Hairstyling - in a Vintage Style

If you love to dress in a vintage way - I bet you do your hair in a similar style. ;") There are two books that I adore which are dealing with vintage hairstylings:

VINTAGE HAIRSTYLINGS by Lauren Rennells (I am sure you do know her Bobby Pin blog) which is somewhat the bible of so many vintage ladies I know. 200 pages and just beautiful! The 2nd Edition has some make-up tips, too. Look at http://www.vintagehairstyling.com/ to take a peak into the book!

And - I got my copy today and I am totally in love with it:

STYLE ME VINTAGE by Belinda Hay. (And of course there's a blog too: The Painted Lady) Look at www.thepaintedladylondon.com ! - the most styles you'll see there you'll find in her book, too. It is more petite than the first book in this entry - but it is completely lovely! Pretty pictures and an oh-so-old-fashioned feeling when you hold it in your hands. ;")

Both books will teach you that vintage hairstyling is nothing to be feared of. Both of them have easy step-by-step instructions and similar photos.

I love both books and I will never ever give them away. Ne-ver!

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell: THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX (2006) is about Iris who suddenly finds out that she has a great-aunt (Esme) who was for about 60 years in a asylum, which is now about to be closed - and the only one who would know something about the things that caused Esme's stay there besides Esme is her sister Kitty. But Kitty suffers from Alzheimer's...

I just discovered this book and loved it - well, it contains some of my favourite book themes:

The early 20th century (seems to be the early 1930ies I guess - anyway it was not pointed out exactly), women, asylums, sisters, mental illness - oh - and a vintage shop - one extra-yay for that! And it is setted Edingburgh, Scotland.

A fast read and really enchaining. I was not thrilled to death but could not put the book away. Really nice read for a autumn week-end - if you are able to put it out of your hand.. ;")

There is one thing in this book which really touches me: I am afraid of being diagnosed with the Alzheimer's disease - how awful to vanish away and be frightened by everyone because you don't know them and they acting like they do know you for years.

In the end I was up to write some whiny text messages and/or letters to my sister, to say that I love her - which I did not do, because maybe my sister would consider to send me into an asylum..

I really love the English cover - the German one is kind of boring - but don't you think it looks a bit like the garden of Manderley ;") - well, maybe the rhododendrons should be all in red.. - :

The German title DIE FRAU, DIE ES NICHT GAB means "The woman who did not exist".

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten books that made me cry

This is a weekly meme from The Broke and the Bookish.

1. Harper Lee: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - poor Boo Radley!
   
   
2. Leonie Swann: GAROU - though it is in general funny and also thrilling it made me cry - because cruelty to animals does that to me.
   
   
3. Astrid Lindgren: THE BROTHERS LIONHEART
   
   
4. Christa Winslow: THE CHILD MANUELA - Manuela fells for her teacher but there a strict rules in the German Empire - like every where else at that time.. - about teachers, pupils and homosexuality..
   
   
5. Gudrun Pausewang: DIE NOT DER FAMILIE CALDERA (= "The woe of the family Caldera") is a German children's book about the Indian Ramon Caldera who lives in the Andes and goes to a town to have a better live. He marries Rafaela, a house maid. They are happy and get children. But after a while their luck turns and some of their children die, Rafaela and Ramon loose their jobs and they have to move to the slums. Ramon has to become a criminal to get by. At the end he gets shot.
   We read it in school and after that I was up to save every poor indian - and all in tears.
   
   
6. A. A. Milne: THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER - Christopher Robin is going to grow up.
   
   
7. Almost every story by Hans Christian Andersen: THE STEADFEST TIN SOLDIER, THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, THE LITTLE MERMAID, THE FIR-TREE...
   
   
8. Gudrun Pausewang: FRIEDEN KOMMT NICHT VON ALLEIN (= "Peace doesn't come of its own volition") is a collection of Anti-war stories for children - and some of them were really hard to take for me.
   
   
9. Erica Fischer: AIMÉE & JAGUAR - a true story about a jewish women and a wife of a German soldier in the 3.Reich who fell in love. No happy ending in that - and my favourite love story.
   
   
10. Charlotte Prenzel: KOMM HEIM, HANNE(= "Come home, Hanne") is a German girl's book from the 1950s/1960s about a orphaned girl called Hanne who finds a mother - and me in tears when the dachshund Lumpi is run over by a car. (gee, I think I go and cry right now again..)

How exotic - it's from a German author!!

AFTER MIDNIGHT (Orig.: Nach Mitternacht, 1937) by Irmgard Keun is - again - very small: ca. 199 pages.

If you have read my Top Ten List with my Ten favourite authors (like every list of mine this one is "fluent" - always changing.. Today I was on the verge to redo my Top Ten fictional crushes list.. *sigh*) you know that I like Irmgard Keun VERY much. She is one of my really alltime favourites. Call her a steady name for my list of authors..

Some information for them of you, who may never have heard of her:

She was born in 1905 in Berlin and died in 1982 in Cologne. In the early 1930ies she became very succesful as an author of novels. She wrote in a very direct language - just the way people (esp. uneducated girls from lower middle class, who mainly were her heroines) - would talk.

Her most famous works were GILGI - ONE OF US (Gilgi - eine von uns, 1931) and THE ARTIFICIAL SILK GIRL (Das kunstseidene Mädchen, 1932). Her books were blacklisted when the Nazis came into power. She emigrated with Joseph Roth - who was her lover at that time - to the Netherlands. (Roth and she split up in 1938.) In 1940 when the Nazis invated the Netherlands, she went back to Germany. She lived with wrong papers - it helped that there were several announcements of her death. She was almost forgotten when in the late 1970ies/ early 1980ies the feminist movement rediscovered her works.

After midnight is therefor a special book because it really shows how live was in 1936:

It is about Susanne, everybody calls her Sanne, a 19 year old girl. She left her hometown and went to her aunt in Cologne. She worked in the stationary shop of her aunt and fell in love with Franz, her aunt's quiet son. Franz and Sanne wanted to establish a tobaccos shop - but the aunt pressed charges against Sanne at the Gestapo. So Sanne goes to her stepbrother Algin, who lives with his wife Liska in Frankfurt on the Main. Algin is a former successful author but now he struggles with the new government and his beliefs. Time goes on and all over sudden Franz comes to Sanne - and it seems that he is on the run...

In this novel Sanne is telling her story herself. She doesn't always understand what is happening and what the new rules really mean. Partly this novel is kind of gruesome - in the second chapter is a case of death who simply sticks in my mind - though it is no violent death.

I think I will do some more post about Irmgard Keun's books - but not immediately. ;")

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten fictional crushes

This is a weekly meme from The Broke and the Bookish.

This time it is about ten fictional crushes - well, it was hard to find 10 crushes so I searched really deep in my past.. ;")

Please note that these are pure "Schwärmerei" - nothing carnal in it. ;")

So here they are - in no particular order:

1. Dr. Seward from DRACULA (Bram Stoker)


2. Mr. Bingley from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Jane Austen)


3. Colonel Brandon from SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (Jane Austen)


4. Smike from NICHOLAS NICKLEBY (Charles Dickens) - I was about to name my cat after him - but it turned out that Lucy was a better name for her.. :")


5. William Dobbin from VANITY FAIR (William Makepeace Thackeray) - another nearly catname - now the cat is known as Mina.. :") here you can see both of them.


6. Jem from TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD (Harper Lee) - maybe you ought to know that I was a little girl when I first read this book.. ;")


7. CINDERELLA (Perrault/ Brothers Grimm etc. )


8. John Thornton from NORTH AND SOUTH (Elizabeth Gaskell)


9. Bert from MARY POPPINS (P.L. Travers)


10. PETER PAN (J.M. Barrie)

And: yes, I have a heart for minor characters. ;")

How about you??

P.S. Here's the one I've forfotten, but who REALLY belongs to this list: SHERLOCK HOLMES!!! (shame on me for forgetting him!)

Link to another great giveaway

Lovely Bev is doing a big 100 plus giveaway .

100 readers ! - Congrats to that!!

Maybe you want to participate.. ;") Good luck to all of you!

I've been tagged!!!

Bev from MY READER'S BLOCK has tagged me - and for this being a social network and I am a good sport [;")] - I'll go and follow the rules, which are:

• Accept the tag and link to the tagger at the beginning of your post.
  


• Answer the questions honestly in your post by listing four things.
  


• Pass on the love by picking four other people to tag and listing them at the bottom of your post. Notify them that you tagged them.
  
  

- If you start to ask yourself if I ever will do a more literature-focused entry ever again: yes, I will!! err.. I am at least very sure of that.. ;") - And now: come on and know me better!

Four things that are in my handbag:

1. a wallet


2. tissues


3. a little writing pad


4. a book (surprise!!)
   

Four favourite things in my bedroom:

1. My bed


2. My dressing table, which goes with the bed


3. My little hula-girl


4. My monstera deliciosa (a big green plant..)
   
   

Four things on my desk:

1. a lap-top


2. a telephone


3. some books


4. tissues (no, they're NOT used yet! Sicko!)
   

Four things I allways wanted to do (but haven't yet):

1. Visiting London (last year I had even bought the air tickets but then my little ladies - then 12 weeks old - came into my live.. so my friend went with another one and I stayed at home.. - and I had the time of my life! I am still having the time of my life with them.)


2. Visiting New York


3. Reading every book by Jane Austen/Elizabeth Edmondson/Sarah Waters/Irmgard Keun...
   
   
4. I never did (or will) kill a butterfly.

Four things I enjoy very much in the moment:

1. caressing my cats


2. drinking coffee


3. reading a book that pleases me - did you notice? I didn't say a "good" book.. ;")


4. looking at the moon
   

Four songs I can't get out of my head:

1. Eartha Kitt: Just an old-fashioned girl


2. The Beatles: You have to hide your love away


3. The theme of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet (my favourite melody - ever!)


4. Moustafa - gee, I LOVE that song. It is sooo funny!! I even can sing it by heart.. (though I am not that fast as the singer in this video..)

Four things you don't know about me:

1. If you didn't read this entry, you don't know that I have a crush on Vincent Price.


2. I am almost addicted to coffee.


3. I am obsessed with Marilyn Monroe/ Jack the Ripper/ sharks (esp. the shark attacks of 1916)/ crows...


4. I did not wear a wrist watch since the one my mother gave me was stolen.
   

Four Bloggers I am tagging:

1. Michelle from Everything has a simpler meaning


2. Jann from BOUQUET OF TULLE ROSES


3. Sari from The Pin Up Diaries


4. Marieke from Athyrium filix-femina (The Lady Fern)
   

Tag, you're it! Have fun with it! :")