Hello Blog,

I´m coming to you today with one of my favorite things ever: nature, nature, NATURE! And also to give you a few updates about how I spent/ am spending these days! 🌿

Today I´m coming at you with my little red dress purchased while I was sick in bed, dreaming of better days. Now, obviously, I am enjoying it in all its beauty and I am SO glad I bought it! 

Hello, Blog, 

long time no see!

I thought I would write down all I have in mind right now, and make a little challenge I want to start a bit more official.. so what better place for this than my sweet blog?

First of all, I am currently getting out of a weird situation in which I got some kind of infection that reached my kidneys, keeping me mostly in bed for more than a week. In fact, I am currently listening to Sugarcubes and waiting for the exact time in which I need to take my antibiotics, how fun! haha

But you may have experienced this too, when you are healing from something and have more time with yourself, you will start making plans for as soon as you get better. That was me these days, especially making plans about my health and eating habits. Also a little tip, if you're feeling pretty shitty, purchasing a red dress online for when you'll get back on track will make you feel better, I just tried it and it seems to work!

I was thinking about this post since a week, but February finished in such a hurry and I couldn't really find the time to sit down and concentrate on writing. Fortunately today is my free day! 

For today's post I have again 3 books. They could have been more but I had my London trip at the beginning at the month and didn't read much in the time there. Nonetheless, pretty interesting books if you ask me :)

HARPER LEE - TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Thought I would have posted first the "What I got from London" post, but apparently I became too lazy to edit the photos and opted for a more creative post like this! haha

I had this spring outfit in mind since a while now and wanted to try it out before the actual spring would come. I honestly feel so hyped for the warmer days. The last weeks of Winter are always so draining and feel so eternal, in a negative way. 

I like to use my posts as a little diary page as well, so lets start with a flash news from today! 

This morning I was waiting for my train to get to work and the station where I usually need to take it is a quite central one with a lot of people. While I was standing, I hear a strange noise and as if someone hit me with something on my back and right arm. Well, that was pigeon poop.. not one pigeon, but a large group of them who decided to poop on my favorite and relatively new green coat!!!

Let me tell you, pigeon poop smells awful. haha I guess you already knew that, but it´s nice to spread awareness. I will certainly bring my coat to wash tomorrow and walk around with it to go home today (because remember, it´s still winter).

Usually people start their 2018 goals on the first days of January, but I like when things come naturally and this seems to be right time for my own goals! I hope to make writing on the blog a habit and that it will slowly feel familiar again 😊

By now you probably already realized that writing again on my cozy little blog is not the only reason why I´m writing this post and that the other reason has something to do with books! Let me start saying that I only read for my own pleasure and even if I work at a book shop, I still keep that a passion without forcing myself to read what I don´t like only to give some advice or information to costumers (there´s already Goodreads for some speedy infos like that haha). I do try to push myself out of my comfort zone though! 

To understand me a little better, here´s a little recap about teenage Alba: I used to read really slowly and enjoy books, mostly classics and historical novels, with ups and downs, or better periods with a lot of reading and others concentrated on my guitar and the discovery of new music. I was totally skeptical about modern Literature and didn´t even take it in consideration because I was sure (?) that I wouldn´t learn anything from it. Which brings me to my other little "obsession", reading to learn or get closer to a time period I didn´t personally live in. I was/am in love with history, but at the same time took really bad grades at the school subject because I apparently liked not to be coherent with my choices! haha 

Moving forward to now, I thought I´d put some rules to my reading and decided I´d read a minimum of 3 books (mostly around 400/500 pages each) per month, or 4-5, if some are thinner. I usually already do that, but sometimes I get lost in the daily routine/things to do and read more slowly than what I´d like to. 
So to avoid that, I decided to start this, because "so many books, so little time", right? Then, to keep track of them and make it an even more enjoyable experience, I´ll write a post in a bit more detail without spoiler at the end of each month (UH, that´s a great promise right there) showing you what I read and how I liked it. The number of books might look too less for some, too much for others, but I suggest we all give ourselves a little challenge and make it more fun, even starting with one book a month for super-busy bees would be amazing. 

This months selection looks so different and strange now that I give a better look at it! 

MURAKAMI - NORWEGIAN WOOD

I´ve had this title in my head for a long time, and obviously being Murakami I saw it everywhere, but it somehow never felt like the right time for it... until this month! It is the second book I´ve read from Murakami and I must admit, I have mixed feelings for it. 

The book is concentrated on the life of a Japanese college student named Toru Watanabe who lives in Tokyo in the ´60s. I find this to be one of those books that can be interpreted in so many different ways, and I think that´s a success for the author, despite the fact that there´s also a huge 50/50 of people who really loved it or found it extremely annoying. I like to say I find myself in the middle! 

What I got from it was that life in a big city, perhaps especially in Japan, being surrounded by a lot of people but at the same time not feeling a connection to them, can sometimes mean solitude and depression for our fragile human minds. And being all different, we also react differently to it: some take out all their strength and are able to get through difficult times, others unfortunately can´t. So three big themes of the book were definitely sex, young student life and suicide. This book gave me a melancholic sensation of solitude that I couldn´t brush off for a little while after reading it, but at the same time I felt some kind of tenderness for all the characters! Most of the times I felt like I did for "A little Life" of Yanagihara, I just wanted to hug them all and say it´s all going to be alright. Although I didn´t enjoy all of the things described and found some even "too much" for my little brain, it was a nice read and a little window to life in Japan. I personally felt really interested even just in reading about the different street names and areas, foods and normal daily life from a different culture (although I know that it´s mainly fiction). 

PULLMAN - NORTHERN LIGHTS 

This one was a beautiful gift that I couldn´t wait to read since I got back from London in November, and of course I loved it so much! Probably a lot of people will know already about the trilogy "His Dark Materials" and I feel so late in the game, but better later than ever I guess. I´ll probably end up buying the other two books in London (now it´s a tradition haha) and I´m already thinking about purchasing "The book of Dust" as well :S

Two words about the magical world of these books: probably set in a Victorian time, it´s a world where humans have their own Daemons. Described as part of their souls (so they´re strongly connected to their humans), the Daemons can also change appearance into different animal forms, have a human intelligence and are able to speak. In the book you´ll also find interesting creatures like strong armored bears and witches, with particularly lovable characters from each group, and all of them will have to come together and fight an important war! If you´re into Fantasy and you still didn´t read it, I highly suggest you to put it in your Amazon basket as soon as possible :D