This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

Woo hoo! It's the...

This week we've mostly been wishing we could rewind to last weekend. Well I have anyway, given that last weekend I was lazing in a hammock gazing out at this view...

Three days of complete blissed out relaxation at Gili Lankanfushi in the Maldives were sadly over far too fast. More on that when I'm able to write about it without dissolving into a puddle of 'I-want-to-go-back-NOW' tears...

When we haven't been pining for sunny days and salty hair, this week the Mice have mostly been keeping the holiday spirit alive and...

Spritzing ourselves liberally with our latest Jo Malone obsession, Wood Sage & Sea Salt. I gifted myself a bottle of this before I headed off on holiday and now I'm back deskbound, I'm dousing myself in it at least five times a day in a bid to whisk myself away to lazy lounger days. 

This unisex scent was created in a bid to bottle the essence of the English Coast. If that conjures the scent of vinegary fish & chips and less than fragrant seaweed, fear not, the Jo Malone perfume magicians were thinking much more along the lines of  rugged cliffs, sea spray and moody skies. The end result is citrussy fresh, with woody notes and not a hint of girly florals. This is without a doubt my favourite new fragrance of the year.

Tearing through beach bonkbuster heaven, Tilly Bagshawe's latest book - The Inheritance. There's nothing like a good trashtastic novel to wipe away all your office woes and have you feeling like you're reclining on a lounger in the tropics. Tilly Bagshawe's most recent release is full of heiresses with razor sharp cheekbones and tall, dark handsome farm hands - Jilly Cooper with a 2014 edge.  

Getting our festi on and revving up for three days of Hong Kong's most ridiculously named music festival - Clockenflap. 

Every year Hong Kong's best (and let's face it, only proper) music festival ramps up a few notches bringing the city an ever more awesome line-up set against the always jaw-dropping Victoria Harbour backdrop (no matter how long I'm here, a glimpse of that skyline on a clear night still takes my breath away).

This year the Clockenflap team have really excelled themselves, bringing HK a menagerie of music amazingness from the Chvches, The Vaccines and Rudimental to the bonkers brilliant Flaming Lips.

Which is the cue for a weekend warm-up tune...



And with that, we'll end on a little sage advice for the weekend ahead...

x

The Mice

On the 3BM Bookshelf: June's Reads

June's book haul was pretty light given that my June holiday involved much more Limoncello and exploring than quality Kindle time. But, I still managed to bookworm my way through a handful of really, really good reads. So, here's my round-up. Pack these for this summer's beach break and I don't think you'll be disappointed...

 

The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
Top of everyones summer reading list should be the second book in the Cormoran Strike series written by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling). We raved about the first of the Galbraith novels, The Cuckoo's Calling, back at the end of last year and have been eagerly awaiting this second instalment ever since.  Swapping magic for murder, these books are every bit as brilliant as Harry Potter but much, much darker and even more edge of your sunbed stuff. This time detective extraordinaire, Cormoran Strike, is sleuthing his way to unravelling the murder of an author who appears to have self-prophesized his own grisly demise in his last book. With twists and turns that keep you guessing til the end, prepare to become obnoxiously anti-social until you reach the final page.  

I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You - Courtney Maum
How do you make love last? What happens when time and flawed humans stretch a relationship out of shape? Can you ever go back to how things were after a betrayal? These are the questions around which Courtney Maum's debut novel revolve. While it's heart-hurtingly sad in places its also sweet, funny and uplifting. This beautiful book trailer video sums the book up better than I ever could in words. 

Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter
Ping ponging between a fictional town on the Ligurian coast in the sixties and modern day Hollywood, the book is an epic love story with a hefty sprinkle of satirical digs at the film business. A cast of quirky but loveable characters, a guest appearance from Richard Burton and the perfect mix of pathos and comedy make this the perfect beach read.

On the 3BM Bookshelf: April 2014

After a few months of all work and no play, there was nothing more luxurious than hopping on a plane a couple of weeks ago with a suitcase full of bikinis and a Kindle full of books. If you're off to the beach soon or are just after a page-turner to brighten up your week here's my take on April's reads.

Before We Met - Lucie Whitehouse

Looking for the new Gone Girl? Before We Met is just what you're after. Another psychological, edge of your seat thriller about a husband and wife that will have you gripped from the second you crack it's spine. When Hannah's seemingly perfect husband doesn't arrive at Heathrow airport as scheduled one evening she's a little worried. Worry soon turns to something altogether more spine-chilling when she digs below the surface of all that she thinks she knows about her husband and everything swiftly crumbles in her hands... 

Mrs Hemingway: A Novel - Naomi Wood

Earlier this year I raced through the fictional biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, so when I heard that there was a similar fictional account based on the facts of the lives of the four wives of Ernest Hemingway, I was sold. This beautiful book spans forty years and hops from Paris to Florida, via Cuba and Spain. With four parts told from the perspective of each of Hemingway's quartet of wives, the man himself lurks as a shadowy figure who we come to know through the dizzying lust, deep love and eventual heartbreak he inspires in each of them. 
 

The Fault in Our Stars - John Green

This is one of those books I've had on my must-read list for forever but never quite got round to downloading. On a Pin-fest one day at the end of last month I came across a myriad of beautiful quotes from The Fault in Our Stars (my most favourite being "I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly and then all at once") and decided to download it and get reading immediately. A book about two teenagers with cancer who meet and fall in love doesn't sound like ideal holiday reading, and I'm not gong to deny that I was in floods of tears on more than one occasion while reading, but this is a beautiful story which is ultimately as uplifting as it is heart-wrenchingly devastating. 

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simison

The Rosie Project is a funny, sweet romantic comedy which centres around the most unlikely of romantic heroes - Don Tillman, a socially inept Science teacher who has designed a questionnaire to find his perfect wife. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time meets Notting Hill - a great frothy delight of a book.

Beauty - Louise Mensch

Fans of Louise Bagshawe, she's back! But this time she'd writing under her new name (which you might identify more with facelift scandals and politics than bonkbusters). Sticking to the 'if-it-ain't-broke-why-fix-it' school of writing, Beauty follows Bagshawe/Mensch's tried and tested formula of beautiful girl with some serious disadvantage (this time, poverty/ mother who doesn't love her) who against all odds uses her wit and intelligence to overcome said disadvantage and triumph in business (this time in the glamorous world of cosmetics) while also finding true love (who as always, just happens to be a devilishly good-looking and mind-bogglingly rich). It's trashy and you pretty much know the ending before you've finished the first chapter but it's escapist fun and a perfectly nice way to while away a lazy afternoon on the beach.   

Me Before You - Jojo Moyles

Having loved The Last Letter from Your Lover and seen the gushing reviews that Me Before You has been garnering, I ignored my pre-conceptions about a book centring about a quadriplegic contemplating euthanasia, and thank goodness I did. Far from being the grim, depressing read it sounds, this is a huge, bright, joy of a book with a plot that swallows you up whole from page one which is populated with characters who you miss as soon as you've read the last page. In true good book cliche form, I laughed out loud, had a little cry and ignored everyone and everything while I whipped through it. 

Life after Life - Kate Atkinson

Definitely my favourite read of the year so far, Life After Life, is the sort of book that's so clever that when you finish it, you immediately want to read it all over again. Centring around the idea that life is a little like a computer game - we get as far as we can but when we lose all our lives, the game's reset and we simply go back to the start and live it all over again. The main character, Ursula, lives a series of iterations of her life which show that while redoing the things she's done wrong in the past can lead to doing them right the second time around, the rights come with a price tag. The story swoops from idyllic, sleepy England at the turn of the 20th Century to Blitz-ridden London and from Hitler's favourite Berlin coffee shop to the playing fields of a school in deathly dull suburbia.  This is a beautiful, lyrical, complex thinker which I devoured in a day and can't wait to get lost in again. 

On the 3BM Bookshelf: March

It's Monday. 

It's the start of a new week.

Maybe it should also be your cue to go to your bookshelf, crack the spine on a brand new book... 

If you're looking for a little bookspiration, here's what we've had our noses in this month...

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls - Anton DiSclafani

If you're looking for some fluff with a dash of drama and suspense this is a perfectly nice way to while away a few hours. Not groundbreaking stuff, but you probably aren't reading a book about a fifteen year old girl shipped off to riding camp after a mysterious scandal at home if you want a literary masterpiece... Set in thirties America and packed with horses, school dances and clandestine affairs - all good rainy Sunday afternoon fodder. 

The Man Who Forgot His Wife - John O'Farrell

I read and loved John O'Farrell's The Best A Man Can Get and This Is Your Life years and years ago but had pretty much forgotten how brilliantly readable and hilariously funny his books are until I started reading his latest book, The Man Who Forgot His Wife. 

One Day Vaughan emerges from a tunnel on a train on the way to Heathrow but can't remember why he's on the train, where he's just come from or even what his name is. It transpires that some catastrophic event has completely wiped his mind and he's back to factory settings. As he gradually starts to piece everything back together it transpires he's married to a beautiful, funny, clever woman, the only catch? He's at the final stages of divorcing her and he really can't understand why.

I devoured this book in one sitting - laughed out loud, had a little cry and resolved that I need more John O'Farrell in my life (May Contain Nuts on my must read list).  

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

I had this book recommended to me ages ago and I'm now going to recommend it to anyone and everyone myself. Quite simply a brilliant, brilliant book.

Egan's 2010 novel is made up of a cobweb of interlinked stories each told from the perspective of a new character all woven together by a thread which is sometimes loose at best. The people narrating the stories take us from LA to New York to some unknown country controlled by a dictator in a fluffy blue hat. We hop backwards and forwards through forty years and gradually piece together a narrative from snapshots of people's lives. While this may sound confusing, it really isn't at all. It's nostalgic and beautiful and incredibly clever and I really can't say much more than go and read it immediately!

On the 3BM Bookshelf: February 2014

When it's cold outside, what's better than snuggling up with a big mug of tea (or a large glass of red) and a spellbindingly great book?!

Due to hectic work schedules and a light sprinkling of travel, despite the hibernation level temperatures, I haven't really managed to do too much book snuggling over the last couple of months. Luckily though, the ones that I have managed to sneak some bookworm time with, have been pretty dazzling. So here's a quick round-up of my recommended reads for February...

Z: A novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler

I'm a little bit obsessed with anything Gatsby, so this novel, based on the lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, has been on my must read list for a while. While I had this pegged as a romp around New York in the Twenties - packed with tales of jazz clubs, flappers and Absinthe-fuelled midnight swims in fountains (of which there is a certainly a generous helping) - it actually turned out to be a pretty dark read. The book chronicles the Fitzgerald's decline from dazzling talk of the town to crumbling shadows of their former selves. Beautiful, sad and compellingly readable, I now have a whole lot of Fitzgerald and Hemmingway to add to my Kindle download list.

Kiss Me First - Lottie Moggach
A story centred around social media and euthanasia may not sound like a page turner but this is guaranteed to have you hooked from the very first page. The book centres around socially awkward loner, Leila, who agrees to help a stranger to disappear by impersonating her on the internet. Dealing with trust, betrayal, obsession and manipulation - it's a bone-chillingly brilliant read. This is Lottie Moggach's debut novel and I can't wait to devour whatever she writes next. 

The Other Typist - Suzanne Rindell
Continuing in the Gatsby-mania vein, the Other Typist is set in Jazz Age New York - a city where debaunchery bubbles under the dry Prohibition facade and where gangster rackets rule supreme. Rose is a typist in a Police precinct on the Lower East Side where she works for a Lieutenant tasked with clamping down on illegal speakeasies. She's hardworking and prudish; a rather annoyingly good two shoes, until that is, the new typist Odalie arrives at the precinct. Odalie captivates and enchants everyone that she encounters, even Rose. Before long, the two are inseparable and all at once Rose is drinking gin martinis in underground drinking dens and tearing around town in Odalie's beyond glamourous wake. Which is exactly when everything begins to unravel and very bad things start to happen...

The Other Typist is without doubt the best book I've read in a very, very long time. As soon as I'd finished it, I wanted to read it again immediately and a month or so after finishing it, I'm still thinking about the story and periodically googling other people's thoughts on it. When you finish it, I'd love to hear what you think...