The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch

It took me a while to get into The Lies of Locke Lamora because it has a slow build up with lots of exposition. It was never annoying though and the further I got in the book the harder it was to put down. The Lies of Locke Lamora is an excellent book and I can highly recommend it to anyone who likes Fantasy as a genre, interesting characters and good solid world building.

The fictional city of Camorr, where the titular Locke Lamora lives and steals things, is almost a character in it’s own right in that is is so richly described and full off nooks and cranny’s yet to be discovered. I enjoyed Locke’s character quite a lot, although like the book itself it was one that had to grow on me while reading. (I often like roguish characters instantly, so this was different from the norm for me.) I also really felt connected to Locke’s friend Jean Tannen. There are so many different and interesting people in this book, and I feel like each and everyone of them could be the main character of a next book. For the bookmark I have chosen some symbols that refer to some of these characters, and all together they could stand for Camorr as a whole. I hope that those of you who’ve read The Lies of Locke Lamora will see what I tried to get across in this bookmark. Because I can’t get my scanner to work with my new computer, it took me a while to find a workable alternative. The scanner at my job does some weird auto contrast thing that doesn’t really look good for soft pencil work like with this bookmark, so in the end I just took a lot of photos with my camera trying to get the best angle. It’s not ideal, but it works.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

I really enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby, something I was worried wouldn’t happen when I started. I know it’s a famous classic, but that does not mean it is an accessible read, especially to a non-native speaker like me. But I got used to the style quite quickly! The most surprising thing to me was how much I related to the narrator, I really liked him and trusted his point of view.

When it comes to The Great Gatsby a lot has already been written and symbols have been dissected. The library copy I read included a very long introduction which analyses the book. I had started reading it, but decided to stop because I want to read a book and not be stuck in pre-conceived notions about what is important, but rather let things jump out at me and afterwards see if they were the same things.

I had expected there to be a lot more references to the green dock light, because I had seen a vlogbrothers video in which John Green talks about the Great Gatsby and mentions it a lot. But when I was actually reading the book, I got much more attached to Gatsbys car. That is why I drew it on the bookmark, and made it be the only thing that has colour to contrast it with Gatsbys house, which does not actually feel like a house but is just a backdrop.

I had a lot of trouble with this bookmark, I’m not a car-person, so drawing one was not easy for me. I had come up with several sketches that I didn’t like, car- or house-wise. But in the end I found a couple of reference photos of 20’s cars online that gave me an idea of what should go where as far as the car was concerned. I hope you like the result.

The scan of the bookmark looks different than the other bookmarks, because I can’t get my scanner to work on my new computer, so I scanned it at work. The bookmark is winsor & newton ink with a bit of watercolour.

Checking up on the bookmarks

So I’ve just been to the library again. (Finally, I can hear you think it. I know, it’s been way too long since I posted here.) My library has just been rearranging how the books are organized, and it’s confusing for people like me who are used to how it was.

It took me quite a while to check up on the books I’ve already done bookmarks for. And what I’ve found is that now two more bookmarks have gone missing from their book (Onmagiër and The Book Thief). I wonder where they are now. I asked one of the librarians what the policy was on stuff like bookmarks found in books, and they generally go into the lost and found. When I explained what I do (neither him nor I knew whether it’s allowed or not) and that I wondered about the missing bookmarks, he let me check if any of them ended up in the lost and found box, but none did. It was a relief to know that the library keeps the stuff they find in books. (If they go unclaimed for a long time they get moved to a depot in a different building.) And that they wouldn’t just throw them out.

I am assuming all three of the missing bookmarks are now living with readers, who for some reason or an other has decided to keep them. I realize that they may have ended up in the trash, which is something I’m just going to have to accept. I find it hard to let go of something I’ve made, this project is in part an exercise in letting go for me. I want to share the physical bookmark with other readers and not just here online. But I get worried about ‘my babies’. Having some of them disappear without knowing what happened is not an easy thing. It’s a part of what I’ve decided to do however, and I should stop worrying and just let the library readers interact with the bookmarks no matter what might end up happening and no matter that I might never know. Because as soon as I hand the book with a bookmark back in, it stops being my bookmark. It’s everyone’s.

The Shack still had it’s bookmark, and both Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are currently with readers.

I actually went to the library to get their copy of Ik ben er voor niemand so I could finish up my post about it (the bookmark art is done). But while the system said it should be available the book itself seems to have been misplaced. Lost between all the other books. So I have not been able to get the library copy and cannot yet finish my post about it. In the mean time, here’s a picture of when I was working on the bookmark:

I did get The Great Gatsby so I can start on reading that for the next one. I want to try and do more bookmarks and post more often, because the great gap in between this post and the last is much to large. If I want to keep this weblog interesting for you sweet readers, I’ll have to update it regularly.