Jo Monk

@jomary10

Seeker after beauty, joy and hope. Lover of cats, coffee, comedy, and small beauties. Easily distracted by sparkly things.

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Bluesky

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Jo Monk@jomary10· 18d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: Another one for 'a character you identify with.' Magrat from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Never quite sure what she's doing, idealistic & sometimes a bit ridiculous. Uncontrollable frizzy hair. But when the going gets tough, discovers some backbone!

Cosplayer dressed as Magrat Garlick. Young woman with fair frizzy hair with flowers braided into it, and a green cottagecore dress with lots of brightly coloured bead necklaces.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 18d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 22. A character you can relate to: Dorothea Brooke from Middlemarch. Wanting to do the right thing, getting too intense about it, making some wrong decisions, realising we don't need to do big things: small kindnesses in our immediate circle are OK.

Pen and ink drawing of a young woman in a dark-coloured 1840s style dress, with her dark hair braided up, sitting at a desk holding a quill pen and thinking.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 20d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 21. A book that makes yu cry. The House at Pooh Corner by A A Milne. The ending is so sad. Christopher Robin goes off to bearding school and the enchanted days in the 100 Acre Wood are over forever. The end of childhood.

Silhouette of a child and a teddy bear hand in hand skipping off into the distance. Text reads: So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 21d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 20. First novel you remember reading. The first that wasn't for children or young adults was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Still a firm favourite: Miss Havisham, the Pocket family, Mr Wopsle's theatrical antics, Wemmick and the Aged P...

Pen and ink illustration of Miss Havisham by Charles Green. A thin old lady with white hair in a Regency bridal gown and veil sitting at a untidy dressing table with clothes strewn around her. She has her chin on her hand and is looking sad/angry.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 22d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 19. Favourite romance book. Not all that keen on romance as a genre, although many of my favourites have romatic aspects to them. I think I'd go for Jane Austen's Emma. I like the ironic humour, the twisty-turny plot and the very imperfect characters.

Book cover of Emma by Jane Austen. Painting of a young woman with her dark hair up, wearing a high-waisted white Regency style dress with a frilled collar.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 24d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 18. Favourite book turned into a movie. Can't choose between Lord of the Rings and the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, so here they both are. Such excellent adaptations of the original books.

Book cover of Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien. Black cover. Title is inside a red ring with runes written on it.

Video cover of 1995 BBC film of Pride and Prejudice. Shows Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. She is in a cream-coloured Regency dress, with evening gloves and her hair up, he is in a black coat with a white shirt and cravat. He is holding her arm and they are looking at the viewer.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 25d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 17. Favourite quotation from a favourite book. This one from Middlemarch.

Text reads: That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil — widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 25d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 16. Favourite female character. I'm going with Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett's Discworld for this one. If you need to ask why, you probably haven't met her..... (Images by Paul Kidby).

Illustrations of Granny Weatherwax by artist Paul Kidby. Shows an old, thin witch in traditional witch costume 1) running with a broomstick, 2) picking something out of her ear, 3) with her head covered in bees, 4) without her hat, frowning, 5) standing frowning with her arms folded, wearing a long black robe, pointed hat and big working boots.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 26d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 15. Favourite male character. Another difficult choice. I think it's between Rev Farebrother in Middlemarch, Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey and the Count in Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow. All gentle, humorous and kindly characters.

A man in a dark suit and trilby is looking out over a hotel balcony. We can see his back.

J J Feild as Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey

Book cover of Middlemarch by George Eliot: mauve cover with a purple and gold flower.

Jo Monk@jomary10· 27d

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 14. A book turned into a movie and completely desecrated. Dune by Frank Herbert - the 1984 film directed by David Lynch. 'A movie beyond your imagination' indeed!

Video cover of 1984 film Dune, showing a man with black armour and a sword (Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides) and a man in a black leather and steel suit, with his hair sticking up (Sting as Feyd Rautha Harkonnen), with a desert background.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 9

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge. 18. Middlemarch by George Eliot. Characters are nuanced and nobody is wholly good or bad. Taught me how we can look at everyone with compassion and not judge by appearances.

Book cover of Middlemarch By George Eliot. Painting of a Victorian small town street, with a black coach driving down the middle of it, and people and shops on either side. At the end is a town hall type building with a Greek style pediment, and a church with a spire.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 9

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 12. A book you love and hate at the same time. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. So well written, so many complex issues, compelling characters & a wonderful Gothic storyline - but Rochester is so manipulative and poor Bertha. 'Reader, I married him'...🤔

Book cover of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Painting of head and shoulders of a young woman plaiting her dark hair and looking thoughtful. She has a lace collar over a blue and tawny velvet dress.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 8

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge. 17. David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks. The future dystopia in the last third of the book really struck me: such a believable prediction of life when climate change reaches a certain point and most tech no longer works.

Book cover of The Bone Clocks by Davide Mitchell. Concentric pale blue clock faces with an apple in a black hole at the centre.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 8

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 11. A book you didn't like. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I found the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy so abusive - they seemed to enjoy tormenting themselves and each other. I know many people love this book, but it's not for me.

Book cover of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Painting of a dark house silhouetted against a stormy sky at the top of a moorland lane.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 7

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge. 16. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. This novel gave me a profound look at how we can live with the vast and frightening changes in a world of climate change and how we could live more lightly on this earth.

Book cover of Unsheltered: a novel by Barbara Kingsolver. Shows a botanical drawing of an orchid, with moths flying around it.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 7

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge: 10. A book that reminds you of home. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. I've read this many times over many years. The farm, the herb garden, the countryside through the seasons - all remind me of my childhood home in rural Shropshire.

Book cover of A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. Drawing of a man in Elizabethan costume on a white horse with a groom at the horse's head and a girl in a green tunic behind them. There is an Elizabethan manor house behind them.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 6

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 8. A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving. Story of a Soul, autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux. I was put off by the cutesy image of this saint: the 'Little Flower of God' stuff. She actually had a powerful, profound spirituality.

Image of a young Roman Catholic nun in back veil and white cloak, with pink roses around her.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 5

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge 15. Titus Groan and Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. A dark fantasy world that opened up my imagination and haunts my dreams more than almost any other book I've read. The characters are all so weird and broken and real.

Book cover of Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. Pencil sketch of a dark-haired girl with dark eyes and full lips, full-face. She looks very sad, meditative and moody all at the same time.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 5

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 8. Most over-rated book. This is just my opinion, no disrespect to anyone who liked it, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I didn't find the ideas as original as they were cracked up to be and I didn't find the characters engaging.

Book cover of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Red cover with yellow text. A layer of red paint is partially obscuring the face of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 4

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge Day 14. Biography of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer. First read this in my early teens The first time I'd some across the concept of non-violent resistance and a life dedicated to the pursuit of one's truth at any cost.

Book cover of Mathatmas GAndhi by Louis Fischer. Black and white photo of Gandhi - an elderly Indian man with a shaved head and round glasses, wearing a white robe. He is smiling and his eyes are kind.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 4

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 7. A book that makes you laugh. Dark, ironic comedy here in The Sundial by Shirley Jackson. Some laugh out loud moments. The apocalypse has never been so weird and wonderful.

Book cover of The Sundial by Shirley Jackson. A little girl in a white jumper is lying on a wooden floor looking pensive with a white dolls' house behind her.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 3

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge 13. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Gallowway. Based on true events, this gave me new hope for the survival of kindness & humanity in the most brutal of conflicts. The characters choose not to be dehumanised by it all.

Book cover of The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Gallowway. Image of a young person, nude, sitting hunched up on the floor in a ruined room, with torn wallpaper and bullet holes in the curtains. The person is facing away from the camera.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 3

Jo Monk ‪@jomary10.bsky.social‬ #bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 5. A book that makes you sad. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. It starts with so much hope and the characters make poor choices and are left with the sadness of what might have been.

A young, dark-haired woman in a long white silk gown sits with her heading resting on her hands, looking pensive and sad.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 2

Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy. I enjoyed the blend of history, fairy tale ad fantasy so much and I loved the magical horses.

Book cover of Katherine Arden's novel The Bear and the Nightingale. Dark sky with stars and an old Russian-style village at the bottom, with a bird and red flower in the foreground.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 2

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge 12. La Place by Annie Ernaux. A young woman struggles with her relationship with her father while making the social leap from working to middle class, as so many did post-war. New understanding of my parents' generation.

Book cover of Folio edition of Annie Ernaux's novel La Place. Cover shows an old photo of a little girl in a pink dress holding her father's hand. He is dressed in working clothes from the 60s/early 70s and frowning into the camera. She is also looking serious.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 2

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 5. A book that makes you happy. 'The Rattle Bag' edited by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney is full of much-loved poetic treasures. Always a joy to dip back into it.

Book cover of poetry anthology The Rattle Bag ed by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes. Red and mauve cover with sketches of a bee, a flower, a rabbit, a bicycle, a bird and a watch dotted over it.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 1

Katie Abey Illustrations.

Frog with wings flying away saying I hope this email does not find you at all. I hope you have managed to escape. I hope you are free. By Katie Abey.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 1

#bookchallenge #booksky 30 Day Book Challenge. 4. Favourite book of your favourite series. Difficult to choose between so many glorious novels. The Fifth Elephant or Witches Abroad, I think. I love the Nightwatch books and the Witches.

Book cover of The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett. A huge golden elephant is hurtling out of the sky in a trail of flames, and wolves, dwarves and other mythical creatures are running about below it on the ground.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jul 1

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge Day 11. Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. When I was first fluent enough to read the poems in French, it opened up a whole new vista of literary beauties. I loved English lit. Now there was a whole new treasury to discover.

Ornate book cover of Les Fleurs du Mal with a gold patterned border and a skull with white roses growing out of it.

Jo Monk@jomary10· Jun 30

20 books that have changed the way you see the world. #BookSky #BookChallenge Day 10. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Bcky Chambers. Like all good sci-fi, throws light on what it is to be human. She explores ways we might shape our society to be more nurturing for everyone. Gentle and wise.