.the princess portal.

It’s no secret that I like to read, some of my favourite places in the world are bookstores and libraries, the smell of paper and ink is enchanting. Indeed books hold a magical fascination to me, the ability to pass on knowledge from years or centuries past, to transport us to other worlds, other lives. I’m usually reading more than one book at a time, which is a bad habit. I read on the bus, on the train, before bed, in waiting rooms and even in the bath! (another bad habit.) Here are a few of my favourite links for bibliophiles.

Good Reads
I just found out about this site today and I am in love with the idea! Good Reads allows you to create a virtual bookshelf of everything you read, including reviews and a personal rating. They have a huge database that allows you to look up your favourite authors and series and you can add books to different ’shelves’ based on their genre. I’ve just started adding books to mine, but I’m definitely going to keep up with it from now on, because I often forget what I’ve read and when. You can see my profile here, please add me as a friend!

Project Gutenberg
Probably one of the largest and better organized online libraries. Here you will find a huge collection of texts and books that have been uploaded for public use (and enjoyment!) Its especially great for finding older texts that are no longer under copyright and rare and hard to find books. Sometimes I enjoy just browsing through to see what I discover!

The Invisible Library
I really wanted to link you to this site, which I remember enjoying a few years ago. Unfortunately by some strange irony, the ‘Invisible Library’ is now completely invisible, it seems to have dissapeared altogether! However, lucky for us, a few clever people have made their own records of the library, the first is the link above and the second can be found here. The Invisible Library is a collection of books which do not exist, they are books that are mentioned in other books. Makes for fascinating browsing, if only we could open the pages of some of these books for real!

What should I read next?
This is a fun little tool that helps you find new books you might like. Just type in the title and author of your favourite book and generate a list of those other’s would reccomend to you! I found my reccomendations quite interesting too. I believe by creating an account you can get more specialised reccomendations, but its fun to play with aswell.

What are you reading right now?

April is at an end and so is our first Princess Challenge! I’ve recieved some lovely stories from you, and you can find a collection of these on the new Princess Challenge page. If you also completed the challenge and would like your story posted here, please email it to me!

I really enjoyed this task, though my story came out a little different than I had planned. I find that when I write stories, I’m not very good at coming up with a plot and filling it in, but rather I see a few disjointed scenes and the emotions within and then try to tie them together. So when I sit down to write I have no idea where it is going to end, which is exciting and a bit tricky at the same time! I’m working on a drawing to accompany the Lion of Astolat and I hope to upload it soon.

May 2008 Princess Challenge
(if this is your first challenge, please read the original post here)

Your task this month is to find a little bit of beauty in every day. You can write about it, take photos, draw or record these beautiful things in a blog or journal. They can be anything from a little flower growing through the pavement to an act of great kindness that you witnessed. Each day, for a whole month, find something beautiful in the world around you.

I look forward to seeing what you discover!

Today, when the sun rose, we had the clearest, bluest sky I have seen in a long time. I went outside, in my slippers and pajamas, teacup in one hand just to marvel at it. I didn’t have long to enjoy though, because it was a busy day for me! I had a nice long to-do list, the first of which was to pick up some parcels that had arrived in the mail.

The first of these parcels was a lovely gift from Betsy, a friend of mine in the United States. It included two books by George MacDonald, full of delicious fairy tales by this talented author. The one you can see here, Behind the North Wind is a beautiful hard cover edition with delightful coloured illustrations. I also recieved some mix CDs and a sweet letter, I feel truly spoiled by these generous gifts and can’t wait to start reading the books! (I’ve been listening to the CD’s all day.) Thank you so much! The other package, was very much anticipated. It contained a dress I purchased recently which has arrived just in time for the Princess Party this weekend! I want to keep it as a bit of a surprise, but you can see a small part of it in this photo.

Speaking of the Party! In the afternoon I went to pick up some much needed supplies for this Sunday. Including some items that will be used for games and decorating the Palace. I’m really excited about Princess Day, only three more sleeps!

The new Princess Challenge and results from the last one will be up very soon!