So, I bought books. Again. I had some crazy idea of not buying any until the sequel to The Demon’s Lexicon comes out, but then I realised that’s not until late MAY, and I, um, promptly went and bought these books. Plus a sixth that I couldn’t find a pic of that was bigger than 200 pixels tall, and that is just not on.

Four in English, two in Swedish, three fiction, two non-fiction, one biography.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore. This is a book I normally wouldn’t have bought, but after the white-washing drama I felt the need to support the author. Even though I ended up buying the UK edition, which wasn’t involved in that particular shit storm at all.

Ash by Malinda Lo. A lesbian retelling of Cinderella. Say no more. And also? This cover is STUNNING. I could stare at it all day. I actually entered a contest to win this book, but I never win contests so I bought it anyway. I guess if I should for some reason win this one I’ll have a book give away or something. Don’t hold your breath, though, my shitty luck is legendary!

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. I am kind of sad I didn’t get the pretty American cover for this one, but it was oh so much cheaper. I also thought the title was spelled “Levithian” until I went to google for pics. And I’m vainly hoping that the illustrations are the same on the inside as in the American edition because they are absolutely gorgeous.

I Don’t Want to Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz. I’m not entirely sure why I bought this book, because it’s written on verse. I just hope it won’t rhyme. It does seem interesting, though, because it’s about a girl who was physically incapicated by anxiety attacks, which I recognise myself in. We shall see what I think of this one.

Fettpaniken by Marie Carlsson. This one is in Swedish. I got it from the library, and am about halfway through it now. I looked back at all the page numbers I’ve written down to take notes from, and um, I realised that I’ve pretty much written down every second or third page. So I bought it. Plus it was only 44 SEK. Only book of this batch that was actually on sale. (We have huge book sales specials all through February and March in Sweden, people buy books like mad.)

And the sixth, not pictured, is kind of boring. It’s a lexicon of ingredients with gluten in them, because I feel reactions from things I shouldn’t, like for example coconut milk. There’s an E-number-whatsitcalled in it, and I’m curious if there’s gluten in that, or if I’m just imagining things. This one is constantly checked out from the library so I just went and bought it instead.

In all, I’m not happy with my library’s selection of gluten allergy books, cookbooks and just random non-fiction in all, because the former is either in English and using flours I can’t find here or in Swedish and exclusively for meat eaters, and the latter is hidden in a sea of dieting books that I can’t stomach digging through. So, boo.

I’m really tired. That’s why I’m rambling. Tomorrow I will translate the International Women’s Day post I wrote for my Swedish blog and post it here, even though it’s no longer the 8th…

I meant to write a post and run away, but somehow got sucked into my pages section and… got stuck. For about two hours. Um. What was I going to say again? Oh yes, a few hardly important things, but I suppose after the last few days of marathon posts something short and vague will be a nice change.

First, I bought jeans leggings today. I never in my life would have, but my sister wore them on her ridiculously skinny legs over Christmas, and I got used to the idea. Basically, they’re made up to look like skinny jeans, but there is an ELASTIC WAISTBAND, which is a deity-of-your-choice-sent for people like me, who carry all their weight in their hip area, which means that normal sizing is not your friend.

Oddly, I found them at H&M. Their plus size section may be two racks and three shelves, shuffled into the far back corner, but there was actually three pairs of these contraptions in this small space, one pair which was my size. My Mum tried to tell me they “sat too low” but I am – despite my size – not ready to wear mum style trousers just yet, thank you.

Before we went I put on make-up – foundation, eyeliner, eye shadow and mascara – and felt so damn good about myself that I bought some more eye shadow. One brown and grown up, one crazy blueish green for when I want to look like I am sixteen and emo. (When I was emo I only wore black, but maybe times change, or something.)

Oddly, I also feel the urge to Do Something About My Eyebrows. Is this a sign of my mental state improving? It feels like it!

Then we had to go home because there were so many people and I could feel my anxiety rising. I tried to explain, on the ride home, how I love my family dearly, but with seeing them so very often I have no spoons left for meeting friends and such. I know they are just worried that I’m lonely, and are trying to be supportive rather than suffocating, but um, it’s having the opposite effect.

So instead of going home and having coffee and longwinded conversations about nothing with my parents I asked Mum to drop me off by my flat and I cuddled with kitten and finished two books. Well, I finished one and decided that the other bored me too much to finish – I only had fifty pages or so to go, but it’s non-fiction, so I’m giving myself a pass.

It’s in Swedish, titled I Trygghetsnarkomanernas Land, by David Eberhard. Parts of it was interesting actually, but some was booooring and very full of conservative politics, blaming our former, left wing government for most about the panic the book is about. Because it is about how we are so afraid of everything, how the mentality of our society is pretty much that of a person crippled by social anxiety of the worst kind. It goes through the statistics of awful things happen; it states several times that “the mortality rate of a human being is 100%”, which, you know, is true. Note that it doesn’t actually advocate that you should do these things, it just tells you the risks or chances, if you will.

* It speaks of the idiocy of pregnant women going off antidepressants, because the risk of the baby having difficulty breathing directly after being born going up from 2 to 6-12 cases in 10,000. One would think that the mother being mentally unstable and contemplating suicide being worse for the baby than a condition which usually can be remedied without problems; almost every single child this happens to survives without any physical damage whatsoever.

* It speaks of a Swedish TV-programme (Kalla Fakta) who let a nursing mother drink two glasses of wine, and then express the milk so they could analyse it. The alcohol in the milk after this? Less than what you can find in a carbonated beverage of your choice.

* It states that the chance of dying of the bird flu (the book is old, so it doesn’t talk about swine flu) is 1 in 60 million.

* It shows that the chance of dying in a plane crash if you travel by plane every single day is 1 in 20,000 years.

* It speaks about smoking and the chances of getting lung cancer; it’s roughly 3 in 10,000 people. It also speaks of heart diseases, which smoking is said to cause, and points out that the rate of this illness is lower in countries were over 50% of the population are smokers.

Very interesting reading, if you have the patience to sift through the right wing politics that’s all over the place, despite the author claiming to be politically unbiased.

The other book, though, was absolutely amazing. It’s called What I Was, written by Meg Rosoff, and I now want to read everything she has ever written. It’s very, very British, takes place in some dreary, grey near-the-coast town in 1962. The protagonist – it’s first person, so you never learn his name – is stuck in a private school (public school, the Brits call it, crazy people that they are), one that isn’t famous for great students or even amazing results, but as he’s been kicked out of two schools already this will have to do.

He’s rather indifferent until he meets a boy living in a hut nearby, at which point he suddenly wants to do well enough to be kept in this school, after not giving a damn about the two before. The best thing about this book is that it does NOT go where you expect it to. Rather the opposite, actually, which is always nice to see in a book.

I love the language (very British, very dry, and never shies away from letting the protagonist sound like and act like a total moron), I love the history baked in, and I absolutely adore the setting; it feels very real, with the boring town, the grey weather, the freezing ocean and everything.

I am very fascinated by this book. It’s on the short side, with tiny chapters, and is very economical with words. That is something I’m learning just how hard it is – it’s easy to spend hundreds of words on a description when a single sentence could work just as well, and probably provide a bit of ambigiouity (which I cannot spell to save my life!), which often makes for a better story.

Of course, it’s much, much harder to write this way, which is part of why I love this book so much. It must’ve been absolute hell to write, but it makes for gorgeous prose.

The first two chapters (no more than 1200 words total) can be read at Meg Rosoff’s webpage. Check them out here, and then go buy her books! I know I’m going to hunt the other ones down now…

And now that I have informed the world of these two books I must make popcorn and sit down to do some editing, and of course, play with my new shiny ipod. And NOT sleep as I accidentally napped for three hours today.