Mental Health Awareness Month

Because I'm on Twitter like a fiend at the moment touting for Ninja Book Swap sign ups (you have till Sunday to get your sign up emails in, you know you want to), I was lucky enough to see a tweet about this event being hosted by Uncorked Thoughts and Blog of Erised and of course I had to join in. Mental health is an incredibly important topic to me, purely because of the amount of people I know (myself included) who have been or are being affected by mental health issues, and because of the stigma attached to that. 

The basic idea is that bloggers dedicate time during the month of June to read, review and discuss books dealing with mental health issues. Despite my imminent baby having (and probably resulting slight mental health issues!) I am going to attempt to read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, which I got a couple of Ninja Swaps ago, and also The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I saw the film of years ago but have never read. Both are not that long, and I'm hoping to be on twitter a lot joining in discussions using #MHAMJUNE and helping to spread awareness :-) 

A Bookish Few Days

My last few days of Bout of Books have been totally rubbish, and while that sucks as I'd hoped to read lots every day while it was on, I have lots of good reasons. 

We've been in London visiting family and on Friday my mum looked after Benji all day so Rhys and I could have some 'alone time'. As we had quite a few theatre tokens saved up and are both massive musical fans, we decided to head up to Leicester Square and see what we could get tickets for on the cheap, and then I remembered that the Comics Unmasked exhibition is on at the British Library at the moment and I haven't been to the British Library since it relocated from the British Museum which was apparently in 1997 (!!) so obviously we had to go. 

Day started off with a minor glitch, as we were planning to use the 2 for 1 ticket offer for the exhibition, which requires the use of a National Rail type actual paper train ticket and they've changed the zoning on travelcards since the last time I bought one. This *might* have led to a minor strop at the station, for which I entirely blame my pregnancy hormones and not my levels of maturity. at all. 

So anyway, once that was sorted we got overly excited by the power of being able to use all the types of transport and go pretty much anywhere we wanted, we randomly jumped on the train to Paddington and went to find.... Paddington. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of him, because he was surrounded by people drinking coffee, but he's super cute and little and awesome. So that was a good start. 

The morning we spent wandering around Covent Garden, visiting Pollock's Toy Shop which just inspired us to make loads of toys for Ben and the new little one, taking pictures of the Moomin shop for Laura despite being convinced she must have been there (she had), and getting pretty cheap tickets for that evenings' performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Because it was a gorgeous day we went to have our picnic lunch in Hyde Park and had a bit of a wander, and then Rhys convinced me to get on a bus (!) in Central London (!) to get to the British Library to meet my sister. I don't get buses in Central London despite growing up in Greater London, because I never know where they go and am worried I'll get lost. Anyway, we got two buses and didn't get lost and my eyes were opened to the wonders of bus travel... (not really, but it was better than I thought). 

This is the British Library from across the road, and while we were waiting for my sister, who works up the road, we wandered up the stairs in the impressive entrance to see what a lovely shiny grand piano was doing there and saw a tiny sign tucked away in the corner saying that a few tickets for that evening's event with NEIL GAIMAN and DAVE MCKEAN had been released. Frantic moments ensued when we realised we already had tickets for Charlie that evening, so we rang round everyone we could think of who might want to see the fabulous Mr Gaiman, but nobody could go. I never thought there would be a day when I would pass on the chance to go to such an awesome event, but I did. To console ourselves we went into the exhibition, which is this one and if you have any interest in comics and are anywhere near London, I'd really recommend going and also checking out their programme of extra events which is pretty fantastic. Aside from the slightly creepy gangs of mannequins wearing V for Vendetta masks hiding round every corner, I added a large amount of graphic novels to my TBR list, including pretty much everything by Alan Moore, as all I've read is Watchmen and V for Vendetta. I did really well resisting all the graphic novels, books about graphic novels, and general literature related gifts in the awesome gift shop though, but then obviously we had to go over to the Forbidden Planet for a serious browse around their basement book department, during which time I picked up a silly amount of books and was (eventually) convinced to put them all back again. 

To console me for my lack of books, we headed back to Covent Garden because we'd been craving burgers for a few days and this guy said that Meat Market in Covent Garden was awesome, so we went and he was right. This is me with our food. The chips had cheese and onions on them and they were literally the greatest. 

I had a cheeseburger and the one closest to the camera is a mushroom cheesesteak which was also incredible. Food was gorgeous and not badly priced for London :-) And finally! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you like musicals, and are a fan of the 1964 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film, you should see this. It's beautifully staged and the cast was impressive, especially the beautiful rendition of Pure Imagination towards the end. Here's a spectacularly attractive photo of me with a programme:

So that was yesterday. Today we went to Milton Keynes to meet up with a friend and while we were waiting for her we went to Collectomania, which Rhys used to go to when he was little with his parents, and we had a brilliant time. This is a picture of the hall full of stalls of graphic novels, comics and general memorabilia

I found a lady selling graphic novels at 50% off and bought a couple, of which I am very proud :-) There is a photo on Twitter, which I won't post here because let's face it, there's probably enough pictures in this post! Then we went a hung out in the sun by a lake and Benji played with a little girl who's two weeks older than him and gave her a kiss and it was adorable. 

So that's where I've been. How's everyone else's weekend?

Bout of Books: Days 4 & 5

In all honesty there's not that much point in me really updating you on the past two days of Bout of Books as we're visiting my family and on Thursday I read two pages and yesterday I read about 10 :-( Hopefully today I will read a bit more, but we're off on an expedition so I promise nothing! On the plus side I did do a ton of amazing stuff yesterday, which you will hear about in another post :-) 

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY 

Pages Read: 12

Books read from: Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Number of books finished: 1!

Time Spent Reading: 20 minutes or so :-/

Bout of Books: Day 3!

Yesterday was day 3 of Bout of Books and I actually finished my first book, woo! Hospital appointments meant I spent the morning going in and out of rooms (into one to have my blood pressure taken, back to the waiting room, into another to have my blood sugar taken, back to waiting room, in for a scan, back to waiting room, into another to see the diabetes team, home) but did allow me some time to get some reading done and I managed to finish Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo which is amazing and I WILL be reviewing it in the not too distant future. The rest of the day was pretty much a write-off reading wise because due to a neighbour complaining about the fact that our child makes noise and occasionally we slightly raise our voices in order to hear each other, I now feel like I can't stay in at all during the day in case Benji annoys someone, so we spent the day walking in the pretty countryside, which was lovely but knackering and didn't leave much time for anything else!  Thursday might be better as we're off to my parents house for a few days, meaning there will be a lot more people around to cuddle Ben and pay him attention :-) 

WEDNESDAY

Pages Read: 96 

Books read from: Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

Number of books finished: 1!

Time Spent Reading: about an hour on and off

CHALLENGE

'This Made Me Think of That' hosted by My Overstuffed Bookshelves. For this challenge we have to take our current read and pair it with something. Currently I'm reading Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome which is the third book in the Swallows and Amazons series and its' obvious pairing in book terms is probably Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss. Otherwise, I'd pair it with cake. Any kind of cake, but probably fruit cake would go the best. Anybody who's read the books will see how they are cake. 

Announcing the SECOND Summer Ninja Book Swap!!

I am super excited! Sign ups for the Summer Ninja Book Swap are officially open and Hanna and I have been running the swaps for an entire year :-) The eagle eyed among you will notice that this is the same button we used last year, purely for continuity's sake of course. Feel free to nick it to put on your blogs. 

In case anybody doesn't know what a Ninja Book Swap is yet, here are the basics:

You sign up to send a fellow ninja a parcel containing a book or two from their wishlist (these do not have to be new, but must be in a condition you would be happy to receive yourself), a little gift based on a list of their likes and dislikes you will receive, and a card revealing who you are. There has been a little confusion in the past, but to retain the ninjaness, you won't send your parcel to the same person you receive a parcel from, that way everybody's parcel is a total surprise :-) 

Want to sign up? Of course you do! Here's a little list of what to do and the rules. There aren't many so please make sure you follow them all! 

**** Sign up by sending us an email at ninjabookswap@outlook.com. In the email you need to tell us:

       - your name and address details 

       - a link to your blog/goodreads/facebook page/twitter or tumblr account/wherever you have an 'internet presence'

        - a link to your book wishlist or alternatively a list of ten books you really want to read

        - a short list of your likes and dislikes (e.g. I like chocolate, Harry Potter and silver jewellery, I dislike pink things, bookmarks and anything overly girly) to help your partner when they're choosing your gift

         - Shipping preference - are you happy to send you parcel internationally or would you prefer to send only within your own country?

         - If you would like to send and receive TWO awesome parcels, please let us know! :-) 

THE RULES

1. Email us at ninjabookswap@outlook.com telling us all the above things by Sunday May 25th 
2. Go shopping! And post your parcel by Monday June 30th - this is to give everybody plenty of time to shop as lots of people had issues with not having enough time last time. You can of course post it before this deadline if you're ready!
3. PLEASE buy a book or two from your recipients wishlist as this is the only way (unless you already know them well) you'll know they don't have or haven't read the book already. 
4. Books can of course be second hand but please do not send copies in a condition you'd be unhappy to receive yourself and PLEASE do not send anything that is obviously a promotional copy (e.g says '£1 with Galaxy Chocolate/The Daily Express) as it makes it seem like you've not bothered!
5. Email us both once you have SENT and RECEIVED your parcel, so we can keep track and make sure that everyone's playing fair :-) 
6. Please get proof of postage when sending your parcel, as if you don't and the parcel goes missing you a) won't be able to claim via Royal Mail and b)won't be able to participate in future swaps. 

The swaps are a massive amount of fun and a brilliant way to get to know new bloggers and feel like the world is a lovely place full of lovely strangers who want to buy and send you gorgeous bookish parcels for no reason :-) If you want to keep up with what's going on, follow us on Twitter @NinjaBookSwap, where we will be posting updates and generally making a lot of book swap related noise. Please feel free to blog about the swap and tweet us the links to your posts - we'll be happy to share!

Bout of Books: Day 2

So... it's day two of the Bout of Books Readathon! I realised yesterday I failed to link to anything useful, so if you want to sign up to join in with the fun, today is the last day to do so and you can do it here. 

If you're interested, my goals,stats and challenge for Day 1 are here. 

TUESDAY

Pages Read: 23 altogether 

Books read from: Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome

Number of books finished: 2 if you count having read the same Pingu book twice to Benji. 0 of my own books. 

Time Spent Reading: probably about 45 fragmented minutes

It's 1.30pm and so far my Tuesday has been a RUBBISH reading day! I managed to read two pages of Peter Duck early this morning before Rhys left for work while we were all eating breakfast, but the rest of the morning was spent playing with and reading to Ben and since he's given up sleeping in his bed during the day I then spent about three hours walking around doing various chores with him in the pushchair, hoping he'd fall asleep which he has just done and I swear I must have walked about three miles by now, up hills and everything. I'm knackered! Anyway, since I can't use the laptop when he's awake because he likes to 'type' on it (for which read thump the keyboard as hard as he can and occasionally sit on the screen :-/) I thought I'd take advantage of the brief time period to write a post for today, participate in todays challenges, both of which look really good, and have a little read of some other blogs too! 

I'm hoping I'll get to read a lot more later, after Ben's in bed, but I also have business taxy stuff to do, so maybe not.... 

It didn't get a huge amount better, because I had a lot of business stuff to do and some orders to work on (look at me, I'm a busy crafty entrepreneur) and by the time I actually settled down to read it was quite late and I was quite tired. Never mind, bring on Wednesday! :-) 

CHALLENGES

Bookish Battle Royal Challenge hosted by My Life in Books

For this challenge the idea is to pick 3 characters and have them battle it out! I love it. My three are:

Jo March from Little Women (we don't really need to talk about how much I dislike the Winona Ryder film right now, she is here for representational purposes and that is all)

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter

aaaaand Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables series

I think it would be a really close call, but in the end Hermione would win, purely because of the three of them she's the least inclined to get overly emotional about stuff. This may have a lot to do with having been created a century or so after the other two, but still I'm sticking with it! I think Anne would definitely give her a run for her money though, while Jo would be up a tree somewhere, writing about the whole experience!

The second challenge of the day is hosted by River City Reading. For this challenge, all we have to do is to make a list of books we're looking forward to, and I have quite a few at the moment!

1. The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba - not out yet, as far as I'm aware currently without a release date, but when it eventually turns up it will be epic, I can tell.

2. Fangirl & Landline by Rainbow Rowell - because I'm the last person in the whole world not to own Fangirl, but having read and obsessed about and adored Attachments and Eleanor and Park I cannot wait to read anything and everything Rowell ever writes. For the moment I'll settle for the two currently published though!

3. The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris - You guys know how I feel about mythology, and I think I've read all of the novels Joanne Harris has published so far and loved them all, to greater and lesser degrees. Somehow The Gospel of Loki came out without me noticing and I'm dying to read it!

4. The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas - also not out yet but due in 2015 I think. I love Scarlett Thomas for she is brilliant and so I must read all of the things that she writes. Yes. *wanders off to find Our Tragic Universe to read again*

5. Fables: Witches and Fairest:Wide Awake by Bill Willingham - both in print (yay!), I've been reading the Fables series for a while but it's slow going because my local library service only have a few of them and I'm a bit cash - strapped at the moment so I've been awaiting the right moment to buy volume 14 for a while. Fairest is the new series, focusing on the female fables characters and it seems like it's going to be great!

I'm going to stop there, although I could go on forever, because I feel like with the amount of people taking part in BoB this time you lot are going to have more than enough to add to your TBRs already! :-) 

Bout of Books - Goals & Day 1!

So because I totally suck, I actually didn't realise until this morning that Bout of Books was starting today! Luckily I had three books with me, so I got started on the train :-) At the moment I'm pretty manically busy with work, sorting out my craft business, entertaining an 18 month old, trying to keep the house livable, oh, and being 8 months pregnant and knackered, so i'm going to keep my goals simple! The manic activity is represented in the books I'm currently reading, all of which I'm part way through, so my basic goals are thus;

• Read every day
• Participate in at least one challenge a day
• Visit two new to me blogs a day (and pop across and say hi to Ellie, Katie and Hanna)

That's it! Seriously simple. Because you've not seen them yet, here are my books:

And here are my stats for day one:

Monday

Pages Read: approx 120 

Books read from: Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, Craft Show & Sell by Torie Jayne, and (not pictured) Toast & Marmalade (otherwise known as 'the bacon book') by Emma Bridgewater. 

Number of books finished: 0

Time Spent Reading: Probably about 2.5-3 hours all in. 

After having forgotten, as previously mentioned, that Bout of Books started today, I managed to kick off to a good start reading Flora & Ulysses on the train. I've never read any Kate DiCamillo and it was one of those surprising times where Rhys has discovered an author and pushed her on me, and I'm really glad he has. Flora & Ulysses is about a girl called Flora and a squirrel with superpowers called Ulysses and so far it's hilarious and great. I love it. I also dipped into Craft Show & Sell a bit on the train. Basically it's full of tips on how to run a successful craft business, and probably not all that interesting to those of you who don't do that :-p Toast & Marmalade is not pictured because *mumbles* we sell it at work and I haven't actually bought it, I just read it when it's quiet. It's an interesting, very self-interested account of Emma Bridgewater (who runs the pottery business) and her many talents. It does have great photography though, and recipes, so it's a winner for me despite the self-absorption!

Challenge

The first challenge for this Bout of Books is a recommendation challenge, and I thought I'd give it a go because obviously everybody needs more books on their tbr... :-/

Here are my recommendations:

If you like Scott Pilgrim vs the World by Bryan Lee O'Malley, try Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo.

If you like beautiful writing and magical fantasy, try The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

If you like mythology and amazing stories, try The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

My last one is kind of an anti-recommendation? I don't know, see what you think!

If you don't like Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, try The Radleys by Matt Haig

So that's day one! I'm off to visit a few of you now :-) SO EXCITED to be blogging again!!