National Book Bloggers Forum

Let me tell you about my morning. Actually lets go back to a bit over a week ago first: I was browsing around on the internet, looking up bookish things, as I am very much want to do, and I came across news that Random House and Penguin were holding the first National Book Bloggers Forum to coincide with the Sydney Writers Festival. I was (as I'm sure you can guess) extremely excited about this prospect. I immediately registered my interest at attending and sat back to await the response. Skip forward to this morning when I still hadn't heard any word but had heard of the possibility that vloggers weren't being included. Disappointed, I decided to email and double check for myself and GUESS WHAT!? Turns out that the lovely Kirsty over at Random House had in fact emailed me prior, letting me know I had a spot as long as I wanted it but through the wonders of the internet and my own personal incompetency, I hadn't received it. Kirsty, very sweetly, dealt with my ridiculous self and assured me that all was well and I was very welcome to attend the upcoming event.
Guys! This is exciting news! I am a huge Random House and Penguin fangirl, this you know. I was thrilled when the two wonderful publishers merged and if it means such wonderful events as this, my excitement can do nothing but grow. I will of course report in full detail the events of the day, probably through visual means but I may write up another blog post or two depending. But for now I only have one more thing to share with you.

This lovely little badge basically says it all. Thanks again Random House and Penguin for supporting the Australian Book Blogging and Vlogging community.

-Lesley
xxx

Don't you hate it when books just "happen" to you? Yeah, me neither.

Currently Coveting #1

In the immortal words of Lily Allen, 'I am a weapon of massive consumption'. In honour of that sentiment these are the bits that I'm currently lusting over.

1. This adorable little Edgar Allan Poe print pouch is from one of my favourite online destinations, outofprintclothing.com I often find myself stuck on their site, looking at all the wonderful literary merch but this Poe pouch is the thing my greedy little eyes most want at the moment.

2. I'm a huge fan of ankle boots and have been looking for a pair with a bit of a heel that don't look too difficult to walk in and this pair from Rubi Shoes seem ideal.

3. Makeup is not a department in which I lack. I already own more than I can easily use but I've had my eye on this gorgeous makeup palette from Too Faced Cosmetics for a little while now. I've tried other eyeshadows from this brand before and the quality has been wonderful and the colours in this palette are just too pretty so I will definitely be keeping an eye out for this beauty.

4. The last thing I'm guilty of coveting at the minute is this book from David A Price on the history of The Pixar animation studio. I'm a huge animation fan and while most of my interest is geared towards vintage animation, Pixar are responsible for my favourite modern animated features and shorts so reading a little bit more about their process and how they've become so internationally successful sounds like a fun use of time to me.

If you enjoy this kind of post, please let me know! They're a lot of fun to write. :)

-Lesley

xxx

Hugh Laurie, Letting it Rain

This weekend I was lucky enough to have tickets to see Hugh Laurie and The Copper Bottom Band in one of my all time favourite venues, Newcastle's Civic Theatre. If you follow Hugh Laurie's vast and varied career, you'll know that he often gets a chance to show off his musical talents in his acting roles but the last few years he's been putting in the extra hours and has so far released two fantastic bluesy cover albums, Let Them Talk and Didn't It Rain. Being a fan of the albums and of Hugh Laurie in general my boyfriend and I jumped at the chance to see Laurie and his band perform live. Expectations were high but I'm thrilled to report that they were far exceeded.

Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band was one of the best live shows I've ever been lucky enough to witness and I've been to more than my share in my short 27 years. By the end of the 2.5 hour performance my hands, throat and cheeks were numb from clapping, cheering and smiling practically non stop.

This is the part where I'd love to share the highlights with you but the whole damn thing was one giant high. The only low was when Hugh and the band finally disappeared off the stage for good after two wonderful encores.

The incredible Mr Laurie was a ball of inspiring energy the entire time. He was smart, witty, sarcastic, sincere and utterly ridiculous at times. It was hard to tear your eyes off him but tear you must because the rest of the band were just too impressively entertaining to be denied. The seven piece, Copper Bottom Band were seven of the best musicians I've ever witnessed. Their talent, their presence and their incredible ability to really 'perform' for their audience was more than I would have ever have dared to hope for. Saturday night will easily go down as one of the best I have ever spent. If you're a fan of Hugh Laurie and truly wonderful music please do check out his two wonderful albums. They are certainly worth the time.

-Lesley
xxx

That's right, I have a blog don't I?

Oh, hi! Remember me? Don’t bother answering, you will only hurt my feelings. Once again I’ve been away from this here blog for quite some time. I never intend to leave but one day turns into two and suddenly months have passed. I suppose I should address the lipstick challenge I was previously doing…I stopped. *insert some kind of sheepish but overall not too guilty face here* Lazyness overcame me and It just stopped. I did think it was a good idea to get me to use all those under utilised lipsticks in my collection and I still do but I’m just going to do it in a much less formal capacity because, you know what? Makeup is meant to be fun. Adding rules to it somewhat takes away that fun, spontaneous and creative aspect of it. So back I go to slapping whatever I feel like it on my lips. The project did end up serving its purpose though; I have pulled myself out of the rut I was in of just wearing the same two lipsticks over and over again, so I’m going to call it a success regardless. 

Well there you go, this is me attempting to recommit once again to my poor neglected blog. I really do what to write on here much more often. Since that is what I want I shall have to make sure that it actually happens this time (as opposed to all the other times I’ve said such things but then decided that a nap sounded a much more appealing prospect).

I hope all you lovely people are well and being more productive than my somewhat rubbish self. Wishing you all the most charming of weekends.

-     - Lesley

 

LC #5 - Toxic Tale from MAC

I'm getting later and later with these lipstick posts. Rest assured that I am switching things up every Sunday it's just the blogging part I'm being lazy with. :/

This week, in an attempt to embrace Summer (spoiler: it's not working...) I picked out one of my very brightest lipsticks. This is from MAC's Venomous Villians Disney collection from 2011 and it's called Toxic Tale. The packaging has the Evil Queen from Snow White on it and I'm not even going to try to pretend that wasn't the only reason I purchased it. The colour itself is a very pretty VERY bright pink/coral. It's definitely not my normal lipstick colour. I feel utterly out of my comfort zone while wearing it but I am glad to pull it out of the darkness of my lipstick drawer and give it some attention. Glad that I'll only be wearing it for a week though. Any longer and I might start to question myself. haha

-Lesley

xx

What do all these lovely people have in common?

I'm not much of an audiobook listener. I'm just not. I have serious trouble paying attention. 40 minutes pass before it occurs to me that I have literally no idea what just happened and I have to rewind only to find I once again didn't pay attention. It simply doesn't work for me. I have recently wondered if it might work better for me with books I'm already familiar with and through limited experiment, I think that it does. There are a lot of great audiobooks out there of books I've already read and loved and I would really like to start using audiobooks as my go to means of re-reading books.

During my search for wonderfully read and produced audiobooks, I came across a goldmine I never knew existed. Roald Dahl's back catalog of children's stories seems to be an eternally wonderful rabbit hole into which I long to dive. There are quite a few of his stories that have been read by the man himself, recorded for cassette when he was still alive but there is also a huge selection of stories read by some of my favourite British actors (some of which are pictured above). I have yet to drop the dollars to acquire these but rest assured they are on my wishlist!

-Lesley
xx