Ramblings from my pages… #11

Welcome to the eleventh instalment of Ramblings from my pages…, and the first of 2019. Hopefully, you noticed the new look my blog has, I felt like a change, a fresh new look for Keeper of Pages! This post was inspired by It’s Book Talk’s “5 on Friday: Things I’m Loving Lately” – it differs slightly, similar in that it will feature bookish and non-bookish topics, but different in that I will ramble about things I’m loving, hating, wishing for, links I’ve enjoyed, life updates – you name it, I may just ramble about it. The only staple feature of this post will be concluding it with a cool link I found around the web.

Today’s ramblings topics: Magnetic Vintage Library Cards, TOKEN Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Charity Shop Find, and Bitmoji. Whether you read the entire post or jump to the section(s) you’re interested in, I hope you enjoy my ramblings. 

MAGNETIC VINTAGE LIBRARY CARDS

As some of you know, I take part in book swaps on Instagram, and for the December ‘secret Santa’ book swap, I got the coolest gift! These vintage library book cards! Not only are they the perfect gift for any book lover, they are multipurpose – whether you use them for something book related, to make a ‘to do’ list, shopping list, notes, letters, anything! The library pock is magnetic, mine takes pride of place on my book cart because I’m using them for something bookish! The notecards are double-sided too, and you can also buy refill notecards.

As this was a gift, I’m not sure where in the UK they were purchased from (if they were at all). But I’ve found them in the United States from Fly Paper Products, they also have an Etsy Shop. Shipping to the UK is £5.72, which is roughly the price of a pack so you’re looking at £12 in total. Although I’m sure they’re available in the UK somewhere, it’s just a case of hunting them down – I found the refill packs in the UK on Etsy, from The Jellybean Studio, so the initial pack must be available from somewhere. I’m sure if you want them bad enough, you’ll find them.

• 

• 

TOKEN MAGAZINE

Did I ever mention how much I love Instagram, I discover all kind of amazing things on there, one thing being this magazine. TOKEN magazine is a biannual arts and literature print magazine, and I was lucky enough to win issues 2 and 3 in a giveaway on their Instagram. There’s many reasons why I love this magazine but two in particular, firstly it’s a one woman show, it’s created, edited and designed by Sara Jafari, how impressive is that! The second thing I love is that this magazine supports underrepresented artists, you’ll find that the majority of the pieces are by people of colour, and other minority groups. “Diversity of voice is essential to the magazine, not an afterthought. “

“The name comes from the experience of tokenism that underrepresented groups often face. This includes people of colour, women, LGBT+, those with disabilities, and other minority groups. TOKEN Magazine is an outlet to work against that – we want to hear and see everyone’s stories, fictional or not.”

To find out more about TOKEN, visit their website, tokenmagazine.co.uk. At the time of writing this, issue 2 and 3 (yellow cover) are still available to buy in print, whereas issue one is only available digitally. If you’re interested in submitting a piece of art/literature, you are advised to follow them on social media to be the first to know when they are calling for submissions.

SHERLOCK HOLMES CHARITY SHOP FIND

I found these vintage Sherlock Holmes novels in my local charity for 99p each, I hadn’t seen them before but knew immediately I needed to add them to my collection. When I got home, I thought I’d look them up (as you do) and it turns out they’re part of a 10 book set, which I saw going for sale on eBay for £100 for the complete set!!!!! Whether that’s wishful thinking on the part of the seller or how much these bad boys are going for, I feel pretty chuffed with myself, and will be keeping an eye out for the remaining 7, at the lower charity shop price, of course.

BITMOJI

If you’ve had any kind of communication with me via text/WhatsApp in the last week, you’ll know my latest app obsession is Bitmoji. During a conversation with Beth (Bibliobeth), one of her messages included her Bitmoji, and I was like ‘who is this virtual Beth!?’, I immediately downloaded the app, and in usual Janel-style didn’t bother to actually create my bitmoji till a week ago. And now, it’s Bitmojis everywhere, I’m addicted, you can send them to anyone, in any app! And there’s even bookish Bitmojis too!

• 

• 

• 

LINK AROUND THE WEB

Categories of Mystery Novels

Are you a lover of mystery novels, can you tell your hard-boiled mystery from your cozy mystery? Or your suspense novel from your thriller? What about sub-genres – can you tell what makes a mystery novel a classic, a domestic, a vocational, a locked room and so on?

Hard-boiled to Cozy: Categories of Mystery Novels.

***

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it, and you’ll join me next Sunday for some more ramblings.

If you missed my last rambling you can find it here – topics: A Novel Companion, Books That Matter, Bird Box movie, Morticia Addams quote