#jilly reads

[faejilly]

Speaking of reading! Look what Storygraph made me:

I read a whole 37 books! (That feels so much better than the *nine* in 2022. My goal was 26 and I did BETTER! This year I'm going for 52, wish me luck. 🍀)

[rainbowpopeworld]

Some choice quotes from the interview about David Tennant’s new show Rivals, based on books by Jilly Cooper:

“…“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone come up to me and say, ‘I’ve masturbated thinking about you,��� ” Tennant says, thoughtfully.

“David!” Hassell exclaims, hurt. “When we met, that’s the first thing I said.””

“A note to diehard fans: this scene is shot exactly as written. You will see a lot of willies.

“We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity,” Treadwell-Collins says. “There’s a willy for every pair of tits.””

“Cooper has been an invaluable muse to everyone on set while filming. …

“Oh, yes,” she says, looking delighted, and then quotes herself. “ ‘First of May, first of May — outdoor f***ing starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we f*** off indoors again.’ ”

This ribald rhyme kicks off a massive shagging montage, involving the entire cast. And all outdoors, of course.”

“Because of the show, everyone talks about their memories of the Eighties (David Tennant: “No, my Eighties weren’t like a Jilly Cooper book — I was at school in Paisley with my glasses held together with sticky tape, and a very unappealing haircut”)…”

[softkostyk]

so Rupert’s love confession in the book is SO sweet but at the same time the whole moment of them getting together is rushed and kind of underwhelming??? like this is a 700-page slowburn and it deserves more than a 2-page culmination miss cooper lmao hoping the show will do it justice but I trust the producers given how hard they’ve nailed s1 🙂↕️

[faejilly]

Point the first, my Amma (grandmother) was Icelandic and she never got me books. (TBF, I usually spent Christmas itself with my mother & sister and she was my paternal grandmother, so it's not like we could hang out and read together, and also I have always been a genre fiction reader and she was not, so I doubt she'd have had any idea what to get me to read, but still. Books. :sighs:

She usually got me clothes. Whether she was actually protecting me from the Jólakötturinn she never said, I don't think her family ever really did the Yule Cat thing; she was possibly just being Very Grandmother™️ and hoping nice clothes might inspire more pictures from my mother?)

Point the second: books I am aware of in the pile under the tree or in the mail:

Vampire Cinema by Christopher Frayling

Track Series by Jason Reynolds

The First Raksura Trilogy (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths) and Stories of the Raksura: Vol I & II by Martha Wells*

Lancer: Core TTRPG Rule Book

Crochet Monsters by Megan Lapp

EDIT: I forgot Beginner's Step-By-Step Coding Course: Learn Computer Programming the Easy Way for Thing 1, wtf how'd I forget that one?

*The person who is getting the Raksura books already owns the ebooks but wants the physical copies too, which is an impulse I agree with and wish to support because Martha Wells is my favorite. This is in fact like the third or fourth time I have gotten Raksura books as a present for someone, which is kind of hilarious?

/I should probably re-read them myself, it's been awhile

My mother has told me (so I wouldn't buy it myself if it gets delayed in shipping) that she pre-ordered Xiran Jay Zhao's Heavenly Tyrant for me, and I have a couple presents that feel like they're books already here, but I don't know what they are yet. 😅

Duck Prints Press has contributors from many different religions and traditions, but given our love of books, we thought that the Yule Book Flood was a holiday we all could get behind. Jólabókaflóðið is an Icelandic tradition, wherein people unwrap books on December 24th and then stay up late into the night reading them.

Happy Jólabókaflóðið!

What books are you gifting to your friends and family this year?

please reblog and tell us what you're gifting, we're super curious!!

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[venusdelaube]

Rivals |(just had the book)

So... To my utter delight, yesterday, I had the privilege to finally have my amazon order. And low and behold, was the new Penguin Paperback edition, from 2024! Well, at first, I wanted another edition, which was, I believe, the original one from 1988. Howerver, it was over 100£. So... No 🫶

(more text after the pics)

I think this edition is quite gorgeous. The only downside for me is the Disney + sticker, I hate those types of stuff, lmao. Especially when the logo is on it. Also, I sort of wanted the 1988 edition for not only the authenticity, but also because it featured red kitten heels, which I love, stepping on a hand (iconic). But hey, I can work with that cover too.

I already read the first chapter, and I really enjoy it so far. It's interesting, because in the first chapter, we learn much more about Tony that in the entire show, and I'm certainly going to use that for the Rivals fanfiction Re-Write I'm writing! PS: I need to hear Georgia's audiobook version.

[nina-s0]

Why does James have more chemistry with his best friend then his WIFE?

[ashllynlou]

1) I kind of hate Jake Lovell, 2) making a detour with your sham marriage bride-to-be to stare at Rupert's house, okay Jake.

It will forever be fascinating to me that the first book in the Rutshire series seemingly centers Jake Lovell as the main character and Rupert Campbell-Black as the "villain." Because Jilly devotes so much time to Rupert in Riders that he feels like the protagonist. Then Jilly swings wildly the other way and makes Rupert do all of the worst things to serve as a moral foil to Jake.

also, for book accuracy, I'm picking my way back through Riders (1993). Here is Jake (left) and Rupert (right).

my apologies to Mr. Marcus Gilbert, but I choose Alex Hassell.

[faejilly]

Hey it's Monday! Let's try that

Week-In-Review?

I am definitely doing these more as an adulting accountability post I think, but regardless!

Reading:

Finished The Hollow Places, highly recommended, deeply disturbing and yet ultimately wonderfully comforting/validating/humane. Can't quite think of the word I want? But it makes you glad to be a People on This World of Ours! (If also very glad that the specific adventures in the book are fiction and you do not have to worry about them spreading to anyone else 😅)

Am currently re-reading a series I recalled from when I was, idk, 10 or something, called The Time Keeper which holds up pretty well. I'm enjoying them... they're VERY 80s-SFF-Juvenile Fiction, though, if anyone is familiar with that niche of a sub-genre. 😄

My mother and I had a weird conversation awhile back: do you remember those books with the time travel and the stepping stones when I was a kid? and did eventually figure out the series with only that! Then she found the ebooks re-issued by the author and got them for me. 🎉

Playing:

Murder by Numbers, which is a mystery VN plus a slew of those pictogram puzzle things, and I am enjoying it a lot. Though I got a low(er) score on the third case and am not sure what I missed, so it may be a bit before I go back to finish it... It goes gloriously hard with its 90s aesthetic/setting too, so that's fun.

Adulting:

I have not been making my bed or doing anything beyond the bare minimum of laundry, but the dishes are being held in check and I've been taking my meds and no one missed an appointment or starved, so that's pretty much a win, I think?

Creating:

I did work on the Current Cross Stitch, but it's a bit of a slog atm (and I think I screwed up a color) so that didn't last long...

No writing either.

Instead I made a Crochet Kit Piggie!

She's a little crooked, but I'm pleased by my first attempt. 💕 Next I'm trying an Elephant and they'll go sit on the picture book shelf with Thing 2's old Elephant & Piggie Books, since I still remember those pretty fondly myself.

And that's about it? We got a bit of snow today, which was nice, but otherwise it's been the same old around here.

What have you been up to, my dears & darlings?

[r0senkranz]

Forcing myself to watch rivals on Monday so I can binge-read the book beforehand

[ashighastheskyy]

Loved the show, so I must read the book.

[bookishlyvintage]

Love You, Mean It by Jilly Gagnon [x]

[aubacus]

I like both a lot but can’t decide soooo lmk what y’all think ^_^

Also the first one will mainly be focused on all media (yes riot that includes wolfstar…) and the second one mainly horror (and the gay is there so probably also wolfstar as I have a problem)

[sideprince]

Honestly exhausted sometimes with how many times I see people completely ignore basic literary tropes and elements or even the fact that these are books an not real people, while also interpreting interpretations until they've gotten away from what's on the page only to treat these readings as fact. Literally just saw someone cite Lily's mouth twitch as proof that she almost laughed at her friend being sexually assaulted and I don't even know what to say.

This is why I follow so few blogs and feel really isolated in this fandom. It's not even that I want to defend one character or another (because they're not real people ultimately, they're tools for storytelling), it's that I want to defend basic reading comprehension. A mouth twitch is not a laugh. And to be honest I'm uncomfortable with how straightforwardly we refer to James dangling Snape upside down and exposing his underwear as sexual assault, which is what it's considered now but it wasn't considered that in the 70s when the story takes place. That isn't to say it wasn't an awful thing to do, or that it wasn't meant to violate and humiliate, but social acceptance of an action changes its context. (I could write an entire post on how the reason we're so much more disturbed by sexual assault now is that the culture around it has changed and the shame is now on the perpetrator and not the victim, which means that more victims have spoken out in recent years, and most people today have heard victim's stories and perspectives and feel empathy for them as a result. But since this wasn't socially acceptable to do in the 70s people didn't lack empathy then, they just had a limited perspective that we would too if we were in their shoes. You can't frame the reactions to Snape's assault the same way you would if it happened today.)

But forget context, right? Forget the order of events, and forget what a character does, a personal reading of the text becomes canon because... of reasons? I think I just have a really really hard time with the way some people are oblivious to how intensely they project onto characters and how much they consider those projections facts. And with how personal readings are stated as fact without the context of, "I read/interpret/view/etc. this as."

[rosepinks-world]

merry Christmas!! Or happy day if you don’t celebrate I got the rivals book, just got to finish 1984 first

[venusdelaube]

Slowly going insane

oh you know, just a regular psychology student 🫶🏻 yes I was busy all day prepping notes in advance, AND reading my teacher's 800 pages book and study it. Slowly going insane, but at least I'm on track.

I'm also a bit sad at the fact I couldn't write today, due to the schoolwork. But to be fair, I did so much that I won't need to study tomorrow, meaning I can simply focus on cleaning and relaxing! I need to finish GO (the book), keep on reading Rivals, and also Macbeth! (Can you tell I'm a David Tennant fan?)

Also planning on continuing the Thick of it, the tenth season of Doctor Who ( Bill and 12 🥹), AND keep on writing my Broadchurch fanfiction! It's on Ao3 guys, the link is in my blog 🫶🏻 The first chapter following the prologue is most certainly coming out tomorrow! Also planning to write a Declan X reader OS hehe

Anyway, enjoy another glimpse of my stickers from @princeloww , think I chose the best one for the interior of the laptop. Love you all, keep yourself sane and don't study psychology unless you're willing to die very cutely for it.

...you guys noticed the book, huh? Yes, this is the dreadful reveal of my account. I'm french.