Ciate Ferris Wheel

I was delighted to see that Marie Claire are giving away Ciate polishes this month. I don’t often wear blue nail varnish (except For Audrey by China Claze) so that’s why I picked out Ferris Wheel, which is a nice light baby blue.

I decided to give the Caviar pearls that came with the polish a whirl, and while I’m not a massive fan of the whole caviar trend, I do like the contrast it added. This shade is very sheer, I need 4 thins coats to build it up, which I’m not the biggest fan of, but I do really like the results I got.

A Brief History of Chocolate by Steve Berry & Phil Norman Book Review

 A Brief History of Chocolate is a short ebook, taken from the larger book The Great British Tuck Shop. I must admit it was the cover that drew me in, I love it, especially the little price tag. The book is just under 100 pages long but it’s still a worthy short but sweet read.

The chapters are divided by different sections, from the beginning of the chocolate industry to the different ways bars were branded over the years to chocolates in bags (à la Buttons), to chocolate biscuit bars (Twix), teatime treats (Kit Kats) and chocolate boxes (like Milk Tray). In each chapter, the authors set about what bars and companies started these different trends and then how other companies tried to hit back, telling us what was successful and what wasn’t. One of my favourite facts upon reading this was that Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bar was originally called Highland Milk, before being changed to Dairy Maid and finally settling on Dairy Milk.

The book is quite witty in places, I liked the sentence ‘Little by little, chocolate revealed its versatility; as a gift for a loved one; a reward for an obedient child; or an amuse-bouche at the ambassador’s receptions’. It is also packed full of pictures of no longer in production bars as well as showing how some brands updated their packaging over the years. I will say that some of what was mentioned went a bit over my head, I just a bit too young to remember Ice Breaker or when Snickers was Marathon. It reminds of a small, chocolate book version of The Museum of Brands and Packaging! I would have liked it to go a bit beyond the late 80s/early 90s. Like when they mention Kit Kat, they could have mentioned Kit Kat Chunky or something.

Overall though I did enjoy it, there was plenty of interesting facts and I managed to read it in less than an hour. If you’re looking for a short fun nostalgic read, you can get this on Amazon for Kindle for only £1.99.

Copy obtained from Net Galley

June Nail Polish Haul

Once again I have amassed a new lot of polishes, mainly thanks to Poundland and Poundworld, as well as 3 for 2 offers in Superdrug and magazine freebies.

The lot!

 

Rimmel Cocktail Colour in Apple Berry Smoothie and Shirley Temple, Rimmel Space Dust in Luna Love, Sinful Colors in Pink and Sugar Rush, Revlon Colorstay in Buttercup and Bare Bones

I got all these for £1 each Poundland and Poundworld. I’d held off getting any of the Cocktail Colours from Rimmel when they were originally out but I’m excited to try them. I also hope that some of the newer ones will end up for bargains in a few months time (like the Sweetie Crush collection, I’m intrigued but don’t want to spend full whack). I wanted a really bright pink neon and had heard that this Sinful Colors one was good, so I was glad to find it! I was most excited about the Revlon Buttercup though. I had seen it in a MissHollyBerries video and really wanted to try a pale yellow. I was thinking of getting Unicorn by Sinful Colors as a cheaper version but luckily I found this!

 

Claire’s Splatter Effect in Sequins, Nails Inc in Royal Botanical Gardens, L’Oreal Confetti in Splash Peach, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Coconut

I’ve already shown the first two polishes, click here for the Nails Inc one and here for the Claire’s one. I love non-glitter confetti style topcoats so I had to get the L’Oreal one, the colour combination looked interesting! And after unexpectedly falling in love with Rita Ora for Rimmel in White Hot Love, I wanted to try another white shade so I picked up this one from Barry M after seeing it on Painted Nails and Baking Scales. I kinda also want to try the new white one from Model’s Own as well!

Ciate in Ivory Queen, Teardrop Treasure Ivory Pearls, Ferris Wheel and Frost Yourself Caviar Pearls

Finally I got these free with this month’s Marie Claire. Ivory Queen is a lovely peach shade with a subtle gold shimmer going through it. Ferris Wheel is a beautiful blue but it does take a good number of coats to make it opaque. I’m not sure if I’ll use the caviar pearls, I’m not a huge fan of them but you never know!

And that’s it! As well as the Barry M Nail Art Pen in Pink, I forgot to photograph it. Let me know if there’s any here that you’d really like to see swatches of and I’ll get on it!

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes Book Review

I had come across this book on Goodreads a view times and was intrigued by it. Not something that I would usually gravitate towards but it sounded interesting and different. So when I saw it on Netgalley I decided to give it a whirl and see what the fuss was about.

The book is set in 2011, when Hitler himself wakes up in Berlin, just lying on the ground, alive and well. He soon establishes what year it is and sets about trying to pick himself up and continue with his work of bettering Germany. He soon gets a role on TV playing a Hitler impersonator. Despite trying to convince people that he IS Hitler, everyone just thinks he’s saying so to stay in role all the time. After a YouTube clip goes viral, Hitler is thrust back into the limelight and sees his popularity soaring again.

First off, I’m going to address some of the controversy around this book. Some people are less than impressed that a book about Hitler could be funny, after all that he has done. I don’t think it’s a big problem, the book is clearly satire and making a statement that while we like to think someone like Hitler will never rise to power again because we all know better, in reality it is really easy to get swept up by someone persuasive. It reminded me of the novel The Wave by Todd Strasser in that sense.

But like I said, this book is satire and a pretty funny one at that. It had me laughing out loud at times, some of the lines are very witty. There was a line on morning people ‘What irritates me most of all about these morning people is their horribly good temper, as if they had been up for three hours and already conquered France’. Ya, I know that feeling, chirpy morning people are the worst! I also really liked this line from a scene at rowdy Oktoberfest ‘People were wailing and shouting for someone called Jude’. Hey Jude is one of my favourite Beatles songs.

Another thing I liked about the book was all the question marks put at the end of Hitler’s secretaries sentences, even though she wasn’t asking questions. I thought it was a great way to portray the up-speak a lot young women do these days. Also, I really like the cover!

There were a few downsides. One was all the names of past Nazi party members that Hitler constantly names throughout the book. A few I recognise no problem, but there are quite a few I don’t, which got annoying at times. Also there are some German pop culture references that went a bit over my head. And while I mostly liked the narrative style throughout the book, sometimes it was a bit too much, too heavy. There was one or two times when I struggled to get through some paragraphs, getting frustrated like some of the characters in the book. But overall it’s not too bad.

I would recommend this book if you like satire and want to read something a bit different. I didn’t find it offensive, I don’t think the author tries to paint a positive picture of Hitler, quite the opposite really. A very clever read.

I got a copy of this from NetGalley to review. Readers who are approved for titles from NetGalley are under no obligation to post reviews. I chose this book to review, wasn’t asked to review. All opinions are my own, I think it’s important to be honest about items you review.

May Recap

I can’t believe May is already over. I know everyone says this kind of thing but it’s true! We’re already in June. Here’s part of what I got up to in May.

Doing- Interviews! Well, only 2 so far (with another one in a few days) but it’s better than none. It just feelings good to be interviewed, it feels like progress in this hunt for a job.

 

Watching- Numb3rs. I saw Orla mention it in one of her blog posts and decided to give it a whirl. It’s about FBI agent and his mathematician brother who helps him solve crimes. Even if you don’t like maths you might enjoy this! I love the characters, my favourite is Colby. Also went to cinema to see X-Men and really enjoyed it!

 

Enjoying- Blog Every Day in May! I really enjoyed the challenge, you can read more about it in my wrap up post here.

 

Walking- Did the Darkness Into Light walk in London, my 3rd time doing it and my 1st abroad. I spoke more about it here in this post.

 

Listening- To Freakonomics Radio podcasts. Not sure why I never listed to them before seeing as I loved Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics. Looking forward to reading their new book, Think Like a Freak.

 

Playing- Yoshi’s New Island on DS. I’m a sucker for Mario games so I’m glad I got this one (though it is quite similar to Yoshi’s Island, which I also have). Managed to get the game for free as well by saving up vouchers earned from doing online surveys!

 

Reading- Not a lot really! Here’s my May Read’s blog post.

 

Knitting- A cushion! Very slowly really, I need to pick up the slack and get onto my next project, whatever that will be!

May’s Reads

May was not great in terms of reading. I really wasn’t inspired, probably because I originally had 3 non-fiction books out from the library and just wasn’t in the mood for them. So in the end I decided to just leave them and read some fiction I had lined up. It probably didn’t help that I also got sucked into watching a series on Netflix and spent a lot of time doing that instead of reading!

The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling

 The Diamond Thief is set in Victorian London, where circus performer Remy leads a secret double life as a top class jewel thief. When ordered to steal one of the world’s most famous diamonds, she finds she’s been beaten to it and sets off to track it down. I did a full review here if you’re interested in reading that. If you like YA, Victorian London and steam punk, you’ll probably enjoy this!

 

 

Cress by Marissa Meyer

 Cress is the 3rd book in the Cinder series. It continues the story of Cinder, a cyborg, trying to save the world from the evil Luna queen, Levana in a futuristic, steam punk world. This book introduces a new character, Crescent or Cress, who lives in a satellite in orbit around the Moon. She’s the Rapunzel character in this world of retelling fairy tale characters. I won’t mention too much about the plot seeing as it is part of a series but I did really enjoy it and I’m looking forward to the final book.

 

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

This is the 3rd Rainbow Rowell book I’ve read this year and it’s safe to say I’m definitely becoming a fan of Rowell! Attachments is set in 1999 in an office at a local newspaper, where Lincoln is the internet security officer who’s job it is to read flagged emails. Beth and Jennifer’s emails are frequently flagged but the more Lincoln reads from them, the less he wants to discipline them. He finds himself looking forward to their emails and slowly falls for one of the women. I thought it was a sweet story (forgetting maybe one or two of the slightly stalkerish parts!) and I loved the idea of reading the emails between the two women. I did find myself rooting for Lincoln and I really enjoyed the fact that this book focuses on adults instead of teenagers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind books that have teenage characters but it was refreshing to read them from the point of view of people my age.

 

Who is Tom Ditto? by Danny Wallace

Tom is an ordinary guy, a early morning newsreader for a radio station in London, who leads a pretty ordinary life. Until one day he finds a letter from his girlfriend that says ‘Tom, I have not left you. But I am gone. Please carry on as normal. Love always, Hayley’. Tom’s life is turned upside down by this and while trying to uncover where she is, he discovers things he didn’t know about Hayley, include a mystery club called CC. I wrote a full review here. I enjoyed the book, I thought it was quirky and fun.

 

Britty Britty Bang Bang by Hugh Dennis

I started this book at the end of April and only just finished it last night. This was partly the reason why I was so uninspired with reading this month. This book is broken down into chapters such as inventions, sport and entertainment, about what make Britain so British. And while I found some chapters interesting (I didn’t like the gardening one at all), I think the book was just so different to what I was expecting. It’s very factual while I thought the book would be a lot more casual and funny. Maybe it’s because I’d built it up in my head for a while and it took ages for me to get it from the library to read that I hyped it up. While this is interesting, it’s not as humorous as I expected.

May Stats

Number of books read-5

Ratio fiction to non-fiction- 4:1

Number of eBooks- 3 (The Diamond Thief, Attachments, Who is Tom Ditto?)

Number of books borrowed from library- 2

Number of books from Reading Resolutions- 0

All in all, not the best month. Though I’m glad I did start reading some other books I was holding off on, as it did help me get back into the swing of things. I have no idea what to read next though!

#BEDM Wrap Up

Last day of May and therefore last day of Blog Every Day in May. Yay, I managed to stay on track!! Delighted that I stuck to this and stayed on track, even if some days were a bit of a rush to get the post up. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge and I’ve gained so much out of it. I enjoying using the prompts some of the days and writing about things I might not have thought to write about, such as the Museum Day one, so I’m going to keep an eye out in the future for things like that to write about. Here are some other things I’ve gained from doing BEDM.

-To stop slacking when it comes to writing posts. Seriously, I did so many things last year that I wanted to blog about and never got around to. This really resonated with me when I posted the recipe for the Tiramisu Bundt Cake that I made back in October 2012!

-Speaking of slacking, I’ve enjoyed doing all the bookish posts I’ve blogged about. I’ve actually got a list of ideas for future book blog posts and I’m really excited now to do these on a more regular basis.

-I’m hoping to be more organised when it comes to writing up posts and from planning my BEDM posts, I think I’m going to try and have a weekly plan in place for what I want to post.

-Helped me be more confident about my blog. I even started up a Facebook page!

-I’ve just loved the social aspect of this! I’m so glad I made a Twitter for the blog and using the BEDM hashtag has helped me find some amazing bloggers and given me the opportunity to chat to them on Twitter. I did my blog shout out post a few days ago which you can check out HERE to see some of the new blogs I’ve discovered.

And I’ve decided to do a round up of some of my favourite posts.

My Favourite Things About Being a Child

5 of My Favourite Blog Posts

Favourite Beauty Vloggers

My Favourite Museums for Museum Day

My Favourite Decade

20th Century Book Tag

Thank you so much to Elizabeth from Rosalilium for organising this, I had such fun and I’m looking forward to the next one!