Booking through Thursday - Restrictions

God* comes to you and tells you that, from this day forward, you may only read ONE type of book–one genre–period, but you get to choose what it is. Classics, Science-Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Cookbooks, History, Business … you can choose, but you only get ONE.

What genre do you pick, and why?

*Whether you believe in God or not, pretend for the purposes of this discussion that He is real.

Booking Through Thursday is a meme hosted Here

I thought I'd do another Booking through Thursday since I was going to do a post yesterday about my reading challenges but Youtube had a hissy fit and my vlog wouldn't work (and it'd taken three attempts to get to that point anyway) so I just got fed up and left it.

Anyhow, if I had to pick just *ONE* genre of books to read for the rest of my life it would be a toss-up between Fantasy and Historical Fiction because with fantasy there is really no limit to the number of stories that authors could come up with as everyone's imagination is different and there's no hard-and-fast rules of what worlds could be created.

Historical Fiction is another vast genre because there's 5000 years of human history and with all the hundreds of countries there have been over this time you could write stories about people in any time period you liked from any part of the world for the rest of your life and never exhaust the wealth of history that exists. And in the case where certain details about historical events are not known for definite authors of Historical Fiction have the license to speculate on what they think, or would like to believe happened so there's the possibility for several versions of a story surrounding the same event - e.g. just look at how many stories there are set during the reign of King Henry VIII. 

So I'm thinking that as much as I love the completely out-of-this-world escapism of reading Fantasy novels I also adore reading books where I get to travel back in time to places and eras that I would have loved to have seen first-hand (ok maybe not the plague eras - although I really enjoyed World without End I would *not* have liked to be wandering around Kingsbridge without protection from disease). 

History has always fascinated me although I began to dislike my history A-Level classes when it became more about interpreting the different views of *why* a certain monarch did something (Louis XIV is now one of my most hated historical figures because of this) rather than the, admittedly childish desire to know about how people lived in past times. That's why I'm quite glad that I'm not studying History at university because I fear that all the discussion of ways to interpret history would have destroyed my love of the subject.

Therefore I think that if I had to read only one genre of books for the rest of my life I would choose Historical Fiction because although it's not 100% factually accurate; well-researched and thoughtfully written historical fiction can be infinitely more interesting and digestible than the gospel truth written by the driest, fustiest bunch of old historians you could cobble together from the best universities in the world.

See you in a past life

LadyV

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Teaser Tuesdays #1

Although I was originally gonna wait until next week to jump on a few more meme bandwagons I thought "since it's Tuesday for at least 6 more hours (for me anyway) I may as well hop on with the Teaser Tuesday folk"

• Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
• 
  

Currently Reading: Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick

Teaser: Uncertainly he came around to her and set his arm across her shoulders. He didn't know what to say, but the act of going to her and touching seemed right and when she turned and cried against him, rather than against the pony, he felt his vitals knot with pain and his eyes start to burn. pg 111 of Shadows and Strongholds

I love how Elizabeth Chadwick makes medieval history just feel so real and although I'm only 145 pages into this nearly 600 page book I'm already loving the two main characters Brunin and Hawise (they're the two in the teaser although unnamed). I'm very much looking forward to reading more about them as they grow up together.

Until next time 

LadyV

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Oh Oh Look it's Pretty!!!

I had a makeover!!! I was having a look at the wonderfully helpful post that Lori @ Pure Imagination did about blog design and she mentioned several websites where you could get free blog templates to download. I found this *gawjuss* template on Simply Fabulous and I got it to work! *squee*

This redesign is part of my re-vamping program to get back into the swing of blogging before the summer when I'm going to have *hopefully* a load of time to dedicate to my book blog and my reviews. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to get involved in more memes other than Kristi's (The Story Siren) In My Mailbox which is on Sundays. I also want to improve with my book reviews as I've only posted two this year and I've read 75 books already so I may do some backlog posting if people want to know my thoughts on particular books I've read (I'll be doing a post on reading challenges soonish). Eventually I may outline my reviewing criteria just so people can make sense of *why* I give a particular rating - but it may take a while as even I don't really know what my criteria are at the moment :P

Anyway so that's all for the time being, any comments or questions feel free to leave some below and I'll be seeing (in a manner of speaking) you soon!

LadyV

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Book Review - Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

It's been far too long since I've done an actual book review so here is a vlog with my thoughts on Perfect Chemistry which I read earlier this month.

Title: Perfect Chemistry
Author: Simone Elkeles
Date Read: 9th April 2010
Book Description: When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created "perfect" life is about to unravel before her eyes. Forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, Brittany finds herself having to protect everything she's worked so hard for - her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend and, most importantly, the secret that her home life is anything but perfect. Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But the closer Alex and Brittany get to each other the more they realise that sometimes appearances can be deceptive and that you have to look beneath the surface to discover the truth. (From Amazon)


My Thoughts:





My Rating: 4.5 Stars! 




Sooo what do folks think of the new style review method and what other things would you like to see? I can answer questions on my favourite books or other bookish things just leave me a comment with your suggestions.


Hasta Luego
LadyV

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In My Mailbox #5 - The Return

Well Hi there,
I know I've been an awfully lazy blogger and I apologise but since I recently discovered BlogTV I thought I could use the record feature to make vlogs to post on here! That way I don't have to spend hours writing my thoughts on books when I can just witter at the camera :P I don't know quite how things are going to work just yet but I'll figure out the logistics soonish.

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren




Books mentioned in my vlog:
Shields of Pride by Elizabeth Chadwick
Spindle's End by Robin Mckinley
The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier
The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Lost World and other Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty
Ash by Malinda Lo
Splendour Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Beauty by Robin Mckinley
The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks
Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles
The Return: Nightfall by L.J. Smith
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Heart of Stone by C.E. Murphy




That's all I've had so far in April and who knows maybe you'll be seeing me again soon with Review Vlogs!
Ciao for Now
LadyV

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