3 Books I've Been Reading (+ 1 Journal)

I've been reading some great stuff recently, so I thought I would go through some of it here and catalogue some lovely and strange little things. First up is the incredibly colourful, inspiring, and perfectly sized journal, Doll Hospital. This is a contributor's copy of issue 4 that was kindly sent to me after I illustrated a piece of writing for it by Vikki Touzel. There is so much going on in this thing, it's a real pleasure to flip through and has such a varied and interesting style to it. A beautiful thing and a labour of love that I treasure.

The second thing I want to mention is this intricately odd book about mazes - Follow This Thread by Henry Eliot. It discusses the history and cultural significance of mazes, referencing Greek myths and video games alike, and is laid out in a confusing, spiralling way evocative itself of mazes. Here's one of my favourite parts, a double page spread of chaos and red right at the centre:

It's a marvel, and super interesting.

I've also been reading Cinder, a YA cyborg retelling of Cinderella that I'd been meaning to check out for a while. It wasn't my favourite thing in terms of overall execution, but I really enjoyed the premise, and I always love coming back to young adult fiction for a nice, light, rapid read.

The last book I'm going to talk about is this Keats collection (The Complete Poetry). I largely picked this up because I was influenced by the scene in Brief Encounter which quotes 'When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be', as follows:

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance

I'm really glad I grabbed this, because reading Keats is the greatest thing to do on the train. It makes me smile and think about lying in an empty field at night and staring at the stars.