The bad news I received last week was of the death of my grandmother on dad’s side of the family. She was old, but I didn’t at all expect it. Now grandfather is on his own and we’re all a bit worried about him, as his memory isn’t what it once was. He seems to be holding up fairly okay, but of course it’s hard on him.
I haven’t got much reading done at all of late, but I did finish a couple of books since my “In a slump”-post the other week. Today I played catch-up and wrote four reviews I’d neglected to do. As I always back-date my reviews to the day I finished the book in question, I thought I’d link you to the four of them to make them a bit easier to find—The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Dorothy L Sayers), Hey Nostradamus! (Douglas Coupland), Linas kvällsbok 2 (Emma Hamberg) and Making History (Stephen Fry).
Tomorrow I hope to post my March stats.
In other news, I went to Ikea with my family on Saturday and I came back with a couple of new bookshelves, and on Sunday my living room got the makeover I’ve been planning for a couple of months now.
Before:
After:
As you can see, I have four tall ones and one lower bookcase in the middle. I think it turned out really well. The huge framed photo over the lower bookcase is an enlarged print of a photo I took at the beach last fall. The framed pictures underneath are magazine clippings from the 1930s, all featuring Leslie Howard. It is a sad fact that one of my biggest actor crushes died more than forty years before I was even born. He was brilliant, though, and he’s the dead spit of the Lord Peter I see in my head whenever I read the Wimsey books.
And of course, now I have much more shelf space available for new book purchases!
I’ve put explanatory notes on the bookshelf photos on Flickr, so you can see how I have arranged my books (because I am a complete and utter bookgeek, and it’s sad, sad, sad). Just click on the photos to get there.
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by Love
Filed under: General booktalk
Yor shelves look great! How long do you think it’ll take to completely fill them?
I’m sorry about your grandmother, and I hope your grandfather is alright.
Your redecorating looks great! For a long time, I didn’t like Leslie Howard because I hated the way he played Ashley in Gone With the Wind. But I recently saw a movie with him and Ingrid Bergman (of course, I can’t remember the title now), and it was just great! I can totally see him as Lord Peter too.
Chartroose: considering the fact that I’ve bought/received 180-ish books since January last year, probably not that long! =P
Eva: Thank you.
I really liked him in The Scarlet Pimpernel. I think that’s when I started seeing him as a good Lord Peter Wimsey. I haven’t actually seen any other films of his, apart from Gone With the Wind. I have three unwatched DVDs of films of his, though. I’m just waiting for enough time to be able to sit down and watch them undisturbed.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss, that is really sad.
As far as your redecorating, it looks great. Boy was it a big deal here in Minnesota when we got IKEA. Now it seems that almost all of my college friends have a large of amount of furnishings from there.
I read the tags on your bookshelves and just laughed and laughed. Because I have my own Dewey Decimal System, but it’s based on how much I love the book (this shelf is for books I would trade one of my future children for, this shelf is for books I totally hated, this shelf is for books I love but am ashamed to own, etc). I think there’s something in us that loves order, any kind of order.
I believe I have said something about most things you’ve said, so I’ll just say: your new layout? Is amazing.