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Books

Giving Jane Austen a Chance

How many times have you heard something along the lines of “Jane Austen’s books are girly”, or met people that believe Austen’s books are only geared towards female readers? If you haven’t heard such a thing, then consider yourself lucky, because I’ve heard it too many times. The problem with making such a sweeping generalization is that it gives a completely false and reductive summarization Austen’s works, as well as fostering toxic sexist notions (eg. that it would be emasculating for a male to read Austen). In actuality, Jane Austen has written some of the most feminist-fuelled, challenging, satirical, and…

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Books

15 Beautifully Aesthetic Bookshelves

For avid readers, there are very few sites as aesthetically pleasing as a full bookshelf. One of my favourite things about bookshelves is that regardless of the books themselves on the shelves, the way a bookshelf is organised is very telling of someone’s personality. From messy shelves, to colour coordinated, to alphabetically arranged, they’re something beautiful in all of them. I’ve recently been considering changing up my bookshelf organisation and was just awed by the incredible inspiration pictures I was finding, so I decided to round them up so that for anyone else who is bookshelf obsessed, you could also…

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Books

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Ponderings about Social Media

I have been drawn to re-reading some of the classics lately and one that I decided on was the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. And this time, I decided to go with the audiobook version of it read by Richard Armitage. For those of you unfamiliar with the novella, the story follows a lawyer by the name of Gabriel Utterson who comes to hear of a violent man Mr. Hyde committing a series of heinous crimes and is somehow under the protection of the highly respectable Dr. Jekyll. As the story unfolds, we…

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Reflections

Choosing the Perfect Plane Novel

I travel a lot. Generally speaking, I’m on a plane every month or so. Whether it be long haul or short haul flights, I spend a decent amount of time per year in the air. So for me, it is extremely important that this time is actually meaningful. Now, I will openly tell you, I am not the most fond of flying. In fact, that is a pretty big understatement. I hate it. The claustrophobic feeling of being stuck in a box for a number of hours without any fresh air, knowing that at any moment you could plummet to…

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Books

Giving Poetry A Chance

To celebrate National Poetry Month, today’s post will focus on the importance of poetry as a literary and artistic form. While I was a student at University, I was lucky enough to take a modern poetry class under the tutelage of Trinidadian-Bahamian poet Christian Campbell. As an ardent poetry lover (and sometimes, writer of poetry), I went into the class excited and curious. Poetry is often an underrated or underappreciated art, and I think this is because there is a correlation with shortness of length to lacking substance. A poem, generally, is much shorter than a novel, as well as…

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Books

5 Ways to Enjoy Books this Summer!

The days are getting longer, the heat is starting to creep in and the sun is finally coming out! Finally! It sure has taken its sweet time. And now all I want to do is spend as much time as I can outside, enjoying everything that I missed throughout this long winter. And because of that, I almost feel guilty spending any time reading during the summer. For avid readers like myself this is a conundrum I face every year. How to still get time to read and make the most of summer before the cold of winter sets in…

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