My Nook of Books

Title : Manhattan Beach Author : Jennifer Egan First published : 2017 My edition : Corsair, 2018, paperback Cover : The colours are great, and the picture gives a view of New York around the time the story takes place. I just don't like all these quotes on the front. Covers should be pretty, and quotes are not pretty ;) Innerwork : Pleasant font, quite large, but not too large. Compatibility with reading on the train : Not too great. Although it is a paperback, the book is quite stiff and heavy, which makes it difficult to hold it open with just one hand. Synopsis : The book tells the story of Anna Kerrigan, who accompanies her father on business meetings at the age of twelve, and who is a diver at the Naval Yard during the Second World War when she is around twenty. During her teenage years, her father goes missing. Anna doesn't give it too much thought, until she is older and meets Dexter Styles. She remembers visiting him with her father years ago and starts i...

Yesterday it was snowing, and that is quite rare in the Netherlands! It happens maybe three days a year, and I love it :) People always complain about traffic and trains and slippery roads and I get that, but the world is so light and quiet and beautiful and slow. There is nothing better than walking in the snow or curling up on the couch with a book while peaking out of the window, looking at the soft white layer on the world. Speaking of books and snow; here are a few of my favourite books featuring snow, to get in the mood: - The Rabbit Back Literature Society , by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen. Situated in Scandinavia, it is not a surprise that there is some snow involved in this book. Ella, a literature teacher and possessor of beautifully curving lips, is selected to be a member of a secret writer society. Strange things are happening, and things are not what they seem to be... - Jane Eyre , by Charlotte Brontë. I do not associate this book very strongly with snow and winter, b...

I know, it is a bit late to talk about Christmas presents, but I just wanted to share (and bloat about) the best Christmas presents you can get from your employer. I work as a production editor at a small typesetting company, guiding author and publisher through the process from (usually finished) manuscript to a pdf-file that is sent to the printer. Working at a big firm might have it advantages, but so does working at a small company where you share the office with your boss. Last year I received a card for unlimited cinema access for two full months. I do like going to the movies, but I ended up using the card only two times! This year me and my boyfriend moved away from the big city, increasing the distance between our house and the cinema even further. So my boss asked my if I would like something else for Chistmas this year. I replied that I really liked books, so maybe he could think of something involving those. And he did! I received a very heavy package including fi...

Title : Pride and Prejudice Author : Jane Austen First published : 1813 My edition : Collector's Library, 2003 Cover : To be honest, I'm not really a fan of dust jackets. I know they are meant to project the book, but most of the time they just get in the way. They always slide a bit, which makes them crumple, which makes you concentrate on how to hold your book, instead of focusing on what is in the book. Futhermore, a dust jacket hides the beautiful linnen cover beneath it! Look at the beautiful red cover, with the title and author in gold and the embossed logo of the publisher! It is not really visible on the photo, but the red colour is a really perfect deep dark red. Innerwork : The lines and pages have an agreeable length, the font that is used is pleasant and the book looks neat. Only the illustrations are not always placed with the same care: the distance between the bottom of the illustration and the text differs a lot. Furthermore, two illustrations do n...

Today's bookstats are about the characters in Jane Austen's Pride &Prejudice , the book I'm reading at the moment. What a pleasure to begin the year with a story so captivating and familiar. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PrideAndPrejudiceTitlePage.jpg This book has over 120.000 words and the longest word is disinterestedness (17 characters). The aim of today's bookstats is to find out which character is, according to the number of mentions in the book, the most important! As you can probably guess, it is Elizabeth! She is mentioned 752 times in the book as either Elizabeth, Lizzy or Eliza. Before I started this little investigation, I took a moment to consult with myself what my expectations of the outcome were and made a top 5. Maybe you would like to write down your own expectations before you read on! 1. Elizabeth 2. Jane 3. Lydia 4. Mr. Darcy 5. Mr. Bingley Also, I asked two friends what their thoughts on the subject were: Friend 1...

Dear readers, For a while now I have been thinking about starting a blog, to share my thoughts about the books I read, the cakes I bake and other awesome things I try to establish in my life. So with the start of a new year, there is also the start of this new blog. And here I am, trying to write my first blogpost. What can you expect (or what will I try to accomplish this year)? Ofcourse, reviews of all the books that I read. And lists of books I find that I want to read. I mean, this is a book blog, what else would you expect? But, as I am kind of a beta nerd and a little bit into statistics, I also want to write about bookstats and answer questions such as How often are the Bennet sisters mentioned in Pride and Prejudice? And is Elizabeth more often called Lizzy, Eliza, or Elizabeth? Which Bronte sister writes, on average, the longest sentences? And who uses the most conjuctions? Et cetera. If you think of any questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the comments! Further...