Hiphopsideproject

Sometimes when I’m feeling down, angry, or have a need for familiarity, I turn to one of my comfort books. These books are ones that I can read over and over and still enjoy, they’re like family members. Generally mine fall into the category of fantasy fiction, with alternate worlds, differing dimensions, secrets & make-believe. I know I’m not the only one with books like this, we all have special books that we turn to in times of torment – or even just because they’re so damn good that they need reading again – but here is my list of comfort books.

Without a doubt the Harry Potter series has to rank pretty high. The shorter ones are especially good for rainy weekend days, best read curled up in a chair with a coffee and a sleeping kitty. Above you can see a combined effort of all the Harry Potter books that exist in this house. I started reading Harry Potter books when I was young, and I’ve re-read the series several times. The final book came out on the day I graduated from University, I was more excited about that than graduating – in fact I was gutted that I had to waste a day going up on stage in a stupid outfit when I could have been curled up at home reading Harry Potter – I finished reading it just in time to get on a plane to America, I finished it in the car on the way to the airport.

This book. I love this book. I first read this book in Florida on a family holiday, being in a car-crash of American consumerism was a great setting to read it, since then I’ve re-read it time & time again. Without a doubt Neil Gaiman is in my top 3 favourite authors, and American Gods is a masterpiece. If you’ve never read this, please, PLEASE go and take a copy out at the library. Adam first leant me his copy that came from Canada (it’s okay, they mainly spell the right way), it’s now signed by the author (we took it to a Graveyard Book signing in Manchester). I bought another copy (with the cover as above) because I have other Neil Gaiman books in the same cover artwork style. I have a thing for book covers, thus the duplication of several books on our shelves.

I only recently (within the last few years, before the film) started reading His Dark Materials, but they placed themselves into my comfort book category almost instantly. They’re enchanting, fantastical, and an amazing escape. The mingling of scientific theory with outlandish fiction makes these books rank high for me. The lead characters are vulnerable & human, and not everything turns out with a happy ending… oh I was heartbroken. Take these books as you will, either as a set of great fiction, a commentary on religion or an envisioning of unproven theories, I’m sure you’ll still get something from them. I received some amazing hard back copies of the books for Christmas last year so I’m reading them again, and loving them again, and feeling at home again.

I’d love to know what your comfort books are, please leave a comment if you have some :)

yayyy Halloween was the most fun! We went as Harry and Hermoine this year, which meant I had a wand and a cape. Amazing. We also had fun carving pumpkins, putting up decorations and answering the door to around 50 trick or treaters (we only had 1 in our last place, so this was a novelty!). Anyway, pictures words louder and all that.

Adam ruins a perfectly nice photo by looking at a kitten. WTF boy!

He had to shave his beard, wasn’t pleased.

I was so pleased with my pumpkin!!!

Adam’s brother, Schicken, came out with us as apparently some really rough stoned panda? uh…whut? Looks like a character from the boosh >.<

More photos on flickr, how were your halloweekends?

Is summer almost over? It’s kinda starting to look that way, but I love Autumn so I’m not really complaining :)

• Beautiful T-shirts and other printed things, click here to see more
• Some lovely polyvore sets and ideas of what to wear in rainy weather by Cygnet

• This was one of my highlights of the week on the CR blog, designer Nicholas Saunders shares some of the work he did for the Half Blood Prince movie. Some really nice vintagey images, definitely worth a look.
• A must read – Sincerely, John Hughes.

• Epic haircuts, you won’t be able to click away! http://dontjudgemyhair.com/. So far as the one above goes, wtf is going on there? What are they faking surprise at?! And did that kid grow up to be teen wolf?!
• Making plans. I picked up the ‘adult learners’ catalogue from the library, Adam & I will be taking a course together and then I’ll be taking another one on my own. Exciting! Seems like I’m determined not to have any free evenings :O
• What do you guys think of the topshop horror girl collection? I’m not very impressed tbh, looks like a bunch of amateurs browsed some of the DIY punk forums and created a collection from it. I much prefer this panda sweater.

• Last friday night we decided to go a-drinking in Huddersfield. The place was literally CRAWLING with people over 40, making out in bars, feeling each other up. It was ridiculously gross. We went to Warehouse, which is generally filled with underaged kids… the oldies were there too! I took to insulting them by way of the text-in screen. It was like being on a Cougar safari, swear to god. Anyway, we geeked out and abused the text screen with epicness that could not be beat, you can see the start of our geek onslaught in that photo…. they turned they text screen off shortly after. I thank you.

Hi guys, how was your week? I had another pretty full on one, what with going to the cinema 3 times, visiting the Yorkshire show and building our kitchen. The weekend’s going to be chilled out, and we have no plans set for next week either… bliss!

• I take it all your *proper* harry potter fans caught a showing on opening day, right? We surely did… and on the big screen to boot! We were turning it into a potter fest with some friends, but alas they didn’t book their tickets and it was sold out. What did you think? I know there’s been a bit of controversy due to the amount of stuff that they didn’t include, but what did you expect? it’d be about a day long if they did it verbatim! I also think it had the best scene that Daniel Radcliffe has ever acted. By FAR!
• The other two films we caught this week were Brüno (which I found so nervously funny) and ‘Let the Right One In’ which I wrote about yesterday. Cinema was like a second home this week, I must say!

• I almost wrote an entirely seperate post about this, but then forgot. This little portable cube, measuring just a few metres square, sleeps 4 people with a full working environment. It includes a shower, kitchenette, bathroom, mp3 surround sound, flat screen TV… and a telescope! Completely with a viewing hatch for the stars whilst you sleep in one of the pull-out beds. Now that we’ve pulled down our asbestos ridden shed in the backgarden….. Anyway, you should check out the website, much more photos and information there. So adorable.
• An interesting post about how cocaine & other drugs used to be freely available, and what products they were used in. From a branding & packaging point of view, it’s quite strange to see cocaine aimed at children!
• Agentlover went to Tokyo, and has been blogging about it. Sea Of Shoes went a week or so ago, too, and also blogged/photographed. I definitely need to go to Tokyo.

• After reading the interview with Matthew Scott on Pikaland this week, I headed straight to his etsy store and picked up one of these prints. This will adorn part of our staircase wall :)

• Your cute for the week, my two kittens in a basket. You can follow their growth and antics on my flickr account, I should make a blog for them, really!

• Ultimate puzzlement, this is like a rubiks cube on acid. Amazing.

• And finally… I thought you might want to see these amazing Asics trainers. Available from Nov. 1st apparently. WANT! Unfortunately, it seems they’re only going to be US based.. as per usual with anything remotely good lookin’.

Friday, friday, FRIDAY! How was your week, kittens? Lets top it off with some fabulous things, shall we?

• Yesterday I decided that I needed something new to listen to on the walk to work, I started looking at audio books (wow, pricey), but coincidently Miss Gala Darling was doing a special day long sale on her new audio series ‘Love & Sequins‘. I thought what the hell, and bought a year subscription last night. So it came to about £37, but for 12 episodes each at over an hour, filled with super girl fun stuff, and the ability to support an independent blog queen, I think it’s money well spent. I listened to the first 35 minutes of episode 1 this morning and it’s a really good listen, I must say. Do you guys listen to any interesting pod casts?

• This shirt by Luella.
• My watch of calculatory dreams arrived yesterday, it’s so fly!
• I booked our tickets for Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince! I’m so so so excited, really can’t wait. How geeky! I even made sure to book for the showing with the big screen, too. Speaking of Harry Potter…

• Far from flashing her panties on the red carpet, Emma Watson’s photo shoot for this months UK Elle really shows how she’s grown up! Cute!
• I’m super excited for the new finestimaginary necklaces coming in a few days, there’s 7 new designs on the way! Yep, 7!
• I’ve found myself sketching a story about a girl who fell in love with a sea monster, it’s kinda creepy cute. She travels across the sea in a hot air balloon trying and find her lost love. Who knows where this’ll go!

• Very jealous that I didn’t go to the Luella sample sale, Susie Bubble went, though, and picked up some cute things. The bag pictured above is most definitely my favourite thing! Oo two luella things in one post!

• Gotta get me one of these! I think I’ll have to find some place for a cardboard safari head in the house, definitely.
• Also, NSFW, but HILARIOUS.
• In other news we now have kitchen counters & a working HOB! I made soup on it, epic.