Stop What You're Doing And Read

Image credit: amazon.co.uk

This definitely isn't a new concept or anything, but I got so excited when I discovered these books a week or so ago that I knew I had to share them with you!

Basically, back in 2011 this book of essays Stop What You're Doing And Read This was published by Vintage Classics, containing different essays written by published authors and other advocates from backgrounds such as science and publishing, all in the name of convincing people to read more. The basis is that there are 24 hours in the day and so many demands on your time, but there should always be time made for reading, as there are so many benefits. Personally I could go on all day about how good reading is and how everyone should read. It's available for £6.99 in paperback form and £3.99 in kindle form on Amazon.

But as incredible as this book of essays sounds (and I seriously need to get it and read it), this isn't the part that got me excited. No, that part comes in the ebook collections that were published by Vintage Classics to celebrate the release of the book of essays. I stumbled across one of them when I was looking to buy I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith, and then got very excited when I saw the rest. They are only available on kindle (and other ereaders, I assume), but as the kindle app is so widely available and free to download on most smartphones and tablets, and your PC, I figured this wasn't a big hurdle.

Image credit: http://2.bp.blogspot.com

The collections available to buy are:

Stop What You're Doing And Read...To Your Son: Just So Stories & Moonfleet by John Meade Faulkner and Rudyard Kipling (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...To Your Partner: Jane Eyre & Anna Karenina by Charlotte Bronte and Leo Tolstoy (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...To Warm You In Cold Weather: Little Women and Good Wives & The Cranford Chronicles by Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Gaskell (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...Classic Crime: The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes & The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...After Dark: Ghost Stories & Dracula by M.R.James and Bram Stoker (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...Banned Books: Lady Chatterly's Lover & Moll Flanders by D H Lawrence and Daniel Defoe (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...Of All Ordinary Human Life: Middlemarch & To The Lighthouse by George Eliot and Virginia Woolf (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...To Make You Laugh: The Diary of a Nobody & Three Men in a Boat by George Grossmith and Jerome K. Jerome (£4.99)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...On a Journey: The Worst Journey in the World & The Road to Oxiana by Apsley Cherry-Garrard and Robert Byron (£7.99)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...To Your Daughter: I Capture the Castle & The Secret Garden by Dodie Smith and Frances Hodgson Burnett (£3.95)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...Epic Page Turners: The Count of Monte Cristo & Les Miserables by Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo (£4.49)

Stop What You're Doing And Read...Books That Changed The World: The Origin of Species & The Communist Manifesto by Charles Darwin and Karl Marx (£2.49)

There are 12 different collections, and I just love this idea so much as the classics contain some real gems, and having two books in one with a title that directs you as to who would like to read the books inside, or when you should read them, is just a really nice way to get started on reading some of the classics. Working out which ones you would actually want to read can be so confusing, so having them neatly organised like this just makes me very happy indeed, and I can't wait to get my hands (virtually) on some more!

Have you come across these collections before? Any that have caught your eye?

Favourite Four #2

I just realised today I haven't posted a blog post in like...a week or something. Mainly because Pretty Little Liars has actually taken over my life and I've done basically nothing but binge watch for the past five or so days. Life is actually great sometimes.

Binge watching aside, I decided to post another of my four all time favourite books, because I love reading and I love babbling on about what I read, even if people aren't all that interested in it. Keeps me happy. So without further ado, onto the books!

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory: I'm pretty sure I've posted about Philippa Gregory before, but I am a long time die hard fan of this lady. She's my favourite historical fiction writer, and it helps that she writes around the time of the war of the Roses and the Tudor period, which is one of my favourite areas of history. The Constant Princess focuses on Katherine of Aragon from when she came over from Spain to marry Prince Arthur, all through her marriage to Henry VIII, and ending when she was brought in front of the court to fight for her marriage. I really, really love this book and highly recommend it if you too are a fan of historical fiction.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: Another historical fiction book, this time a lot more well known, as it was turned into a film and released last year I believe? I don't know, but I do know that this book is incredible. Narrated from the viewpoint of Death, which is the weirdest, uniquest, most amazing way of telling a story, it is set during Nazi Germnay in 1939, and focuses on the life of Liesel Meminger, a young girl with communist parents who was sent to live with foster parents. It describes her relationship with these parents, the friends she makes, including Rudy Steiner, and the young Jewish man her foster parents hide. This book is a truly incredible piece of fiction written by an amazing author, and I'm not ashamed to admit I sobbed at the ending. The film is also amazing, and you should just read it/watch it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: This definitely isn't a book for everyone, but I read it over the summer last year and utterly loved it. It was published in 1891 and is a philosophical Gothic novel, and the only novel Wilde ever published. I'd be really bad at summarising this book, so I'm just going to add in a summary from wikipedia (god bless wikipedia): 

Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian’s beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfilment are the only things worth pursuing in life.

Understanding that his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses the desire to sell his soul, to ensure that the picture, rather than he, will age and fade. The wish is granted, and Dorian pursues a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences; all the while his portrait ages and records every soul-corrupting sin.

Basically, I really loved this book and the questions it raised about identity and beauty and self worth and yes. Good book, interesting concept.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Another classic, another book that probably isn't for everyone, but it's definitely my all time favourite book and has been since I picked up this now rather battered and bruised copy for a fiver when I was eleven. Fairly well known, Bronte published Jane Eyre in 1847 under the pen name Currer Bell. It's about the protagonist, Jane Eyre, and her life from when she is ten years old, following her through being sent to school, getting a job as a governess, and everything that comes after. Obviously, it's more interesting than my description makes it sound, but I'm scared of giving the plot away! I really love this book, and definitely identified with the plain Jane Eyre who loves reading when I was younger, and even now. I very much recommend this book as a fantastic read.

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