Some things to check out

Evenin' all this is just going to be a quick post with some links to stuff that has appeared in places not on the blog this past week.

Firstly today I was a guest poster over on my bestie's blog Jess Hearts Books as part of her Armchair Travelling feature. There was a post that went up yesterday as well as today's edition in which I talk about San Francisco! So please go have a look at those posts and all the fabulous places that the bloggers talk about.

And secondly earlier this week I made a rather large leap and posted up both the Prologue and Chapter 1 of my current WIP (the one I'm always tweeting about posting here about) up onto my Wattpad. It was very nerve-wracking after I posted them as Jess very awesomely tweeted about it and quite a lot of people went and read the Prologue... but not so much the first chapter. I resisted the urge to chew my hands off in anxiety. If you've not seen them and are interested, please click the links :D

Pretty please?

So that's all I wanted to say right now. I'll be going. 

*zooms*

Ray x

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YALC Readathon - Day 4

Well oops. I kind of forgot to any reading for the last couple of days. No, that's a lie because I have knowingly not done any reading because I have been playing copious amounts of Pokemon like a bloody idjit. It was mainly a procrastination from my space OU work but it ended up distracting me very thoroughly from everything else as well. I have got a little bit of reading done but for someone who managed to binge read 4 Alex Rider books last weekend it's rather a pathetic amount.

What I'm Reading
Still going with Dead Romantic I'm now 110 pages in and shit is getting rather Franken-freaky which is in no way a bad thing. Camille and Zoe are getting stuck into their DIY Boyf shenanigans with aplomb and it sure as hell ain't for the faint-hearted!
I've also been reading some more of Revived by Cat Patrick. Now I know it's the wrong Cat for YALC but still it's been something to read! I had a really long spell of not reading this since I kind of just put it down halfway through but I may actually finish it this week. So yay for that.

Posts y'all should check out
Since I've been kinda MIA for the last few days there are a couple of posts from our Lovely Hostesses to share with you.
Jess has a Guest post from Holly Bourne (Author of Soulmates) about authors meeting other more famous authors. With YALC getting ever nearer it's got some excellent advice for meeting your fav writers.
Carly has had two posts. One from Lucy Saxon (Author of Take back the Skies) about some of her top Movie/Music/Book/Youtube picks. Also a fab Dream Cast of Dead Romantic from C.J. Skuse herself.
Michelle has a post from Bryony Pearce (author of Weight of Souls) talking about the book she wished she had wrote. And another post from Phil Earle (author of Bubble Wrap Boy) about finding inspiration to write.

Also do make sure to check out the YALC Readathon Twitter chat tonight at 7pm GMT! Remember to use the hashtag #YALCreadathon and enjoy all the bookish awesomeness.

Right I am going to get some of my science work done now so I can join in the chat later with no guilt :P
Keep Reading!
Ray

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Guest Review from Musings of a Bookshop Girl

Even though I have had to cut Favourites Fortnight short I still have to post the Guest Review that Ellie from Musings of a Bookshop Girl did for me because it's bloody awesome and you need to read it!

Take it away Ellie!

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Hi LadyViolet readers!  I'm so chuffed to be over here sharing some fangirl excitement for one of my fave books of all time, the wonderfully titled BOOKS, BAGUETTES AND BEDBUGS (US Title - Time was Soft There) by Jeremy Mercer.  How could I not love it really - it's the story of a man who lived in a bookshop for a year!  IN PARIS!  Plus it helped inspire me when it came to setting up our own bookshop...  Here's my review:

 

On the run from an unfortunate mistake in his Canadian life as a crime journalist, Jeremy Mercer heads to Paris to escape for a while.  Caught in a rainstorm near Notre-Dame one afternoon, he spots a welcoming light across the river and thus stumbles inadvertently on the Shakespeare and Company bookshop.  Invited upstairs for tea by the beautiful woman behind the desk, wandering the labyrinth of books and beds, he soon realises that this is no ordinary bookshop and, as a poor writer, is invited to join the ranks of lost souls inhabiting the book-lined rooms.

 

So begins his whimsical and quintessentially bohemian stay, under the watchful eye of eccentric owner George Whitman (surely the star of the book, with his fascinating life and Communist ideals), who renamed his unique store after the original literary oasis, run by his good friend Sylvia Beach, which was forced to close down during the Second World War.  Here all are welcome to browse and lose themselves in their reading; tea is offered on a Sunday; eclectic readings take place in the library; literary and political opinions are argued out – and those in need of a bed will find one amongst the books in return for a few hours helping around the shop and in the kitchen.

 

Mercer deliciously evokes days trawling the scattered tomes, nights spent storytelling by the Seine, tourists attracted by the store’s reputation, wanderers attracted by Whitman’s generosity, showering in the public washhouses, scrounging leftover food to get by: in short, a poor life, without good facilities or scope for wastage of any kind, but a happy, lively life nonetheless.  The characters moving through Whitman’s utopia are many and varied, yet he remains, a kind of rock in the tides of time and tourism, as the chaos of youthful dreams and books and wine whirls around him.  

 

Of course, eventually reality bites for Mercer and it’s time to move on – but his journey is magical while it lasts, and there's lots of interesting ideas to think about and lessons to be learned from this amazing place.  If you like the sound of all this there's a brilliant documentary called 'A Portrait of the Bookstore as an Old Man' which is well worth watching!  This really the perfect book lover's book, especially if you like haunting ramshackle old bookshops, so consider this a shout out for book bloggers everywhere to go find a copy and spread the love!

Ellie's Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5

Ellie sent me the link to the documentary which is nearly an hour long so I won't force people to sit staring at my blog for that amount of time :P If you wanna watch it here you go- A Portrait of the Bookstore as an Old Man

After looking at pictures of this place I'm sorely tempted to ring up and ask if *I* can live there for my year abroad cos frankly nothing would make me happier than spending several months surrounded by books and the people who love them. 

A big thanks to Ellie for doing this review for me and anyone who *hasn't* seen Ellie's blog well shame on you! Get over there now! She has awesomely eclectic taste in books and she runs a freaking bookshop! She does the most hilarious posts on the weird and wonderful customers she gets and has a book-buying habit that would put most of us to shame :P 

LadyV

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Guest Post from Jess Hearts Books on Harry Potter!

Since I was re-reading one of my favourite Harry Potter books for my Favs Fortnight I thought it would be a smashing time to ask the lovely Jess (whom I'm sure you know by know is one of my best friends) to write a guest post about *her* favourite Harry Potter book. Of course she happily obliged and I now bring to you her thoughts on one of her favourite series of all-time.

Welcome to the Library - Jess Hearts Books!

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For Rachel’s favourite fortnight I’m going to be talking about my ultimate favourite series which is probably a lot of people’s favourite - Harry Potter. When Rachel first approached me to do this post asking me what my favourite Harry Potter book was I couldn’t possibly decide because they all hold such a special place in my heart. Before reading the first Harry Potter book I did enjoy reading but Harry Potter was the first book that made me fall in love with reading, that had me obsessed, that made me want to spend every free moment I had devouring a book. I always felt that way about it right from the very first book. 

I can still remember to this day how I first found out about Harry Potter and his world of magic. In junior school we were required to do a half hours reading in the morning during registration and the girl sitting next to me was utterly engrossed in what she was reading I noticed over the following few days that she was reading this particular book at every moment she got, sometimes even sneakily reading it under the table during a lesson.  I remember thinking what kind of book would be so good that you’d risk missing playtime by getting a detention for not paying attention? 

So intrigued I asked her what she was reading and that book of course was Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. I saved up my lunch money that week and went hungry so I could buy my own copy of the book to read (it was fairly new back then and they didn’t have it in the library) and that was it, I was hooked. Every year after that I would eagerly await the release of the latest Harry Potter book. Right from my last summer before high school up until me working and sneaking out to get my pre ordered copy of the last book. 

I grew up with those books, I grew up with the characters as if they were friends, and now I get to relive it all a little bit every year when the new film comes out. It’s played such a huge role in my life and in my love for books as I’m sure it has for many other people. Only a short while ago I bought a brand new box set of the books because my others are that battered from countless re-reading sessions over the years, especially my poor paperback copies of the first 3 books that are hanging in there for dear life!

It’s so hard for me to choose a favourite Harry Potter book. I love The Philosopher’s Stone for introducing this world to me.  I love The Chamber of Secrets for making me start keeping a diary so if I ever died a piece of my soul would live on ( Hey, I was only 13 at the time!) which made me love writing. I love The Prisoner of Azkaban for being the scariest book that I read at that age and feeling really grown up for reading it late into the night and not having nightmares.  I love The Goblet of Fire for making me believe that the hardest of challenges are possible to win. I love The Order of the Phoenix for making me feel like I’m not alone in feeling like an outcast sometimes. I love The Half-Blood Prince for showing me that true friends will always stand by you no matter what, and lastly The Deathly Hallows for showing me that even though the battle may be hard and bloody if you do the right thing you’ll always get the right outcome. 

I learnt so much from these books and learn something new every time I read them. They hold the most special of places in my heart and for that reason no matter how many books I read or how many I fall in love with the Harry Potter series will always remain my most favourite and most cherished books.

Thank you so much Jess for agreeing to do a guest post and I hope it won't be too long until you're here again (both in blog form and real life :P).

I'll be hopefully having my (rather short) review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban up later today along with an equally brief review of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. So stick around for those.

Anyway I must dash, I have much to do and not a whole of time to do it in.

LadyV & Jess :D

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A Request for you Fine Folk

Good evening all you lovely followers, I've been thinking that this here blog could do with a bit more variety and a fab way to achieve this would be to ask if anyone would be interested in doing a Guest Post for In the Library, I don't mind whether it be a review, bookish related or just a random rambling sort of post that you want to write I just would be really happy to showcase some wonderful bloggers here especially when I'm in one of my blogging funks and can't think of anything to put into a non-memeish post. 

So if anyone wants to do a Guest post for In the Library of LadyViolet, please either leave me a comment or email me at libraryofladyviolet@gmail.com telling me what kind of post you'd like to do and on what book/topic etc. It'd be so great to get a selection of posts that I can schedule over a few weeks. 

Also I've been wondering whether it's be a good idea for me to offer my own guest posting services to other bloggers as a means of "getting myself out there" a bit more, I'm pretty shy when it's comes to emailing people I don't know and I'm not one for self-promoting on other blogs without feeling awkward.

Right Opinions? Suggestions? Requests? I'm all ears and dying to know what you think.  

LadyV

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