Bookish (and Not So Bookish) Thoughts

I realized I've developed a Blogger's Bad Habit called Overthinking. It means I've got tons of ideas for blog posts that I'd really love to show you readers, but the moment I'm sitting at my laptop trying to actually write something, I get carried away with fussing about exact wordings and clarity issues and all sorts of perfectionist woes. I find it impossible to just let my thoughts flow onto the blog post and then go publish it – instead, I plan and procrastinate for ages, and then maybe get something finished. This is interesting, because I'm not a perfectionist generally.

To cure this Bad Habit, I'm going to try out another weekly blogging event, Bookish (and Not So Bookish Thoughts, hosted at Bookishly Boisterous. The idea is to let bloggers share their thoughts and experiences of the week, meaningful or random, without necessarily having to develop these ideas into blog posts of their own. So here we go, my "spontaneously getting my thoughts out on the blog" exercise of the week:

1. I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now, can someone please give me a Time-Turner or put a Memory Charm on me so I can forget everything about it? I won't say anything more because some readers might still want to avoid spoilers, feel free to ask me in the comments what exactly horrified me so much – if you dare.

2. One of my best friends visited London, and whenever someone travels to the UK I very nicely ask them to bring me a couple of books which are hard to find here in Finland, in exchange of eternal gratitude and the price of said books. This time, I got David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, the play version of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, and a surprise bonus of Shakespeare breakfast tea! Cloud Atlas is one of my absolute favourite books which I need in my own collection, I had been looking for Peter Pan for ages without any luck, and the Shakespeare tea has the most beautiful box ever, so I'm over the moon. Thank goodness for friends who visit the civilized world when I can't.

Have you ever seen such an exquisite wooden box of tea?

3. Finnish television is finally showing the new series of Hollow Crown. I watched the first episode, which is the first part of King Henry VI, and got basically the same, wonderful feels that the first series produced: excellent British actors playing brilliant Shakespearean dialogue in beautifully-shot locations. The first episode opens with a prologue by Judi Dench, and, as I expected, Sophie Okonedo as Margaret is ruthless queenliness incarnate. I reviewed all of the Henry VI plays while waiting for this adaptation to happen.

"I'm the bloody Queen, mate."

4. I read Oscar Wilde's fairy tales and am completely spellbound. There is such beauty on those pages that it's almost impossible to take it all in with a simple, human understanding. Go read them, if you haven't. Your life will get infinitely better.

5. I have been reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children for a long while now, and I'm still in the middle of it. Not because of any loss of interest issues – it's one of the most intriguing books I've ever read. There's just so many ideas to take in there, it appears to be quite a challenge even for an obsessive reader like me. I love it.

6. A curious thing happened in the library the other day. I wandered off to the epic poetry section, which I don't normally do, and this one book just demanded to be taken off the shelf – Gilgamesh. I have vague memories of hearing the name somewhere, but until I read the back cover I had no idea of it being an ancient Mesopotamian epic, considered to be the oldest surviving work of literature in the world. So apparently, I will be reading Gilgamesh in the near future, without ever having planned to do so.

7. All in all, my To Be Read list has been completely re-arranged. I already had that list planned, then rummaged through my bookcase to find a staggering stack of books that I realized I couldn't wait to read. So, once I'm finished with Midnight's Children at last, my near-future reading list will include:

• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (with the added bonus of delightfully pretty covers)
• Gilgamesh
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel

Just had to show off the Peter Pan cover and my illustrated edition of Treasure Island.

My thoughts for the week turned out to be mostly of the Bookish sort. I'm not surprised.