Recommendations: February and March

"THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER" - Stephen Chbosky
I'm definitely not the first to write about how brilliant this book is, and I'm coming rather late to the party but I can't go without mentioning it. Sometimes you read a book at just the right time: "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" just sums up all of the weird events that occur during the "growing up" period, and doing things for the first time. Also one of the smaller plots related to a situation I've found myself in, and Charlie reminds me of one of my friends to a ridiculous amount of detail. It was just really close to hope.
And I love that line: "We were infinite."

"POST OFFICE" - Charles Bukowski
It took me the first few chapters to get used to the narrator's voice in this novel, because Bukowski's writing style is so unusual, as well as him using a certain amount of what I guess was jargon, but all of that's a good thing and once I did this novel was really good and like nothing I've read before. I ended up liking Henry Chinaski in a twisted kind of way, despite how unkind and lazy and for want of a better word, pathetic he is - I think there's maybe a little bit of him in all of us. A great summation of the "white trash" culture, from a point of view I haven't come across much before.

WHITTARD'S TEA: DREAMTIME
I think I've expressed my love for ridiculously sweet instant tea drinks before. Apricot and honey flavour. Perfect if you have a cold. www.whittards.com. I believe they deliver.

PENGUINS
It was actually from a Laura Marling concert the other night that I learnt that here you can watch penguins at a zoo in California via live webcam. I don't really think I need to explain why this is amazing.

PETE ROE
If you hear from me anywhere else on the internet you probably know this, but I went to see Laura Marling last week... possibly three times. I'm broke but it was brilliant and worth it, and one of the guys who opened for her was Mr Pete Roe, who also plays piano and guitar in her band later on in the set. He's a really great guitarist, by the third night, I could sing along with several of his songs. I think this one below is my favourite of his.



I don't think he's released any music yet, but I'm sure it won't be long.

***

Sorry for forgetting Wednesday again. I won't make promises but we'll see what happens next week...
Aside from that, I hope all's well your end and I'll be back soon.

Lizzie x

"Delicate"

Here is a song called "Delicate". It's by Damien Rice and I think it's beautiful.



The melody's nothing groundbreaking, it's simple and clean and warm, but I think the lyrics are so lovely.

"We might make out,
When nobody's there,
It's not that we're scared, it's just delicate."

I'm sorry for my lack of posting recently, I should be getting back into the regular habits from now on.

The truth is, I've been weird with blogging recently. I started deciding that I wanted to talk about my life and my "problems" less, and things that mattered more, like books and music I love, and I'm honestly not sure if that's for you or if it's for myself. Also tumblr has made me very lazy. But, as well as that, I've been "participating".

But in terms of life recently;
- I am learning to drive and awful at it.
- I read an amazing (and by now quite famous) book called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower".
- I'm not doing very well at dealing with stress from school.
- I'm going to see Laura Marling tomorrow!

In conclusion: sorry. I'll be here more often. You are nice.

Lizzie xxx