Lost in thought

I have literally spent the past few days doing nothing at all and it is sooo good. Just watching Bones (on season 3 already!) and reading here and there when I get the chance. I was also persuaded by my sister to borrow her BBC Merlin DVD's as I am fascinated with the Arthurian Legend. I was a bit hesitant at first because I always think that unless you have a big budget to back up a big scale tv series especially fantasy shows (all the special effects etc), it won't turn out very good. I loved the Game of Thrones adaptation so I do like fantasy tv shows (and it did the books justice, it was soooo good!). So she gave me the season 1 boxset and I'm half way through, and it is pretty good. The good thing with adaptations of a subject like King Arthur and all his crew is that because it isn't historically correct and its basically myth, you have the freedom to portray the legend in alot of different ways. I'm not too fussed on some of the things in the show like Guinevre being a slave girl for one and there being a big talking dragon locked up under Camelot (I love dragons but hmmm I don't know). But I'm only half way through season 1 so only time will tell I guess. 

 (Arthur is quite yummy though...)

My favourite Arthurian novels are Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and the Last Enchantment. There's also a fourth book called The Wicked Day dealing mainly with the death of Arthur and Mordred. They are such good fantasy books and a really good take on the Arthurian legend and I might just re-read them this year! 

 (A photo taken off Google of the trilogy, I have a different book for the second one which is one of my pet hates! If I have a set of books or a series I like them all to be the same set, but I have a bright purple one for #2 so it doesn't go at all haha! Quite stupid really haha)

Anywaay, I suffered a bout of weakness yesturday when I walked into a discount bookstore. I always end up walking in there and coming out with a book (or three!) and they always have deals on and yesturday it was a 2 for £3 deal so I seriously couldn't resist! I ended up buying two Philippa Gregory books, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover. Here's their plot descriptions on goodreads:

The Other Boleyn Girl

Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: the love of a king.

A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.

When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realizes just how much she is a pawn in her family''s ambitious plots as the king''s interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take her fate into her own hands. 

The Virgin's Lover

In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen. One woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth's ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born to be.

Elizabeth's excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisor William Cecil warns her that she will survive only if she marries a strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls in love, a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for survival.

Philippa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover answers the question about an unsolved crime that has fascinated detectives and historians for centuries. Intelligent, romantic, and compelling, The Virgin's Lover presents a young woman on the brink of greatness, a young man whose ambition exceeds his means, and the wife who cannot forgive them.
  
So I'm looking forward to reading these but I'm thinking my TBR list is definitely starting to get out of hand so who knows when I'll read them (!) I also recieved three books in the post that I had ordered off amazon for my Uni courses. So I somehow need to read Ulysses, Heart of Darkness and two gothic novels before the 30th (so not going to happen!). I do hate reading course books when I have so many I want to read :( So to try to get an incentive to read more of my own books this year I've signed up to do another reading challenge, so that makes four now: The Terry Pratchett Challenge, The Historical Fiction Challenge, The Tudor Reading Challenge and now The Royalty Reading Challenge. If anyone's interested in any of these take a lookie at my reading challenges page, that I'll update tomorrow! So goodnight for now!