CURRENTLY LOVING #3: SUMMER EDITION

It's been a while since I last published one of my 'Currently Loving' posts. So here comes only the third in a row and this time a more lighter, summery one, comprising only three categories. Though, one of them has three subcategories. And, oh, this selection is so good!

'...I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy.'

'You can't repeat the past.'

'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'

These are probably the most well known quotes from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby enchanted me as well and my summer 2017 will be forever connected with immerse desire, limitless pomp of parties and aching deep disappointment spilling from this modern classic novel. It is a perfect summer reading and you should definitely include it into your TBR next summer.

To tell the truth, I downloaded The Great Gatsby soundtrack a couple of years ago, upon hearing it in my cousin's car while he was driving me somewhere, and I fell in love with it even without watching the film or reading the book beforehand. And now, after finishing the book I fell urge to finally watch the film as well. And although I liked it - it touched up my imaginations perfectly - the book was better ;)

Zdroj / Source: IMDb

(SK only) Je to úžasná náhoda, že po rokoch od objavenia hudby k filmu Veľký Gatsby, po lete kedy som si konečne prečítala knihu a pozrela film, Divadlo Jána Palárika v Trnave uvedie inscenáciu Veľký Gatsby, ktorá bude mať premiéru 16. septembra 2017 a predpremiéru 14. septembra 2017. V slovenskej, divadelnej verzii si hlavnú úlohu namiesto Leonarda DiCapria zahrá Marek Majeský.
Rozmýšľam ako sa dostať večer do Trnavy a späť ;)

Zdroj / Source: DJP

Zdroj / Source: DJP

The Book Depository: The Great Gatsby (book)

Have you already heard about Bullet Journal? I've discovered this great method of planning and organising only this summer and I am head over heals in love with it.

The whole idea of Bullet Journaling is based on a simple dotted notebook that allows you not only to organise your tasks but eventually to plan your life months before. Due to the dotted grid it is more or less up to you and your personal requirements how you set it up. Though, there are a couple of rules and good practices how to do it. The main idea is to keep it simple and effective, so that you spend less time setting it up and more time fulfilling your cleverly organised tasks.

For the whole idea explained I attach a short video by the 'father' of Bullet Journal Ryder Carroll. You can find a step by step guide on how to set up and use your Bullet Journal on the official webpage as well: http://bulletjournal.com/

Since I was not entirely sure if this is going to work for me as well, I decided to purchase only a cheap several pages long dotted notebook. I started at the beginning of August and now when I have almost a month of bullet journaling behind me, I can confirm that it definitely did work for me too.
The very list of tasks I set myself each day makes me want to fulfill them so that I can cross them out. It also keeps my long-term plans on my mind and do something to reach them each day. Although, honestly, procrastination managed to creep in sometimes, though, not as many times as it did before.

As you can see my Bullet Journal is a mixture of French, English and Slovak. The main reason behind French is that I would like to improve my language skills and I hope that using it daily and repetitively will get at least some of the common words into my blood. So I managed to find a French Bullet Journal guide somewhere and set it up more or less in French.
I use Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.3 to fill it in and Stabilo Boss pastel highlighters to bring things to my attention or to separate titles from the actual list.
After a month of using I also introduced some customized features. One of these are different colours assigned to different kinds of tasks, as you can see from the key on the bottom of my September Monthly Log page. This could be useful for someone who has more than one job or works on several projects at once. I don't usually take the highlighters with me (I used to but I was fed up after few days), I usually do the highlighting part each evening at home when I am setting up my tasks for the next day(s).

Amazon.co.uk: Dot Grid Journal | LEUCHTTURM Bullet Journal

This summer I've also discovered a fantastic new YouTube channel for designers introduced by a young designer Charli Prangley. Charli comes from New Zealand but lives in London and works remotely as a web content designer but not only.
On her YouTube channel called CharliMarieTV she publishes quality design-related videos and vlogs every Tuesday and Saturday. Although her hardware and software tools are completely different from mine (she uses Apple hardware, iOS software and related tools; I rely on Asus and Windows and other mostly open source tools) her advice and practices can serve as an inspiration for me to search for similar solutions within my own tools.
Apart from her main job, other designing projects that come her way and her YouTube channel she has also her own apparel brand called Liner Note Kids inspired by music, selling hand-printed T-shirts and other stuff.

And guess from whom I've heard about the Bullet Journal for the first time? From Charli, of course. So here I attach her video on Bullet Journaling as a sneak peek of her YouTube channel.

BOOK HAUL: 08/2017

Although is my August book haul pretty small, it includes books I am very excited about.

You probably know Mohsin Hamid's latest release Exit West, since it has been almost everywhere throughout blogs and BookTube channels. And it became even more viral since it's been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2017.

Some say it is a love story and some say it is nothing like that. And though, it certainly begins with a love story of a young couple, it is most of all a kind of magical realism planted into today's troubled world of a Middle Eastern country on a brink of civil war. And when the war erupts mysterious doors into faraway countries begin to appear for people to flee into safety.

I've decided to go for the American cover, which for the character of the book, looks more magical than the UK one.

I discovered this book after watching of one of the videos by British BookTuber Simon Savidge from SavidgeReads on women in translation. However, he was showing a different book from the same publisher, which is the World Editions. I checked their site, found Khomeini, Sade and Me by Abnousse Shalmani, read the synopsis and immediately fell in love with it. Khomeini, Sade and Me is a fiction with elements of a memoir. Shalmani was born in Iran but she refused to conform to Islamic rules for women. When her family emigrates to France she finds rules connected with religion being no less restrictive.

I am curious to find out more about a viewpoint of an Iranian woman on the rules controlling life of Muslims. This book was even translated to English from French. And finally look at those unusual rounded edges. Aren't they fantastic? They are characteristic for all books published by World Editions.

The Book Depository: Exit West (American cover) || Exit West (UK cover) || Khomeini, Sade and Me

#5STARTBRPREDICTIONS

The hashtag #5startbrpredictions was introduced by British BookTuber Mercedes Mills from MercysBookishMusings (which is the name of her YouTube channel).

The logic behind this hashtag is pretty simple. You chose a couple of books from your TBR list you expect to rate with 5 stars, then actually read them and see whether your predictions were right or wrong. When well read Mercedes did this for the first time, she was wrong about all of her selected books except for one. So don't worry about failing, because this is a great chance to refine your choices next time ;)

And now, let's turn to my own TBR pile of 5 star predictions.

Well, to a true bookworm this may seem like an outright cheating to create a pile of 5 star predictions out of the most hipped books there are. But let me explain.

To tell the truth, I am rather slow reader and as a graduate of Political Science I often prefer to read non-fiction about issues that interest me than mainstream fiction. Even in this pile there are two non-fiction books. That's also why I am rather behind with contemporary fiction everyone's raving about, though, I'd love to read more of it.

The second reason is perhaps well known to every bookworm that even the most praised book could fail to meet your specific tastes.

So lets start with the list of my 5 star TBR predictions one by one.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is a Young Adult novel. I used to read YA even well late into my twenties but last couple of years I started to be interested in lesser and lesser number of books from this genre. However, The Hate U Give sounds different. It is part of the Black Lives Matter movement and it features a black teenage girl called Starr who becomes witness to her friend being shot by a policeman.

My second 5 star prediction is a book by a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Anne Applebaum: Iron Curtain - The Crushing of Eastern Europe. Although I haven't read any book by Anne Applebaum yet, I've read some of her interviews and her apt and brave tweets are one of my most favorite. She lives in Poland and is married to former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski. Iron Curtain tells history of my home country as well.

I didn't feel interested in reading The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry at first. But after hearing praises for it by Mercedes herself and other two of my favorite BookTubers, Simon Savidge from SavidgeReads and Alice Lippart from The Book Castle, I've decided to include it into my TBR list. Though now, my expectations are pretty high. Hence it is rightfully part of my 5 star predictions pile.

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber has with no doubt one of the most stunning covers among the books in my library. When I saw this paperback published by Canongate in a local bookshop for the first time, it was accompanied with a matching paperback featuring a guy instead of a girl on it's cover. And I fell in love with it. I've decided to purchase The Book of Strange New Things partly due to it's cover but partly due to it's sci-fi/melancholic/deep-cutting story. This strange combination leads to my 5 star expectations.

Basically, I don't think there could be any other than 5 star rating of a book written upon life-threatening testimonies of a man who lived under atrocious rule of the so called Islamic State in Raqqa. Moreover, The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from 'Islamic State' has been endowed with street art illustrations, which make it more accessible for a contemporary reader.

Look at that stunning cover picture of Saint Malo, town on the northwest coast of France. For me, as a graduate of Political Science and EU-studies enthusiast, Saint Malo reminds me first of all of the launch of the European Security and Defense Policy in 1999, an inconceivable happening during the World War II, during which the story of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr takes place. I expect this Pulitzer Prize-winning book being a gripping story reminding us of living during the darkest times of our history.

So these are the 6 books I expect to rate with 5 stars on Goodreads. I don't plan to read them straight away so please expect an extended period until I will be able to come back with wrap-up of this interesting challenge. Although, after finishing this post I am even more eager to start to read them as soon as possible ;)