Rainy Day Reads

Challenges:   Around the Year in 52 Books: A magical realism novel Read the World: Europe (hosted over at habitica.com )  I just saw a video on Youtube about books you shouldn’t have read ( here ) and I feel like this was me and this book. I have followed Carrie   on Youtube for a while now and I really enjoy her videos and her personality, so when she came out with this book in 2016 I figured I would like it too.  It’s the story about a young woman who manages to negotiate her way out of her mother’s iron grip and try to create a life for herself doing what she really wants to do. We only meet this woman, Evie, after she is dead, though. She can’t get in to her personal heaven, because the secrets she has kept throughout her life are weighing her down. She must travel back and find a way to share her secrets with her loved ones in order to be able to pass through the door to heaven.  We follow her a s she journeys back to the world...

On the eastern side of the Vltava River lies the oldest part of the city of Prague right by the Charles Bridge. In the 10th century AD a marketplace was founded her, right by the crossroads of the trading routes of Central Europe. Over 1000 years later the old city square (Staromestske namesti) is still a bustling centre of activity. Only now it is bustling with shops, tourists and cafés instead of medieval traders.   Central to the square is the 600 year old astronomical clock. It is set on the wall of the former city hall, and every hour as it strikes the time, a wealth of apostles and allegorical figures carved in wood move around the clock. It was made in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock still in operation. There are two other clocks older than this one, but they do not operate anymore. The top clock face shows the rotations of time, the sun, the moon and the planets, while the bottom face shows the day and the month. You can enter the 60m high tower for a breatht...