a ball in London. He said to me on the phone: "Would you go with us if you had the fare?" and I nearly wept. 

But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: "It's there." 

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here.

The people in these letters feel so alive, and kind, and, you know, real. And there's so many books mentioned! It makes me want to hug my bookshelves and reread Jane Austen and wept in joy. In no particular order.

Talking about Jane Austen, I have this thing of judging characters in books (and people in general, to be honest) based in what's their opinion of her. I can't help it. When I read the letter of Charlotte Brontë in which she comments she cannot bring herself to enjoy Jane Austen I closed the book saying "well, I hate you too!" like she had insulted my mother. Truman Capote was kinder. I think his letters mention her a couple of times, but he misspells her name, so my opinion of him is somewhat ambiguous. The thing is, the moment I read the letter in 84, Charing Cross Road in which Helene Hanff raves about Pride & Prejudice (from me that hates novels, she says), I knew I was lost for good.

I can't describe it. This little book makes me so, so, so happy. And I know I'm generally awful when it comes to putting feelings into words, but I promise you this: even if I weren't terrible at it, I'd still describe the experience of reading 84, Charing Cross Road thus:
asahjsjkahdjkahsjkjkadjk!!!1!!!!1111!1!!1eleven! <3

Read a thon, hours 2-4: Snack time!

Books currently in progress: 2 (David Lodge's Changing Places and C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia)
Pages read so far: 132

So, Uniflame's mini challenge is to share our snacks. Here's a picture of mine:

Roibos tea, m&ms, chocolate, brandy cookies...

In Narnia-related news, Edmund has arrived to the White Witch's castle! And there's a lion at the gates!

Time for a break. I have a family launch, so probably will be out for hours five to seven. Happy reading!

Read-a-thon!

First Hour: Hey! It's that time of the year! The read-a-thon I was preparing myself for! The only day of the year in which I'm allowed to speak in all-caps and finish every sentence with exclamation marks! YAY!

So, to begin, here are my answers to the introductory questionnaire:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

South-America! More precisely, Santiago de Chile.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Oh! I'm re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia today, for the first time in what feels like decades, so I'm pretty excited about that. But I'm also looking forward to David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and David Lodge's Changing Places.

(Wow, lot of guys there. Huh.)

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

I really, really enjoy eating chocolate while I'm reading. It can get messy if I don't eat it quick enough, but I like a challenge :P

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

Not much to tell, actually. My name is Natalia, I'm 25, I'm still uncomfortable writing in English. I have a lovely dog named Ringo Starr that is currently asleep, and, uhm, dunno.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I didn't. I participated in the fall (spring here! so confusing!) of 2009? I think? I spend most of the day writing comments and skimming books I should have read at a more leisurely pace, so this time I'm definitely trying to focus more on reading.

And that's pretty much it. Now, to read me hearties!

Get out of the office and INTO THE SPRINGTIME

Guh, I feel like I've been failing at life a lot, lately. There are months like that, I guess, in which the sole idea of interacting with others can be tiring. But yesterday I tried to catch up with Google Reader and spent a large chunk of the evening writing comments, so I guess I'm ready for basic socialization again.

Spring is here! It arrived promptly in September, but then got sidetracked by bad weather and it's only now returning to what it was supposed to look like. Welcome back, Spring! 

Santiago last Saturday.

On book related news, I wasn't in the right state of mind to enjoy Trollope, so I returned The Warden unread to the Library, along with Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes. What I did read and enjoy was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Not as much as I hoped I would, I must confess, but it had some lovely letters and the overall effect was lovely. Also, it's the third mention of Charles Lamb I've heard this year, which means I'm now compelled by law to read his letters or essays. That's how it works, right? I bought his Tales of Shakespeare earlier this year, and the Project Gutenberg has a lot of his works, if not all, so I'm not lacking in both materials and incentive.

I know it's not fashionable, but I really feel like posting an emoticon here. So, here it goes: 

:)

P.S. The title of this post is from my favorite song by Belle & Sebastian, Legal Man.