My 5 Guily Pleasures

First of all I want to thank Anya for this lovely Divine Award :

It's really special for me, because she made it herself & because I really admire her intelligence, great taste and talent. She also tagged me to write about my 5 guilty pleasures, so here I go:

1. Silk PJ's, I love the way silk feels on my skin and during unbearable hot summer nights there's nothing else that I'd rather wear. Last week I had a moment of weakness and of pure joy at the same time. I walked into Mango looking for nothing in particular, when I saw that they were selling silk pj's, yay! I was so happy! Though, I wish they would have had more colours and shapes. Anyway I was even more happy to see that they were on SALE! So, instead of paying 140€ (the original price) I only payed 39€, what a bargain, HA! I actually had to check the label twice ' cause I couldn't believe my eyes, but yes they are in fact 100€ silk :)

  

2. "The House Of Sleep"- by Jonathan Coe & "The Virgin Blue"- by Tracy Chevalier. I can't make up my mind, so my number 2 guilty pleasure includes both books. I love them both so much, I could read them over & over again.  

This book was recommended to me by a very special arty soul, that I appreciate a lot! 

"The House of Sleep is an intricate cat's cradle of a novel, full of both sly satire and oblique meditations on the interstices of love, sleep, memory, and dreams. The setting is Ashdown, a wind-swept old house by the sea that once provided university housing and now is home to a clinic for sleep disorders. During the early 1980s, a group of students meet here, united by little other than a curious preoccupation with sleep. They include Sarah, a narcoleptic who has trouble distinguishing her intensely vivid dreams from reality; her first boyfriend, the fussy egomaniac Gregory, who gets his kicks from pressing his fingers on Sarah's closed eyes; Terry, a film buff who sleeps at least 14 hours a day, dreaming blissful dreams he can never quite remember; and the sensitive Robert, who loves Sarah enough to do anything at all in order to have her. By a series of startling coincidences, the four are drawn back to Ashdown 12 years later, setting into motion a plot so carefully contrived it makes most thrillers look spare and impressionistic. Like a dream, The House of Sleep resonates with repeated images, phrases, even passages; here they serve as narrative glue for a complicated story that moves backward and forward in time and in and out of different points of view. The result is sometimes puzzling, always absorbing, and often very funny indeed. -Amazon.com Review"

I very much enjoyed this book. I also loved the fact that the chapters are named in descending order after the clinical stages of sleep and that all even number chapters tell the present events and the odd number chapters reveal the past(1980); this made me so anxious about the book that I wouldn't eat or do anything else in order to keep reading  :)

I truly recommend this book to everyone who enjoys reading! 

Tracy Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" was quite a success, nevertheless that's not my favorite Tracy Chevalier book . Actually I prefer both "Falling Angels" and of course "The Virgin Blue".

"When American Ella Turner moves with her husband to Lisle-sur-Tarn, a small town in southwestern France, she hopes to qualify to practice as a midwife as well as to start a family of her own. Instead she is disrupted by less-than-idyllic village life and strange dreams of the color blue. Haunted by sleepless nights, bewildered by her unwelcoming neighbors, Ella tries to forge a bond with her new home by investigating her French ancestors, with the help of seductive librarian Jean-Paul. Ella’s research takes her to the Cévennes, isolated mountains in the south and the birthplace of the Tournier/Turner family. 

16th-century peasant Isabelle du Moulin, known as La Rousse for her red hair, is suspected of witchcraft and tormented for her association with the Virgin Mary even after she and the rest of the village have converted to the “Truth” – the new Protestantism as preached by Calvin’s ministers. When she becomes pregnant, she has no choice but to marry into the powerful Tournier family. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris sends waves of persecution throughout France, and the Tourniers are forced to flee their home near Le Pont de Montvert for a new life in the Swiss town of Moutier. Old ways follow them there, however, and Isabelle's final shocking fate lies undiscovered — until Ella Turner's arrival four centuries later…"

The writer describes everything which such detail that you can see the little French pâtisserie's & taverene's right in front of your eyes. I was so enchanted and captivated by this book that I read it all in one a single day, although I was supposed to be studying for my exams at that time. What these 2 books have in common is that even and odd number chapters represent different time periods, in "The Virgin Blue" is the other way around though: even number chapters tell Isabelle's story (past) and odd number chapters tell Ella's story (present). 

If you are interested in this book you can find the first chapter (printable) right here: www.tchevalier.com/thevirginblue.
   

3. Red Lipstick, I simply adore red lipstick. I suppose it's because my mum has always worn red lipstick and she looks fabulous with it. But I must say that I've tried many many red lipsticks and somehow there was something that I didn't like about them, whether it was the smell, the texture, the packaging...I guess I'm just very picky with make-up.  I was so excited when I got the YSL Rouge Volupté in number 18 Red Taboo, but it really let me down, for a red lipstick it's too creamy & it won't stay on as much as it should, the colour is gorgeous though :( Same thing happened with the Chanel Rouge Allure in number 14 Passion: beautiful colour, beautiful packaging, but it still wasn't perfect...

Yet I'm very glad that I'm so picky, otherwise I would have been perfectly happy with these & I wouldn't have kept looking for perfection. I found the perfect red lipstick ( at least in my opinion), Dior's Diorific in number 013 Red Bingo/Roulette Red :) it's the pretties red lipstick ever. It smells great, it feels great and it looks even better. I give you my word on this lipstick, if you haven't tried it you should, I'm sure you'll love it. It's my little pride & shine :) and look at it it's like a jewel:

 4. Ice Cream, I think everyone shares this guilty pleasure :) I just love ice cream, I don't care if it's winter, summer or autumn I always enjoy ice cream. My favorite flavors though are mango & chocolate  yummmmmyyyy. Actually, I had an obsession with Ben & Jerry's Fudge Brownie.

5. Friends, and by friends I don't mean my own hahahah, I mean the series :) I believe that this is the best series ever & that is no possibility to make a better one. I've seen it SO many times that I know many lines by heart. I can just see it over and over and over... The characters are fabulous and the actors that play them as well.

In all series we tend to pick a favorite character, but in Friends they're all so great that I can't, I just love them all :)

And that's it, I hope you enjoyed reading this post, I definitely enjoyed writing it :)

A beautiful Wednesday to everyone!

XoXo, 

The Spoiled Feline