Meeting Miss Irby

Some dear friends of ours, Josh and Taylor Irby, moved to Bosnia a few years ago to be full-time missionaries.  Since they (and we) moved away, I've really missed their music ministry and their adorable kids (Israel, Elijah, and Adeline). 

Josh recently wrote a book on a relative of his, also a missionary to Bosnia but many years ago, Adeline Irby, after whom they named their newest daughter. You can check out a guest post about the book written by Taylor here. Here's the Amazon synopsis:

In 1855, a wealthy 24-year-old English woman, Adeline Paulina Irby, left her London home to search for her purpose in life. By a strange turn of events, she ended up in Sarajevo where she stayed and became a national hero.

In 1999, an average 22-year-old man left his home in the United States to live in the Balkans for a year. There, in the most unlikely city on the other side of the world, he not only found another Irby, but also a purpose for his life.

This creative memoir reveals that extraordinary things happen when ordinary people search for meaning and, instead, discover love.

Meeting Miss Irby is on sale this weekend only. You can get it on your Kindle for $2.99 or on your Nook for $0.99. I've read it and recommend it!

The Irbys

I'll be back to some normal blog programming next week after an insanely busy two weeks back at school. Thanks for checking in!

Keep Calm and Carry On

Pamela posted it first, and then Charissa. I suppose I should jump on the bandwagon as well. I had no idea that the Keep Calm poster was first discovered in the Northeast, and just in the last decade. We went to this very bookstore on our Day of Love!

The Day of Love: Part 3

After our awesome visit to Alnwick Castle, Nathan and I went to a bookstore called Barter Books. It was actually an old train station that was transformed into a huge bookstore, cafe, etc. The train theme was throughout the building, and it was truly a cool space.

Lots of books

And some cool pieces of furniture too

There's Nathan checking out the card catalog with a train going past overhead.

This is one of the cafe rooms. So cozy!

The wooden floors had train stops stamped into them.

There's my man through the window from the cafe.

Here's the children's section. I wished I could read to Winnie and June in here!

One of the coolest features was a mural with tons of famous authors painted on it. It was really awesome.

We escaped with only one (?!) book but we shared a scone and hot chocolate too. Yum!

I hope you enjoyed our adventure from the Day of Love. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you'd like.

And now... I'd like to announce a new blog contest. Fortunately/unfortunately (depending on your location) this is for non-US resident readers only. You can be an American to enter, but you have to live outside of the country. All my winners in the past have been in the US, so I thought I'd give some ex-pats and internationals a turn at the goods. :)

Leave a comment to be entered to win a special treat! You have until Friday, October 21st to enter, but why not take 60 seconds and do it now? I'll announce the winner on Monday, the 24th.

The Book Sale

Even over a text message, I could tell Nathan was excited. I could just hear his words behind his frantic thumbs: "Nicole, there is the mother of all book sales going on at Hilde Bede. How much am I allowed to spend?"

Basically, one of the colleges here is eliminating one of its libraries and moving the remaining contents to another library. People could just come in, browse the shelves like they would at any ol' library, and buy books. The librarian wasn't selling everything, though. If the book was really new or had been checked out often, it was to be moved to the other library. In a sense, the library was getting people to sort the books for them, and the people were getting books at ridiculous prices. The more we bought, the cheaper the books became.

It kind of became a joke over the weekend with Nathan wanting to tell all of his friends about it. "Have I told you about the book sale?!" he would ask with wide and intense eyes. Yes, it turned out, he had mentioned it a few times to everyone. 

I went with Nathan for round two of the book sale yesterday (Friday was round one for him). I got a few education books and some English poetry. Nathan walked away with probably 50 books for 20 pounds. Amazing deal!

At the sale, Nathan and his buddies were in absolute heaven. The energy zipping around all of their brains was almost visible. They were freaking out about books that I have never heard of and would never read. NERD ALERT! :)

Here are a few titles I found amusing...

This title would never fly today.

I bought this one. :)

Clever!

This reminds me of Indiana Jones, when the girl closes her eyes and has written "love you" on her eyelids.

I showed this to Nathan. He's a lefty.

Funny title

The sale with piles of books everywhere

Every time he gets another book in the mail from Amazon, Nathan turns to me and says, "Nicole, I love you, but we need to talk about your book addiction." That sneaky blame shifter! We already have more than 70 boxes of books back in Atlanta, and his collection here in England is growing by the second. I think we'll need a personal librarian to help sort through them all. 


I really hope Nathan finds a job in academia that can accommodate all of his books. Don't get me wrong. I love books. I love reading them. I love having them around in the house. But this is ridiculous. 


Does anyone have any helpful book organization tips? We have such limited space. My personal motto is that of my closet: one in, one out, but Nathan is not a big fan of that motto. :)

Cambridge: Sightseeing

After Nathan's paper, we had lunch at a pub-ish kind of restaurant called Cow's. Don't go there. It was lame. Then we had a quick stop into an old bookshop.

Nathan and old books. Shocking.

You can't see me, but this is some old college.

This summer's signature scarf is brought to you by Allison, who brought it to me from India last summer. You will probably see it a lot on this blog.

Here's Nathan in the Peterhouse gardens. Lovely.

And me, sitting across from him.

I liked the purple flowers, but I think they were actually garlic. They smelled like it, anyway.

I used the camera extender to capture this image of Nathan about to climb over the ancient wall to look at cows.

This is the view from our room at Selwyn College.

That night we went to a fancy (to us) French restaurant and ate cheese and bread and lots of other amazing food outside on the patio. I think it was called Brasserie Gordon or something like that. We spent the rest of our date night money and then some. Thanks Ben and Blaire! 

This is the courtyard at Selwyn on Sunday morning. We stopped in and then went to STAG for church, which stands for St. Andrew the Great. It was cool.

Nathan was proud of this "very symmetrical" picture.

Pretty purple flowers

In front of King's College on King's Parade

The classic Asian tourist pose

We went to a choral service at King's College Chapel in the afternoon, and it was definitely a highlight. The choristers there were just absolutely phenomenal. Gorgeous sound. I missed my dad. No pictures were allowed inside. Sorry.

King's College courtyard

More King's

Okay... so there was a bit of a mix up with our room booking, and we didn't have a room on Sunday night. The conference organizer found us another room at a B&B (which was actually just a "B," because they didn't serve breakfast), so we drove five or so minutes away and arrived at what seemed to be a house right out of a mafia movie. The first word that came to mind was "garish." Lots of gold. See?

Here's Nathan's best Sopranos pose. I realize that you probably could have done without the chest hair, but it was essential for the purposes of demonstrating the mood of the place.

That's it for now. My fantastic in-laws arrive in just a few hours, and then I have a job interview this afternoon. Tomorrow I'll share our punting pictures!

Book Club Awesomeness

Several weeks ago over Mexican food at the Johnsons', Sarah, Ashley, and I discussed some good books we've read lately. We all decided that we should have a book club (which I have never done), and we picked The Help as our first book to read. I had read it before, but it was just as good the second time around! 

We got together and had a nice Southern meal: fried chicken, cornbread, veggies, deviled eggs, and chocolate pie. Mmm-MMM!

Nathan must have smelled the food from the golf course, because he was home early. Oh wait... It's because his clubs were stolen from the club house.

I'm not sure why our faces are so shiny. It might have had something to do with the grease the chicken was fried in...

I'm glad that Ashley did NOT use Minnie's recipe.

Check out Ashley's review of the book and her pie recipe here.

The Shakespeare First Folio Returns to Durham

I spent too much time trying to re-tell the story, so here it is from Wikipedia.

On 11 July 2008 it was reported that a copy stolen from Durham University, England in 1998 had been recovered after being submitted for valuation at Folger Shakespeare Library inWashington, D.C., in the United States. The folio's value was estimated at up to £15 million.^[14] Although the book, once the property of John Cosins the Bishop of Durham, was returned to the library it has been mutilated and is missing its cover and title page.^[15] The folio was returned to public display on 19 June 2010 after its 12 year absence.^[16] Raymond Scott was jailed for eight years for handling stolen goods (he was acquitted of the theft of the copy).^[17] A July 2010 BBC programme about the affair, Stealing Shakespeare, portrayed Scott as a fantasist and petty thief.^[18]

Anyway, it's back, and I got to see it, among several other very old, old books. Bibliophiles, rejoice!

 Kipling on the left and an English hymnal on the right

Clockwise from top left... Oscar Wilde (Salome), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist), Samuel Pepys (a personal diary) All are first editions.

Here's the first folio. The thieves ripped off the front cover and the binding to disguise its origins. Stupid!

You can click on this picture to make it bigger and read about how it was recovered. The deluded gentleman who tried to sell it is pictured on the top right, dressed with inspiration from Macbeth for his court date. A little kooky, if you ask me.

Exploring Edinburgh, Day 1, Part 4

Dr. Kelly took us to several university buildings, and I tried to take as many pictures as possible, but the man moves at tremendous speed. It was all I could do to keep up.

I'm not sure what this room was, but there were mini libraries on each side of the room between each column. Very cool.

We stopped and asked Dr. Kelly to take a picture in front of this building because we shared with it a family name, the MacEwan Building. I know it's not spelled the same, but we wanted to do it for Hannah. I could tell that Dr. Kelly didn't take pictures much, because we could tell that we weren't going to fit properly in the picture, hence the squatting.

Here's attempt number two.  We still didn't get the building and us in it, so it looks like we're about to engage in some (as my mother would call it) freak dancing.

A quick self portrait did the trick, as usual.

Harry Potter Fans Are So Jealous Right Now

Alternate title, "Exploring Edinburgh, Day 1, Part 3"

You see this little cafe? This is where Harry Potter was born. Yep. J.K. Rowling wrote her Harry Potter novels here when she was a broke single mother. Now she's a gazillionare and gives tons of money to cancer research at the university, a five minutes' walk away.

There she is... writing away in all her brilliance.

Dr. Kelly indulged me and took a picture with me in front of The Elephant House.