Random Acts of Kindness in July

Can I just say that I absolutely ADORE Random Acts of Kindness. Hosted by Book Soulmates, you sign up for every month you wish to participate, and the idea is that you pick random bloggers and send books to them from their wishlists, and hopefully some of them do the same for you. It is brilliant, and every time I get an excited email back from someone who's manic that I've randomly picked them, or a book lands on my doormat that I wouldn't otherwise have got, it makes my day about 100% better.

This month I sent two books, and I received one book, and oh what a brilliant book it was!

From Hanna at Booking in Heels

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

This was a birthday present/RAK/just because she is an amazing person, and literally one of the most awesome bloggers I've come across so far, and the book was hilarious and brilliant. There will be a review of it coming as soon as I've fully digested it!

Thanks (again) Hanna! 





April RAK Thankyou's & The Four Meme

If anybody hasn't signed up for this yet, you really should! The girls at BookSoulMates host Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) monthly - April is just closing so May sign up will be up shortly I'd imagine - all you have to do is sign up with your wishlist, and then other participants can contact you if they'd like to gift you a book. I've been participating for the past two months now, and I have to say that giving books is at least as rewarding as getting them, and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the world, and all you lovely bloggy people :-)

On that note, I've got some thank you's to say. This month I recieved THREE amazing books from three lovely bloggers!

 I've been after Delirium for absolutely ages, since I read Before I Fall, and JL from An Avid Reader's Musings was nice enough to send it to me! I haven't got round to starting it yet, as this month's been mental, but I definitely will do soon!

Sarah Addison Allen is my new love! And Erika was lovely enough to send me a copy of it! Thankyoooou! :-)

And finally....I fell in love with T.S Eliot at University, and yesterday I got this copy (different cover) of The Cocktail Party from Lainy (who also has a great Pre-Loved Giveaway going on at the moment!). I'm reading it as part of my drama challenge, and I'm very excited about it!

The Four Meme

So lots of people have been doing this lately, and as I was reading an article about making your blog more personal the other day, I though I'd join in! If anybody knows where this originally came from, can you let me know so I can credit please?

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

1. Tutor
2. Carer for Special Needs children
3. Retailer
4. Manual labourer

Four books I would read over and over:

1. Little Women (and sequels)
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. Harry Potter Series
4. The End of Mr Y

Four places I have lived:

1. Hampton Hill (Greater London)
2. Teddington (Greater London)
3. Broadstairs (Kent)
4. That's it!

Four books I would recommend:

1. The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas
2. Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen
3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
4. Ravenheart - David Gemmell

Four places I have been:

1. Australia
2. New York
3. Paris
4. Kuala Lumpur

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Roast Dinner! (especially chicken)
2. Roast Potatoes
3. Pasta (especially with melted cheese...)
4. Ice cream

Four of my favorite drinks:

1. Hot Chocolate
2. Milkshakes
3. Cranberry & Orange juice (with or without amaretto)
4. Tea

Four places I would rather be right now:
I really like where I am now, but 4 places I'd like to be if I wasn't here are:

1. At my mum's house, having dinner with my family
2. In Australia with my godmother and her family
3. Devon, at the house we used to have summer holidays in when I was a kid
4. In the car (oh, how I miss the car!) on a road trip somewhere random

Four things that are very special in my life:

1. my wonderful fiance
2. my family
3. all my gorgeous friends
4. my books!



So, there you have it. A little bit of the personal touch. Oh, and just in case anybody was wondering, the car we had (an amazing classic mini with a union jack on the top) finally gave up just after Christmas :-(

Drama Challenge & Random Acts of Kindness

In the interests of the continual broadening of my literary horizons (for what reason, I don't know, but there we go!) I've decided I should read more drama. It helps that my wonderful fiance works in a theatre, so we tend to get free tickets to thing... Anyway! Trying to find somewhere to start, I stumbled on the list of Tony Award Winners. So as not to overwhelm myself, (and my already 70 strong challenge reading list!)I've decided to start by picking just one winner from every decade between 1948 and 2011, so my reading list will be as follows:

• Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller (1948)
• The Cocktail Party - T.S. Eliot (1950)
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard (1968)
• Borstal Boy - Frank McMahon (1970)
• Children of a Lesser God - Mark Medoff (1980)
• Dancing at Lughnasa - Brian Friel (1992)
• Proof - David Auburn (2001)

Once I've read them all, I'll go back and read more. I'm also going to try to see as many of them as possible, which will be interesting, as I'm totally broke. But I have a nice smile, a charming fiance, and the ability to find cheap deals on the internet! Wish me luck!
Full list of winners is here.

Also, I'd just like to mention an awesome thing I've come across recently:
Random Acts of Kindness hosted by Booksoulmates is amazing. Basically you just sign up your book wishlist, and then can access the wishlists of everyone else who's signed up and can gift people books, and people will hopefully do the same for you! I really really love this idea, and have already gifted a book, and managed to not even break my buying ban!