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Oscar Simon

@oscarsimon_

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slow mood reader; aspiring writer (28 y/o) // fantasy, classics, historical fiction

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"[N]o other wickedness more wicked than choosing with who you dole out kindness."

Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James was my last read carried over from summer (it's a brick of a book). Suffice to say, same as Black Leopard, Red Wolf, it ripped me to pieces. Simply cannot wait for the conclusion of this trilogy!
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#bookstagram #moonwitchspiderking #marlonjames #thedarkstartrilogy by @oscarsimon_

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6 days ago

Goodness me, year in, year out, #hobbitday always comes up on me unawares!

Happy Hobbit Day! 🎂
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#bookstagram #thehobbit #jrrtolkien by @oscarsimon_

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8 days ago

Finished Mollie Panter-Downes's Good Evening, Mrs Craven on Friday. I didn't find all of the short stories quite to my liking, but on the whole it was a satisfiying read. It gave me more of what I came for, which was Panter-Downes's poignant but direct and witty prose. A solid start to this year's autumnal reading. by @oscarsimon_

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16 days ago

my favourite shots of this #summer

1. July
2. June
3. August by @oscarsimon_

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a month ago

Finished A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin this week. Adored it!

Good to know there are great books out there still.

(Illustrations by Charles Vess)
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#bookstagram #awizardofearthsea #ursulakleguin #earthsea #charlesvess by @oscarsimon_

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2 months ago

Finished After the Death of Don Juan yesterday, the last novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner I had left to read. The end of an era.

After the word spreads that the infamous Don Juan was dragged off to the Pit by Satan himself, Dona Ana feels his family ought to be informed of his passing and she leaves Seville for Tenorio Viejo.

With a varied cast, Townsend Warner weaves a story equally varied in themes and voice. As we shift between characters, both noble and peasant, woman and man, the story unfolds into an unforeseeable creature that leads us to the novel's explosive ending. Ever the mistress of sharp wit and cheek, at no point does Townsend Warner let the pace stagnate, rather it flows like a river, the reader left to anticipate each bend in its course.
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#bookstagram
#afterthedeathofdonjuan #sylviatownsendwarner by @oscarsimon_

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2 months ago

Finished my reread of The Wind in the Willows earlier this week. It's such a joyful little book.
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#bookstagram #thewindinthewillows #kennethgrahame #reread by @oscarsimon_

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5 months ago

"And then, before I had a little got used to the joy of their flowers against the sky, came the lilacs—masses and masses of them, in clumps on the grass, with other shrubs and trees by the side of walks, and one great continuous bank of them half a mile long right past the west front of the house, away down as far as one could see, shining glorious against a background of firs. [...] My days seemed to melt away in a dream of pink and purple peace."
- Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden
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#bookstagram #elizabethandhergermangarden #elizabethvonarnim #quote #lilac by @oscarsimon_

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5 months ago

"They were like living diamonds. Yes, they had faults, but they were perfectly themselves. Vidia, for instance, who was the fastest flier, didn't care about anybody but herself. She was by no means perfect, but she was perfectly Vidia. Fairies were concentrated, like bouillon cubes. That's what Gwendolyn loved most about them, their concentratedness."
- Gail Carson Levine, Fairies and the Quest for Never Land

(Illustrations for Levine's Fairy Dust trilogy by David Christiana)
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#davidchristiana #gailcarsonlevine #fairydustandthequestfortheegg #fairyhavenandthequestforthewand #fairiesandthequestforneverland by @oscarsimon_

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5 months ago

In March, I reread Fairies and the Quest for Never Land 🧚 by Gail Carson Levine, thus completeing my reread of Levine's Fairy Dust trilogy that I started at Christmas 2024 (what can I say? I live for an elongated reading project 🤭).

These books are my childhood favourites and it was such fun to revisit them. They're whimsical and so dreamlike. In no way do you feel like you're being looked down on and the writing is not dumbed down, even though these are obviously children's books. They can be a little melancholic at times and Levine is not afraid to go to some dark places (expect fairy casualties).

The books function as sequels to Disney's Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie's original novel but centre on the Never fairies (among them the fan-favourite Tinker Bell).

In Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, Prilla, the youngest fairy, and others are sent on a quest to restore Mother Dove's magical egg before the fairy dust is lost forever. In Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand, the fairies must venture out once again (this time led by Rani, a water fairy) as mermaids threaten to flood the fairies' home. In Fairies and the Quest for Never Land, we follow a girl called Gwendolyn (Wendy Darling's descendant) who loves fairies most of all, perhaps even a little too much.
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#gailcarsonlevine #fairydustandthequestfortheegg #fairyhavenandthequestforthewand #fairiesandthequestforneverland #davidchristiana by @oscarsimon_

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5 months ago

Some of the poems I enjoyed from Blake's Selected Poems!
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#bookstagram #williamblake #poetry by @oscarsimon_

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6 months ago

This was a good reading week!

Finished Of Cats and Elfins, a collection of Sylvia Townsend Warner's remaining elfin stories and her stories from The Cat's Cradle Book, which are framed as bedtime stories cat mothers would tell their kittens. Compared with the stories from The Kingdoms of Elfins, the elfin stories in Of Cats and Elfins left me a little unsatisfied, but The Cat's Cradle Book stories more than made up for it. They were so whimsical!

I also reread Lady Susan this week, first time since reading it for the first time at univeristy. It's one of my favourites of all Jane Austen's works, next to Mansfield Park and Sense & Sensibiity, and it did not dissapoint!
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#bookstagram #ofcatsandelfins #sylviatownsendwarner #ladysusan #janeausten by @oscarsimon_

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6 months ago