What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 99

Lust, romance, attachment... Anatomy of Love explores such questions as whether monogamy is natural, why we choose certain partners and why we might cheat on them. In this completely revised edition, anthropologist Helen Fisher adds a host of new data on the brain in love and on courtship in our digital age. She casts an original (and optimistic) lens on modern love, proposing that we are returning to patterns of romance that evolved in our primordial past. 

Helen E. Fisher is an anthropology professor and human behaviour researcher at the Rutgers University and is one of the major researchers in the field of romantic interpersonal attraction. 

The nail polish is from Catrice (discontinued) with the name Oh My Goldness! and in the bottle it looks like the China Glaze's Harvest Moon, but this one is not a foil nail polish like China Glaze, but it has tiny glitter. And for that reason, I chose a peel off base coat. The polish needs at least three coats for decent capacity, I'd say the more the better and for that reason I don’t like it. 

Have a great day!

What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 98

Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother - her only family - is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she'll ever have a normal life. 

Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with the Sunlight Project, an organization that traffics in all the secrets of the world - including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong. 

Jonathan Franzen's Purity is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity in our morally complex times. 

Nail polish is from Catrice and is still available. it’s from the line Spectra Light Effect Nail Lacquer with the name Holo Enchantment. It is silver and it has a holographic effect that is not too strong but still visible. The application was a breeze, although I later found a bald spot on one of my nails, but maybe I bumped into something. The staying power on the other hand is very poor on me, not even a single day of perfect wear. 

Have a great day!

What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 97

In the depths of winter a killer stalks the city streets. Two women are found drowned in their own blood. A third woman is hanged from a diving board. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them catch the killer. But Inspector Harry Hole doesn't want to be found. 

Deeply traumatised by The Snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found brutally murdered in a city park. 

The Leopard (original title Panserhjerte) is the eight book in the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbø. And like all of his books that I've read I liked it very much. This book has a little less than 700 pages, but I've read it in three days, because it's just so captivating and I couldn't put it down. 

On my nails is nail polish from Essence, from the Show Your Feet line. I have to say that this line had some very pretty colours. This one is pastel blue with the name Pop Pastel Blue. The application is ok, two coats were needed for full opacity. 

Have a great day!

The best three from the season 2017/2018

Like last year I will tell you which three films had the greatest impact on me in this working season. Two of them popped in my mind immediately, third one is a bit more difficult to choose. I'd like to point out that it's not necessary the films were made in 2017 or 2018, it's just that I've seen them in this season. So here we go. 

1. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME 

Drama, Romance, 2017 

Director: Luca Guadagnino 

Cast: Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg 

In 1980s Italy, a romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant. It's the summer of 1983 in the north of Italy, and Elio Perlman, a precocious 17-year-old young man, spends his days in his family's 17th century villa transcribing and playing classical music, reading, and flirting with his friend Marzia. While Elio's sophistication and intellectual gifts suggest he is already a fully-fledged adult, there is much that yet remains innocent and unformed about him, particularly about matters of the heart. 

What is not to love about this film. I've seen in two times and I could easily watch it another time. In the middle of winter, the film brought me in the hot summer days. Oh, how I wished it would be summer and I could feel the vibe of summer that the film portrayed. The photography, the music, everything was perfect. And the love was so pure, I felt very deeply with the characters during the film. The film is based on the book Call Me by Your Name written by Andre Aciman and yes, I've read the book also. 

2. I, DANIEL BLAKE 

Drama, 2016 

Director: Ken Loach 

Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Sharon Percy 

A 59-year-old carpenter recovering from a heart attack befriends a single mother and her two kids as they navigate their way through the impersonal, Kafkaesque benefits system. With equal amounts of humour, warmth and despair, the journey is heartfelt and emotional until the end. 

With this film I cheat a little, because I saw it on TV (it was on my must watch list) and not in cinema, but I think a lot of times about this film and I just must include it in this list. The film made me angry, sad, melancholic. I don't want to tell you too much, but at the end I cried and wondered what is wrong with our world. 

"I am not a client, a customer, nor a service user. I am not a shirker, a scrounger, a beggar, nor a thief. I'm not a National Insurance Number or blip on a screen. I paid my dues, never a penny short, and proud to do so. I don't tug the forelock, but look my neighbour in the eye and help him if I can. I don't accept or seek charity. My name is Daniel Blake. I am a man, not a dog. As such, I demand my rights. I demand you treat me with respect. I, Daniel Blake, am a citizen, "nothing more and nothing less. Thank you." 

3. LADYBIRD 

Comedy, Drama, 2017 

Director: Greta Gerwig 

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts 

Christine "Lady Bird" MacPherson is a high school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks." She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. Lady Bird follows the title character's senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college. 

Something easier for the last pick. A nice coming of age film, that had some funny scenes. The film takes place from 2002 to 2003 which was a nice trip down the memory lane, since it was the time that I also attended high school. 

What do you think about my list?

Have a great day!

What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 96

A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village life he experiences a sense of renewal and belief in the future. Now an old man, Birkin looks back on the idyllic summer of 1920, remembering a vanished place of blissful calm, untouched by change, a precious moment he has carried with him through the disappointments of the years. 

A Month in the Country is a sensitive portrayal of the healing process that took place in the aftermath of the First World War. 

“If I’d stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvellous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.”  

“We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.
But this was something I knew nothing of as I closed the gate and set off across the meadow.” 

Nail polish is from Essence, the line Show Your Feet, with the name Catwalk pink and it's a beautiful fuchsia with blue shimmer. A truly unique shade. The application was ok, no problem with it. 

Have a nice day!

What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 95

Where She Went is a sequel to If I Stay and focuses on Adam and his story. 

It's been three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life. And three years he's spent wondering why. Ever since Mia's decision to stay - but not with him - Adam's career has been on a wonderful trajectory. His album, borne from the anguish and pain of their breakup, has made him a bona fide star. And Mia herself has become a top-rate cellist, playing in some of the finest venues in the world. Then their respective paths put them both in New York City at the same time. 

If I compare this sequel with If I Stay, I would say that If I Stay was more memorable for me, as with this one, good story, but nothing special, the story won't stay with me for long. 

Nail polish is from Bourjois with the name Rouge obscur from the line 1 seconde. It looks like this line is still available (online) but not this colour. As you can see, the colour is dark red that leans on the berry side, the colour that looks good on everyone, in my opinion. The application is ok. 

Have a great day!

What I'm reading + NOTD pt. 94

In Life, the Universe and Everything, the third title in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy series, Arthur Dent finds himself enlisted to prevent a galactic war. 

Following a number of stunning catastrophes, which have involved him being alternately blown up and insulted in ever stranger regions of the Galaxy, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a cave on prehistoric Earth. However, just as he thinks that things cannot get possibly worse, they suddenly do. An eddy in the space-time continuum lands him, Ford Prefect, and their flying sofa in the middle of the cricket ground at Lord's, just two days before the world is due to be destroyed by the Vogons. 

Escaping the end of the world for a second time, Arthur, Ford, and their old friend Slartibartfast embark (reluctantly) on a mission to save the whole galaxy from fanatical robots. Not bad for a man in his dressing gown. 

The nail polish is from Catrice (discontinued) and it's a shimmery green with the name King Of Greens. Nothing wrong with it, it’s just that every time I wear a shimmery nail polish I find that I prefer creme nail polishes, they just seem more sophisticated or at least the application looks better on my brittle nails. 

Have a great day!