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My name is Laura and I am a book addict. The Book Habit is a chronicle of my literary adventures, indulging my decades-long love affair with the written word. Here I post reviews, as well as anything else related to the literary lifestyle.

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“Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . Although usually associated with the drama of teenage first loves or the self-indulgence of a real-life Bridget Jones, heartbreak is one of the most complex and misunderstood of emotional challenges. While often the product of romantic rejection, heartbreak can be as much a consequence of altered or lost circumstances as ended relationships. Resulting largely from our attachment and identification with the thing that we’ve lost, heartbreak’s symptoms can range from melancholy and disrupted sleep patterns to severe depression and diagnosable heart conditions. Even at its least severe, heartbreak can pose a real challenge to those who have found rejection in something to which their self-worth and visions of the future were intrinsically tied. Given the commonality of heartbreak, it’s no surprise that literature deals copiously with the matter of a broken heart. In this month’s post for The Book Habit’s bibliotherapy series, I’m exploring the ways in which fiction can help us to navigate heartbreak - whether we’re preparing for its inevitability or already knee-deep in its symptoms - and making some recommendations for books to help. Click the link in my bio to have a read and let me know whether you’ve ever used fiction to combat heartbreak! 💖 . . . . #bibliotherapy #booksandtea #bookstagram #booknerd #booklover #bookish #bookphotography #bookstagramfeature #booknerdigans #booklove #bookstagrammer #books #bookblogger #book #reading

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that great age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.” . . . In my ongoing to attempts to combat homesickness and the fallout of displacement, I’ve been turning increasingly to fiction as a place to work through my feelings. Not only has literature proved a worthy comrade in my efforts to find my footing in a new country, it is also full of critically important insights on what ‘belonging’ truly means. I turned to John Steinbeck’s travelogue ‘Travels with Charley in Search Of America’ expecting to access some new revelations on US culture and history from the perspective of one of its most authentic literary voices. While this is certainly part of what I found, ‘Travels with Charley’ proved to be so much more than I anticipated. Written by Steinbeck to document the 10,000 miles he travelled in an effort to reacquaint himself with his own country, the book is an intensely moving and passionate reflection on what it means to feel displaced within one’s own country. Dealing with the ramifications of the Cold War, the cripplingly public presence of racism in the Civil Rights era, and the journey of a culture toward increasingly dismissive consumerism, ‘Travels with Charley’ is a call for us to uncover the full range of our nation’s voices - however vitriolic and challenging - if we are to truly understand our own. Click the link in my bio to read a full review! . . . . . #booksandtea #bookish #bookworm #bookstagram #bookphotography #booklover #igreads #bookaddict #bookblogger #booknerdigans #ilovebooks #booklove #bookstagramfeature #bookaholic #instabook #reading #bookreview #bookstagrammer #instabooks #books

“Just as the painter Rubens amused himself with being the ambassador to the court of St. James’s – a sufficient career in itself for most busy men – so Mrs. Lucas amused herself, in the intervals of her pursuit of art for art’s sake, with being not only an ambassador but a monarch. Riseholme might perhaps, according to the crude materialism of maps, be included in the kingdom of Great Britain, but in a more real and inward sense it formed a complete kingdom of its own, and its queen was undoubtedly Mrs. Lucas, who ruled it with a secure autocracy pleasant to contemplate at a time when thrones were toppling, and imperial crowns whirling like dead leaves down the autumn winds.” . . . I stumbled across E.F. Benson’s enchantingly vibrant ‘Mapp and Lucia’ stories at a time of serious need. My life had taken a series of dramatic turns and I found myself jobless, homeless, and thousands of miles away from my then-fiancé. As per my usual method of coping with life’s challenges, I turned to the library for comfort - and it’s there that I discovered the socially turbulent worlds of Benson’s fictional English utopias. The ‘Mapp and Lucia’ stories centre around two effective monarchs of village life - Miss Elizabeth Mapp and Mrs. Emmeline (‘Lucia’) Lucas - as they work to depose any potential obstacles to their respective reigns. When the two are brought into collision in the sweet seaside town of Tilling, however, war ensues - a battle waged over evening bridge parties, musical evenings, and Lucia’s well-guarded recipe for Lobster a la Riseholme. With a humour that rivals P.G. Wodehouse and a depth of insight that far exceeds him, Benson is a master of early-20th century social satire. ‘Mapp and Lucia’ is exquisite - the perfect remedy to just about any of life’s troubles. Click the link in my bio to read a full review! 🌻 . . . #bookworm #bookstagram #booklover #booknerd #bookish #bookphotography #bookaddict #bookstagramfeature #bookaholic #booknerdigans #instabook #reading #booklove #book #booksandtea #bookrecommendation #bookreview

As a self-proclaimed lover of classic novels, I’ve often wondered what exactly makes a book a ‘classic’ (beyond uniting high school students in dismay and confusion). T.S. Eliot supposed that there is no such thing as a ‘classic’, except for anything by Virgil. On the opposite side, Italo Calvino developed 14 separate criteria for use in determining whether or not a novel should be awarded ‘classic’ status (before concluding that it will vary from person to person and we will all ultimately have “our own ideal libraries of classics”). In today’s article on The Book Habit, I’ve pulled some of the research and definitions of classic literature in an attempt to answer the question ‘what exactly makes a classic a classic?’. Click the link in my bio to have a read, and let me know what you think ‘defines’ a classic! . . . And please enjoy my new collection of John Steinbeck novels! Shipped from across an ocean because I was compelled by these incredible covers. Props to @penguinbooks and their modern classics collection! . . . #bookstagram #booklover #booknerd #bookish #igreads #bookphotography #bookaddict #bookstagramfeature #bookaholic #booknerdigans #instabook #reading #booklove #books #bookworm #johnsteinbeck #steinbeck #booksandtea

“These were the hidden violences. Day-long deaths that snuffed out our small and limited futures. Since we grew up around London towers, struggle was a standard echo in our speech, in thought, in action.” . . . Guy Gunaratne’s debut novel, ‘In Our Mad and Furious City’, comes with some hefty recommendations. Longlisted for last year’s Man Booker Prize and praised by the likes of Marlon James and Ali Smith for its unrelenting authenticity, this is a novel that vibrates with the frenetic energy of life on the fringes of contemporary London. Told from the perspective of five characters of different generations, ‘In Our Mad and Furious City’ relates the events of 48 hours on a London estate, following the murder of an off-duty soldier by an Islamic extremist. Exploring the connections between extremism and the limited futures of a population consigned to life on the outskirts, Gunaratne’s novel is necessary reading. Click the link in my bio to read a full review. . . . #bookreview #bookrecommendation #booksandtea #summerreading #bookworm #bookstagram #booklover #booknerd #bookish #igreads #bookphotography #bookaddict #bookstagramfeature #bookaholic #booknerdigans #instabook #reading #booklove #bookstagrammer #instabooks #read

Heading unrelentingly into summer, May has been a pretty good month for reading. I quelled my anxiety with a favourite from Jasper Fforde’s ‘Thursday Next’ series, before welcoming the stomach-churning stress of Koushun Takami’s ‘Battle Royale’. Bouncing between the literary dystopias of Ken Liu’s Chinese sci-fi anthology ‘Invisible Planets’ and the sweet English utopia of E.F. Benson’s ‘Mapp and Lucia’, it’s also been a month of real diversity. I’ve been similarly engrossed in some incredible articles and interviews that’ve come out of the literary world this May - click the link in my bio for this month’s edition of The Monthly Reader and a summary of May’s best pieces and releases! 📚 . . . . #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookrecommendation #bookstagramfeature #booksandtea #books #read #reading #booklover #bookphotography #bookblog #booknerdigans #booknerd #bookaddict #summerreading

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