Tag Archives: Valentines

Valentine’s Lit Quiz

2 Replies

Have a little fun this Valentine’s Day whatever your romantic status with my little literary love quiz.

Guess the missing words (answers at bottom)

1. “The magic of first love is our ________ that it can ever end.” Benjamin Disraeli

2.  “Love is in all things a most wonderful _______.” Charles Dickens

3. “Love has no age, no ______; and no death.” John Galsworthy

4. “There is no happiness in love, except at the end of ___________.” Anthony Trollope

5. “As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with _______.” Shakespeare

 

 

Who said it and in which literary work? (answers at bottom)

1. “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

2. “Whoever it is you fall in love with for the first time, not just love but be in love with, is the one who will always make you angry, the one you can’t be logical about.”

3. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

4. “It didn’t matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn’t heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together. ”

5. Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d

 

Answers

Missing words answers:

  1. Ignorance
  2. Teacher
  3. Limit
  4. An English novel
  5. Words

Who and Which Answers

  1. Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
  2. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
  3. An Arundel Tomb – Philip Larkin
  4. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
  5. The Mourning Bride – William Congreve

Emergency Valentine’s Gifts- Books

Leave a reply

If you’ve forgotten Valentine’s Day, instead of the obligatory perfume, chocolates and flowers which reveal your faux pas why not give these bookish alternatives which offer a thrilling, and sometimes chilling, take on the love story.

 

Perfume- Perfume Patrick Suskind

The dark tale of a man who becomes obsessed with a quest to bottle the ultimate perfume by capturing the scent of young women. A compelling novel, this has the added kudos of being Kurt Cobain’s favourite novel.

 

Chocolates- Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel

A brilliant work of magic realism, Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of the forbidden love between Tita and Pedro. Kept apart from Pedro, Tita pours her feelings into the food she cooks, which then begins to have very strange effects on those who eat it…

 

Flowers- Tulip Fever Deborah Moggach

In 17th century Amsterdam, Sophia is trapped in a loveless but comfortable marriage to a much older man when she falls in love with a passionate young artist. An engaging read with art, intrigue and tulipomania. A film is rumoured to be in the works for 2013 so appear cultured by giving this to your beloved before the bandwagon gets rolling!

True Love? I’ll Give it a Miss…

9 Replies

I know that some people hate Valentine’s Day, and this list is for you. A list of books about doomed love, some weepy, some cruel, some just plain brilliant. Not quite Valentine’s Schadenfreude, these will leave you heartbroken. However, they serve as a reminder that while the course of true love never did run smooth, if does come along, you might just want to run in the opposite direction.

Maggie O’Farrell- After You’d Gone

One day Alice walks out in front of a car, she is not killed but lies in a coma. Disjointed narratives tell a story of love, loss and family secrets.

Jeanette Winterson- The Passion

You play. You win. You play. You lose. You play.

Against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, a naive soldier Henri and a streetwise young woman Villanelle learn about the destructive and regenerative powers of passion, when nothing is as it seems and what you risk reveals what you value.

The Poison Diaries- Maryrose Wood

Jessamine has grown up knowing that the most innocuous looking plant can have the power to heal or kill. When a mysterious young man arrives to live with Jessamine and her father, little do they suspect that these sinister plants have their own plans for the couple, and that obsession and love when misused can be fatal.

Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro

Many people grow up believing that love is fate, love is their destiny. Kathy and Tommy have grown up knowing something different, but hoping that love will be enough to save them.

The Virgin Suicides- Jeffrey Eugenides

The five beautiful and mysterious Lisbon sisters capture the hearts and imaginations of the neighbourhood boys. Twenty years after each of the girls committed suicide, as grown men the same boys reconstruct from relics and memory, the story of the tragic girls who shaped their early romantic ideals and coloured their desires.

Valentine’s for The Bookish

2 Replies

In case you’re stuck for Valentine’s gifts for the book worm in your life, I have included the following for your perusal. Please feel free to buy any of these for me. My boyfriend doesn’t “believe in” Valentine’s day, so I won’t be getting presents!

Valentine’s Cards

The Alternative Card- A Book of Ten Love Poems

 

 

I’m not sure who really goes for the crude humour of Valentine’s jokes (you know, let’s try a different position, ha ha he does the ironing) but people must because every year the shops are infested with them. Take a stand with this sophisticated card/book. Or get creative. Make your own!

 

 

 

 

Valentine’s Gifts

Splash out on the book lover in your life and get them the Penguin Great Loves Series. Penguin are offering a 20% discount when you buy the complete set from them, so you get 20 books for £79.80. And with titles like Deviant Love, Forbidden Fruit, The Seducer’s Diary and Bonjour Tristesse how could you not? If you could afford to that is…

Cute Bird Bookmark

 

So if, like me, you find yourself three weeks from pay day and having to face up to your own little budget deficiet (my father’s and boyfriend’s birthdays both in February) I don’t think it gets much cuter than this little bird book . A thoughtful gift for anyone like me who ends up using their bus ticket to keep their page. It will be treasured for years.

Golden Snitch Necklace

 

Another great budget find, which will make any Harry Potter geek’s day is this amazing golden snitch necklace which I discovered on Etsy last night. It costs about £10.2o and it is pretty much guarantueed that they will be pleasantly surprised! I have never seen a necklace like this before and think it is amazing.

100 Years is a Very Long Time

Want to demonstrate your commitment but without the pressure or cost of an engagment ring and wedding? Why not give this 100 year diary to show you’re in it for the long haul. You could even include some sickeningly soppy note to that effect. Slushy love aside I think that this would make a cool and unusual Valentine’s present. It has world maps, maps of the body, notes for every season of your life. It’s an autobiography in the making!

 

Finally, for Wuthering Heights fans like me there is this amazing Wild Heather Scented candle which will undoubtedly take you back to the days when you ran wild with Heathcliff before you sold out and were cooped up on The Grange with the bloodless Lintons. Feel free to buy this for me. I will graciously accept bulk deliveries.

Out on the winding windy moors...