How do you relax and de-stress after a busy day? Predictably for me there's nothing better than escaping into a good book and being offered a book token is always an absolute dream. This is what I chose to spend my £40 voucher* on and stay tuned to the end of the post where I'll be giving away another £40 gift card!
The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe* | £4.87
The Penguin English Library collection is beautiful and I couldn't resist adding another to my bookshelf. Poe is on my very long list of writers to explore and I'll be saving this collection of short stories to start on a rainy evening.
"Horror, madness, violence and the dark forces hidden in humanity abound in this collection of Poe's brilliant tales, including - among others - the bloody, brutal and baffling murder of a mother and daughter in Paris in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', the creeping insanity of 'The Tell-Tale Heart', the Gothic nightmare of 'The Masque of the Red Death', and the terrible doom of 'The Fall of the House of Usher'."
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton* | £7.51
I read The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton a few months ago and it's easily my favourite book I've read this year. There's still time for something to overtake it but I don't think that will happen. The Rehearsal was Catton's first novel and I'm looking forward to immersing myself in her talent all over again because I think she is a formidable young writer.
"A high school sex scandal jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own potency. The sudden publicity seems to turn every act into a performance and every space into a stage. But when the local drama college decides to turn the scandal into a show, the real world and the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and soon the boundaries between private and public begin to dissolve..."
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel* | £10.47
Like The Rehearsal, I picked out Station Eleven for very similar reasons. I read
Last Night in Montreal by St. John Mandel last month and was captivated from beginning to end by her beautiful writing. From reading the synopsis this wouldn't necessarily be the kind of book I would gravitate towards usually, but I've been hearing
a lot of really good things and I get the feeling it will transcend its genre wonderfully.
"Day One: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week Two: Civilisation has crumbled. Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Traveling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.
Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: celebrated actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan, a bystander warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife, Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend, Clark; Kirsten, an actress with the Traveling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'."
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell* | £12.99
Longlisted for the Booker Prize, The Bone Clocks is a book I've been hearing a lot about for a little while now. Even after reading the synopsis I don't really have any idea what it's about and I get the feeling that not knowing any of the details is the best way to approach it.
"One drowsy summer's day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for 'asylum'. Decades will pass before Holly understands exactly what sort of asylum the woman was seeking...
The Bone Clocks follows the twists and turns of Holly's life from a scarred adolescence in Gravesend to old age on Ireland's Atlantic coast as Europe's oil supply dries up - a life not so far out of the ordinary, yet punctuated by flashes of precognition, visits from people who emerge from thin air and brief lapses in the laws of reality. For Holly Sykes - daughter, sister, mother, guardian - is also an unwitting player in a murderous feud played out in the shadows and margins of our world, and may prove to be its decisive weapon."
Golden Snitch* | £4.49
Lastly I spotted a Golden Snitch and although it won't technically help me to relax it looks
fabulous on my desk and you know, I feel like my desk is now significantly improved with such a magical new addition.
GIVEAWAY.
Stress Free Print have very kindly allowed me to host a giveaway for a £40 National Book Token gift card. You can spend your gift card in many Bookshops in the UK including Waterstones, Foyles & WH Smith or online at
hive.co.uk where a percentage of your order will go to help your local bookshop!
(I'm sorry that it's a UK only giveaway, if you're an international reader I'll be holding a couple more giveaways in December.)
How to enter: (extra entries given for each option i.e. completing all of the below steps will earn you 5 entries)
In your comment please include the following, deleting options that are not applicable:
- Your Bloglovin' Name OR other way you're subscribed to sailorjennie.com:
- I've followed Stress Free Print on Facebook.
- Your Facebook Name:
- Your Twitter Name:
- I've followed @StressFreePrint on Twitter.
- URL of Tweet:
- How do you like to de-stress?
- A way of contacting you if you haven't included your Twitter Name:
Entries are open until midnight GMT on December 5th 2014.
Good Luck!
- xo
Terms & conditions:
UK entries only. If you're underage please ask permission because I will need your address if you were to win. Prize kindly provided by Stress Free Print & will be sent by them. There will be one winner, chosen at random from all qualifying entries, and will be notified directly by myself either via Twitter or Email approximately 48 hours after the closing date. If the winner does not respond within 72 hours I will choose another winner.
