Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd

In March I finished reading Far from the Madding Crowd I did quite enjoy it but not as much as Jude the Obscure. I think one of the biggest differences was insight into the characters. In Jude the inner motivations and thoughts were much more open, whereas in this book a lot of more of the action took place off stage or from someone else's viewpoint. I think my biggest problem with it was the the rural setting. I just wasn't particularly interested in all the farming aspects. That said though I liked the characters, and found the story compelling. I even found myself crying at the end, which was quite unexpectedly dramatic. The more I reflect on it the more I like it. It was rather bleak and tragic, even with the happy ending. I think I should definitely read more Hardy.

Shanghai Posters, 美女月份牌

Shanghai Posters: The power of advertising. by Ann Hestler is a small little art book I found which has many fantastic pictures of the Shanghai calender girls from the 20s and 30s. It had a short essay on the history of Shanghai, and the use of women in advertising, which was quite informative. But more inportantly it also contained the pinyin for the Chinese descriptions of these types of pictures, 美女月份牌 so I have been able to do a proper google search now using the Chinese to find out more about these books. This book contained lots of pictures I'd not seen before. I was very glad to have found it.